TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Political Discussion / Debate
-- I luv Ralph Nader
I luv Ralph Nader
Just saw him on Cspan tonight announcing his candidacy and answering questions from the press. He is the only presidential candidate who is free of corporate handcuffs to speak his mind about subversive topics like:
Environment
Government for and by the people
Freedom of choice
Universal health care
Anti-corporate and special interest government
And a million other things that I care about...
Too bad he makes too much sense to be elect able. I don't care its still a free country, so I'm voting my conscience.
http://votenader.org/
Spread the word...
Good for you.
Democracy can't function if people don't vote for the candidate they think is best. People who lower themselves to choosing the lesser of two evils are a cancer upon our society.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Arbiter Good for you. Democracy can't function if people don't vote for the candidate they think is best. People who lower themselves to choosing the lesser of two evils are a cancer upon our society. |
The two major parties are the pawns of the same chessmaster. As long as we keep voting for them, things will just keep getting worse.
Fuck Nader. He's the reason why Bush is in office anyway. Had he not won 100,000 votes in New Hampshire during the 2000 election, Gore could have won in that state, in which he only trailed Bush by 57,000 votes.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by NYCTrancefan If the Democrats are the lesser of two evils then I will take them to save my beautiful America any day of the week over G.W.Bush and Co. This is one time that Nader should have devoted his efforts to seeing Bush ousted instead of plunking himself into the mix. What happens when Bush is re-elected, heaven help us all. |
| quote: |
| Did Ralph cost Al Gore the election in 2000? No. Al Gore won the election in 2000. George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election. No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned. To say someone is a "spoiler" is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. American does not belong to two parties. The Constitution does not mention parties. This country had a rich history of third parties. George W. Bush�s recount strategy in Florida cost Gore the election. The deceptive butterfly ballot, which Democratic officials approved, cost Al Gore the election. Katherine Harris-style purging of tens of thousands of non ex-felons from the voter roles cost the election. A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stop of the recount cost Gore the election. (See Jeffrey Toobin�s book Too Close to Call). Playing the "what if" game, Gore cost Gore the election in Tennessee, Arkansas, and each of the presidential debates. Buchanan cost Bush four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico). Except for brief, progressive moments, such as at the convention, which helped his polls, Gore ran the usual, lackluster corporate Democratic campaign. And they did. They voted for Bush, including more than 250,000 self-identified Democrats in Florida. Moreover, a Democratic exit poll showed that Ralph�s votes came 25% from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for Ralph. In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph�s voters would NOT have voted for Gore. In New Hampshire, exit polls showed that Ralph "took more votes" from Republicans than Democrats, by a 2 to 1 margin. CNN�s polling data said that if neither Nader nor Buchanan had run, Bush would have beat Gore 48 to 47 percent, with 4 percent who voted not voting. |
I remember reading another article on CNN.com back when Nader was deciding whether he'd run or not. Kerry said we can't have this because having Bush for 8 years will be the biggest disappointment Americans have ever brought upon itself, or something like that.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by NYCTrancefan The question then becomes in the current state of affairs under one G.W.Bush how much more can America take. We have a deficit that is not being addressed, a nobless oblige(upper class) that benefits handsomely from G.W's tax cuts and his administration stating how the loss of service sector jobs in America to underpaid wages in India and China is a good thing for America, question is which America. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Arbiter The two major parties are the pawns of the same chessmaster. As long as we keep voting for them, things will just keep getting worse. |
Re: I luv Ralph Nader
| quote: |
| Originally posted by igottaknow Just saw him on Cspan tonight announcing his candidacy and answering questions from the press. He is the only presidential candidate who is free of corporate handcuffs to speak his mind about subversive topics like: Environment Government for and by the people Freedom of choice Universal health care Anti-corporate and special interest government And a million other things that I care about... Too bad he makes too much sense to be elect able. I don't care its still a free country, so I'm voting my conscience. http://votenader.org/ Spread the word... |
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...72_froma24.html
