Re: [Marxism] WHY NADER? by Peter Miguel Camejo

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think Peter Camejo's statement makes many good points about what Nader
represents politically in the United States, and highlights that the Greens
would be fortunate to have him as their candidate. ALMOST any other possible
choice would clearly be an inferior one.

However, the article doesn't fully explore the choices available to Greens,
and probably for a good reason: no one who is or has been in the left wing
of the Greens --the "Camejo wing," one could justly call it-- wants a brawl
between Nader and Cynthia McKinney or between their supporters. No one in
this wing of the Greens is mad at Ralph for his campaigns in 1996, 2000, and
especially not in 2004; and no one is sore at Cynthia that she's finally
openly and decisively broken with the Democrats. Quite the contrary.

So this isn't a case like that of 2004, where the choice of candidates was
really a choice between waging an aggressive campaign or taking a dive for
the benefit of the Democrats, between political independence and a
nudge-nudge, wink-wink backhanded support to the A-B-B mantra.

Yet the choice is there in 2008: Nader or McKinney. 

And although some will try to manipulate it for mischief, I would say it is
even a cause for celebration. Two recognized public figures on the national
political stage offer themselves as standard bearers for a real alternative
to the candidates of the two party system.

Although these two would be, at bottom, representations of the same central
core idea, that working people need THEIR OWN party, there is tremendous
contrast in the two candidates.

Nader is far from being a rock and roll star: his public persona is hardly
that of an inspiring leader. But for all that, he has proved to be not
without a certain sort of charisma, able to attract people by the thousands,
and nearly 3,000,000 votes in the 2000 presidential election (that they
counted). His decades in public life defending consumer interests, defying
overreaching corporations, and advocating humanistic principles have won him
tremendous prestige. People may not agree with him, but they respect him and
view him as a symbol of public-spirited integrity.

McKinney is a very different kind of public person -- warm, outgoing,
flashy, rabble-rousing, controversial not just in what she says and stands
for but who she is. More than once she's been the victim of media lynchings
and that is likely to continue, and it has had a contradictory effect. In
the Black community especially, but also among a layer of other working
people, she is seen as a fighter, even a hero. But among many others she is
perceived as having negative political baggage. She is a polarizing figure.

If the two were to be polled, I suspect Nader would get a significantly
higher positive rating with very low negatives, and McKinney would have a
positive image among fewer people, and more would say they had a negative
image of her. But what the poll --if well designed enough-- would also show
would be the extraordinary *intensity* of identification with and approval
of McKinney among a big layer of Blacks and a smallish portion of the rest
of the population. 

Both in a sense have similar trajectories, in that they started out
identified with the reform or liberal wing of the Democratic Party, and
eventually came to see that this was a dead end. But about Nader one can say
that he underwent a very real test in the years since 2000, with all the
"spoiler"-baiting including from folks who had been his friends or allies
for decades. Nader stood up splendidly to the A-B-B hysteria which gripped
much of the left in 2003 and 2004: he even recognized its signs early in the
Green Party, and freed himself from the danger of essentially being hog-tied
by the "safe states strategy" wing of the party. 

I have my belief that McKinney would also acquit herself very well under
those pressures ... but she hasn't faced the same sort of test. If she is
the nominee undoubtedly she will.

The main differences between the two are accidents of birth. He is of
Lebanese descent but has never made a special point of his background. She
is African-American and strongly identified with the Black Liberation
Movement. He is male; she is female. Nader came of age at the height of the
McCarthy era; McKinney is a child of the sixties and early 70's, having been
born the year Nader became old enough to vote.

But in the United States accidents of birth can be of tremendous importance.
If the Greens or some successor third party of "regular people" --working
people-- is to achieve its potential, it must take root in the most
outspokenly and combatively progressive social layer in the country, and
there is no question but that this layer is the Black community. No other
community or layer is as coherent or cohered around a whole series of
reforms to serve the interests of and empower working and oppressed people.
McKinney is in and of that community; and a recognized leader of it on a
national scale. She can take the Green message of the need for an
alternative to the two-party system to this community, and possibly others,
in a way that Nader does not have access to. 

And no community needs, deserves or is ready for an alternative more than
the Black community. 

For the two-party system is a one-party system when it comes to Blacks.
Since the immediate aftermath of World War II at least, Republicans have
consciously catered to the most backward elements in society with
thinly-veiled racist appeals and manipulations. And therefore Democrats have
been able to take the Black vote for granted, minimizing the number and
extent of concessions the politicians have felt compelled to offer to
attract Black voters.

I do not know if it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but a McKinney
candidacy would certainly be an extraordinary opportunity to build on and
extend the trailblazing work Nader has carried out in popularizing the need
for a third party that serves the interests of working and oppressed
peoples.

If the Greens were in a position to run to win, McKinney's negatives might
be a consideration. But the essence of this campaign is to continue and
advance the process of putting the Greens on the map, and if possible to
better the 2000 result. In that, the *intensity* of the way people
--especially Blacks-- identify with McKinney I think argues for her
candidacy. 

For these reasons, while I believe Nader would once again by an excellent
standard bearer for the Greens in 2008, I think McKinney would be an even
better choice.

Joaquín


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