[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."]
Andrea Dorey
andid at cagreens.org
Wed Mar 7 18:39:19 PST 2007
I guess you don't listen to KPFA? On Democracy Now, Nader left the
door wide open.
Andrea
On Feb 28, 2007, at 10:53 PM, JamBoi wrote:
> Thing is he won't be running on any party ticket. Independent.
> End of
> story.
>
> Vote Green for Change!
>
> Drew
>
> --- Bob Alavi <baalavi at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sosfbay-discuss mailing list
>> sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
>> http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>> Be a PS3 game guru.
>> Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo!
> Games.> _______________________________________________
>> sosfbay-discuss mailing list
>> sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
>> http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss
>>
>
>
> ___________________
>
> JamBoi
> Jammy The Sacred Cow Slayer
>
> "Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
> http://dailyJam.blogspot.com
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> ______________
> TV dinner still cooling?
> Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV.
> http://tv.yahoo.com/
> _______________________________________________
> sosfbay-discuss mailing list
> sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
> http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss
>
More information about the sosfbay-discuss
mailing list