The choices of the principled progressive voter in the November US elections are looking more and more dismal.
I’ve been reading the damning reports on Ralph Nader’s egomania, which has now led to a falling out with the US Green Party. Nader’s attempt to get on the ballot in all fifty states has attracted a cynical coalition of nihilistic leftists and split-the-left-vote rightists. Unlike some of his moving speeches in the 1990s, Nader’s recent diatribes seem spiked with bitterness, spurious argument and ludicrous idealism. Depite his plaints to the contrary, there is almost no doubt that in a first-past-the-post electoral system, the few people who will be inspired to come out to the polls just to vote for Nader (who otherwise would not vote at all, and who might cast votes for other progressives while they’re at it) are miniscule compared to the number that might vote for Nader instead of Kerry, and risk a repeat of the 2000 disaster. Or for that matter, a repeat of what happened in Canada last week, where the two progressive choices outside Quebec, the NDP and the Greens, split the vote and between them got 20% of the votes but only 6% of the seats, in the lowest-turnout federal election in over a century. Meanwhile the US Greens aren’t looking any better. They were bitterly divided on whether to ‘endorse’ Nader again in 2004, even though he’s running as an Independent whether or not he gets their endorsation, and even though he refused to attend the nominating convention. The alternative was to nominate instead David Cobb who pledged to run only in states where either Bush or Kerry has a large lead in the polls. They opted to nominate Cobb, but now it appears he is planning on running, like Nader, in as many states as possible, including swing states, so there are now two progressive candidates who could siphon off anti-Bush votes from Kerry. The US Green Party websites (there are several, which is confusing), are a mess — badly laid out, self-contradictory and full of broken links, and unlike the situation in 2000 where the Platform was a work of art, the party looks strictly amateur this year. And after some promising early missives, the Kerry campaign is looking more and more right-of-centre, to the point of being almost indistinguishable in substance from Bush’s. Progressives looking for a clear endorsement of the Kyoto Accord, a repudiation of NAFTA and other pro-corporatist legislation, immediate cancellation of the despicable Patriot Act, serious political campaign finance reform, an end to the grossly undemocratic and disenfranchising scourge of gerrymandering, the introduction of proportional representation and instant runoff voting, or a plan for a swift military exit from Iraq and Afghanistan, will look in vain on the Kerry website, that is instead filled with platitudes and vague homilies. Progressives have said the Democrats are just as beholden to rich corporate and military imperialist interests as the Republicans, and there is nothing in Kerry’s messages so far to deflect such criticism. Such a squandering of the opportunity to unite and rid America of the worst president in its history and present voters with an unmistakable choice and contrast in 2004 is inexcusable. To hope and expect Bush to defeat himself by sheer incompetence may be a viable election strategy, but it is a cowardly one, and an insult to the electorate, which deserves assurances of immediate and unequivocable rollbacks of this miscreant president’s ideological and criminal agenda of the past four years, and decisive constitutional actions to prevent their recurrence. It is almost as if Nader, the Greens, and the Democrats are daring progressives to stay home on election night. It is foolish and naive for progressives to ignore the realities of the current political system and to run candidates who cannot possibly win or even get reasonable press and public attention for their causes by running. Nader and the Greens should be furiously lobbying electable progressives in the Democratic and Republican parties (yes, there are a few progressive Republicans) to vocally support and work towards specific legislation and regulations that will improve the social and environmental welfare of America and the world, defeat corporatism, and improve the political and electoral system. The power isn’t all in the presidency. Focusing so much time and attention on futile attempts to get individuals elected diverts energies from broadly-supported programs to being about legitimate, urgently needed and sustainable progressive reforms to the social, political, economc, regulatory, judicial, financial and tax systems of America. The only responsible approach for progressives to take now, and in November, is to fight at the grassroots level for better legislation, and enforcement of legislation, that advances the progressive cause, and to vote for the most progressive candidate in each contest, from the presidential race on down, who has a reasonable chance of winning. Instead of running Quixotic campaigns, Nader and the Greens should be providing progressive voters with comprehensive, well-documented lists of recommended candidates in every race in the country, and then, when a disproportionate number of those candidates win, getting those candidates to return the favour by supporting progressive legislation and enforcement of it. Dennis Kucinich was the only candidate with a clear progressive voice during the 2004 campaign. Progressives need to give him their total support, and work hard to keep him and his ideas in the limelight. The idea that he is unelectable is nonsense — he is far more moderate in his views than Bush, and while his views are threatening to the corporatist establishment, that establishment has no more power than the grassroots of American politics. He is certainly more likely to be elected than an independent or fringe party candidate in a system rigged to favour just two parties. Kucinich can reform the system from the inside, and there are important precedents for this in American history. Rallying around Kucinich, giving him a continuing voice in the IndyMedia, encouraging him to be the spokesman for the progressive movement, makes far more sense than wasting a precious vote on a candidate with no chance of winning, and no significant influence in the halls of power. |
Navigation
Collapsniks
Albert Bates (US)
Andrew Nikiforuk (CA)
Brutus (US)
Carolyn Baker (US)*
Catherine Ingram (US)
Chris Hedges (US)
Dahr Jamail (US)
Dean Spillane-Walker (US)*
Derrick Jensen (US)
Dougald & Paul (IE/SE)*
Erik Michaels (US)
Gail Tverberg (US)
Guy McPherson (US)
Honest Sorcerer
Janaia & Robin (US)*
Jem Bendell (UK)
Mari Werner
Michael Dowd (US)*
Nate Hagens (US)
Paul Heft (US)*
Post Carbon Inst. (US)
Resilience (US)
Richard Heinberg (US)
Robert Jensen (US)
Roy Scranton (US)
Sam Mitchell (US)
Tim Morgan (UK)
Tim Watkins (UK)
Umair Haque (UK)
William Rees (CA)
XrayMike (AU)
Radical Non-Duality
Tony Parsons
Jim Newman
Tim Cliss
Andreas Müller
Kenneth Madden
Emerson Lim
Nancy Neithercut
Rosemarijn Roes
Frank McCaughey
Clare Cherikoff
Ere Parek, Izzy Cloke, Zabi AmaniEssential Reading
Archive by Category
My Bio, Contact Info, Signature Posts
About the Author (2023)
My Circles
E-mail me
--- My Best 200 Posts, 2003-22 by category, from newest to oldest ---
Collapse Watch:
Hope — On the Balance of Probabilities
The Caste War for the Dregs
Recuperation, Accommodation, Resilience
How Do We Teach the Critical Skills
Collapse Not Apocalypse
Effective Activism
'Making Sense of the World' Reading List
Notes From the Rising Dark
What is Exponential Decay
Collapse: Slowly Then Suddenly
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Making Sense of Who We Are
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Post Collapse with Michael Dowd (video)
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Requiem for a Species
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
If We Had a Better Story...
