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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