[Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: Re: Chris Hedges on 2008: "This may be the twilight of American democracy. And it is better to stand up and fight, even in vain, than not to fight at all."]

Wed Feb 28 15:48:29 PST 2007

The comments and passage seem to generally make sense.  Thanks!

  Ralph Nader, in my opinion, has been the number one PUBLIC SERVANT in the country, if there were any such thing; in a true sense of the word.

  Chances are if he ran on any party's ticket, he'd have my vote. 

  Don't particularly care for any form of religious fundamentalism either.

  :)

Wes Rolley <wrolley at charter.net> wrote:
  I am forwarding Lorna Salzman's comments regarding the Chris Hedges 
piece on Nader that has been referenced several times recently. Whether 
you agree with Lorna on everything, and I certainly do not, her comments 
here are worth reading and her passion is undeniable.
__ Lorn'a note follows __

Not one person has yet, to any degree, rebutted the importance of Ralph 
Nader's accomplishments or commitment. NOT ONE. What they have done is 
reveal their own failures and, worse, their continuing refusal to 
address the issues that Nader has raised in the course of his forty-year 
career. In this respect they are representatives of the Democratic 
Party, the Democrats writ small. Their only defense has been to indulge 
in personal attacks, with preference given to the accusation that Nader 
has a big "ego". What does this mean? Absolutely nothing. It is the last 
refuge of scoundrels and civil society criminals.

Because the neglect of these issues, bounded by the perimeter of 
corporate control, is what distinguishes the Democratic Party and its 
apologists. No amount of distracting insults and accusations can deny 
this. The Democrats, in which we include the self-important but 
diminutive pundits like Gitlin, Moore and Alterman, continue to 
deliberately avoid discussing Nader's accusations and issues. Not one of 
them has come up with a single example of the Democratic Party's vaunted 
progressivism and achievements. For those with short memories, Hedges 
reiterates the record of Bill Clinton below, and it would easily fit 
onto any traditional Republican list. Compared to Nixon, Clinton was a 
neo-con.

We need to remind ourselves of the huge gap between those of us who 
distrust and disagree with the abominable electoral system and the 
character of American culture and politics, and those who have meekly 
accepted it as the "best of all possible worlds". No one has stepped 
into this gap unless you include the brainless witless extreme left, 
whose praxis and objectives eerily mirror those of the capitalist system 
they profess to hate. A progressive revolutionary vision has been 
articulated (and then only partially and ineffectively) by some 
environmental leaders, decentralists, bioregionalists, and occasionally 
some honest libertarians (though not by minority groups like blacks and 
Hispanics). But the construction of a cohesive principled movement 
combining the best of these has not been attempted, at least not yet. 
These movements talk past one another, out of competition and compulsive 
ideologies that they as yet refuse to abandon.

The fact is that most American movements, outside those listed above, 
have bought the American dream of excessive consumerism, materialism, 
growth, development, all of which are not only ecologically disastrous 
but which fit neatly into the plan of corporations. Black Americans, for 
the most part, just want a piece of the wealth; they don't want to break 
the golden egg laid by the capitalist goose. Their major accomplishment 
has been to persuade non-blacks and paleoliberals that the biggest 
problems facing America are racism and poverty.

Now, it would seem dumb and cruel to deny this, wouldnt it? But isnt it 
dumber to ignore the fact that it has been PRECISELY the American dream 
of growth, consumption and accumulation of wealth that has DEPRIVED so 
many Americans of their health, jobs, wealth and dignity? Isn't it 
obvious that the refusal of liberals, centrists and Democrats to 
confront the inequity, injustice, unsustainability and 
anti-environmental character of American society has contributed to 
poverty and racial/economic injustice?

