From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V13 #55 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, February 23 2004 Volume 13 : Number 055 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: reap [Capuchin ] Re: burpy burpy reap reap [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] ouch [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Re: reap ["Fortissimo" ] that Nader Bush thing - delete if yr not interested ["Fortissimo" ] reap (was: Ouch) [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: that Nader Bush thing - delete if yr not interested [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: burpy burpy reap reap [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: reap [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: reap [Christopher Gross ] Re: reap [Christopher Gross ] Re: burpy burpy reap reap [Christopher Gross ] Re: reap [Jeff Dwarf ] a quick Nader URL [Christopher Gross ] Re: reap (slower of two fatal tortures) ["Fortissimo" Subject: Re: reap On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Christopher Gross wrote: > My first reaction isn't surprise -- Nader's been hinting he'd run again > for a while now -- but disappointment. Another reap: any lingering > respect I might have had for the man. You've got to respect his waiting until the Democrats finally showed they had no interest in changing out of the elephant suit. Here in Portland, an editor for one of the alternative weekly papers is running for Mayor "until someone decent enters the ring". He would rather somebody more suited took the position, but so far the candidates are all so horrible that SOMEBODY intelligent and decent has to stand for the job. I think that is the most honorable thing I've heard in a long time. And I think Nader's decision to hold out until it was more clear who would be running against Bush was on par. > There are a lot of lessons to be learned from 2000, and one of them is > most certainly that Nader's candidacy turned around and bit us all in > the ass. Oh, PLEASE, Chris. You were opposed to the Nader candidacy from the start... and it wasn't because of any splitter effect. You were opposed to his ideals and his platform. I truly believe that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who MIGHT have voted for Al Gore did so. The fear-mongers were out in force preaching the "don't waste your vote" gospel and, in the end, they were enormously successful. This is clear from the great disparity between Nader's showing in the surveys of October and his showing in the polls in November. The only votes Nader "stole" were those that would have gone to other third party candidates or been left blank or not cast at all. And you have absolutely no evidence otherwise. > Sure, you could say that any other candidate's vote *could* have tipped > the election the other way; but Nader's votes are the only ones that > were *likely* to have gone to Gore if Nader hadn't run. I don't know a single person who voted for Nader who would have voted for Al Gore. For almost everyone, it was about the money. > If I was into psychological speculation, I'd wonder if Nader was running > again mainly to show that he doesn't think he made a big mistake in > 2000. You are and you do. No point pretending otherwise. > On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > > But: Nader's key argument, that there's no significant difference > > between the two parties, simply is not a viable option right now, with > > Bush standing for election (no "re-"). > > I saw a good button the other day: "Re-defeat Bush in '04".... Anyway, > I'd not only agree but go further and say that the "no significant > difference" argument is not only dangerous right now, it's factually > incorrect, and has been clearly and obviously so since 2001. The Bush > administration has proven SO unimaginably bad that no Democrat could > even come close. (Though to be fair, you could also argue that it's > just a matter of opinion what constitutes a "significant" difference.) It's also a matter of conjecture until you throw down some examples. So far, I haven't seen any evidence that proves your point... just a whole lot of wishful thinking and speculation. Hell, I'd LOVE to believe that Bush is an aberration and nobody else would have done those things. That'd be freakin' great if we could just elect a different warm body and make all those horrible things go away. I think it's politically convenient to make that assertion, but I don't think there's any reason to believe it. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 02:09:06 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: burpy burpy reap reap >Why only if the guy looks like it's a mammal? There are >probably several birds, amphibians, fish, and even a few >types of millipedes and spiders who would be remarkable >improvements as well. and surely the majority of politicians - Republican, Democrat, whatever - are reptiles. (Hm. Sounds like the cue for a song...) >Notice also that being a "nazi" or an illegal drug abuser also doesn't >disqualify one from running depends whether or not they inhale, I think. >For the record, I'm not a party member, either. now this is something I don't really get - can someone explain to me what it is with party membership in the US? Seems like just about everyone belongs to one of the parties. (I'm guessing that in NZ maybe 2 or 3% of people belong to a political party, if that). >All it takes to stop the cycle is for each person to stop participating. doesn't seem to have worked in Iran. >To quote a lecture I once saw, "If you're headed toward Mexico at 100 >miles per hour and you want to be in Canada, it doesn't help to slow to >20." actually, in my case, it would help to speed up. That way I'd get through Mexico and the US a bit faster. James (who notes that no-one 'reap'-ed Dubya's dog. 'Twas a slow news day in NZ) James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 02:13:43 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: ouch Dear all - just a short apology if I've been grumpy or argumentative in the last 24 hours - I managed to injure my foot last night (I currently only have four nails on my right foot), so if I'm not my usual cheerful self I hope you forgive me! James James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 07:48:01 -0600 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: reap On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:29:46 -0500 (EST), "Christopher Gross" said: > On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > > > by two parties). And the lesson of 2000 was *not* that Bush "won" because > > it was Nader's "fault": the vote was close enough that *any* other > > candidate's vote would have tipped the election the other way. > > Sure, you could say that any other > candidate's vote *could* have tipped the election the other way; but > Nader's votes are the only ones that were *likely* to have gone to Gore > if > Nader hadn't run. (Does anyone really think that Gore was the second > choice of those who voted for Pat Buchanan or Harry Browne?) I'm referring to some of the other leftish candidates...David McReynolds (name?) of the Socialist party, for example, got more votes in Florida than the eventual margin of difference. Doubtful that anyone voting for him would otherwise have voted for Bush. The real problem is that our voting system does not represent the wishes of voters - which is why so few citizens actually vote. THey feel - correctly - that it doesn't matter because (a) the two main parties generally couldn't care less about their interests, and (b) voting for a third party doesn't work. This is no accident: the Senate, and the Electoral College, both were set up to diminish the impact of actual voters and guard against "too much" democracy. In both cases, by favoring sparsely populated, rural states, the system favors conservative candidates - since in general, the sparser your population, the higher the incidence of conservative politics. - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: "In two thousand years, they'll still be looking for Elvis - :: this is nothing new," said the priest. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 07:56:46 -0600 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: that Nader Bush thing - delete if yr not interested On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 02:52:05 -0800 (PST), "Capuchin" said: > On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > Better to let individuals run for office without easy and misleading > labels. Better to bring the core values into open public debate. Better > to leave the disinterested and lazy totally perplexed in the polling > booth > than to allow them to simply match the little symbol next to the > candidate's name with the symbol on the button they were sent in the > mail. I sometimes think elections should be completely anonymous: candidates should fill out position papers and list their experience (all of which should be vetted for accuracy by some hypothetical independent entity) and people vote for whichever positions and experience they most agree with. This, of course, will never happen & is mostly impossible, but hey... > I think the key point here is that it's NEVER a "viable option" to stage > a > revolution. It's always a risk and it always has a dear price. If you > want to sit back and take the viable options, you're never going to break > out of the structure that keeps you picking the lesser evil. > > Nader is saying, "Break out now and don't go back." OK, maybe we won't > "win" this election. But you will win your freedom of thought and peace > of mind. And next time a few more people will break out... and so on and > so on until there is nothing left to hold up the ugly system. > > Consider the labor movement. Was joining a union a "viable option" for > those people? Hell no. They got the shit kicked out of them and many of > them were killed and it took thirty years or more for them to get real > public protection. You don't start a revolution by running for President. You start a revolution at the grassroots, with the people. Even if Nader won, his effectiveness would be almost nil due to the entrenched power structure of the country, most of whose members would be rather grudgeful against him anyway. It's one