<nettime> Nader is important: get rid of him! [digest x7]

["nettime's_man_behind_the_curtain" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Re: <nettime> Nader is important: get rid of him!
     underbelly@newsgrist.com
     "Benjamin Geer" <benjamin.geer@btinternet.com>
     Phil Graham <phil.graham@mailbox.uq.edu.au>
     underbelly@newsgrist.com
     underbelly@newsgrist.com
     Paula Chakravartty <pchakrav@ucsd.edu>

Re: <nettime> vote swap???
     underbelly@newsgrist.com

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From: underbelly@newsgrist.com
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 15:00:24 -0600
Subject: Re: <nettime> Nader is important: get rid of him!

Ivan Zassoursky wrote:

>      [also To: campaign@votenader.org, CC: naderletters@moveon.org]
>
> <snip>
>
>
>
> Vote for Nader. It will make you feel better.
>
> ivan zassoursky
> __________________________________

great, just what we need: a bunch of politically naive, righteous
idealists running around *feeling better*. After Bush gets elected 
and sets about the devastation of the environment in Alaska, the 
right of women to choose, and a host of other thingswe all hold to 
be dear, (not to mention a host of policy we don't even understand 
or think about). I'm sure those feeling better might start to feel
pretty bad... Don't be fooled by Nader: he isn't so different from 
these other guys running. He'll do anything to get ahead in some 
way, just like them, including undermining Gore and his campaign.
Afterall, he *is* a politician. Nader's appeal to progressive-minded, 
well-educated, disenfranchized liberals is manipulative and misleading; 
it will make a difference, one very big difference, if Bush gets in. 
This is so obvious and the appeal to 60s nostalgia so pathetic and
wrong-headed  you'd think any toddler could point it out at a
distance. (And I used to really look up to Susan Sarandon); what we 
need is pragmatism, not dreamy 60s revival idealism that will 
remain just that. One thing that would help in this fight would be 
to face up to what a simplistic, right-leaning, puritanical culture 
this really is; the dream of Nader is exciting, it's radical, but 
it's a dream. I don't buy that voting for him is an expediant measure
--not for an instant. As for *fear*: people are afraid of Gore
because he is intelligent, and an aristocrat (god-forbid) and 
therefore not one of them. He represents a classic ego-threat to 
the American Puritanical Everyman...

Keep the Republicans OUT.
Just do it.
This is a crucial election.
Don't throw it away. Don't vote Nader.
Consolidate: vote Gore for all it's worth. Vote against Bush.

j. garnett
flaming liberal pragmatist

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From: "Benjamin Geer" <benjamin.geer@btinternet.com>
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 20:35:37 +0000
Subject: Re: <nettime> Nader is important: get rid of him!

On Sun, Oct 29, 2000 at 12:47:08PM -0600, joy garnett wrote:
> After Bush gets elected and sets about the devastation of the
> environment in Alaska, the right of women to choose, and a host of
> other things we all hold to be dear, (not to mention a host of
> policy we don't even understand or think about).

What makes you think Gore won't do equally horrible things?  Do you
see any difference between the administrations of Clinton and Reagan?
Abortion, by the way, is the only thing that American political
candidates are allowed to disagree about, because it's an issue that
the corporate world couldn't care less about.  Most of the serious
issues (widespread poverty, casualisation, lack of health care, poor
education) are taboo in political campaigns.

> Nader's appeal to progressive-minded, well-educated, disenfranchized
> liberals is manipulative and misleading; it will make a difference,
> one very big difference, if Bush gets in.

Actually, I think that a Bush presidency would be one of the best
things that could happen to Nader.  A Bush administration would no
doubt strengthen dissent in the U.S., increasing the appeal of the
Green party.

> the dream of Nader is exciting, it's radical, but it's a dream.

If that's true, then democracy in the U.S. is completely doomed, in
which case it doesn't matter who you vote for.  If the word
`democracy' refers to any reality in the U.S., then it must be
possible for Nader to be elected, since he represents the interests of
many more people than Bush, Gore, and everyone in Congress put
together.

> people are afraid of Gore because he is intelligent, and an
> aristocrat (god-forbid) and therefore not one of them.  He
> represents a classic ego-threat to the American Puritanical
> Everyman...

Whether or not that's true, it's irrelevant.  Gore is simply the
latest puppet of multinational corporations.  He and Bush have a hard
time finding anything to disagree about.  Candidates like Gore exist
in order to make it look as if the choice between the two major
parties is a real choice.  Once in office, both candidates would be
indistinguishable.

Have a look at http://www.billionairesforbushorgore.com.

-- 
Benjamin Geer
http://www.btinternet.com/~amisuk/bg

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Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 07:27:20 +1000
From: Phil Graham <phil.graham@mailbox.uq.edu.au>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Nader is important: get rid of him!

