A.J. Segneri: Provide for the readers your background in politics and activism, plus on ballot access.

Phil Huckelberry: I’ve been involved in the Green Party since 2000.  I was Co-Chair of the Green National Committee from 2007-2009, and I’ve been Chair of the Illinois Green Party since 2008, in addition to a bunch of other committee hats.

The national party established a separate Ballot Access Committee in 2005 and I’ve been one of the two co-chairs of that since its inception.  In that role I’ve also been the Green Party’s member on the board of the Coalition for Free and Open Elections, Richard Winger’s ballot access rights organization.

AJS: Could you explain what ballot access is, and why this is important for political parties, particularly important for third parties?

PH: Ballot access generally refers to the ability to place a candidate on an official election ballot.  It is usually thought of in terms of a party’s ability to run candidates for public office. If a party does not have ballot access in a particular state, that means that it cannot field candidates for office in that state.

Ballot access laws are almost entirely state creations.  There are almost no relevant federal laws, and there usually aren’t relevant local laws either.  The rules vary widely from state to state.  In Mississippi, if you declare you have a party, the state says, okay, you’re a party, and then you can run candidates. In  North Carolina, you have to collect about 95,000 valid signatures from registered voters.  For reference, the Libertarians did this for the 2008 election, but it cost them $200,000 to do it.

There is also a distinction between securing and holding ballot access.  ”Securing” means getting ballot access initially, which usually requires collecting petition signatures.  ”Holding” means that a party in a given state can maintain their ballot access from one election to the next, which usually means that a candidate of the party got a high enough percentage of the vote.  In some states, securing and/or holding are based on partisan registration numbers.

If a party doesn’t have ballot access, it can’t run candidates.  If a party can’t run candidates, it’s essentially not a party at all, just a political club.  Third parties often refer to fighting to achieve lofty ballot access hurdles as a struggle for their very existence. One other point which should be stressed: it is very common for a state-level party to expend more energy just to get on to the ballot than they expend on behalf of their candidates once they’re on the ballot.  It can be such grueling, exhaustive work just to come into legal existence that it will burn out volunteers months before Election Day.

AJS: What is the current status for ballot access for the Green Party?

PH: As of today, we have presidential ballot access in 21 states.  For the beginning of May, that’s actually pretty good. In a lot of states, ballot access is lost and regained with each election cycle, so you wouldn’t expect to be much higher than 20 at this point in the year.

The best the Green Party ever did was 44 ballot lines in 2000.  Our goal is to reach 45 or more line this year.  It takes better advance planning, and it takes the party understanding that you can’t backload all of the work.  It remains to be seen if the party has gotten the memo on this.

AJS: There are law restrictions for third parties to run for office. From your experience, have these laws increased over time or are these laws just reactionary when specific third parties do well in their respective state?

PH: In the late 19th century these kinds of restrictions didn’t really exist at all, so if you look at the big picture, the laws have only gotten worse over time.  One of the ironies is that these laws only started to come into existence in parallel with the emergence of the partisan primary, a Progressive Era reform designed to mitigate the control of the old political machines.  As the primaries emerged, it created a perceived need to define who could or couldn’t have a primary, and so by extension, who would or wouldn’t be legally considered a party.

If you just look across the last decade, you’ll find a mixed bag.  Here in Illinois, the requirements just keep getting worse.  The state is under the firm control of a machine kingpin named Michael Madigan, who has been Speaker of the House for 28 of the last 30 years.  A lot of the changes have been subtle but when there are already absurdly difficult laws on the books, each small change can have a multiplicative effect.

In some states, it’s gotten easier.  Part of this, I think, is just cyclical, and does have to do with the relative strength of third parties in those areas.  Part of it just seems to be random. Often it just takes one person ascending to a role of prominence in the state legislature to generate a lot of legislation which could be good or bad for ballot access.

But on the whole the situation is worse, because of the emergence of the so-called “Top Two” system, which is now in place in Washington and California.  ”Top Two” has been presented as a “reform” which will supposedly tend to lead to more “moderate” candidates on the general election ballot.  In reality “Top Two” is a ploy on the part of moneyed interests to further control the ballot.

Instead of partisan primaries followed by a general election, all candidates are lumped together on a single primary ballot, and the two candidates with the highest vote totals advance to the general election.  A lot of people have been duped by this because they’ve wanted a “blanket primary” where they can vote for whomever they want, but the effective – and intended – result of “Top Two” is to make it so that the most heavily bankrolled candidates have an even bigger primary advantage.

One intention side effect of “Top Two” is that third party candidates almost never make it onto the general election ballot.  It’s telling that even the Democratic and Republican Parties in Washington and California opposed “Top Two”.  Money is so out of control in politics that the state-level corporate parties are often more democratic in their processes than processes which just rely on who can bring in the most money.

AJS: If you were the head of a board of elections, what ideal things would you implement in order to make ballot access more fair for candidates?

PH: A lot of the elections agencies have little control over the laws. That said, what I’d like to see from election agencies all across the country is a dedication to extreme transparency in how they do their jobs.  If you look at the websites of various state election agencies, some have excellent information about what it takes to run for office, and some provide almost no useful information at all.  It shouldn’t be so hard to run for office, and even in a state with draconian laws, elections agencies should be striving to make information as simple and accessible as possible.

AJS:  Do you think there are individuals in the two major parties that are really out to get third parties and independent candidates, or is that more paranoia?

PH: The corporate duopoly by its very nature is out to get third parties and independent candidates.  I don’t think it’s personal most of the time, or at least it’s no more personal than politics would generally be.

2012 is a redistricting year, and Illinois is a prime example of the politics of redistricting.  Illinois lost one congressional seat (from 19 to 18).  In theory this would mean that two incumbents would have to run against one another.  But in practice, the Democrats who control Springfield created a map where every Democratic incumbent was given a safe district, four Republican incumbents were thrown into two districts so two of them would for sure be knocked out in the primary, and a district got invented out of thin air with no incumbent, designed for a new Democrat to take over.  Even two Green Party candidates who ran for Congress in 2010 were drawn four blocks or less outside of their old districts.

Modern politics is largely about eliminating competition.  The Powers That Be in state legislatures are not much different from the robber barons of 110-120 years ago.  Not only do incumbents want to stay incumbents, they don’t even want to have to run against anyone.  They don’t want to have to show up for political forums and be asked tough questions.  A lot of these people have no sense of responsibility to their constituents – they just see their positions as jobs that they were given through friends or family.

AJS:  What have been the more interesting experiences you have had when working with a specific state to get Greens on the ballot?

PH: One of the more puzzling challenges we’ve encountered is that of it being really hard for a state party to get on the ballot, but once they do, it’s astonishingly easy for a random individual to declare themselves to be a Green and become a candidate of the party, even for high-level office.

In 2008, we had an individual widely known to be a neo-Nazi try and run for Congress as a Green.  We had to file an objection against his nominating petitions to get him thrown off the ballot.  He came back around in 2010, and filed in a district he didn’t even live in, and we had to file another objection. The  party had no real say in these situations.  The objections were based on the paperwork, not on the individual not being an actual Green.  Since these were offices where we otherwise hadn’t intended to field candidates, if he had gotten on the ballot, he would have de facto won the primaries, and it could have been extremely embarrassing for us.

One problem which has plagued state Green Parties for a long time is that they become real political parties with legal rights and privileges, but their leadership still thinks primarily in terms of the party being identified by its position on political issues.  In the eyes of most voters, a party is defined by its candidates, not by whatever lengthy platform document it may be able to offer. This means in turn that a state party needs to have people with administrative and legal prowess in particular positions, to help make sure that the party is staying compliant with various legal requirements, and to help make sure that candidates who can properly represent the party get assistance with getting on the ballot, while candidates who have nothing to do with the party don’t get such assistance. For a party like ours, where a lot of people who come to us have an inherent distrust of power, and who often aren’t very good at administrative matters, it can be that much harder to deal with state laws and administrative policies.

AJS: Where can someone learn more about ballot access?

PH: The national Green Party is tracking 2012 presidential ballot access at Green Party of the United States 2012 Presidential Campaign 

Richard Winger maintains an invaluable blog called Ballot Access News:

Here’s the truth: (1) Ralph Nader is supporting my candidacy. He said he doesn’t “endorse” candidates because that connotes agreeing with everything the candidate may say along the way. Kaufman tries to make it appear that my campaign is misleading people about Mr. Nader’s support of me, stating that “the Anderson campaign” represented on Facebook that Nader “endorsed” me, referring to a post by a campaign staffer. What Kaufman fails to disclose is that I immediately clarified on Facebook with the following comment: “Rocky here: The above main post was written by a staffer who wasn’t present in Oregon. Ralph didn’t ‘endorse’ – he doesn’t do that. But he does ‘support’.” (See the April 10 post and comments.) Who is misleading whom, Mr. Kaufman?

Kaufman then characterizes my campaign, without any basis, as being “shadowy” and “equivocal”. He obviously hasn’t been paying attention. I would urge anyone to check out my website and the numerous interviews (click on News and Videos) available there. What is “shadowy” or “equivocal” about any of it? Kaufman then describes me as a “center-left pol who expressly abjures any identification with the left.” Again, he offers no evidence for those absurd characterizations. Check out City Weekly article; Salt Lake Tribune‘s “Rocky Anderson says adieu to the Democratic Party“; Deseret‘s “Former S.L. mayor Rocky Anderson divorces himself from ‘gutless’ Democratic Party,” then you can determine for yourself how “equivocal” or “shadowy” my campaign and I are. And when and where have I “expressly abjure[d] any identification with the left”? Kaufman once again gets it entirely wrong. Seeking a broad-based political movement that can actually achieve change is different from “abjuring identification with the left.” Just look at my history – from my law practice (e.g. expanding rights for inmates, suits for police abuse), my presidency of the Board of the Utah ACLU, my work with Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, my progressive leadership as Mayor of Salt Lake City, and my founding of High Road for Human Rights – and you’ll see how absurd Kaufman’s mischaracterizations are. In fact, please check out “Rocky Anderson.” I’ll put up my record of accomplishments and commitment to progressive principles against Kaufman’s – and any candidates he supports – any day. Also, can Kaufman possibly know that I was the only major city mayor who advocated for the impeachment of George Bush and say what he does?

Kaufman refers to my endorsement of Mitt Romney when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts, without disclosing the whole truth – including numerous public statements I have made about the new Mitt Romney since he has been running for President. Following the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, I endorsed Mitt Romney for Governor of Massachusetts. Of course, that was THAT Mitt Romney – a very moderate, reasonable person who, for instance, supported gay and lesbian rights and a woman’s right to choose abortion. I thought it was terrific that a Republican would take the positions Romney did at that time. Romney wouldn’t have won the race in Massachusetts had he not held himself out to be moderate, even quite liberal. But see some of my public comments about the difference between THAT Mitt Romney and the right-wing extremist running for President: (calling Romney a “political prostitute”), “Former Salt Lake City Rocky Anderson on GOP Presidential Candidates Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman,” and “Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson Slams His Friend Mitt Romney for ‘Flip-Flopping’ on Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Torture in Attempt to Win GOP Presidential Nomination.” Kaufman neglected to disclose any of that to his readers. Perhaps because it didn’t fit his unbelievably dishonest characterizations of me?

On climate change, Kaufman misleads once again. He refers to one half of a sentence in my position paper about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But he fails to disclose the rest of the sentence. Here is the entire sentence in my policy paper: “Champion a market-based approach to reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, but support and defend the authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if market mechanisms are not promptly put in place by Congress or prove insufficient.” Why would Kaufman have omitted the last part of that sentence except to mislead? And why would he represent, by using quotation marks, that I was referring only to cap-and-trade when I didn’t even use the term? Taxing emissions is also a “market-based” strategy — but Kaufman apparently doesn’t know that. Other facts that Kaufman has neglected to disclose are that (1) cap and trade systems were successfully utilized to address both acid rain and the destruction of the ozone level; (2) we likely will not know the GHG-reductions effect of taxes on emissions until it is too late to avoid catastrophic effects of climate chaos, particularly without a concomitant cap and trade system and direct regulation by the EPA; and (3) my position paper, with details and nuances entirely absent from those papers and positions of other candidates, is entirely consistent with the Presidential Climate Action Project. See “The Wingspread Principles on Presidential Climate Action Project” (“Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions demand and will drive innovation. Our economy will innovate most efficiently if it is given the flexibility to achieve ambitious goals through a variety of means, including marketbased incentives and/or trading.”). Among the members of the Advisory Committee of the Climate Action Project are former Senator Gary Hart, Van Jones, Gus Speth, Hunter Lovins, and many other top experts in climate change policy. I have been clear about my position for more than 15 years: We must urgently achieve a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, without waiting to see what effect taxes alone will have on emissions. I favor taking every measure possible to reduce GHGs, including taxes on emissions, an effective cap-and-trade system, and direct regulation/limits on emissions.

Kaufman continues to mislead, this time in connection with my position on health care. He says I acknowledge the virtues of single-payer, but also tout a variety of European multi-payer schemes that retain a role for private insurers. Of course I “tout” a variety of multi-non-profit-payer systems as being far superior to the U.S. system. The French system, for instance, is ranked by W.H.O. as the #1 system in the world. The German system is far superior to the U.S. system. Every system in the industrialized world is far superior, in terms of cost, medical outcomes, and universality of coverage. But if Kaufman means to mislead his readers about my support for a single-payer Medicare-for-all system, which he apparently endeavors to do, one only needs to refer to my position paper on Health Care. There you will find the following statement: “We must end the bizarre reliance in the United States on for-profit insurance companies for essential health care. We should adopt a health care system like Taiwan’s single-payer system (the most efficient in the world) or Canada’s single-payer system (which is consistently Canada’s most popular social program). Another option might be a system like France’s (#1 in the world, according to the World Health Organization), but it’s multi-payer non-profit system would likely be more expensive and less efficient in the U.S., particularly in light of the immense difficulty in the U.S. of achieving the sort of regulations that serve the public interest rather than corporate (even so-called “non-profit”) interests.” Is this not doctrinaire or clear enough for Kaufman?

Kaufman can’t even get it straight about Michael McGee’s status. He lives in France – and certainly is not my campaign manager. Does Kaufman just make all of this up as he goes along?

It has never been our strategy to seek positions in government with any other party. That may be Mr. McGee’s approach, but it certainly is not mine or the Justice Party’s. Also, we’ve never adopted anything close to a safe-state strategy. I’d be surprised if Mr. McGee said anything like that – but I wouldn’t be surprised, given his approach to the rest of this, if Kaufman simply made that up too.

There is so much else in Kaufman’s piece to which I’d like to respond, but I think the reader likely gets my point. When people like this mislead and attack, it reflects poorly not only on their own integrity, but also on the party and candidate they support.

Let’s take his reply point by point to dispel every last wisp of the dense fog of mendacity and distortion that Anderson spews in his reply:

1. The mendacity begins in only the second sentence of Anderson’s reply, when he writes: “Is that what he [Kaufman] means by ‘politricks’ and ‘the dark side of politics’?” There’s only one problem here: I never used either quoted word or the quoted phrase anywhere in my article. Here we get a prompt foretaste of the dishonesty that runs like a bright thread throughout Anderson’s reply.

2. If Rocky Anderson wanted to effectively quash any impression that his campaign was claiming Nader’s endorsement, the staffer’s post with the word “endorse” could have been taken down. It never was.

3. Rocky Anderson’s campaign and his Justice Party are indeed both shadowy in origins and equivocal in political orientation. The party was not, and has never been, a grassroots organization that arose from on-the-ground activism around clear progressive issues; it has always been a consequence, organizationally and politically, of Rocky Anderson’s ambition to run for president.

4. I gave clear quotations to document Rocky Anderson’s aversion to any identification with the left, including his disparaging comments about the Green Party (“just a sliver of the left”) in explaining to Amy Goodman why he did not seek the Green nomination rather than starting his own vanity party.

5. Anderson trumpets his high-minded support for various social issues, such as “expanding rights for inmates, suits for police abuse, my presidency of the Board of the Utah ACLU, my work with Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, my progressive leadership as Mayor of Salt Lake City, and my founding of High Road for Human Rights.” It’s a time-honored ploy of pseudo-progressive Democrats to cite their noble declarations of support for civil liberties, abortion, and other socio-cultural issues while increasingly converging with Republicans on the 1-percent/neoliberal agenda of Chicago-school free-market economics. Notice that Anderson nowhere denies—or even honestly addresses—the nub of my analysis of his campaign’s failure to call for a repeal of WTO/NAFTA and of Taft-Hartley, two pieces of legislation that are most directly responsible for the depressed living standards of working class Americans: WTO/NAFTA through the hemorrhaging of high-quality manufacturing jobs abroad, and Taft-Hartley through a steady and alarming erosion in the power of the union movement and a consequent thwarting of its ability to press for higher wages and better benefits and working conditions. How revealing that on these specific economic and class issues, Anderson is curiously muted on his Web site and silent in his reply to me.

