Re: Nader's Olive Branch

[Brian James <hillbily@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Macdonald Stainsby wrote:

>> We all know Nader lied over and over during the 2000 campaign
>> saying there was no important difference between Al Gore and George W.
>> Bush.

> Actually, this is a smart thing he said. The differences are not a matter of 
> better
> or worse, but simply "difference". GW seems to want to edge troops out of the 
> Balkans
> (possibly down the line). Gore wants to keep them there. Gore would have left 
> the
> environment in shambles and blaked at signing the Kyoto protocols until 
> "further
> analysis", whereas Bush scraps it all-together. So, in saying there is no 
> difference
> (a quote from Nader via my memory goes "The difference between the Democrats 
> and the
> Republicans is in how fast their knees hit the floor when the corporations 
> come
> knocking."), one is a lot closer to both the truth and to what matters, than 
> someone
> who spends too much time going over the (real) differences in policy.

The problem with Nader's argument here is its shallowness and skewed
emphasis on corporate lackeyism. It is only on that ground that he can
say there is no difference between the Republicans and Democrats. The
Republican Party's willingness to attack democratic rights -- a real
difference with the Democrats, who were the direct target of many such
attacks -- is a vital difference that Nader completely ignores. In fact,
Nader was quick to jump on the bandwagon with the far right's attacks on
Clinton over sex, in their extra-electoral attempt to overturn the
results of an earlier election. Is it any wonder that Nader stood aside
when the SAME far right powers that he has previously allied with pushed
to overthrow the results of THIS election? It is important for the left
to fully understand that Nader has made some deep connections with the
far right in America. His partnership with Pat Buchannan, whose
supporters he overtly tried to curry favour with on the campaign trail,
should not be viewed lightly. Buchannan and his supporters have deep
traditional connections with the right wing of the Republican Party, and
it is only logical that Nader would join the flock as they go back home
to roost. His position is deeply compromised.

Why can't the Left, and the Greens, comprehend the obvious: that Nader
is an ally of the far right?!! (who don't particularly care for
corporate welfare either.)

> Spending time at it, we could all easily write up polemical references that
> illustrate the differences in the way the state was run by Francisco Franco 
> and
> Benito Mussolini- but we don't do that, seeing as they are both real- and 
> irrelevant.

This is not a polemical exercise, it is a wake up call. Nader's
credibility was always doubtful, but he has made such a devil's contract
with the far right that he has become a major problem for the left. 

> Macdonald (not a Naderite- just pleased to see someone on CNN who spoke of 
> corporate
> domination during the election- the same thing I liked about Red Kens Mayoral
> campaign)

The WSWS has been providing the most trenchant, and I would say marxist,
analysis of Nader that I have seen. Here's a sample:

[...] 

Nader's silence on the current crisis is consistent with his mechanical
and false conception that, because in an absolute sense an identity
exists between the two parties?insofar as they both represent the
interests of American big business?there cannot be any relative
differences. But, of course, such relative differences exist, and in
times of political crisis they can play a critical role in developments
that affect broad masses of people.

It is true that corporate interests dominate both parties and that the
political differences between them have narrowed as the political
spectrum of official politics has lurched to the right. But it is also
true that over the past decade a ferocious battle has been under way
between these two parties. This must have an objective source in
conflicts between different sections of America's economic and political elite.

The struggle within the ruling elite has escalated from a series of
phony investigations against the Clinton administration, to the shutdown
of the federal government, to the first-ever impeachment of a sitting
president, to the current effort by the Republicans to hijack the
election. To pretend that these events have no political significance is
to deny reality.

The Republican Party is controlled by extreme right-wing forces, which
speak ultimately for powerful sections of the corporate establishment
who consider even Clinton's conservative policies an obstacle to the far
more extreme right-wing agenda they seek to impose on the country. They
are determined to lift all restrictions on the accumulation of personal
wealth and the exploitation of the working class. To achieve this, the
Republicans and their religious right, racist and fascistic supporters
are prepared to overturn democratic norms and constitutional rights.

The Democrats, who have increasingly turned their backs on the workers
and minorities in whose name they once claimed to speak, represent other
sections of the ruling elite and more privileged social layers, who seek
to defend the interests of American capitalism through the more
traditional channels of bourgeois democracy.

For working people to sit idly by while this battle is fought out within
ruling circles is to court disaster. The basic issue involved here is
not the fate of Gore or Bush, but the fate of the democratic rights of
the American people. ...

Full article: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/nad-n24.shtml

Brian James