Inasmuch as the Sixties list has no line on anything whatever, I don't understand
Tom Nagy's unsubscription, unless he would have the list censor out people who
don't agree with him.
Bill Mandel
nagy wrote:
> Ok folks, I quit!
> The so called '60's list serve shows it's true colors as a toy of the
> Demo-Rebl. party.
> I quit. Unsubscribe me.
> Tom
>
> P.s. Apologies to folks suffering from the decline of the stockmarket.
>
> >===== Original Message From radman <resist@best.com> =====
> >The US election crisis: why is Ralph Nader silent?
> >
> ><http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/nad-n24.shtml>
> >
> >By Jerry White
> >24 November 2000
> >
> >Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader has maintained a deafening
> >silence on the political crisis surrounding the results of the US elections.
> >During his campaign, Nader correctly criticized corporate domination of the
> >American two-party system as tantamount to the disenfranchisement of the
> >broad masses of the American people and an affront to democratic rights.
> >Yet in the face of a concerted effort by the most reactionary forces within
> >the political establishment, who are lined up behind the Bush camp, to use
> >patently anti-democratic methods and appeals to right-wing sentiment to
> >gain control of the White House, Nader has not uttered a word of protest.
> >It is remarkable that a presidential candidate who won 3 percent of the
> >national vote, including nearly 100,000 votes in Florida, and presented
> >himself as a progressive alternative to the Democrats and Republicans
> >should have nothing to say about the events of the past two weeks. A public
> >statement from Nader denouncing the attempt of the Bush campaign to gain
> >the White House through the suppression of votes would undoubtedly
> >strengthen popular opposition to the Republicans' machinations.
> >Yet in several public appearances and television, radio and newspaper
> >interviews since the election, Nader has said nothing about the election
> >controversy. A spokesman at Nader's Washington, DC headquarters confirmed
> >that the Green Party candidate had issued no public statements on the
> >subject. When this reporter asked why, the spokesman said, "We're not
> >deeply involved in what is going on down there. This is just a political
> >battle between the Democrats and Republicans." When asked how Nader could
> >remain silent about widespread charges of Republican vote-rigging and
> >intimidation of minority voters, in which fundamental issues of democratic
> >rights were at stake, the spokesman said, "It's Mr. