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June 10, 2005
Ralph’s Solutions
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Ralph Nader is a very much nicer man, when you look at his life and his speeches, than Alan Greenspan, although neither has been able to achieve anything substantial in American RealPolitik.
One is a Sapphire Pool, the other a Biscuit Basin.
Posted by: tante aime | Jun 10 2005 18:07 utc | 1
When the history books are written……… that’s if we have a post-oil history……… the scholars will say that the most brilliant tactic of the Rethugs was the creation and funding of Nader to keep power.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 10 2005 18:32 utc | 3
Look over there! Ralph Nader! It’s all his fault.
WASHINGTON, May 10 (Xinhuanet) — The US Congress on Tuesday approved the final version of a bill providing an additional 82 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, sending it to President George W. Bush for his signature.
The Senate approved the legislation by a 100-0 vote. The House of Representatives approved the measure last week.
Posted by: biklett | Jun 10 2005 18:47 utc | 4
If not for Ralph Nader’s primordial refusnikism with GMC, America would never have had Chicago 7, Watergate, or I’d even venture, Billmon.org. The majority of bloggers wouldn’t even know what I’m talking about, judging the juvenile demographic.
Everyone today would wear Blue Suits, Drink Red KoolAid, live in Green Houses, drive 2.2 SUV’s and worship Chairman Greenspan, GMC and the RNC.
That Nader lost the Dem’s 2000 is Monday morning hand-wringing. 911 would still have happened, Al Gore would still have stared for seven minutes, only today we’d be taxed out the anus, living on the streets, and begging EU for spare change.
Remember 1973-1977 under Carter, Fed rate 14%?
Posted by: tante aime | Jun 10 2005 18:48 utc | 5
tante aime,
If not for Ralph Nader, Watergate (assuming you mean that Nixon would never have resigned because of events related to the exposure of the DNC HQ break-in) would have never happened? Please try to enlighten me, or mature one.
Why do you assume that 9/11 “still would have happened” has Gore prevailed in the Florida debacle? Don’t you think a Gore administration would have paid more attention to the warning signs in the months before. Even if the 9/11 attack wouldn’t have been prevented under a hypothetical Gore presidency, how do figure that we’d be “taxed out the anus”, given that the GOP would likely still be in control of at least the House? And why would we be “living on the streets” with Gore. Are you suggesting that Gore would have done more damage to the economy that Bush has?
Finally, I must ask: Are you insane?
Posted by: Bragan | Jun 10 2005 19:25 utc | 6
911 would still have happened
Just like it did in 2000 and every year before and after.
Of course you meant the planes would still have hit the WTC and the Pentagon if Gore had been President.
Curious how you can so confidently make such a claim knowing what we know now about August 6, 2001.
Posted by: bcf | Jun 10 2005 19:31 utc | 7
Remember 1973-1977 under Carter, Fed rate 14%?
Wow, your history books are sure different than mine. So, is there any other reason we should believe anything you have to say?
Posted by: bcf | Jun 10 2005 19:36 utc | 8
We hate him because he and some others of us said, “yeah, I know he doesn’t have a chance, but things maybe need to get worse before they will begin to get better,” and now it’s so dark we curse the day we fell into that line of sh*t.
It’s really hard when it feels like we’re in so dark an hour, but at least Ralph is out there putting his ass on the line and doing his best.
Which is more than I can say I’m doing.
I’m glad I’m not in Ralph’s or Howard’s shoes because I know I’d be fuc*ing up far more and more often than both of them combined.
Where the hell is the Avatar we need now?
Posted by: Juannie | Jun 10 2005 20:02 utc | 9
I rarely find myself in fundamental disagreement with Billmon, but his vilification of the candidates and supporters of third parties is nothing short of ad misericordian and downright undemocratic. I agree that a “united front” is necessary to implement change in the corrupt establishment that American politics, but anyone who still sees the Democrat ticket as an “opposition party” (or even as anything less than entirely complicit with the GOP) is just playing the old partisan game. There is nothing unusual about “Democrats” like Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller except their inability to disguise where their true allegiances are. There may be a few good people holding Democrat membership cards (Ohio’s Dennis Kucinich comes to mind), but the only substantial differences between the parties exist only on paper.
