Today's Stories

September 22, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Paulson-Bernacke Bank Bailout Plan: Will the Cure be Worse Than the Crisis?

Mike Whitney
Mushroom Clouds Over Wall Street

Steven Breyman
Does the U.S. Really Need Cluster Bombs?

September 20 / 21, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Is This the Stake Through Neoliberalism's Heart?

Michael Hudson
America's Own Kleptocracy

Pam Martens
The Wall Street Model: Unintelligent Design

Lila Rajiva
Putting Lipstick on an AIG

Mike Whitney
Full-Spectrum Breakdown

Richard Rhames
A Bailout to Nowhere

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
The NY Yankees and the U.S. Economy

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Making of Recent U.S. Middle East Policies: a New Study of Neocon Influence

Susan Block
Palin as Venus in Furs: the Dominatrix Politics of Drilling and Killing

Robert Fantina
Republicans and Subpoenas: Never the Twain Shall Meet

Heidi Walters
Hung Up on Route 36: an 18-Wheeler and a Nuclear Cask

David Yearsley
Germany's Lost Organs: When Bigger Was Better

Raymond J. Lawrence
The Politics of Tribulation: Sarah Palin and the Rapture

David Rosen
One Billion Pills Later: Viagra at 10

David Michael Green
Living in Sarah Palin's America

Anthony Papa
Imprisoned Voters and the Elections

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Freddie, Fannie, Daddy, Nanny

Howard Lisnoff
When We Notice the Homeless

John Goekler
Leaving Every Child Behind

Missy Beattie
Impalement

Dave Zirin
Leave Josh Howard Alone

Charles R. Larson
Holden Caulfield, Rest in Peace

Tim Matson
Too Big for His Birches: Woodlot Economics

Susie Day
Attack of the Angry Fetus

Poets' Basement
Corseri, Gibbons, Jenkins and Ford

Website of the Weekend
Dylan & Baez: Deportees

September 19, 2008

Steven T. Banko
McCain's Passion Play

Mike Whitney
The Point of No Return

Michael Hudson
The Dow Jones' Wonderfully Cheesy Addition

William Kaufman
Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act: the Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis

Brenda Norrell
The Fall of Lehman Bros.: Blowback for Black Mesa?

Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor
The New Rhetoric of Racism: Why Won't Obama Call It Out?

Clifton Ross
Bolivia: Cleaning Up the Bull Ring

Dave Lindorff
Hang On to Your Wallets: the Government's About to Rescue Us!

Cynthia McKinney
Seize the Time!

Susan Hurlich
Storm Survivors: a Dispatch from Cuba

Michael Donnelly
Let's Hand It All Over to the Democrats (They Helped Create This Mess)

Website of the Day
The Crisis Explained

September 18, 2008

Benjamin Dangl
The Machine Gun and the Meeting Table

Harvey Wasserman
The Senate's Drill, Drill, Drill Scam

Susan Abulhawa
The Lobby Has Spoken: Biden and Israel

Robert Weissman
After the Fall: the Financial Re-Regulatory Agenda

Anne-Marie McManus
McCain's Cinderella: the Fetishization of Sarah Palin

Corey D. B. Walker
The Poverty of 21st Century Progressivism

William S. Lind
Senator O'Bush: Why Obama is Wrong on Iran and Afghanistan

Ron Jacobs
Washington's False Logic of Torture

Dave Lindorff
American and China: Joined at the Hip

Binoy Kampmark
How Damien Hirst Got Away With It

Website of the Day
An Invisible Army

September 17, 2008

Stephen Conn
Palin and the Politics of Big Oil

Forrest Hylton
Reactionary Rampage in Bolivia

Patrick Cockburn
Petraeus Leaves Iraq

Gregory Elich
Inside North Korea

Ralph Nader
How the U.S. Auto Industry Wrecked Itself

Franklin Lamb
The Palestinians of Shabra-Shatila

Pam Martens
The Gang's All Here: Bush, McCain and the Old Iran/Contra Team

Dave Lindorff
The End of the Blue Chip Economy

Peter Morici
The Damage Deepens

Stanley Heller
The Killing of Count Folke Bernadotte

Douglas Valentine
Rambling David Foster Wallace

Website of the Day
Free Cindy McCain!

