[Peace] Norman Solomon's plea.

[Brussel Morton K.]

To which I agree…  The effort should be to prevent a MaCain-Palin  
administration. As Solomon notes, it is disturbing that

The Nader campaign actually seems to be gunning for swing states in  
the stretch drive of the campaign, as if to maximize the chances that  
the Nader-Gonzalez ticket could be a factor in how the electoral  
votes end up being divided. Last week the Nader campaign announced  
that, beginning on Oct. 28, "Mr. Nader will make his final rounds  
campaigning in traditional swing states Florida, Ohio, Michigan and  
Pennsylvania."

As if he would prefer to see Obama defeated. Will they then celebrate?


Needed for This Election: A Great Rejection

October, 30 2008 By Norman Solomon

It could be a start -- a clear national rejection of the extreme  
right-wing brew that has saturated the executive branch for nearly  
eight years.

What's emerging for Election Day is a common front against the dumbed- 
down demagoguery that's now epitomized and led by John McCain and  
Sarah Palin.

A large margin of victory over the McCain-Palin ticket, repudiating  
what it stands for, is needed -- and absolutely insufficient. It's a  
start along a long uphill climb to get this country onto a course  
that approximates sanity.

McCain's only real hope is to achieve the election equivalent of  
drawing an inside straight -- capturing the electoral votes of some  
key swing states by slim margins. His small window of possible  
victory is near closing. Progressives should help to slam it shut.

Like it or not, the scale of a national rejection of McCain-Palin and  
Bush would be measured -- in terms of state power and perceived  
political momentum -- along a continuum that ranges from squeaker to  
landslide. It's in the interests of progressives for the scale to be  
closer to landslide than squeaker.

As McCain's strategists aim to thread an electoral-vote needle, it  
cannot be said with certainty that they will fail. Who can credibly  
declare that an aggregate of anti-democratic factors -- such as  
purged voting rolls, onerous requirements for voter ID, imposed  
obstacles to voting that target people of color, inequities in  
distribution of voting machines, not counting some votes as they are  
cast, anti-Obama racism and other factors -- could not combine to  
bring a "victory" resulting in a President McCain and a Vice  
President Palin come Jan. 20, 2009?

Under these circumstances, the wider the real margin for Obama over  
McCain, the less likely that McCain can claim sufficient electoral  
votes to become president.

Progressives are mostly on board with the Obama campaign, even though  
-- on paper, with his name removed -- few of his positions deserve  
the "progressive" label. We shouldn't deceive ourselves into seeing  
Obama as someone he's not. Yet an Obama presidency offers the  
possibilities that persistent organizing and coalition-building at  
the grassroots could be effective at moving national policy in a  
progressive direction. In contrast, a McCain presidency offers  
possibilities that are extremely grim.

  Some progressives, as a matter of principle, have come to a  
different conclusion. They're eager to cast their votes for a  
presidential candidate (Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney) who can't win.

Of course people's votes are entirely their own, to do with as they  
see fit. But the right to do something is distinct from the wisdom of  
doing it.

Last week, a mass email from the Nader for President 2008 campaign  
began by telling supporters: "Ralph Nader is at 5 percent in The Show  
Me State -- Missouri. And he's moving up. That's according to the  
most recent CNN/Time Missouri poll." The celebratory tone of the  
message was notable. Nader was polling at 5 percent in a crucial  
swing state -- where polls showed that McCain and Obama were in a  
dead heat. No wonder, on the same day as the email message, McCain  
spoke at rallies in suburbs of St. Louis and Kansas City.

Nader's potential effect on the election may be too small to increase  
the chances of a McCain victory. But from all indications, even if  
McCain and Obama were tied in polls across the country, the Nader  
campaign would be proceeding as it is now. What does that tell us  
about the logic of pressing forward with a vanguard approach even if  
it might serve the interests of right-wing forces that most  
progressives are straining to roll back in this election?