I am tired of playing partisan make-believe games while people are being hurt. The idea that the Democrats offer up anything substantially different or viable is as much a fantasy of the Left as the Star Wars Defense Plan was a fantasy of the Right. A “united front” that is truly in opposition to the policies that are hurting the United States will come from outside the self-serving duocracy or it will come from nowhere.
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 10 2005 21:07 utc | 10
Mr. Nowhere Man,
Clearly you’re an expert on fantasy. Dennis Kucinch may be a good person — I wouldn’t say that about Nader, that’s for sure — but he has no chance of being anything more than an ineffectual gadfly in American politics.
Posted by: Bragan | Jun 10 2005 21:19 utc | 11
@Bragan
Did you have anything beyond an ad hominem attack on me to offer in the way of an argument? Vociferation by itself doesn’t demonstrate anything except an opinion… and I can get a short-but-pointless opinion by simply talking to an elementary school student. I’d rather have an observation or a conclusion and the grounds by which you have arrived there, thank you.
Am I to infer by your statement that because Dennis Kucinich is “…a good person”, he “…has no chance of being anything more than an intellectual gadfly”? If this is so, and good people by definition can not produce effective change anyway, then why the hostility at me for bringing him up? If you subscribe to self-fulfilling prophecies like “You’re just throwing your vote away”, then folks like myself are in no danger of upsetting that paradigm. With that in mind, I am reassured by the fact that you decided to simply begin calling me names rather than provide reasonable grounds that I am wrong in my views.
(Also, you don’t have to use the title “Mr.” Nowhere Man. This is an informal setting; “Nowhere Man” is fine.)
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 10 2005 23:09 utc | 12
yeah nader is an f-up, but impeaching Bush is the right thing to do. War without cause is a high crime in any book. Bush must go.
Posted by: patience | Jun 10 2005 23:45 utc | 13
saw nader on cspan. he didn’t even bother to put to bed a caller’s contention that iraq was somehow tied to 9/11.
this is your war ralph, as much as bush’s. your hands are just as bloody as his. it’s the least you can do to try to stop both.
the weird thing is, if you asked him if he knew then what he knows now, i’m not so sure that would have been enough to stop him from running. i think nader still would have ran.
uggabugga once an analysis brilliant in its simplicity, answering why nader was running again in 2004. it’s because not running would have been an admission that running in 2000 was a mistake.
what kind of an ego is never willing to admit to a mistake?
Posted by: hello | Jun 11 2005 0:16 utc | 14
Mono,
No, I have little more than a mixture of contempt and pity for those who can’t see the harm done by Ralph Nader in 2000 and the bitter irony of Ralph now calling for Bush’s impeachment.
Posted by: Bragan | Jun 11 2005 0:36 utc | 15
CP wrote:
When the history books are written……… that’s if we have a post-oil history……… the scholars will say that the most brilliant tactic of the Rethugs was the creation and funding of Nader to keep power.
I have to disagree w/you here. Consider this possibility….
It took me a long time to understand why Perot or Nader ran, during which time it was a real thorn in my mind. It wasn’t until I thought of the history books, that I finally grasped that both are real Patriots & devotees of American Capitalism. They ran to try and save it from itself and to save the Republic. It makes no sense at the time because America was set up to be so conservative that only two parties are possible contenders. Only when one looks back from the vantage point of history, when historians will ask – But why didn’t anyone object to the destruction of America, that began in earnest w/”NAFTA”. The answer will be that Nader & Perot Stood Up & Screamed Like Hell to try & warn Americans. The Tragedy of course is that their voice was mediated by the elite media and the distortion inherent in that prevented them from being heard.
