"If activist and perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader is any bellwether for the progressive Left…" bye http://t.co/LrZ8ae5taM
— edroso (@edroso) October 30, 2014
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This post is in: Open Threads, Assholes
"If activist and perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader is any bellwether for the progressive Left…" bye http://t.co/LrZ8ae5taM
— edroso (@edroso) October 30, 2014
Comments are closed.
Mandalay
Pretty hard to disagree with any of that. Of course everyone will dump on Nader for voicing an inconvenient truth, but that doesn’t make what he said any less true.
Cermet
Few real liberals would disagree that Paul has or at least once did, vastly superior foreign policy ideas than Ms. Clinton …
mclaren
@Hal:
I don’t think any of the commenters here, and certaintly not I, have been saying that Hillary is the same in any meaningful as the putative Repub candidates like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul.
Obviously they’re not “both the same.” Hillary is sane. Cruz is nuts and Rand Paul needs thorazine.
That doesn’t change the fact that Hillary is much much much more cozy with the Wall Street financial crime lords than Obama or any other potential Democratic presidential candidate (cripes, Hillary’s daughter is married to a goddamn Goldman Sachs hedge fund manager!), Hillary is a disastrously belligerent neocon who doesn’t even bother to disguise her eagers to get America bogged down in multiple new endless unwinnable foreign wars, and she’s just as bad as Obama on basic issues like destroying the rule of law and abandoning the fundamental principles like the Magna Carta that have underlain civilized Western society for the last thousand years.
Are some of us permitted to point out that when the commander is chief thinks it’s legal to murder and torture and kidnap U.S. citizens without a trial or even criminal charges, and to invade or bomb or drone-murder women and children in wedding parties at random in countries we’re not even at war with, then we no longer have a president, but an emperor who rules by whim?
Are some of us allowed to mention that such a “president” looks a lot more like Emperor Commodus in the 2000 film Gladiator than an inhabitant of the Oval Office?
Apparently not. It’s too much to mention these things in public. Too embarrassing. Too inconvenient. In late late late Weimar America, such inappropriate facts must never be discussed, the better to avoid hurting our fellow citizens’ delicate fee-fees.
Goblue72
If Nader were an actual Socialist and a member of a Socialist party – I might give him the time of day.
But he’s not – he’s an upper-middle class Green-iac picking his nose & flinging boogers from the back of the room. He’s right up there with Cindy whatshername that ran against Pelosi. He’s nothing but ego driven spoiler. I don’t care if his broken clock is right twice a day.
Mnemosyne
Sorry, Ralph “Bush and Gore are the same” Nader has opened his trap again? And people on the left still take him seriously?
Ruckus
@Goblue72:
I think at best it’s only right once a day. But that’s just quibbling on my part.
Goblue72
@Mnemosyne: he’s not a lefty. He’s Lyndon Larouche with slightly less mouth breathing.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne:
National Review thinks Dick Nixon had the right attitude, but they haven’t really gotten behind a major American politician since the death of Joe McCarthy. They couldn’t identify a “leftist” if Zombie Saul Alinsky set fire to their ties, and the fact that they’re touting Ralph Nader as any kind of “progressive” should be a clue.
BruceFromOhio
Bored? Lonely? Shake the Ralph Nader Ooga-Booga doll, and the phone calls start immediately.
RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)
@Goblue72:
Cindy Sheehan.
Goblue72
@Anne Laurie: I would totally support a zombie Saul Alinsky.
mclaren
Given the catastrophic effect old Ralphie had on these United Snakes back in the year 2000, I’d say if Ralph keeps opening his yap, progressives will crawl over broken glass to vote for Hillary.
Especially if both fuckin’ houses of congress go Republican in the midterm, which seems likely.
Can you imagine what a party as insane as the Repubs would do if they owned the Oval Office and both houses of congress in 2016? They’d be appointing horses as senators and sending midshipmen to whip the ocean for rising as a result of global warming, a la Xerxes the Great at the Hellespont:
Source: Histories, Herodotus.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
I refer more to the two posts above mine. National Review loves anyone who claims that the Democrats left them behind.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: @Cermet: Both of you are first class morons.
Mnemosyne
@BruceFromOhio:
Well, I need something to do in the interval between dinner and bedtime. I ain’t going to be doing any more unpacking tonight, or I might gouge out my eyeballs.
Goblue72
@RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac): thank you. I lived in Pelosi’s district at the time (SF), and remember seeing this small roving band of Cindy Sheehan supporters. They were the like the worst caricature of a befuddled white middle class fanny pack wearing Berkeley “lefty” who gets hyper-aggressive at the Berkeley Bowl if you get between them and their kombucha.
Goblue72
@mclaren: they’d privatize Social Security for everyone under 60. They’d turn food stamps, TANF and LIHEAP into “block grants” so that Alabama and Texas could eliminate what little is left of a safety net. Theyd figure out a way to kill off whats left of labor unions. And they’d finish gutting the VRA.
Then they’d turn around and spend those “savings” on corporate and capital gains tax cuts.
We know what they would do – and it’s worse than any snark.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cervantes: As a short hand, Bush and Gore are the same does describe a group ( the size of which is arguable) that existed in 2000. I saw them, and I am sure that you did as well.
Suzanne
Ralph Nader is a self-aggrandizing asshole who can suck my left tit.
I am lying in bed feeling mildly crappy, but my Scout is lying in my belly and purring. Like a boss. We took Spawn the Younger to a friend’s Halloween party last night, and our friend’s niece threw a toy at her, giving her a black eye and a cut. Then her parents took her home, and accidentally took Spawn’s entire bucket of Halloween candy. So. Not the best.
Went canvassing this afternoon. God, I hope at least some of our local races go blue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cervantes: As a short hand, Bush and Gore are the same does describe a group ( the size of which is arguable) that existed in 2000. I saw them, and I am sure that you did as well.
Mary G
I am so bored. No PT or OR on the weekends makes for a long two days. My roommate was woken up for 9 pm pills and is playing her TV at approximately 10,000 decibels. She’s lucky I am not allowed to walk.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: So, tonight, you are doing reasonable? How odd.
mclaren
@Cermet:
Somewhat akin to pointing out that Hannibal Lecter has or at least once did have a vastly superior palate to Agent Starling.
Rand Paul is so batshit insane on everything else that you have to wonder if he came up with a sensible-sounding foreign policy by accident, by speaking in tongues…
From Wikipedia:
So the next time we get into a giant financial bubble and the economy collapses, kiss your bank account goodbye. President Rand Paul + the wacka-wacka Republican houses of congress will have long since deep-sixed Federal Deposit Insurance. Say hello to lots of bank runs, folks.
If you thought the Panic of 1907 was great, when one billionaire J. P. Morgan had to step in to stabilize the U.S. economy, you’ll love Rand Paul’s economic policy.
