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Ralph Nader: at war with the oligarchy
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Only three weeks ago, the US population back home felt itself moving beyond Iraq. The “prison abuse” scandal at Abu Ghraib prison and what it revealed of American torture policy led a slew of Democratic Party loyalists and columnists to begin feting the sure signs of victory for John Kerry in this fall’s elections.
Still, Americans will realize that their government’s spin on the facts in Iraq, at home and on the War on Terror, has not subsided at all. By June 30, America will still be in Iraq, and John Kerry may be forced into finally taking a stance on the war.
| The US government’s spin on the facts in Iraq, at home and on the War on Terror, has not subsided. |
Senator Kerry’s lack of a clear position on the Iraq war has certainly not been through a lack of pressure; his two most astute rivals, the independent candidate Ralph Nader and the Democratic hopeful, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, seized upon a clear foreign policy outline from the moment the parochial election campaign whistle blew. Both contenders have explicitly called for a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and a restoration of the country’s sovereignty. To back up their respective positions, both have provided the public with an outline of a “road map” to withdrawal.1
Ralph Nader
Faced with the Democratic Party’s false promises on progressive policies, Ralph Nader’s decision to run is set against major odds. Blistering criticism from America’s liberals and center-left has been added this time around to the obstacles his campaign faces. Nonetheless, Nader cannot merely be dismissed as indulging in a case of narcissistic folly in this most decisive of election years.
His significant finish with 6.4 percent of the popular vote (though not one electoral college) in 2000 made him a viable contender, which is exactly what led to the portrayal given of Nader’s decision by the US mass media. Put simply, it was an exercise in character assassination. As part of their purported news coverage, all major outlets in the US announced that Nader was blamed by that nebulous “many” for the defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 elections.
Needless to say, it is no fairer to blame Nader than to omit citing the indirect voting scheme and collegial system—let alone the highly controversial outcome of the 2000 vote. Depending on who’s doing the counting, Al Gore got anywhere between 340,000 and 540,000 votes more than Bush in direct voting, i.e. the “popular vote,” while the Florida State Supreme Court was overruled by its Federal superior when allowing a full vote recount to take place2. When it is painful to point to legalized electoral fraud as the source of Gore’s defeat, trampling on an underdog will do just fine. Nader has fought consistently against being pegged in that role.
The former Green Party candidate’s own statistics point to a number of traditional Republican voters as having voted for him in 2000, and prepared to do so this year as well. This is not merely beside the point. Voices from the “old” Republicans, such as Kevin Philips, the author of Wealth and Democracy, see their party as having been taken over by the neoconservatives on the one hand, and the Christian Right on the other, both converging to fulfill the wishes of the country’s very rich. For Philips, the country’s political system has become a plutocracy: a government by the rich for the rich. While there has been no clear endorsement of Nader by disenchanted Republicans, they are seeking solutions elsewhere than in the Democrats’ camp.
Why should there be any reason to doubt Nader’s claim? His criticism of the two-party exclusionary system—or “duopoly”—that has ossified American politics is confirmed by Dennis Kucinich. As a former mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, and Democratic Congressman from the same state, Kucinich is perhaps the most persistent social activist within the current ranks of Democratic presidential candidates. He was among the very few representatives to vote against the invasion of Iraq as well as the Patriot Act. These two men are exhibits of the current organizational difficulties experienced by what the late Edward Said termed the “other America.”
By all accounts, one of the major obstacles is the Commission on Presidential Debates. While it is logical to have only one candidate per party participate in the televised presidential debates, it is highly unbalanced to exclude third and fourth party candidates. This is what happened to Nader in 2000, at the behest of both Bush and Gore. Nader is working hard to “break the grip of [that] cynical canard against the right of the American people to hear more voices and choices.”3 In its stead, he has publicized the Citizen’s Debate Commission, a nonprofit institution controlled by neither candidates nor parties.
His Battles Are Legion
| Nader and Kucinich insist on providing answers and policy proposals before the election. |
Ralph Nader was born in 1934 to parents of Lebanese origin. After studies in law at the US’s finest Ivy League universities, he became brilliantly involved in a typically American offshoot of democratic politics: consumer advocacy, i.e. standing up for the rights of consumers. These include the right to protection and safety when using industrial products, such as cars.4 Indeed, one way most North Americans unknowingly celebrate Ralph Nader is by buckling up their seat belts when driving. Such laws, including amendments on air bags, manufacturer’s recall, crash tests and other safety features, can be traced back to the 1966 Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, fostered by Nader.
Nader’s battles against corporations are legion. His legislative record is powerful. Back in 1972, author Robert Buckhorn could already draw up a sizeable list: “since 1966, Nader has been responsible . . . for the passage of . . . the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act (1968), Wholesale Meat Act (1967), Radiation Control Act (1968), Wholesale Poultry Products Act (1967), Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969), and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (1970).” 5
Since then, Nader’s criticism of the fraudulent business practices of many of the US’s most respected corporations has leaked into the mainstream. While media-corporations in the US tried to ignore his campaign in 2000, Lewis H. Lapham, editor of Harper’s, countered the trend, personally running an interview with Nader and putting his picture on the September edition above the headline “A Citizen in Full.”
In an eight-page ad-proof essay, Lapham’s striking prose gave Nader all the room he needed to explain his platform and point fingers: “The oligarchy never wants anyone to know what, or how much, ordinary citizens can accomplish if they learn to use the power of their own laws. Convince the kids that all the wars are over, that history is at an end, that nothing important remains to be discovered, done, or said, and maybe they won’t ask why a corporate CEO receives a salary four hundred times greater than the lowest paid worker in his own company.” 6
Several candidates and national figures in the United States have spoken out against the extreme concentration of wealth for which corporate boards are responsible. Even Business Week and Fortune raise the issue from time to time. Only Nader, though, has put this mutation in the terms of an oligarchic takeover of American democracy.
