I know lotsa DUers are pissed at Nader, but he's dead on right here

[InformedSource]

American's Right to Know War News
by Ralph Nader

"... most of the retired Generals, Admirals, diplomatic and intelligence officials were against this war of choice from the beginning as being against our national security interests...

"What more do the Democrats need to take a stand, to demand a responsible exit strategy with a timetable so as to give Iraq back to the Iraqis and pull the bottom out of the resistance? Well, what about massive corruption and waste by the Halliburtons and other corporations ripping off Uncle Sam and you the taxpayers.

"And what about Bush not supporting the troops - first by putting them in harm's way with an illegal war, then not providing them with adequate body armor and vehicle armor (outraging military families in their grief), then cutting their health benefits and other services when they come back home?

"And what about the first President in U.S. history deliberately lowballing U.S. casualties so as not to further arouse public opposition to his war crimes. American men and women injured, sickened or severely mentally traumatized in Iraq, but not in actual combat, are not counted in the casualty toll. Tens of thousands not counted disrespecting them and their parents..."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0515-21.htm

[Inland]

1. Oh, fuck Nader. Bush in power is his legacy.

For him to come back and point out how shitty that is strikes me as completely idiotic, at least until he states his regrets.

[barb162]

8. As my Dem. friends from out-of-state always say, Nader

didn't lose it for us in 2000, we lost it ourselves. It was a squeaker in 2000 in all respects and it should not have been as Gore was clearly a superior candidate. I wish the fucking Dem. party could find a political handler like Karl Rove who can present a fucking monkey as a candidate and come out a winner twice in a row despite a rotten economy, a falling dollar, Iraq, etc. I wish the Dem. leaders would say things as clearly as Nader does in this article.

[InformedSource]

10. Political handler like Karl Rove . . . James Carvale before

he became pussy whipped and married some propagandist from the other side. I watched "The War Room" again this weekend. Even George Snufalufagus was awesome back then, before he became a mealy mouthed celebrity pundit.

[Inland]

12. Your friends are wrong. Nader's a tool.

One of those things that Nader says so clearly is, don't vote for the Democratic candidate, there's no difference between the dem and Bush. Having succeeded in getting enough people to vote the way they asked that Bush gets in, Nader and his supporters pretend that it isn't their fault they didn't vote for Gore, or even Kerry.

It's bad enough that the left tends to be a debating society without a plan to actually make a difference in government, but finally when they manage to make a difference in an election, they run around trying to find some sort of excuse as to why their votes don't count. Is the left entirely impotent, or is it a force resulting in evil? Until Ralph disappears, it's only one or the other.

Well, now Nader has instructions for the democrats on how to handle Bush. Why does he bother, if we are all the same? Suddenly he is implicitly acknowledging that the dems that he hamstrung and slandered as being no different, are actually opposing Bush. Too little, too late.

[mac56]

23. very true

Good analysis.

[napi21]

2. I agree with the tihe table.

I suggest telling the Iraqi people that we are leaving in XXXX months. Here's what you need to do. You need XX people in your military, and XX people in your police force. We will help train them, and give them whatever they need to be effective, but when XXXX date comes, we're out of here.

I don't think anyone is going to take control in their country as long as someone else is willing to fight and die in their place.

[Old and In the Way]

3. Ralph will be saddened to know that the neo-cons could give a shit

what he thinks.

But they do appreciate his help in 2000.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

4. sorry,

I'm so pissed at nader I won't even click on the link. If Gore was ahead in the polls by a comfortable margin & nader wanted to point out the flaws in the Democratic Party-too much corporate interest, etc, etc-I would have said Fine, run ralph run. Maybe it would have pulled the Dems to the left. He knew the polls as well as anyone else. He knew it was going to be close. He had to know bushco's will do anything to win. Fuck ralph & the horse he came in on.

best

[zalinda]

5. He didn't help in '04 either

I lost ALL respect for him. Michael Moore got on his knees, and begged him not to run, and he laughed him off. Well, he can get on his knees now, and I'll laugh at him. He has lost ANY credibility he ever had. He will be remembered as the spoiler and nothing else.

zalinda

[barb162]

7. I could have killed Nader in 2000 but I think he had just about

no effect in 2004. The thing is he is right on with this Common Dreams article. Sometimes I read his stuff and he is more Dem than the Dem leaders.

[apple_ridge]

25. Bingo. As much as people hate him (incorrectly) for the 2000

debacle, he is the embodiment of democratic ideals.

[mac56]

29. "The embodiment of democratic ideals"?

Are you referring to his cozying up to Grover Norquist? Or perhaps the union busting at his own organizations?

Really, which democratic ideals are you referring to?

:sarcasm:

[chlamor]

6. Not Pissed at Nader-Thanx

Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.