6. On Mitt Romney: Anderson claims that “Kaufman neglected to disclose any of that to his readers.” “That” here means that the Romney that Anderson warmly endorsed in 2002 (and who endorsed Anderson a year later) was some sort of apostle of reason and light who embraced all manner of progressive positions. And exactly what were these examples of Romney’s purportedly enlightened outlook? Anderson claims that he “supported gay and lesbian rights and a woman’s right to choose abortion.” But Romney has never supported marriage rights for gays. He has demagogued abortion this way and that, depending on which audience he was speaking to for which office he was seeking. When Romney ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994, he accepted the endorsement of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, a zealous anti-abortion group; when he was thinking of running for governor of Utah, he wrote a letter to a newspaper there stating that he was unequivocally against abortion, just as he does now. As Ted Kennedy wittily observed, “Mitt Romney isn’t pro-choice or anti-choice; he’s multiple-choice.”

More important is the fact that when Anderson endorsed him, Romney was pro-war, pro-gun, anti-labor, pro-WTO/NAFTA, opposed to public funding of elections, opposed to raising the minimum wage, opposed to more progressive taxation, opposed to cutting the military budget, opposed to cracking down on corporate crime and fraud and corporate welfare, in favor of the repeal of Glass-Steagall, opposed to regulating the derivatives that would later wreck the economy, and so on. In short, Anderson warmly endorsed a militant and loyal defender of the interests of the 1 percent against the 99 percent, as I accurately observed in my article. Again we see in bold relief Anderson’s indifference to the class and economic issues that distinguish the true progressive from the neoliberal demagogue; in the Anderson-Romney world of expensively coiffed Janus faces, a warm clasp of the hand of someone who temporarily favors abortion is just dandy, even if it means helping to advance the political career of an avowed adversary of the interests of working people and nearly all of the progressive agenda.

Finally, as for Anderson’s assertion that I “failed to disclose to [my] readers” Anderson’s frail rationalizations for supporting Romney in 2002, this is simply a blatant lie; I quoted in full the lame excuse he gave Amy Goodman.

7. On the carbon tax: Anderson reproaches me for failing to quote this part of his statement in support of Wall Street’s favorite non-solution to the climate crisis—cap and trade: “but support and defend the authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if market mechanisms are not promptly put in place by Congress or prove insufficient.” This is completely irrelevant. We are talking about a carbon tax. The EPA doesn’t have the power to levy a tax—only Congress does. Can Anderson, the would-be president, really be this grossly ignorant of the Constitution? Moreover, the EPA is already charged with the regulation of environmental toxins, so Anderson is just spinning his wheels here. I’m not concealing anything—but Anderson is clearly still concealing his failure to advocate a carbon tax by underscoring his advocacy of the EPA’s doing . . . what it is already doing. How pathetic, how ignorant, and again . . . how dishonest.

But the ignorance doesn’t end there. Anderson, the man who would be president, evidently doesn’t even know that the EPA is only just now beginning (as in three weeks ago!) to address the issue of carbon emissions from power plants, and that its powers are very limited. In the words of Gina McCarthy, Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation:

There is currently no uniform national limit on the amount of carbon pollution new power plants can emit, and the standard we proposed last week is common-sense, achievable and in line with the direction the industry has been moving for a decade. As the [EPA] Administrator and I said repeatedly when we announced this proposal last week, this standard only applies to new sources – that is, power plants that will be constructed in the future. This standard would never apply to existing power plants. And we have no plans to address existing power plants.

And this feeble regulatory regime is what Anderson appends, as an afterthought, to his cap-and-trade folly in the midst of a planet emergency so severe that many leading climate scientists think it may already be too late to avert feedback-driven disaster.

Anderson, obviously no expert in such matters, again parrots the neoliberal party line when he writes, “cap and trade systems were successfully utilized to address both acid rain and the destruction of the ozone level.” This is one of the hoariest myths of the neoliberal cap and traders. Someone who is a world-renowned expert in this area, James E. Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, disposes of this myth in an op-ed piece on this subject in the New York Times:

Supporters of cap and trade point to the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments that capped sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-burning power plants — the main pollutants in acid rain — at levels below what they were in 1980. This legislation allowed power plants that reduced emissions to levels below the cap to sell the credit for these excess reductions to other utilities whose emissions were too high, thus giving plant owners a financial incentive to cut back their pollution. Sulfur emissions have been reduced by 43 percent in the two decades since. Great success? Hardly.

Because cap and trade is enforced through the selling and trading of permits, it actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate. If every polluter’s emissions fell below the incrementally lowered cap, then the price of pollution credits would collapse and the economic rationale to keep reducing pollution would disappear.

Worse yet, polluters’ lobbyists ensured that the clean air amendments allowed existing power plants to be ‘grandfathered,’ avoiding many pollution regulations. These old plants would soon be retired anyway, the utilities claimed. That’s hardly been the case: Two-thirds of today’s coal-fired power plants were constructed before 1975.

Cap and trade also did little to improve public health. Coal emissions are still significant contributing factors in four of the five leading causes of mortality in the United States — and mercury, arsenic and various coal pollutants also cause birth defects, asthma and other ailments.

See also Ralph Nader’s devastating critique of cap and trade in his Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, “We Need a Global Carbon Tax: The Cap-and-Trade Approach Won’t Stop Global Warming.”

Devoid of any compunctions about seeking a hedge-fund-financed shortcut to ballot status in all fifty states courtesy of Americans Elect (another key point that Anderson revealingly and dishonestly dodges in his reply), Anderson is also conscience-free about placing the fate of the planet earth in the hands of the Wall Street banksters whose arcane scams have brought the U.S. economy to its knees. The noted progressive economist Dean Baker explains why Goldman Sachs echoes Rocky Anderson’s enthusiasm for cap and trade:

The outstanding value of carbon permits will almost certainly run into the trillions of dollars once the system is fully up and running. The annual trading in these permits and various derivative instruments (e.g., options, futures, swaps of various types) is likely to also run into the trillions of dollars, perhaps tens of trillions. A market that trades $10 trillion a year would generate $25 billion a year in revenue, if fees and commissions average 0.25 percent. If Goldman can capture 30 percent of these trades by getting in on the ground floor, then it stands to generate more than $8 billion each year in revenue from carbon trading. This is enough to explain Goldman’s enthusiasm for cap and trade – it’s all about as clear as it can possibly be.

And whom does Anderson cite as his “experts” in support of this unworkable and reckless bankster fraud? Gary Hart? Van Jones? Gus Speth? Not one of them is a scientist—just the usual suspects: Democratic Party/Obama loyalists whose main job it is to find rationales for the Democrats’ ever-accelerating collapse into free-market rapacity. By Anderson’s chosen neoliberal authorities, ye shall know him.

8. Anderson fails to address my critique of his forceful advocacy of “a balanced budget except in times of war or national emergency”. (Note that, not coincidentally, Anderson routinely dodges my critiques of his flagrant neoliberal positions on economic and class issues). In a blog interview, Anderson was asked, “Why do you support the neoliberal economic concept of a balanced budget or surplus?” In his response, Anderson parrots the rightist Chicago School meme that “accruing debt that is left for future generations is a form of intergenerational tyranny, which is an irresponsible and unjust thing to do.” It is truly staggering to see a self-designated progressive thumping away at this fallacy, which Anderson and many mainstream Democrats have plucked unashamedly from the neoliberal-right-wing-free-market-fundamentalist playbook. As Joseph Stiglitz has written, “a premature ‘exit’ from deficit spending risks pushing the economy back into recession. This is one of the lessons we should have learned from America’s experience in the Great Depression; it is also one of the lessons to emerge from Japan’s experience in the late 1990s.”

As for the Anderson’s recycled right-wing myth of burdening future generations, the progressive economists Dean Baker and Dean Rosnick have observed:

It is easy to see that the national debt is not really a measure of intergenerational burden.  While the taxpayers collectively can be seen as owing the debt, taxpayers (or at least some of them) also own the debt. This is not a payment across generations; it is a payment within generations…

Whether or not the debt has made future generations poorer will depend on how it was incurred.  If we ran up debts so that we could finance schools and colleges, and make sure that our children and grandchildren were well educated, then we probably made them richer than if we didn’t run up debt but left them illiterate. Similarly, if we ran up the debt to construct a modern physical and information infrastructure, then we probably will have made future generations much wealthier than if we had handed them a country that was debt free, but had no Internet and no computers.

Anderson would know all this if he didn’t have his head stuck in the same Milton Friedman-inspired academic bibles that dictate the talking points of the bipartisan Washington corporate elite. Yet this man, who proudly flies in the same deficit-hawk flock as the likes of Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan, has the impudence to present himself as a “progressive” alternative.

9. On health care: Anderson just cannot bring himself to advocate, simply and without qualification, a publicly funded single-payer health care system that would once and for all put an end to the superfluous, dysfunctional, piratical private-insurance middlemen. Anderson evidently considers such programmatic clarity “doctrinaire” (his word), another tell-tale sign of his contempt for unambiguously progressive solutions to socioeconomic problems. Maintaining any role for private insurers is an invitation to more of the redundant billing chaos and inefficiencies that hobble our current system. Perhaps Anderson, in line with his other neoliberal tropisms, just can’t bring himself to forthrightly advocate putting a large sector of the U.S. economy in the public sector, no matter what the efficiencies achieved or the money and lives saved. Why not just come out in support of single payer and putting the private insurers out the health care racket? I mean, the guy supports the cap-and-trade Wall Street scam—so you figure it out.

10. On the issue of Michael McGee: I e-mailed a query to the main address of the Justice Party and the main address of the Rocky Anderson campaign, and I cc’d most of Anderson’s campaign staff, including Mick Johnson, his campaign manager; Nancy Karter, the campaign office manager; and Walter Mason, the campaign’s ballot access manager (since some of my questions were about ballot access—see documentation, below). So I most certainly did make a good-faith effort to reach all the responsible parties at the Anderson campaign. The only person who got back to me was Michael McGee, both in an e-mail and a follow-up one-hour phone interview in which he most certainly did identify himself as the leading strategist in Anderson’s campaign; he told me that he is Co-Chair of the Justice Party (as he is listed on the party’s Web site) and a member of the Steering Committee of the campaign. So McGee clearly has a major role in shaping campaign strategy; these are not minor titles or roles–this is clearly someone in the upper echelons of the Anderson campaign.

In our interview, McGee detailed—at great length—the swing-states-dropout-angle-for-a-cabinet-post strategy that he had also conveyed to Jill Stein and her campaign manager, Ben Manski, in conference calls last September and October. Both Stein and Manski corroborated McGee’s swing-state gambit 100-percent in my conversations with them. Manski, Jill Stein, and I all heard exactly the same story from McGee, who identified himself to all of us as authorized to speak on behalf of Anderson. Anderson maliciously implies that I made up this whole swing-state scenario, but since McGee served up the same line of patter to Manski and Stein, does Anderson wish to imply that they are liars, too? That they and I, who have had never spoken to one another until ten days ago, just happened to concoct the same lie about Michael McGee?

In my initial e-mail, I asked nearly the entire Anderson staff to respond to my queries, and only Michael McGee responded. Now Anderson is cynically disowning McGee because he spoke truthfully to me about the campaign’s strategic ploys when the others would not speak at all. (My e-mail to the Anderson campaign, complete with all the addressees, is reproduced below, along with McGee’s written acknowledgment that we spoke on the phone, along with McGee’s cc to Anderson campaign staff members about his conversation with me).

Truth is an orphan in this world, as Anderson’s verbal contortions above sadly illustrate. My article, by contrast, is entirely truthful—far too much so for Anderson’s taste, evidently. Now that I have exposed the unsightly neoliberal politics and self-aggrandizing maneuvering behind the smiling, fake-progressive mask of Anderson’s campaign, he scurries to conceal the truth with a desperate, diversionary flurry of evasion, distortion, and malice.

Here are the key questions for a would-be presidential standard-bearer of the independent left in 2012: Does the candidate advance a principled, unequivocally progressive agenda on the pivotal class, economic, and climate/environmental issues of our day? Does he/she seek to build a movement that is clearly independent of the ideology, funding, and interests of the 1-percent Wall Street banksters and hedge funders? On all these critical counts, it is clear that this Rocky is more pretender than contender.

1. My e-mail to the main officials in the Rocky Anderson campaign:

From: William Kaufman
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 8:08 PM
To: ‘gro.asuytrapecitsujnull@tcatnoc’
Cc: ‘moc.liamgnull@bewykcoretov’; ‘moc.liamgnull@ecitsuj.nosnhojkcim’; ‘moc.liamgnull@ecitsuj.nosamretlaw’; ‘moc.liamgnull@ecitsuj.retrakycnan’
Subject: Need Information for Article on Justice Party

Hi—
I am writing an article on the Justice Party and the Rocky Anderson candidacy that I plan to submit to the Web zine CounterPunch,[ed note: I ended up submitting the piece to Dissident Voice instead, of course] where I have published several articles in the past.
I need to get some basic information—I was hoping that someone could answer, via e-mail or a brief phone interview (my number is XXX-XXX-XXXX), the following basic questions (a phone interview would be preferable in case I have follow-up questions based on your answers):

1. Has the Justice Party held a nominating convention per FEC requirements? If not, have you scheduled one or announced the date for it?
2. In how many states has the Rocky Anderson presidential candidacy already obtained ballot status? In how many states do you realistically expect to achieve ballot status by election day?
3. How many functioning state branches of the Justice Party are there?
4. How many members do you estimate the party has, either in terms of registered voters or people who have volunteered to work for the party?
5. Does the party accept corporate financing, either through bundled contributions or PACs?
6. Who, besides Rocky Anderson, are the officers of the party, and what are their titles and duties?
I hope to have the article finished over the weekend, so I would be grateful to receive an e-mailed or telephoned response on Friday. If you call, please call after 2:00 p.m. eastern time. Or, if you would prefer that I call you, please e-mail me a phone number and suggested time frame.

Thanks,
Bill Kaufman

2. Written evidence that I talked to Michael McGee:

From: Michael McGEE [mailto:moc.liamgnull@1.eegcm.leahcim]
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 2:10 AM
To: ten.knilhtraenull@484namk
Cc: Michael McGee; Lenny Brody; Walter Mason; clbonham
Subject: Answers to “Need Information for Article on Justice Party”

Hello Bill,
Good talking to you. Here is some further information for your CounterPunch article on the Justice Party. You will also find an attached Word document with the contacts for members of the National Justice Party Steering Committee. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need any more information.

Yours in solidarity,
Michael McGee
Justice Party Co-chair

Clearly, thinking outside the box is not how our system deals with serious issues.  When having lunch with fellow educators and arguing about the crimes, especially against the Constitution and on war,  of both the Bush and Obama administrations, my frustration is palpable.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Republicans enjoy being in the box whereas the Democrats don’t even know they’re in one.

On issues of war and economics, the Republicans and many Democrats I talk with clearly support the idea  that the US is a world economic power and needs to maintain it in any way they can.  They might acknowledge the wrongs committed but see it as necessary.  OK, that’s where dialog comes in.  My partisan Democratic friends, especially in the teachers’ lounge of my school, are simply oblivious to the wrongs or come up with every conceivable way of minimizing it or laying blame elsewhere. The most common response to the economic disaster that we’re in due to Obama’s Wall Street cabinet is that the Republicans won’t let him do what needs to be done. Another gem is that in politics you can’t always get what you campaign on and its corollary, the political climate is not ripe for what you’re asking.

Bush controlled the Congress. Obama is certainly the antithesis. He punted every major decision to them. Whether it be health care or Don’t Ask, President Obama relinquished the bully pulpit for the collaborative approach of having the other arm of government have a role, but in most cases, the only role.  If only President Obama, when he was elected with an American-style mandate, and with a Democrat-controlled Congress, were to have rallied the pro-Single Payer (Medicare for All) populous, a majority of Americans, for universal health care, it would have passed over both Democratic and Republican opponents in Congress.  He simply could have equated the health insurance industry with the likes of Al Qaeda.  Who would have had kind words for, or dare to come out and defend, the insurance industry? If not Single Payer, then at a minimum, a public option would be the law today, paving the way for universal coverage.  But President Obama preferred the box that we’re in. Yes, I’m implying that he falls within the Republican view of the box theory since he earlier sided with the industry by giving them what they wanted, and no public option, as long as they didn’t pull a Harry and Louise on him.