| quote: |
Froma Harrop / Syndicated columnist Democrats will survive Nader's final closeup Ralph Nader is having his Norma Desmond moment. Desmond, you'll remember, is the faded Hollywood star of "Sunset Boulevard." Unable to accept that her fans have moved on, she descends into madness and murder. In the last, great scene, with lights and cameras trained on her, she dramatically moves down the staircase into the hands of the police. "All right, Mr. DeMille," Desmond says, thinking she's making a movie, "I'm ready for my closeup." Nader did his last closeup on "Meet the Press," where he announced he would run for president. Nader had made a name for himself in the golden age of consumer activism, but that was 30 years ago. His significance now is as a potential spoiler able to siphon enough liberal votes away from Democrats to help elect the Republican candidate. That happened in the 2000 election, when George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by a hair. With this history in mind, frightened Democrats have begged Nader not to run as an independent in 2004. The lefty magazine, The Nation, has published "An Open Letter to Ralph Nader" in which it pleaded with him to stay out of the race. Several writers associated with the magazine had backed Nader's candidacy in 2000, and the ninnies have never lived down this act of supreme stupidity. In a face-saving gesture, the letter said, "Ralph, this is the wrong year for you to run: 2004 is not 2000" � as though it really didn't matter four years ago who won. This deference toward Nader is unnecessary. He's not going to make any difference. The 2004 election may be close, but the last one was freakishly close. Many of the people who did vote for Nader in 2000 lived to regret it � and since Nader isn't running as a Green Party candidate this time, his voter base will be smaller still. In any event, the voters the Democrats must go after aren't the ones who supported Nader, but the swing voters who went for Bush. The president now has a record, and can no longer pretend moderation on budget matters, the environment and a variety of social issues. Several battleground states � Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio � are suffering the hemorrhage of manufacturing jobs, and their voters are in a bad mood. Like Norma Desmond, Nader is yesterday's news, and his run for president against the wishes of so many former supporters has taken on an air of desperation. Never married, humorless, workaholic � Nader the human being has always seemed rather two-dimensional. He has expended much of his energy cultivating the image of a tireless crusader for consumer rights. When a wire service photographer caught him tobogganing with some kids in his hometown of Winsted, Conn., and having fun, Nader angrily complained that his privacy was invaded. When Nader still mattered in public policy, a lazy media just went along with the myth-making. The story of an ascetic Nader living in a spare $80-a-month room in Washington was repeated endlessly � even after it was demonstrated that he spent most of his time in an upscale, family-owned house on Bancroft Place. Celebrities with no personal life cling to TV appearances and press notices to confirm their existence. Nowhere was that more obvious than on "Meet the Press." Nader was brittle and defensive in the manner of someone who had nothing real to sell the electorate. He needed the public more than the public needed him. "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert surely did not intend to pull off the kind of character contrast Hollywood directors work so hard for. But he did, in putting California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the same program as Nader. Here was Schwarzenegger, a Hollywood creation, developing into an impressive political leader. And he was followed by Nader, a Washington has-been, gasping for publicity. How interesting that the guy we all called Arnold � or, humorously, Ahnold � is now referred to by his last name, Schwarzenegger. But the once super-businesslike Nader is now called simply Ralph. "I am big," Norma Desmond says. "It's the pictures that got small." Had Nader uttered the same words on "Meet the Press" substituting "politics" for "pictures," no one would have been surprised. Some people just can't make a dignified exit. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by NeoPhono I totally agree. Democrats and Republicans are the same people, with the same politics. They both slowly trudge along the same path while putting up a facade of difference. If I was oblivious to whether the sitting president was democrat or republican I would not be able to tell by their actions or politics alone. It's disheartening that we have a "two party system" that is really only one. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Dopey You can't be serious. You honestly think that Dems and Reps have the same policies and priorities? |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by NeoPhono That's exactly what I think. |
Republicans and Democrats love to spout their differences, but I would argue their differences are in theory only, as when looking at their two parties in action, they are very similar.
