Re: What's behind the Republican factional offensive?

[Brian James <hillbily@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

jonathan flanders wrote

>I suspect that they are quite aware of the huge
>and growing chasm between the rich and everyone else. So the most
>"activist" sectors feel the need to take every advantage the political
>system offers, to rule out even the slightest possibility that the rabble
>below might take effective action. And at the same time, intimidate and
>keep on the defensive the traditional "advocates" for the downtrodden, like
>the Democrats.

That is certainly what it's about. I think what's really interesting
though is the deafening silence from the Nader camp, including his
vanguard cheerleaders down at Z (o.k., Michael Moore published a piece
monday decrying the threat to democracy posed by recent developments,
but that's the first piece I've seen, and he was fairly cautious in
advancing his arguments, which ended by imploring readers to send
telegrams of protest to the Supreme court. Even more conspicuous is the
Vote Nader website itself where the "News" page has not been updated
since Nov 10, and The Green Party USA's website which is equally void on
recent developments.)

Nader has distanced himself from the whole fiasco on the grounds that it
is merely a squabble between establishment candidates X and Y and has no
real significance. Republocrats = Demopubs. This is staggering hypocrisy
when you recall how Nader's main political goal during his campaign was
to shift a Gore administration and the Democratic Party farther to the
left. Surely that makes it important whether the Democrats actually get
in or not!

Also interesting is that the Florida State Legislature's move to appoint
a roster of Bush electors, regardless of the outcome of a recount
battle, hasn't provoked much comment either. The electoral college
system was put in place precisely to keep radicals and third party
upstarts like Ralph Nader out should they gain enough votes to upset the
smooth transition of power. The provision is now being used to block one
of the two-party candidates, yet the implication of this arbitrary
decree merits no response from democratic firebrand Nader. What can this mean?

We should expect Gore to be spineless under the circumstances, caught as
he is in a contradiction between the ruling interests he serves and the
working class and minority interests who make up a large portion of his
vote. Nader on the other hand has no excuse (or does he?). Instead of
feigning indifference he should be kicking up a stink, not to get Gore
appointed, but to raise consciousness over the assault being waged
against the basic democratic rights of Americans. If he were truly
committed to revolutionizing US politics, he would be exploiting this
historical opportunity.

But alas, Nader is just another establishment guy in populist clothing.
The rabble will present no threat to the order of things under his
leadership.

Brian James