Missing in the dialog is acknowledgment of reality.  “No we’re not in a Police State because we’re not living like under Nazi Germany.”  True, unless you’re an undocumented alien or whistle blower- military or civilian-, where you’ll be tonight or tomorrow is likely known.  The drone war, supported by a majority of ‘progressives’ in America, is just a way of achieving a military solution without requiring the presence of American boots on the ground.  Rachel Maddow’s all for it so it must be the progressive thing to do when it’s done by a Democrat in the White House.  “Why make a case of habeas corpus?  Abraham Lincoln suspended it and thank God for him. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for him.”

What is the ‘box’?: the capitalist economy. With it comes imperial wars for others’ natural resources (Why is our oil under their sand?); support for military coups against democratically elected governments (Honduras and the Maldives); support for apartheid regimes and theocracies in the Middle East yet mouthing praise for the Arab Spring, as long as it’s in the ‘right’ countries; wages far below needs; reform of health insurance but not health care reform; homelessness and foreclosures when vacant houses, owned by banks and local governments, sit idle; public education under severe attack by both Democrats and Republicans who want to privatize it, bust the unions, and, of course, blame the teachers for not increasing test scores that have no baring of the real learning that is taking place; for-profit prison population booming (especially for the undocumented being prepared for deportation); etc.

Electoral reform is certainly needed to remove the box of capitalism from discussions on solving our problems. As it stands, it is virtually impossible for a variety of Third Parties to have ballot access in every state. There’s too much of a fear that it would cause the demise, in particular, of the Democratic Party. After all, if their platform isn’t marketable and another’s is, then they would go the way of Betamax.  The Republicans can stay as the legitimate 1% Party; the Democrats would do best to merge with them. How can we have electoral reform when states like Virginia require a 10,000-signature petition (not terribly difficult, but onerous) yet require a minimum of 400 in each county? Can you imagine that many supporting a Socialist party in Pat Robertson’s neck of the woods?

Dialog on issues can work as long as there is a recognition of reality and ownership of responsibility for why things are as they are. Without it,  it’s status quo.  Your everyday, typical Republican, on matters of war and economics, needs to see how the system is not working for them, except for those in a minority that it does.  Democratic partisans and Obama die-hard supporters need to truly question their values and principles and objectively see if their party truly stands by it, or equivocates to the point of non-recognition of the principles.  Maybe easier said  than done but the box remains strong, or invisible, as long as thinking remains stagnant.

Although Nader claims that his backing falls short of a formal endorsement, the Anderson campaign isn’t echoing that semantic hair splitting. After the joint appearance, Rocky Anderson’s Facebook page was updated as follows: “At a press conference in Portland, Oregon today, Ralph Nader officially endorsed Rocky Anderson! It’s been a great day so far, now with everyone’s help let’s raise 10k in just 1 day! We can do it!”

Nader has earned equal measures of adulation (among some radicals) and scorn (among most Democrats) for his unsparing dissections of the hypocrisies and pretensions of liberals and pseudoprogressives of various stripes (Nader, for example, was far more prescient and pointed in his critiques of Obama in 2008 than almost anyone else on the media radar). So one wonders why Nader has spurned the more overtly and unabashedly progressive candidacy of Jill Stein, the likely Green Party presidential nominee, to cast his lot with the shadowy, equivocal campaign of Anderson, a long-time Democratic Party/center-left pol who expressly abjures any identification with the left and who, as recently as 2002-2003, exchanged lavish expressions of praise and political support with Mitt Romney.

An on-line tour of the announced positions of Anderson, as stated on his campaign website, yields some intriguing anomalies. For example: on climate change, Nader and others on the left—including Jill Stein and NASA’s James Hansen—favor some form of carbon tax as a major step toward achieving sharp, rapid reductions in CO₂ emissions. Anderson, by contrast, favors “a market-based approach (i.e., cap and trade) to reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions,” a proposal that has been widely ridiculed by climate activists as nothing more than another speculative tinker-toy for Wall Street. As Nader told the New York Times, “I mean, it’s not going to work. It’s too complex. It’s too easily manipulated politically.” Hansen’s assessment is even blunter: “Cap and trade does little to slow global warming or reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It merely allows polluters and Wall Street traders to fleece the public out of billions of dollars.”

On a host of other issues, Anderson lists noticeably to the right of Nader, despite praiseworthy planks such as raising the minimum wage to ten dollars per hour and slashing the Pentagon budget by 50 percent. On health care, while acknowledging the virtues of single-payer, Anderson also touts a variety of European multi-payer schemes that retain a role for private insurers. He does not expressly call for an outright repeal of WTO/NAFTA, the Patriot Act, or Taft-Hartley, demands that Nader has advanced prominently in all his campaigns. Nor does the solutions section of his website feature the specific demand for full public financing of elections, another of Nader’s key issues, (although Anderson has mentioned the idea in passing in a blog interview). Moreover, Anderson echoes the ideologues of the right in calling for a “balanced budget (or a surplus) except in times of war or major recession”—clearly a calculated appeal to conservative voters. Jill Stein, by contrast, converges with Nader on all the foregoing issues. And on it goes: the Anderson website’s “solutions” pages ladle on a thick glaze of leftish rhetoric that cannot conceal a paucity of programmatic specificity on many key progressive demands and a troubling penchant for pandering to the right.

If all this leaves you confused about Anderson’s true political convictions, it has evidently had the same effect on the candidate himself. As he writes on his campaign website, “If my fighting for the restoration of the rule of law and the bolstering of our most fundamental constitutional values makes me a conservative, a liberal, or a patriot, you can use whatever term you like.” Here he seems to make of himself a political Rorschach test, providing a classic example of the market-research, one-size-fits all vacuity that dominates mainstream American presidential “messaging.”

Anderson’s overtures to the political right are nothing new. In 2002, while he was Mayor of Salt Lake City, he worked closely with Mitt Romney, who was president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002. The two got on so famously that Anderson extended his warm support to Romney’s successful 2002 gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts. Romney returned the favor by endorsing Anderson’s re-election bid for the mayoralty of Salt Lake City in 2003. Anderson has distanced himself—somewhat—from his quondam embrace of the Great Downsizer. Anderson told Amy Goodman, “Well, that was that Mitt Romney. It’s a very different Mitt Romney, of course, who’s running for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. He’s changed his position on so many issues.” Romney’s packaging may have changed, but as recently as 2002-2003, Anderson was clearly comfortable with exchanging endorsements with a leading member and defender of the interests of the 1 percent.

Anderson’s forays into the precincts of the Right persist right up to the present. Just last month he announced that he would be seeking the nomination of Americans Elect, a proto-political party that is funded predominantly by hedge funds and is seeking to place a third-party “centrist” candidate on the ballot in all fifty states. As Harold Myerson wrote of this secretive group in the Washington Post: “We do know that its website has a ‘leadership’ list of roughly 100 people, and that of the 90 or so who aren’t the organization’s staffers or consultants, 20 are heads or leading executives of hedge funds, private equity firms and major banks. If Americans Elect is spearheading a revolution, it’s a revolution of the 1%.”

Curiously, Anderson’s open-arms policy toward the corporate right is wedded to a chronic allergy to any associations with the left. Asked by Amy Goodman why he did not seek the Green Party nomination, he said, “Well, I think the Green Party, they have a lot of great people. They have a good platform. But I think there are some organizational problems. I think they’re also perceived as being sort of a sliver of just the left in this country. We are a—we’re attracting a multi-partisan group of people. We’ve been contacted by Republicans, Libertarians, Democrats, people across the political spectrum that have just had enough. They know that there’s got to be another way.”

Notwithstanding Anderson’s rosy political ecumenicism, his campaign has generated no great groundswell of support from any segment of the electorate. Unlike the Green Party, which is already on the ballot in 21 states and expects to be listed in 40 to 48 by Election Day, Rocky Anderson’s name has found its way to only three state ballots, and some who have spoken to Anderson recently find him discouraged about his campaign’s prospects.

Michael McGee, Anderson’s campaign manager, is more upbeat. He told me that fifteen more states have “easy” requirements, but that they will need to raise substantial funds to get on in another ten—but the prospects for those petitioning drives remain hazy. Moreover, the Justice Party has yet to hold a national convention, as required by the FEC; it had announced one tentatively for last February, but it has been kicked down the road to sometime in August, with no firm date set.

So the obvious questions arise: Is Rocky Anderson serious about building a progressive alternative to the corporate duopoly parties, or is this just another exercise in political jockeying and self-promotion? According to Jill Stein, her campaign held several conference calls with Anderson and his staff in September and October of 2011, exploring grounds for unified action. The main message from the Anderson camp was a desire to conduct a hedged, safe-states campaign that would surge at the polls and then drop out at the last minute in exchange for a cabinet appointment.

Michael McGee confirms both that these conversations took place and that his party’s strategy does target the plums of high-profile government jobs. He views an all-out independent effort—the Nader approach in 2004 and 2008—as a “loser strategy, a Jehovah’s Witness approach that says to the voters: ‘This is what we believe even though we don’t think we can win.’ This simply turns people off.” What McGee advances instead is a swing-states gambit, focusing on Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan, Florida, Nevada, and Virginia. “If we can get on the ballot in 9 or 10 swing states,” McGee told me, “we can affect the outcome of the election and have the leverage to get Justice Party people in Federal positions, including the Cabinet.”

This strategy may leave some progressives wondering whether Anderson is running a sincere campaign or a ruse, whether he is trying to build an independent movement or merely a Cabinet résumé. It may also leave them wondering whether the Justice Party is an organic sprout from the grass roots or an attempted graft of Rocky Anderson’s political ambitions onto the progressive movement.

Given these yawning gaps in the Justice Party’s progressive bona fides, what accounts for Nader’s embrace of Anderson’s campaign and his brush-off of the more politically congenial candidacy of Stein? There are two possible explanations, both seemingly personal rather than political. The first is that Nader’s joint appearance with Anderson in Portland was simply a personal favor to some of the leadership of Oregon’s Progressive Party—people who had worked closely with Ralph in the past.

The second pertains to Nader’s long and checkered relationship with the Green Party, extending back to his presidential run on the Green ticket in 2000. In the aftermath of that year’s Florida debacle, with the ensuing ostracism of Nader and his supporters in the corporate media and the ranks of the Democratic Party, hordes of progressives—including many Greens and notable lefties such as Michael Moore and Cornel West—rediscovered their inner lesser-evilism, viewing it as an expedient to remove Bush from office. In the 2004 race the Green Party leadership, thwarting substantial pro-Nader sentiment in the party’s rank and file, joined the stampede away from Nader and toward the welcoming arms of the Kerry campaign.

The Green leaders did not overtly endorse Kerry but rather telegraphed their de facto support by pursuing a “safe-states” strategy, rebuffing Nader (who ran on his own) and enforcing skewed national convention voting rules that assured the nomination of David Cobb, an obscure Texas insurance lawyer whose lack of renown and charisma were gift-wrapped godsends to the Kerry camp; Cobb then announced his intention to campaign vigorously only in states securely in the blue column. That low-profile, safe-states “dive” benefited neither the hapless Kerry nor his Green enablers: the Green Party’s presidential vote collapsed in 2004 (Cobb earned one-fourth of Nader’s 2004 vote total); the bitter harvest was the loss of Green ballot status in 11 states.¹

Fast forward to 2012: Ben Manski, one of the leading promoters of the 2004 Cobb campaign, is now the national manager of Jill Stein’s Green presidential bid. When I asked someone close to Nader why he had given his public blessing to Anderson rather than Stein, Manski’s name and the year 2004 popped up immediately. I was also told they resented Stein’s support of Cobb in 2004.

There is, however, a kernel of political substance lurking in Nader’s rancor about the party that once snubbed him. When I pointed out to Nader’s associate that Jill Stein was much closer to Ralph on the issues than Anderson is, the reply was, “Yeah, but given their [the Greens’] recent history, how do we know they’re serious about really remaining independent from the Democrats?” A reasonable enough question—so I took it to the source: Jill Stein herself.

Stein is baffled and frustrated by Nader’s cold shoulder. “I have repeatedly tried to speak with Ralph, but to no avail,” she told me. “This is so disappointing to me because Ralph was the person who woke me up politically. His 2000 campaign was for me political shock therapy—my political awakening. I worked so hard on his campaign—I spoke at the Super Rally for him in Boston that year.” Stein is a physician who has labored hard for the past twenty years on a host of progressive causes, beginning with local health-related issues like closing down incinerators and coal–burning plants. “I didn’t really begin to focus on these issues until I was forty years old, in 1990. Then it took me another decade to understand that progressive activism without an independent political vehicle—a party—is futile. And the 2000 Nader campaign was the clincher for me.”

She ran for governor of Massachusetts on the Green ticket in 2002 and made a favorable impression in the televised debates; one newspaper columnist wrote that she was “the only adult in the room.” She professes to have been oblivious to the Green factional battles of 2004: “I was not really tuned into the controversy between Nader and Cobb,” she told me. “I was really too clueless about internal Green Party battles to take sides. I voted for Cobb that year only because he was the party’s candidate and I was all about trying to build the Green Party.”

Stein did not seek the Green Party’s 2012 presidential nomination. Although she had been working for ten years to build the Massachusetts Greens, she did not attend her first Green Party national convention until August 2011, hoping to aid in the search for a suitable presidential candidate. But, she says, “I was approached—as in heavily arm-twisted—to become a candidate myself.” When she spoke to Cobb about the prospect of running, he told her that her candidacy would be a good idea but that he couldn’t become personally involved because the people who were recruiting her had been Nader supporters in 2004 and “still hate me.” So Nader’s Green supporters see in Stein a serious and effective proponent of Ralph’s agenda, but not the seemingly peevish Great Man himself.

Manski, whose name still can arouse the ire of the Nader camp, acknowledges the blunders of 2004. “There were many mistakes made by many people on all sides of the 2004 debate,” he told me. “The test is whether people learn from their mistakes, and whether they recognize that others have learned from their mistakes. The Greens have a lot of experience with independent politics. We’ve learned many lessons the hard way, and having survived those lessons, we are stronger for it.” He added, “Even David Cobb now thinks that the whole safe-states thing was a mistake.”

Nader, while nursing his undying pique over the Greens’ “dive” of 2004, has not always hewed to his own stringent standards of political independence in the recent past. In neither 2004 nor 2008 did Nader attempt to build an enduring party structure that would survive his presidential runs. Since then he has occasionally dipped his toe back into the waters of the Democratic Party, as in his endorsement of Jonathan Tasini’s primary run for the U.S. Senate in New York in 2010 and his more recent abortive efforts to spur a Democratic primary challenge to Obama. If Nader regards the Democratic Party as a corporate swamp where the progressive agenda sinks into oblivion, why does he lead sporadic charges into a party he so often denounces as a dead end? At least the Greens, whatever their current and past sins of temporizing and de facto complicity, have never urged direct participation in the Democratic Party. And if Nader can overlook Rocky Anderson’s embrace of the rightist corporate buccaneer Mitt Romney, why can’t he bury the hatchet over Stein’s vote for the left-liberal Cobb in 2004?

Given the widespread disillusionment with Obama among progressives and the unexpected flourishing of the Occupy movement, the 2012 election presents priceless opportunities for propagating a left message to an increasingly besieged electorate that is hungry for solutions. But what are the alternatives for the left? To dissipate and fragment its finite resources and energies among a half dozen socialist sects? To unify behind Rocky Anderson, who is spotty on program and still seemingly immured in the glad-handing, horse-trading ethos of the political establishment? Notwithstanding the Green Party’s history of organizational quirks, factional strife, and fitful irresolution in confronting the Democrats, it seems that the best opportunity to use electoral activism to complement Occupy is through Stein’s candidacy. Radical yet nonsectarian, her campaign is an all-out effort to build an independent progressive movement rather than an elaborate ploy to snare a Cabinet post or the rote ritual of a would-be socialist vanguard; in short, it’s the closest we can come, in spirit if not in size, to the Left Front in France or the Left Party of Germany.

The Greens seem at last to have gotten over their internal wars of the past decade, with the former Cobbites, now sorry about the fiasco of 2004, having joined with former Naderite Greens to back Stein; Nader, on the other hand, appears not to have gotten over or moved on, and may someday find himself sorry that he again spited the Greens, this time to back a candidate well to their—and his—right.

This political un-love story furnishes a potential lesson for all the battered antagonists: in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, forging a unified and potent left front, unburdened by opportunism, personal spite, or sectarian sanctimony, means never having to say you’re sorry.