Oh, and by the way…those government-printed bills you’re carrying in your wallet? Gone. Done. Outa there. Rand Paul believes greenbacks are illegitimate “fiat currency.” He wants to replace them with gold coins.
Yes, all our currency will be converted to gold coinage. Great. Remember what happened to all the countries that stuck with the Gold Standard during the Great Depression?
Paul also opposes abortions (get yer coathangers ready, girls), he’s a creationist (say goodbye to those dreaded vaccines — they can’t possibly work, since a theory of vaccination would require viruses to, you know, evolve), he wants to shut down federal involvement in education (get ready for all those new Klan schools down South, and those great new Dianetics schools up north), and best of all, Rand Paul opposes the Federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Civil Rights Acts, even though he denies it.
Yeah, and aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was your evening?
Cermet
@Omnes Omnibus: Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi’s; our foreign policy is of a mass murdering Empire and President Obama, while far better than bush, is making many of the same mistakes. Ms. Clinton acts far more the hawk than Obama …Paul use to argue that we need to give up these war mongering ideas – while he’d revert to a war monger as any repug_thug once in power, his initial ideas are not just good but what we need to follow as a country if we want to keep from economic collapse …
Cermet
@mclaren: My comment had zero to do with Paul’s economic ideas nor was support for him as President so your arguments are pointless relative to my post; not that he wouldn’t do much of what you said..
The Raven on the Hill
This comic at Boing Boing explaining Obamacare is useful and accurate.
Gods, Nader. He’s right in his analysis, and I think we all know it. (And what’s awful, he was right in 2000, too.) But it didn’t help then and it doesn’t help now. What are we supposed to do? Not vote? Vote for someone who is more acceptable ideologically but no hope of winning? I favor the trenchant remark of a much more radical leftist: “Of course you can vote for the lesser evil. You get less evil.”
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren:Jesus, fuck, I actually agree with you.
@Cermet: I am sure that you care deeply about stuff, I have doubts about your conclusions.
Mnemosyne
@Cermet:
You mean the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis who might be alive today if the Supreme Court hadn’t selected Bush to be president over Gore?
But, hey, they’re all Republicrats, so Gore would have done the exact same invasion the exact same way that Bush did, so it doesn’t matter who won, amirite?
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
“Gore and Bush are both the same” describes a very large group in the year 2000.
I still have a VHS tape of the Rage Against the Machine music video that Michael Moore made satirizing both candidates as being indistinguishable. That music video ran on heavy rotation in late 2000. It was immensely popular among its target viewing audience of 20-somethings.
The young 20-something millenials who disdained to vote in a fit of cynical pique and the pop celebrities like Rage against the Machine and Michael Moore have a lot to answer for. To my knowledge, they have never owned up to their responsibility in sending America down the express chute to eight years of hell.
Not once.
El Caganer
Hey, if Ralph doesn’t want to vote for HRC, that’s his business. Do whatever you gotta do, Ralph.
pseudonymous in nc
If Sarah Palin is any bellwether for the activist Right, then the GOP will be having drunken family brawls instead of debates. (And honestly, why not? Be all capitalist about it and make it a PPV.)
Nader is indeed a fucking tote bag with legs.
srv
Show me a millennial, and I’ll show you someone who gives no fucks for Hillary Clinton.
Don’t count your base before they hatch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cermet: If you say that you are a left wing person and you think about voting for a Paul, you are buying a shitty view. Do it if you are a fucking idiot.
mclaren
@Cermet:
Yes, our friendly hometown authoritarian bully-worshiper Omnes Omnibus is always ready and eager to hurl vacuous insults at anyone who points out the documented fact that major Democratic pols are goose-stepping militaristic warmongers who spend their careers french-kissing the bunghole of the U.S. military-police-prison-surveillance-torture complex.
Oh, that’s a great idea, Hills. Let’s collectively do the foreign-policy equivalent of sticking our tongues in a wall socket. Hey! We can invade Mars! Then we can attack Tierra del Fuego with a full nuclear barrage! Then we’ll finish off by declaring war on the dolphins in all seven seas!
Seriously… “”Great nations need organizing principles and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle” sounds like something straight out of The Onion, doesn’t it?
Organizing principle or not, I’d say after the catastrophic last 30 years of American foreign policy quagmire, “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff” should be tattooed in reverse on the foreheads of every goddamn American politician and American military officer above the rank of corporal so they’re forced to look at that little maxim every morning when they shave.
Oh, and it gets better:
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. With 793 military bases around the world and this many military operations worldwide since 1945, America needs a more assertive foreign policy:
GREECE 1947-49 Command operation U.S. directs extreme-right in civil war.
GERMANY 1948 Nuclear Threat Atomic-capable bombers guard Berlin Airlift.
CHINA 1948-49 Troops/Marines evacuate Americans before Communist victory.
PHILIPPINES 1948-54 Command operation CIA directs war against Huk Rebellion.
PUERTO RICO 1950 Command operation Independence rebellion crushed in Ponce.
KOREA 1951-53 (-?) Troops, naval, bombing , nuclear threats U.S./So. Korea fights China/No. Korea to stalemate; A-bomb threat in 1950, and against China in 1953. Still have bases.
IRAN 1953 Command Operation CIA overthrows democracy, installs Shah.
VIETNAM 1954 Nuclear threat French offered bombs to use against seige.
GUATEMALA 1954 Command operation, bombing, nuclear threat CIA directs exile invasion after new gov’t nationalized U.S. company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua.
EGYPT 1956 Nuclear threat, troops Soviets told to keep out of Suez crisis; Marines evacuate foreigners.
LEBANON l958 Troops, naval Army & Marine occupation against rebels.
IRAQ 1958 Nuclear threat Iraq warned against invading Kuwait.
CHINA 1958 Nuclear threat China told not to move on Taiwan isles.
PANAMA 1958 Troops Flag protests erupt into confrontation.
VIETNAM 1960-75 Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats Fought South Vietnam revolt & North Vietnam; one million killed in longest U.S. war; atomic bomb threats in l968 and l969.
CUBA 1961 Command operation CIA-directed Bay of Pigs exile invasion fails.
GERMANY l961 Nuclear threat Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.
LAOS 1962 Command operation Military buildup during guerrilla war.
CUBA 1962 Nuclear threat, naval Blockade during missile crisis; near-war with Soviet Union.
IRAQ 1963 Command operation CIA organizes coup that killed president, brings Ba’ath Party to power, and Saddam Hussein back from exile to be head of the secret service.
PANAMA 1964 Troops Panamanians shot for urging canal’s return.
INDONESIA l965 Command operation Million killed in CIA-assisted army coup.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1965-66 Troops, bombing Army & Marines land during election campaign.