thing to take risks knowing you could get the shit kicked out of you. It's another to do so knowing that *everyone* will get the shit kicked out of them. > > Whatever you think of Gore, I doubt his presidency would have displayed > > the imperial contempt for the rest of the world (i.e., anyone not a > > wealthy, white Republican) that Bush has. > > Whatever YOU think of Gore, I have no reason to agree with you. > > On what do you base this doubt besides your deep contempt for Bush and > wishful thinking? Because Bush's disregard for any sort of multilateralism, any sort of legal precedent, any interest of anyone other than himself and people like him is far more extreme than that of any other president, or nearly any other legislator or governor, certainly in the last twenty years. - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree :: what they are made of, where they come from, or how often :: they should appear. :: --Lemony Snicket ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 08:25:42 -0600 From: Marcy Tanter Subject: RE: reap - -----Original Message----- From: owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org [mailto:owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Fortissimo Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 10:15 PM To: something Shakespeare never said Subject: Re: reap On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:05:01 -0600 (CST), tanter@tarleton.edu said: > I agreed with most of what Nader said this morning, but the problem is > that his party has been dormant since the last election. Nader's running as an independent. And the Greens were "his" party in name only. I'd love to see the Greens have more prominence - but that can only happen from the grassroots upward, building power until they're able to reform the lock the two parties have on the process. Thanks for that correction--I hadn't realized until this morning that he's not running as a Green. What I'd really like to see is the abolishing of the electoral college system. Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:28:17 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: reap (was: Ouch) One of James Dignan's toenails James Dignan wrote: > just a short apology if I've been grumpy or argumentative > in the last 24 hours - I managed to injure my foot last > night (I currently only have four nails on my right > foot), so if I'm not my usual cheerful self I hope you > forgive me! That's more like "FUCKING SHIT GODDAMNIT MOTHERFUCKING JESUS MOTHERSHITTING CHRIST SONOFAMOTHERFUCKING DUBYA FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK" than "ouch" though. And I actually didn't really notice, so I doubt anyone else did either really. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:31:54 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: that Nader Bush thing - delete if yr not interested Fortissimo wrote: > > On what do you base this doubt besides your deep > > contempt for Bush and wishful thinking? > > Because Bush's disregard for any sort of multilateralism, > any sort of legal precedent, any interest of anyone other > than himself and people like him is far more extreme than > that of any other president, or nearly any other > legislator or governor, certainly in the last twenty > years. Saying that Gore would have been just like Bush is like saying a really annoying flu is the same as full-blown AIDS. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:34:11 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: reap Fortissimo wrote: > Yes, you're correct that both parties are ass-deep in > corporate money. But what Bush has done is way worse than > what Gore would have done, what Clinton did, what Dole > would have done...way on back. He makes fucking > *Nixon* look like a raving liberal. He also makes Nixon look honest. Bush has raised more corporate donations in the last year than John Kerry has during his entire political career. > Notice also that being a "nazi" or an illegal drug abuser > also doesn't disqualify one from running (although being > convicted of a felony does). And while his father was, Arnold himself isn't really a Nazi. Shit, for a 21st century Republican, he's fairly liberal. It's in dispute whether he realizes that the statements he made yesterday about SF's gay marriages promoting riots actually spoke ill of conservatives* though. *Since they [well, a small, select group of conservatives] would be the ones rioting, after all. It's not like the people getting married or who don't really give a shit would riot. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:34:45 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: burpy burpy reap reap James Dignan wrote: > >For the record, I'm not a party member, either. > > now this is something I don't really get - can someone > explain to me what it is with party membership in the US? Because final election candidates for federal and many/most state-wide positions are chosen in primaries or caucuses that are normally restricted to voters registered within the parties, when you register to vote, you register as a member of a party (though you can decline to state; it's not mandatory). Thus, you are a "member" of the party. doesn't mean you ever do jackshit. > James (who notes that no-one 'reap'-ed Dubya's dog. 