1. For a detailed account of the Green leadership’s convention manipulations that led to Cobb winning the party’ presidential nomination with only a small minority of Green primary votes, see “How David Cobb Became the Green Nominee Even Though He Only Got 12 Percent of the Votes,” by Carol Miller and Forrest Hill, CounterPunch, August 7-9, 2004; for the specifics on the post-Cobb contraction of the Green Party, see “All That’s Left Is the Cobb: The Decline of the Green Party,” by Steve Greenfield, CounterPunch, March 19-21, 2005.

The Daily Cape Cod, a blog site for those living in Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, wrote: “We need a third party. We already have a progressive party that is up and running, but something new is needed on the progressive side. We need a progressive party that will move forward at a pace both acceptable to conservatives and liberals.”

Hello, we do: it is called the Green Party. The Greens are liberal on the social issues, and conservative on the fiscal issues. For example, the Green Party wants to repeal No Child Left Behind, and want single-payer universal health care. On fiscal issues the Greens want to cut spending line-by-line in order to eliminate wasteful spending.

No, I am not going to just mention just the Greens. Another example is the Libertarians back in 2004. When George W. Bush was seeking re-election for the presidency their were rumors that the Libertarians could cost him his job. Don Devine, Vice-Chairman of the American Conservative Union and GOP insider, said: “I think [the Bush campaign] should be concerned. I don’t know how concerned… They need to work on it and I think they know they need to work on it.”

The Libertarian Party is an example that appeals to other conservative supporters. So why are third parties not prevailing like they should be?

Not only media, but several organizations in communities do not allow third parties to participate in events; such as candidate forums, endorsement interviews, debates, and the like.

On the federal campaign level many third party candidates get left out from the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Debates. Most of the time third party candidates have their own debate, which is not televised. At the state level, many third party campaigns get left out of forums, endorsement interviews, and get left out from the press.

The common response to all of this would be: “A third party can never succeed in a election.” How we lose track of our American Political History. A respected lawyer, well known in his community, got elected to office at the state level. He was then approach by a third party which asked him to run for president. The man never thought about higher office, but after talking with his advisers and family he took up the challenge and began campaigning across the country. Wherever he went, the two major parties would just criticize him and the party he was with. After much campaigning in 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President of the United States as a Republican. Yes, the Republican Party was the third party during that time period when Whigs and the Democrats were the two major parties.

Another example is the Socialist Party from 1920-1940. The Socialist Party held a strong base in Milwaukee, WI. Frank Zeidler was the longest serving Socialist Mayor Milwaukee had. Thank to Mayor Zeidler he brought in mass transit, better sanitation for the city of Milwaukee, annexed the city of Milwaukee for tax purposes, to offer services, and much more.

There are many Greens and Libertarians that are elected into office. 130 Greens and 149 Libertarians

So for all of those out in the media who ask — Where is the next third party? — do some research and search the web for major third parties like the Green Party, Libertarian Party, and the Constitution Party. Plus look up the other parties that are out there trying to get heard. There are third parties out there, you just need to do more searching.

Walsh argues there is a difference: “Rep. Ron Paul (R, TX) the only contender who is a consistent, principled anti-interventionist, opposed to overseas Empire, and a staunch defender of our civil liberties so imperiled since 9/11.” His argument is that because Ron Paul is anti-war that the Left should embrace his candidature, and he views it as a challenge to the Left.²

Without a doubt, any president that would put an end to the imperialist wars being waged by the US would be light years better than a slew of corporate-backed warmongers that have long sat in the White House, including Obama. This means that a future president Paul, insofar as he would and could implement a policy of no wars, is far preferable to the irredeemable warmonger Barack Obama, who curries negligible favor among progressives.

Paul, however, carries a regressivist side with him that many progressives consider anathema. I consider Paul’s ideology as anti-human, basically every man and woman for his/her self.³ Under Paul, tough luck for those people that fall through the cracks.

Yet Walsh makes the case that Paul is the moral choice. However, based on Paul’s libertarian ideology (which he, arguably, does not always adhere to), the morality of a Paul presidency is open to criticism.

Walsh asks, “Is not the very first obligation of the Left above and beyond all else to stop the killing, done in our name and with our tax dollars? Is any other stance moral? And does not the Paul candidacy need to be seen in this light?”

The Paul candidacy needs to be seen in the light of all his stances and the morality of all those stances. Morality is not a unitary, single issue.

Thus, insofar as participating in rigged elections is a correct strategy, if there were a candidate who is anti-war and progressive on other issues, would not the moral choice be to vote for that candidate? For example, if Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney were to run again?

Nevertheless, should no progressivist candidate stand for the next presidential election, can one argue seriously that lesser evilism is a moral choice?

Obama is not a lesser evil. He is on par with any other Republican candidate — with one exception. Based on Paul’s anti-war stance, it appears that he is a lesser evil to Obama (or any other Republican candidate). Does that make Paul the best candidate to vote for?

Two quotations stand out well for me about the dangers of lesser evilism. Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracián warned: “Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other ones invariably slink in after it.”

Lesser evilism has pushed most parties to the Right. The lesson of lesson evilism is that if a party wants to grab a section of the Right, it appeals to with receptiveness to certain rightist issues, believing that it can hold onto whatever leftist base it has because there is no other viable alternative. The result worldwide has been a slide to the right among all prominent political parties. In the US, the Democrats have slid side-by-side with the Republicans; in Canada there is little to distinguish the Conservatives and the Liberals (and the so-called leftist New Democrats are hardly what I would call a part of the Left, at best right of center); in the United Kingdom, the Blairites shoved the Labour Party over toward the Conservatives (and the Liberal Democrats work hand-in-hand with the Conservatives to form a government); in Germany the Social Democratic Party slid to the Right under Gerhard Schröder; etc. What this rightward shift did is vanish, neuter, or marginalize a leftist electoral option. This phenomenon, occurring far and wide, has paved the way for neoliberalism — an extreme form of capitalism — that has caused the middle and lower socioeconomic classes to fall farther behind.

By sliding to the Right, only the corporatocracy wins. Lesser evilism in the form of a Ron Paul government might result in a roll back of the US military — admittedly a stupendous achievement. However, a rightward drift economically might fuel xenophobia, blaming outsiders for the problems caused by right-wing economic policy. This sentiment eases launching of wars against outsiders. Paul does appeal to a base that fears immigration. Moreover, the Tea Partiers, whose support Paul is courting, contradictorily call for reining in government but supporting militarism — a huge drain on the public purse.

Only by holding onto it principles and political goals will the Left, in the long-term, be able to realize its goals in government.

If lesser evilism opens the doors to other evils, then British preacher Charles Spurgeon opted correctly when he stated, “Of two evils, choose neither.”⁴

1. See Kim Petersen, “The Utter Futility of Lesser Evilism,” Dissident Voice, 24 May 2007.
2. Charles Davis earlier made the argument that Ron Paul is a lesser evil compared to Obama. “Ron Paul: A Lesser Evil?” Dissident Voice, 28 April 2011.
3. See Pham Binh, “Don’t Fall for Ron Paul,” Dissident Voice, 16 May 2011.
4. See Kim Petersen, “The Lesser-of-Two Evils,” Dissident Voice, 19 April 2004.

Here are some examples:

1) When General Betray-Us, or ex-Secretary of International Mayhem, Robert Gates, say that we must stay in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bahrain, Yemen, or wherever else our empire happens to be on the move, there is no viable alternative party to oppose their illegal ideology. While some politicos feel protected enough in their electoral districts to call for an end to these senseless wars, there is no mass movement they can call on to picket, boycott, march or even sign meaningless petitions demanding an end to these slaughters. Their voices and their votes are token opposition to the military-industrial juggernaut. In spite of the fact that over 75% of the American people want to bring our troops home, there is no political party or movement to speak out in opposition to the military-dominated Obama administration.

2) When the Supreme Court of the United States orders California to release 45,000 non-violent inmates from our over-crowded torturous state prison system, both the Democrats and the Republicans nod in approval when the California Department of Confinement and Rigor-mortis responds with the absurd statement that such a release will cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. How is such hypocrisy possible? Because the CDC interprets the court decision to mean that the inmates should be sent to county jails instead of released. Who are they to issue such a twisted and distorted interpretation of how to lower the prison population? Where is the party or credible group that should come forward and say: Release means Release! We could immediately, safely and easily, release thousands of non-violent prisoners who could be returned to society into viable programs so that they have some possibility of becoming productive members of the community. Instead, the only voice to be heard is that of the self-serving prison administration and prison guards union. Our police-state government is dependent on repression to finance a faltering economy, and no one speaks in the name of decency and social responsibility. Incarceration and torture are our creative answers to poverty and lack of education.

3) The majority of Americans want single payer, affordable health care. Where is the movement or party to be found that can insist on viable health care as a prerequisite to supporting a candidate for election? Nowhere! Instead, we hear the voices of the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical companies and the professional medical associations. There is no organized institutional response to the theft of our health care.

4) Oil companies, insurance companies, banks, mortgage companies, Wall Street brokers all are completely unregulated in spite of the atrocities they are perpetrating against the American people. Yet both the Democrats and Republicans bail these gangsters out, support their continued abuses, and depend upon them for financial support in the up-coming elections. The suggestion that the greedy, vicious oligarchs who run these industries should be held accountable and prosecuted for their crimes against the American people is not to be found in any serious public forum.

5) This country now has the greatest discrepancy in wealth between the super-rich and the poor than almost any nation on earth. Yet there is no visible movement anywhere that demands a redistribution of the wealth from the rich to the poor. Instead, we hear fantasies about there not being enough money to go around, and “we” should all tighten our belts so that the rich can obtain more.

6) The disproportionate impact that the neo-conservative anti-Cuban and pro-Israeli lobbyists have in Washington, D.C., is contemptible. While Americans suffer from our faltering economy, and experience growing contempt for U.S. policies everywhere in the world, the oligarchy continues to pander to these right-wing fanatics as if there is no opposition to their suicidal policies.

The answer to these questions flow from an obvious truth. We have been McCarthy’ed out of existence. The anti-communist, anti-socialist rhetoric of the 50s has come home to roost. Only the rich have rights. Those who talk about leveling the playing field are, dare I say it, SOCIALISTS. Enough said! In earlier societies, that characterization is like calling someone a witch or some equally sinister force. Socialism is now seen by the majority of the American people as Stalinism; it is equated with Maoist intransigence; Cuban and Vietnamese “aggression,” etc. The concept of a democratic government that redistributes wealth and resources for the good of the majority of the people is inconceivable in a country that applauds the obscene wealth of the Kochs, the DeVos family, the Waltons and the like. Democracy has not only lost its foothold in this country, it is 6 feet under.

We must build a movement or party that is democratic, inter-racial, non-hierarchical, and based upon equal rights and access to the body politic. There must be a process for feedback and criticism, one that ensures gender equality, and one that incorporates the needs of the many over the demands of the few. The elderly and the young must be included in the decision-making process.

The capitalist invention of a greedy, grasping vulture that preys on the weak must be addressed and opposed. Our society can no longer afford a “survival of the fittest” mentality, but rather one that is inclusive, self-sustaining, educational and nurturing. Until and unless the American people take the yoke of McCarthyism off of their shoulders, the U.S. will continue to be a one-party oligarchy, beholden to a handful of corporate billionaires – vampires responsive solely to their own needs.

The media, the religious right and both political parties are owned outright by corporate oligarchs. The repressive apparatus of the police and prison system are at their disposal. While there is a slim possibility that a homegrown resistance can grow in this country, it is more likely that the pressure for change will come from the victims of U.S. imperialism throughout the world. At that time, let us hope that true American patriots will see where their self-interest lies. Let the Kochs, the Waltons, the Rockefellers and their ilk fight for themselves; don’t protect them as if they care a damn about this country.

As a fan of the TV show Lie To Me where the experts can detect minute physical signs of lying or micro-expressions, I felt that the politicians had developed the talent and skill to lie without giving any sign of it.

Here is what Americans should learn: All elected Democrats and Republicans have succeeded because they are excellent liars and, therefore, not one of them can ever be trusted to be telling the truth.

When you vote for any of these two-party politicians all you are saying is: LIE TO ME.

And when they get elected that is exactly what they will do, and not just about their personal behavior.  The larger lesson is that American politicians will also lie effortlessly about public policy and just about everything they have anything to do with.

Make no mistake, President Obama has lied about many things just as presidents before him also have.

Can you have an effective representative democracy when elected officials can never be trusted to tell the truth to citizens?   No.

Elected officials no long feel they have a profound responsibility to tell the truth.  It appears to be behavior that has become automatic, not something they agonize over.  Lying has become normal behavior whether it is done in Internet communications, on TV, in speeches or during campaigning for office.  Lying may have become so commonplace that politicians no longer spend time justifying it to themselves or their closest staff or supporters.  Sure, when they get caught, they easily apologize and accept responsibility in some glib and usually tearful way.  But their moral decrepitude should not be forgiven.  Dishonest politicians are chronically ill, selfish, egoistic betrayers of public trust.  Severe punishment of them is necessary, starting with legally required removal from office and loss of all pension and health insurance benefits.

In the US political system public trust of elected officials is passé, or should be.

This is not a matter of cynicism; it is just prudent and logical to mistrust just about everything said by elected officials.  Of course, if you think that a particular politician lies supports your views, then it may not bother you, but it should.

Forget about the rationalization that politicians merely misspeak or that they are just fallible human beings like the rest of us.  My point is that an essential skill and regular behavior of politicians is lying without any hint of it.  The only thing that politicians now fear is losing control and inadvertently telling the truth!

Has it always been this way?  Have American politicians always been ubiquitous liars?  I don’t think so.  What was once aberrant behavior has become normal behavior.  It is yet another sign of just how much the US has sunk.  It is not just that the country is on the wrong track; it is off the track, falling into an abyss.

When it is rational to always be suspicious of everything politicians say, then why keep listening?  Why keep voting for them?  Why keep believing that the US is still a functioning democracy?  Why believe lies about reforming government?  Why think that the overpowering corruption of government by corporate interests will change?

The biggest insanity of all is that when politicians get caught lying about sexual behavior they pay a high price, but not when they get caught lying about the economy, how they have voted on issues, how they have implemented their campaign promises, what they have taken from corporate supporters, and other substantive issues. They get away with it.  In large measure because the media do not make a big deal of ordinary lying.  Lying is the new normal.  Expectations of honesty are gone.

The US political system is broken.  That is the truth.  You can trust me.

Take a little satisfaction knowing that the biggest lies politicians tell are probably to themselves.

22-year mayor Short Shanks Dick Daley II was off hiding in the British Virgin Islands in exile: a vestige of a political establishment that is now extinct. Am I adding a somber note to an occasion that ought not be so somber? Well, I am a Chicagoan by birth, so he is like my father.

But doesn’t Rahm just continue the machine lineage?

No!

While Daley did gave Rahm Emanuel the nod to run for Congress back in ’02 when Blago was elected Governor, the two are from distinct political establishments, with their intersection being the commonality of Chicago. Daley is a south-sider, part of the dying breed of the Chicago Irish political racket. Meanwhile, Rahm is a Jew from the North: one whom many in the old machine would have considered some “fucking liberal.”

I won’t sidestep into discussion about how he isn’t liberal. In fact, he is quite “liberal” in the more commonly used sense of the word through the world: someone who opposes any interference in the market, even if your aim is merely socioeconomic justice. In the Land of the Free, sadly, almost everyone is hostile to such notions, even the majority that would benefit from social-democratic policies. So if everyone is a liberal, what’s the point in using the word?

A far more prescient term is “googoo”: the yuppie that thinks all will be Good as long as Government is in the hands of one of their own. I will give credit to the googoos for not holding some of the biases of yesteryear, as they did anoint this country’s first black President. In fact, some would argue that the googoo prefers a little color, for it serves to cloak the systemic biases of the liberalism they espouse.

I once saw Rahm on tape complaining about “gooogoos” and their lack of political organization. He rolled his eyes and muttered that which I have muttered many times before: “Fuckin’ googoos!” They aren’t adept campaigners, because they can’t stand in one place for more than a half hour passing out palm cards: they are far too important for that. For these purposes, Rahm prefers the “knuckle dragger,” which Daley has always provided a steady stream of.

Nonetheless, his core voter is still a “googoo,” as with former boss Barack, and most of the Democratic Party establishment. They have just anointed him to be the new Mayor of Chicago, thus ending a century of Machine rule. What little remained of the machine was out campaigning for Gery Chico, the old Chicago Public School boss, whose influence was largely contained to the rolling bungalows of the northwest side.

The only candidate resembling a progressive, City Clerk Miguel Del Valle, limped home with 9% of the vote: a sad reminder that populism is entirely dead in Chicago. He did inspire a fairly impressive ground game, but these don’t amount to votes in the era of the “googoo,” because these foul creatures demand that you have the endorsement of the daily rag for their approval. They will mock your leaflet, spite your populist rhetoric, disparage you for questioning the status quo, and flock to support anyone given the nod by the Trib or Sun Times

Here we see ourselves mourning the death of the machine, for it has been replaced with something even worse. We have gone from blue-collar semi-populist sensibilities to the singular class: the amorphous class of supposedly well-intentioned yuppies. While the machine diverted union interests to the corporate-laded Democratic Party to no one’s benefit, at least their organization required that support. On occasion, the unions could still flex their muscle in this old game. Nowadays, Rahm managed to win despite airing commercials dissing public sector workers, and calling for an era where they work on a purely contractual basis.

I spent the day campaigning for del Valle and myself in a vanity Green Party run for alderman in an abundantly “googoo” ward. Without much time and money, I primarily used my campaign as a chance to stump for Mr. Del Valle. In this ward, the corporate press manufactured an “upset,” by endorsing a nonentity of a googoo over the anointed machine hack (I did not participate in the corporate press endorsement process.) The victor, Ameya Pawar, is a 30-year old with no meaningful political background or coherent political philosophy. This is quite possibly the greatest political upset I have ever witnessed, as he knew little about the dynamics of campaigning, evidenced by the lack of “union bugs” on his material, and the absence of any visible ground game. The “corporate press” now possesses the unencumbered capacity to anoint victors. The unimaginative populace has almost no ability to think on their own, beyond trivial dichotomies. Both corporate newspapers painted this as an “us vs. them” race of a “David vs. Goliath” nature, wherein the longshot got their approval, in large part because he was a harmless googoo running against a machine charlatan.

I spent nearly the whole of Election Day striking up conversation with machine goons at polling places. We stood out in the cold, passing palm cards to voters as they trickled in. One yuppie googoo, en passant, refused both of our palm cards, declaring: “You’re the machine hack, and you’re a left-wing nut! Don’t bother me!” That was the microcosm of our day.

One of the goons I talked to for a while said “We like you better than that Indian, because at least you’re pro-union.”

I responded : “Well, you know, both my parents were union. I was actually born and raised in the city, not off in the suburbs.”

He continued: “Yeah, this guy is a fuckin’ jackass.”

I replied: “Well, he’s just a googoo”

Another goon chimed in: “Yep!”

So there I spent 15 hours on the sinking ship of Chicago’s machine, bonding with goons in the frigid temperatures, sensing that the sun was setting on a fabled era of Chicago history.

I then cozied into the comfort of O’Shaughnessy’s for a nip and pint, followed by several more, and watched Rahmbo give his victory speech. I had my epiphany: the new boss is not the same as the old boss. The culture has changed, the relevance of organized labor has waned, and the city has become a mob of narrow-minded yuppies that share and embody Rahm’s hostility to populism.

Most importantly, the corporate press enthusiastically trumpeted Rahm’s candidacy. They manufactured this consent, paid no attention to the field’s one progressive (and Miguel was no Hugo Chavez), and turned this narrative into the completion of a dream for a Chicago political hero.

Many in the neighborhood were enthused that the mayor will live amongst us in Ravenswood. The home he famously leased out whilst in Washington is literally blocks from where I sit typing. The current resident, Rob Halpin, refused to break his lease when Rahm returned to run for mayor, thus sparking Rahm’s residency-question debacle. My message to Rob on this somber occasion: “Trash the fuckin’ place!”

The narrative has come full circle. I initially returned to this city to run for Rahm’s old Congressional seat as a Green in the 2009 special election. He is now back and I will be gone. I have regretted the decision to return for most of the last year, as I have grown tired of Chicago’s “Second city complex.” Always beware the people a notch or two below the Jones’s, for they are the most arrogantly hostile people on Earth. Chicago has never been a worldly cosmopolitan city a la New York or Paris, nor did it develop a uniquely vibrant identity a la L.A. with Hollywood.

With the sun setting on the machine, so it has set on us, the children of it. I am off to warmer and more fertile pastures. See you in New Orleans.

But not before making another toast to the memory of the Chicago Machine.

In the past month, the people of Egypt—inspired by the recent democratic revolution in Tunisia and preceding emergent revolutions in Libya, Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, and Morocco—have undertaken a revolt of truly stunning proportions, one that includes men and women from all class strata, religious and ethnic origins, and ideological commitments. They managed to rid themselves of a longstanding and brutal dictator worth over $40 billion and supported by the collective power of the United States, European Union, Israel, and the Arab Gulf States.

Now that two Arab dictators have been vanquished by the collective will of unaffiliated protesters, many American commentators have been forced to rethink their assumptions about the supposedly tribal and authoritarian Arab mind. Such commentators, sometimes conservative but often liberal, fancy themselves guardians of a civic and political enlightenment that in reality is misinformed in addition to being conceited and imperialistic.

Nevertheless, given the ardor and self-confidence of the notion that American values exemplify democratic modernity, let us imagine a few potential outcomes had the pioneering people of Egypt followed the example of today’s liberal American Democrats.

Mubarak offered the Egyptian people what he deemed sweeping reforms. The people rejected his overtures as inadequate and disingenuous, which only increased their desire to oust Mubarak. A protester named Dalia observed, “Nothing will make this regime go unless we keep on coming and keep on coming.” Had Dalia been a Democrat, she might have instead responded, “The Egyptian government has a real opportunity in the face of this very clear demonstration of opposition to begin a process that will truly respond to the aspirations of the people of Egypt.”

Despite police brutality, the people of Egypt remained steadfast and continued their chants of “down with Mubarak” and “Tunisia is the solution,” both slogans underscoring the importance of a genuinely transformative revolution. Had they been Democrats, they surely would not have been so quixotic and would have instead opted for a pragmatic approach, as most Democrats do in every American election. As Michael Moore warns, democratic transformation has no real place in American politics: “And so, I just—I think that—I mean, what I’ve proposed for the last few years is that if we really want to try and get this power in our hands, in the people’s hands, in the hands of the working people of this country, then we should, on a very grassroots level, from the bottom up, be doing things to—whether it’s running for local office, taking over the local Democratic Party.”

Working within a corrupt system, rather than trying to abolish it, is the way American liberals like Moore prefer to pursue justice: “well, we have these two political parties which are really very much like one party, why don’t we make sure that one of those parties actually is a second party and start locally and do that? And that’s what I encourage people to do. That’s my approach.”

The Egyptian protesters demanded rule by the people rather than subservience to a small caste of politicians and crony capitalists. They continue to agitate for a new constitution, universal health care, a multiple-party democracy, unionization for workers, and an end to the violent suppression of dissent. If they were Democrats, they probably wouldn’t be so ambitious. In the United States, dissent is often suppressed, sometimes violently, unions are busted, two parties representing 300 million people assert plutocratic hegemony, and politicians of the two parties serve the interests not of their citizen constituents but of crony capitalists. The Democrats do not tolerate dissentient action in the form of mass protest; they prefer the tactic of voting for Democrats during election season.

Liberal commentators dismiss as silliness any desire to oust dictatorial leaders outside the pragmatic framework of Democratic values. Todd Gitlin preaches discipline in the face of abusive state power: “Will the rebellious left discipline itself, cool its boiling blood, and decide that the pleasures of sectarianism are worth less than the steady resolve of infrastructural work?” Speaking against—what else?—leftist politician Ralph Nader. Eric Alterman is less diplomatic: “The man needs to go away. I think he needs to live in a different country. He’s done enough damage to this one. Let him damage somebody else’s now.” Alterman despises Nader because of Nader’s lack of faith in politicians: “Politicians blow with political winds. To force them to blow our way, progressives need leaders who can combine hardheaded realism with the ability to inspire Americans’ nascent idealism.”

According to liberal Democrats, alternate politics are impossible and thus undesirable. The Egyptian people do not share the same viewpoint. There was nothing pragmatic about what they did: it is never a reasonable idea to march into bullets, tear gas canisters, and police boots in order to upend a rotten political system brandishing the imprimatur of the world’s most powerful armies and politicians. But if the Egyptian people wanted a just political system, rather than the practical realities of theft and corruption, they needed to replace and not merely reform their government. To challenge bad politicians by electing more bad politicians is not serious political thinking; it is an inducement to apathy and intellectual frivolity.

The Egyptian people erected a remarkably functional democratic space in Tahreer Square, complete with an infirmary, a kindergarten, and a pharmacy. When Democratic Party bosses get together, protesters are entrapped in chain link cages.

In short, if the Egyptian protesters were Democrats, they would have undertaken no revolution. The Democratic Party represents the pervasiveness of elite corporate power; its liberal supporters represent the appropriation of oppositional politics into the neoliberal economies of electoral hegemony; the Egyptian protesters represent a determined, collective will to social justice and legitimate freedom. If those protesters were American liberals, they would have sided with the state while professing support for the people.

If the Egyptian protesters were Democrats, they would have accepted Mubarak’s proposed reforms—not because those reforms were good, but because Democrats are accustomed to settling for empty rhetoric. They would have accepted Mubarak’s handpicked successor, the infamous torturer Omar Suleiman—not because they like him, but because he would presumably be less evil than his predecessor. They would have accepted the inevitability of defeat—not because they wanted to lose, but because losing would be both pragmatic and realistic. The actual Egyptian protesters, however, would only accept freedom.

For those who might respond to this hypothetical exercise by pointing out that the United States is not Egypt, I would agree. Egypt under Mubarak was more equitable than the United States under Barack Obama. Egypt has far less income inequality than the United States, and all of Mubarak’s brutality was at least indirectly underwritten by the American government.

The people of the Middle East and North Africa have never listened to American liberals, who through the years have loved to bestow unsolicited advice on Arabs. Had the Arabs accepted this unsolicited advice, they would have become Democrats instead of revolutionaries.

The only acceptable liberal American response to the revolutions in the Arab World is the silence that enlivens a sincere attempt to listen. Clearly it is time for American liberals to stop lecturing Arabs and start following their example, instead.

Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment.
Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.

— Bertolt Brecht

Several times in columns over the last year or so I have written about the need for a “third force,” a broad, independent and progressive united front.

Those people who know me might think this is nothing new. After all, for over 15 years I have been a leader of the Independent Progressive Politics Network, which has had unity-building for an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans as central to its mission. However, my conception of a 21st-century-second-decade “third force” has one major difference, which is:

What we need is an alliance which consciously incorporates elected Democrats as well as elected Greens and independents, as well as groups, or individual leaders and members of groups, like Progressive Democrats of America and the Green Party. More than that, this alliance eventually needs to support and work to elect candidates running both as Democrats and progressive independents, and maybe even an occasional Republican.

To sharpen the point even more: I am completely convinced after 36 years of being active in organizations trying to build a mass, progressive third party in the USA that such an approach ALONE will never, ever get us to the promised land. The huge, historically-based, structural obstacles in the way of the formation of a truly mass-based (tens of millions), new political party make it essential that a different approach be used.

A Green Party Leader’s Proposal

A progressive third party can be formed, and has been, the Green Party. Of all the various national efforts to form a third party alternative over the last 25 years, this is the one which has been most successful. But after all those years, it does not command the support of tens of millions, its growth has been at best incremental over the past decade, and there is no reason to believe that, alone, this will change substantially.

Some Greens, perhaps many, understand that something new is needed. Scott McLarty, media coordinator for the Green Party of the United States, wrote a piece just before Christmas calling for a “voters’ revolt.” McLarty’s piece was “not an exhortation for exclusively voting Green in every election. Greens are not on every ballot, nor would I advise voting according to party without regard for candidates’ qualifications. Rather, it’s an appeal for progressive, antiwar, pro-environmental groups and anyone who cares about America’s future to recognize the alternative party imperative, and to support that imperative however they can.”

McLarty goes on to clarify what he sees as the political vehicle for this “voters’ revolt:”

What we need, as a preliminary for the emergence of the Greens or any other alternative, is a popular voters’ revolt against the rule of the Titanic parties (a phrase coined by Laura Wells, Green candidate for governor of California in 2010). It should be led by a coalition of alternative parties that have found themselves virtually shut out of the political system and the media, including Greens, Socialists, Libertarians, independents and others, as well as Tea Partiers frustrated by their movement’s absorption into the GOP and sympathetic Democrats and Republicans.

Tactically, McLarty writes that “the first step for such a coalition would be a list of demands that presuppose no political ideology beyond a desire for clean and open elections.” He lists his thoughts on those ‘clean elections’ demands, including: debates that include all candidates, proportional representation, instant runoff voting, campaign finance reforms, tamper-proof and open-software computer voting machines, abolishment of ‘corporate personhood,’ and repeal of restrictive ballot access laws.

The successful development of this proposal would be a good thing. Without question, part of the overall platform of the progressive movement, of a new “third force,” should be these kinds of electoral reforms to open up our anachronistic political system. But as THE central strategic objective for progressives and revolutionaries, I don’t see it. And a coalition of the kind McLarty proposes is not a progressive coalition; it’s, in essence, a single-issue coalition, and that is not enough on the issue of clean elections, or health care, or the climate, or racial justice, or war and militarism, or anything else

What we need is a broadly-based alliance involving tens of thousands of organizers — once it gets off the ground — that can effectively put forward and organize around a multi-issue, consistently progressive program on how society can be rebuilt and reorganized for the benefit of the people and our severely threatened ecosystem. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties are doing this. Obama’s new chief of staff, William Daley, as well his old one, Rahm Emanuel, in no way have, or had, this as their agenda, in any way, shape or form.

Working Within the Democratic Party

Progressive Democrats and the organization Progressive Democrats of America, as well as many unions, reform groups and groups like the NY Working Families Party, have been fighting for years against this right-of-center direction that leading Democrats are taking the Democratic Party. The likelihood is high that this battle within the Democratic Party will become sharper in the next two years. Daley’s appointment is one of a number of signs that Obama will not be adjusting to Republican control of the House by mobilizing the grassroots or taking progressive positions on issues. Instead, on many issues he will be going out of his way to find common ground with Republicans.

Should the independent progressive movement take up this battle within the Democratic Party as its primary strategic task in the coming period? Given the deep-seated structural impediments to the formation of a mass third party, does it make sense that this is where we put our focus?

There is no question that a progressive united front would be involved with efforts to oppose Republican and Tea Party regressivism and Democratic capitulation to it or to the corporate and banking elite which dominates Washington. We should work with those Democrats (and Republicans) who support solidly progressive positions on issues, positions consistent with our own overall policy approaches. A key part of our work must be work on issues, not just by organizing around a longer-term agenda for what’s really needed — like universal single-payer health care or hundreds of billions of dollars in reductions in the Pentagon budget — but in the world of here-and-now where we’re not yet strong enough to enact those needed objectives. Indeed, much of that work over at least the next two years will be defensive, like defending Social Security and Medicare.

But this is not the same thing as a determination that, strategically, OUR MOVEMENT should prioritize day-to-day work within the Democratic Party. Some of those who must be part of a broad progressive third force are doing, and would continue to do, that. For the alliance movement as a whole, however, we must build the strength of independent political organizing — involving progressive Dems, Greens, other independents, unaffiliateds, soft Republicans and skeptics-of-elections — at the grassroots, statewide, regionally and nationally

Independent, Mass Movement Building

THIS must be our continually-affirmed and continually-assessed objective. Just as the decade of the 1930’s was the decade of resurgent labor, just as the decade of the 60’s was the decade of civil and human rights, just as the decade of the 80’s was the decade of a multi-cultural rainbow movement, the second decade of this century must be the decade of people’s power. We must be about inspiring, nurturing and organizing millions of people to assert and organize for their right to live decently and with dignity in a world with clean air, clean water, clean energy and in balance with our natural environment. Any of our tactics, including electoral tactics, must always be determined with this overriding objective in mind.

And we must go about this work crystal clear that what stands in the way of our achieving these objectives are the coal and oil companies, the for-profit health care industry, the too-big-to-fail greedy and criminal bankers, the military-industrial complex — in short, the powerful monied  interests who have hijacked our democracy and are pulling the strings behind the Tea Party, the Republican Party and powerful sections of the Democratic Party.

Just as our movement is multi-issue, so must be our tactics. Some of those who are part of the alliance may have little to do with elections. There are many excellent and dedicated organizers who are skeptical about relating to electoral politics. But the hard fact is that if we are talking about a mass movement of millions, tens of millions ultimately, the movement as a whole must intervene within an arena that, rightly or wrongly, a vast majority of people in this country see as the way to “do politics.” As we do that work, as we connect with more and more people, we can show by example that electoral politics is only one of a number of things that we need to do to be about social, economic and cultural transformation.