GUATEMALA l966-67 Command operation Green Berets intervene against rebels.
DETROIT l967 Troops Army battles African Americans, 43 killed.
UNITED STATES l968 Troops After King is shot; over 21,000 soldiers in cities.
CAMBODIA l969-75 Bombing, troops, naval Up to 2 million killed in decade of bombing, starvation, and political chaos.
OMAN l970 Command operation U.S. directs Iranian marine invasion.
LAOS l971-73 Command operation, bombing U.S. directs South Vietnamese invasion; “carpet-bombs” countryside.
SOUTH DAKOTA l973 Command operation Army directs Wounded Knee siege of Lakotas.
MIDEAST 1973 Nuclear threat World-wide alert during Mideast War.
CHILE 1973 Command operation CIA-backed coup ousts elected marxist president.
CAMBODIA l975 Troops, bombing Gassing of captured ship Mayagüez, 28 troops die when copter shot down.
ANGOLA l976-92 Command operation CIA assists South African-backed rebels.
IRAN l980 Troops, nuclear threat, aborted bombing Raid to rescue Embassy hostages; 8 troops die in copter-plane crash. Soviets warned not to get involved in revolution.
LIBYA l981 Naval jets Two Libyan jets shot down in maneuvers.
EL SALVADOR l981-92 Command operation, troops Advisors, overflights aid anti-rebel war, soldiers briefly involved in hostage clash.
NICARAGUA l981-90 Command operation, naval CIA directs exile (Contra) invasions, plants harbor mines against revolution.
LEBANON l982-84 Naval, bombing, troops Marines expel PLO and back Phalangists, Navy bombs and shells Muslim positions. 241 Marines killed when Shi’a rebel bombs barracks.
GRENADA l983-84 Troops, bombing Invasion four years after revolution.
HONDURAS l983-89 Troops Maneuvers help build bases near borders.
IRAN l984 Jets Two Iranian jets shot down over Persian Gulf.
LIBYA l986 Bombing, naval Air strikes to topple Qaddafi gov’t.
BOLIVIA 1986 Troops Army assists raids on cocaine region.
IRAN l987-88 Naval, bombing US intervenes on side of Iraq in war, defending reflagged tankers and shooting down civilian jet.
LIBYA 1989 Naval jets Two Libyan jets shot down.
VIRGIN ISLANDS 1989 Troops St. Croix Black unrest after storm.
PHILIPPINES 1989 Jets Air cover provided for government against coup.
PANAMA 1989 (-?) Troops, bombing Nationalist government ousted by 27,000 soldiers, leaders arrested, 2000+ killed.
LIBERIA 1990 Troops Foreigners evacuated during civil war.
SAUDI ARABIA 1990-91 Troops, jets Iraq countered after invading Kuwait. 540,000 troops also stationed in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Israel.
IRAQ 1990-91 Bombing, troops, naval Blockade of Iraqi and Jordanian ports, air strikes; 200,000+ killed in invasion of Iraq and Kuwait; large-scale destruction of Iraqi military.
KUWAIT 1991 Naval, bombing, troops Kuwait royal family returned to throne.
IRAQ 1991-2003 Bombing, naval No-fly zone over Kurdish north, Shiite south; constant air strikes and naval-enforced economic sanctions
LOS ANGELES 1992 Troops Army, Marines deployed against anti-police uprising.
SOMALIA 1992-94 Troops, naval, bombing U.S.-led United Nations occupation during civil war; raids against one Mogadishu faction.
YUGOSLAVIA 1992-94 Naval NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.
BOSNIA 1993-? Jets, bombing No-fly zone patrolled in civil war; downed jets, bombed Serbs.
HAITI 1994 Troops, naval Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.
ZAIRE (CONGO) 1996-97 Troops Troops at Rwandan Hutu refugee camps, in area where Congo revolution begins.
LIBERIA 1997 Troops Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
ALBANIA 1997 Troops Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
SUDAN 1998 Missiles Attack on pharmaceutical plant alleged to be “terrorist” nerve gas plant.
AFGHANISTAN 1998 Missiles Attack on former CIA training camps used by Islamic fundamentalist groups alleged to have attacked embassies.
IRAQ 1998 Bombing, Missiles Four days of intensive air strikes after weapons inspectors allege Iraqi obstructions.
YUGOSLAVIA 1999 Bombing, Missiles Heavy NATO air strikes after Serbia declines to withdraw from Kosovo. NATO occupation of Kosovo.
YEMEN 2000 Naval USS Cole, docked in Aden, bombed.
MACEDONIA 2001 Troops NATO forces deployed to move and disarm Albanian rebels.
AFGHANISTAN 2001-? Troops, bombing, missiles Massive U.S. mobilization to overthrow Taliban, hunt Al Qaeda fighters, install Karzai regime, and battle Taliban insurgency. More than 30,000 U.S. troops and numerous private security contractors carry our occupation.
YEMEN 2002 Missiles Predator drone missile attack on Al Qaeda, including a US citizen.
PHILIPPINES 2002-? Troops, naval Training mission for Philippine military fighting Abu Sayyaf rebels evolves into combat missions in Sulu Archipelago, west of Mindanao.
COLOMBIA 2003-? Troops US special forces sent to rebel zone to back up Colombian military protecting oil pipeline.
IRAQ 2003-11 Troops, naval, bombing, missiles Saddam regime toppled in Baghdad. More than 250,000 U.S. personnel participate in invasion. US and UK forces occupy country and battle Sunni and Shi’ite insurgencies. More than 160,000 troops and numerous private contractors carry out occupation and build large permanent bases.
LIBERIA 2003 Troops Brief involvement in peacekeeping force as rebels drove out leader.
HAITI 2004-05 Troops, naval Marines & Army land after right-wing rebels oust elected President Aristide, who was advised to leave by Washington.
PAKISTAN 2005-? Missiles, bombing, covert operation CIA missile and air strikes and Special Forces raids on alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban refuge villages kill multiple civilians. Drone attacks also on Pakistani Mehsud network.
SOMALIA 2006-? Missiles, naval, troops, command operation Special Forces advise Ethiopian invasion that topples Islamist government; AC-130 strikes, Cruise missile attacks and helicopter raids against Islamist rebels; naval blockade against “pirates” and insurgents.
SYRIA 2008 Troops Special Forces in helicopter raid 5 miles from Iraq kill 8 Syrian civilians
YEMEN 2009-? Missiles, command operation Cruise missile attack on Al Qaeda kills 49 civilians; Yemeni military assaults on rebels
LIBYA 2011-? Bombing, missiles, troops, command operation NATO coordinates air strikes and missile attacks against Qaddafi government during uprising by rebel army. Periodic Special Forces raids against Islamist insurgents.