– H.L. Mencken

Activist and reporter Sam Smith said “. . . I suddenly noticed that the truth was no longer setting people free; it was only making them drowsy. So we thought, Then shall we change the style, the manner, in which we tell the truth?”

" ... the United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and human rights: one of U.S. benevolence, generally held by the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality sponsored by counterinsurgency specialists. Normally the specialists carry out their actions in remote locations with little notice in the national press. That allows the public to sustain its faith in a just America, while hard-nosed security and economic interests are still protected in secret. ": Robert Parry, investigative reporter and author

[Skittles]

9. I no longer care what he has to say

cannot stand him

[calico1]

11. Bush is in office in LARGE part due to Nader.

He should be one to talk about American's right to know news, etc. What did he think this Administration was going to do about free speech? I can't stand his guts, I'm sorry!

[blindpig]

13. Democrats who hate Nader need to get Their house in order

If the Democratic Party had served its base, working people, and not whored to the corporations the Nader effect would have been irrelevent. If the party had fought to keep good jobs in America in spite of the self-fullfilling prophesies of corporate disinformation people would have stayed with it for the bread and butter. What does the party have to offer the working class? Pretty much repub lite, damage control. When will those gonadless wretches offer the American people that which every 1st world people have, universal health care?

Democrats have a lot of gall bitching about Nader when their inadequacy created him.

[Name removed]

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[Lexingtonian]

17. to Hell with Nader

Why doesn't he ever go and lecture Republicans, and why can't he go and lie about them to us for change?

Ralph knows no history. Every American Presidency that has conducted a war has lied about the casualties. Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War, always told Northern newspapers of half as many casualties as there actually were. Not that anyone was fooled, after a while, but Stanton kept on doing it anyway.

Ralph is a political idiot or con man in his advice to Democrats. If Bush withdraws from Iraq as a result of Democratic pressure, the True Believers will never admit to the truth about the affair. When Bush withdraws from Iraq as a result of Republicans giving up and Republican policy imploding, his Party's credibility disintegrates and the True Believers are utterly defeated.

I think Ralph hates Democrats more than Republicans, he's conservative at bottom. So ignoring his advice entirely is the wisest course.

[dad]

18. Ignoring Nader's advice entirely is what gets Republicans elected

How many more Repub-lites are the Dems going to nominate until they get the message?
Keep speaking the truth, Ralph!

[Skittles]

19. we can do a lot better that f***ing Ralph

he mumbles incessantly and looks like an unmade bed

[bpilgrim]

20. Nader always speaks truth to power

some puritans will scream and holler but they are blinded by their own partisan filters and will never change unfortunately but i am one who will always be grateful for Nader's voice and efforts to make America a better place.

thanks for sharing :toast:

peace

[mac56]

22. Even a blind squirrel

finds an acorn now and then.


Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[barb162]

26. okay, are you my father-in-law? He always comes up with these

kinds of lines too. The one about the squirrel is great

[Martin Eden]

24. Dems abdicated on Iraq, and haven't recovered

I'm not sure where this quote came from:

People prefer a leader who is strong and wrong, than one who is weak and right.

The Busheviks are about as wrong as they can be, but their foreign policy -- at least the perception of it -- is coherent and potent.

The Democratic Party on the other hand, lacks a coherent foreign policy. Dems can't agree on a coherent or a potent strategy, so at the national level we have the repug-lite DLC and the Party does little more than rubber-stamp Bush's Iraq policy.

The nation needed genuine Democratic leadership in the wake of 9/11 -- and especially in the fall of 2002 when Bush sought authority to invade Iraq. Here at DU we saw the lies and the shit that was going to hit the fan, so why couldn't the Dem Party leadership?

Some saw and spoke up, but others refused to see anything except how opposing a "war-time" president and his jingo attack dogs might cost them in the mid-term elections.

But the American public -- mostly blind to the fraud in the White House -- were perceptive enough to see the empty cavities where Democratic spines were supposed to be. The Dems lost the mid-terms in spite of -- or because of -- their acquiesence.

Now, if the Democratic Party tries to assert genuine opposition to the Bush junta's war policies, they will be seen as flip-floppers and partisan opportunists. They're smart enough to realize this, and therefore reject a new spine even when it's offered in the form of public opinion that's turning against the war.

We need new leaders untarnished by the 2002 surrender who will strongly articulate what's right, regardless of how the Roves and Limbaughs try to smear them.

Sure, I resent Nader's role in the 2000 election, but that doesn't mean that what he wrote isn't on the money.

[depakid]

27. Nader was right- and it's pretty undeniable at this point

on issue after issue, there's not a dimes worth of difference between the parties.

[mac56]

28. Joking, of course.

If not joking, then either delusional or in deep denial.