Many of us, those skeptical of elections and those who see it as a key arena for struggle, will continue their day-to-day grassroots organizing around the issues most important to the people in their workplace, community or mass organization, or by bringing the action campaigns of the broader movement to those people. Some will want to focus on the organization of “street heat,” mass demonstrations and civil disobedience. The third force must appreciate the lesson of history that mass movements, to be successful, must up the ante, push the envelope, risk arrest in order to underline the urgency and seriousness of the situation we are in.

Non-Sectarianism and a Healthy Style of Work

We need to firmly reject sectarian, narrow and divisive approaches when it comes to building our movement, while constructing a style of work which welcomes constructive criticism. Members of the alliance movement need a way of talking with one another and with those we are reaching out to which consciously looks for points of connection that are then built upon. We need a “we,” not “I” mindset. We need to become known for being good allies. Our organizing work should be about working with others in such a way that they grow from being new members of our movement to the point where they are able to give leadership and, indeed, become “leadership trainers” themselves. This is central, fundamental to our ability to build a people’s power movement that can grow strong enough to eventually win.

We need an alliance culture that is about respectful listening, cooperation and the common good (“an injury to one is an injury to all”), as distinct from the currently-dominant culture’s individualism, power-seeking and greed. Indeed, today’s right-wing culture has evolved into a mean-spirited, dishonest and violence-producing approach to politics that is a dangerous and very real threat to our common survival and progress. To the extent that we model a very different way of standing up for our beliefs in an organized way, to that extent will we win over large numbers of people and, over time, expose and isolate the ultra-rightists.

Critically, the movement’s leadership and many of its members must appreciate the need for an anti-oppression consciousness, one which opposes racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ageism, etc., if we are to build the unity required to take on our common enemies.

When it comes to making decisions we should use what I like to call a “striving for consensus” model. Such a model proceeds from an understanding that we should try to make decisions through the kind of dialogical process that involves a willingness to see more than one side of an issue before coming to a decision. At the same time, it understands that it is not always possible, or there is not enough time, to arrive at a full consensus and that sometimes a vote passed by a majority, or 2/3 or 3/4 of those voting on the issue at hand, is appropriate.

Platform/Program

What would be the range of positions on issues, an essential “glue” to this effort? Here are some general sketchy thoughts, admittedly incomplete:

Single-payer health care. Significant reductions in the bloated military budget. De-escalation of the war, ending the occupation of Afghanistan, and all troops and military contractors out of Iraq. Ending all fossil fuel subsidies and shifting them to renewables. Policies to reduce carbon emissions by half by 2020. Marriage equality and full civil and human rights for lbgt people. Government programs to create jobs and stop mortgage foreclosures. Labor law reform that protects workers in the workplace. Racial and gender justice. Major changes in our unjust and racially discriminatory “criminal justice” system. An end to Israel’s illegal occupation and support for Palestinian rights. Fair, non-racist immigration policies including an amnesty program. A wealth tax on the rich and progressive tax reform. Breaking up or taking over the “too big to fail” banks and investment houses like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Breaking up huge corporate industrial farms, land reform and support to sustainable and organic family farms and coops. Defense of women’s right to choose on abortion. Support for instant runoff voting, proportional representation, public financing of elections, an end to “corporate personhood” and other electoral reforms. And more.

Structure

Would the alliance be a coalition of organizations or an individual membership organization? Those specifics will be determined when the organizing process begins for this needed people’s power vehicle. Almost certainly, at first, it would likely be more of a network linking together those, whether organizational representatives or individuals, who come together to make it happen. Over time, especially as it involves itself in electoral activity, it would need to develop local and state organizational structures to decide democratically who, if anyone, should be supported.

The key at the beginning of the process is to allow for full discussion and back-and-forth over the basic idea of what a third force should look like, to allow the maximum input into the decision-making process. A national leadership to advance the alliance-building process and its program of activities would need to be created that is broadly representative of our country’s major constituencies, different parts of the country and the political tendencies within the alliance.

Possible First Action Campaign

One possibility for how to get this off the ground, once a critical mass of progressive leaders has come together, would be to organize throughout the country a series of meetings, hearings, conferences, street rallies and other ways to develop a “people’s program.” This campaign would have several purposes. One would be to identify those people prepared to work together in an alliance. Another would be to get lots of popular input into what should be the overall platform/program of the alliance. And a third might be to use the developed set of positions on issues in some way during the 2012 national elections.

Perhaps we could call it a 21s century bill of rights. It may be that, more than just a set of positions written down on paper or posted electronically, the process of constructing this bill of rights/program could be done in such a way that the involvement of people in different types of actions in support of the platform planks could be built into the process.

Conclusion

It could well be that there is a better way to proceed. Maybe it will take some time before a critical mass of progressive leaders with organized bases and constituencies comes together to move this proposal or something similar to it forward. I hope not too long.

There is an urgency to this project. Our country and our world are in deep, deep trouble. What we do here in the USA this decade will be decisive for those who come after us. Time is running out to reverse the many very real crises that are driving humanity and all life forms toward the abyss. History is calling upon us to step it up now.

This letter is a call for active support of protest to Michael Moore, Norman Solomon, Katrina van den Heuvel, Michael Eric Dyson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Thomas Frank, Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher Jr., Jesse Jackson Jr., and other high profile progressive supporters of the Obama electoral campaign.

With the Obama administration beginning its third year, it is by now painfully obvious that the predictions of even the most sober Obama supporters were overly optimistic. Rather than an ally, the administration has shown itself to be an implacable enemy of reform.

It has advanced repeated assaults on the New Deal safety net (including the previously sacrosanct Social Security trust fund), jettisoned any hope for substantive health care reform, attacked civil rights and environmental protections, and expanded a massive bailout further enriching an already bloated financial services and insurance industry. It has continued the occupation of Iraq and expanded the war in Afghanistan as well as our government’s covert and overt wars in South Asia and around the globe.

Along the way, the Obama administration, which referred to its left detractors as “f***ing retarded” individuals that required “drug testing,” stepped up the prosecution of federal war crime whistleblowers, and unleashed the FBI on those protesting the escalation of an insane war.

Obama’s recent announcement of a federal worker pay freeze is cynical, mean-spirited “deficit-reduction theater”. Slashing Bush’s plutocratic tax cuts would have made a much more significant contribution to deficit reduction but all signs are that the “progressive” president will cave to Republican demands for the preservation of George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy Few. Instead Obama’s tax cut plan would raise taxes for the poorest people in our country.

The election of Obama has not galvanized protest movements. To the contrary, it has depressed and undermined them, with the White House playing an active role in the discouragement and suppression of dissent – with disastrous consequences. The almost complete absence of protest from the left has emboldened the most right-wing elements inside and outside of the Obama administration to pursue and act on an ever more extreme agenda.

We are writing to you because you are well-known writers, bloggers and filmmakers with access to a range of old and new media, and you have in your power the capacity to help reignite the movement which brought millions onto the streets in February of 2003 but which has withered ever since. There are many thousands of progressives who follow your work closely and are waiting for a cue from you and others to act. We are asking you to commit yourself to actively supporting the protests of Obama administration policies which are now beginning to materialize.

In this connection we would like to mention a specific protest: the civil disobedience action being planned by Veterans for Peace involving Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Joel Kovel, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern, several armed service veterans and others to take place in front of the White House on Dec. 16th.

Should you commit yourselves to backing this action and others sure to materialize in weeks and months ahead, what would otherwise be regarded as an emotional outburst of the “fringe left” will have a better chance of being seen as expressing the will of a substantial majority not only of the left, but of the American public at large. We believe that your support will help create the climate for larger and increasingly disruptive expressions of dissent – a development that is sorely needed and long overdue.

We hope that we can count on you to exercise the leadership that is required of all of us in these desperate times.

Best Regards,

Sen. James Abourezk

Tariq Ali

Rocky Anderson

Jared Ball

Russel Banks

Thomas Bias

Jean Bricmont

Noam Chomsky

Bruce Dixon

Frank Dorrel

Gidon Eshel

Jamilla El-Shafei

Okla Elliott

Norman Finkelstein

Glen Ford

Joshua Frank

Margaret Flowers M.D.

John Gerassi

Henry Giroux

Matt Gonzalez

Kevin Alexander Gray

Judd Greenstein

DeeDee Halleck

John Halle

Chris Hedges

Doug Henwood

Edward S. Herman

Jack Hirschman

Dahr Jamail

Derrick Jensen

Louis Kampf

Allison Kilkenny

Jamie Kilstein

Joel Kovel

Mark Kurlansky

Peter Linebaugh

Scott McLarty

Cynthia McKinney

Dede Miller

Russell Mokhiber

Roger Morris

Bobby Muller

Christian Parenti

Michael Perelman

Kim Petersen

Peter Phillips

Louis Proyect

Ted Rall

Cindy Sheehan

Chris Spannos

Paul Street

Sunil Sharma

Stephen Pearcy

Jeffrey St. Clair

Len Weinglass

Cornel West

Sherry Wolf

Michael Yates

Mickey Z

Kevin Zeese

Please sign the Open Letter to the Left Establishment.

Ultimately, many of the sentiments expressed by the tea partyers are deeply dishonest, deeply un-American. We need to keep them in their rightful place as a distinct, if sometimes loud, sometimes dangerous, political minority. We will do that to the extent that we out-organize them at the grassroots, engage in creative and significant mass action, and pressure the federal government to pass genuinely progressive legislation. That’s the way we’ll keep down the supporters of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

This is how I concluded a Future Hope column on September 12th of last year reporting on the first major demonstration of what has become the Tea Party. I spent several hours at this 2009 demonstration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., listening to the speakers, checking out the signs and feeling the crowd vibes. My overall assessment was that although the politics were very different, their action had a lot of similarities to the massive peace and justice demonstrations our side organized during the early years of the George W. Bush administration. These demonstrations, many of them much bigger than the one organized by the Tea Party, took place from 2002-2006, when the rightist-led Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Being out of power, we back then and the tea partyers in 2009 both felt the need to demonstrate in the streets.

But with the emergence of the electoral-oriented Tea Party this year, the neo-rightists showed a strategic and tactical sophistication that the progressive left did not. They have successfully transformed a 2009 protest movement into a movement serious about winning political power via the ballot box, combined with continuing mass action, as we saw at the Glenn Beck late August Lincoln Memorial rally.

And all indications are that they will win not just a number of internal Republican Party primaries but a number of actual Senate and House seats. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be successful in taking the country backwards in the ways they would like. That very much remains to be seen, to be fought out over the next two years and beyond, but there is no question that they have had a major impact upon the politics of the USA.

Why hasn’t the progressive left, those millions of people rooted in and, in some cases, leading a wide cross-section of local, state, regional and national progressive or liberal organizations and issue-oriented movements, done something similar? Why have the overwhelming majority of us seemingly gone along with two-party politics-as-usual? Why haven’t we organized ourselves into something like a left-wing Tea Party?

A good argument can be made that too many progressive leaders don’t have the guts to do what’s right. As Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, recently wrote:

Where they saw Republicans who were too wishy-washy or too compromised, they [the Tea Party] went after them and took them down, and ran the most avowedly ideological candidates they could find. They didn’t bother offending the party establishment. They went around the establishment.

And now they’re flexing their muscle and all but daring that establishment to stand in their way. As Sarah Palin said this week, ‘Some in the GOP — it’s their last shot. It’s their last chance.’ And she warned the establishment that if they don’t surrender, she can take the grassroots with her and start a third party. No major figure within the Democratic Party has had the guts to do this. And progressives have, by and large, found themselves paralyzed within the party. For far too many years, most progressives have played nice and played along.

There are exceptions: Ralph Nader, David Cobb, Cynthia McKinney, Progressive Democrats of America, progressives running as Greens, independents or in primary challenges to conservative or wishy-washy Dems. But these are exceptions to the dominant political and tactical dynamic within the progressive left.

Another reason for the Tea Party success is the huge sums of money provided to them by rightist millionaires and billionaires. Though there are left-wing millionaires and billionaires too, there aren’t as many, and there are proportionately fewer willing to buck the established ways that things have been done in the political arena for decades.

The rightist media: without question Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and all the other right-wing media have provided significant motivation and support for the Tea Party movement.

But in my opinion probably the most significant reason for our situation, the ruts of our own making that have allowed the corporate-supporting Republicans, Democrats and Tea Partyites to dominate U.S. politics, is our inability to bridge the divides between those who are working mainly in support of progressives within the Democratic Party, those who are organizing independent and outside of it in the Green Party or other independent parties, and those who are abstaining from any involvement in the electoral system at all.

As long as we are divided into our progressive Democrat, third party or abstentionist camps;

as long as we are unable to unite around a truly progressive agenda and build unity of action in support of it;

as long as we allow left sectarians or centrist sectarians to influence us and prevent us from building the working unity we need; and,

as long as we refuse to consider ways that we can forge a unified, activist alliance that will support both progressive Democratic and independent candidacies, with decisions as to who determined democratically—

that is how long we will remain in the political wilderness.

Perhaps there is some hope for change. It was a positive thing that the labor movement and the NAACP took the initiative to organize the One Nation Working Together demonstration in D.C. on October 2nd. Will that coalition, or significant sectors of it, see and act upon the need for something on-going after November 2nd?

There is talk within the climate movement about running/supporting candidates who prioritize the building of a clean energy economy. Given the energy and organization within that movement, as indicated by the 2,000 or so local actions on the same day that were organized for two consecutive years, perhaps it will play a leadership role in advancing what we need.

It is clear that just supporting whoever the Democrats come up with isn’t working. It’s time for a change we can believe in as far as how we do politics from the left in the USA.

All this tells me that any nation that can elect such inept people president can also elect other people that appear to have no right or chance to be president of the United States just as Bush and Obama once appeared before they were sold to the public. That is what is so frightening about the future of this nation. The two-party plutocracy with its stranglehold on the American political system has the power to elect presidents that are an insult to the great ones that once served the nation with pride and competence.

I keep searching for explanations why millions of American voters make such bad electoral decisions. Are they just so stupid, uninformed and distracted that they fall for endless political lies? Have Americans become so easily manipulated and fooled by advertising and brilliant political campaigns that they can be sold terrible presidents as easily as unneeded, low quality and unhealthy products?

Yes, all this seems too true. Delusional voters have produced our delusional democracy which strongly favors corporate, wealthy and elitist interests over ordinary Americans. This explains frightening economic inequality and the demise of the middle class. In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income (less than 5 million people). Two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to this sliver of households, which saw a rise of 62 percent, compared to 4 percent for the bottom 90 percent of households. Today, the median male worker earns less, adjusted for inflation, than he did 30 years ago. A corrupt bipartisan system gave us this. Is this the change you were waiting for?

Considering Bush and Obama from a right-left perspective misses their several critical commonalities. Both have wasted the nation’s wealth and lives on two ludicrous, unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both turned out to be pretty good communicators during their presidential campaigns but quite lousy after they became president. The more intelligent and articulate Obama is particularly striking in being totally lackluster when it comes to addressing major issues and crises and building public support for his policies, which now explains his very low approval ratings.

Both pursued public policies and government programs that preferentially benefit corporate and other special interests, especially the financial sector. This is no surprise because both depended on huge amounts of corporate money to get elected. They both have responsibility for the economic meltdown that still exists for a large fraction of the nation. A large majority of Americans correctly see the nation on the wrong track, but more importantly it is hurtling down the wrong track, which President Obama ignores, because he lacks solutions.

What may turn out to be the most disturbing similarity is that Obama may get elected for a second term just like Bush accomplished despite uninspiring performance. If there is anything more disturbing than electing awful politicians with no real record of accomplishments it is reelecting them for a second term! More than anything else this demonstrates the absence of true, effective political competition and the ability to brainwash and manipulate voters.

For years I hoped that some third party presidential candidate would emerge, capture public confidence and offer a true reform program to repair our nation. But sadly the political system has been so corrupted that no third party presidential candidate stands a chance against the two-party plutocracy. The biggest nonsense is that the US is the greatest democracy on Earth. There are many other democracies where multiple political parties give citizens far more choices than Americans have. It pays to remember that no nation ever copied the government structure of the US. Instead, other democracies where citizens also have freedom use parliamentary structures with far more political choices and even the ability to more easily get rid of rotten leaders. Here we suffer with disappointing presidents for far too many years.

