Nader/Gonzalez 08'

Like a lot of other people, I'm sick of Democrats and Republicans hijacking everything from the common man for the benefit of corporate elitism. This includes but is not restricted to the erosion of our civil liberties, our privacy, our tax dollars, our workers' rights, and our safety due to expensive and inefficient healthcare, massive pollution, de-regulation of every major sector of the economy and a foreign policy which is highly polarized and antagonistic.

I wasn't even going to vote at all (unless Nader ran) since the main candidates and their parties are both controlled by the strings of corporatism. On the other hand, Nader has been fighting for the people and against corporations and their government cronies for around 50 years. Despite the fact he has never held office in the U.S., and despite the fact he has been fighting extremely powerful corporate and government forces, he has been instrumental in enacting: Mandatory seatbealts and airbags, nutritional facts on food, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Safe Drinking Water Act. He also helped create the Wholesome Meat Act, National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), Public Citizen, The Disability Rights Center, the Pension Rights Center and many others. He has also started many non-profit organizations including:

Citizen Advocacy Center
Citizens Utility Boards
Congress Accountability Project
Consumer Task Force For Automotive Issues
Corporate Accountability Research Project
Disability Rights Center
Equal Justice Foundation
Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights
Georgia Legal Watch
National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform
National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
Pension Rights Center
PROD (truck safety)
Retired Professionals Action Group
The Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest
1969: Center for the Study of Responsive Law
1970s: Public Interest Research Groups
1970: Center for Auto Safety
1970: Connecticut Citizen Action Group
1971: Aviation Consumer Action Project
1972: Clean Water Action Project
1972: Center for Women's Policy Studies
1973: Capitol Hill News Service
1980: Multinational Monitor (magazine covering multinational corporations)
1982: Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
1982: Essential Information (encourage citizen activism and do investigative journalism)
1983: Telecommunications Research and Action Center
1983: National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
1989: Princeton Project 55 (alumni public service)
1993: Appleseed Foundation (local change)
1994: Resource Consumption Alliance (conserve trees)
1995: Center for Insurance Research
1995: Consumer Project on Technology
1997?: Government Purchasing Project (encourage purchase of safe products)
1998: Center for Justice and Democracy
1998: Organization for Competitive Markets
1998: American Antitrust Institute (ensure fair competition)
1999?: Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest
1999?: Commercial Alert (protect family, community, and democracy from corporations)
2000: Congressional Accountability Project (fight corruption in Congress)
2001: Citizen Works (promote NGO cooperation, build grassroots support, and start new groups)
2001: Democracy Rising (hold rallies to educate and empower citizens)


In short, the man has a long and solid record of helping Americans which far surpasses that of any of the other candidates. For this reason alone you should seriously consider giving him your vote. Read the links I provide below, and if you like his positions, give him your vote instead of wasting it on the same corporate spokesmen who collapsed the economy, left tens of millions of Americans with no healthcare, bailed out the gambling crooks on Wall Street at the expense of pensioners and savers, supported the Patriot Act, and countless other harmful infractions towards our well-being. Nader is around 7% in the national polls right now despite the fact he has recieved no media coverage, so spread the word. He doesn't even need to win, he just needs to get some of these issues on the table by having a decent turnout and making some noise.

Here is his official campaign website: www.votenader.org


You can check out his stance on the main issues here: http://www.votenader.org/issues/

In some states like Nebraska I think he has around 10%. Anyways, these are all estimates which could be wrong. 

Mike Bloomburg was the only realistic third party candidate who had a remote outside shot in this election and he didn't run.

I would like to share this with you all. It discusses why 3rd party candidates have the odds stacked against them, by not being allowed to participate in the presidential debates and reach tens of millions of people instantly. Why are they not allowed? The Nader/Gonzalez campaign address it on their website:

Right now, they are limited to the candidates from the two corporate parties.

The debates are controlled by the so-called Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation which was created by the Democratic and Republican Parties in 1987.

The Commission is headed by Frank Fahrenkopf — the former head of the Republican National Committee, and Paul Kirk — the former head of Democratic National Committee.

Fahrenkopf is a lobbyist for gambling interests, Kirk for pharmaceutical companies.

Debate sponsors have included Anheuser-Busch, Phillip Morris, Ford Motor Co., Yahoo Inc., 3Com, among other companies who gave soft money to the two parties’ national committees.

In 2000, some in the press dubbed the debates as the “Anheuser-Bush-Gore” debates.

In a memo by the CPD, the avowed goal for forming the commission was to "strengthen the two parties."

In 1988, the Commission seized control of the debates from the League of Women Voters.

The League had a history of allowing third party candidates to participate in the debates. In 1980 the League invited Congressman John Anderson to join Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in the debates.

Anderson was given a boost from the public debates. At one point the polls had him at 21%. He won 7% of the vote.

When Jesse Ventura ran for Governor in Minnesota he was polling at 10 percent in the polls before the debates. After ten statewide debates he rose to 38 percent and won a 3-way race.

The Commission on Presidential Debates took a different tack from the League of Women Voters.

This Commission/corporation has excluded Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan from the debates.

