[lbo-talk] Democracy

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun Oct 31 17:26:52 PST 2004



>[lbo-talk] Is Nader a Marxist, socialist, capitalist, bourgeois
>democrat, or just lonely
>Joel Wendland joelrw at hotmail.com
>Sun Oct 31 16:03:43 PST 2004
<snip>
> >No he's not. In fact when I saw him at the Council on Foreign Relations, he
>>took exception when a questioner implied that he was
> ><http://cfr.org/pub7058/peter_lw_osnos_ralph_nader/waging_peace_advancing_justice_promoting_security_the_civic_displacement_of_corporate_globalization.php>:
>
>In 2000 on CNN he was asked by a caller on a call-in show if he was
>a Marxist. His immediate and unflinching answer was, "no. I believe
>in democracy."

Ralph Nader is not a Marxist but believes in democracy, unlike John Kerry and George W. Bush, and his platform, unlike Kerry's and Bush's, is good for democracy: <http://votenader.org/issues/index_home.php>. That is one of the reasons why socialists should support Nader. His ability to attract a certain sort of conservatives -- such as Justin Raimondo -- is a bonus, though conservatives will remain a minority of Nader supporters.

While I would never tell the Socialist Party, the Workers World Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Equality Party, etc. not to run their own candidates advocating socialism rather than timely transitional demands like the Nader/Camejo platform or the Green Party platform, I hope that they will soon realize that the task of the day -- if socialists are to get involved in electoral politics at all -- is not to advocate Socialism Now since socialism is not yet supported by wide sectors of the working class and our allies but to support someone like Nader advancing the platform like Nader/Camejo's -- a platform most of whose planks are already actually desired by the majority of the working class. -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>



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