[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [sftalk] Open Letter to the Democratic Party by Ralph Nader

Fri Nov 1 09:05:57 CST 2002

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>Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 20:11:11 -0500
>Subject: [sftalk] Open Letter to the Democratic Party by Ralph  Nader
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>Published on Thursday, October 31, 2002 by CommonDreams.org
>Open Letter to the Democratic Party
>by Ralph Nader
>
>
>The Democrats should have an easy time winning control of the House 
>of Representatives and the Senate in next week's election. Recession 
>is deepening, unemployment is rising, and corporate corruption 
>headlines are proliferating. Health care costs, drug prices and the 
>number of Americans without health care coverage are all increasing. 
>Median household incomes are falling. Corporate crime has heavily 
>depleted 401Ks and other pension losses.
>
>These should all help the Democrats win against the 
>corporate-indentured Republicans marinated in corporate cash, soft 
>on corporate and environmental crimes and demonstrably anti-labor.
>
>Why then is the overall contest for Party control of Congress too 
>close to call? Because Democrats are not clearly, relentlessly and 
>aggressively emphasizing these fundamental issues to distinguish 
>themselves from the Republicans. Why? Are they unaware, neglectful 
>or torpid? No, their chronic ambiguity flows from being largely 
>indentured to the same monied commercial interests as the 
>Republicans.
>
>So Governor Shaheen of New Hampshire, running for the U.S. Senate, 
>refers to corporate crime as "corporate mismanagement" and other 
>Democratic candidates are allowing the Republicans to blur key 
>poll-tested issues like prescription drug benefits, tax cuts for the 
>super wealthy, and corporate crime enforcement.
>
>Voters want to know whose side candidates are on in their daily 
>struggles as workers, consumers, patients, small taxpayers and 
>savers on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the giant 
>corporations that pay for control of our government in order to get 
>all the goodies that come out of the hides of working families. 
>Fairness is the great issue in American politics, stupid!
>
>Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats won election after 
>election by conveying one singularly clear impression - that the 
>Republican Party was beholden to the wealthy and the Democratic 
>Party represented the working people. Karl Rove, in the Bush White 
>House, understands this history. That is why he is engaged in the 
>"blur and spur" strategy of fuzzing the hot-button issues to portray 
>the Republicans as fighters for ordinary Americans, instead of the 
>big businesses which own them. This is also why the Republicans are 
>using the spur of the drumbeats of war to distract the country away 
>from pressing domestic necessities, injustices and hazards.
>
>By a margin of nearly two to one the American people do not want a 
>war against Iraq that involves an invasion, American casualties and 
>essentially having the United States go it alone. Not when rigorous 
>UN inspectors can go to Iraq first.
>
>Even more Americans would join these citizens if the mass media 
>relayed the facts about how boxed in the militarily-weakened 
>dictator of Iraq is, surrounded by more powerful enemies (Iran, 
>Turkey, Israel), two-thirds of his country out of his rigid control 
>(no fly zones), deterred, contained and under 24-hour satellite 
>surveillance.
>
>More voters would be anti-war if there was greater media discussion 
>about the likelihood of awful civilian casualties and sickness among 
>the innocent children and adults of Iraq. Voters would also be 
>anti-war if Americans were given the facts about the opposition to 
>the touted conduct of this war from inside the Pentagon, among 
>retired military officers and other experts who believe the risks of 
>undermining the effort against terrorism, of generating a boomerang 
>of domestic terrorism around theworld and an endemic civil war in 
>Iraq (where the U.S. stays as expensive occupier) are not worth 
>toppling the government of Iraq by a unilateral invasion.
>
>When a group of Gulf War veterans had a news conference at the 
>National Press Club in Washington on October 24 to point out some of 
>these consequences (which included conditions, leading to the 
>sickness of 128,000 Gulf War veterans in 1991) the media did not 
>show up. (For their statements, see 
><http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/>www.veteransforcommonsense.org).
>
>The "cakewalk" view of the planned war widely espoused by the circle 
>of chickenhawks surrounding George W. Bush is obscuring serious 
>public debate about another possible outcome -- diverse human and 
>economic consequences adverse to U.S. and global security during and 
>after the war is over.
>
>The Democrats can still raise their voices for the people in the 
>next few days before November 5th, if they understand that waffling 
>rarely wins campaigns. The people want it straight talk and real 
>action.
>
>###
>
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-- 

Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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