Re: [Pen-l] an unreasonable man

[Dan Scanlan <coolhanduke1029@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Nov 29, 2008, at 9:28 AM, Jim Devine wrote:
> I have been meaning to see the film "an Unreasonable Man" (about Ralph
> Nader's biography and his 2000 & 2004 runs for the President) for a
> long time and finally saw it last night (3 years after it came out?)
> It's fine (though a bit too long). I don't agree with Nader
> completely, but there are some obvious conclusions from the film: Eric
> Alterman comes off as a total jerk (paraphrasing him: "Nader's a
> Leninist -- he thinks the worse things are, the better") as does Todd
> Gitlin, to a lesser degree.



I saw this film pretty much when it came out. I have been active in  
Nader's campaign for many years now and see the film in a slightly  
different light than you do, Jim.  I believe Alterman and Gitlin'  
inclusion was an honest attempt by the producer to inject some  
semblance of fairness into the discussion of Nader's history as a  
never give up reformer. Fact is, when "intellectuals" are given free  
reign to pontificate on the uselessness and hopelessness of what Nader  
is attempting to do, they just can't help themselves and quickly  
dampen their briefs. Primarily because they do not actually delve into  
the depths of Nader's many attempts to correct the course of the  
nation. Every attempt has been without the usual deep pockets of  
corporations or the megaphone of mass media (i.e., corporate media).

In 1996 Nader agreed to run for President on the Green Party ticket.  
At the time, there was a near psychotic breach in the so-called Green  
Party.  In simplistic terms, the US greens were nothing like the  
European Greens. Europe had real political parties and had elected  
Greens to governing bodies. That's because in Europe there is a  
plethora of parties. I don't think they are called third parties, just  
parties.

Meanwhile, back in the US, there were two factions (primarily): those  
who wanted to emulate the European Greens and create a real party with  
membership, by-laws, conventions, processes, ballot status, etc. The  
other faction, which also called themselves the Green Party, was not  
actually a party, but a group of environmental hippies and yuppies who  
wanted to e green, conduct meetings on a consensus basis and who  
basically abhorred the standard political process of registering  
voters, creating a central committee, campaigning and diving headfirst  
into the mud of politics.

When Nader agreed to front the "Green Party" in the 1996 presidential  
race, he made it clear to anyone who was listening (rather than  
rehashing pithy pontifications for upcoming cocktail parties) that we  
doing so in order to help the Green Party establish itself as a viable  
and real national political party. Nader made speeches and appeared on  
many television public affairs and news programs -- he hadn't yet been  
completely blackballed as in 2000, 2004 and 2008. He even showed up on  
the floor of the Democratic convention and gave live interviews from  
the floor. Unheard of in modern politics and unheard, period, except  
on Pacifica Radio.

Green Parties were established and qualified for the ballot all over  
the country. I was involved in the Nevada Green Party kick-off and  
helped orchestrate the initial press conference on the edge of a toxic  
pit in Sparks NV. I moved from the state shortly thereafter, but the  
Green Party was successful in that state, and many others, and  
succeeded in qualifying for the ballot. Green Party candidates still  
run on the Nevada ballot.

In California there were numerous Green Parties -- including in my own  
county Nevada County. However, there was not a real Green Party  
statewide, because there had not been a state convention. Many of the  
California "county Green Parties" were actually clubs with no real,  
legal basis. The folks who abhorred politics in California, but who  
considered themselves Green, made it pretty tough of those who had  
political missions that also were green.

After the 1996 campaign, Greens across the country agreed to meet in  
Middleburg VA, at the estate where John F. Kennedy lived during his  
presidential years. I attended the conference, and helped to write the  
preamble to constitution of the Association of State Green Parties.  
There was a huge battle between the "purists" (my phrasing) and the  
"realists" (again, my phrasing) -- or the yuppie Greens and the  
political Greens. Thirteen official state Green Parties agreed to  
found themselves as ASGP. Nader spoke to us on the last day of the  
conference and chewed us out saying that never had no some energy been  
uselessly expended on such frivolous issues. What he meant, of course,  
was the struggle between the idealists and the politicos. He  
congratulated us on the founding of the political organization  
however, and despite the ridicule of pundits nationally, the fact  
remains that a real Green Party emerged in this country from Nader's  
1996 campaign.

Two other significant remnants survive that campaign.

First, I believe the 1996 Nader Presidential campaign was the first  
national campaign that made significant use of the Internet. Most of  
the behind the scenes campaigning was done using email forums. Nader  
activists all over the country traded campaign materials by way of  
email attachments. It was incredible fluid. Unlike Obama's use of  
email, Nader's activists were communicating with one another and the  
main campaign organizers as equals. Obama's emails were top down,  
regardless of the faux opportunities for "feedback". As far as I can  
tell -- and I followed the development of the Internet, Fido, et al,  
closely as a student of mass communications --the Nader campaign was  
the first use of the Internet in a major national election. (I suspect  
the very first people to use the Internet for political reasons were  
the Zapatistas.)