IRAQ 2014-? Bombing, missiles, troops, command operation
Air strikes and Special Forces intervene against Islamic State insurgents; training Iraqi and Kurdish troops.
SYRIA 2014-? Bombing, missiles, troops, command operation
Air strikes and Special Forces intervene against Islamic State insurgents; training other Syrian insurgents.
Yep. It’s clear that America is just not being assertive enough in the world militarily.
The Raven on the Hill
McClaren, Cervantes: The awful thing about Nader is that he has no sense of political strategy. His policy analysis is pretty good, but running in 2000 was a boneheaded thing to do. It would have been even if Gore had been seated as President.
A touchstone for telling the difference between the major parties: which one is more sexist? Which one has to apologize for defending rape? The differences between the major parties are not clear-cut and money talks in both, but there are some things that are telling.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: You really are dumber than a tree.
fleeting expletive
You know, that thread where we were talking about “Princess Bride” was pretty funny. I think part of my friend’s problem is that she’s in newfound sobriety, maybe 90 days and change, with one relapse. I don’t think she can handle it, in that maybe the world looks oh so positive and wonderful to her? I’m not getting it, but I’m searching for some reason for my rational friend to be such an idiot. She has done the 90 in 90 thing and is currently quite the social butterfly with New Friends.
It could be that I’m Old Friend, not quite in good odor in the new regime. But I still think she’s acting like a stupid cow.
mclaren
In other news, a Duke Unviersity law professor has written about the “enormous strides” made by “conservative legal theory” in recent years:
http://law.duke.edu/boylesite/bork.htm
This is a “legal theory”? I thought it was called “bribery.”
Silly me.
Hal
Christ on a cracker, are we really going down the they’re all the same road with Nader in driver’s seat again? I do think Hillary is too hawkish. Hell, the great irony here is that for all the criticism of Obama and drones and such, Obama is far less hawkish than Hillary or any of the Republican candidates for President that have run post 9/11. That is scary, but if my vote can help avoid it, I’m not about to go through another 8 years with some crazy right winger at the helm.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Name-calling is not an argument.
Get back to us when you finally find some facts or logic to support your positions.
Mnemosyne
@fleeting expletive:
If she’s still in early sobriety, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t told her new friends that she’s started a new relationship. That’s one of the big verboten things in AA — everyone who’s been successful in the program will tell you over and over again that the worst time to start a new relationship is in the first year of sobriety.
Suzanne
@Hal: I am fairly meh on Hillary myself, but the fact that maclaren and the right wing hate her so much makes me like her more. I’m obstinate that way.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: I was offering my opinion that you are dumber than a tree. People may disagree.
mclaren
@Suzanne:
Spoken like a true conservative. You make your decisions based on whether they annoy progressives.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
If you’d like to criticize his rhetoric, here’s an actual sample. Go for it.
All sorts of people expect to be taken seriously. It’s the damnedest thing.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
Sure:
Who decided to invade Iraq — George W. Bush, or his corporate paymasters? Who was more influential on that decision, Bush’s vice president, or their corporate paymasters?
Do you genuinely believe that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq the same way Bush did, because Gore and Bush share the same corporate paymasters? It’s a yes or no question for you to answer, by the way.
Again, do you look at the decisions that were made by Bush — the Supreme Court appointments, the post-9/11 decisions, the post-Katrina decisions — and think that Gore would have made the exact same decisions? Again, it’s a yes or no question.
Obviously, based on the things he’s said since 2000, Nader has no regrets at all and still thinks he was completely right that Bush and Gore would have done the exact same things while in office. The question here is, can you honestly say with a straight face that Gore would have appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court? Again, a yes or no question for you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cervantes: As a short hand, Bush and Gore are the same does describe a group (the size of which is arguable) that existed in 2000. I saw them, and I am sure that you did as well.
Corner Stone
Fuck Auburn.
Another Holocene Human
@srv: wow, agreed. Truly this all souls eve is a night of surprises.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: You’d think given the myriad and wonderful things FYWP hates that copypasta that long, formatted, and obsessive would cause it to burp, but no. You would be wrong.
The Raven on the Hill
Well, that comment didn’t last long.
So here’s a link instead: a pretty good comic book introduction to Obamacare.
http://boingboing.net/2014/10/29/obamacare-what-it-is-what-it.html
Another Holocene Human
@mclaren: In that case, “progressive” laren, I’m going to gobble some GMO corn products just for you.
Tums?
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
It’s very hard to argue with these kinds of facts. The brutal reality is that the Michael Moores of the world who claimed that “there’s no difference between the two candidates” back in 2000 were utterly, totally, completely wrong.
Tragically wrong.
Catastrophically wrong.
Moreover, but for the Michael Moores and Ralph Naders, Gore would almost certainly have won Florida by a big enough margin that the Extreme Court wouldn’t have had a chance to select the president in the 2000 election.
That would’ve made history very different.
There are other important knock-on effects to the year 2000 electile dysfunction. Al Gore as president would almost certainly not have sent a USA Treason Act — excuse me, USA Patriot Act — to the congress after 9/11. We would probably still have had that misbegotten DHS foisted on us. But we wouldn’t today be living under undeclared martial law, as we are now.
One big downside of Gore as president, though, is that if Gore had served two terms, the worldwide financial collapse would’ve happened on his watch and we would probably have gotten a Republican president in 2008 by a landslide as a backlash.
But would a Repub president in 2009 have been able to do as much damage, given that the country was battered and crushed by an epochal financial collapse, as the Drunk-Driving C-Student in the year 2000 when America was flush with cash and able to spend insane amounts of money on crazy foreign wars?
Unlikely.
A sane person just cannot come up with any reasonable justification for Nader running in 2000.
AxelFoley
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly. And just in time for the gearing up for 21016, Nader again makes his presence known. Notice how this fucking relic never bashes the GOP.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus: All I am saying is that if one wants to criticize Nader’s (or anyone’s) rhetoric, then that’s precisely what one should do. That’s why I provided a sample.
@Mnemosyne: See immediately above — not that I have any great expectation that seeing will occur.
BlueDWarrior
@Mnemosyne: If anyone wants to destroy the Corporatist state, they should be looking into ways of destroying the financial system; seeing as political power will ALWAYS follow who has the most capital or other resources. It’s just endemic to human nature.
Now if Ralph Nader has any plans for ushering in the post-scarcity Utopia of soft-sci-fi fame, then I would certainly like to hear it. Otherwise, give me someone that can get the best result out of our money dominated system that we can for right now, while we work on how to better allocate resources and how to balance out everyone’s freedoms and opportunities.
karen marie
Whoever is writing the script for this “progressive left” storyline needs to try harder. Nader flirting with Rand Paul is entirely too predictable.
mclaren
@BlueDWarrior:
Unfortunately the U.S. financial system is doing a great job of that itself. And it’s going to take the rest of us down with it.