September 16, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
US Economy: Rudderless and Reeling from Direct Hits

Tiphaine Dickson
Citizen Palin: Why Sarah Palin Quoted Westbrook Pegler

Stan Goff
America is Now Rome: an Open Letter to Christian Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

Uri Avnery
Tzipi's Choice

Michael Winship
Lipstick on Polar Bears

Jeff Halper
Warehousing Palestinians

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia Versus the Empire

Oscar Gonzalez
Who's Dumber? Ike's Refugees or Wall Street's?

Binoy Kampmark
Cheney and His Records

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Muslims are at Peace with You

Sen. Russ Feingold
Restoring the Rule of Law

Website of the Day
The Next Great Rock Band?

September 15, 2008

Mike Whitney
The Tumbrils Roll at Dawn

Peter Morici
Toxic Lehman

Patrick Cockburn
Take Another Look at the Surge

Charles R. Larson
The Maverick Has No Clothes

Jonathan Cook
The Expulsion of Palestinians from Jaffa

Nikolas Kozloff
Racist Rhetoric in Bolivia

Roger Burbach
Morales Confronts the Insurrection: Bolivia and the Echoes of Allende

Helen Redmond
Where's the Health Care Bailout?

David Michael Green
The Democrats Do Poland

David Macaray
The Boeing Strike

Ralph Nader
Remembering Peter Camejo

Website of the Day
The Ballad of Sarah Palin

September 13 / 14, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Panic!

Jeffrey St. Clair
Inside Dirk Kempthorne's Closet

Wajahat Ali
Playing with the Constitution

Robert Fantina
Cheney Scales New Heights of Hypocrisy

Marcus Rediker
Notes on a Visit to the Favelas of Medellín, Colombia

Richard Neville
The Baby Killers

Ed Gaffney
Breaking the Siege of Gaza

Carla Blank
Neglecting a Grand Old Lady

P. Sainath
The Almighty and the U.S. Elections

Lee Sustar
Working Harder; Falling Further Behind

Joshua Frank
Liberalism and Its Bounds

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Guantanamoized Age

Dennis Loo
Shock and Awe Comes Home to Roost

Zach Zill
Squeezed Out in New York City

Omar Barghouti
So You Think You Can Dance? Israeli Profiling of African-American Dancers

Bill Quigley
Social Justice Quiz, 2008

Andy Worthington
Bush's Bitter Legacy

Stephen Dunifer
Free Radio: Liberating the Commons

Seth Sandronsky
Bailing Out Big Auto

David Yearsley
Portabella's Bach: Grim, Trite and Incredibly Boring

Patrick B. Barr
Obama's Punchless Campaign

Rannie Amiri
Tasting Ramadan

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Flight Not Taken

Richard Rhames
What, Me Reason?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Large Hadron Collider Powers Up

Poets' Basement
Deer Cloud and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Wasilla Valley PTA?

September 12, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
The Next Cuban Missile Crisis?

Michael Hudson
More Dangerous Than the A-Bomb? The Chicago School's Record of Infamy

Lloyd Miller
Palin and Alaskan Native and Tribal Rights: a Dismal Record

Steve Breyman
Georgia in NATO?

Maria Rivera
Cuba After Gustav and Ike: an Eyewitness Account

Jonathan Cook
Israel and the Dark Arts

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
U.S. Designs on Pakistan

M. Shahid Alam
The Mendacity of Missed Opportunities

Robert Weissman
Executive Pay and the "Market Economy"

Tanya Golash-Boza / David Brunsma
Immigration Raids Must Be Stopped

Website of the Day
Know Your Rights

September 11, 2008

Noam Chomsky
Towards a Second Cold War?

Sharon Smith
Afghanistan: You Call This a Good War?

Ron Jacobs
Palinomics: She Ain't No Working Class Hero

Marjorie Cohn
God, Guns and Oil: A Palin Theocracy?

Mike Whitney
Cheney in the Caucasus

Jeffery R. Webber
Bolivia: a Coup in the Making?

Paul Cantor
The Other 9/11

Peter Morici
The Surging Trade Deficit

Ray McGovern
Iran's Road Less Traveled to Nukes

Linn Washington, Jr.
Screening Mumia: The Suppression of Dissent in America

Website of the Day
Palin (Michael) for President!