How can real progressives ever hope to explain this to 
liberals...explain that the system they trust and love, which is 
amenable to incremental but marginal reforms, IS the problem? And that 
only a full frontal attack on the system, including its electoral 
configuration, will address the problem? This is at the heart of the 
problem with the Democratic Party: that the social and economic 
injustices they traditionally abhorred grow directly out of the SUCCESS 
of the POLIITICAL and ECONOMIC system they support, not out of its FAILURE.

Of all the failed movements, the green movement/party is the most 
prominent and the most tragic, victim as it is of not just the usual 
leftist infighting but of the post-modern fads like Identity Politics 
and Political Correctness. What the enemies of Ralph Nader (and the 
present Green Party leadership) try to forget is the fact that in 2000, 
Ralph Nader collected nearly THREE MILLION VOTES on the Green Party 
line. Given that the national P enrollment was, at the most exaggerated 
count, three hundred thousand members, this means that over 2 1/2 
million Americans voted for Nader!!! And they were non-greens; they were 
Democrats, Republicans, independents, conservatives, and libertarians. 
They were that potential green constituency that lay out there, ripe for 
the picking, which the Green Party then, in alarm and panic, realized 
could be the future decision-making body in the party. Horror of 
horrors! The Greens in Dem clothing, the centrists, the paleoliberals, 
the self-serving phony populists like Michael Moore, the infiltrators 
like Medea Benjamin, all stood to be ousted from their positions of 
power by....choke.....AMERICANS! What could be scarier?

I don't blame the paleoliberals for hating Nader because I understand 
their fears. They have been revealed by Nader as chicken=hearted 
phonies, utter failures, and hypocrites. They have revealed themselves 
as the embodiment of failed liberalism, the faintly progressive wash 
painted over the cynical Democrats, and promoted by clever propaganda 
that distracted people from the fundamental problems by focusing on 
their symptoms instead of their causes.
And when someone prominent and respected gets the public's ear and 
exposes their failures, why of course they get mad. But that still 
doesn't make them right.

Lorna Salzman

-- 

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Being willing is not enough; 
We must do. –Leonardo DaVinci
Wesley C. Rolley
17211 Quail Court
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
(408)778-3024 - http://cagreening.blogspot.com

Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:19:55 -0500
To: esalzman at aba.org
From: Lorna Salzman <lsalzman at rcn.com>
Subject: Re: Chris Hedges on 2008: "This may be the twilight of American
democracy. And it is better to stand up and fight, even in vain, than
not to fight at all."

      Not one person has yet, to any degree, rebutted the importance of Ralph Nader's accomplishments or commitment. NOT ONE. What they have done is reveal their own failures and, worse, their continuing refusal to address the issues that Nader has raised in the course of his forty-year career. In this respect they are representatives of the Democratic Party, the Democrats writ small. Their only defense has been to indulge in personal attacks, with preference given to the accusation that Nader has a big "ego". What does this mean? Absolutely nothing. It is the last refuge of scoundrels and civil society criminals.

  Because the neglect of these issues, bounded by the perimeter of corporate control, is what distinguishes the Democratic Party and its apologists. No amount of distracting insults and accusations can deny this.  The Democrats, in which we include the self-important but diminutive pundits like  Gitlin, Moore and Alterman, continue to deliberately avoid discussing Nader's accusations and issues. Not one of them has come up with a single example of the  Democratic Party's vaunted progressivism and achievements. For those with short memories, Hedges reiterates the record of Bill Clinton below, and it would easily fit onto any traditional Republican list. Compared to Nixon, Clinton was a neo-con.

  We need to remind ourselves of the huge gap between those of us who distrust and disagree with the abominable electoral system and the character of American culture and politics, and those who have meekly accepted it as the "best of all possible worlds". No one has stepped into this gap unless you include the brainless witless extreme left, whose praxis and objectives eerily mirror those of the capitalist system they profess to hate. A progressive revolutionary vision has been articulated (and then only partially and ineffectively) by some environmental leaders, decentralists, bioregionalists, and occasionally some honest libertarians (though not by minority groups like blacks and Hispanics). But the construction of a cohesive principled movement combining the best of these has not been attempted, at least not yet. These movements talk past one another, out of competition and compulsive ideologies that they as yet refuse to abandon.