“The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats,” Nick Hanauer, politico website, July/August 2014.
karen marie
@mclaren: i would suggest you find a better hobby.
mclaren
@karen marie:
In a really bad Hunger-Games-style sci fi script, Rand Paul would be Ralph Nader in a mask.
Has anyone seen the two of them together in public?
The Raven on the Hill
On another subject, I say sexism is a touchstone for telling the difference between our major parties; it isn’t the Democrats who have to apologize for defending rape.
The Raven on the Hill
Sorry for the repetitions; I thought some of my comments had been modded out, but there they are.
Viva BrisVegas
@mclaren:
Au contraire, very very likely.
In an alternate universe in which Gore won in 2000 and the Republicans won big in 2008, the crash of 2008 would not have resulted in the Great Recession but in the Greater Depression.
Without someone like Obama on the job, Republicans would have slashed and burned government spending to achieve some sort of austerity nirvana and the US economy would have utterly tanked.
The difference between the two scenarios is one where you have a job, and another where you are roasting sparrows on a stick under an overpass.
? Martin
Holy shit am I tired. Don’t let anyone tell you that public school teachers don’t work their ass off. Helped 4 teachers last night until 11:30PM – their day started at 6AM. Then again today from 8:30 AM until 12:30 AM. They’ll be back at the school tomorrow to do the attendance and grades for the hundreds of kids that they worked with last night and tomorrow. And they’ve got 9AM-midnight activities each of the next Saturdays this month (as do I as a result), and probably the Friday after thanksgiving as well.
And this is pretty much all outside, walking around stuff – not sitting in an office. They seriously do not get paid enough.
Goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m think more like MDF.
Bruce K
If I may complete that sentence?
“If activist and perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader is any bellwether for the progressive Left…”
…then I am the King of Bohemia.
Joey Maloney
Can we have an open thread about Glenn Greenwald next?
NotMax
Always surprised the right hasn’t tried to smear Nader about having grown up bilingual, speaking both Arabic and English.
NotMax
@Bruce K
Yes indeedy. Nader is representative of Nader. Period, full stop.
TriassicSands
@mclaren:
We’re a peace-loving nation. Peace through war. (Occasional peace through perpetual war.)
sharl
@Joey Maloney: Heh, as soon as I saw this post, I had an image of AL hitting {SUBMIT POST} with a quiet, evil chuckle, before turning in for a few hours of sleep.
Baud
How clueless do you have to be to suggest that.
chopper
at least watching mclaren’s meds wear off in real time has been entertaining.
The Raven on the Hill
Oh, and here’s my list of places to phone bank to keep the Senate blue.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
HeartlandLiberal
You know, once and for all, Ralph Nader should just shut the h*ll up. When you get right down to it, his third party candidacy elected George Bush the Lesser, and sent this nation careening down the chute into the trash bin of history, the Constitution in tatters, the rule of law dead, the militarized 24×7 no warrant sneak and peek surveillance police state in full control of the apparatus of power.
From a HuffPo article.
“Mr. Nader, running as the Green Party nominee, cost Al Gore two states, Florida and New Hampshire, either of which would have given the vice president [Gore] a victory in 2000. In Florida, which George W. Bush carried by 537 votes, Mr. Nader received nearly 100,000 votes [nearly 200 times the size of Bush’s Florida ‘win’]. In New Hampshire, which Mr. Bush won by 7,211 votes, Mr. Nader pulled in more than 22,000 [three times the size of Bush’s ‘win’ in that state].” If either of those two states had gone instead to Gore, then Bush would have lost the 2000 election.”
NotMax
@HeartlandLiberal
And if the Supreme Court had kept their noses out of it and refused a case they never had any business accepting and ruling upon, it is more than likely the final tally in Florida would have swung to Gore.
Howard Beale IV
@The Raven on the Hill:
Ratfuck the Republican primaries in 2016.
Marc
@NotMax:
Why should they? He’s been their best friend.
Scott S.
Ralph Nader is a Republican. He’s funded by Republicans and he only opens his yap when he can hurt non-Republicans.
Y’all shouldn’t take political advice from a Republican.
Howard Beale IV
@Goblue72: At least I can make speaker cabinets from MDF.
Cervantes
@Joey Maloney:
Apparently not, unless he’s been planted in someone’s garden.
lurker dean
@Mary G: hope your recovery is going well, Mary. And I really hope your roommate isn’t watching faux news all day!
chuck
Once again, the blame-Nader crowd conveniently forgets what a pi**-poor campaign Gore ran. And probably who his running mate was.
Applejinx
I remember watching a TED talk from a (probably kinda right-wing) military guy. It was post-Iraq, and he was outlining what he thought SHOULD have happened. He described the US military as a ‘Leviathan force’ and explained how many orders of magnitude it was greater than anything on the planet—explained things like the last person to engage in a dogfight in aircraft was retired and how many decades it had been since there’d been an air-to-air combat between these very expensive fighter aircraft—and outlined an idea.
He wanted two militaries, one young and mean and pretty much psychotic Top Gun as a deterrent and a smash-everything force, and then a much larger one that was older, predominantly married, and more like what policemen used to be. It’s an interesting talk this guy gave, and he clearly meant every word.
I feel that the Republicans are wont to consider the first military to be the only thing, plus they would like the civilian police to be as much like that as possible. This is of course catastrophic and under the jackheel of this boot you’re basically compelled to go all North Korea, resist it, and win. It’s unthinkable to allow this sort of thing to be how the world works.
I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if Hillary is totally down with the second arrangement, an arrangement that would disgust most ardent leftwingers yet a very different picture, especially out there in the world we don’t see. It’s the distinction between how we are now, and the USA just after WWII where an idealistic nation took a lot of actions that we now cloak ourselves in (as if THAT was still the way of things). ‘cargo cults’ came from US rebuilding efforts that were taken on willingly. Countries like Japan and Germany ended up thriving through Allied rebuilding efforts in a way that, say, Germany didn’t after WWI. It worked.
We’re not doing that and haven’t for years.
Hillary Clinton is a political windmill. Far from just being a weathervane, everything about her is driven by the need to be politically awesome not just now but for posterity. I don’t think she wants to be a Dubya, and I do think she desperately needs to be President, just because. But she also needs to be the one presiding over a blossoming of new American empire and consolidation, one that benefits rather than obliterates the world. And she has to do it from the bitterly divided and corporately conquered position that we too face.
What she wants as a person is irrelevant. To direct her you gotta direct society so it’s clear society demands better. For instance, I don’t see Hillary rolling back protections for women and gays on her watch, or Obamacare. She might rename it ;) But it’s clear enough that society as a whole has spoken.
