On Sep 6, 2008, at 2:22 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
To my mind, a sane Nader campaign would have no pretensions that Ralph would get elected (at least not in 2008) and would be totally oriented toward using his campaign to raise consciousness and mobilize people. Does Nader have a network of community organizers?
Yes. There are roving teams of campaign workers and media people traveling around the country in small vans conducting campaigns to get him on state ballots. If you get your news from mainstream media you wouldn't know about it nor the fact that he is now on 45 state ballots, more than he has ever had in the past.
The current drive is to open up the presidential debates. Of course both McCain and Obama are opposed to this, as are the corporate sponsors of the debates. Nader held events in both Denver and Minneapolis during the conventional conventions. The Denver Post made no mention of the one in Denver (more than 4000 people attended) before, during or after the event.
If the American people insist on getting their "news" from corporate sources they will continue to be mired in non- issues and wallow in their ever-growing sense of helplessness (and fear).
Nader likes to quote a Greek or Roman (I forget who) that to know and not do is to not know. American voters are real good at "knowing all about it", but don't do shit. Ergo, they don't know shit.
Not everyone is buying into the Melancholia Americana, however. Nader is nearing 10 per cent in some states. If we can get him into the debates it will be a three-way race (34 per cent to win) and neither McCain nor Obama can withstand having their pants pulled down on national television by the tallest and homeliest presidential candidate since Honest Abe Lincoln.
The best way to follow the campaign (if you don't want to be part of the Pavlovian response to the corporate dog and pony show) is to go to www.votenader.org and sign-up for the email reports. There are things anyone can do to help out.
Dan Scanlan _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
