I don't know how important is what Nader did or didn't re Vietnam. Certainly
we accepted and respected in the antiwar movement the later joiners--the V V
A W folks, for instance. My objection is rather to those who DID struggle
against the war--and injustices--then, and now will do nothing or have become
reactionary, whether in obvious or in gross "little" daily ways (for
instance, it is sadly NOT the ex-60s lawyers who'll be helping me in a
struggle against agism); I am bothered every time persons I knew in struggle
now sigh and say "there'll always be war" or "that's how it is" or variants
on "dog eat dog" [popular phrase, recent years, again; let's guess
why]...particularly when, then, their secretary asks if I'd like some water
or a coffee...
My objection is also to those--including some on this list, I
suspect--whose support for Nader this election has not considered the effects
even a few years of Bush, however NEAR-identical the Dems and the Reps, will
have on those on the edge--the single(once-would've-had-at-least-welfare)
mothes who'll have to give up their kids, the kids who'll die from latchkey
dangers, the old persons--hey, how many of us?--who won't get the
slightly-more-expensive treatments needed for an illness--and so on. Which
is NOT to say vote for Gore--hey, Nader/Greens may have a chance to build to
what we'd want--or to start to, but then the estab. will...but then maybe we
will... My point is, rather, that it is important not to be too academic
or abstract in this, but to remember there are, in short and long term both,
real lives at stake, maybe our own, maybe someone's we care about--or
maybe...another soul, a person (or animal, or tree, or endangered lake)...
Paula
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