Open Letter to the Democratic Party
by Ralph Nader
Dissident Voice
November 2, 2002
The Democrats should have an easy time winning control of
the House of Representatives and the Senate in next week's election. Recession
is deepening, unemployment is rising, and corporate corruption headlines are
proliferating. Health care costs, drug prices and the number of Americans
without health care coverage are all increasing. Median household incomes are
falling. Corporate crime has heavily depleted 401Ks and other pension losses.
These should all help the Democrats win against the
corporate-indentured Republicans marinated in corporate cash, soft on corporate
and environmental crimes and demonstrably anti-labor.
Why then is the overall contest for Party control of
Congress too close to call? Because Democrats are not clearly, relentlessly and
aggressively emphasizing these fundamental issues to distinguish themselves
from the Republicans. Why? Are they unaware, neglectful or torpid? No, their
chronic ambiguity flows from being largely indentured to the same monied
commercial interests as the Republicans.
So Governor Shaheen of New Hampshire, running for the U.S.
Senate, refers to corporate crime as "corporate mismanagement" and
other Democratic candidates are allowing the Republicans to blur key
poll-tested issues like prescription drug benefits, tax cuts for the super
wealthy, and corporate crime enforcement.
Voters want to know whose side candidates are on in their
daily struggles as workers, consumers, patients, small taxpayers and savers on
the one hand, and, on the other hand, the giant corporations that pay for
control of our government in order to get all the goodies that come out of the
hides of working families. Fairness is the great issue in American politics,
stupid!
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats won election
after election by conveying one singularly clear impression - that the
Republican Party was beholden to the wealthy and the Democratic Party
represented the working people. Karl Rove, in the Bush White House, understands
this history. That is why he is engaged in the "blur and spur"
strategy of fuzzing the hot-button issues to portray the Republicans as
fighters for ordinary Americans, instead of the big businesses which own them.
This is also why the Republicans are using the spur of the drumbeats of war to
distract the country away from pressing domestic necessities, injustices and
hazards.
By a margin of nearly two to one the American people do not
want a war against Iraq that involves an invasion, American casualties and
essentially having the United States go it alone. Not when rigorous UN
inspectors can go to Iraq first.
Even more Americans would join these citizens if the mass
media relayed the facts about how boxed in the militarily-weakened dictator of
Iraq is, surrounded by more powerful enemies (Iran, Turkey, Israel), two-thirds
of his country out of his rigid control (no fly zones), deterred, contained and
under 24-hour satellite surveillance.
More voters would be anti-war if there was greater media
discussion about the likelihood of awful civilian casualties and sickness among
the innocent children and adults of Iraq. Voters would also be anti-war if
Americans were given the facts about the opposition to the touted conduct of
this war from inside the Pentagon, among retired military officers and other
experts who believe the risks of undermining the effort against terrorism, of
generating a boomerang of domestic terrorism around the world and an endemic
civil war in Iraq (where the U.S. stays as expensive occupier) are not worth
toppling the government of Iraq by a unilateral invasion.
When a group of Gulf War veterans had a news conference at
the National Press Club in Washington on October 24 to point out some of these
consequences (which included conditions, leading to the sickness of 128,000
Gulf War veterans in 1991) the media did not show up. (For their statements,
see www.veteransforcommonsense.org).
The "cakewalk" view of the planned war widely
espoused by the circle of chicken hawks surrounding George W. Bush is obscuring
serious public debate about another possible outcome -- diverse human and
economic consequences adverse to U.S. and global security during and after the
war is over.
The Democrats can still raise their voices for the people
in the next few days before November 5th, if they understand that waffling
rarely wins campaigns. The people want it straight talk and real action.
Ralph
Nader is America’s leading consumer advocate. He is the founder
of numerous public interest groups including Public Citizen, and has twice run
for President as a Green Party
candidate. His latest book is Crashing the
Party: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for President
(St. Martin’s Press, 2002)