'Twas > a slow news day in NZ) Well, the dog never did his patriotic duty and "accidentally" cause Dubya to trip and land on his head while taking the little bastard for a walk, so fuck 'im. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:55:07 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: reap Christopher Gross wrote: > I haven't actually read or listened to Nader's > announcement, but the CNN website quotes him as citing > his "desire to retire our supremely selected > president" as a reason why he's running. Where's the > connection? How does Nader's running do anything to help > retire Bush? If anything, it hurts. > > (BTW, CNN should have capitalized "supremely" -- it was > an obvious dig at the Supreme Court decision in 2000.) Which hints at the only way this isn't at this point a ludicrous ego trip: if Nader is running so someone is saying the things about the fraud in Florida in 2000 that the Democrats can't say for fear of being a "sore loser" about 2000 (not the GOP were _ever_ sore losers about 1992 or 1996, so sirreeeebawb), that it might make some sense since he will get more attention than most third party candidates. If Nader spends a lot of time reminding people that Bush wasn't truly elected and that his brother and Katherine Harris should be in prison for the various ways they tried to prevent people from Voting While Black in 2000, then it has some value. Otherwise, it's just egotism. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:49:11 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: reap Replies to Capuchin: > How does someone LOSE to George W. Bush? Gore's entire campaign was a > joke. He wasn't even trying. Honestly... I really think he wasn't > trying. Think about it. That half-assed campaign that culminated with > a half-assed lawsuit so full of holes that DOZENS of books were written > on how badly the defense handled the case. Umm ... okay. I guess I can see how someone would think Gore deliberately lost. Lord knows no one ever actually screws up; everything anyone does is deliberate, carefully planned, and successfully executed. But one question: If Gore wanted to throw the election to Bush, why did he launch the lawsuit in the first place? For that matter, why did he concede, then withdraw his concession after it looked like he still had a chance in Florida? > George W. Bush is a babbling idiot. He looks like an idiot. He talks > like an idiot. His every credential is shakey at best (ok, to be fair, > I don't think anyone has publicly challenged his parentage -- so he's > got that going for him). He has a history of substance abuse. He has > absolutely nothing going for him... yet he won the election. Why? Actually, Gore got half a million more votes than Bush. He only won because of the Florida thang, NOT because he outpolled Gore. I certainly think Gore's campaign could have been better (which does not necessarily mean more leftist), and the man himself could certainly stand a charisma implant; but he still came within a hair of success. Someone smarter than me compared the situation to a stool: remove any leg and it falls down. If one leg of the stool was Gore's poor campaigning, another was Nader's siphoning off Democratic voters. >> But: Nader's key argument, that there's no significant difference >> between the two parties, simply is not a viable option right now, with >> Bush standing for election (no "re-"). > > I think the key point here is that it's NEVER a "viable option" to stage > a revolution. It's always a risk and it always has a dear price. [etc for several paragraphs] "Viable" means "workable" or "capable of success." It doesn't mean "safe" or "easy." > I still hold that the legacy -- the lasting effects on law and policy -- > of the Bush presidency are functionally identical to those that would > have been left by a Gore presidency Another one for the classic-quotes file! > In fact, where was Gore for > the past four years? Why wasn't he out there criticizing the President > for his crazy actions? Umm, he has been. > The Green Party, near as I can tell, has decided to focus on local > issues and local elections until they have more political power. Hey, exactly what I recommended back in 2000, on this very list! ;) > To quote a lecture I once saw, "If you're headed toward Mexico at 100 > miles per hour and you want to be in Canada, it doesn't help to slow to > 20." I don't think that's a valid analogy; but more importantly -- it's now possible to turn around without slowing down first?! When did this happen? Is all that Area 51 technology finally reaching consumers? ;) > You've got to respect his waiting until the Democrats finally showed > they had no interest in changing out of the elephant suit. Well, the falsity of his "no significant difference" argument would have been even more obvious if he didn't even know who the Democratic nominee would be. He's not stupid. >> There are a lot of lessons to be learned from 2000, and one of them is >> most certainly that Nader's candidacy turned around and bit us all