[Imc] A response to Gloria Steinem's top 10 reasons not to vote for Nader by Sascha Meinrath

[Sascha Meinrath]

i wasn't going to respond to this ridiculous statement, but i've received a
lot
of e-mails from folks asking what i thought and whether i'd respond to some of
the comments.  so i originally wrote a couple quick thoughts on gloria
steinem's top 10 list.  however, as i reread them, i realized that their
inaccuracy required a bit more of a response.

>TOP TEN REASONS WHY I'M NOT VOTING FOR NADER
>(ANY ONE OF WHICH WOULD BE ENOUGH)
>by Gloria Steinem
>President, Voters For Choice
>
>10.  He's not running for President, he's running for federal
>matching funds for the Green Party!

first of all, nader IS running for president.  the fact that he has almost no
chance to win is no reason not to vote for him.  matching funds allow
access to
mainstream media -- which is essential for having any chance at winning in the
future.  as Molly Irvins states:  "As anyone in the media will explain to you,
the reason we do not give more coverage to Nader is because he is not
moving in
the polls.  The reason he is not moving in the polls is because he gets no
media coverage.  Do you want the chicken or the egg?"  why gloria would ignore
the necessity of money for a modern-day campaign is beyond me.


>9.  He was able to take all those perfect progressive positions of
>the past because he never had to build an electoral coalition, earn a
>majority vote, or otherwise submit to democracy.

rather than "submit to democracy" i would think that nader is helping to
(re)create democracy.  it is important to remember that a MAJORITY of
americans
support many of the issues nader is running on -- including universal health
care, abortion rights (see below on this one), higher minimum wages and a
curbing of corporate welfare, etc.  it is the politicians who ignore the
desires of the majority -- i would ask you, do you want to continue to
"submit"
to this "democracy"?


>8.  By condemning Gore for ever having taken a different position -
>for example, for voting against access to legal abortion when he was a
>Congressman from Tennessee - actually dissuades others from changing
>their minds and joining us.
>7.  Nader is rightly obsessed with economic and corporate control,
>yet he belittles a deeper form of control - control of reproduction, and
>the most intimate parts of our lives.  For example, he calls the women's
>movement and the gay and lesbian movements "gonadla politics," and ridicules
>the use of the word "patriarchy," as if it were somehow less important than
>the World Trade Organization.  As Congressman Barney Frank wrote Nader in an
>open letter, "your assertion that there are not important issue differences
>between Gore and Bush is either flatly inaccurate or reflects your view
>that... the issues are not important... since you have generally ignored
>these issues in your career."

this is by far one of the more misinformed statements made in this list...
but
you don't have to take my word for it, here's what the green party platform
says on gay and lesbian rights and a woman's right to choose
(http://www.gp.org/platform/gpp2000.html):

3. We affirm the right to openly embrace SEXUAL ORIENTATION in the intimate
choice of who we love.
4. We support the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in
housing, jobs, civil marriage and benefits, child custody ­ and in all
areas of
life, the right to be treated equally with all other people.
13. WOMEN’S RIGHTS must be protected and expanded to guarantee each woman’s
right to be a full participant in society, free from sexual harassment, job
discrimination or interference in the intensely personal choice about whether
to have a child. 
17. We believe the right of a woman to control her own body is inalienable. It
is essential that the option of a safe, legal abortion remains available.

that's the platform and here's the candidate on NBC’s Meet the Press (Sunday,
August 6) in words we will not hear from Vice President Gore:

Interviewer Tim Russert: “Is [Ralph Nader] for gay marriage?” 
Nader: “Yes, civil union, and equal rights, equal responsibility.” 
Russert: “Gay adoptions?” 
Nader: “Yes.” 
Russert: “So are you closer to Al Gore or George Bush?” 
Nader: “Way ahead of Al Gore. The point is, we have to have a basic policy in
this country of equal rights and equal responsibility, regardless of race,
gender, or sexual preference.” 
Russert: “So the government should recognize gay marriages.” 
Nader: “Yes. It's really interesting, gay people want to serve in the
military,
they want to engage in civil unions, or marriage, and they want to adopt kids.
If they weren't gay, people would say, well, that's really good to do.” 

and on abortion rights:

