It is an empty threat. All of this has been filmed many many many times before. The argument by the Nation and other Obama “liberals” is clear, they are not deserting Obama because they fear McCain. The differences I find nil, they find significant enough because they really think Gore or Kerry would have not had us in one war or another. Purely delusional given the track record of Dems, but that’s what we’re dealing with.

I think Robert Jenson has it right. In so many words he says most of the progressive anti-war crowd are late middle-aged baby boomers who will speak their mind to a point but are completely averse to risk. So, the right has them by the short-hairs and Obama follows.

Anyway, I’m voting for N/G, so I have no dog in this hunt.

This is a totally unsubstantiated statement which speaks to the writers poor use of logic. During the Clinton administration – what was the pragmaticism which embued the African Americans with a better condition than they had prior to that 8 years?

The writer hides behind a kind of pseudo analysis while making some “left” group the basis of Amerika’s problems when there is no left movement or left power base to begin with. It is a faux argument and all that follows is built on a foundation of sand.

Better educated African Americans know about her and respect [Cynthia McKinney]– but most can taste a victory of sorts with Obama’s campaign.

You are right that “better educated” (whatever that means) are aware of Cynthia McKinney and respect her. However the support in the African American community for Obama is not merely because he his Black which is the inference of your comaments. Blacks overwhelmingly support the Democratic candidate and even while McKinney runs as a Green if the Democratic candidate was white that Democratic candidate would still receive the overwhelming majority of the Black vote.

What your analysis is missing is WHY African American vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats. Actually is was very shrewd of the Greens to place McKinney in nomination and I do agree with you that I think a Nader/McKinney run would have been a much stronger strategy for the Left. However it misses the fundamental reason why African American support the Democrats.

Blacks are not going to waste their votes for the Left’s brinkmanship. PERIOD. Blacks has to be pragmatic because they have to deal with problem and issues today. Unlike the Left primarily the white Left who do not suffer and has access to greater resource, Blacks cannot take the practical route and hope for the best. Especially when they see that the Left is disorganize and duplicitous. The Black vote is about the pragmatism of keeping the Republican from winning and taking control of the reigns of power.

Not only is this aspect missing from the Left analysis regarding Obama but the Obama “movement” has gotten new people especially the young and African American involved in the electoral process that has altered the composition of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately these are people had the Left been organized could have attracted into its ranks. But the Left displayed its true agenda in 2004 opening the opportunity for an Obama campaign.

Until the Left decide to truly stand for something hoping for Obama to fuck-up is a losing strategy.

Were my words too harsh above? Probably– but I’m glad after about a day of moderation they were added to this conversation. Doubtless my choice of the words “stooge” and “quisling” were influenced by late reading about Saakashvili in Georgia or Musharraf in Pakistan.

Many is the time I wished people like Frank or Peter Camejo were invited to speak at Media Matters– when instead it provided a forum for an insiders-group of Democratic Party apologists and abettors (better choice of words?) who make the media rounds with their nebulous mantra “to organize”– but for who? or for what?

Anyone who can manage to read between my lines– congratulation! You have read that I am ENORMOUSLY frustrated.

Where is the support for activists and individuals who are REAL? Who is real– amidst all the obfuscation and spin (propaganda)?

I consider Cindy Sheehan real– and a threat to the system. Why can’t all those on the Nation list sign a ringing letter of support on behalf of her campaign against Pelosi?

Doing so of course would highlight their rationalizations for not supporting Nader, or McKinney in a substantive way.

I hear Nader complementing McKinney on the campaign trail– I wish he had allied with her– but clearly to me– the corrupted Green Party used McKinney (I think) before she became well aware of its agenda. She has been doing a phenomenal job on the issues that matter regardless– and I think she has been smart enough to use the Green Party in turn as a base to begin something new in the future.

Better educated African Americans know about her and respect her– but most can taste a victory of sorts with Obama’s campaign.

Deadbeat makes a point about structural difficiencies for any of the alternative candidates. Not one of those candidates is expecting to achieve more than single digit total votes, so governance is not the issue here.

