[lbo-talk] STOP CHEAP ATTACKS ON NADER

Fed. of Fortune 500 Killers ceodeath99 at yahoo.com
Sun Sep 5 15:22:08 PDT 2004


Part 1 in our series on "Exploring Electoral Alternatives"

GLORIOUS REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION OF FORTUNE 500 KILLERS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE === *STOP FACILE ATTACKS ON NADER, SAYS FEDERATION*

The Glorious Revolutionary Federation of Fortune 500 Killers today blasted supposedly "leftist" critics of independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader who accuse Nader of being an "egomaniac" who has done "nothing to build a movement" since his 2000 Presidential run, whose "super rallies" filled stadiums like the Fleet Center and Madison Square Garden.

"Ralph Nader is one person. Why are these people placing all responsibility for broad social movements at Ralph's feet?" asked a Federation spokesperson at a press conference. "Perhaps if these people spent less time on tired showboat theatrics -- wearing clown costumes, making paper-mache puppets, and wasting money on flag-draped processions of coffins that are supposed to be 'symbolic' and 'moving' -- that have had no impact whatsoever on public opinion toward Bush, and directed more brains and resources on the kinds of research-intensive campaigns Nader has supported or led for years, they wouldn't constantly be telling Ralph that he ought be doing it as if he weren't already doing his part. Why is it suddenly up to one man to lead a movement?"

The Federation is widely expected to endorse Ralph Nader or Libertarian Candidate Michael Badnarik with "unqualified enthusiasm" next month.

"We are only considering candidates with a) anti-war positions and b) anti-racist calls to end this Jim Crow prison-industrial complex that incarcerates a disproportionaite number of black and latino people and pays them abhorrent wages for private industry tasks," said a Federation spokesperson. It will not endorse Green Party Candidate David Cobb, whose "manipulation of the Green Party national convention vote is despicable and may well have signaled the death of that organization."

The Federation recently received a deluge of angry e-mail for its criticism of the noRNC protests, which it predicted would have minimal to no effect. Newsweek and Time polls conducted after the RNC gave Bush a double-digit lead, a "bounce" pathetic Democratic Candidate John Kerry did not experience after his Boston coronation. A recent New York Times article quoted many Democrats who expressed concern over Kerry's recent embarrassing performance, including a statement released via a foreign policy adviser claiming that Kerry would have voted for the Iraq War even if he knew in advance there did not exist weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

"The protests were an utter failure if their goal was to shift public opinion in disfavor of Bush, as so many authors of the feeble attacks we received last week claimed, " said another Federation spokesperson. "They sent us hate e-mail, they left angry voice mails, they issued ad hominem attacks, but once again, we were prophetic."

The Federation has long said that it has no problem with mass street protest in the abstract and has been supportive of most such demonstration in the past. But it added that street protest must be thought of as one tool in an arsenal of many, and that deploying it "in a knee-jerk and reactive masturbatory self-serving fashion gets predictable and easily manageable for the ruling class after a few cycles. We're long past a few cycles."

The Federation also reiterated that "the real enemy is by no means misguided 'left youth' but the nihilistic careerist rot aspiring to the ranks of the power-elite or professional classes" that deserves the harshest of scorn.

The Glorious Revolutionary Federation of Fortune 500 Killers is an anti-capitalist, anti-racist student insurgent group based at Columbia University. For more information, e-mail ceodeath99 at yahoo.com or visit[ http://www.ceodeath.org/]

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