The second aspect of the Nader campaign that is pretty much forgotten  
is the people's action nature of the 1996 campaign. Nader had no  
campaign material. No buttons, no bumperstickers. As I recall, he  
wouldn[t even accept campaign funds. He simply showed up and spoke --  
universities, television programs, news. The people who supported him  
created their own gamut of campaign materials. I myself had a thousand  
bumper stickers printed that read "Bill and Bob Make Me Want to  
Ralph" (a reference to Bob Dole and Bill Clinton.) I also produced an  
hour-long video of his speeches and those of Winona LaDuke, the Havard  
educated Native American woman economist was ran as his running mate.  
Others around the country produced posters, flyers, brochures, bumper  
stickers, buttons, clothespins that said "You don't have to hold your  
nose when you vote", and numerous baubles bangles and beads. The  
hoopla about "Obama's Army" is corporate generated hoopla. If they  
were honest, they would harken back to the thousand or so people who  
ran Nader's 1996 campaign. Just because it didn't appear on corporate  
TV doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Nader's 1996 campaign was a quaint curiosity to the corporate media.  
But that would turn mean and ugly in 2000. Nader again ran on the  
Green Party ticket, but this time was selected by a real convention  
and not by agreement. When he gave his acceptance speech -- a classic  
that speaks clearly to us even now -- the conventioneers began  
shouting "GoRalph, Go!" Nader stopped them. "No, no." he said. "It's  
not 'go, Ralph, go'. It's 'Go We Go'." Whereupon he spoke about the  
necessity for citizens to become their own advocates and work for  
change.

Because the media chose to ignore what his campaign was all about,  
they were free to attack him for it wasn't. The concept of spoiler  
became rampant. Jerks like Alterman and Gitlin et al began filling  
with poppycock, balderdash and popish pablum. Mainstream media simply  
blocked him out. The corporate sponsors of the presidential debates  
blackballed him. His correct and studied arguments for a full on  
national debate were ignored by the media and replaced by frothing  
accusations of spoiler. When Gore lost his home state and thousands of  
blacks were refused their voting rights and tens of thousands of  
Democrats in Florida voted for Bush, Gore rolled over and played dead.  
When he had an opportunity as leader of the Senate and could challenge  
the Florida vote, he did was his corporate handlers expected of him  
and refused to act. He allowed the press to continue to blame Nader as  
a spoiler, although years later he told Nader he himself didn't think  
Nader was the cause of his defeat.

The 2004 campaign saw him run again as a Green. He campaigned in every  
state, and warned that all the Democrats had going for them was that  
Bush was so terrible. He urged Kerrey toward progressive stances.  
Kerrey refused. Intelligent supporters abandoned him out of fear of  
Bush. People like Noam Chomskey, Howard Zinn, Medea Benjamin, Michael  
Moore. He was further admonished as spoiler, even by his long time  
friends and supporters. The "intelligent" people backed away from him.  
But he didn't back down. Even though Nader had no conceivable role as  
a spoiler in the Kerrey-Bush race, the Democrats failed -- against an  
unliked, impeachable, smirk-faced dullard. Nader was right, but the  
media won't hint at that.

I'm not sure why Nader did not go with the Green Party in the last  
race. My guess is that the energy of the Green Party is tapering (some  
states don't have one) off and Nader was able to get on the ballot in  
some 46 states on an eclectic collection of parties and processes.  
This technique is a living of what he speaks of, viz., this country is  
run by the corporations using the two-party monopoly and the corporate  
media.

Obama has already begun to show his true corporate coloring in his  
selection of secretaries and advisors. One thing is for sure, as Obama  
slides further to the right Nader will be there to call him on it. But  
the chance this country and its fearful intelligentia will pay any  
attention to him is a pretty slim one.

A lot of this history didn't show up in the movie; but it's  
significant to me when I consider what my next political move is.

I spent the last two months of the 2008 campaign working on the Cindy  
Sheehan for Congress campaign, trying to unseat Nancy Pelosi for her  
support of the wars, refusal to impeach, bankster bailouts and  
personal corruption. Nader joined Sheehan in half a dozen events, even  
though Cindy supported Cynthia McKinney. McKinney,who ran on the Green  
Party ticket,  spent election night in Sheehan's campaign headquarters  
and gave a hair-raising speech. It's no wonder the corporados wouldn't  
let her debate Obama. He would have crawled off the stage in shreds. I  
voted Nader this time, but if I had heard McKinney's speech earlier I  
might not have. When I told her I had a tough time deciding my vote  
and wished there had been a McKinney/Nader ticket, she looked at me as  
though she didn't think that was a good idea. I didn't ask why.

Sheehan has made it clear that she intends to create a First Party. "I  
don't believe in third parties," she told me. "We have to get in front  
of this two-headed monopoly."

Dan

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