[Peace-discuss] Nader follies?

[Morton K.Brussel]

Here's another contribution to the debate about the progressives' 
dilemma. It was written before the Green convention, which rejected 
endorsing Nader-Camejo, so the first paragraph is out of date.  MKB

  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.

Green Follies

by Joel Kovel; June 24, 2004


A shocking scenario is unfolding before our eyes which, if carried 
through, will constitute the greatest mistake made by the left in many 
years. A small but very determined fraction of the Green Party is 
prepared to package Ralph Nader with Peter Camejo, the Green 
Gubernatorial candidate in California in 2002 and Nader’s 
just-announced Vice-Presidential choice, in a drive to capture the 
Green’s "endorsement" (Nader is not eligible for the party’s 
nomination) in the upcoming national convention this weekend in 
Milwaukee. Camejo’s presence on the ticket undercuts the objection that 
Nader has no real connection to the party’s base, and it touched off 
the internet equivalent of jubilation on the lists controlled by Greens 
of this persuasion.

  "Imagine hundreds of thousands of Greens hitting the streets all 
across the country energized by the strongest progressive ticket in a 
generation," waxed one such Naderite, omitting to ponder the fact that 
a strenuous petition campaign for Nader barely managed to clear 300 
signatures among Greens. But in one of those flukes tossed up from time 
to time by history, it may actually turn out that a tiny coterie could 
squeeze an endorsement out of the convention . . . which could turn 
over the 22 state ballot lines controlled by the Greens to Nader/Camejo 
. . . which could result in toss-up states like Oregon, Wisconsin and 
New Mexico going over to the Republicans . . . which could give us four 
more years of you-know-who.

  Nader has been straining to argue that he will pull in as many 
disaffected Republican as Democratic votes. But the selection of a 
Vice-Presidential candidate demonstrably to his left puts the quietus 
to that dubious line of reasoning. The only practical "success" he can 
now have will be to bring W. back to the White House. Remember the 
nursery rhyme about how, for want of a nail, the battle and then the 
war was lost? Well, the same could be said for the scenario now 
unfolding, except that what is wanting now is political intelligence 
and a sense of proportion among some Greens who should know better.

The Naderite Greens scoff at such arguments, having convinced 
themselves that the chief thing in this world is to defeat the 
Democratic Party so the Greens can take over rightful ownership of the 
Progressive side of the political spectrum. To this fraction, the 
Democrats are like the image of Moby Dick in the mind of Captain Ahab: 
the concentration of all evil in the universe. Thus you will learn, if 
you read their unending email postings, that criticism of Nader is a 
plot engineered by the Democrats, that Kerry is a greater danger than 
Bush because he will be more effective, that the notion of "anybody but 
Bush" is a sign of cowardice, and that the real problem is not Bush but 
"Bushism," a new word for a phenomenon as old as G.W. Bush himself, 
namely, that both mainstream parties share in the crafting of US 
imperialism.

The Naderite Greens can’t seem to understand that a necessary concept 
may not be sufficient to explain what is taking place politically. In 
fact, they don’t really reason politically at all, but reduce politics 
to economics. Because both mainstream parties are tools of big money 
(think of the $100 million Kerry has raked in by running as a centrist 
Republican), big money is the puppeteer pulling their strings. And as 
big money demands militarism and imperialism, then its puppet parties 
will dance its dance. But politics is about much more than economics. 
It also includes struggle over the way people live, the way governments 
achieve legitimacy, and the conditions that allow or block change. 
These things really matter and they cannot be reduced to a simplistic 
economic formula. The Naderite Greens pass them by, because if they 
admitted that there can be real differences between the mainstream 
parties, they might have to give up their fantasies about 
party-building and their attachment to the charismatic Nader.

  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.

Nader seems incapable of grasping this qualitative distinction, and his 
loyal band of Greens goes along, caught up, for the third time, no 
less, in hero worship, and oblivious to the fact that the essential 
principle of Green politics is grassroots democracy. The Greens have a 
perfectly respectable candidate in David Cobb, who rose through the 
ranks. But because Cobb has shown some sensitivity to the extreme 
danger posed by another Bush administration, the Naderites attack him 
as a virtual agent of the Democratic Party as they fantasize about the 
great social movement Ralph Nader is going to unleash in America.

  A lose-lose situation looms. To the extent that Nader succeeds, so 
does Bush. And in any case, the left will emerge weaker and more 
divided from this Quixotic escapade. Once again the left has become its 
own worst enemy.

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