September 10, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
A Temporary Respite from Permanent Decline

Conn Hallinan
The Return of U.S. Death Squads

Ralph Nader
Who Needs Regulations When You've Got a Golden Parachute?

Peter Morici
Can the Bailout Work?

Joanne Mariner
The Horrendous Case of Aafia Siddiqui

Laura Tate Kagel /
Jen Marlowe
The Pending Execution of Troy Davis: a Case for Clemency

Chuck Spinney
Incestuous Amplification and the Madness of King George

Dave Lindorff
Lazy Thinking and Prejudice

Scott Campbell
Where Now for Oaxaca's Social Movement?

Paul Farmer
Haiti and the Hurricanes

Anne Kilkenny
Letters from Wasilla: the Sarah Palin I Know

Website of the Day
Democrats and Zombies

September 9, 2008

Michael Colby
The Obama Poll Drop

Chellis Glendinning
Retorno a 1968: From Berkeley to Mexico City

Vijay Prashad
Losing Game

Jeffery R. Webber/
George Ciccariello-Maher
Venezuela From Below

David Michael Green
Country Last

Brian J. Foley
The New Face of Republican Power

John Ross
Mexican Flag Wrap

Pierre M. Sprey /
Winslow T. Wheeler
Joint Strike Fighter: Another Defense Acquisition Disaster

Nicole Colson
Sami Al-Arian's Long Road to Freedom

Marc Gardner
California's Anti-Homosexual Laws are Alive and Unwell

William S. Lind
The Baltic States and Russia: Toy Armies or Accomodation?

Website of the Day
All Hope Rests with Piper Palin

September 8, 2008

Mike Whitney
An Interview with Michael Hudson on the Worsening Debt Crisis

Tariq Ali
The Godfather as President

Pam Martens
The Man Who Vetted Palin

Bill Quigley
The Weary Road Home: Displaced Poor Continue to Return to New Orleans

Malini Johar Schueller /
Ed White
Not About Me: Obamamania, Racial Porn-fest and Palinama

Robert Jensen
Pop Music and 9/11

Uri Avnery
Lonely Rider

Win McCormack
Palin Family Values

Howard Lisnoff
How Far From a Police State?

Maria C. Khoury
Taybeh Oktoberfest in Palestine

Website of the Day
Scaring Students from Voting in Virginia

September 6 / 7, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Sarah Palin and the Good Book

Jeffrey St. Clair
That Dam Senator: A River Ran Through Him

Linn Washington, Jr.
The GOP Excluded Black-Owned Businesses from Contracts at St. Paul Convention

Patrick Cockburn
Did Bush Spies Monitor Iraqi Allies?

Gary Leupp
The September 3 Attack on Pakistan: a Precursor to More War Crimes?

Nancy Kurshan
CHI-town Lowdown: Memories of 1968

William Blum
Has Obama Already Lost?

Michael Winship
The St. Paul Police vs. the Independent Media

Fred Gardner
Joe Biden, Drug Warrior

Nikolas Kozloff
Sarah Palin and the Wal-Mart Moms: the Cultural Packaging of VP Candidates

Wajahat Ali
The Cryptkeeper and His Pitbull: the Past and Future of the GOP

Robert Fantina
Change Agents?

Karyn Strickler
Palin by Comparison: Sarah and the Hillary Voters

David Yearsley
What Their Fanfares Told Us About the Candidates

Richard Rhames
Bad Campaign Moon Rising

James L. Secor
Bandwagon Politics

Missy Beattie
Missy for Vice POTUS

Eric Patton
Baseless in Obamaland

Ben Terrall
Haiti and the Washington Consensus

Thom Rutledge
Mr. Magoo and the Kind Stranger: a Serious Political Problem

Dan Bacher
Arnold and the Manufactured Drought

David Macaray
Is Union Democracy at Risk?

Jane Stillwater
The Admiral's Child: a Psychological Reason for McCain's Flip Flops

Grady Harper
Should Hunting Really be High on Our Priority List?

