John Kerry is not the New Ralph Nader

"John Kerry is a pro-war, ruling-class, conservative Democrat". Tayacan

A letter from Ralph Nader to his supporters on 11/18/04:

Dear True Progressive,

One of the first calls we took after the election was from a friend in West Virginia, who was a Kerry supporter. George W. Bush had been unofficially re-elected.

He was despondent. Do you want to know the first thing he said? “Kerry is going to be the new Nader.”

Among Democrats, 'Nader' apparently has come to mean: the person to blame when the Democrats lose.

In 2000, Democrats blamed me for costing Gore the election—not Gore, who lost his own state, nor the 250,000 Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush.

Is there any question now who is responsible for the 2004 debacle?

Senator Kerry waffled his way to defeat.

Instead of standing with us for a Medicare-for-all plan that is the model for most western countries in the world, he proposed another cockamamie, step-by-step complexity that will dig us deeper into the health care quagmire.

Instead of standing with us for a living wage, he proposed a microscopic minimum wage increase to $7-an-hour by 2007. (In Florida, while the Bush boys were bashing a one dollar an hour increase in the minimum wage that was on the ballot, Kerry said nothing. The initiative won on November 2, by 72-28, while Bush beat Kerry in Florida 51% to 47%.)

Instead of saying we need to reexamine corporate-controlled trade agreements while blue and white collar jobs and industries are outsourced daily, Kerry stood by his votes for the job-wasting NAFTA and WTO.

Instead of standing with us against the war in Iraq, he out-hawked George W. Bush in the first debate.

Instead of standing with us against the invasive Patriot Act, he stood by his vote for it.

Compare Kerry’s spinelessness to his colleague Russ Feingold in the Senate. Feingold stood against the war in Iraq, against the Patriot Act, against the major free trade agreements, and for a universal health care system. Feingold’s supporters wore a backbone on their t-shirts.

As Ruth Coniff pointed out recently in the Progressive, Wisconsin voters—even Republicans—re-elected Feingold by a much larger margin than they gave to Kerry.

Instead of standing with the American people on issues that would win a majority of the voters, Kerry condoned attack-dogs against our campaign around the country who sought to intimidate our volunteers and our supporters and to lie to reporters covering our campaign.

The Democrats spent millions on lawyers who successfully knocked us off the ballot in key states like Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

While our committed staff fought back—winning in eight of 11 state Supreme Courts—the Democrats managed to divert our limited resources into the legal arena and away from issues that matter.

Ours was a model, clean campaign. We fought the good fight. We feel great about keeping the progressive agenda alive.

People keep asking—how are we doing?—as if the corrupt parties and their corporate paymasters would ever discourage us. They have not and they will not.

I predicted before the campaign that liberal Democrats who supported us in 2000 would abandon us in droves this year; sadly, they did.

But in our travels to all 50 states, we have met thousands of active citizens, young and old alike, who don’t give a hoot for corporate politics and are working with us in the ongoing campaign to break up the corporate-controlled two-party duopoly.

The picture you see here is me with one of the many Nader/Camejo supporters we met in Minneapolis. She represents the new young generation that will carry us forward into a brighter and more confident future.

So, I’m ready to join with you to go after Bush on his illegal war in Iraq—that Kerry voted for—which has, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, claimed 100,000 Iraqi lives through October and thousands of US casualties.

Bush’s war is an illegal war, each one of those deaths is a crime. This should be the number-one issue in the upcoming year.

Here’s the rub: In 2004, because of the Democratic Party’s multimillion dollar counterattack, and despite our frugal ways, we were driven into debt.

We have to make up our shortfall quickly—about $500,000 for both debts and winding down the campaign.

So, let’s make a deal: to the first 5,000 "Angels" who send in $100 or more to Nader for President 2004, I will personally sign my new little paperback, Civic Arousal, addressed to the younger generation, and get it in the mail to you promptly.

We are looking for 5,000 donors to help us wrap up this campaign on a happy fiscal note.

Please go to our web site, www.votenader.org, press the contribute button, and give as generously as you can. If you want to give $100 or more and receive a signed copy of Civic Arousal.

Thank you for your ongoing support and bright horizons.

Ralph Nader

Vietnam--Death of one-tenth of one per cent of world's population

Vietnam was a genocidal war crime from start to finish. The 3 million SouthEast Asians killed in that illegal U.S. invasion, occupation and war constituted nearly one-tenth of one percent of the world's population at the time. The U.S.--which has been involved in numerous illegal wars since Vietnam--is now involved in another illegal invasion, occupation and war in Iraq. Don't even bother to ask if we will ever learn. We won't. We are a capitalist, imperialist, expansionist nation hell-bent of global domination and the imposition of our ways, values, and the christian religion on the rest of the world. We are making more enemies everyday, both at home and abroad.

In the 1970's and 1980's Amerians loved to say that people around the world knew it was the U.S. government, not the U.S. people, that was the enemy of peace and justice around the world and at home. That is no longer true and the recognition is growing daily around the world. This is the hope presented by the Bush re-election--that the people of the world increasingly realize that the U.S. people are not capable of and are not interested in a U.S. government which is good for the rest of the world. The hope presented by Bush's re-election is that the people of the world will become increasingly clear that they must challenge and defeat the U.S. government (and the people who elect it every four years) in international forums, in the market place of ideas, and in every other forum of international debate and consensus.

Most people have to pay at whore. But John Kerry didn't even have pay because the Democrats and so-called "progressives" gave it--their vote and therefore their consent-- away for free. All the Democrats and "progressives" asked John Kerry to do was to beat George Bush. No contorted sex acts or anything. Kerry was essentially told by Democrats and so-called progressives, "Go whereever you have to go ideologically and do whatever you have to do politically. Equivocate on abortion, support the war in Iraq, do what ever you have to. Just beat George Bush". But Kerry and the Democratic Party couldn't even do that.

John Kerry didn't beat George Bush. Despite moving as far right as he could and becoming in the end a pro-war, ruling class, conservative Democrat, John Kerry lost. You, my fellow so-called "progressive" Americans, sold out. You--Noam Chomsky, Howard Dean, Spokane Progressives Yahoo Group, the Nation magazine, all of you--led first time voters and young voters to John Kerry and the ideologically and intellectually bankrupt Democratic Party. Several candidates out there, Ralph Nader and David Cobb among them, could have and in fact did eloquently addressed every issue that you claim out of one side of your mouth to believe in. But you, yes you, silenced them and their supporters.

Not to worry, right? Your house is warm, your bed is made, there is food in the frig, and two cats in the yard. Yes, you sold out and the rest of the world knows it.