Parties have been essential but always problematical because they become institutions with a legacy to defend. A party built without a movement is worthless. It must be framed with values and willing to concede imperfections while sticking to its core governing principles. The Party structure can (and I would submit should) emerge from such a movement. It’s a kind of biomimocry approach.

Anti-war is not a sustainable movement. That’s because war has become more and more isolated from people’s lives in Amerika. I do think the Green Party has articulated the values of a progressive 21st Century movement. What it lacks is the congealing of a movement which will make that party a reality which cannot be denied.

Structure without a supporting movement is hollow and, frankly, I’m not sure it will be resolved until the focus is returned back to the process of creating a movement. The GP values cannot be an attractor unless it is joined to a movement BASED on those values.

I’ve yet to hear or read that the prerequisite for real change is not movement oriented. Why do we keep kicking the “can” with this “left” this and that, and the structure of a party?

As for the Liberals/Leftists they don’t know their arses from their elbows and hence have no clear objective other than endless ranting…
There is a Portuguese saying “numa casa sem pão, todos ralham e ninguem tem razão” which literally means ” In a home without food, everyone rants for no reason”.

Instead of creating a front or movement Nader/McKinney/Paul to seriously challenge the status quo they squabble over minor issues that A, B or C does not meet all the requirements. Meantime the “status quo” just cackles delighted that by creating divisions their absolute rule is guaranteed.

So Liberals/Leftists keep on kissing Obama’s arse if that make you happy!

The best defense against being disillusioned is not to have illusions in the first place.

That is absolutely correct and the best approach to dealing with this election cycle. There were a lot of expectation especially from the Left with the emergence of the anti-war movement. Unfortunately the Left proved to be its worst enemy. Now they rail against Obama for filling the void the Left themselves created and “support” someone who voted for war to boot.

Obama role this year is to avert the McCain madness from winning and occupying the White House. The Left weakened itself for destroying any kind of institutional framework from four years ago with their abandonment of Nader and failing to build upon his run in 2000.

McKinney’s run is hopeful as well as duplicitous in that her ticket would appear to help attract African American into the Green Party. However that won’t happen this year. It’ll be more interesting to see what happens with the Green Party after the election. They still have structural problems that do not reflect the will of the majority of the party’s members. At the same time McKinney is vote for the War in Afghanistan makes the Left duplicitous attacking Obama for his less than “anti-war” stance.

The Left would be more honest if they just admit that their support for McKinney is merely a protest vote at best or brinkmanship at worst.

Nader on the other hand is more consistent in his position, policies, and values but unfortunately lacks any kind of institutional framework to work from after the election.

The Left argument against the “Liberals” falls flat when the Left itself help to created the environment that permits Obama to run in the first place.

For the curious or morbid, here it is:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/open_letter

Reminds me of Robert W. McChesney’s program on the media, Media Matters, where nontrivial talk about 9/11 and Third Parties is taboo (where pre-recorded-no calls-”let-us-do-the-yakking” of “A-List” progressive icons like Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky is de rigueur.)
Media Matters: http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters/

Programs like Media Matters, and Magazines like the Nation and The Progressive are disinfo agents for the corporate elites and their duopoly– interesting because they attract the most gifted stooges and quislings in the country– occasionally mixing in a few clueless idealists to establish their bona fides.

Read Eric Larsen’s A Nation Gone Blind.
http://www.ericlarsen.net/books.html

Next week on Media Matters– Eric Larsen? Or Joshua Frank?

Or Ralph Nader?

I am afraid to find out.

Isn’t that the issue John Walsh is raising?

i expect little from Obama and so far he has not disappointed.

Now they are stuck defending someone who was never on their side in the first place.

I agree with the author regarding the “liberal” elites who encourage the abandonment of Ralph Nader in 2004. We know where liberal stand. The problem is that the Left went along with the “liberal” elite as well and diffused the anti-war movement creating the void that enables Obama.

And while the author puts “antiwar” in quote regarding Obama he doesn’t do the same for Cynthia McKinney who VOTED for the War on Afghanistan. Thus duplicity on the Left is a much greater problem than the “liberal” elites.