I’m interested in what she (publically) thinks of things like Occupy and the way mass media can impose blackouts and totally reshape the discourse. If she figures that is practical, not good. On the other hand she lost to Obama and must have taken that into account. She’s worked for Obama, apparently in good faith. I don’t think the arc of her political apotheosis includes a sudden tack to Tea Party values, and the corporatism depends on societal acceptance. I’d like to see her scared by the popularity of Elizabeth Warren, and tacking that direction.
Never forget she’s manufactured—but SELF-manufactured. In the final analysis she’ll work out how she wants to react, and reform herself in that image.
debbie
I think Dick Morris bit Nader and turned him.
Cervantes
@chuck:
Some people feel cheated, even betrayed, by Nader’s decisions — less so by Gore’s for some reason.
Howard and Nester
Once again, the blame-Nader crowd conveniently forgets what a pi**-poor campaign Gore ran. And probably who his running mate was.
Some people feel cheated, even betrayed, by Nader’s decisions — less so by Gore’s for some reason.
Does the meaning of the word ‘factor’ somehow elude you two? If you understand that, then how about ’eminently avoidable factor’?
If I as a high school student fail a final exam by getting 65 points on it and having to take the class again during summer, obviously my lack of academic progress/studying throughout the year was the underlying cause. However, if I couldn’t get any sleep because my parents were fighting all night in combination with the fact that I had the flu, those would also get blamed as to why I failed the fighting.
Ultimately, the reason why the kingdom was lost was because of the poor performance of the cavalry due to discipline or tactics or logistics or whatever. That still doesn’t change the fact that, for want of a nail, the horse of a key member of the dragoons wasn’t shod properly. Of course in Nader’s case we’re talking about an entire brigade of horses missing horseshoes, not just one or two.
Botsplainer
@mclaren:
Fight the power, man.
That reminds me of the vacuous shit my 20 year old was tossing out at me yesterday about how not participating in the electoral process at all because “all” politicians are evil and corrupt will bring about unicorns and sparkle ponies, and how the ethical thing to do is give everything away.
The kid has a car, cellphone and insurance, courtesy of me, after I paid for a disaster year of college, years of world class music training and every stringed instrument known to man. She lives with a 38 year old who resides in a house on property his mother owns, and who provides food and utilities while these two idiots scorn the greed of the world.
Botsplainer
@chuck:
Al Gore won the election in 2000. The absence of Nader’s purity vote would have made it a decisive, undeniable 52% or so.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cermet:
Rand Paul has held every policy position on the planet, often within the space of 24 hours, so… yeah, I guess I agree.
sherparick
@Mandalay: First, Rand Paul is not going to be the nominee of the Republican Party. That person is likely to be Scott Walker, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, or John Kasich, all far more hawkish and corporatist than Hilary Clinton and all far more likely to be disatrous from the liberal, progressive, and socialist point of view on domestic policy, civil rights, women rights, environmental, Supreme Court (Janice Rogers Brown on the court would make John Roberts appear to be a leftist) and economic policy (or perfect from the short term plutocratic pont of view). Second, all I can say is that Ralph has never criticized the Bush administration and the Republican Party these last sixteen years, no matter what they did. I don’t remember him speaking out before the Iraq war or when Bush was putting through his tax cuts and savaging environmental policy. So now he wants to elect a Tea Party President to go with a Tea Party Congress, where the passionate intensity is not with Mr. Paul, but with Mr. Cruz and his like who want wage a world wide crusade against all Muslims. So Hilary may be an imperfect instrument to prevent this outcome, but the last person I take advice or criticism form is Ralph Florida 2000 Nader.
sherparick
Also, to be noted, is that Rand Paul is now more hawkish than President Obama, and at least as hawkish as Hilary Clinton on the ISIS War. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/paul-and-the-war-against-isis/
sherparick
@Scott S.: Very true. Nader has only be criticizing Democrats and helping Republicans win elections these last 20 years. He does not campaign for progressive democrats in primaries versus conservative democrats, or tried to create a progressive Republican opposition to corporatist and theocon movement that took that party over. He has done nothing to build up progressive grass roots network (something he knows how to do since he built one in the 1960s and 70s) as he indulges in Presidential green lanternism and bitiching about the Republican Pary.
Corner Stone
@Applejinx:
Thomas P.M. Barnett, and he certainly did mean every word of it as he’s made his life’s work and living speaking/writing around that concept.
And he’s definitely on the right side of center, politically.
CarolDuhart2
@Botsplainer: Yes, she’s 20, so a bit naive, but what about the 38 year old? Who does she think will provide when you are gone?
About political participation: one rule of life is that if you don’t participate in making the rules, someone will make them for you-and they may not be to her liking. Not only that, but if good people don’t participate, folks who have less of a conscience will.
Think about what would it have been like if Obama had thought the same way, and not particpated in politics. No ACA, a crashed economy, still in two wars (and probably in Iran as well-a massive disaster). No loosening of the rules, no compassionate approach to Trayvon or Ferguson, and so much more.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: And where is going to find the cannon fodder for his two armies?
SFAW
Y’all blaming Nader have (apparently) got it all wrong, you know.
I was in a “spirited” discussion with some ex-Naderite (although he/she claimed not to have voted for St. Ralph the Pure in 2000) over at Josh Marshall’s place.
The genius’s claim was that Nader drew (almost) as many votes from Bush as he did from Gore. Something like 52 percent from Gore, 48 percent from Bush. He referred me to a “study” by Professors Herron and Lewis, which he claimed would show me how totally fucking wrong I was for thinking – even though Nader only went after presumably-disaffected Dems who thought “both sides are the same” – that Nader appealed to both Parties, etc., etc.
Of course, when I pointed out that the Conclusion in the alleged “study” (and don’t get me started on their methodology, and all the weasel-wording they used throughout) supported the thesis that Nader did in fact change the outcome from Gore to Bush, he (or she?) tried hanging his/her hat on the sentence which said something like “but that only happened because turnout was unusually light/heavy/something/mumble.” When I pointed out that “reasons” don’t/didn’t change the conclusion, there was a lot of spluttering, at which point I left.
Fucking Nader. If that smug, arrogant, clueless motherfucker had had the grace to issue a statement similar to what Elliot Cutler appears to have done in Maine, I might have some tolerance for him. Oh, yeah, and if he had been right about the “both sides are the same” idiocy.
About the only upside to Nader’s role in 2000 was that TBogg probably would never have written this, had Gore’s election not been canceled by the Extreme Court. But – and no offense to TBogg – I would rather he not have had to write it.
Botsplainer
@CarolDuhart2:
Former organic weed grower who got mad at his fellow weed growers who opposed legalization in California. Thought they would/should brace cheap weed for the masses.
He’s an idiot who never grew up.
Magic sparkle ponies. Her sisters alternatively laugh at her and dread the day they’ll have to take care of her.
