[Peace-discuss] Nader follies?

[Morton K.Brussel]

I think that the bitter vituperation (That's what it is.) in Kaufman's 
piece is elicited by the validity of what Kovel said in his article. 
There seems more venom about Democrats and Kerry than there ever seems 
to appear against Bush from these people. Some of the bitterness may be 
due to some of what some Democrats say, although I think they greatly 
exxagerate. I don't find the same tone in The Nation, which they like 
to castigate as they do Kovel. I think that is the crux of the 
argument.  MKB


On Jun 27, 2004, at 1:30 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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