  The fact is that most American movements, outside those listed above, have bought the American dream of excessive consumerism, materialism, growth, development, all of which are not only ecologically disastrous but which fit neatly into the plan of corporations. Black Americans, for the most part, just want a piece of the wealth; they don't want to break the golden egg laid by the capitalist goose. Their major accomplishment has been to persuade non-blacks and  paleoliberals that the biggest problems facing America are racism and poverty.

  Now, it would seem dumb and cruel to deny this, wouldnt it? But isnt it dumber to ignore the fact that it has been PRECISELY the American dream  of growth, consumption and accumulation of wealth that has DEPRIVED so many Americans of their health, jobs, wealth and dignity? Isn't it obvious that the refusal of liberals, centrists and Democrats to confront the inequity, injustice, unsustainability and anti-environmental character of American society has contributed to poverty and  racial/economic injustice?

   How can real progressives ever hope to explain this to liberals...explain that the system they trust and love, which is amenable to incremental but marginal reforms, IS the problem? And that only a full frontal attack on the system, including its electoral configuration, will address the problem? This is at the heart of the problem with the Democratic Party: that the social and economic injustices they traditionally abhorred grow directly out of the SUCCESS of the POLIITICAL and ECONOMIC system they support, not out of its FAILURE.

  Of all the failed movements, the green movement/party is the most prominent and the most tragic, victim as it is of not just the usual leftist infighting but of the post-modern fads like Identity Politics and Political Correctness. What the enemies of Ralph Nader (and the present Green Party leadership) try to forget is the fact that in 2000, Ralph Nader collected nearly THREE MILLION VOTES on the Green Party line. Given that the national P enrollment was, at the most exaggerated count, three hundred thousand members, this means that over 2 1/2 million Americans voted for Nader!!! And they were non-greens; they were Democrats, Republicans, independents, conservatives, and libertarians. They were that potential green constituency that lay out there, ripe for the picking, which the  Green Party then, in alarm and panic, realized could be the future decision-making body in the party. Horror of horrors! The Greens in Dem clothing, the centrists, the paleoliberals, the
 self-serving phony populists like Michael Moore, the infiltrators like Medea Benjamin, all stood to be ousted from their positions of power by....choke.....AMERICANS! What could be scarier?

  I don't blame the paleoliberals for hating Nader because I understand their fears. They have been revealed by Nader as chicken=hearted phonies, utter failures, and hypocrites. They have revealed themselves as the embodiment of failed liberalism, the faintly progressive wash painted over the cynical Democrats, and promoted by clever propaganda that distracted people from the fundamental problems by focusing on their symptoms instead of their causes.
  And when someone prominent and respected gets the public's ear and exposes their failures, why of course they get mad. But that still doesn't make them right.