The most fascinating aspect of our constitutional republic is that one constitutional path to get true, deep reforms of our government and political system has never been used. This proves how powerful, entrenched interests on the right and left have maintained a corrupt, dysfunctional and costly system. Very, very few Americans know anything about the option in Article V of the Constitution for a convention of state delegates that could propose constitutional amendments. You can learn the facts at the Friends of the Article V Convention website. The one and only requirement for a convention has long been met but Congress refuses to obey the Constitution. They fear it. We need it more than ever.

A constitutional scholar such as President Obama could make history by openly demanding that Congress convene the first Article V convention. But that would require dropping the constitutional hypocrisy that he and so many others have. The rule of law is a farce when an important part of the beloved Constitution is ignored.

Here’s a sneak peek at a Canadian adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s 1604 masterpiece The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus. The story has been played and re-interpreted by other masters over the centuries—Mann, Goethe, Gounod—but its central theme has remained unchanged: a bored, frustrated but otherwise bright man sells his soul to gratify his ambitions. Here are a few scenes from “Layton Tendencies”.

The following sketch concerns Jack Layton, the leader of Canada’s “third” political party, the New Democrats, which represents the sole theoretically plausible alternative to the neo-con/Zionist dogma of Stephen Harper’s government or Michael Ignatieff’s Liberal Party. Unlike the other two party leaders, Layton has managed to nurture the image of integrity.

(SCENE I: Jack Layton, leader of the federal New Democratic Party, is alone in his Ottawa office working late on a Parliamentary speech, when he suddenly stops, pen in hand, and stares blankly at the clutter of books and paper on his desk. The pen falls carelessly from his hand and he petulantly pushes his chair back from the desk.)

Jack Layton: “What’s the bloody point! Here I am, perfecting a speech against Stephen Harper’s new Harmonized Sales Tax, but what good will it do me? This government of despotic corporate kiss-asses still stands at 31 percent in the polls. Sure, that’s a 6 percent drop since the 2008 election, but it’s absurdly high for a government that systematically abuses Parliament, buggers the civil service, colludes in the torture of Afghan detainees, muzzles scientists who know the truth about climate change, and is now proceeding to sabotage the national census.“Of course, the palace press is largely to blame. It does its best to ensure that this most treasonous of all prime ministers suffers as little fallout as possible. But the Canadian people… they aren’t stupid, or are they? (stands up and begins pacing in an animated fashion.)

“Where are the disaffected voters going? To the Liberal Party? It’s mired at 26 percent, just where it was in 2008, thanks largely to Michael Ignatieff’s ineffectual, vacillating ‘leadership.’ I should be thrilled, right? I have a higher approval rating than any other national party leader. I lead the only significant national party that speaks for working Canadians and doesn’t have a broken moral compass. If any party should be on its way to forming a government it should be my New Democratic Party, right?

“Let’s see: in 2008 the NDP stood at 18.2 percent; on July 14, Ekos Research put us at…18 percent! With all that my party and I have to offer, voters still think they have to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedleinsane. Either that, or they waste their vote on the Green Party! What is it—my breath?!

“After 7 1/2 years of leading a third-place party to perpetual mediocrity I want more. I deserve more. What will it take for me to become prime minister!? Obviously, I can’t rely on the electorate to vote intelligently. (shouts to the darkness) I…will…do…anything!”

Voice: (from behind Layton) “You don’t say!” (Layton whirls around in a nanosecond and betrays a look of utter shock and panic. He is standing not three feet from the intruder and starts backing away.)

Layton: “Who the hell are you, and how did you get in here?”

Voice: (calm and inviting) “Hell, indeed! I am Mephistopheles. My master heard your lament and sent me to help you.”

Layton: “Sent from where?”

Mephistopheles: “Why, hell, of course.”

Layton: “There’s no such place as hell. Where…did…you…come from?”

Mephistopheles: “All right, I happened to be in Ottawa just now, but that’s only because I have to make regular visits. You‘d be surprised how many politicians share your frustrations and call upon me to help them realize their ambitions.”

Layton: “How did you get into this office?”

Mephistopheles: “You invited me, when you said you would do anything to be prime minister.”

Layton: (flustered and perplexed)“Just who, or what, are you?”

Mephistopheles: “I am just a messenger sent by a very powerful master who is willing to help you fulfill your deepest political desires for as long as you hold your party’s leadership.”

Layton: “What do you take me for?”

Mephistopheles: “A man who distrusts his own senses, and is afraid to do what is necessary. Do you want to be prime minister or not?”

Layton: “Of course I do, but I fail to see what you or your master can do about it.”

Mephistopheles: “You’re right about your failing eyesight, if nothing else. My master is all powerful and is the only one who can ease your path to the prime minister’s residence, provided that you give him something in return.”

Layton: “What would that be?”

Mephistopheles: “Your political soul.”

Layton: “I don’t believe in such nonsense. If your master is as politically powerful as you say he is, then this is a no-lose proposition.”

Mephistopheles: “You’re sure?”

Layton: “Of course, I’m sure!”

Mephistopheles: “You understand that once you agree to terms, there is no going back? Many who have made this bargain have tried to back out, claiming they didn’t understand the true moral cost. That’s also why I have to make frequent trips to Ottawa—to remind politicians that their careers now depend on the pleasure of my master.

You wondered a little while ago about the ‘inexplicable’ standing of the government and the Liberals? Harper and Ignatieff and their respective parties still have a pulse because they have enlisted the services of my master. You may remember a few years back when Ignatieff nearly ended up a political corpse after failing to show sufficient respect to my master.”

Layton: “Yes, I remember, but I fail to see what that has to do with me.” (Mephistopheles produces a ledger in which are written the names of numerous politicians. He hands it to Layton, who takes it to his desk to sign. Mephistopheles stands next to him and hands him a very ornate pen.)

Mephistopheles: “Just sign here. (points to the page on which Layton’s contract is written.) The particulars of your agreement are spelled out below. Any questions?” (Layton says nothing and signs his name. Mephistopheles takes the ledger.) My master thanks you. (Layton lifts his head up to say something to Mephistopheles, but discovers that he is again alone.)

*****

(SCENE II: The NDP caucus room. The air is agitated as party MPs seek Layton’s leadership on a sensitive matter concerning Vancouver-East MP. Libby Davies, the party’s House leader.)

First MP: “Jack, we’ve got to stand behind Libby! She has been smeared and libeled in the Ottawa Citizen and other right-wing rags, to say nothing of the Internet, just for saying something uncomfortably true about Israel.”

Layton: “Cool your jets! I’ve already spoken to Libby, and I’ve accepted her apology.”

Second MP: “Apology?! For what—telling the truth? Here is a priceless opportunity for you to show leadership and distance yourself from the other two parties, but instead you leave her twisting in the wind!”

Layton: “The NDP has always supported Israel’s right to exist.”

Second MP: “What does that cliché have to do with anything?”

Layton: “When Libby said Israel’s occupation dated to 1948, she implicitly denied Israel’s right to exist. That is not NDP party policy.”

Second MP: “But she’s right! More than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced between November 1947 and December 1948, and the Partition Plan was never ratified. So how Israel came into existence is very much a legitimate subject of debate.”

Layton: “I will not take sides. I have already stated what has been long-standing party policy.”

Third MP: “Is it also ‘party policy’ to support gross human rights violations?!”

Layton: “Hold on…”

Third MP: “No, you hold on: You have said nothing, absolutely nothing, about Israel’s genocidal siege of Gaza, which many Western commentators liken to an outdoor prison. When was the last time you defended the flotilla of aid ships bringing food, medicine and building materials to Gaza? When did you last condemn Israel for its deliberate murder of 9 unarmed civilians on those ships? I’ll tell you—never! But let one of your MPs utter a controversial truth about Israel, and all of a sudden you find something to say.”

Layton: “I have consistently steered a middle ground between Israel and Palestine. I don’t know where you get off making these accusations, but I would be careful if I were you.” (points a finger at the MP in question.)

First MP: (to Third MP) “Never mind what Jack has or hasn’t said. We can save that for another time. Right now, one of our own is under a vicious media disinformation campaign and we need to help her. (to Layton) What are you afraid of, Jack? The Israel Lobby? They don’t support us much anyway. We speak for Canadians, not foreign interests, like two other parties I could name. If we do nothing, if we do not vigorously denounce this attack, if we do not stand by Libby’s statements then we have no right being here. We might as well call ourselves the ‘Liberal-lite party’ and stop pretending we have any principles.”

Layton: “That’s enough! As I said, I accepted Libby’s apology for mispeaking herself and I apologized to the Israeli ambassador on behalf of the party. That’s the end of it!” (Gasps and murmuring)

Third MP: “Why the hell would you do that? Since when does the NDP apologize to the agent of an aggressor state for the honest comments of one of its own MPs! Tell us, Jack, do you serve Israel or Canada?”

Layton: “This meeting is over, and you (pointing to the Third MP) have just lost your shadow cabinet position!” (Layton walks very deliberately out of the meeting room, leaving behind a confused and dispirited caucus.)

*****

(SCENE III: Layton’s office later that same day. He is again at his desk. Mephistopheles materializes behind his left shoulder.)

Mephistopheles: “Tough day?”

Layton: (whips around, startled with his heart racing ) “Don’t do that!” (catches his breath) “Yes, a tough day. Although I didn’t fire Libby as many demanded, I feel I let her and my party down. Most of my caucus is furious with me and think I’ve betrayed Libby Davies and the party.”

Mephistopheles: “They’re right, but so what? Can they control the media? Can they control campaign money? No, you did the right thing, though you should have gone further. (pause) You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”

Layton: “No, no,… It’s just that… although I remember speaking, I felt as though some other power was putting words in my mouth.

Mephistopheles: “That was your master. You work for him now. Gradually, he will become more assertive, so your service to him will seem natural. You won’t even notice. Just look at Harper and Ignatieff. They’re ‘Stepford politicians’: do you think either of them cares what their party or the Canadian public thinks when he supports Israel or remains conspicuously silent when Israel conducts strategic murder? They serve the real political power in this country, even if you don’t, yet.

You will come to realize that Parliamentary democracy is just a game that powerful interests use to delude people into thinking they have a say in how they are governed, when, in fact. they have no say at all. Pandering to the public’s vanity and inflated sense of importance is the essence of government.

Now as you know, Israel has stripped Arab MKs of their immunity, is continuing to prevent aid ships from reaching Gaza, and has recommenced ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem. You know what your party’s official position on this is, don’t you?”

Layton: “Yes… I know.” …

*****

Lance Boyle: “Well, that’s a taste of what you can expect on Modern Classics.” Did you recognize Benjamin Netanyahu as Mephistopheles? Stay tuned now for our regular feature, Zombieland.” (fade out)

]]> http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/08/layton-tendencies/feed/ 31 http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/2010-the-year-of-the-progressive-populist/ http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/2010-the-year-of-the-progressive-populist/#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:00:54 +0000 Jerry D. Rose http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=16355 The death of Doris (Granny D) Haddock brings to mind the title of her memoir: You’re Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell. Ten years ago, at the age of 90, she undertook an arduous cross-country trip to promote campaign finance reform, an effort that helped create a Clean Elections Law in Maine featuring limits on campaign fund-raising and expenses and the public financing of modestly funded campaigns. Similar efforts at various degrees of development have occurred in other states.

The year 2010 began inauspiciously with the January decision of the Supreme Court that seemed the very antithesis of clean elections: the Citizens United v. F.E.C. which invalidated existing limitations on corporate and other special interests in campaign contributions, endowing on these collective entities a status of “personhood” with the free speech rights of citizens to make such contributions as they might please. Ironically this was the very month of Haddock’s death at age 100, an event that seemed to deepen the sense of dirge for campaign finance reform that the Citizens case had inaugurated.

I am not a big fan of dirges in unfortunate developments in political life, and I shortly published a pair of articles titled “Apres Citizens Le Deluge,” arguing that the death of democracy being mourned is a decidedly pre-mature announcement, that there is even the possibility that the Citizens decision was a surprising blessing in deep disguise, and that rather than “cursing the darkness” indicated by the decision, we well might see it as a wake-call for the need to “light candles” of illumination out of that darkness of corporate domination of our politics.

The simplest argument against Citizens as opening the flood gates of money control of our politics is the observation that these politics were already awash in plutocratic domination before the decision, as demonstrated in the fact that Barack Obama spent nearly a billion dollars in his successful pursuit of the presidency. The best (legislature, city council, White House — fill in the blank — money can buy) had become an almost trite description of our electoral campaigns long before Citizens. That granted, is there any path of illumination available to us in escaping the cesspool of bought-and-paid-for politicians? As the difficulty of implementing campaign finance reform by legislated limits on contributions and/or expenditures has proven, any reliance on corruptly-elected officials legislating against the very system that brought them into power would seem to be a very poorly lighted pathway indeed.

Faced with such dilemmas in the effort to “take money out of politics,” I am advocating for a position that it is possible instead to “take politicians out of the money” or, to put it another way, produce a devaluation of money in its capacity to buy votes in the political market place. Being totally realistic, politicians and political parties will raise and spend as much money as they can raise and need to spend in order to gain election. Only by converting their fund-raising and expenditures into “negative incentives” in this marketplace can this “miracle” ever come about.

My argument is this: the transfiguration of political money from a politician’s necessity to his or her liability can be accomplished if candidates campaign smartly, emphasizing their own fund-raising and spending frugality in comparison with their opponents’ enormous chest-funds and lavish expenditures as the very basis of their appeal for votes.

What I have just described and am trying to promote through my internet activity is precisely such “populist” campaigns with severe limits on overall amount of funds raised and those raised from any individual or group. In this year of 2010 there is reason for optimism that the public is ready for this kind of campaigning and prepared to reward with votes those who carry it out. I hardly need point out the kind of popular anger against the Wall Street bankers whose greed generated economic misery for so many that has made poverty almost respectable (at least very common) and the life styles of the rich and famous increasingly repugnant.

More than once, I’ve heard someone express frustration in the thought that their campaign donations, whether rendered to a Democrat or Republican, would be unlikely to promote policies of benefit to the people at large, and it has taken some nudges to suggest that they expend their modest donations for the benefit of those candidates who are campaigning under a populist political banner. On such considerations as this, I believe that we will be surprised indeed at the performance of “third party” candidates in this year’s elections. The populists may not win these elections, but they will indeed send a message to major party candidates that taking themselves to a greater degree “out of the money” is something they must do for their own benefit. It may even encourage them to support some of those long-delayed campaign finance reform laws.

You can’t really talk much these days about populist anger at incumbent politicians without considering the prototypical “populists” of today, those Tea Party types who are so angry at the perceived extravagance of elected officials who spend their much-beloved tax money on policies that they believe are unworthy of such “waste.”

To finish my argument about 2010 as the year of the progressive populist, I must address the possibility, as many will maintain, that populist discontent will be expressed in a mostly regressive manner by people determined to carry out the conservative Republican agenda of “shrinking” government to a size that it can be washed down a bath tub. As a person of totally progressive philosophy, I would regard this as a very unfortunate consequence of a “new populism” in our politics. I am, therefore, going to offer a bit of political analysis to suggest that populist campaigning is not simply another way of taking us back into the darkness of a Newt Gingrich world.

Here’s my point. An article by David Helling of McClatchy Newspapers has suggested that the Tea Party (regressive populist) movement has actually driven a wedge into the electoral prospects of the Republican Party. For example, on the issue of immigration reform, likely to come to the fore of public attention as this year goes on, many conservative Republicans, recognizing the economic value to employers of immigrant labor, are eager to find paths to citizenship of undocumented immigrants that will tend to stabilize that work force, whereas Tea Partyers are more likely to express a working class nativism and xenophobia that blames immigrants not only for “taking jobs” from native workers, but for creating an undue tax burden for provision of services to them that they, the nativists, have to add to their already-stressed tax bills.

Now what is the effect for the progressive side of the political spectrum to a “wedge” driven into the regressive side? A split vote obviously, as there is so much Tea Party disillusionment with business-catering Republicans that they they vote for their own candidates or simply “stay home” on election day, endangering the electoral chances of the GOP candidates. But what might develop as a three-way race between GOP, Tea Party and Democratic candidates could become a four-way race if those men and women willing to take a straight progressive stance on policy issues were to offer an alternative to the Democrats. This third party of the left — whatever it might be or might become — would be composed of people who do not need to “triangulate” their views to attract the support of, say, Blue Dog Democrats, with their proclivity to regressive views on such issues as abortion, immigration reform, gay rights and gun control.

I can easily see the possibility that our much-vaunted 2-party system could thus become a 4-party one as a result of the unique conditions of this extraordinary year in our history. In such a system, you don’t need 51% of the votes to win an election, you need 26% — a number well within the reach of progressives if we will campaign truly progressively as well as in populist fashion.