Posted by: jj | Jun 11 2005 2:34 utc | 16
Why does such an eagle-eyed realist like Billmon attract so many myopic idealists?
Posted by: Bragan | Jun 11 2005 2:43 utc | 17
Why does such an eagle-eyed realist like Billmon attract so many myopic idealists?
Because Billmon is himself an idealist.
Posted by: Don Quijote | Jun 11 2005 3:53 utc | 18
@Bragan
“No, I have little more than a mixture of contempt and pity for those who can’t see the harm done by Ralph Nader in 2000 and the bitter irony of Ralph now calling for Bush’s impeachment.”
Doesn’t clear up why you were spewing bile at me. If you re-read my post, I never said “Vote for Nader!” or even used his name. I did, however, propose that vilifying third parties and their supporters is wasteful, hurtful and counterproductive. I am not the one being unrealistic to propose that our political apparatus does not have to remain entrenched and corrupt (many countries have universal health care, multiple parties and binding none-of-the-above options on their ballots). I am not the one being unrealistic by proposing that the Dems share as much culpability as the Republicans for overwhelmingly supporting Gulf War II and the USAPATRIOT Act… and their poor showing in the 2000 and 2004 elections give me no reason to expect they will offer any genuine resistance or be anything more than a watered-down version of what the neocons are offering.
Blaming Darth Nader for the failure of the Democratic Party to offer effective leadership and opposition to BushCo and equating him to all third parties is what I find contemptuous and pitiful. But we are all entitled to our opinions… even if they don’t address what anybody has actually said.
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 11 2005 4:29 utc | 19
“The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action.”
” We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.”
from the downing street memo.
of course i think we have the smoking gun for impeachment.
and hell no i’m not a nader fan, sure i’d prefer if it was a kennedy, conyers, boxer or dean calling for impeachment . but naders first. hopefully bush will be tried in the hague. the likelihood? zilch. but you can’t blame the guy for trying, the impeachment angle i mean…. poor ralph. the dweeb to end all dweebs.
Posted by: annie | Jun 11 2005 4:59 utc | 20
Bragan, anyone who’s margin is so slight that Nader can hurt his candidacy is not going to win an election. Nadar himself has made that point on any number of occasions. With an eight-year incumbency on his side, Gore could have have won the Presidency, had he followed Clinton’s freely offered advice–an impossibility, it seems, given Gore’s contempt (your own word) and disdain for Clinton, and for Clinton’s winning ways in elections (the paramount necessity in 2000 being Gore’s disciplined coordination with the team of Penn and Schoen, whom Gore wouldn’t dream of hiring). Not Nader’s, but Gore’s “principled stands” are what cost him (and us) the election. A high-minded, moralizing narcissist is what he is. Since I happen to share those traits, I certainly sympathize with the man, but I’d never myself dream of inflicting them on the body politic.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 11 2005 5:18 utc | 21
Ralph Nader should move to France; from what I can tell, he’d have a superb career in the French Socialist Party.
(Or am I completely wrong?)
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 11 2005 6:28 utc | 22
i enjoy it when dems blame nader for losing in 2000. what bullshit. they lost because they didn’t have the balls to stand up to bush and take the win. of course, they deserved to lose. they had an embarassingly lame candidate.
i laugh when i read the folks whining about a third party. you dumb-fucks don’t even have a second party. you have bush and bushlite, the corporate parties. bwahahahaha!!!!
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Jun 11 2005 7:00 utc | 23
Nader was the only candidate to campaign in all 50 states. How could I have voted for a presidential candidate who wouldn’t even campaign in my state?
Also, anyone saying that anything would have been different, or the same, under a Gore administration is just speculating. There is NO way to know how Gore would have reacted to an event like 9/11. Historically speaking, the Dems were the ones who entered the US into war. Gore may have done the same. We will never know.
Billmon, I normally agree with you on things; however, I don’t think we should lay blame on Nader. We should blame the system and work to correct it.
Posted by: Yep | Jun 11 2005 22:13 utc | 24