  Lorna Salzman

  ----- Original Message -----  From: Matt Funiciello  Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 12:48 PM  Subject: Chris Hedges on 2008: "This may be the twilight of American democracy. And it is better to stand up and fight, even in vain, than not to fight at all."  
  Chris Hedges Says He'll Work For Nader in 2008!     When the book, "War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning" came out, intellectuals and peace activists alike flocked to it. It was intelligent, well-reasoned and written by a true craftsman with some truly horrific war stories to tell and a keen eye to analyze the costs for all concerned. Hedges says that he will work for Ralph Nader in 2008 if he runs again (he will). In Hedge's article, he talks about the corporate rape of our government and how Nader is one of the only national figures to recognize this and to speak openly about the corrupt corporate ownership of our nation. He notes that someone with Ralph's incredible resume must have only entered the public arena to fight the "rapists" after their purchase of the Republican Lite Party back in the 1980's and this presumes that those who further the "ego trip" theory are just buying into propaganda for those too limited intellectually to think for themselves.     Thank
 you Chris Hedges for being brave enough to tell the truth! I sincerely hope that the "propaganda-eaters" don't malign and abuse you for telling the truth, though I suspect they will. They don't appreciate the truth at all and they don't like to talk about it either.     On a similar topic, I spent half a day on "Democratic Underground" about a month ago and was kicked off (with absolutely no explanation). For those unfamiliar, DU is a website with many forums to discuss "progressive" issues, like who you like better, Gore or Hillary. They also enjoy talking about which pro-war Democratic candidate they should vote for to end the war. Not exactly a hotbed of rational thought .... but they're Democrats. What do you expect?     The "progressives" I was chatting with were discussing the new Nader film, "An Unreasonable Man". They were literally calling Ralph an "idiot", "a fucking asshole" and a "scumbag". I can only assume that this Democrat venom is residual from the 2000
 presidential run although none of these idiots could explain their way out of a paper bag nor do they feel that they owe me, their enemy, any explanation. In their minds, Nader was that guy who was "not a factor" when they mailed out all the debate invitations but who became the "ONLY factor" when Al Gore ran such a weak-assed campaign that he lost his own home state and Clinton's, too! All I did on the forum with a particularly stupid chatter was call Hillary a "fascist". I backed that up by asking how someone can support the Imperialist/Big Oil/Ruling Class agenda and vote for illegal occupation and genocide and also refuse to debate your legitimate opponents, Tasini and Hawkins? I may have also pointed out to a few Nader-haters that there were many other third party candidates on the ballot in Florida in that infamous election and that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM had enough votes to "spoil it" for Gore. Using the Dems own questionable math skills, shouldn't they be
 propagandizing against all of those candidates! Why have they persisted in vilifying only ONE guy, especially when that one guy has done more for them than any elected official has ever done?     I guess they don't like having a conversation or they're just frightened that their "logic" doesn't make any sense? Very strange behavior, indeed. These "sheeple" who call themselves progressives lack even a basic willingness to try and defend their viewpoint and their blind obedience to their party bosses. This fearful behavior fortifies me in my certitude that Ralph is right and that we need to support him in whatever number of elections he may choose to run in.     Peace to all those with open minds who are brave enough to stand up and fight!      ;-)     Matt     Matt Funiciello  mattfuniciello at earthlink.net  Two Political Parties = One Massive Corporation     
   Pariah or Prophet?
  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070226_an_unreasonably_principled_man/
  Posted on Feb 26, 2007
  By Chris Hedges
  I can’t imagine why Ralph Nader would run again.  He has been branded as an egomaniac, blacklisted by the media, plunged into debt by a Democratic Party machine that challenged his ballot access petitions and locked him out of the presidential debates. Most of his friends and supporters have abandoned him, and he is almost universally reviled for throwing the 2000 election to George W. Bush.
  I can’t imagine why he would want to go through this one more time.  But when Nader hinted in San Francisco that he might run if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton became the Democratic Party nominee, I knew I would be working for his campaign if he indeed entered the race.  He understands that American democracy has become a consumer fraud and that if we do not do battle with the corporations that, in the name of globalization, are cannibalizing the country for profit, our democratic state is doomed.
  I spent the last two years reporting and writing “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” The rise of the Christian right—the most dangerous mass movement in American history—can be traced directly to the corporate rape of America.  This movement, which calls for the eradication of real and imagined enemies, all branded as “satanic,” at home and abroad, is an expression of rage.  This rage rises out of the deep distortions and dislocations that have beset tens of millions of Americans shunted aside in the new global marketplace.  The massive flight of manufacturing and professional jobs overseas, the ruthless slashing of state and federal assistance and the rise of an unchecked American oligarchy have plunged many Americans into deep economic and personal despair.  They have turned, because of this despair, to “Christian” demagogues who promise magic, miracles, angels, the gospel of prosperity and a fantastic Christian utopia.  And the Republicans
 and the Democrats are equally culpable for this assault.
  There are only two solutions left.  We must organize to fight the corporate state, to redirect our national wealth and resources to fund a massive antipoverty campaign and curb the cycle of perpetual war that enriches the military-industrial complex and by extension the two political parties that dominate Washington, or we must accept an inevitable Christo-fascism backed by these corporations.  Don’t expect glib Democratic politicians such as John Edwards, Sen. Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama to address these issues.  They are, as Nader understands, hostage to corporate money.
