[Peace-discuss] An immense amount to join Obama for president

[C. G. Estabrook]

In Illinois in 2000, it was clear that the Democratic nominee would win, 
so one could vote for Nader as a protest.

The key to the matter was given long ago by Boss Tweed, the head of New 
York's Tammany Hall in the 19th century: "I don't care who does the 
electing, just so long as I do the nominating."

Although democracy is hardly a matter of pulling a lever every four 
years, perhaps in this cycle we should try voting for an anti-war 
candidate, Ron Paul, in the Republican primary, 5 February 2008. We have 
open primaries in Illinois, and we know that the Democratic nominee will 
be pro-war.

We don't know what Gore would have done as president, of course, but we 
can get some idea from serious attention to his record, as in A. 
Cockburn and J. St. Clair, "Al Gore: A User's Manual." Remember that the 
Neocons were working on Clinton's administration before they switched to 
the Republicans, and not without success.

The possibility you mention indicates what a Democratic administration 
might have been like.

Remember too that political victories in the last generation -- voting 
rights and the end of Vietnam war -- came not from throwing the rascals 
out (we didn't), but from convincing the rascals who remained in all 
along that the country would be ungovernable if they didn't do the right 
thing. --CGE


Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> So what's the answer, Carl? Vote yr conscience and throw the election to 
> another Bush-type again, as folks did in 2000? Even Chomsky warned us 
> not to do that. We're always gonna have to vote for the lesser of two 
> evils, because the greater of two evils is truly truly much much worse. 
> You don't think Gore would have been as bad as Bush, surely? (not 
> counting dying in office and leaving Lieberman in charge). 
>  
> Jenifer
> 
> */"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>/* wrote:
> 
>     Obama's a trimmer, a suck-up to the present centers of power in the US.
>     See "Obama’s Audacious Deference to Power," by Paul Street
>     . --CGE
> 
> 
>     Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
>      > Yeah, it all comes down to $$$ -- it's the American way. Can't
>     win an
>      > election -- or even run a campaign -- without lots and lots of it. I
>      > think Obama's the best choice of viable candidates, so it didn't
>     bother
>      > me to forward the info...
>      >
>      > Jenifer