It is reasoning like this that has led me to undertake a project called Campaign Corner which is designed to promote precisely such progressive populist campaigns for this campaign season and beyond. It can be seen here. At this point, only a little over 2 weeks into its development, the people who have “signed on” to involvement in the Corner are predominantly candidates of the Green Party, but independents and those representing other parties will likely join as well and, as I have said, the outline of what may emerge as a dominant party among progressive populists has yet to become clear and, in a sense, it doesn’t matter whether in 2010 a coherent and effective such national progressive populist party is established. If even a handful of Green, other third party or independent candidates were elected to Congress or to statehouses or local governing bodies, the “complexion” of our politics could begin to change in quite dramatic ways.

]]> http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/2010-the-year-of-the-progressive-populist/feed/ 7 http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/nadering-kucinich/ http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/nadering-kucinich/#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:00:26 +0000 John Murphy http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=15264

So then, because you are neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

– Jesus (Rev 3:16)

I thought I could get away with it. I thought I might be able to have a week’s vacation and not be assaulted with more atrocities from the Democrat Party. I would leave my computer behind and go to a place where I would not even have to worry about seeing a newspaper and where the only thing on television would be rented DVDs of the movies I had not seen over the last year. I would spend lots of time in the fitness center and the swimming pool.

Yes, I had forgotten. The fitness center has a television. I added another corollary to Murphy’s Law. Someone had tuned into the Keith Olbermann show. Lawrence O’Donnell was substituting. Dennis Kucinich was the guest. He hammered the Democrat Party’s health care plan and put the lie to each one of the talking points spouted by the Democrat’s talking heads from big Ed “Sissy” Schultz to Thom “Toady” Hartman. Painful as it may be to listen to Rush Limbaugh, it is mind splitting to listen to the wimps on “America Left” (the XM satellite radio station that should be renamed “America-wimpy-Democrat-talking-heads”). Listening to “America Right” is perfect when you need a laugh. But listening to “America Left” is not recommended while driving over 5 mph. Road rage, risking life and limb, even if that of only a passing tree, could be the result of listening to “America Left”.

Kucinich told O’Donnell, “The bill represents a giveaway to the insurance industry, $70 billion a year, no guarantees for any controls over premiums, forcing people to buy private insurance with five consecutive years of double-digit premium increases”. Pantywaist O’Donnell then asked Kucinich if he would be comfortable if his vote was the vote that defeated the bill. Kucinich reminded him that every vote counts indicating that his would clearly be a “no” vote. This is the kind of thing that makes us love the MSNBC people as much we love the Fox News people.

I went back to my room very pleased at having temporarily left the Green Party in 2004 to support Kucinich in the primary election before switching back to the Greens and working for the Nader campaign. A lot of my Green Party friends told me that the only reason Kucinich bothered to enter the race was to sucker members from the Green Party into registering as Democrats in order to vote in the Democrat primary elections. I came to believe that. To be sure, tens of thousands of Greens left the Green Party in 2004 and never bothered to rejoin after the primary election. But now, I had been vindicated. Kucinich was not that kind of a guy after all. You could trust Kucinich.

Practical Politics

The very next night milksop Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed one of the Internet’s supreme bottom feeders, Markos Moulitsas, founder of the blog Daily Kos. This is a guy who would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle. Even the people who do ads for male enhancement products look down on Moulitsas. When O’Donnell, clearly suffering from a case of terminal diaper rash, asked Moulitsas to comment on what Kucinich had said the previous evening Moulitsas said Kucinich was practicing a “very Ralph Naderesque approach” to politics. “The fact is this is a good first step and he is elected not to run for president, which he seems to do every four years. [Kucinich] is not elected to grandstand and to give us this ideal utopian society. He is elected to represent the people of his district and he is not representing the uninsured constituents in his district by pretending to take the high ground here.”

Continuing in his spasmodic seizure, O’Donnell asked Moulitsas, who was still smacking his lips after finishing off his nightly dinner of creamed dandruff, as to whether Kucinich would get a Democrat challenger for his seat if he didn’t support health care legislation — and in the process kill it — Moulitsas replied, “Yeah, absolutely. What he is doing is undermining this reform. He is making common cause with Republicans. And I think that is a perfect excuse and a rational one for a primary challenge.” Of course it is Moulitsas and O’Donnell along with their corporate colleagues masquerading as “liberals” who are making common cause with Republicans. Just being a member of the Democrat Party is making common cause with the Republicans.

Listening to someone like Moulitsas compare what appeared to be Kucinich’s principled stand on health care with Nader’s presidential run in 2000 ought to have been enough to have forced the guy who had tuned in MSNBC on the fitness club’s TV to pitch the remote through the screen. He did not. He was either a masochist or a Democrat. Come to think of it, that’s a tautology.

Checking the exit polls of the Democrat Party and then checking the exit polls of CNN shows that the reason that Al Gore lost in 2000 was because 250,000 registered Democrats voted for George Bush! Who could blame them? Who would have possibly wanted a repeat of the disgraceful Clinton years? Clinton had already killed a million innocent Iraqi men, women and children with bombs and sanctions. With his so called “welfare reform” he threw tens of thousands of single mothers into the streets and forced tens of thousands of others into the slavery of Wal-Mart like jobs thereby destroying the women’s movement.

Other Democrats put forth the same nonsense about Ralph Nader and his 2000 campaign. Somehow or other Democrats have the impression that they “own” votes and that Nader “took” 500 votes the Democrat party “owned”. A strange game these Democrats play! A game for chumps! They keep asking, even ten years later, “What if Nader had not run”. The Democrats refuse to ask the other “what if” questions, namely; “What if the Libertarian candidate had not run”; “What if the Natural Law candidate had not run”; “What if the Reform Party candidate had not run”. Each of those candidates drew 500 votes which might have gone to Gore. But the biggest “what if” question the Democrats refuse to ask is: “what if 250,000 registered Democrats in Florida had not voted for Bush”? The Democrats do not want any other candidates other than the corporate owned candidates to win.

Moreover, a Democrat Party exit poll showed that 25% of Nader’s votes came from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for him. In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph’s voters would NOT have voted for Gore.

Oh yeah, then there were a couple of little other items — Katherine Harris removing 80,000 eligible voters from the voting rolls and the Supreme Court ending the recount. And the Democrat Party said nothing about any of this! Furthermore, every one of those judges was approved at a time when the Democrat Party held the majority in Congress! If the Democrat Party actually thought Ralph Nader spoiled the 2000 election it would have taken steps to prevent it from happening again. It would’ve introduced IRV voting — that prevents the spoiler effect.

Any 12-year-old with a modem knows that Nader had absolutely nothing to do with Gore’s loss but then some people still think that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That’s what happens when you have nothing upon which to rely but the talking points of the corporate party. The Democrat Party has no one to blame for Gore’s loss but itself. Gore destroyed the Kyoto protocols and couldn’t even win his home state of Tennessee or the home state of Slick Willie.

The Democrat Party is just another voice of the corporate elite that is trying to control America. It does not want us to have any choices other than the corporate candidates and it will do its best to slander and malign even men like Ralph Nader who has done more for this nation in the past 40 years than any 30 presidents in the last 200 years!

For the last ten years Democrats and corporate media pundits have been smearing Ralph Nader — seemingly oblivious to the facts — looking for a scapegoat for the failures of their own party and its candidates.

It is not the job of third-party or Independent candidates to make sure either of the two major parties wins. That would be like asking a new start-up to make sure Microsoft or Apple has more market share. Moreover, there are 100 million people in this country who do not vote. There are plenty of nonvoters for all candidates to attract.

At what point do we stop relying on a party to be an opposition party and start asking what else needs to be done to put some spine into Washington politics?

No, believing the corporate owned Democrat Party or its henchmen like Moulitsas and O’Donnell about Nader causing Gore’s loss is as insane as believing Iran is building nuclear weapons. Most Democrats are suffering from “Battered Left Syndrome”. It’s time for them to leave the abusive relationship with the Democrat Party. But just like the battered wife who says “he really loves me” or “I can change him if I just stay with him a little longer”, the battered Democrat voter will inevitably learn the same fatal lesson learned by the battered wife.

The Democrat Party is part of the problem. It voted for or failed to stop the Iraq war resolution turning Bush into a wartime president. It voted for or failed to stop the Patriot Act. It voted for or failed to stop John Ashcroft. It voted for or failed to stop Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. It voted for or failed to stop the Medicare fiasco. It lost the 2002 midterm elections, contrary to historical tradition. For the last three years it has controlled Congress and continues to fund illegal wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines and Palestine.

More dangerous than the Republican Party, it has destroyed the labor movement by its failure to repeal the Taft-Hartley act over the last 60 years and even now the Democrat Congress has removed the teeth from the Employee Free Choice Act. Although it may have been the Republicans under Ronald Reagan which gave us neoliberal economics, it took the Democrats under Clinton to destroy American jobs with NAFTA and repeal the Glass–Steagall Act which resulted in the collapse of the American economy. And as we have witnessed over the last year, there is merely a cosmetic difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration although Obama’s death toll is beginning to make Bush look like a schoolyard bully. To paraphrase HL Mencken, if there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Obama would have courted their vote by promising them free missionaries, fattened at the taxpayer’s expense. Of course there would have been no missionaries served up, just a few desiccated prayer books.

No, believing Markos Moulitsas when he says Nader caused Gore’s loss is as insane as believing Glenn Beck when he says that “social justice” is code for Communism and Nazism.

The perverse Lawrence O’Donnell would not stop hammering Dennis Kucinich by merely trotting out the despicable Markos Moulitsas. No, that would not be nearly enough for a gym sock-sniffing skid mark like O’Donnell. On the next night O’Donnell spoke with the dying Natoma Canfield, the 50-year-old cleaning woman and cancer survivor from Ohio, who had to drop her insurance due to skyrocketing premiums. Ms. Canfield is back in the hospital after living more than a decade cancer-free. She has been diagnosed with leukemia. O’Donnell, with all the concern of a barracuda, asked if she too would condemn Kucinich. To her credit, she merely suggested that the Democrat’s bill might be a good first step. Of course it will not and she will die if the Democrat’s bill is passed because it will not cover her for four years. Her condition will not permit her to live that long and God only knows the disastrous amount she will be charged for her treatment.

Along with the hundreds of thousands Obama will have killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines and Palestine over the next three years he will also have murdered 150,000 Americans who will die because of the back room deal he cut with big Pharma and the healthcare insurance companies.

On the next night O’Donnell tried again with Michael Moore. Michael Moore of course is the guy that Democrats love but progressives love to hate ever since he stabbed Ralph Nader in the back in 2004 (no, there is no such thing as a “progressive Democrat”; that would be oxymoronic). He completely supported Nader back in 2000 but then suddenly turned 180° and threw his massive weight behind the Butcher of Belgrade, General Wesley Clark, the first military commander to bomb Yugoslavia since Hermann Göring. Nice job Michael. But at least, to his credit Moore would not condemn what was, up until the next day, the principled stand of the congressman from Ohio.

It has been a busy year for the Democrats. They have destroyed the hopes of the antiwar movement, preempted universal single-payer health care, continued the Bush neoliberal economic policy of bank bailouts, botched the stimulus program and dealt a death blow to the environmental movement in its attempts to deal squarely with global warming. But from big Ed “Sissy” Schultz, Thom “Toady” Hartmann and the rest of the “settle-for-the-crumbs-from-the-corporate-table-Democrat” talk show hosts, no one would ever know that the Obama administration was destroying people by the hundreds of thousands and turning health-care reform into a boondoggle of corporate welfare transferring wealth to the richest corporate interests in the country.

They urge on us the politics of the practical. This is what we must expect from a political party that tells us we must be content to settle for the crumbs from the corporate table whether the issue is fortifying the position of American workers by strengthening the labor movement or defining healthcare and education as human rights to be protected and guaranteed by government. After all, we must practice “practical politics” not some “ideal utopian society”. If single-payer healthcare, tuition free education for every American and worker’s rights are what the Democrats consider to be part of an “ideal utopian society” we must shudder at their idea of the “practical”.

The Darling of the Democrats

Even Alan Grayson, the darling of the Democrats, does not understand the Democrat party’s existing legislation. He believes that it will cover 30 million people. That’s simply not true. He believes it will save lives. That’s not true. The bill will not take effect for four years. If he wants to save lives, he should introduce a bill that will go into existence in 3 to 6 months. It can be funded by taxing the rich and by the huge sums of money we would save by the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, and Afghanistan and the money we would save by cutting off funds to Israel. But neither Alan Grayson nor any Democrat would want to propose such legislation. Alan Grayson is considered to be the Democrat with guts. Perhaps if he had a bit more knowledge as a bit more guts then progressives would feel more comfortable with him.

Perhaps Grayson was well intended with his recent “public option” bill. But as soon as it was analyzed PNHP’s (Physicians for a National Healthcare Program) Senior Health Policy Fellow Don McCanne, M.D. violently opposed the bill. Here’s what he said on March 13th when the bill was proposed:

At any rate, the Grayson proposal seems to be the true public option, run by the government that progressives have been fighting for. So what could be wrong with it?”

The greatest concern of all is that it still does not fix our outrageously expensive, administratively wasteful, highly inequitable, fragmented method of financing health care. It merely provides another expensive option in our very sick system of paying for health care. Providing yet one more option that people can’t afford really hasn’t moved the process.

Although Medicare is a very popular program, it is highly flawed. It has an oppressive central bureaucracy. It fails to use more efficient financing systems such as global budgeting for hospitals and negotiation to obtain greater value in health care purchasing. There are serious questions about whether Medicare funds are being distributed equitably and in a manner to promote greater efficiency. Its benefit package is relatively poor, covering only about half of health care costs for our seniors. Most Medicare beneficiaries feel that they essentially are forced either to purchase Medigap plans, which provide the worst value of all private health plans, or to enroll in Medicare Advantage plans, which waste too many tax and premium dollars. It would be both much less expensive for all of us and better for Medicare beneficiaries if the extra benefits of these private plans were rolled into the traditional Medicare program. Part D should be stripped of its private market administrative and profit excesses and also be rolled into the traditional program. Medicare also has failed to introduce beneficial innovative programs such as the British NICE system, which would improve both quality and value in our health care.

When we advocate for an improved Medicare for all, we really aren’t advocating for Medicare with a few tweaks. We are advocating for replacing Medicare with a single payer national health program that covers everyone, which we can still call Medicare, just as the Canadians do. Adding another buy-in program to the two buy-in programs that already exist in our highly dysfunctional system will do virtually nothing to fix these flaws we now have. It does nothing to slow the growth in our national health expenditures, and the high premiums for a package of mediocre benefits will do little to reduce the numbers of uninsured.

For those who say that a Medicare buy-in is an incremental step towards health care utopia, explain precisely how that is going to work. Explain each problem that it solves. Explain how it is going to morph into a universal or near universal system in which each individual is paying the full actuarial value of the coverage. It won’t happen.

Playing with a Medicare buy-in is an unnecessary diversion at a time that we need to get serious about reform. We need to fix Medicare and expand it to cover everyone. Nothing less will do.

It is clear that Grayson simply realizes that given the impenetrable depths of Democrat cowardice, even someone who simply gives the appearance of courage becomes a hero to the courage-starved people who mindlessly vote each year for the ghost of FDR. If Grayson had any real courage, he would leave the Democrat Party along with Kucinich but we have just learned a powerful lesson about the courage of Dennis Kucinich. On March 15th he pledged that he would not vote for the Democrat health care bill. On March 17th he had changed his mind. A little whisper in his ear from Rahm Emanuel’s alter ego, Barack Obama, was all it took. “You will lose your job if you don’t do what you’re told.”

The Last Laugh

But it turns out that the Democrats and Dennis Kucinich have had the last laugh. Just when we thought we could actually trust Dennis Kucinich to take a principled stand against the Democrat’s horrendous healthcare bill, only two days after he told us that there is no way he will vote for this egregious piece of legislation, he changed his mind and announced that, after all, his principles mean nothing compared to helping the Obama agenda succeed. Dennis Kucinich is a Democrat. Alan Grayson is a Democrat. Their only function in the Democrat Party is to keep those suffering from “Battered Left Syndrome” from leaving. Kucinich and Grayson perpetuate the myth that the Democratic Party can be changed from within if only we give it a little more time.

In the final analysis Markos Moulitsas could not have been more wrong in comparing Dennis Kucinich with Ralph Nader. Nader does not back away from a principled position. Nader is not a Democrat; Kucinich is; that makes all the difference.

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