First of all, look at their history. The two initially began as one, the Republican-Democratic party, in opposition to the Federalists and later the Whigs. Over time, the Democrat-Republican party split in
two over small intra-party differences. These small differences did grow over time, but in comparison to the differences shared by say a modern day Communist and a Green Party member, they are tiny. I would also say, as I said before, that these differences are in theory only.
An easy place to find similiarities in the two parties in a condensed, public setting is the Gore/Bush debate (hosted by Lehrer) of the last election. Find a transcript of the debate and look at how many times the two candidates agreed on key issues. Saturday Night Live even did a skit about it. It's remarkable.
Instead of trying to type everything into this post, the easiest way I have of backing up my claims with "real facts," would be from this flyer released by the Green Party. I think it does a great job of summing up how Democrats and Republicans *really* act, when not talking behind the veil of their "ideals."
GREEN PARTY FLYER
so this is the idea, start an extreame right party which will steal votes from the republican party 
and i agree that the republican party and the democratic party is pretty much the same...
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Dopey prove it. |
Personally I see nothing wrong with Nader running for office. As a libertarian I think there's no greater failure in american politics than to limit the people's options to the lesser of two evils. If anything, a third party candidate's popularity will force the mainstream candidate to recognize why that third party candidate is drawing so much popularity and hopefully adjust some of their policies. If the democrats can't even pick the proper candidate that they want running in the general election then they have some problems to work out. However, I see this as having very little effect on the general election. Nader may work against Gore, but I think most of the candidates in 2004 are a par above that.
Dammit ... I'm officially a democrat so I can vote in the primaries 
Soon to be no affiliation again once the election is over though 
... unless I get too lazy to change it. Then I'll just be a self-hating dem.
I can�t see Nader getting a large portion votes because the liberals in this country have come to a consensus to do anything to get Bush out of office. Back in the 2000 election people who voted for the green party (Nader specifically) didn't know who or what Bush stood for. They now see that they wan the most elect able person to kick Bush out of office, and ALL liberals are now doing the impossible....uniting.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by occrider Dammit ... I'm officially a democrat so I can vote in the primaries |
Why I will vote for the democratic nominee
I agree with you guys to a certain extent about both parties being "the same" when it comes to as high an office as that of the Presidency, because only those running with a more moderate agenda will be able to garner the amount of votes needed to win. Bush may have a tough time pretending to be a moderate this time as he did successfully in 2000, and some of Kerry�s Senate votes (such as against the �defense of marriage act�) are also on the liberal side. Edwards is more liberal on some issues than Kerry, and less on others.
How Kerry or Edwards would be vastly different from Bush:
The Environment-
President Bush has instituted a scorched Earth policy when it comes to the environment, and there is simply too much for me to list here in the way of policy etc. I shall be brief.
President Theodore Roosevelt, a truly great man by any stretch of the imagination, preserved 240 million acres of land for conservation purposes in his eight years, while Bush has weakened protections on 234 million acres in 3 years. To give you an idea of how significant that is, consider that is about 10% of America's land, and a land area the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined.
Bush has constantly sided with industry over Americans in weakening landmark bipartisan environmental laws that protect the environment and our people's health such as the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, and Clean Water Act. His law changes would allow more arsenic and sewage to be dumped in our rivers and lakes, and more mercury to be spewed into the air later to rain down in our rivers and lakes. In perhaps the most galling policy discrepancy, the Bush FDA advised pregnant women to consume less fish because of high methyl mercury contamination in most fish, and days later proposed weakening clean air laws that would allow more mercury to be emitted into the atmosphere. Most rivers and lakes in our country are contaminated by methyl mercury, and one cannot fish and safely eat their catch in most areas. 98% of this mercury pollution is from the burning of coal, and not from natural sources.