At 12:47 PM 29/10/00 -0600, joy garnett wrote:
>j. garnett
>flaming liberal pragmatist

There's nothing liberal about Gore (aptly named), and I wonder what is at 
all pragmatic about US politics as it is (it seems so impractical to me). 
It's also really funny to me to see a self-proclaimed liberal so shrill in 
conserving the status quo. "Nader offers nothing different from Gore or 
Bush therefore vote for more of the same".

Errr .... yeah, right.

regards,
Phil

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From: underbelly@newsgrist.com
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 17:17:48 -0600
Subject: Re: <nettime> vote swap???

4warded to me just now:

> maybe this actually WILL put an end to our painful anti-bush problem. Please

> disseminate.

> http://www.voteswap2000.com/


Phil Graham wrote:

>
> There's nothing liberal about Gore (aptly named), and I wonder what is at
> all pragmatic about US politics as it is (it seems so impractical to me).

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From: underbelly@newsgrist.com
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 17:16:15 -0600
Subject: Re: <nettime> Nader is important: get rid of him!

phil
oh yeah, the status quo will really be changed once Bush is in---for sure. you
want that? you want to sacrifice so many things for your maybe-third party?
don't the so-called Nader progressives see the political naivete of that?
shrill-- that's what I've noted in the ultra-pc Nader backers-- if you
criticize their supposedly progressive liberal putch you get attacked for
supporting the status quo. it's old hat politics really. rhetoric and finger
pointing.

just wait. some of us remember what hell it was living under the republicans.
I know liberal dems in North Carolina who are terrified they'll lose the whole
effing congress to the repubs. because of what Nader is doing. Nader
supporters seem either to be too young to remember the reagan/bush years, or
too shut-up in the ivory towers of academia to have been forced to shuck their
dreamy idealist skins. shame shame for calling me shrill when there's hardly a
person on the left with the guts to criticize this situation. perhaps it
sounds shrill to your ears cuz it's a single wave frequency at the moment.
there are Greens out there who are not going to vote for Nader; what good is
having a green party four or eight or twelve years hence? There is a clock
ticking. by then who knows what the redneck oilmen in the white house will
have wrought. i for one am not will ing to take the cahnce. the Nader rhetoric
wears thin fast.

jg


Phil Graham wrote:

> At 12:47 PM 29/10/00 -0600, joy garnett wrote:
> >j. garnett
> >flaming liberal pragmatist
>
> There's nothing liberal about Gore (aptly named), and I wonder what is at
> all pragmatic about US politics as it is (it seems so impractical to me).
> It's also really funny to me to see a self-proclaimed liberal so shrill in
> conserving the status quo. "Nader offers nothing different from Gore or
> Bush therefore vote for more of the same".
>
> Errr .... yeah, right.
>
> regards,
> Phil

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From: underbelly@newsgrist.com
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 17:36:51 -0600
Subject: Re: <nettime> Nader is important: get rid of him!


actually, i never post to this list; i AM shrill becuz i'm really sick of
hearing so many uncontested pro-Nader holier-than-thou statements. enuf is
enuf. there are some thoughtful people out there---yeah, um, liberal dems,
whatever-- who don't buy the 3rd party biz at all-- and they aren't people you
can or should easily look down your nose at.

problem is, lists tend to be communities of people operating more or less
under a consensus; preaching to the converted. i'm sure maybe there's one
other nettimer out there who feels as i do; so be it. if i unsub (which i soon
might do--too much stuff in the inbox) i might as well go out w/ a bang over
sth that matters to all of us. bring on the long knives, have fun. i'm voting
Gore.

jg

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Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 14:10:09 -0600
From: Paula Chakravartty <pchakrav@ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Nader is important, get rid of fear

j. garnett
flaming liberal pragmatist wrote:

Nader's appeal to progressive-minded,  well-educated, disenfranchized liberals
is manipulative and misleading; it will make a difference, one very big
difference, if Bush gets in. This is so obvious and the appeal to 60s nostalgia
so pathetic and wrong-headed  you'd think any toddler could point it out at a
distance.

________________________________________________________________

Clearly 'flaming liberal pragmatists' don't get out much. The excitement
about Nader's campaign and the Green's long-term strategy (beyond November
7th) has little to do with '60s nostalgia'. The thousands of young Nader
activists on college campuses and highschools across the country are a
little more sophisticated than 'toddlers', and believe it or not, have
learnt a thing or two about student activism and building social movements.
This may be hard to believe for attention-hogging baby boomers who can't
see past their political shadow and the glory that was the 1960s. But this
isn't about the 60s, nor is it about 'consolidating votes' and giving up on
social and economic justice.  This is an important fight with tangible
consequences in building a long-term social movement beyond the cynical
Republicrat Presidential campaign.  Whether you vote for Nader or not, THAT
should make you feel better.

Paula Chakravartty

Paula Chakravartty
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
UCSD
9500 Gilman Dr
La Jolla CA, 92093 0503
(858) 534-2946
(858) 534-7315 (fx)

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