A friend of mine says, “Ralph Nader is an idiot”, just because Nader is running for president again.
I fucking HATE this line of thinking. Nothing pissed me off more than when watching the documentary on Nader recently and seeing how everyone fucking turned on him in 2004 after championing him in 2000. At least Nader has principals and stands by them. Nearly every ‘liberal’ voice that I had respected proved to me that they had no fucking principals.
Michael Moore in 2000 at a Nader rally: “If you’re voting for the lesser of two evils, you’re still voting for evil!” Four years later, Moore was on the anti-Nader bandwagon.
If we believe in democracy and having choices and voices, then anyone should be able to run for president. 2000 was not Nader’s fault. Gore, and the democrats in general, should have run a better campaign. Just like when teams complained about the Patriots running up the score on them: it’s not the Patriots job to take Tom Brady off the field and stop scoring. It’s YOUR defense’s job to get on the field and stop them (the Giants did it; Philly and Baltimore nearly did it). The democrats should have run better campaigns in 2000 and 2004. They could have stopped Nader from running in 2004 if they had picked some of his causes (just some simple ones) and championed them. But the democrats didn’t.
Honestly - whenever I hear this vitriol against Nader, a man who has championed consumer rights far more than anyone currently running or serving this country, it sounds like people wanting a fucking dictatorship. It’s like the movie ‘moon over paramour’ (or something like that) where there are two posters for the same dictator - red and blue. One guy asks the other who he’s going to vote for, “red or blue”. The other guy says, “it doesn’t matter, it’s a free dictatorship.”
I have the right to vote for whomever I want. And on principal, I will cast my vote for whomever I feel best represents what I want out of a leader. I’m not going to vote for someone just because they where an elephant or donkey lapel pin. I don’t care if my one single vote hands the election over to another eight years of Bush tyranny.
The two party system sucks big time fucking hairy nutsacks. I think South Park represented it best with the “Giant Douche versus Turd Sandwich” vote for school mascot (one of the greatest, and saddest, South Park episodes).
What sucks even more than the two party system is the electoral college being based on representative seats plus senate seats. This causes a vote in Wyoming to count four times as much as a vote in california. Now that’s not fucking fair at all.
The problem isn’t Nader. The whole system is flawed and corrupt and I feel like the anti-Nader rhetoric comes from people who would like to see it stay that way as long as they think they can rig the system to swing to their guy who may be the lesser of two evils.
It’s still evil.
And honestly - seeing the response of so many people against Nader in that film made me absolutely sick with the democratic party and the people who claim to champion its causes. They do not believe in freedom or standing for principals. They’re the selfish, self-absorbed, narcissistic pricks. “Oh, look at me, I write for the nation.” Bit whoop. Nader actually fucking fought hard for things like seatbelts in cars. Big auto wouldn’t do it. They resisted like hell. We all take this for granted now. But it took someone with actual balls to stand up and fight for something so seemingly trivial (now) but which has been a big deal when it comes to saving lives. What has Eric Alterman done for us lately?
The general democratic response to Nader shows that most of these people have no spine, no guts, and they don’t deserve any glory. They certainly don’t deserve my support.
Blaming Nader is a sign of weakness, and a sign that the general democratic party and pundits can't own up to their own fucking mistakes. If they can't do that, they can't lead.
Posted by Jeff Shell at
12:47 PM
