Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel
and the Bush Team
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edition
February 28 / 29, 2004
An Alternative to
the Lesser of Two Evils
Nader's
Challenge
By ALAN MAASS
The Democrats claim that they oppose George W.
Bush and his right-wing agenda. But they save their real poison
for challengers from their left.
Last weekend, Ralph Nader announced that
he would run as an independent candidate in the 2004 presidential
election--and was met with a tidal wave of abuse and slander.
"It's dishonesty of the highest level to say 'I'm running
as an independent,' when all he's doing is helping elect Bush,
and he knows it," ranted New York City Democrat Elizabeth
Holtzman, a former member of Congress. "He's nothing but
a shill for George Bush."
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson declared
that "it's about [Nader], it's about his ego, it's about
his vanity, and not about a movement." It takes a special
kind of arrogance to dismiss as a "shill" someone with
Ralph Nader's decades of political accomplishments--or for a
power-hungry hack like Bill Richardson to suddenly offer himself
as a spokesperson for "the movement." But when it comes
to denouncing Nader, nothing is out of bounds.
Predictably, the loudest voices in the
anti-Nader chorus are from self-identified "progressives."
In early February, the liberal Nation magazine printed an "Open
Letter" warning Nader that "the very progressives distressed
by the prospect of your candidacy would contribute eagerly"
to "recriminations about being a spoiler or, worse, an egotist."
For weeks after, the mainstream media
quoted from the Nation open letter as "proof" that
Nader was out of touch with his "supporters." The Nation's
editors should think about how often the corporate press has
asked their opinion about the war on Iraq, or Bush's tax cut
giveaway--and why the media's interest seems to be limited to
the subject of Ralph Nader. In other words, who's shilling for
who?
Nader's real "crime" is that
he represents an alternative to the Washington status quo, which
he accurately describes as a "two-party duopoly." As
the Green Party's presidential candidate in 2000, his campaign
was a lightening rod for millions of people fed up with the Democratic
Party's ongoing shift to the right. Nader challenged the argument,
served up at every election, that people who care about peace
and justice have no choice but to hold their nose and vote for
the least bad of two similar candidates.
His pro-worker, anti-corporate appeal
won 2.7 million votes--the best showing for a left-wing third
party candidate in half a century. Democrats and their left-wing
apologists say that these votes cost Al Gore the election.
But Gore won the popular vote--beating
George Bush by half a million votes. It took vote fraud in Florida--which
the Gore campaign didn't effectively challenge--the skewed winner-take-all
Electoral College system, and a 5-4 decision by the unelected
justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to install Bush in the White
House.
It is true that had Gore had won a portion
of Nader's vote in Florida or New Hamphire, he would have won
these states' electoral votes and moved into the White House.
But votes for Pat Buchanan of the right-wing Reform Party were
greater than George Bush's margin of defeat in Wisconsin, Oregon,
Iowa and New Mexico in 2000--yet no one called Buchanan a "spoiler."
The Democrats' complaints about Nader
assume that our votes "belong" to the two mainstream
parties--and any third party challenge is, by definition, stealing
them from their rightful owners. This reasoning allows Democrats
like Al Gore to position themselves just barely to the left of
their Republican opponents, offering nothing to the party's liberal
and working-class base but their claim to be the "lesser
evil."
The consensus on the broad left today
is that the Bush administration has proved to be so right wing
that "anybody but Bush" would be an improvement. As
the Nation's open letter argued, "[W]hen devotion to principle
collides with electoral politics, hard truths must be faced.
Ralph, this is the wrong year for you to run: 2004 is not 2000."
But this shortsighted reasoning has been
the rationale for supporting Democrats every four years--sacrificing
more far-reaching goals to the immediate aim of defeating the
Republican candidate. The logic is self-defeating--preventing
the U.S. left from ever developing a genuine political alternative
outside the Democratic Party and allowing the Democrats to move
ever rightward politically without fear of losing their liberal
voting base.
This year, the man who is likely to win
the nomination--John Kerry--has a reputation as a "liberal."
Yet he voted for the Patriot Act, for the war on Iraq, for Bush's
"No Child Left Behind" law, for the North American
Free Trade Agreement--and now he is on record opposing gay marriage
and supporting the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq.
As Nader made clear when he announced
his candidacy on NBC's Meet the Press, "This is a fight
for all third parties...I don't think America belongs just to
the Democratic and Republican Parties." To be effective,
however, Nader has to clearly aim his campaign toward the left--and
abandon any notion that he can also appeal to "conservative
and libertarian Republicans," as he claimed on Meet the
Press.
Nader's campaign can only be meaningful
if he forcefully emphasizes the left-wing character of his platform--in
support of universal health care, taxing the rich, ending poverty,
expanding workers' rights, enacting a living wage, the right
to choose abortion, and the right of gays and lesbians to marry,
in opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the USA
PATRIOT Act, the death penalty and the war on drugs.
Nader disappointed his supporters during
the run-up to the invasion of Iraq by failing to take a clear
stand against Bush's war drive. And during his appearance on
Meet the Press, he had to be prodded to speak out against the
occupation--though his campaign's Web site now features a statement
in opposition to both the invasion and occupation.
The question of U.S. imperialism can't
be avoided in this election, since the U.S. government's stated
aim is to use Iraq as a launching pad to reshape the entire Middle
East in its own interests. By the same token, the right-wing
offensive led by the White House on issues like gay marriage,
abortion and affirmative action has set the stage for important
conflicts that are radicalizing growing numbers of people. These
confrontations can't be dismissed or downplayed.
Nader needs to raise his voice on all
the issues that are sparking resistance today, and he has to
carry out a full campaign, without concessions and compromises.
Aside from these political considerations, there's the concrete
question of how prominent Nader can be in this election. As an
independent candidate, he will have to meet requirements set
in each state to get on the ballot--overcoming the many obstacles
designed to discourage third party candidates.
The Green Party itself is divided between
those swayed by the "anybody but Bush" argument--and
those who would like to draft Nader as the party's nominee at
their convention in June. It will take some months to see where
Nader will even be able to compete for votes.
The Nader campaign in 2004 is unlikely
to be the kind of galvanizing force that it was in 2000. Nevertheless,
with the Democrats set to nominate a political insider like John
Kerry, a significant minority of people will be disgusted with
election-year "politics as usual."
Many will be receptive to Nader's description
of Washington as "corporate-occupied territory"--and
the election campaign as "the two parties...ferociously
competing to see who is going to go to the White House and take
orders from their corporate paymasters." With Nader in the
running, these people have the opportunity to ask themselves
some hard questions.
Would they rather vote for John Kerry,
who has spent the last 20 years in Washington loyally serving
the corporations that provided the bulk of his campaign contributions--or
Ralph Nader, who stood up against corporate greed and for workers'
rights? John Kerry, who opposes the right of gays and lesbians
to marry--or Ralph Nader, who supports it? John Kerry, who supports
the occupation of Iraq--or Ralph Nader, who opposes it?
There is a difference between Kerry and
Bush--but as Nader says, "It's a question between both parties'
flunking." We deserve better than this choice between two
evils.
Alan Maass is
the editor of the Socialist Worker. He can be reached at:
maass@socialistworker.org
Weekend
Edition Features for February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
Keep
CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|