Nader: 
For American women, the right to a safe, affordable and legal abortion is a
legal right.  Al Gore recognized this when he changed his position from
pro-life to pro-choice.  George Bush recognized this when he told Tim Russert
that "it’s not going to be  outlawed until a lot of people change their mind.
And there’s going to be abortions  one way or the other." (Excerpted from
interview, Today, October 18, 2000). 
"I don’t think government has the proper role in forcing a woman to have a
child or
forcing a woman not to have a child. And we’ve seen that around the world.
This
is
something that should be privately decided with the family, woman, all the
other
private factors of it, but we should work toward preventing the necessity of
abortion." (Source: Meet the Press) 

LaDuke: 
They like to talk about women during an election year, but they actually don’t
seem
to represent that through public policies that consider the long-term health
conditions of women and children — whether it is on those basic levels or on
the more insidious levels, the levels of the militarization of the society,
violence against women, the chemicals that are in our ground water and in the
air now. (Source: LaDuking It Out. Daily Special, Friday, June 16, 2000)

i encourage you to find any other candidate whose stance is as clearcut and
undeniable -- neither the democratic nor the republican platform comes
close to
such simple and encompassing supportive statements.  what nader and laduke
don't do is say, abortion exists in a vacuum, and both recognize that abortion
rights are inextricably linked to a variety of other issues.

>6.  The issues of corporate control can only be addressed by voting
>for candidates who will pass campaign-funding restrictions, and by
>conducting grassroots boycotts and consumer campaigns against sweatshops
>-not by voting for one man who will never become President.

voting for nader is supporting the very grassroots boycotting that gloria is
talking about -- but with votes instead of money.  gaining 5% of the vote
allows for matching funds, AND the ability to run candidates at the state and
local levels.  the green party is running (this time around) IN ORDER TO
ORGANIZE at the local, grassroots level -- this has been explicitly stated
again and again throughout the election.  


>5.  Toby Moffett, a longtime Nader Raider who also served in
>Congress, wrote that Nader's "Tweedledum and Tweedledee assertion that there
>is no important difference between the major Presidential candidates would
>be laughable if it weren't so unsafe."  We've been bamboozled by the media's
>practice of being even-handedly negative.  There is a far greater gulf
>between Bush and Gore than between Nixon and Kennedy - and what did that
>mean to history?

the idea here is that the two candidates agree on so many things that their
disagreement on a few important topics pales by comparison.  the "choice"
these
candidates offer is minimal on a majority of issues.

here's an excerpt from the synopsis of the 10/11/00 presidential "debate" by
michael moore:  George Gore Meet Al Bush

For me, the debate was over with the welcoming line from moderator Jim Lehrer:
"Welcome, Governor Bush, and Vice-President Bush...er, I mean Gore."

That pretty much summed it up. Even the Voice of Reason could not avoid saying
what his mind knew — these two candidates are the same damn person!

Tired of me beating this drum? Well, how tired were you last night when "Bush"
and "Gore" (I have to put them in quotation marks as I will no longer
participate in the ruse that they are two separate and distinct individuals),
kept agreeing and agreeing and agreeing?

I kept score. "Bush" and "Gore" expressed agreement or support for each
other's
positions THIRTY-TWO times! Even Lehrer asked them at one point how the
average
voter was to decide what the difference was between them. "Gore" answered,
"Well, I don't hear any disagreement in the last few exchanges." When "Gore"
did express a mild disagreement later, "Bush" seemed all upset. "Bush"
responded: "Well, I think it's hard to tell."

"Uh, on...he says he agrees with me — and then he doesn't!", "Bush" whined.
"Gore" quickly got back to agreeing.

Here's the list of issues and positions over which they exclaimed their love
and support for each other last night:

— They both agreed on Israel.
— They both agreed to blame Arafat.
— They both agreed on the war against Yugoslavia.
— They both agreed on more money for anti-ballistic missiles.
— They both agreed it was right not to intervene in Rwanda.
— They both agreed it was right to invade Grenada.
— They both agreed it was right to invade Panama.
— They both agreed the Gulf War was right.
— They both agreed to train Nigerian troops.
— They both agreed on supporting Australia in East Timor.
— They both agreed to train Colombian troops in the Drug War.
— They both agreed they would be "judicious" when deploying U.S. troops.
— They both agreed not to "overextend" the U.S. military.
— They both agreed it was right to bail out Mexico.
— They both agreed on not making loans to "corrupt governments."
— They both agreed to sign a federal racial profiling law.
— They both agreed that gays must not be allowed to marry.
— They both agreed that hunters and homeowners have the right to own guns.
— They both agreed that we need "gun-free schools."
— They both agreed on making trigger locks available.
— They both agreed to support background checks at gun shows.
— They both agreed to follow "the golden rule."
— They both agreed on making the environment cleaner for our grandchildren.
— They both agreed on mandatory testing in schools.
— They both agreed on "local control" of schools." 