  Nader, perhaps better than anyone else, has grasped the long, disastrous rise of the corporate state.
  He and his small army of activists helped write citizen legislation in the 1960s and 1970s that gave us, among many bills, the Clean Air Act, the Mine and Health Safety Act and the Freedom of Information Act.  He worked with and was courted by sympathetic Democrats.  Presidential candidate George McGovern saw him as a potential running mate, but Nader refused to be enticed directly into the political arena.  He was a skilled Washington insider, one of the greatest idealists within the democratic system.
  But the corporations grew tired of Nader’s activism.  They mounted a well-oiled campaign to destroy him.  These early attempts were clumsy and amateurish, such as General Motor’s use of private detectives to try to dig up dirt on his private life; they found none. The campaign was exposed and led to a public apology by GM.  Nader was awarded $425,000 in damages, which he used to fund citizen action groups.  
  Lewis Powell, who was the general counsel to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and would later be appointed to the Supreme Court, wrote a memo in August 1971 that expressed corporate concerns.  “The single most effective antagonist of American business is Ralph Nader,” the memo read, “a legend in his own time and an idol to millions of Americans. ... There should be no hesitation to attack [Nader and others].”
  Corporations poured hundreds of millions into the assault.  They set up pseudo-think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, which invented bogus disciplines including cost-benefit and risk-management analysis, all geared to change the debate from health, labor and safety issues to the rising cost of big government.  They ran sophisticated ad campaigns to beguile voters.  These corporations wrenched apart, through lavish campaign donations and intensive and shady lobbying, the ties between Nader’s public interest groups and his supporters in the Democratic Party.  Washington, by the time they were done, was besieged with 25,000 corporate lobbyists and 9,000 corporate action committees.
  When Ronald Reagan, the corporate pitch man, swept into office he set out to dismantle some 30 governmental regulations, most put into place by Nader and his allies, all of which curbed the abuse of corporations.  The Reagan White House worked to gut 20 years of Nader legislation.  And, once a fixture on Capital Hill, Nader became a pariah.
  Nader, however, did not give up.  He turned to local community organizing, assisting grass-roots campaigns around the country such the one to remove benzene, known to cause cancer, from paint in GM car plants.  But by the time Bill Clinton and Al Gore took office the corporate state was ascendant.  Nader and his citizen committees were frozen out by Democrats as well as Republicans.  Clinton and Gore never met with him.
  “We tried every way to get the Democrats to pick up on issues that really commanded the felt concerns and daily life of millions of Americans,” Nader says in the new documentary about his life, “An Unreasonable Man,” “but these were issues that corporations didn’t want attention paid to, and so when people say why did you do this in 2000, I say I’m a 20-year veteran of pursuing the folly of the least worse between the two parties.”
  The Clinton administration pushed through NAFTA, gutted welfare, gave up on universal healthcare, deregulated the communications industry and abolished federal aid to families with dependent children.  It further empowered the growing corporate state and exacerbated the despair that has fueled its allies in the Christian right.
  “For 20 years,” Nader says in the film, “we saw the doors closing on us in Washington, on our citizen groups and a lot of other citizen groups, and what are we here for?  To improve the country.  We couldn’t get congressional hearings, even with the Democrats in charge.”
  There is a fascinating rage—and rage is the right word—expressed by many on the left in this fine film about Nader.  Todd Gitlin, Eric Alterman and Michael Moore, along with a host of former Nader’s Raiders, spit out venomous insults toward Nader, a man they profess to have once admired, the most common charge being that Nader is a victim of his oversized ego.
  This anger is the anger of the betrayed.  But they were not betrayed by Nader.  They betrayed themselves.  They allowed themselves to buy into the facile argument of “the least worse” and ignore the deeper, subterranean assault on our democracy that Nader has always addressed.
  It was an incompetent, corporatized Democratic Party, along with the orchestrated fraud by the Republican Party, that threw the 2000 election to Bush, not Ralph Nader.  Nader received only 2.7 percent of the vote in 2000 and got less than one-half of 1 percent in 2004.  All of the third-party candidates who ran in 2000 in Florida—there were about half a dozen of them—got more votes than the 537-vote difference between Bush and Gore.  Why not go after the other third-party candidates?  And what about the 10 million Democrats who voted in 2000 for Bush?  What about Gore, whose campaign was so timid and empty—he never mentioned global warming—that he could not carry his home state of Tennessee?  And what about the 2004 cartoon-like candidate, John Kerry, who got up like a Boy Scout and told us he was reporting for duty and would bring us “victory” in Iraq?  
  Nader argues that there are few—he never said no—differences between the Democrats and the Republicans.  And during the first four years of the Bush administration the Democrats proved him right.  They authorized the war in Iraq.  They stood by as Bush stacked the judiciary with “Christian” ideologues.  They let Bush, in violation of the Constitution, pump hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into faith-based organizations that discriminate based on belief and sexual orientation and openly proselytize. They stood by as American children got fleeced by No Child Left Behind.  Democrats did not protest when federal agencies began to propagate “Christian” pseudo-science about creationism, reproductive rights and homosexuality.  And the Democrats let Bush further dismantle regulatory agencies, strip American citizens of constitutional rights under the Patriot Act and other draconian legislation, and thrust impoverished Americans aside through the corporate-sponsored
 bankruptcy bill.  It is a stunning record.

