Axis of Assholes-Ralph Nader

Thanks Ralph!

Rumor has it that Ralph Nader is once again considering yet another presidential run, especially if Hillary Clinton secures the Democratic nomination. Does the man have no shame at all?

Nader USED to be a good guy. His expose of GM and the Corvair Unsafe at Any Speed made automobile manufacturers more responsive to the safety issues they had essentially ignored. We have seat belts and safer cars because of Nader. He warned us of the dangers of nuclear energy. His work contributed to the creation of the Environmental Protection Act, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. His Nader's Raiders looked out for the welfare of the American consumer, monitoring corporate abuse working alongside organizations like Public Citizen, Congress Watch, the Health Research Group, the Center for Auto Safety, and the Center for Responsive Law. He also started a network of campus-based organizations called "PIRGS" -- Public Interest Research Groups -- that over the years has trained thousands of college students in the skills of citizen activism. I myself was a member of NYPIRG while a college student in upstate New York.

Ever since his initial battles with GM when he first became a public figure, Nader had the reputation for honesty and trustworthiness second to none.

But something went horribly wrong when Nader began his quixotic quest for the Presidency in 1996 and 2000, initially as the Green Party nominee and then later running in 2004 as an independent. Knowing that he would not and could not win, Nader pushed forward any way, essentially acting in the role of spoiler for the 2000 Bush/Gore Presidential race. Nader secured over 79000 votes in Florida. Despite hardball and ethically challenged moves by Florida Republicans with the encouragement of the Republican National Committee and a schizophrenic ruling by the US Sepreme Court (which essentially said, we believe in states rights but just not in this case because we want Bush to win and, btw, don't bother trying to cite this as a precedent in future cases), Gore "lost" Florida by under 600 votes. Those 25 electoral votes gave Bush the Presidency and condemned the US to four--later eight--years of grotesque incompetence.

One would think that Nader would feel some sort of guilt or remorse for enabling the disastrous president of the Frat-Boy-in-Chief and the incalculable damage the Bush administration has wrought.

No chance!

Nader rationalizes his behavior because he sees both the Democratic and Republican parties as essentially the same -- as tools of corporate America, which in Nader's myopic view is bad. So during the 2000 campaign, Nader argued that there was virtually no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Many of us knew then and virtually ALL of us know now that there was a huge difference between these two. With Gore, the war in Iraq would most likely never have happened. We would not have the loss of civil liberties, Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib, the worldwide political ostracism, the attacks on stem cell research or global warming and the sanctioned assaults on our environment by unscrupulous corporate interests under the preposterously named Clean Water Bill. We would not have had the politicalization of the justice system, the packing of the Supreme Court with right wing idealogues, the ballooning of the national debt and tax cuts for the rich at the expense of federal programs for those who need it most.

On a theoretical level I can understand but can't agree with his thinking (for me all of corporate America is not evil) but we live in the real world where we have to make rational choices. Politics, like virtually everything else in life, is a compromise. We can fantasize about the ideal but the fact is we live in the real world so we are only left with the choice of the "lesser of two evils". Sure for progressives like myself, the Democrats fall far short but they pale in comparison to the Republicans who represent virtually everything that is wrong with this country.

Democrats at least pay lip service to caring about all Americans, not just the richest five per cent. Democrats do not lecture on family values while cheating on their wives or sodomizing Congressional pages. Democrats do not argue for war but then claim to be too busy to fight or desert their National Guard units which suggests a certain level of cowardice on their part. Democrats do not cry media bias or judicial activism even though they are the welcome recipients of such largess. Democrats do not start the scandalous negative campaigns from the likes of Richard Nixon or Lee Atwater and then cry foul when they get a taste of their own medicine. Modern day Democrats don't go to Mississippi (as Ronald Reagan did) and lament the loss of states rights (thus intentionally fomenting racism) while pretending to be the party of all Americans (the ubiquitous "big tent"). Democrats don't foam at the mouth about crime and punishment but when they transgress, expect to be held to a different (read: lighter) standard. Democrats don't lament about the dangers of big government while encouraging it to pry into the privates lives of its citizens. In short the Democrats are not as much the party of greedy perverts and hypocrites as the Republicans are. But even more significantly, Nader fails to distinguish between those who see government as good and a safety net for its citizens and those who see government as unchecked and evil.

Like Ross Perot, Barry Commoner and John Anderson, Nader talked of building a permanent progressive third party movement but it never happened, in part because of the realities of the American political landscape (money talks, winner-takes-all and the decided lack of media exposure for anything beyond the two principal parties) but also because Nader never devoted himself to the difficult and decidedly unsexy task of party-building. Instead of running as a Democrat in the primaries and shaping the debate while drawing attention to his causes like the current MoveOn.org, Nader chose to go it alone.

Curiously Candidate Nader also took up another odd, provocative and in my mind indefensible position. He would not release his financial records as virtually every candidate in the past 20 years has. He continues to refuse to do so. What is Nader hiding? Why won't he be accountable to the American public whose support he covets?

George Bush did not win the 2000 or 2004 presidential elections. They were stolen for him by the malevolent forces that really run this country, the shadow government. Ralph Nader helped them do it.

Yeah, I know the arguments. Nader supporters tell us that Gore ran a bad campaign--in fact he did--and that he could not win his own home state of Tennessee. We can look at the Bush/Harris activities in Florida and bitch about the Supreme Court decision but the truth is none of that would have mattered if Nader had done the right thing. Sure some Nader supporters would have stayed home, but most would have voted for Gore. Nader only had to release his votes in the swing states to assure a Gore victory and Gore would have prevailed in the electoral college, not just in the popular vote.

It is also no secret that the Republicans found a willing ally in Nader. They cynically contributed money to his campaigns in order to help Nader divert votes away from Gore and Kerry and tip the elections to Bush. Their strategy worked. What is troubling to me is that Nader actually took the money. In fact he welcomed it. Nader, who so zealously fought to protect the American consumer in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, completely sold his soul by taking this Republican money to advance his own egotistical cause.

I honestly can't imagine why Nader is considering yet another run. Most Americans learned from the 2000 debacle. His vote total dropped from almost 2.9 million votes to just under 464,000 in 2004. Yes, I do hope Hillary is not the Democratic candidate because I think she is too beholden to corporate interests, too conservative, too unwilling to admit errors and too incapable of actually leading. I'm hoping for some combination of Obama and Edwards. Still if confronted with Hillary versus any Republican I will hold my nose and pull the lever next to her name.

I feel sorry for Nader, once a hero to and a mentor to many activists, who now has now become the latter day Harold Stassen, the constantly inept and hopeless Republican candidate from Pennsylvania.

Because he has allowed his ego to overrule his common sense and better judgment, Ralph Nader has joined the Axis of Assholes. He may not have as much blood on his hands as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell but make no mistake. Ralph Nader is in part responsible and as much as he denies it, he has the blood of thousands of Americans and countless Iraqis on his hands.

Hardly a fitting epitaph for a guy who did so much for so many. But shame on him!