And the list went on. "It sounds like we have a love fest here tonight,"
remarked the commentator from CNN.


>4.  Nader asked Winona LaDuke, an important Native American leader,
>to support and run with him, despite his likely contribution to the
>victory of George W. Bush, a man who has stated that "state law is supreme
>when to comes to Indians," a breathtakingly dangerous position that ignores
>hundreds of treaties with tribal governments, long-standing federal policy
>and federal law affirming tribal sovereignty.

it took me a long time to track down this quote.  my own reading (based on the
unclear antecedent) was that nader had said "state law is supreme when to
comes
to Indians," -- well, here's the quote IN CONTEXT (from
http://www.igc.org/igc/gateway/arn/archive/arch091800.html):

"Republican Senator John McCain has earned plaudits as a staunch defender of
Indian rights. Beyond the Navajos in his home state of Arizona, tribes and
advocates nationwide respect McCain for his fluency in the oft-misunderstood
notion of tribal sovereignty. McCain racked up considerable cash from Indian
Country before dropping out of the presidential race.

Bush has evoked the opposite reaction. When Dubya campaigned through upstate
New York, he propounded the incorrect notion that "state law reigns supreme
when it comes to the Indians, whether it be gambling or any other issue."
Since
then, many tribes have dismissed Bush as lacking a serious grasp of Indian
affairs." 

again, either way you read it, sure, bush is not my choice for a candidate,
but
that is why i'm voting for nader.  there are many good reasons why winona
laduke is running with nader and i don't think it is my place to know what is
best for native americans.  the history of this country is full of people
knowing what would be best for native americans -- right now the green
party is
the only major party that has a native american running -- that should be
reason enough to sway anyone who thinks native american rights are important.


>3.  If I were to run for President in the same symbolic way, I would
>hope my friends and colleagues would have the sense to vote against me, too,
>saving me from waking up to discover that I had helped send George W. Bush
>to the most powerful position in the world.

so remember, don't vote for gloria if she runs.


>2.  There are one, two, three, or even four lifetime Supreme Court
>Justices who are likely to be appointed by the next President.  Bush has
>made clear by his record as Governor and appeals to the ultra-right wing
>that his appointments would overturn Roe v. Wade and reproductive freedom, 
>dismantle remedies for racial discrimination, oppose equal rights for gays
>and lesbians, oppose mandatory gun registration, oppose federal
>protections of endangered species, public lands, and water - and much more.
>Gore is the opposite on every one of these issues.  Gore has made clear that
>his appointments would uphold our hard won progress in those areas, and he
>has outlined advances in each one.

i have heard this argument so many times i couldn't even begin to count.  what
i'm VERY confused by is gloria's statement that "Gore is the opposite on every
one of these issues."  am i supposed to actually believe this?  since when was
gore appealing to the ultra-left wing?  since when was his record on
reproductive freedom unblemished?  does his dismantling of racial
discrimination include his support for a federal racial profiling law (see
point 5 above)?  as for protection of endangered species, public lands, and
water -- i can only assume that gloria is VERY out of the loop as to what has
been happening at the federal level on these issues during the last 8 years. 
nader has received A LOT of negative press for daring to mention that the
supreme court is NOT the end-all of legislation.  they interpret the
constitution -- a constitution that "we the people" can amend -- i'm not
saying
the appointments of bush and gore would be identical, i'm saying that neither
of them will appoint people i want making constitutional interpretations for
me.


>1.  The art of behaving ethically is behaving as if everything we do
>matters.  If we want Gore and not Bush in the White House, we have
>to vote for Gore and not Bush - out of self-respect.

it seems to me that this is the most poignant reason to vote for nader.  by
this reasoning, if you think nader would be best in the White House -- better
than gore, and better than bush, then vote for him -- "out of self-respect."

--sascha
meinrath at uiuc.edu 

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