Michael Hoover writes...
however, color me a cynic as i've a hunch that the sum of the parts that
you describe add up to less than suggested...
....
green party will experience 'growing pains' if it is to have substantive
longevity ,,,
perhaps cobb will do for green party what buchanan did for reform party,
....
in any event, cobb will receive any less media coverage, public
attention, and
votes than did nader, and if there's anyone left afterwards, they can
get down
to the difficult job of building a party...
Michael, thanks for the discussion. Some comments... I suspect
the Green Party will be irrelevant in this election cycle and may not
rebound from its failure to follow the more dangerous road, i.e.,
asserting what it believes (expressed fairly well by Nader, Camejo,
Zinn and others) rather than emotive trembling in the fear of a
second Bush administration. Numerous Greens jumped ship in the 2000
election and voted Democratic at the last minute. What a waste. Even
though Gore won, neither he nor any Democratic Senator protested the
count. They elected Bush and then fostered every one of his programs,
regardless of how nasty.
When the Green Party voted Cobb as its banner carrier, it
basically endorsed Kerry. (Nader, by the way, wasn't seeking the
nomination of the Green Party, but its endorsement. They gave it to
Kerry.) Nader is a very intelligent person, a master mega-politician
and, I believe, an exemplary citizen. Damn! He gave up sex for civic
service.
Here's a peephole through which I gather some of my current
analysis: While many criticise Michael Moore's movie either for or
against based on its content, Nader wrote a letter to Moore asking
him why he abandoned his "buddies" when he premiered the
film. Moore had surrounded himself with Democratic honchos. Nader
chastised him for allowing the existence of his film to give credence
to Democrats by association. What happened, Nader wrote (paraphrasing
from memory), to your battle against the Democrats who sent the Flint
MI jobs out of country, pushed through NAFTA and GATT, bombed Sudan,
Afghanistan and Iraq, ended welfare as we know it, and protected the
interests of the wealthy alongside the shenanigans of the
Republicans? Why didn't you invite your friends, the people who stood
with you when you were unfairly fired from Mother Jones? When you
were attacked for speaking out at the Oscars? Dude, Nader wrote*,
where's my buddy? I suspect Moore's joined the celebrityocracy.
My point here is that Nader is more apt to instigate a course
correction than take over the ship. That's exactly what he did with
the Green Party. I predict that a new party will emerge from the
remnants of the Green Party, it will be underground, it will be
resistant and it will not be given to lengthy intellectual
discussions or "playing house" with electoral politics. On
Nader's site, a major push is for impeachment of the current
Resident. in Chief. In my mind this is the only viable defensive
action available to the American people at the moment. When Bush gets
his second term, even that avenue will be gone -- in his mind (which
hears God telling him to go to war), Bush will have been given
permission to do whatever he wants. And his is the closest stuck-up
finger to nuclear holocaust.
As long as we're still talking....where I personally differ with
Nader is that I don't think the American electoral process is
redeemable, whereas he seems to think so. I believe we need a new
constitution (if we survive the peril), one that is truly based on
equal rights for all and that takes into account high speed mass
communication, so that the rule is one media outlet and one vote per
person. Let every voice, not just some, be heard loud and clear.
Dan Scanlan
*
http://www.votenader.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=54
