[Peace-discuss] Nader follies?

[C. G. Estabrook]

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, Morton K.Brussel wrote:

> Here's another contribution to the debate about the progressives'
> dilemma ... Joel Kovel ran against Ralph Nader in the 2000 Green Party
> presidential primary in New York and California, and was the Green
> Party’s candidate for US Senator from NY in 1998. His two most recent
> books are Red-Hunting in the Promised Land and The Enemy of Nature.

[Kovel's an interesting guy -- been around a long time and wrote an
original psychoanalytical take on racism years ago.  Here's an attack on
the opinion expressed in Kovel's article.  (I don't quite agree with
either.) --CGE]

	June 24, 2004
	Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
	Another Marxist for Kerry
	By BILL KAUFMAN

Life is full of bitter ironies! Behold the spectacle of Joel Kovel, who
loudly proclaims his credentials as a Marxist socialist, who ran against
Ralph Nader for the Green nomination from the left in 2000, claiming that
Nader failed to enunciate a sufficiently radical critique of the
capitalist system--this same Kovel is out of the closet as a cheerleader
for the prowar, pro-Patriot Act, pro-WTO and NAFTA John Kerry--loyal
servant of . . . capitalism!!!! How odd that there is not one word from
Kovel about Kerry's failure even to propose incremental progressive
reforms of capitalism--much less a comprehensive critique of it--in
Kovel's festival of political double standards, the ardent anticorporate
crusader Nader is found insufficiently radical, yet the craven DLC
corporate apologist Kerry merits not even a mild syllable of rebuke!

So now Nader's insufficient radicality of 2000 becomes transmogrified, in
Kovel's infinitely elastic mind, into Nader's excessive radicality in
2004! This from the same Kovel who, after his presidential aspirations
were rebuffed by the Greens in 2000, disappeared to write a book and thus
abstained from the Nader campaign, which was responsible for an explosive
growth in the Green Party. And this is the man who professes an ardent
concern for the growth and welfare of the Green Party? We are truly
through the looking glass now.

Behold further the "substance," such as it is, of the critique that
underlies Kovel's strenuous exercise in posturing and sneering at the
"Naderites": that there is some profound difference between the Democrats
and Republicans. Throttling the purple prose into overdrive, Kovel
breathlessly intones,

    "The problem is, however, that a very big difference between Democrats
and Republicans has evolved over the past generation or so. It has taken
root in the Bush administration, who have every intention of making it a
permanent feature of the political landscape. Look at Bush, at Rove, and
at Ashcroft, and you can see the newly malignant face of big business
linked with a massive social base of Christian fundamentalism. Its inner
logic points to the demolition of the Constitution and the replacement of
the Republic--however compromised this may be_by a theocratic brand of
fascism, in which the space for political change will shrink drastically,
and the lives of those who do not fit--women, homosexuals, Muslims, anyone
in the crosshairs of the police apparatus_will be greatly worsened. Nobody
in their right mind can say that the wretched Democrats promise the same."

Note the lack of a SINGLE SPECIFIC POLICY, the utter void of empirical
data, by which one might actually get a grip on this gooey gob of
fear-mongering. Could this unspecified threat to the Constitution be the
Patriot Act--the act so vociferously supported by most mainstream
Democrats, including John Kerry, but opposed by Nader? Could the threat to
the rights of homosexuals take the form of a ban on gay marriage, shared
by both Bush and Kerry but opposed by Nader? Perhaps the threat to the
rights of women was signaled by Kerry's announcement that he is open to
appointing antiabortion judges to the federal bench? Could the "fascist"
threat to democracy be prefigured in the systematic assault on the rights
of third parties, pursued most vigorously not by the Republicans but by
the Democrats, who endlessly rant about leftist "spoilers" of their
duopoly rights to office and who openly avow their intention to challenge
every one of Nader's petition signatures throughout the country? Or
perhaps Kovel is referring to Clinton's 1996 Anti-Terrorism bill, which
prefigured many of the most noxious features of the Patriot Act,
especially in its assault on the constitutional right of habeas corpus? Or
perhaps Kovel is speaking of WTO and NAFTA, so ardently pushed by
Clinton/Gore/Kerry, which threaten to dismantle the very EXISTENCE of
civil society throughout the planet by giving private corporations
standing to challenge the labor and environmental laws of sovereign
nations in private courts whose proceedings are closed to public scrutiny?
Now that REALLY IS FASCISM--corporate displacement of the public sphere of
civil society--yet Kovel's newly beloved Democrats have pushed this
authentically fascist threat just as hard as the Republicans.

Is it any of these SPEFICIC POLICIES, supported with equal tenacity by
Democrats and Republicans alike, that Kovel might be speaking about in his
overheated warnings that the sky is falling? Could it be these policies
that are propelling Kovel so swiftly into the arms of the Democrats, who
endorse all of them? Yet depending on the Democrats to defend us against
policies in which they are 100 percent complicit is so transparently
absurd and self-contradictory, that "no one in his right mind," as Kovel
none too delicately phrases it, could possibly seriously argue in favor of
it. All of which leads us to believe that Kovel is either (a) not serious
or (b) not in his right mind. Given the fact that Kovel is a psychoanalyst
who is professionally responsible for the rightness of mind of his
patients, I would much prefer to believe the former--that Kovel is having
a good joke on us. Yes, Kovel is having a good laugh at our
expense--contending that we should have preferred Kovel to Nader in 2000
because Ralph's criticisms of capitalism were not radical enough, and now
urging us to bypass Nader again because Ralph's criticisms are . . . too
radical! Good one, Dr. Kovel!

And what about all the "fascist" bogeymen Kovel parades before us to scare
us witless into supporting the corporate hack John Kerry? Bush, Rove,
Ashcroft, Cheney, et. al. The simple fact is that the Democrats--the very
same Democrats that Kovel now upholds as our last best line of defense
against the fascist onslaught--have had enough votes to filibuster and
thus block EVERY ONE OF BUSH'S CABINET APPOINTMENTS, INCLUDING ASHCROFT,
AND EVERY ONE OF BUSH'S NOXIOUS POLICY INITIATIVES, INCLUDING THE WAR, THE
PATRIOT ACT, THE TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH, NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, ETC., ETC.
Yet these bold "anti-fascist" Democrats somehow managed to roll over and
play dead. Yet these are the very people in whom Kovel wants us to invest
our hopes for warding off reaction--the Democrats who have PAVED THE WAY
for reaction at every turn. This reminds us of the way in which the
liberals and social democrats of Germany were equally docile in the
advances of Hitler's fascist initiatives. The lesson of history is
clear--it not by laying down our arms of criticism and trusting the agents
of the status quo that we can ward off threats to democracy. It iis only
through the indefatigable building of a strong, independent people's
movement that we can defend and extend democracy in the United States and
the world. And now that means vigorously supporting and building the
campaign of Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo--NOT by playing dead before the
Democrats so that they in turn can continue to play dead before the worst
depradations of the bipartisan imperial/corporate agenda of the Bush
administration and then, if elected, put a reassuing Clintonesque smiley
face on the very same policies.

So Joel--you're kidding, right?

Bill Kaufman can be reached at: kman484 at earthlink.net