Giving Up on Environmentalism
The Hard Part is Finding People Who Care
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
A Short History of Progress
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture / Ourselves:
A CoVid-19 Recap
What It Means to be Human
A Culture Built on Wrong Models
Understanding Conservatives
Our Unique Capacity for Hatred
Not Meant to Govern Each Other
The Humanist Trap
Credulous
Amazing What People Get Used To
My Reluctant Misanthropy
The Dawn of Everything
Species Shame
Why Misinformation Doesn't Work
The Lab-Leak Hypothesis
The Right to Die
CoVid-19: Go for Zero
Pollard's Laws
On Caste
The Process of Self-Organization
The Tragic Spread of Misinformation
A Better Way to Work
The Needs of the Moment
Ask Yourself This
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
May I Ask a Question?
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
Learning From Nature
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
Making Sense of Scents
An Age of Wonder
The Truth About Ukraine
Navigating Complexity
The Supply Chain Problem
The Promise of Dialogue
Too Dumb to Take Care of Ourselves
Extinction Capitalism
Homeless
Republicans Slide Into Fascism
All the Things I Was Wrong About
Several Short Sentences About Sharks
How Change Happens
What's the Best Possible Outcome?
The Perpetual Growth Machine
We Make Zero
How Long We've Been Around (graphic)
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
Loren Eiseley, in Verse
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self, and Free Will:
No Free Will, No Freedom
The Other Side of 'No Me'
This Body Takes Me For a Walk
The Only One Who Really Knew Me
No Free Will — Fightin' Words
The Paradox of the Self
A Radical Non-Duality FAQ
What We Think We Know
Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark
Healing From Ourselves
The Entanglement Hypothesis
Nothing Needs to Happen
Nothing to Say About This
What I Wanted to Believe
A Continuous Reassemblage of Meaning
No Choice But to Misbehave
What's Apparently Happening
A Different Kind of Animal
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
How Our Bodies Sense the World
Fragments
What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
Mindful Wanderings (Reflections) (Archive)
A Prayer to No One
Frogs' Hollow (Short Story)
We Do What We Do (Poem)
Negative Assertions (Poem)
Reminder (Short Story)
A Canadian Sorry (Satire)
Under No Illusions (Short Story)
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Improv (Poem)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Enough (Lament)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
My Other Sites
It’s depressing to see what’s happening inside supposedly progressive groups at the moment. The fear of Bush getting re-selected is being pitted against the nonsense of Cobb and Nader and very few people are looking at the big picture. The Democratic platform is a joke and Kucinich, with support, could have the power to influence it. I’m just afraid that people are too caught up in their arguments to get busy and support him. I’m definitely going to pass your words around because they are the best I’ve heard in months!
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday and I am so depressed Dave. The capture of the Hill by Corporate America is complete and I think that you are correct that kerry is just as much a slave as Bush. How does one have a grass roots revolution in the west? for surely the issue is wider than the US and includes most western states?
Thanks, Cyndy. Maybe we need a coalition of progressive groups to get together and ‘select’ Kucinich to be their/our ‘Thought Leader’ and give him a regular platform. If Kucinich became a sustained meme in the left half of the blogosphere it would be hard(er) for the mainstream media to ignore. Ideas and (in both senses of the word) intelligence are our weapons, mightier than either pen or sword.Rob: There’s a prescription in an unlikely place — Richard Manning’s book “Against the Grain”. I’ll be blogging on it tomorrow.
Thanks so much for this! There is a wonderful site http://www.progressivevote.com which is working on setting up Democratic Progressive Caucuses in each state. We have one here in Utah – check out http://www.udpc.orgClarity
Good stuff, Clarity. This is especially encouraging because it’s old-style grass-roots organization mostly by and for young people. Woody Guthrie would be proud.