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Posted: **Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:25 pm**

Someone else said it better than I could've:

"Yeah, in his lifetime Nader has done good work. But he's also done little to get involved in the political process except to hit the scene once every four years and try to take the top prize. There are other offices, other positions, other ways to engage and guide the system. Nader's shown zero desire to do anything but show up to the big dance and try to score the hottest chick."

Posted: **Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:24 pm**

chet wrote:
joelb wrote: That's a case fucking example of how a egotist third-party candidate can derail a tight election.

Yeah, being an alternative to the two major parties is really egotistical.

Absolute fucking bullshit. He's not an alternative and you're missing my point. I don't care if he's "on" during an interview or a speech, nor do I care that I agree with some of what he says. Buying into this bullshit myth that it doesn't matter which party is in power will do more to keep a two-party system going than anything else, because it provides a stage for someone to vomit up half-baked presidential campaigns and eventually fall on their sword without accomplishing a fucking thing. Without doing the real grunt work of building up local by local, this will continue to fail.

Posted: **Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:46 am**

What an egotistical dickface. Fuck him and the Pinto he rode in on.

Posted: **Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:47 am**

Fuck Gore for running and stealing Nader's votes.

That makes about as much sense as Nader "stealing" Gores (or whomever is running) votes.

The votes are not the candidates, and the election is not the candidates. They are ours.

Posted: **Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:08 am**

I like what I've heard of the man, and I like the fact that he is openly challenging the limited choice given to US voters. I also agree with what he said about the Democrats: if they cannot beat the Republicans in this election by a long way, then they should rip it up and start again. Which would perhaps not be such a bad thing. So here's a harmless Not Crap from across the pond.

Posted: **Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:33 am**

Rick Reuben wrote:
Antero wrote:Nader: Egotist. Self-glorifying. Uninterested in the work of coalition-building.
Coalition-building with whom? CFR Wall Street centrist Democrats?

With those who want to build true multi-party politics in the US, I would assume. Where's he been for the past 3 and a half years? Creating a viable third party will be a slow, grassroots process, not an election year stunt.

Posted: **Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:03 am**

sparky wrote:rip it up and start again

Nice.

Posted: **Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:22 am**

Ty Webb wrote:
Rick Reuben wrote:
Antero wrote:Nader: Egotist. Self-glorifying. Uninterested in the work of coalition-building.
Coalition-building with whom? CFR Wall Street centrist Democrats?

With those who want to build true multi-party politics in the US, I would assume. Where's he been for the past 3 and a half years? Creating a viable third party will be a slow, grassroots process, not an election year stunt.

Why rank-and-file Greens want this tarnished septuagenarian gadly to parachute in as a leader is beyond me. He has no party loyalty whatsoever (he refuses party membership); he is as relevant to building a viable third party as Ross Perot. And he's fucking 74 this month.

The Greens should tell him to shove off, rather than replicating the servility of the broader electoral process from the margins.

Posted: **Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:52 am**

Rick Reuben wrote:
Ty Webb wrote:Creating a viable third party will be a slow, grassroots process
Why? A third party does not need to have a framework like the two dominant parties. A third party can literally pop into existence in an instant, with one simple act: millions of Americans collectively commit to a new way of thinking when they enter the booth, and they choose a candidate based on policies, not electability. Instant majority. Give the party a name afterwards.

The creation of the party can follow the taking of power. A grassroots organization does not need to be created to carry a Nader to Washington. When you get to the voting booth, Nader's name is on the ballot, in the same size type as Clinton or McCain's. It is a perfectly level playing field on election night, for anyone who retains the right to think for himself and has abandoned herdthink.

We know that the brain damage of the citizens makes this a pipe dream, but I'm just illustrating that a party need not come first. The party is always inside peoples' heads, ready to go. They just need to unleash it, sort of like when the East Germans finally figured out that, if enough of them collectively tried to cross the Berlin wall, they could.

You're contradicting yourself. You say that it doesn't take a grassroots movement but that its spontaneous occurrence is a pipe dream.

The numbness of the electorate, and the ignorance of the far-reaching flaws of a two-party system, are precisely why it will take a gradual, local-level groundswell. It is impossible for it to occur spontaneously without a critical mass of demand for it, something that cannot happen without activism and the stepwise building of support.

The East Germans collectively figured out that they could mass against the Berlin Wall because of the gradual erosion of the system that kept it in place, not because of some instant of mass epiphany. That's mythos, not history. And it would've taken a shitload more East German citizens in 1969 (basically all of them) than it did in 1989 .

It was in their heads to cross the Wall, but it takes more than mere desire to change a paradigm, even in something as deceptively simple as flipping a voting booth lever.

Posted: **Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:04 am**

Rick Reuben wrote: millions of Americans collectively commit to a new way of thinking when they enter the booth

Except people don't choose collectively in the voting booth. They choose based on self-interest and sometimes, hopefully, enlightened self-interest that carries with it consideration for how their vote affects a few people that they care about for some reason. Voting is an individual exercise.

Rick Reuben wrote:
The creation of the party can follow the taking of power.

That justification is used to support the morality of a coup and it's almost always wrong.

Rick Reuben wrote:
The party is always inside peoples' heads, ready to go. They just need to unleash it, sort of like when the East Germans finally figured out that, if enough of them collectively tried to cross the Berlin wall, they could.

An idea in a person's head, even if linked by a vote among millions, is not a party. A party is a living, moving, ACTING network of individuals committed to making all levels of government change and improve, not getting mad and pulling a lever. Shooting first and asking questions later is rarely a good idea and it's a piss-poor way to think about setting federal policy for the most powerful country in the world.

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