Poets' Basement
Wolff, Payne and Holt

Website of the Weekend
We'll See Your Sarah Palin and Raise You With Maria McKee

September 5, 2008

Elizabeth Walters
Old Fears, New Worries in Louisiana

Bill Quigley
Gustav's Path of Destruction

Alan Farago
Nothing Means Anything: The Fantasy of John and Sarah

Dave Lindorff
The Things They Left Behind (Including McCain's First Wife)

Ira Glunts
A Lesson Before Lying: How Republicans Solved Sarah Palin's Jewish Problem

Peter Morici
The Big Slump

Deepak Tripathi
Politics, Morality and the GOP: John McCain as John Major?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Energy of a Hurricane

Michael Donnelly
Change. God. POW.: a Summary of McCain's Big Speech

Martha Rosenberg
Free to Good Home, SUVs

Website of the Day
Sarah Palin's Air War: On Wolves and Bears

September 4, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Real McCain

Paul Craig Roberts
Who is Wrecking America?

Ron Jacobs
The Perishing Republicans, the RNC 9 and the Twin Cities Cops

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Soft Surge

Andy Worthington
Rendered to Egypt for Torture

Osama Dawoud
How I Lost My Fulbright Scholarship

Stephen Lendman
Katrina Redux: the Militarization of New Orleans

Fidel Castro
Hurricane as Nuclear Strike

Website of the Day
Is McCain Palin's Bitch?

September 3, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
The Fake U.S. Victory in Iraq

Sen. Mike Gravel
Good Luck, Sarah!

Vijay Prashad
The Indian Left and the Indo-US Nuclear Deal

Nikolas Kozloff
Palin, Hunting and the American Psyche

Ralph Nader
Repeal Taft-Hartley

Howard Lisnoff
Forty Years in the Streets (And They're Still Beating Up Journalists)

Steve Early / Cal Winslow
Can SEIU Members Exorcize the Purple Shades of Jackie Presser?

Shepherd Bliss
A Field Report From Slow Food Nation

Bill Quigley
Living in the Car After Gustav

Website of the Day
Growing Up Okie: an Interview with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

September 2, 2008

Marjorie Cohn
Raiding Democracy in St. Paul

Jonathan Cook
Palestinian Village Faces Army Reign of Terror

Robert Weitzel
Biden and Israel

Corey D. B. Walker
Where Do We Go From Here?

John Ross
The Kidnapping Boom in Mexico

Eric Walberg
Wag the Dog in Georgia

Judith Scherr
No Day in Court for Ronald Dauphin

Richard Morse
Haiti, 2008

B. R. Gowani
What If the Israel Lobby was the African-American Lobby?

Michael Greenberg
Loofah Day in Cleveland

Website of the Day
Thanks for the Memories!

September 1, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Making a Killing in Iraq: McCain and the Telecoms

C. G. Estabrook
The War Will Go On

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Will a Russo-American Nuclear War Happen (Soon)?

David Macaray
An Elegy for Labor Day

B. R. Gowani
The Lobby as Juggernaut

Saul Landau
Real Gold Winners

Charles Orloski
Going Down to Hell's Cul-de-Sac

Gloria La Riva
Profit and Disaster in New Orleans

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Factory

August 30 / 31, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy

Bill Quigley
Gustav is Coming

Jeffrey St. Clair
Valley Boy: The Rise and Fall of Richard Pombo

Andy Worthington
Shining a Light on the Dark Prison

Deepak Tripathi
The Race for the White House: Notes From a European Observer

Stanley Howard
A Prisoner's Tale of Abuse

Dave Lindorff
Troopergate in Alaska

Wajahat Ali
Palin on the Prowl: a Cougar for the PUMAs?

Robert Fantina
McCain and Palin

Josh Schlossberg
A Bias for Life: the Role of the Environmentalist

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Voting

Missy Beattie
Stars, Stripes, War and Shame

Howard Lisnoff
Better Cuba Than Florida?

Suzan Mazur
Rethinking Evolution with Stuart Newman

Rev. Jim Rigby
What Would Jesus Ride to the Conventions?

David Yearsely
Katy Perry Meets Mozart

Serge Quadruppani
Italy's Years of Lead

B.R. Gowani
What If the Israeli Lobby Was the Islamic Lobby?