Bush is the worst president in American history.  If Gore, or Kerry, had the spine to take him on, to challenge corporate welfare, corporate crime, the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate bailouts and issues such as labor law reform, if either had actually stood up to these corporate behemoths on behalf of the working and middle class, rather than mutter thought-terminating clichés about American greatness, he could have won with a landslide.  But Gore and Kerry did not dare to piss off their corporate paymasters.
  There are a few former associates in the film who argue that Nader is tarnishing his legacy, and by extension their own legacy.  But Nader’s legacy is undiminished.  He fights his wars against corporate greed with a remarkable consistency.  He knows our democratic state is being hijacked by the same corporate interests that sold us unsafe automobiles and dangerous and shoddy products.  This is a battle not for some unachievable ideal but to save our democracy.
  “I don’t care about my personal legacy,” Nader says in the film.  “I care about how much justice is advanced in America and in our world day after day.  I’m willing to sacrifice whatever ‘reputation’ in the cause of that effort.  What is my legacy?  Are they going to turn around and rip out seat belts out of cars, air bags out of cars?”
  These corporations, and their enraged and manipulated followers in the Christian right, tens of millions of them, if left unchecked will propel us into despotism.  The corporate state has rigged our system, hollowed out our political process and steadily stripped citizens of constitutional rights, federal and state protection and assistance.  This may be the twilight of American democracy.  And it is better to stand up and fight, even in vain, than not to fight at all.
  Chris Hedges’ latest book is “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”
--  
  NOW PLAYING AT YOUR LOCAL MARXIST CINEMA: "DR. STRANGELEFT, OR, HOW I  STOPPED WORRYING AND LEARNED TO LOVE THE BOMBERS".

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction" (B. Pascal)

"We are already fighting World War III and I am sorry to say we are winning. It is the war against the earth".....Raymond Dasmann

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