Bush ended the so-called �superfund,� where the polluters pay to clean up toxic waste sites they helped create, and has shifted this financial burden to taxpayers. In New Jersey, the state with the most toxic waste sties, most of its citizens live within mere miles of a toxic waste site that was supposed to have been cleaned up under the superfund program. Even Reagan supported this program. Actually much of the �superfund� money earmarked to make our communities safer went to pay for the Iraq war.
His Administration uses positive sounding euphemisms to dupe the American public and cloud the true intent of the policy changes (weakening protections), such as the �Clear Skies Initiative,� and �Healthy Forests Initiative.� The Bush Administration, supposedly a bastion of federalists, has also constantly fought against states such as California and New York over their stricter than EPA emissions standards for cars and industry. A number of state governors, some Republicans, have joined in a suit against the Bush Administration over their weakening of pollution laws. I�m not sure as to the progress of that suit at the moment, as I read about it some while back.
The Bush Administration is also pressing ahead with plans to dump nuclear waste in a site near Las Vegas despite the fact that one of the key scientists working on the project has quit to speak out about how unsafe it is to do so.
Bush Department of Interior head Gail Norton calls this land,
http://www.wwbphoto.com/
�a flat, white nothingness.�
Despite the fact that Congress and the majority of Americans have continually opposed turning the Arctic Wildlife Refuge into an oil field, revenue estimates from oil leases in the refuge were included in Bush�s 2005 budget. If Bush is reelected those above pictures will instead look like these:
Prudhoe Bay Oil Fields
There is an average of over one oil spill per day in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, with over 430 in the last year. That statistic alone puts to rest any notion of "environmentally friendly drilling," as Ms. Norton would put it.
The Administration�s latest proposal, perhaps the most disgraceful that anyone can imagine, is to allow timber companies to log the Grand Canyon. They are being sued in court, but if Bush is reelected, this proposal will almost certainly become a reality. This is especially true if you consider that Bush is appointing judges to the Federal Courts who probably agree with this terrific idea.
If every American knew what I know about the Bush environmental record, he would not be reelected. It�s that simple. Approximately 80% of Americans consider environmental issues to be very important.
The TV media doesn't cover these issues enough unfortunately, though the newspapers are better. Too bad many people just watch TV.
Kerry on the other hand, has one of the best environmental records in the Senate, and Edwards does also.
Civil Liberties-
Kerry/Edwards would appoint an attorney general who is not a religious extremist, and who will uphold civil rights, worker rights, and not be such a threat to civil liberties. They would not call for an amendment to the constitution that would enshrine discrimination into it for the first time ever.
Judicial Nominees-
Kerry/Edwards would appoint judges similar to John Paul Stevens; moderates instead of ideologues. Whom you vote for is also the person filling the Federal Courts of the country with lifetime appointments. Most people don't tend to think about that.
Education-
Kerry or Edwards would properly fund education, and help to close the education gap between more affluent and poorer communities. Bush has cut one billion from education funding from his 2005 budget.
Separation of Church and State-
59% of Americans believe in a strong separation of church and state.
Since taking office, Bush has used Executive Order to funnel money to far right religious groups including Pat Robertson's Christian� Coalition. Clearly Bush is out of the mainstream on this issue. We also know that the Administration has set aside science in favor of a far-right Christian� social agenda. Yes Tucker Carlson, it�s 20 Nobel Laureates and not �only 10.� As if that detracts from their statement of condemnation any.
Read the Zogby poll here:
http://www.interfaithalliance.org/N...fm?ID=5286&c=37
Learn about the candidates� views on separation of church and state here:
http://www.interfaithalliance.org/E...04List.cfm?c=88
Police, Fire, Coast Guard, first responders-
Kerry or Edwards would not have cut their funding by 800 million dollars, and have treated these heroes with such utter contempt after promising to be on their side while standing with them in the rubble of the twin towers.
Taxes-
Kerry/Edwards would help keep the tax structure a progressive one. Bush has helped turn the tax structure into a regressive one, shifting the burden onto lower income people.
