[Texgreen] SF BeyondChron: Ralph Nader Doesn't Help the Green Party

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:54:28 +0000

<html><div style='background-color:'><P>Essentiallly, Greens must build a political,yes, electoral base and learn how to govern within a system that is created to help the powerful but can be turned upside down to grudgingly work for the average Dick and Jane.&nbsp; The system can be changed but it is incremental in electoral politics and always wiil be.&nbsp; The essence of elections is deliberate and cautions not to be confused with the movement that is dynamic and risky or to use a capitalist word, Bullish.<BR><BR></P>
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From: <I>David Pollard &lt;dopollard@yahoo.com&gt;</I><BR>Reply-To: <I>David Pollard &lt;dopollard@yahoo.com&gt;</I><BR>To: <I>TXGP Listserve &lt;texgreen@gp-us.org&gt;</I><BR>Subject: <I>[Texgreen] SF BeyondChron: Ralph Nader Doesn't Help the Green Party</I><BR>Date: <I>Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:08:30 -0700 (PDT)</I><BR><BR>
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<DIV><A href="http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Ralph_Nader_Doesn_t_Help_the_Green_Party_4302.html">http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Ralph_Nader_Doesn_t_Help_the_Green_Party_4302.html</A></DIV>
<DIV>Ralph Nader Doesn't Help the Green Party by Marc Salomon‚ Mar. 15‚ 2007 Just as it was said that Dwight Eisenhower rated a 10 as a general and a 2 as president, Ralph Nader rated an 11 as a consumer advocate and a 1 as a politician. At this point, Ralph Nader is a tired relic of a previous generation who has yet to realize that his toolkit is so outdated that it no longer functions as designed, a man who cannot travel without speaking to a crowd of true believers wherever he goes. Just as so many of us have been prosletyzed by fundamentalist Christians, have already heard the "good news," and have taken a pass, Nader needs to realize that his approach is alienating more than it is magnetizing. <A name=more></A>Elections are complex, multivariate systems. It is true that Nader's campaign exerted a downward pressure on 
Gore votes nationwide, most markedly in Florida. That said, there were many other variables in play, such as Gore's losing his and his president's own home states after eight years of what was considered a successful Democrat presidency and the Democrat Party's incompetence at the real election at the Supreme Court. At the end of the day, Bush II won by 1 Republican vote in that august, ostensibly depoliticized body. Yes, Nader played a role in the 2000 outcome, but there is no evidence that Nader's campaign in and of itself was the decisive factor in the outcome. In 2000, it seemed like a good idea at the time for the Green Party to exercise our democratic rights under the constitution, what with Clinton imposing welfare reform and NAFTA. But political reality has eclipsed reality and if our likely political base is not supportive of our participation at that level at this time, 
then any political party which hopes to win elections must take such concerns seriously. Our base ratified this analysis in 2004 when Nader and David Cobb, the Green nominee, were shellacked at the polls. There are those Green who believe that Nader is still relevant. And as in any political formation, the infatuation with celebrity and the celebrity's nurturing his own ego and the cult-like behavior that surrounds this all can often come to dominate any sober, rational political analysis. Such is the case with Nader where his devotees assert that challenging Nader's presidential jousting at windmills negates his decades of important consumer advocacy work. The Naderite Greens also believe that the only reason why Greens are not successful at high office is because our likely voting base is concerned about electing a Republican with a minority vote should they vote Green 
and "take votes away" from the Democrat. These Greens fetishize IRV as a solution to that which they perceive as a problem. While spoiling is a minor concern, as most jurisdictions are heavily one party or the other, my read is that voters do not believe that dilettantes who claim to have all the answers yet have no experience governing or building viable electoral coalitions should be trusted to run the government. If anything, 2000 raised the bar over which candidates not of the duopoly must jump. Despite Bush II's neoconservative misadventures, it is clear that the ruling elites have broken ranks with that project and are moving to recenter the two party system on areas where there is substantial elite consensus. As was said in the 2000 campaign, the two major parties still agree on 80% of all policies, policies that have exacerbated the divides between rich and poor 
domestically, fatally wounded the environment and through the so-called "free trade" regimen, relegated billions to poverty, cultural clearcutting and dependency in order to make our lives in the global north more convenient. Just as there is division in the corporate elites over neoconservativism, there is debate within the Green Party over the role of high profile celebrity candidates expending scarce resources on campaigns for impossibly high office. As Ella Baker said: "strong people don't need strong leaders." Instead of following straight wealthy male leaders like Nader, Green values of grassroots, decentralized democracy point in another direction. The best way so far for Greens to move the agenda beyond corporate dominance is to build a base in the localities as we are doing in San Francisco in the school board, community college board and the Board of Supervisors, 
frequently in alliance with disillusioned progressive Democrats and decline to state voters. Once Greens have experience governing, we will move away from shouting idealisms from the sidelines towards bringing reality-rooted policies to bear at higher levels. This will build the trust with voters to elect Greens to offices where we can address critical issues as climate change, economic equity and sustainability. With out sounding too alarmist, we can only hope that we can achieve this before we pass the ecological point of no return. When Greens run locally, even if we don't win, we shape the debate. One need only look at Gavin Newsom's absconding with Matt Gonzalez' platform planks, albeit in a watered-down, sanitized, corporate-friendly form to validate this. Pacific Gas and Electric, one of California's worst polluters, is appropriating and coopting the Green brand, 
slathering it on almost every flat surface in the City. PG&amp;E says that "Green is so crazy it just might work." Most people see the Green agenda as anything but crazy when contraposed to the corporate corruption of both the Democrat and Republican parties and the ecological catastrophe that is boiling over, but are reluctant to support candidates with no experience or the quixotic campaigns of ego driven celebrities and their cults. Electoral politics are not about what the leaders want, but about how movements can connect with voters to win elections and govern. Many Greens get this, many do not. EDITOR'S NOTE: Marc Salomon is a long-time Green party activist who lives in San Francisco's Mission District. </DIV></DIV> 
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