Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch

HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.

February 25, 2004

Treacherous Bastards The Greens and the Dems and Nader

The Greens and the Dems and Nader

by BRUCE ANDERSON

We have one national political figure in this country of undoubted integrity and what does he get from this nation of ingrates? Accusations of spoiler and ego-maniac. Naturally the Greens joined the din denouncing Ralph, not mentioning that their pot-addled, dithering "leadership" won’t even convene until June, way too late in the process to try to put forward a presidential candidate. If it weren’t for Nader, Pete Camejo and Matt Gonzales, the lamebrain Greens would still be invisible.

Treacherous bastards, these Greens and, in the crunch, not standing for a goddam thing except the two party, corporate dictatorship. Did Ralph keep Gore out of the White House? No. Gore and the rancid Democratic Party kept Gore out of the White House. Will Ralph take enough Democrat votes from Kerry to keep Bush in the White House for four more catastrophic years? Only Kerry and the Democrats can lose to Bush, not Ralph.

So here’s what’s going to happen: Kucinich, the only plausible Democrat from any kind of progressive perspective, won’t even get his intense little mug on national tv at the Democratic convention in late July. Just as Den-Den comes on the networks will cut away for commercials and commentary from George Will and Bill O’Reilly.

Then, when the assembled mob of suburban warm-fuzzies who comprise the party’s base erupts in a sea of placards made in China, heaving their smug selves up out of their seats for Korporate Kerry, Kucinich, Sharpton, Dean, and the rest of them will gather on stage for a great big group hug to a 30-minute ovation from limo labor, ethnic demagogues, gays in wedding gowns, three people in wheelchairs, and a hundred fatsos in public ed t-shirts.

By August 1st, Ralph will be the only guy out there pushing the Democrats to stand for all the things they stood for under FDR, and all of us who want an economy run for the people who comprise it will again be out in the political cold. The Democrats, just like Gore four years ago, standing for nothing but Bush Lite, will again lose to the worst president in the history of the country.

BRUCE ANDERSON is the publisher of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, America’s best newspaper.