I have some sympathies for the Nader position because the Greens do have a
point: The Democratic party is NOT as left (Brin-speak: "left hand") as it
used to be. Someone has to take over that role - but it would be better if
it were within the demo party. Still, you can't raise campaign money
without courting a lot of "vested interests" (corporations and very rich
individuals) whose interests don't necesarilly coincide with the *public*
interest, and may leave some pepple (Working class, the poor, consumers)
disenfranchised. The campaign finance mess combined with the US' rigid
winner take all, two party system makes it that the richest constituents
are the only ones who matter. *SigH* much as I detest the GOP John McCaIn
had some good points, altho if HE had been nominated we'd have to convince
him space initiatitves are not all pork barrel (cutting wasteful spending
was/si one of his big causes.) Hm. If the Greens replaced the Demos than
maybe the Libs could replace the Repuiblicans. Unfortunatley the only
"right hand/wing" party that gets much real attention is Reform, which is
righter than right. Agh. (Pat Buchanan? Pleeeze!)
I used to get into arguments with David Brin over this! (leaning a bit
left of him: "But the Demos AREN'T left hand any more!" .) Still, I'm not
voting for Nader because the best he is going to do is split the vote and
give the White House to Bush. I can't imagine Nader as President. Can you?
The man lives like a monkish saint; he'd probablyh refuse to move into the
White House. (Sell it and give to the poor? tear it down, sell the pieces
and give to the poor? ) And he has this attitude: "I'm a legend. Read
about me, and anything you don't already know is none of your business!"
Um, post Monicagate, it is MUCH MORE important for candidates to be OPEN
about their personal lives. He's not cut out for the most scrutinized
position in America, sorry. Now, Nader (and some who work for him) is/are
SO disgusted with the Demos that they appear to think the GOP is actually
the lesser of two evils since they didn't pretend to be liberal. REporters
hit Nader up with "voting for you is voting for BUsh," and he says
something like, "fine, let the pendulum swing all the way right, cuz maybe
then it will swing all the way back left!"
The Greens are right though that they are prob going to get out the vote
from young people who do not othewise bother to vote at ALL, perceiving th
Demos as sell outs and the GOP as worse. Was it really Churchill who said
"Anybody who's not a socialist [left anyway] when he's 20 has no heart,
but anybody who's still a socialist when he's 40 has no
brains?" Whew. What a way to insult everybody you know. There's the 20
year old GOP activists on campus and the 40 year old ex hippies who are
liberal. They're the ones who bother to vote. Still, I do think there are
a lot of young liberal idealists who never voted before but will vote for
Nader. It will be interesting to see the demographics of the voter turnout
(in California anyway, famous as the Left Coast....not to mention the Tree
Hugger Vote in Oregon and Washington....)
Um. I'm for Gore because he's New Economy type rather than Old
eEconomy/oil background like Bush. Still business IS business. Gore HAS
made many compromises on environmental and other issues he claims to care
about. As a politician, I don't suppose he can ever afford to reflect back
on this, or think about whether he has any ideals at all. You can say that
all politicians sell out, it's part of the job - or else they lose the
election.
A Bush presidencY?
Well: He won't succeed at outlawing abortion...I doubt it anyway....but he
may well succeed in getting oil drilling going in the wildlife refuge.
(Ugh!) Still, even Gore would have to compromise on this eventually. WHy?
Because demand is so heavy....population pressure PLUS all the electricity
used by the new technology stuff (computers use a lot! Your precious tech,
Mr Gore!) that the pressure to exploit new resources will one day become
unbearable. We can/could only afford to protect the caribou and so on
while we had other sources of energy readily available and didn't need so
much. But now we need more, and more, and more, and the political
situation in the Mideast gets worse and worse, and gas is up to $2 a
gallon being gobbled by SUVs, and...Even a liberal president might have to
give in eventually. Voting for Bush means oil drilling in now-protected
areas would happen sooner rather than later, but if energy consumption
continues growing at its current pace, it WILL happen. Who you vote for
has less to do with it in the long run than conserving energy. Turn down
your thermostat, recycle, get rid of that 10-mpg PIG and buy a hybrid
electric, whatever....every little bit counts (I just read that
redesigning electric devices to use less power on standby - eliminate
leakage - is very feasible with current tech and can save a helluva
lot! Get going, engineers!) buy Energy Star stuff...Only if we conserve
enough electricity that we don't find we really NEED that Alaskan oil
right now, can we save the wildlife.
Anyway, howeer green Gore is, the GOP-dominated Congress has been
thwarting a lot of EPA initiatives. I laugh when I see right wingers
writing letters to the editor expressing paranoia about how Gore is an
eco-fanatic who would destroy their way of life/live off the land
livelihood if he got elected. What about Nader, then?
Brin said something about how the Nader campaign seems to be mostly
male? Maybe at the high levels, but I think there are probably more women
in it at the grass roots level. The colleges students rallying at his
speeches, passing out flyers, etc, are probably half women or even
more. And that Earth First tree-sitter who got famous for living in a tree
for two years is female. Do women REALLY have more sense than meN?
Um. Foreign policy: I live on the west coast and don't want to get nuked
by the Chinese, so I do lean a bit right in that we should probably get
tougher with them. China is our biggest trading partners but is becoming a
bigger superpower w/nuclear weapons and they might well be more inclined
to use them than the Russians were back in cold war days (Mutual Assured
Destruction did seem to work altho the left railed against it.) Taiwan is
a dangerous issue there; not to mention N. Korea. Missile defense? Well if
it WORKED, great, but if it wasn't perfect it might cause more trouble
than it solved, even bring ABOUT a war in a hare trigger
situation....Even if you defend against nukes though, there is a much
bigger threat frm chemical and biological weapons, which I think shuld be
the No. 1 defense priority. (and with bioweapons it boils down to public
health at a local level - which with our lack of heatlh care for the poor,
is areallldy a mess...)
So. I thnk I wil vote for Gore, with a few misgivings but just to give him
a chance against Bush....and perhaps he IS too left on foreign policy...
Kristin