Most normal people saw their taxes stay the same, or actually increase after Bush�s tax �cuts.�
Women�s rights/Stem Cell Research/Abstinence only sex ed �
This is a given, though I don�t believe the Republicans truly want to outlaw abortion. They just want to do stuff like stifle stem cell research, to piss the scientists off lol.
In the original Roe vs. Wade decision, most of the justices deciding in favor of �Jane Roe� were Republican appointees, while one of Kennedy�s appointees dissented.
Kerry/Edwards would also look at the actual science concerning sex ed data from other countries, and I doubt they would support this �abstinence only� approach that only a small minority of Americans (15%) favor. Kerry/Edwards would also not hold up FDA approval of the sale of emergency contraception. This move alone could cut teen pregnancy in half.
How Bush and Kerry/Edwards would be similar:
Foreign policy-
Kerry and Edwards seem to have been for the Iraq war only if it was done their way. 
Clark was the only sane Presidential candidate (with any chance in hell of winning) on this issue. Even Dean supported the Biden amendment to the IWR that still would have authorized force against Iraq.
Corporate and "special interest" money-
Kerry, Edwards, Clinton, and Gore have all taken big interest money, though significantly less than Bush. Also, you can consider virtually any group of two people or more who donate money a �special interest,� including that well-known terrorist organization, the National Education Association.
Free Trade-
I don�t think Kerry or Clark would have done much to change the free trade policies.
Edwards seems to be more protectionist on trade however.
Media Consolidation-
After Dean said he would break up big media, the media seemed to turn on him in a subtle way. Of course, Dean also did it to himself with his wackiness, but I knew after he said that he would lose his favorability with the media. I believe I read somewhere that Kerry once cast a vote in favor media consolidation, which is unsettling if true.
I'm not sure about Edwards� stance on media consolidation.
Nader has every right to run, but I think in this election, for most of the left at least, it�s a bit foolish for one to not be able to compromise on a few issues for the good of the country. Nader�s argument that Bush and Gore would have been the same, I feel, is utter BS. I knew this before the election in fact because Bush was governor of the state in which I grew up, but most voters bought into his moderate-sounding rhetoric. In the end though, the 2000 results were also Gore�s fault for running a crappy campaign, and not distinguishing himself enough from his colleagues on the issues.
Read Gore�s speeches on the Iraq War, the environment, education, etc, and then tell me again there�s no difference between Gore and Bush.
Before the Iraq war Gore was speaking out against it, and was speaking instead of keeping the focus on Afghanistan:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story...,797999,00.html
Gore on the environment:
http://www.moveon.org/gore3/webcast.html
Had Nader been president during and after 9/11, I don�t feel he would have done an adequate job on our national security issues. Gore would not have invaded Iraq, and have put our safety at greater risk in doing so. We would also not have abandoned Afghanistan. Gore may not have been a great President had he been elected, but he had the right plan for fighting terrorism. I think he would have been more of a uniter than Bush.
As for other Democrats in lower offices, some ~130 of them in the House of Representatives voted against the Iraq War Resolution.
My congressman from Austin:
| quote: |
Congressman Doggett helped lead the effort to oppose the invasion of Iraq and aggressively lobbied his colleagues in an effort that resulted in a majority of Democratic members of Congress voting "no" on the Iraq war resolution. At a February 2003 anti-war rally in Austin, Doggett told a cheering crowd: "Mr. President, the policies that you are pursuing in the name of our security are wrongheaded. They will make our families less secure. You jeopardize the security of our families when you insist on a land invasion and umpteen years of occupation of Iraq..." |
Re: Why I will vote for the democratic nominee
| quote: |
| Originally posted by DaveSZ Too bad many people just watch TV. |
No the problem is the majorty of americans are stupid couch potatos that vote for people like Arnold Schwarzenegger because they like his movies.
Its not a tumor!
Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.