Richard Rhames
Empty Political Calories

Poets' Basement
Holt, Davies, Corsale and Landau

Website of the Day
Return of the Druids

August 29, 2008

Mike Whitney
How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

Brian Cloughley
Resurgent Russia

David Ker Thomson
Jacko and Me: Dispatches From Fifty

Joanne Mariner
A UK Window on CIA Abuses

Neve Gordon
The Ordeal of Sahar Vardi, Refusenik

Chris Genovali
Of Whales and Off-Shore Drilling

Ron Jacobs
What's a Godfearing Country to Do?

Michael Donnelly
Honest Abe in Denver?

August 28, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
The Battle of Chicago

Paul Cantor
Who Killed Victor Jara?

Saul Landau /
Farrah Hassen
Axis of Evil Defeats Neocons

Andy Worthington
Clearing Out Guantánamo

Ben Terrall
Return to Port-au-Prince

Leonard Peltier
Message to Obama: Symbolism Alone Will Not Bring Change

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Miasma of Bi-Partisanship

Donna J. Volatile
The Obama Construct

Website of the Day
Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker and Maya Angelou on the Meaning of Obama

August 27, 2008

Anthony DiMaggio
The Myths of Joe Biden

Jordan Flaherty
Three Years After Katrina

Ralph Nader
The Politics of Avoidance

Melissa Checker
Carbon Offsets, More Harm Than Good?

Bob Sommer
Blaming the Sixties

Cynthia McKinney
How the Democrats Helped Bush Hijack the Country

Ali Khan
Pakistan's Flawed Presidency

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Only Good Muslim is the Anti-Muslim

Dave Lindorff
Strip-Search Nation

David Macaray
Labor's Hard Lessons

Website of the Day
Stagnant Income in an Eroding Economy

August 26, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
The Big Questions About Iraq

Michael D. Yates
Obama and the Working Class

Paul Craig Roberts
Is War With Russia on the Agenda?

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Suicide Report

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson
Obama's Promised Land?

Huwaida Arraf
Sailing into Gaza

Joseph Grosso
Back to the Future: New York's Housing Crisis

Sheldon Richman
What About the Ossetians?

Binoy Kampmark
Impasse at Singur

Website of the Day
Taser Bait in Denver

August 25, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
US Out of Iraq by "2011"

Bill Quigley
Katrina, the Pain Index

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Outposts Seal Death of Palestinian State

James McEnteer
Death by Paranoia

Uri Avnery
The Devil's Hoof

Will Potter
The State Deparment's Green Scare Wing

Robert Jensen
Technological Fundamentalism

Stephen Lendman
Reinventing the Evil Empire

Wajahat Ali
Biden His Time

Carl Finamore
The Future of Trade Unions in China

Website of the Day
Don't Blow Up the Mountain, Boys

August 23 / 4, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
"Change," "Hope"...Why They Must be Talking About Joe Biden!

Jeffrey St. Clair
Killing Salmon with Paul O'Neill: Power, Profits and the Future of the Columbia River

Patty O'Grady
John McCain in a New Context: Why the Senator is No War Hero

Nicole Colson
Obama and Big Corn

Steve Conn
Obama and the Mining Cartel

Deepak Trapathi
Pakistan in Uncertain Times

Robert Fantina
Once Upon a Time in America: a McCain Administration

Jonathan M. Feldman
Obamanomics: Does the Left Have Anything to Say?

Joshua Frank
Targeting Pelosi (and the War Machine): an Interview with Cindy Sheehan

Osama Qashoo
Sailing to Gaza

Howard Lisnoff
The Long Silence: American Jews and the Palestinians

David Michael Green
Sen. McShame and the Wreckage: John McCain Discovers America

Dave Lindorff
Why Not Let the Republicans Deal With This Mess?

Christopher Brauchli
A Banner Month for Passports

Alan Farago
Who Crippled the Government?

Michael Winship
Cash Register Conventions

Richard Rhames
Vlad the Derailer: Can Putin Save America From Itself?

David Rosen
The Culture Wars Are Over: But Culture Warriors Are Still Terrorizing America

Patrick B. Barr
Don't Try to Tame the Lightning Bolt

Jamie Newlin
Western Turf Wars: the Politics of Public Lands Ranching

Poets' Basement
Glendinning, McEnteer and Bonner

Website of the Weekend
Cafe Reconcile, New Orleans

August 22, 2008

Boris Kagarlitsky
Fallout from the Georgian War

Laura Carlsen
Obama and Latin America: Change or Continuity?

