[lbo-talk] Nader, et al

[ravi]

On 5 Aug, 2007, at 4:25 AM, Charles Peterson wrote:
> Doug nails him as he appears now.  He starts out very
> cold and slow.  Once he laughs at a few of his own
> jokes, and gets into his favorite area, which is
> anti-corporatism (which he doesn't connect generally
> to capitalism) he can really get rolling.  But even at
> best now, he's not a very good speaker by professional
> standards.  He was much better back in 2000, but still
> far from polished by political standards.  The often
> criticized as stiff Gore was far better, in a
> different league really, even in 2000, and now Gore is
> better still.
>

To the contrary, Gore still puts me to sleep while Nader's talk that  
I attended in 2000 was (to my great surprise) one of the best,  
perhaps the very best political one I have ever heard, outside of  
speakers like Al Sharpton, and Ram Jethmalani (at the PUCL) and Cho  
Ramaswamy (with whose views I do not agree much), in India. I am not  
sure what "professional standards" are being applied here (and I  
admit I am not a professional), but if the function of a good orator  
is to capture the interest the people, speak factually and with  
clarity, raise the general level of knowledge and sophistication of  
the listeners and of the debate, Nader wins on all fronts. Gore opens  
with a sad old joke about "the next President of the USA" and repeats  
a bunch of factoids and predictions that should be obvious to all but  
the wilfully ignorant. All my opinion.

As for "borderline bizarre", that could very well encompass all of  
the Left as seen on the Internet! ;-)

	--ravi