With all due respect Susan, I think you 'doth protesteth too
loudlyeth'. Why look for conspiracies when there are none?
"Fear God"
"11 The LORD spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me
not to follow the way of this people. He said:
12 "Do not call conspiracy
everything that these people call conspiracy [6] ;
do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.
13 The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
he is the one you are to fear,
he is the one you are to dread,
14 and he will be a sanctuary;
but for both houses of Israel he will be
a stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
a trap and a snare.
15 Many of them will stumble;
they will fall and be broken,
they will be snared and captured."
16 Bind up the testimony
and seal up the law among my disciples.
17 I will wait for the LORD ,
who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him."
(Isaiah 8:11-17 NIV)
If the American electorate is so stupid as to create a situation
where someone like Bush, the mini-Antichrist wannabe that he is,
is popular enough to face off against Kerry, and have whatever
pathetically few votes Nader can muster, then America, and the
world will have to endure the repercussions. It was meant to be.
Besides, Jesus is coming back before the November elections
anyways. So what's the point of getting your panties all caught
up in a uncomfortable knot. Nobody comes out the winner in that
situation, except perhaps somebody who will now spend the
duration of the day thinking, off and on, about your knotting
panties.
Don't worry, be happy. Smoke a doob on me.
"sUSAn B Anthony" <tugbertswife@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:11515-403B5F4B-510@storefull-3215.bay.webtv.net...
By Paul Loeb, AlterNet
February 22, 2004
"It's my right to run".
This is Ralph Nader's core case in announcing his 2004
presidential
candidacy. Yes, Nader has a legal right to run. He also has a
legal
right to donate $100,000 to the Republican Party and become a
Bush
Pioneer, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
So much of Nader's career has been built on reminding us of our
common
ties. It's wrong, he's argued, for companies to make unsafe
cars,
pollute our air or pillage shared resources. Actions have
consequences,
he's pointed out with persistence and eloquence.
Now, he's taking the opposite tack, fixating on his own
absolute right
to do whatever he chooses, while branding those who've argued
against
his running as contemptuous censors, who "want to block the
American
people from having more choices and voices." This argument
would seem
familiar coming from an Exxon executive. Coming from Ralph
Nader, it
marks a fundamental shift from an ethic of responsibility to
one of damn
the consequences, no matter how much populist precedent he
tries to
dress it up with.
The reasons to defeat Bush escalate daily. The administration
enacts
regressive tax cuts; wages pre-emptive wars and lies about
their
justification; hacks away at civil liberties and appoints
hard-right
judges to shut down challenges; and undermines the union
movement. The
Bush administration attacks root structures of democracy by
disenfranchising tens of thousands of Florida voters,
redistricting
dozens of Texas, Pennsylvania and Michigan Congressional seats
in raw
power grabs, and jamming Democratic phone banks in New
Hampshire. It
brands those who oppose it as allies of terrorism.
That doesn't even count global warming, which (as sources from
Fortune
Magazine to the New York Times and a Pentagon study have
recently
warned) now brings the potential for melting polar ice caps to
shutting
down the Gulf Stream and plunging Europe and northeastern North
America
into a man-made ice age.
How can Nader know this and still run? He says he'll raise the
otherwise
buried hard issues. He says he'll bring disenchanted citizens
back into
politics.
He offers Byzantine explanations of how he'll actually help
defeat
George Bush by raising fresh subjects and approaches, opening
up "a
second front of voters against the regime," and offering an
alternative
for moderate Republicans. But he can raise the issues on his
own, as he
has throughout his life. He can do it without critiques of the
"two-party duopoly" that may discourage some for voting for the
Democratic nominee. He can do it without offering the illusion
that a
purely symbolic vote will do anything to get Bush out of
office.
Nader seems to have forgotten his own historical contribution
to a
different, more hopeful path, where he encouraged thousands of
citizens
to join in challenging illegitimate actions of power. He once
recognized
that progressive politics gathers its strength from the breadth
of
citizen movements. Now he acts with an almost messianic fervor,
a Lone
Ranger intent on holding onto his own moral purity whatever the
pleas of
his compatriots. By denying the real choices we face, he
betrays the
best of his legacy.
Will Nader's candidacy ultimately matter? Maybe not. Many of
his
supporters have bolted. He may not get on the ballot in every
state. But
if the 2004 election is as close as it was in 2000, his
candidacy could
still have a devastating impact. The Nader vote made the
difference in
New Hampshire and Florida, and his support in states like
Oregon,
Washington, Wisconsin, New Mexico and even California forced Al
Gore to
divert time, money and resources away from other close races he
might
well have otherwise won.
Assuming the admittedly flawed John Kerry becomes the
Democratic
nominee, progressives do not have to support him blindly. We
can work to
unite historically separated progressive movements and keep
raising core
issues no matter who's elected in November. But this election
we're
faced with as critical a choice and challenge as we've
experienced in
our lifetime. It's too bad that by prizing his own
righteousness over
the risks of his actions, Ralph Nader has just made that
challenge a
little bit harder.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17920
Paul Loeb is the author of "Soul of a Citizen: Living With
Conviction in
a Cynical Time."
.