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat: missing a he, after the where. The sentence should have read:
LanceThruster
@Goblue72:
Yes…of course. Their looks determine their worthiness to campaign for their chosen candidate. Too bad they couldn’t afford Pelosi’s plastic surgeon. Pelosi was too scared to even debate Sheehan. That’s how confidant she was in the strength of her positions.
Feh! W
hat democracy?
HRA
When all is said and done whether it be Ralph Nader or anyone else, there still remains Bill Clinton’s remark of “getting two for the price of one” when he ran for president. In addition, his best buds have been thrashing President Obama for a long time now and they are beginning to form a group for the purpose of a Clinton victory in 2016. I cannot ignore the obvious of a Clinton candidacy. It will be a 3rd Bill Clinton presidency. There will be no choice for those of us who want to vote if Hilary is nominated.
Mandalay
@chuck:
Exactly right. Gore completely blew it, but folks here have a desperate need to blame someone else. Gore’s loss can’t anything to do with Gore disowning Clinton, Gore picking Lieberman for VP, Gore distancing himself from the achievements of the Administration over the previous eight years, Gore’s wooden and condescending manner, Gore’s laziness on the campaign trail, Gore’s miserable debating efforts with Bush. No – it’s all Nader’s fault!
Total ignorance of some very recent history.
And so it goes with Clinton. Many here are eager to hop in bed with Hillary Clinton solely because she would not be as bad any Republican candidate, and therefore any criticism of her is immediately attacked. The issues of whether Clinton is a warmonger and a corporate shill must always be off limits to the BJ cognoscenti. It’s irrelevant to them, and any discussion of it is unacceptable.
Cervantes
@Howard and Nester:
Oh, all sorts of things elude me, all the time — but did you (two) have a specific objection to the one line I wrote?
Is that one line true? Is it false? Is it in between?
Or would you rather extrapolate from it and object to your own extrapolation? Because, you know, a reason for doing this last is an example of a thing that would elude me.
SFAW
@Mandalay:
Well, at least one line of your rant is accurate.
(Just tryin’ to find a little good in everything.)
Howard Beale IV
@SFAW:
The person who wrote that rant was dead on-unfortunately, the cows were long gone after the barn dorr was closed. The real problem was that The Big Dog himself laid the seeds for the Great Recession when he signed the repeal of Glass-Stegall, the CFMA, and let Treasury bail out LTCM. Those three events signaled two things-that (1) the financial industry could create any kind of exotic security with virtually no regulation or oversight and (2) no matter how fucked things would get, the real big players in the financial industry will be bailed out if the market tanked-and that’s exactly what happened.
danielx
@Applejinx:
Fixed. Full stop.
She certainly doesn’t want to be a Dubya (who would?), and it’s for damn sure that no one, not even the Big Dog, is going to play Uncle Dick Cheney to her Dubya. But I do get the sense that she’s been more or less anointed by the Al From/DLC portion of the Democratic Party, a la Dubya receiving the nod from the corporate/neocon wing(s) of the Republican Party, and further that she’s running because it’s her turn, a la John McCain. Granted that I’d vote for Hillary Clinton versus any Republican that I can think of offhand, the criticisms made of her, here and elsewhere, regarding her close relationship with Wall Street*, and her stance on an “activist” foreign policy…are valid enough. And I have to admit I don’t see Hillary, of all people, rolling back the monstrous expansion of the national security/police state that has taken place over the last fourteen years, any more than Obama did. I admit I nursed some faint hopes of that after 2008, but alas…any time any president gets handed that much extra-constitutional power it’s just too convenient to have for it to be refused. For that matter, Hillary’s stance on foreign policy isn’t all that different from Obama’s, which I’ve heard referred to as George Bush on steroids, if somewhat muted. Lacking the half-witted triumphalist Texas chest beating and dick waving, that is. One thing was for certain about Obama from the first – he wasn’t going to let himself be outflanked by the Rs on national security issues, and I don’t see Hillary being any different…for that matter, any serious presidential candidate. There are simply too many people with their snouts in the national security/permanent war rice bowl for it to be otherwise. Similarly with Wall Street, particularly since the Supremes, in their infinite wisdom, put political power up for sale ever so explicitly.
*I have read – repeatedly – about the hurt fee-fees of various Wall Street personages about various utterances from Obama and others (Ds and Rs/Paulites included) regarding their misdeeds and tendencies. You’d think these hard-nosed business types wouldn’t take on so about a little mild criticism of their practices and ethics (!!!). Who knew they were so sensitive? I always have had the same reaction, roughly: Why are you complaining about Obama? Watch what he does, not what he says, and what he hasn’t done is have his AG and Justice Department focus on putting any of you sorry-ass sociopathic felonious pigfuckers behind bars where, goddamnit, you obviously belong.
SFAW
@Cervantes:
I can answer, without reservation – yes.
Howard Beale IV
@Mandalay: If Clinton gets on the Dem ticket for 2016, I’ll write in Jesse Ventura.
Mandalay
@sherparick:
This is the mentality here. Presumably if someone you approve of had made comments criticizing Clinton then they would be worthy of discussion, but because the messenger is someone you disapprove of the criticism cannot even be considered.
Baud
@Mandalay:
That’s how it is everywhere. There’s virtually no group of people that doesn’t take the credibility of the speaker into account.
SFAW
@Howard Beale IV:
The ranter may have been accurate about some things, but ignored plenty of things that (likely) would not have come to pass in a Gore Admin, and did in a Bush Admin.
And I think Clinton had a fair amount of help from some guy named Greenspan, who had been working the refs since before Clinton got there.
But the taking-my-ball-and-going-home schtick has never been shown to be an effective way of getting what you want. And that is what TBogg was writing about, I believe.
AnonPhenom
OK Nadarites, this is a math quiz. If Hillary has taken the correct position on 90% of these issues and has a 60% chance winning the 2016 election, but Ralph has a 100% correct poition on those same issues but a 1.5% chance of winning the 2016 election, while Rand has 10% correct position, again on those same issues, and a 27% chance of winning the 2016 election……which foot will you shoot yourself in?
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s been a while since I read much of his work, but IIRC his essential theory is the military doesn’t do modern tasks very well and should re-org. Break off the nation-building/emergency relief aid/stability contingent from the whiz-bang, shoot ’em up “when everybody over there simply has to be killed right to-dog-damned-day!” fighting force. Keep the fighting force lean and mean and use sparingly. Bring in the administrative brain power and logistical support from the much larger new peacekeeping force much more often and in overwhelming numbers.
As I said, if I’m understanding him somewhat correctly, he’s not arguing for more meat grinder wars. He’s saying if we can use the special skills and knowledge of logistics the military has developed in modern times we could actually stabilize hot spots before they turned hot. And then support that area back onto its feet.
