by Gilles d'Aymery
(Swans - June 30, 2008) "Elections matter," asserted Al Gore as he was endorsing Barack Obama a week or so ago in Michigan. They especially matter when you lose them as in 1988, or they are stolen from you as in 2000 Florida and you do not fight for the ultimate prize -- and you cannot even win your home state of Tennessee (not a great record, Al, to be charitable...) -- or when the 2004 election was decided in Ohio through voting machine shenanigans controlled by a pal of Mr. Bush. But when you go to the poll and exercise your fundamental right and civic duty to cast your vote for the best candidate, you do take into consideration the issues that are important to you. At least you ought to. And on the issues, no one is better qualified than Ralph Nader -- not John McCain, not Barack Obama, not Bob Barr, and not the plethora of lesser-known candidates. Nader is the only public figure who has been issues-oriented for decades and consistently right on them. He's always fought the good fight, for the people, for the greater good of the country, for the Constitution. However, and putting aside the campaign of vilification against his good name, there are ample reasons why you would choose to not vote for the Nader-Gonzalez ticket next November. Here are a series of issues that will help you to cast your vote for another candidate. It's not an exhaustive list, but it does cover a wide range both domestically and internationally.
If, in regard to a comprehensive energy policy, you support the continuation of big subsidies to the oil industry and the subsidies for ethanol production based on corn, as well the $0.54 per gallon tariff imposed on Brazilian sugar cane based ethanol (which, incidentally is almost 8 times more efficient than corn based ethanol and has no incidence on the prices of feed stock and foodstuff); if you favor the construction of more nuclear plants at taxpayers' expense ignoring the cost and the danger; and if you give only lip service to alternative energies such as solar and wind power; if you think that a carbon pollution tax is a bad idea...
If you think that global warming is a figment of one's imagination and Al Gore's support of corporate-sponsored, profit-motivated solutions to a non-existing problem will do the trick...
If you have changed your mind on NAFTA and now support its continuation, disregarding the ravaging consequences on the Mexican economy and the directly-related immigration conundrum, all the while favoring the further militarization of our southern border, the building of more walls, and addressing the immigration issue in terms of national security rather than in terms of economics and human rights...
If you are satisfied with our for-profit non-universal health care system and oppose a non-for-profit single payer system, all the while paying much more per capita than any other country in the Western world, yet getting poorer results than most of those countries, and having close to 50 million people uninsured and another 40 million poorly insured...
If you have become an opponent of public financing of electoral campaigns after having favored it...
If you are satisfied with our voting system, which through plurality voting assures the dominance of the duopoly, and oppose majority vote with run-off elections, allowing you to get apoplectic about the so-called "spoilers"...
If you favor the death penalty and the three-strikes law, and further privatizing our penitentiary system...
If the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution has become meaningless to you and you favor the increase of governmental authority to eavesdrop on your private communications and give retroactive immunity to the big telecoms that have allegedly broken the laws of the land (if they hadn't why the need for immunity?)...
If you oppose a minimum $10 per hour living wage for workers in these days of rising energy and food prices...
If you cannot fathom the concept of a maximum wage...
If you believe that unions are a thing of the past and, accordingly, do not want to repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law...
If you think that we need not redirect the resources of our nation dramatically toward fixing our decaying infrastructure and our crumbling education system...
If you do not see the need to crack down on corporate crime and rip-offs, and take no issue with corporate personhood...
If you believe that highly-paid corporate lobbyists do not hold sway over the government...
If you consider that same-sex marriage is not a human and civil right...
If you believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution has nothing to do with states' militia, but is a recipe for individuals' right to bear arms as the Supreme Court just adjudicated...
If you deem it unnecessary to re-regulate investment and commercial banks by reinstating some kind of a Glass-Steagall Banking Act (enacted in 1933)...
If you think that a securities speculation tax on Wall Street profiteers and a higher margin call on speculators need not be implemented...
If you are adamantly opposed to extending unemployment benefits to twelve months in order to help the out-of-luck class and the general economy...
If you want to increase the bloated and wasteful military budget and bring over 90,000 more troops to the line of death...
If you want to keep occupying Iraq and Afghanistan for years and decades to come; are willing to bomb "targets" in Pakistan or any other countries you deem a "potential" enemy...
If you are willing to militarily attack Iran on the bogus claim that the mullahs are developing a nuclear bomb; that you want your "leader" to do everything in his power -- everything -- to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb that the country is not developing; that nothing is left off the table, meaning a nuclear strike against Iran is an action you'd support...
If you want to see East Jerusalem be an integrated part of an undivided capital of Israel forever, in total contravention of International Law and human decency... If you want to keep promoting the Israeli strategy to further colonize the West Bank all the way to the Jordan River, steal Palestinian lands, keep developing Apartheid-like policies, and lead to the expulsion of the Palestinian population, all the while arming that little Sparta to the brink at taxpayers' expense... And if you have no second thoughts about witnessing your favorite candidate of either party perform a perfunctory genuflexion in front of an august AIPAC assembly...
If you want to keep blockading Cuba and put in place more "robust" policies to destabilize or overthrow democratically-elected governments in Latin America if those governments are not in lockstep with US corporate interests...
If these are the "changes you can believe in"...
...Then, by all means, please do not vote for the Nader-Gonzalez ticket, because what you believe is the antinomy of the programmatic platform of these two candidates. You are supporters of, and ought to support Barack Obama, whose platform closely reflects your belief system and frame of reference.
On June 18, 2008, Luke Russert gave a touching tribute to his father at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. The young 22-year-old talked with great poise and love for his father. Toward the end of his tribute he said something that the corporate media did not want us to hear:
Imagine a Meet The Press Special Edition, live from St. Peter's Gate.
Maybe Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr will be on for a full hour, debating.
Perhaps JFK and Barry Goldwater will give their two cents about the 2008 election.
[Then Luke paused and quite deliberately added (my emphasis).]
And, we can even have Teddy Roosevelt for the full hour talking about the need for a Third Party.
That last sentence was conveniently cut from the main media orgy of celebrating obituaries, but that young man, a well-educated child of privilege, was breaking the mold. He knew that the issues are not being addressed by the duopoly, that the status quo is set in full force, and that we desperately need a third-party contender. Perhaps the young Russert was expressing publicly a sentiment that his father shared but could not utter due to his position within the corridors of power (remember that Ralph Nader announced he was running again on Meet The Press with Tim Russert).
Issues count, indeed, and elections do matter. That's why we advocate voting for Ralph Nader. We do not want votes to be wasted.