 From the 1960s through the '90s, Ralph Nader had an unparalleled  
record of fighting for progressive reform. But the 2008 campaign of  
Nader and running-mate Matt Gonzalez has a frozen-in-time quality.  
Their campaign makes an electoral argument that focuses largely on  
Democrats, not Republicans. Much of Nader's pitch for votes is  
centering on the charge that Democrats are as corporate and  
compromised as ever -- and in many ways he's right. But he ignores  
the reality that Republican leaders keep getting worse and more right- 
wing; they are clearly more dangerous than many assumed a decade ago.

The historical trend is clear: Bush-Cheney have been further right  
and more reckless than even Newt Gingrich, who was further right than  
Ronald Reagan, who was further right than his Republican  
predecessors. And Palin speaks for herself.

My former co-author Jeff Cohen puts it this way: "Focusing on  
Democratic corruption is not the problem. The problem is developing  
an electoral strategy that fails to acknowledge how increasingly  
extremist Republicans are. It reminds me of that George Carlin joke:  
'Here's a partial score from the West Coast -- Dodgers 5.' An  
electoral strategy has to assess the current positions of BOTH teams."

At this point, is an Obama victory a cinch? Maybe not. Consider this  
New York Times reporting published on Oct. 24: "Pollsters say there  
has never been a year when polling has been so problematic, given the  
uncertainty of who is going to vote in what is shaping up as an  
electorate larger than ever. While most national polls give Mr. Obama  
a relatively comfortable lead, in many statewide polls, Mr. Obama and  
Mr. McCain are much more closely matched. Even a small shift in the  
national number could deliver some of the closer states into the  
McCain camp, making an Electoral College victory at least possible."

In fact, it's possible that Obama could win a clear victory in the  
popular vote while McCain manages to claim enough electoral votes to  
move into the White House. Crucial to such an outcome would be  
Missouri (which, as the Times notes, "has been a bellwether in every  
White House race during the last century except 1956"). Is taking  
that risk worth the satisfaction of getting a couple percent of the  
vote for Ralph Nader for president in 2008?

The Nader campaign actually seems to be gunning for swing states in  
the stretch drive of the campaign, as if to maximize the chances that  
the Nader-Gonzalez ticket could be a factor in how the electoral  
votes end up being divided. Last week the Nader campaign announced  
that, beginning on Oct. 28, "Mr. Nader will make his final rounds  
campaigning in traditional swing states Florida, Ohio, Michigan and  
Pennsylvania."

All year, the Nader campaign has been asking rhetorical questions  
such as (in the words of an Oct. 22 press advisory): "Why is it that  
so-called liberals and progressives continue to support Democratic  
candidates like Obama whose campaign slogans and rhetoric do not  
match their stated positions and voting records?"

And: "Why do we progressives continue to delude ourselves that we  
stand for core, liberal values and then work for candidates who  
demonstrate that they have no commitment to these values?"

This fall, the answers to these largely valid questions revolve  
around a truth that trumps many others: A McCain-Palin administration  
would be such a disaster that we want to do what we can to prevent it.

When I've spoken to dozens of audiences during the two months since  
the Democratic National Convention (where I was an elected Obama  
delegate), there's been an overwhelmingly positive response when I  
make a simple statement about Obama and the prospects of an Obama  
presidency: "The best way to avoid becoming disillusioned is to not  
have illusions in the first place."

Looking past the election, progressives will need to mobilize for a  
comprehensive agenda including economic justice, guaranteed  
healthcare for all, civil liberties, environmental protection and  
demilitarization.

The forces arrayed against far-reaching progressive change are  
massive and unrelenting. If an Obama victory is declared next week,  
those forces will be regrouping in front of our eyes -- with right- 
wing elements looking for backup from corporate and pro-war  
Democrats. How much leverage these forces exercise on an Obama  
presidency would heavily depend on the extent to which progressives  
are willing and able to put up a fight.

It's a fight we should welcome.


Norman Solomon's books include "War Made Easy: How Presidents and  
Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" and "Made Love, Got War: Close  
Encounters with America's Warfare State." For information, go to:  
www.normansolomon.com




From:
Z Space - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL:
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3665
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