Bob Barr
No War for Georgia

Marwan Bishara
From Russia with Love: Putin Hits Georgia, Bloodies Bush

Peter Morici
Is the Fed Still a Central Bank?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Big Heat

Charles Mostoller
The Battle for the Amazon

Sumbul Ali-Karamali
Obama is Not a Muslim: But Would It Be So Terrible If He Were?

Keith Rosenthal
Standing Up to Union-Bashing

John F. Miglio
The Devolution of the Baby Boom Generation

Website of the Day
Fire Sale in the Markets!

August 21, 2008

Allan J. Lichtman
Is Georgia 2008 a Repeat of Hungary 1956?

Dave Lindorff Loserville: How Obama Blew It

Ralph Nader
The Problem with Problem Banks

Joanne Mariner
The Military Commissions, So Far

Wajahat Ali
Descent Into Chaos: an Interview with Ahmed Rashid on Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban

Ron Jacobs
Georgia and Historical Farce

Rostam Purzal
The Left and Iran

Anthony Papa
Unlocking the Power of Art to Counter Injustice

Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain Way

August 20, 2008

Michael Neumann
Russia and Georgia: Proportion and Distortion

Ray McGovern
Musharraf Out Like Nixon

Eric Walberg
Georgia's Ossetian Debacle

Fidaa Abed
Blocking a Gazan's Path to San Diego

Daniel Haack
The Pentagon's Most Prolific Pundit

Mike Whitney
Greenback Surges, Euro Shrivels

Website of the Day
Hands Off South Africa's Centre for Civil Society

August 19, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for Nuclear War?

Deepak Tripathi
A New Age of Torture

Marwan Bishara
The Politics of Evil in the US Elections

Saul Landau
Baseball Diplomacy or Just Baseball?

William S. Lind
Leave Georgia Alone, George

Martha Rosenberg
Whole Foods and Other Food Offenders

James Brittain
The Road to Tyranny in Colombia

Pratyush Chandra
Krugman's Great Illusion

David Macaray
AFSCME's Strike Against the University of California

Website of the Day
McCain Plagiarizing Solzhenitsyn

September 22, 2008

Whatever Happened to Voting Your Conscience?

An Open Letter to Michael Moore (AKA God's Pen Pal)

By CARL J. MAYER

Dear Michael:

I apologize for writing you an open letter because you are busy corresponding with God.[1]

I did not want to write an open letter, but I penned a private one to you some time ago and received no response.

We have met on numerous occasions and have known each other for almost a decade, so I would appreciate an answer.

The point of this letter is to ask you to reconcile your completely contradictory written statements and public pronunciations about voting your conscience on the one hand (Independent Ralph Nader in 2000) and supporting candidates who oppose all the key issues you support on the other (Democrats Barack Obama in 2008 and John Kerry in 2004.)

I’m concerned that your written and oral statements are so contradictory that you are losing any residual political credibility you might have enjoyed. I think the youth of America and non-voters deserve answers, as you have anointed yourself as their representative.

We first met back in 2000 when you supported the Ralph Nader for President Campaign. We met at numerous Super Rallies that Nader held all over the country to sold-out crowds ranging from 20,000 in Madison Square Garden to 15,000 in Portland, Oregon to 12,000 in Minneapolis.

Your message at each rally was crystal clear: vote your conscience. At Madison Square Garden you bellowed while inveighing 20,000 people not to vote for of Al Gore: "The lesser of two evils is still evil!"

One week before the 2000 election, you wrote a letter to Gore:
Look, Al, you have screwed up -- big time. By now, you should have sent that smirking idiot back to Texas.... You should have wiped the floor with him during the three debates. But you didn't.... …You don't realize that it's YOU and the Democrats that are responsible for the possibility of Bush winning next Tuesday....

Instead of...owning up to your mistakes, you and your people are blaming some rumpled senior citizen lawyer who is only following his conscience....Ralph Nader has devoted his entire life to making the rest of our lives better. Because of him we have the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the EPA, OSHA, airbags and seatbelts, the Freedom of Information Act -- the list goes on and on. What have YOU done to save a few million lives?

