Why We Should Vote for Nader--By Sam Smith

Sam Smith's Progressive Review (Oct. 31, 2000)
Morning Line

Greens A Major Party Now

Helped by panic among the Gorey Democrats and the mandarin media, Ralph
Nader and the Greens suddenly find themselves propelled from the fringes of
this election to ground zero. Nader has the elites so frightened that Judy
Woodruff virtually pleaded with him on CNN to withdraw from the race. And
the NY Times went into high snit mode with an editorial that read like
something written by Miss Marple:

"Back in June, we criticized Ralph Nader's presidential bid as a
self-indulgent crusade that could gull some voters into thinking that there
were no clear policy choices between Al Gore and George Bush. We would
regard Mr. Nader's willful prankishness as a disservice to the electorate
no matter whose campaign he was hurting. The country deserves a clear
up-or-down vote between Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore, who have waged a hard,
substantive and clean campaign. [Nader] deludes his followers, brightens
Mr. Bush's prospects and dims his own legacy as a reformer. He calls his
wrecking-ball candidacy a matter of principle, but it looks from here like
ego run amok."

This hysteria is a good indicator of how seriously the mandarins are taking
Nader's challenge and it is one of the best arguments for Nader and his
supporters to redouble their efforts. History is on the Green side. It
would be better, to be sure, to have a system of proportional
representation, but absent that, the best route to third party success in
America is to create enough of a uproar that the prevailing political and
financial interests must bend. As has been said, the strong do what they
will; the weak do what they must.

Repeatedly, major American ideas -- both good and bad -- have become part
of our culture because of precisely the sort of politics Nader and the
Greens are practicing today:

-- Abolition of slavery (Free Soil Party) -- Prohibition (Prohibition
Party) -- The income tax (Populist Party) -- Social welfare programs
(Socialist Party) -- The New Deal coalition (Progressive Party) -- The
Clinton Democrat (John Anderson's independent party) -- Balanced budgets
(Reform Party)

Further, when a third party causes as much of furor as the Greens are
doing, the overall politics of the country are usually pulled towards that
third party. This is why the Republican and Democratic candidates are today
debating which is best able to carry out the financial philosophy of Ross
Perot.

As in any childbirth, there is pain and there is risk. But the idea that to
avoid this pain and risk we give up our hopes for the future, for our
democracy, and for the planet is the ultimate abortion. We are facing
immense dangers that are concealed from us only because the two old parties
and their media won't discuss them. Yet the silence doesn't retard the
danger one whit and, in fact, makes it all that more inevitable.

We are told we must vote for Gore. But why? Because this man, who voted for
Scalia and praised Thomas, will provide us with such fine Supreme Court
justices? Because he, as the NY Times said of Mrs. Clinton, "is capable of
growing beyond the ethical legacies" of his record? Because he will finally
stop trying to deceive us? Because he will reverse the Clinton
administration's record of unraveling 60 years of Democratic social welfare
policy? Because he will stop saying one thing to blacks in church and
another to their sons in the courthouse? Because he will no longer be part
of the most criminally corrupt presidential administration in history?
Because he will retrieve the civil liberties lost during the past eight
years?

What the mandarins of Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Washington fail to
appreciate is that Nader and the Greens are not engaged in an act of
desperation but in an act of creation. Whether under Bush or Gore, this
creation will continue because it must if we are to redeem ourselves as a
people and a planet. And because more and more will come to realize that
being fair and decent and walking softly upon the earth, is not only
necessary but a happier and more beautiful way to live.

In the end, Gore and the NY Times will fail because they are trying to
rescue Americans who have made a wonderful discovery, namely that there is
something more to life than Gore and the Times would have us believe. They
have discovered a future worth fighting for.

http://prorev.com/indexa.htm