|
NEWS October 20th
2004
|
||
|
WITHER THE ALTERNATIVE A Corporate Watch US Election Special “Sooner or later, you're gonna listen to Ralph
Nader” “Our country and its principles are abandoned
by the very economic powers that control our destiny. Autocratic global
corporations are deep into strategic planning. They openly and confidently
strive to control our jobs; our environment; our political and educational
institutions; our food, drugs, and other consumptions; our savings;
our childhoods; our culture; even our genetic futures. Toward these
ends, they incessantly move to control our elections and our governmental
institutions.” “In 1941, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
made a prescient observation when he wrote: “We can have a democratic
society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands
of the few. We cannot have both.” Today, that concentration of
wealth and its political power has reached stunning intensities. In
large companies, people who work in the same enterprise are now earning
$1 for every $416 that the CEO takes away. In 1940, it was $1 for every
$12. Today the financial wealth of the top 1% of households exceeds
the combined wealth of the bottom 95% of American households. Earlier
this year Bill Gates’ wealth was equal to the combined wealth
of the poorest 120 million Americans. Whatever this enormous imbalance
says about the Great software imitator from Redmond, Washington, it
means that about tens of millions of Americans, who work year after
year, decade after decade, are nearly broke. What democracy worth its
salt would have led to this profound inequity?” We want to have a responsible six-month withdrawal
of the US military and corporate occupation, and an internationally
supervised election, so that the Iraqi people don't feel that they're
facing a permanent military occupation and the control of their oil
resources and of public government. If they feel that, the majority
of the Iraqis are going to support the insurgency. They're not going
to distance themselves from the insurgency. THE 'MAIN' PARTIES “Do you want to get fucked by someone who tells
you they're going to fuck you, or do you want to get fucked by someone
who lies to you and then fucks you?' “The Democrats say one thing ('Save the Planet')
and then do another - quietly holding hands behind the scenes
with the bastards who make this world a dirtier, meaner place. The Republicans
just come right out and give the bastards a corner office in the West
Wing. That's the difference'. “Friends, you are being misled and hoodwinked
by a bunch of professional 'liberals' who did NOTHING themselves for
eight years to clean up these messes - and who now can't stop
themselves from attacking people like Ralph Nader, who has devoted his
entire life to evey single one of these causes. What unmitigated gall!
They blame Nader for giving us Bush? I blame THEM for being Bush! They
suck off the same corporate teat”
“Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris,
who approved the data on which the purge was based, was also Bush’s
Florida election campaign director. She later had the privilege of declaring
George W. Bush the winner of Florida’s 21 electoral votes, and
thereby President of the United States, by a margin of 537 votes over
Al Gore. The more than 90,000 voters wrongly targeted by the purge would
have overwhelmingly voted for Gore, giving him Florida’s electoral
votes and the presidency.”
“Why Nader could be the nail in Democrats'
coffin” “Ralph Nader...the leftist spoiler candidate” (UK Daily Telegraph 5.10.2004) “If the Independent Ralph Nader was not running (Kerry's) lead would grow to 49 points” (UK Independent 4.10.2004) “Democrats fear Nader could ruin new support” (UK Times 4.10.2004) “Nader - seen as the possible spoiler for John Kerry's chances” (UK Independent 20.9.2004) “Nader...blamed by many Democrats for costing Al Gore the White House in 2000” (UK Daily Telegraph 16.9.2004)
“The anger now levelled at Nader seems so personal,
so intense, from Baby Boomers who blame him for Gore losing the election
(he didn't lose). I look at these individuals...and I wonder why Nader
seems so personally threatening to them. It's taken a while but I think
I've got it figured out: Nader represents who they used to be but no
longer are. He never changed. He never lost the faith, never compromised,
never gave up. That's why they hate him”
“Funny you should ask about Nader - I have
a personal history there. I voted for the guy in the 2000 election...
in Florida... so I turned out to be one of those 500-something votes
that won Bush the election. I have huge respect for Nader as a person
and an activist, but there's no way I'm voting for him again.”
“Mr Nader, who has been distracted by attempts to get on the ballot, has had little time to campaign here” Guardian reporter Gary Younge's interpretation of Democrat lawyers' frantic attempts to keep Nader off the presidential ballot 6.10.04
Number of articles featuring Ralph Nader in the UK press over the last month (LexisNexus search 6.10.04): 32 (all bar two naming Nader in passing).
“The Greens' sensibility is still counterculture,
but they've become far more inclusive, recruiting union members and
urban minorities while also talking about governing issues with less
froth, more substance. Double the minimum wage to $10 an hour. Repeal
the NAFTA and WTO agreements, also the Taft-Hartley Act. End poverty
-- literally -- with a new system to guarantee "sustainable livelihoods"
for all, worthy work and living wages, decentralized economics and politics,
an economy transformed to sustain nature rather than destroy it. "There
are no good-paying jobs on a dead planet," Cobb observes.” Number of references to David Cobb, US Green party presidential candidate, in the UK press over the last month (LexisNexus search 6.10.04): 2 (both in passing) “He who pays for the media is free to invent
the truth”
|