...You and your "New Democrats" abandoned the poor, the working class, and the middle class....You and the Democrats have created the monster know as "W"...

I want Ralph Nader to get millions of votes on Tuesday. I have seen the response to Ralph at numerous huge rallies across the country. There is a progressive movement afoot in America and it needs to explode into a majority movement -- beginning now, not four years from now.... I will not feel one iota of guilt should you screw up and lose on Tuesday. The blame I do share is that I voted for you and Bill in 1992...[2]

Your position in 2000 could not have been more steadfast.

By 2004 you decided to back John Kerry and the Democrats. You traveled around the country telling college students NOT TO VOTE for Nader after telling them TO VOTE for Nader in 2000.

By 2008 you have become a full-on cheerleader for the Democratic Party.

You basically endorsed Edwards in the primary (good call!) and now you are campaigning all out for Obama; I even saw you on Larry King the other night saying that Obama’s convention speech sent chills up your spine. (Do corporate ads for Pepto-Bismol get you misty as well?)

Last month you wrote a piece calling anyone who voted for Nader “crazy.” [3]

Earlier in the year you appeared on Larry King and a fan of yours called in and observed that since none of the Democratic candidates support single-payer national health insurance – which you do – that you should support Nader.

Your response was surprising: you called Ralph a “sad” reflection of his former self and urged people not to vote for him. (I can’t remember if this was before or after you told King that one of your top priorities as president would be to give all Americans HBO.)

Many progressives are quite puzzled by your behavior regarding Nader given that he once employed you when nobody would and helped bankroll your first film. But apparently, gratitude is not your long suit.

I ran into you late in January, 2006 when we happened to stay at the same hotel during a vacation. I approached you at dinner, introduced myself (you, of course, had no idea who I was despite having met me numerous times) and then you proceeded to tell me yourself that Ralph Nader is “crazy.” (Fortunately for you, Ralph is a public figure so your constant repetition of this accusation is not actionable.)

After our meeting I decided that regardless of your erratic behavior, progressive people really should work together rather than fighting one another, so I sent a bottle of wine to your room and penned you a handwritten note apologizing for any disagreements with the Nader camp in 2004 and asking for reconciliation.

You neither wrote back nor thanked me for the wine.

Now, in 2008, you are at it again, relentlessly telling people to abandon their beliefs and to abandon the Nader campaign.

I thought I would compare how your current advice measures up to your past writings.

On November 7, 2000 you penned a “Final Election Day Letter” urging your supporters to back Nader no matter what and in every state. Stunningly, your support for Nader was couched in inviolate moral terms: your letter makes clear that you would always vote for an idealist like Nader and that to do so is a duty to the next generation and to posterity:

For some reason, I never grew up, and, I guess, weirdly enough never gave up hope. To hear my fellow baby boomers this past week instruct me in the intricacies of “strategic voting” and “the lesser of two evils” and “you see, a vote for this guy is really a vote for that guy,” made me wonder how I missed the boat — the one on which you learn to act “responsible,” and be “pragmatic,” and, of course, “compromise.”

That’s why it’s been so refreshing to be around the young people who have thronged by the hundreds of thousands to the Nader campaign. They don’t want to hear about settling for the second worst guy. They can’t comprehend their elders’ pleas to abandon their conscience and do something in the voting booth they don’t believe in. These young people are filled with a fire to stand up, speak out, and make this world a better place. Nothing — not even the fear of the Bogeyman Bush — will smother their passion to do the right thing.

Today, my daughter will vote in her first election. I believe the worst thing I could do as a parent is to tell her that she should not be following her own conscience. I will not tell her to be “realistic”; she will have plenty of time to deal with the harsh realities of this world. Why should she begin her adult life having to settle for something she doesn’t believe in?

Has our willingness to compromise, to vote for the lesser of two evils, gotten us better candidates? Has our abandoning the beliefs and positions we once so strongly fought for resulted in a better life for the poor and the working class?

At some point, you have to say enough is enough. Today is that day for me. I will go to the polls and vote for Ralph Nader. I am doing so for the only reason you should ever vote for anyone. I am voting for Ralph because it is what my conscience says is right. I am doing what they taught us to do in civics class — vote for who you think the best candidate is. Period.

