BREAKING NEWS: Ralph Nader is In!

On Meet the Press this morning, Ralph Nader declared his candidacy.

If Ralph Nader is the nominee of the Green Party, I intend to support him 100% regardless of what slogans and hacks are being advertised and sold in million-dollar TV ads by the One-Corporate-Party-With-Two-Names.

Alex Walker
Los Angeles Greens

Ralph Nader On Meet the Press



Posted on America Online, February 24, 2008.
Ralph Nader Enters Presidential Race

WASHINGTON (Feb. 24) - Ralph Nader said Sunday he will run for president as a third-party candidate, criticizing the top White House contenders as too close to big business and pledging to repeat a bid that will "shift the power from the few to the many."

Nader, 73, said most people are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties due to a prolonged Iraq war and a shaky economy. The consumer advocate also blamed tax and other corporate-friendly policies under the Bush administration that he said have left many lower- and middle-class people in debt.

"You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized and disrespected," he said. "You go from Iraq, to Palestine to Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bumbling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts."

"In that context, I have decided to run for president," Nader told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Nader also criticized Republican candidate John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton for failing to support full Medicare for all or cracking down on Pentagon waste and a "bloated military budget. He blamed that on corporate lobbyists and special interests, which he said dominate Washington, D.C., and pledged in his third-party campaign to accept donations only from individuals.

"The issue is do they have the moral courage, do they have the fortitude to stand up to corporate powers and get things done for the American people," Nader said. "We have to shift the power from the few to the many."

Culture of Blame

There are many reasons to feel good about being a member of the Green Party. Even at the most basic level, one can always keep your bumper sticker that reads "Don't Blame Me, I Voted Green." We have not yet had to apologize on behalf of the Green Party for the actions of our Congressman or our President.

But there is one tendency in the culture of the Green Party, especially the Green Party of CA, that truly hinder our growth and, if we continue, will forever relegate the Green Party to being an interesting footnote in an era when others have become known as the "green" party. We do love to play the blame game.

Maybe it is because so many Green look to the party to save this country from all of the things that they already blame on others. On top of that, we actively encourage this behavior by focusing our energies so much on demonstrations against the war, against Bush and Cheney, against Walmart. Even in the demonstrations around immigration, there was almost never a time when Greens were stepping forward with a plan that said what we were for.

Given that culture, one should not be surprised when those who get frustrated with our lack of electoral success play the same blame game internally. They are quick to point out all of the things that anyone has ever done to weaken the party and somehow, they never seem to get beyond replacing those whom they blame. For example, the following was posted to a GPCA email list today.

M. Borenstein and Peggy Lewis have been performing the County Council support function, but more people are needed. The job involves going out to troubled locals and offering assistance. Faramarz Nabavi went on to point out that the group's role is to make suggestions, not to take over and fix locals.

The implication is that our lack of a substantive presence in San Bernardino County can be placed solely on two people. This blame game, so destructive at the GPCA level, is even more prevalent in the National Party where on National Committee Delegate today complained that...

... there is a core group of players who chart our course. This
information has recently come to light and everyone should be aware of this.

Do we want our 501c3s writing our legislation like K street does?
_____
"We are hoping for several organizations to sponsor this exploration. They are Liberty Tree, the Green Institute, the Green Network, and the Green Horizon Foundation."

In both of these cases, there is a remedy close at hand. One needs look no further than the tips of the fingers that typed these notes. If we fail, it is because we would rather slay dragons than plow the fields. The Green Party is filled with erstwhile Don Quixotes in a world filled with windmills.

In the meantime, I watch the Democratic Party in my home town tackle local issues, work directly with youth in Young Democrats, organize support for local candidates and, when the time comes that they need to, manage to harvest the results in the general elections.

I am losing patience with those who only want to reboot the party. There is a very simple way to do that. One has only to build local organizations to the point where new leaders emerge. In the overall competition, those who are serving the needs of the people will end up as the new leadership. It may be some of the same people that are there now and that is OK.

The word "whining" came to describe the Romney presidential campaign. The same word can be used to describe so much of the internal Green Party communications. After a while, it begins to sound shrill to my ears, as if the NC delegate was miffed that they were not invited to join the group.

For a party that claims grassroots democracy as a guiding principle, we fail so often to work at the grassroots level. In the communities were we do, we have more success that in those where we continually focus on the big issue of the day.

We have the option of building this party from the ground up or we can hope for a Saviour (Nader, McKinney, Kucinich) to provide some sort of deus ex machina. While the latter provide good political theater, they may also leave a lot of empty seat if it does not play in Peoria.

Choose your future.

Robert Scheer Debates Ralph Nader

Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer goes head to head with progressive icon Ralph Nader, who denies the charge that he has been a spoiler and challenges the value of the Democratic Party.

This is a good debate. Click to hear the audio podcast:

http://www.truthdig.com/podcast/audio/20071009_robert_scheer_debates_ralph_nader/

Musings on Presidential Politics

I have posted a couple of entries at Green Commons concerning the search for a Green Party presidential candidate. It seem that everyone has a gut feel that we need a candidate with national name recognition and that is a very limiting fact. Those with the name recognition and a real desire to win the presidency will not be likely to abandon the Democratic Party for the Greens. It may be more useful to seek that in a well known disgruntled Republican, like Pete McCloskey.

This week, the speculation arose about a rumored conversation between Nader and Al Gore in which Nader supposedly tried to interest Gore in running for President as a Green. Coming so close to April 1, I would hazard a guess that this was something that was "leaked" earlier than was intended. Still, it did appear in Insight Magazine. It was even discussed at the center of Democratic bloggins, DailyKos.

So, the list of possible candidates with a national name recognition is now:

• Elaine Brown
  
• Al Gore?????
  
• Dennis Kucinich?????
  
• Cynthia McKinney?????
  
• Ralph Nader
  
• Cindy Sheehan

Note: All of those with the ????? are Democrats. While all three have expressed some frustration with the current state of affairs in this country, or even with the Democratic Party, only McKinney has shown any interest in talking to Greens, with Greens on any occasion.

Note 2: Of that list, only Elaine Brown has announced that they are a candidate.

I have my personal doubts that we will have any luck in getting any of those Democrats to actually run as a Green. Based on previous statements and committments, we know that Kucinich will not abandon the Democratic Party. I doubt that McKinney will either. We know that Nader will not join the Green Party.

Maybe the best course is to make this a campaign of issues rather than personalities, to define the issues around which we want to run this campaign, and then to select the candidate who can best articulate those issues. We might field a different candidate if we want to make the Peace the number one issue as opposed to global warming / environment as opposed to corruption and excessive corporate power.

Personally, I would like to have seen Winona LaDuke remain more active in Green Party politics. She is also a candidate that I could very easily support.