In 1996 Ross Perot was excluded from the debates. Even with all his money and after having won nearly 19 percent of the vote in 1992 it was determined that he did not have "a chance to win," despite the fact that he even led in the polls at one point in 1992.

Walter Cronkite called the presidential debates under the CPD an "unconscionable fraud" because the CPD format "defies meaningful discourse."

In early years the CPD determined who could be in a debate by vague criteria including interviews with columnists, pollsters and consultants who determined whether a candidate could win.

In the year 2000, the CPD changed their criteria for third party and independent candidates — a candidate now needed 15 percent or more support as measured by the average of five private polling organizations — which just happen to be owned by several major newspaper and television conglomerates.

In 2000, Ralph Nader was excluded from the debates because the parent corporations that conduct these polls were giving him scant attention.

Without the mainstream media attention there is no moving up, and without moving up, candidates like Nader do not get into the debates and reach tens of millions of people.

In 2000, a Fox poll revealed that 64% of likely voters wanted to see ‘other candidates’ including Ralph Nader in the debates.

Other polls in 2004 showed similar results.

But it didn’t happen, thanks to the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Independents voices and third party candidates, including the Abolitionist, Women’s Suffrage Movement, Worker Protection, and Farmer Populace Party, have brought about many of the major changes in this country.

When Abraham Lincoln ran for office, the two major parties were the Whigs and the Democrats.

As a Republican, Lincoln was elected as a third party candidate — even after being left off the ballot in the 11 states that seceded from the Union.

In 2004, 17 national civic leaders from the left, center and right of political spectrum - including Paul Weyrich, Chellie Pingree of Common Cause, Alan Keyes, Tom Gerety of the Brennan Center for Justice, Bay Buchanan, Randall Robinson, former FEC General Counsel Larry Noble, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Jehmu Green of Rock the Vote - created the Citizens’ Debate Commission.

Bolstered by an advisory board comprised of 60 diverse civic groups, the Citizens’ Debate Commission goal is to sponsor presidential debates that serves the American people, not political parties, first.

http://www.votenader.org/issues/presidential-debates/

Originally posted by gcle2003 As the British Liberal party showed in its renaissance the way for third parties to gain ground is to concentrate first on local elections and issues. A third party will never gain attention in any democratic election at national level unless it first establishes a significant presence in local and then State (thinking of the US or Germany fr instance) level.   That means concentrating on dull useful stuff that gradually wins over people because they get tangible benefits - not going all out for the 'big' prize of the Presidency because it's glamorous.

That's very interesting .In Greece, during the latest years, the two-party system (it's not an actual two-party system since there are more than 2 parties in Parliament, but it is called so because there are only 2 parties changing place in power in the last 30 years) has lost it's strength (finally). I mean if you read the poles of the last 3-4 years, you will see that "Nobody" takes the second or the third place in the question " Who do you think is more suitable for Prime Minister?" . It is not accidental that in recent poles, this question has been pulled out. In all the Western world, politics is in crisis. People are fed up. I am fed up. I see the same faces on TV for the past 12 years of my life (as far as i can remember having contact with politics). Third parties are needed. But serious ones. Here, after the 2007 election we have 5 parties in Parliament. The only new one is a nationalist-extreme rightist one. So, i do not know about you, but i have lost faith to partyism, inside or outside the Parliament.

Edited by Spartakus - 19-Oct-2008 at 17:34

Here is my take on Nader.

I respect the man, I think that his analyses of what is wrong with this country is correct and on the mark. He is a brilliant thinker and his words are those of a prophet.

I actually agree with most of his positions.

At the same time, his political actions have been terrible for the nation. He shares a great part of the responsibility for what has happened in the last 8 years when he set out to punish the Democratic Party and purify the left.

I don't really understand what is he thinking. He is too smart to be politically naive. My suspicion is that he really does this to punish the Democratic Party.

And don't get me wrong; I actually agree with him on the reasons for why the Democratic Party should be reformed. But delivering a radical right-wing fundamentalism ended up hurting the whole nation. Conservative-light in the vein of Clinton that we would probably would have had with Gore would have been a lot better than what we ended up living with.

Moreover, the most important rule in any endeavor, especially politics, should be not to harm people. And Nader has, indirectly through helping elect Bush, hurt the people who he claimed he was helping.

At the same time I will admit that having the radi-Cons running the country has made the sleepy left wake up and re-engage in politics. Many left-wing hippies stopped voting decades ago because they didn't want to give legitimacy to the system. Many voted for Nader in 2000. By 2004, many of them understood the need to actually put people in power to prevent the radiCons from completely destroying the country. And many of the former Nader supporters became Dean supporters. I have been lucky to have worked with some of these people in a political project Nader is partially to be thanked for this.

At the same time I won't try to dissuade you from voting for Nader. What I would encourage you to do is that once you have identified other Nader supporters, become active, as a bloc, within your local Democratic Party. This way you will give you guys real power.

To keep the thread focused on the Nader/Gonzalez campaign, here are some videos:

Edited by ArmenianSurvival - 22-Oct-2008 at 22:22