How many of you can honestly say Ralph Nader is not the best candidate? Don’t reach into your bag of rationalizations — just answer this one question honestly. If you want all the dirty money out of our elections, you HAVE to vote for Nader because he is the only one — not Bush, not Gore — who would eliminate it entirely. If you think the minimum wage should go up more than 50 cents an hour in the next year, then you HAVE to vote for Ralph Nader as he is only one who would raise it to a real living wage. If you believe there should be universal health coverage NOW, then you have to vote for Ralph Nader because he is the only one who would sign that bill. Click here (”20 Reasons to Vote for Nader”) and look at this list. And if find yourself in agreement, then how can you NOT vote for Ralph Nader?

Do not vote from your fears, no matter where you live. Decisions made in fear are usually the wrong decisions and lead to lousy consequences. You have to find the courage to act on your convictions. Remember what that felt like? To believe in something, even if it was against all the odds?When Rosa Parks took that seat at the front of the bus, do you think she was afraid? You bet she was. …The revolutionaries that founded this country were not stymied by their fear of King George. And they did not even have the support of 75% of the colonists! Nevertheless, they followed their conscience.…Can we not aspire to what those who came before us were willing to do so that we would ALL have the right to vote our conscience today? Do we not dishonor them by our willingness to settle for less than our conscience demands?[4]

Your 2000 letter was quite compelling. What bothers me and others is that you have completely repudiated your own writings by your words and deeds since 2000. After telling America’s students, and you own daughter, to vote their conscience, you are now telling them to vote for the lesser of two evils, a position you swore you would never adopt.

As disturbing, from my perspective, is that you have removed from your website the “20 Reasons to vote for Ralph Nader.” [5] This is something a corporation would do when damaging documents are exposed: just shred the evidence.

Years ago you had some intelligent things to say about politics. More recently you seem interested in getting attention by driving an ice cream truck around Capitol Hill and writing books with chapters titled: “Do The Democrats Still Drink From A Sippy Cup and Leave The Light On,” as you all the while promte the Democratic ticket. You like to hang out with Madonna and God and will get on board with any candidate you think might win. Oh, and you once registered a fichus tree as a candidate for Congress. That was useful.

In school, I always enjoyed the class clown, but I would never go to him for political advice. I’m afraid that is what you have become.

Actually, what you have become is best summarized in the following paragraph:

I have seen the slippery slope that type of behavior leads to in the baby boom generation. First, you start with little chips away at your conscience. You agree to do things that don’t seem to directly harm any living thing, actions in which you convince yourself, “I guess I can live with that ’cause the alternative would be worse!” But bit by bit, as you start to abandon what you believe in and compromise your values, you end up being able to rationalize any action. Before long, you give up and head to the middle. You learn that it is safe there. If you strive for complacency and mediocrity, the system will reward you. Promise not to upset the apple cart and you will end up with more money, a nice house, lots of gadgets, and oodles of things. Who wouldn’t want that! But all of this compromise — not doing what you know in your heart of hearts to be right — not only destroys you as an individual, it weakens our democracy.[6]

Remember those words, Michael? You wrote them. You have become what you vehemently opposed.

Ralph Nader’s legacy will be exactly what you said it will be: that of a serious and great American who made a difference by saving million of lives.

Unless you return to your more effective roots, your legacy will be buffoonery, cheapening the political discourse and disillusioning the next generation.

I am reachable by phone or email.

Yours,

Carl J. Mayer

Carl J. Mayer, an attorney, volunteered to support the Nader campaign in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. He can be reached at 609-462-7979 or carlmayer@carlmayer.com. His website is carlmayer.com. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Harvard Business Review, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer and numerous other publications.

[1] See “An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore,” August 13, 2008 at michaelmoore.com
[2] “An Open Letter from Moore to Gore,” October 31, 2000 at www.michaelmoore.com.
[3] “How The Democrats Can Blow It In Six Easy Steps.” August 13, 2008, Rolling Stone.
[4] “A Final Election Day Letter” November 7, 2000 at michaelmoore.com.
[5] “A Final Election Day Letter” November 7, 2000 at michaelmoore.com.
[6] “A Final Election Day Letter” November 7, 2000 at michaelmoore.com.

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