Worth Repeating: Calvin Trillin on Nader (The Nation)

[REP]

DEADLINE POET by Calvin Trillin


Herein Ralph Nader's Latest Rationale for Another Presidential Run Is Explained Without the Use of the Word 'Cockamamie'

It's easy to forget, but still true
That creepy guys have ego trips too.

[CWebster]

1. Calvin Trillin should stick to writing about food

calvin trillin who was in Kerry's little media pow-wow before Iowa.

Nader, like all figures larger than their own time, is most likely the man of our own time to emerge as hero in history. can't see it? Thomas Paine was also maligned in his own time. People can't stand too much reality, too much truth, and they would rather destroy the messenger who brings it. Always have, always will.

Nader is tagged with too much "ego" apparently for having the audacity to speak truth to power--just as Dean was branded as "too angry".

To those of you who buy into these convenient memes: Don't complain, like you have complained for the last three years, because when it comes down to real change, you went with those who supported what you have complained about for the past three years and condemned those who spoke against it.

[dsewell]

2. Logical muddles

"Thomas Paine was also maligned in his own time." Logicians, help me out, but isn't this the fallacy of the undistributed middle?

They called Einstein crazy.
They call me crazy.
Therefore, I am Einstein.

In any case, Paine wrote books and was a gadfly, but never ran for president. Nader is not tagged with too much "ego" for speaking truth to power; he's tagged with too much ego for doing so in a way that, most rational observers agree, is more likely to assist the most noxious form of power than to result in beneficient change.

[CWebster]

3. Hmm yes, so to do so would be not to do so

don't go defining what is is for me, hey?

How dare Nader step out of his lot in life! Doesn't he know that John Kerry is the annoited and we tolerate no interlopers challenging royal decree!

[mobuto]

5. No, the real question is why

Nader's hurting his own cause. If people on the Left split their vote and Bush gets reelected, then not one of his policy proposals will ever come to fruition. That's self-evident. So the question stands, what's he trying to accomplish? Tom Paine had clear objectives and saw how to reach them. Nader doesn't seem to have a clue. If he really wanted to effect change, he wouldn't be running for President in the hopes of stealing 2% or 3% away from John Kerry. Instead he'd be working within the Democratic Party to shape it more to the left.

[CWebster]

6. Right, it is better to do nothing

I understood it the first time.

"Nader doesn't seem to have a clue."

Tell me, do you have any idea of whet Nader's accomplishments are?Hhe could mop up the floor with any Washington Insider. Problem is Nader is another outsider essentially, and all his accomplishments don't add up to squat when it comes to their game. Kerry is the one without a clue. What has he got to challenge Bush with? Viet Nam?

[The Zanti Regent]

8. Here are Nader's accomplishments

The #1 Fake of all time!

http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm

Add to that putting my 23 year old nephew in Walter Reed, making him a quadraplegic!

[CWebster]

9. Am sure the DLC appreciates you pinning the blame

on Nader when it was they who supported Bush's fiasco and condemned Dean and the Left for opposing it.

[mobuto]

12. Are you saying you think John Kerry would

have sent us to war in Iraq? Al Gore?

If so, you are delusional.

Howard Dean will support the Democratic nominee.

Will you?

[mobuto]

11. It is better to do nothing

than to fracture the left vote and ensure that we get four more years of George Bush. Should Ralph Nader do nothing? No. He can work within the Democratic Party, or in tandem with it, and work both to educate the Party and mobilize the Left to boot Bush in November.

I really don't give a rat's ass about Nader's accomplishments. The fact is there's a right way and a wrong way of getting things done. Nader found the right way to stop the Corvair. But as for a wider political agenda, Nader seems to have found the way to ensure that his own agenda is never ever passed. If he keeps on campaigning against Democratic candidates, what he'll do is ensure that none are ever elected - that the GOP controls the political agenda.

That means war, decline and recession.

If you're not totally satisfied with the nominee, the solution isn't to take your ball and go home. The solution is to work within the system and do your best to mold it in your image.

[einniv]

4. I think Ralph is pretty clueless.

He stated that he thought Al Gore would have invaded Iraq even though all evidence suggests otherwise!

Further , in his rush to lump Al Gore in with George Bush, he has subtly suggested that there was actually some reason for the invasion of Iraq. That George and his admin hadn't been lusting to do so for a decade or more. And that therefore Gore would have made the same mistake.

In that one statement he killed any and all credibility he has ever had. He has shown himself clearly to be full of shit and in it for himself.

[Crachet2004]

7. Yep. Nader will be a hero in history...to republicans!

And the only "truth" to be seen in a Nader run this time, is that the established power in this country uses small, third party candidates to control the outcomes of elections...and therefore history!

And I sense a new meme being brewed on these boards this morning, that Nader=Dean. So disgruntled Deaniacs attach themselves to Nader, perhaps? Don't count on it. Dean supporters are motivated primarily by a desire to get rid of George Bush, and were the ones who led the charge against him when everyone else was afraid to. They will also, hopefully, be the core of a new third party effort which I hope to see come together...after we beat George Bush!

Nader on the other hand, is nothing more than a shill for the right-they use him to give any righteous cause, and its adherents, a bad name. In the past, he tarred everything he touched with the brush of extremism-which made him much beloved of a small activist minority, but doomed the very causes they were fighting for to failure! Worse than that, he has long since been reduced in the popular eye to a sort of comedic caricature of everything the well-meaning left stands for. You will never be taken seriously if people are laughing at you. Thanks Ralph.

And then of couse, the ultimate betrayal in 2000. The people who voted for him are some of the most intelligent, spiritually and morally advanced human-beings on this planet...but they knew not what they did. But you can bet ole Ralph did. He knew exactly what he was doing! Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shame on me!

Whither go the Deaniacs will at least partly depend on Howard Dean...and I am pretty sure the good doctor wants nothing to do with Ralph Nader.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. When it comes down to real change, I support a man whose

record supports his rhetoric: Dennis Kucinich.

But no matter what the record or the rhetoric, I don't support anyone who places 'making a statement' above defeating Bush.