in >> the ass. > > Oh, PLEASE, Chris. You were opposed to the Nader candidacy from the > start... and it wasn't because of any splitter effect. You were opposed > to his ideals and his platform. I don't see how this is a response to my paragraph above. (If there's any confusion, I meant followed the original post in saying "lesson" as in a lesson for everyone, not just me.) And for the record, the splitter effect was *part* of why I opposed Nader in 2000. > I truly believe that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who MIGHT have voted for Al > Gore did so. In numerous separate polls, half or more Nader voters said they otherwise would have voted for Gore. Furthermore, many Nader voters said that they were only voting that way because they felt they were in a safe Gore state, and would have voted for Gore if their state was in play. And the voter turnout in 2000 was quite close to that of previous elections, making it extremely unlikely that Nader brought in very many new voters; and since he got far more votes than leftist third parties normally receive, it's unlikely he got most of his voters from there either. >> If I was into psychological speculation, I'd wonder if Nader was >> running again mainly to show that he doesn't think he made a big >> mistake in 2000. > > You are and you do. No point pretending otherwise. Gee, you're right. I thought that by using a conditional phrase, I could engage in psych-spec and not get caught. And it would have worked if not for you meddling kids! - --If I was going to sign this email, I'd write "Chris" here. ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:03:37 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: reap And replies to Jeff: > > Sure, you could say that any other > > candidate's vote *could* have tipped the election the other way; but > > Nader's votes are the only ones that were *likely* to have gone to Gore > > if > > Nader hadn't run. (Does anyone really think that Gore was the second > > choice of those who voted for Pat Buchanan or Harry Browne?) > > I'm referring to some of the other leftish candidates...David McReynolds > (name?) of the Socialist party, for example, got more votes in Florida > than the eventual margin of difference. Doubtful that anyone voting for > him would otherwise have voted for Bush. Sure, theoretically McReynolds' voters could all have voted for Gore instead; but is that really much more likely than Buchanan's voters switching to Gore? McReynolds and the other socialist candidates draw their support from a small base of regulars rather than by wooing away normally Democratic voters. On the other hand, Nader clearly DID attract many people who otherwise would have voted Democratic. > The real problem is that our voting system does not represent the wishes > of voters - which is why so few citizens actually vote. While this is doubtless true, I'm afraid that a lot of other people don't vote because they're basically *content*. (I also learned, while researching a project on the jury system, that many people say they refuse to register to vote in order to stay off the list for jury duty. Sad but true.) > third party doesn't work. This is no accident: the Senate, and the > Electoral College, both were set up to diminish the impact of actual > voters and guard against "too much" democracy. As far as the Senate goes, it wasn't designed to favor conservatives; instead, it came about simply because the smaller states refused to ratify the Constitution unless they were given equal representation in one house of Congress. - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:09:38 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: burpy burpy reap reap On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, James Dignan wrote: > now this is something I don't really get - can someone explain to me what > it is with party membership in the US? Seems like just about everyone > belongs to one of the parties. As Jeff already mentioned, voters usually chose a party when they register to vote. It's entirely self-declared and doesn't imply any obligation to support the party chosen, and the party itself has no control over who "joins" in this fashion. In fact, it shouldn't be regarded as joining the party at all; rather, one registers as a *supporter* of a party. - --Chris ps: Ouch! You have my sympathies. Limping people unite! ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 07:18:26 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: reap Christopher Gross wrote: > [Gore] himself could certainly stand a charisma > implant; but he still came within a hair of success. The sad thing is, he actually sort of got one once he announced he wasn't going to run in 2004. Or at least, they removed the sequoia that was lodged up in his rectum. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:55:27 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: a quick Nader URL Four _American Prospect_ writers hit Nader's decision to run: - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:56:10 -0600 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: reap (slower of two fatal tortures) On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 03:28:30 -0800 (PST), "Capuchin" said: > On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > All it takes to stop the cycle is for each person to stop participating. > Vote for the person you WANT and convince other people to do the same. Actually, that isn't true. Nader, and his voters, would receive no more representation of their views if he polled 32% (and, say, Kerry 35% and Bush 33%) than if he polled 2%. Bush, at least, has shown that he cares not a whit for minority viewpoints. It's a phenomenon worth studying, that people tend to vote less for what they believe in and more for whom they think is likely to win...even in primaries, where it shouldn't matter - but our arguing about the hows and whys of it is unlikely to change that fact. And it's still the case that even if *everyone* who agreed w/Nader's views actually voted for him, he'd be unlikely to get a plurality of votes. > > > In a winner-take-all system like ours, you *cannot cannot cannot* "vote > > your conscience" if you want your conscience to have an effect. > > So, instead, you put your conscience aside and vote for the slower of the > two fatal tortures? For what GOOD? This is a tactical moment, not an ongoing strategy. > To quote a lecture I once saw, "If you're headed toward Mexico at 100 > miles per hour and you want to be in Canada, it doesn't help to slow to > 20." But of course, it does: before you can turn around, you have to slow down. That is, it's time to apply the brakes. Yes, when you apply brakes, you're still moving in the same direction. But this vehicle cannot turn on a dime (it needs, oh, a billion or so of them), and so, rather than hold your arms out the open window and flapping them in an attempt to propel the vehicle the other direction, you *now* apply the brakes. To further the metaphor: the car is mechanically defective and seems capable of making only right turns. We need to fix the car, true - but we can't do that while it's in motion (i.e., at this juncture, when our real choice is between Bush and whoever the Dem. nominee is). And as I've said many times, the presidential race isn't the right venue, now, anyway. Local, even statewide, races are. To answer your question, the good is that with the slower fatal torture, there's a greater likelihood that we can get out of it. We disagree on the relative degrees of evil represented by the various candidates. But in describing Dems as the "slower of two fatal tortures," you're still acknowledging that there is a difference. > > Wishing won't make it so; reform of the voting system will. > > Uh huh... and how are you reforming the voting system? Certainly not by > electing people who benefit from the broken system you've got now. No matter what we do, someone's going to get elected. That someone, at this point, is all but certainly either Bush or Kerry (perhaps Edwards, but doubtful). Look, I'd vote for Nader in a second if the political reaction were a huge outpouring of support, with his polling numbers in the 30s or 40s. But they're not - they're nowhere near that. He simply is not going to get enough votes to be a factor on his own. As to whoever it was who said that, hey, at least Nader can work toward talking about the voting fiasco, can put his issues forth: yes, but frankly, he'd find a more receptive audience if he *weren't* running for President. His natural allies are largely alienated from him; the far right wouldn't listen in any case; and the potentially receptive middle is going to view him as an ego-tripping spoiler (right or wrong) rather than a man trying to get the truth out there. > So the true lasting legacy of the Bush administration will be the final > nail in the coffin of any viable third party. You're arguing that the > whole Bush fiasco just plain PROVES that you have to vote for a > Republican > or a Democrat. Fucking fantastic. What it just plain proves is that the two parties have rigged the voting system so that no other kind of vote counts. >> > I don't want Arnie for prez either - but he's absolutely correct that > > the rule against foreign-born citizens holding Presidential office is > > outdated and should be repealed. I think it's perfectly reasonable to > > allow that someone who's been a naturalized citizen for X years (not > > sure how long) should be eligible to be president. > > I think the right way to handle these kinds of reforms is to make it > impossible for anyone to benefit from their own activism. For example, > if > we're going to change who can become President, make the change only > apply > to people born after 1990. That way, the change can't be made to support > a particular candidate. This is similar to making pay increases for > Congress members only apply after two terms or for incoming members. I agree. You know, as long as we're going to have celebrities as "viable" political candidates, maybe Tim Robbins or someone should run too. Why let the right have all the fun? Sheesh... - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: Solipsism is its own reward :: :: --Crow T. Robot ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V13 #55 *******************************