The fame and success of his battles notwithstanding, Nader has not been exempted from a fair share of enemies from all corners of the political spectrum. A number of leftist intellectuals have claimed that he amassed a fortune from stock investments in the very companies he fought as a consumer advocate.7 Other critics claim that he was too silent in the delicate post-9/11 months, when even mainstream Americans started calling for a bloodthirsty culling of the organizations and countries they perceived to have sponsored terrorists.
What Nader was doing at the time was grassroots organizing and lobbying, as well as writing on the corporate takeover of American business. Since announcing his candidacy, he has spoken out against the American government’s torture policy at all of its post-9/11 POW camps. He has attacked the Bush government’s “war” on the Bill of Rights and civil liberties and “on the egregious stereotyping and violations of due process to people of minority status, recent immigrants or long-time immigrants, bearing the brunt of the violations of our civil liberties, especially Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans.”8
Last April at Chicago’s Columbia College, he even called for President George W. Bush’s impeachment. He argued that "when you plunge our country into war on a platform of fabrications and deceptions, and you bring back thousands of American soldiers who are sick, injured or dead, and that war is unconstitutionally authorized to begin with, Mr. Bush's behavior qualifies for the high crimes and misdemeanor impeachment clause of the Constitution."9
What has become clear is that Nader has not entered the electoral fray as an outsider merely intent on destabilizing the Democratic Party, as Al Gore and other Democrat bigwigs would have it. Moreover, he has approached the Kerry campaign in a bid to discuss broader issues than Iraq, and has sought to compel Senator Kerry to give a formal outline of his approach to withdrawing Coalition troops from that Middle Eastern country.10
Dennis Kucinich
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| Dennis Kucinich: voice of a tolerant, morally rigorous US? |
In that regard, Dennis Kucinich can also be congratulated. Kucinich, 58, began his career in municipal politics in Cleveland, Ohio, where he served as mayor in 1977-1979. He has been a congressman since 1997, representing the Democratic Party for Ohio State.
America for Kucinich is a land of multiple horizons and cultural diversity. In his choice to run from within the Democratic Party,11 he has perhaps maintained an air of legitimacy about his desire to see Bush driven from office that Nader has only been partially successful in acquiring. On the other hand, as the poorest of the original nine candidates, he has also had to bow to the Democratic Party pantheon. The latter had tempted delegates briefly with an anti-war ballot by letting emotions be stirred up with Howard Dean earlier in the year. Then, it succinctly snuffed the flames out by orchestrating Kerry’s success in the primaries.
In his work in Congress, Kucinich has achieved a progressive record. He is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and was instrumental in saving a provision of the Clear Air Act. He has also drawn support from a hodgepodge group of American Muslim associations which keeps a website devoted to the candidate.12 Further on the domestic front, his social policy platform includes universal healthcare.
Significantly, Kucinich has picked up on one of the most disturbing issues of the upcoming elections: the question of electronic voting. Following the confusion of the paper ballot in many Florida ridings in 2000, and with the success of an entirely electronic vote in Brazil in 2002, many in America’s political establishment have called for electronic voting as a safe and foolproof alternative. On April 23, Kucinich issued a call "to suspend immediately the implementation of any voting systems that do not provide a 100 percent reliable paper-trail back-up to corroborate results."13 The back-up theoretically prevents software manipulation or other technical vulnerabilities from arising through potential conflicts of interest and partisan support amongst system owners and conceivers.
This means that Kucinich has been keen on exploiting issues the mainstream Dems want to steer clear of, namely the sense of conspiracy and oligarchic tyranny that permeates the political air in the US these days. Hence, John Kerry is the only candidate for a camp that may have little else to offer than an “anyone but Bush” platform. Little if anything suggests that his approach to the War on Terror will differ significantly. The wildcard is whether Kerry’s domestic policy will also be a sequel to Bush’s magic acts for the richest.
| John Kerry’s camp has little to offer other than an “anyone but Bush” platform. |
In that light, was it a symptom of editorial confusion that led the New York Times to declare in an article in early May that Kucinich was still a contender, or was it an attempt to undermine the strategies of the Kerry campaign? There can be little doubt that Kucinich is the grass roots politician who has most tried to break the deadlock of the big federal machine from within the system.
It is well-known that Kerry’s speeches since the Fallujah and al-Najaf uprisings have double-talked their way to keeping troops in Iraq under his mandate, should he be elected in November. Meanwhile, the tone of the Times article zeroed in on Kucinich’s anti-war stance. A cocktail of quotes was compiled, from people ranging from war vets to teachers, including one from “Don Norton, 71, a retired corrections official wearing a ‘No War’ button. ‘If it wasn’t for Kucinich, there wouldn’t be anyone speaking for [those of us who are against the war].’” 14
Kucinich’s gambit may be even more detrimental for party advocates who believe that the best way to beat Bush is by reproducing him. Amidst all the paranoia of recent decades, Kucinich may be the highest profile candidate to express the grass roots voice of a tolerant and morally rigorous United States that many of us recognize through its arts, its jazz, its independent journalism and its universities.
Now What?
So when the question is “Now what?” Americans will not find the answers within the two parties that have brought them to the current state of decomposition. On the edge lie Nader and Kucinich: two politicians who insist on providing detailed answers and policy proposals before the election, instead of big digit promises meant to take us to the moon.
Both Nader and Kucinich may not make much difference to the world right now. But the recklessness of US behavior is what concerns us. The world must also help America remain tied to its obligations and its productive potential. That means providing it with options. And options, at least, are what Nader and Kucinich seem to be providing.
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