Mandalay
@Baud:
Sure, but the issue here is that nobody here wants to take the credibility of the actual comments into account. That discussion is simply off limits.
SFAW
@AnonPhenom:
Both [sic] of those percentages are the same.
Belafon
Gore ran a poor campaign, especially thinking that he could campaign by running away from Clinton. At the same time, those who thought they could vote for Nader and get away with it cost the country. For another example, see Maine.
Yes, I blame the voters for not thinking through what happens in a winner take all system. Strangely, you know who gets it: The tea partiers. Which is why the Republicans are both afraid of them and court them. They vote for Republicans in general elections, no matter who they claim to support in the primaries.
SFAW
@Belafon:
But Gore sighed during his debate with W! And he forgot about Poland!* What a tool!
*(Yes, I know that was Kerry.)
Cervantes
@SFAW: Par.
Baud
@Mandalay:
Most of the time Hillary comes up here, it’s people being critical of her. Very few people here are going to instigate a serious conversation about Hillary in response to a Nader comment. I don’t take him seriously, and I’m glad people here don’t.
karen marie
@Mandalay: Evaluating the record of someone before their furrent opinion is a time saving device. Do you ignore Fox News’ record and consider every opinion expressed by its employees? How about Sarah Palin? Do her pronouncements deserve serious consideration. Face it, Nader is a nasty old piece of gum that got stuck to the shoe of the Democratic party.
SFAW
@karen marie:
Yes. Especially the ones regarding Russia (since she can see it from her kitchen), POWs (did you know her running mate had been one?), and, of course, brawl couture.
Oh, yeah: and child naming.
SFAW
@Cervantes:
That’s an improvement for me. Usually I triple-bogey. (Hey, getting past that damned windmill can be tough!)
different-church-lady
@AnonPhenom: ANSWER: Both. Without even flinching.
sherparick
@Scott S.: Very true. Nader has only be criticizing Democrats and helping Republicans win elections these last 20 years. He does not campaign for progressive democrats in primaries versus conservative democrats, or tried to create a progressive Republican opposition to corporatist and theocon movement that took that party over. He has done nothing to build up progressive grass roots network (something he knows how to do since he built one in the 1960s and 70s) as he indulges in Presidential green lanternism and bitiching about the Democratic Party.
I think there is plenty to criticize about Hilary (although her platform, on domestic issues was to the left’s of Obama in 2008, as Krugthu pointed out to much critiicism at the time.). She is definitely going to track left on domestic issues (and by the way, not noticed on left apparently, many right wing heads exploded last week and proclaimed that Hilary revealed her hidden Alynskite Socialist when she denounced the Republican/Conservative/Plutocrat talking point of “corporations and businesses” creating jobs. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/26/hillary-clinton-corporations-and-businesses-dont-create-jobs/
debbie
@sherparick:
Ack. You totally ruined my Sunday by including Kasich in your list of likely GOP candidates. On the other hand, if he was nominated, the Democratic nominee would be a shoe-in.
Cervantes
@SFAW: I don’t even golf — so what do I know?
SFAW
@Cervantes:
There’s a reason that “golf” is “flog” spelled backwards, you know.
Or was that “Serutan”? (No Goodgulf jokes from the peanut gallery, please.)
Kerry Reid
“Gonadal politics.” Fuck off and die, Ralph.
Corey X It
Corvairs were damn fun to drive. Especially if you got one with a bigger engine that enhanced the weighlessness of the front end with added thrust from behind.
F#$K Nader.
Kenneth Almquist
@Cervantes: In the speech you link to, Nader claims that, “Al Gore wants to add more to the military budget than George W. Bush.” So in November 2000, Nader still hadn’t figured out that Bush was lying about how much he intended to spend on the military. Apparently he didn’t read Krugman regularly, or talk to anyone who did. Nor did it register with him that of the many Republicans who favored higher military spending, not one voiced even the slightest concern over the possibility that Bush might be telling the truth.
Somehow, I would expect someone who was running for President to follow the Presidential election a bit more closely than that.
Cervantes
@Kenneth Almquist:
I made reference to that speech because, in it, Nader was specific about ways in which he felt Gore was pushing policies that were just as bad as, or worse than, the ones Bush was pushing.
I presume that for the purposes of his rhetoric he was simply utilizing those statements by Bush and Gore, without openly questioning their veracity.
I agree with you that it was, and remains, almost impossible to confuse Bush’s statements with the truth. The man is incapable of shame, never mind honesty. Gore was, and remains, not nearly as bad in this regard, not even close.
LAC
@Omnes Omnibus: wait a minute… Comparing a tree to mouthy mclaren? One is a useful organism that plays a significant role in reducing erosion and moderating the climate, and provides a habitat for many species. The other is a mouthbreathing long winded depressive with too much time on his hands. Something tells me you could sit under mclaren for shade, but a tree would be less toxic.
Jebediah, RBG
@AnonPhenom:
No Labels has convinced me that it is divisive, uncivil, and unproductive to go on with this old-fashioned, “this is my left foot, that is my right foot” approach. They’re both just feet, man! So I have no idea. And also my shoes don’t quite fit properly about half the time.
chuck
@Cervantes:
Gore’s choices screwed him. The Democrats in Connecticut came to their senses in 2006, and Gore came to his senses when he separated from his “cultural terrorist” of a wife.
chuck
@Mandalay:
Oh, thank you. It still makes me furious that Donna Brazile has a media job for what she did to this country.
chuck
I live in a state where my presidential vote is meaningless. Unless and until the Electoral College is done away with, fuck all of you, I’ll fucking write in Charles Manson for all I give a good goddamn flying fuck. And if I lived in Florida in 2000, I may have well good goddamn fucking well stayed home. It’s a shame Al grew a pair and ditched that bitch too late.
Joe Leiberman would have gotten this country as screwed as Dick Cheney did, for completly different but equally poor reasons.
Kenneth Almquist
@Cervantes:
The specifics Nader gave would be relevant if the question was whether Al Gore was a hard leftist. Clearly he wasn’t (and isn’t). He’s a centerist Democrat, like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.
But the question is whether there were significant differences between Al Gore and George Bush, and there the relevant specifics are the issues where Gore and Bush staked out different positions. I can’t find an example now, but at the time it was easy to find comparative listings of the candidates’ positions on various issues, showing where they differ. If he wanted to get into specifics, Nader could have picked picked one of those lists and gone through it explaining why he didn’t think the differences were important.
My sense is that the reason that Nader didn’t do that was because his position was basicly indefensible. For example, Bush and Gore differed on the Kyoto treaty. By dismissing the differences between Bush and Gore as trivial or nonexistent, Nader seems to be indicating that he’s more interested in winning votes than in stopping global warming. Perhaps a more charitable interpretation is possible, but Nader doesn’t offer one.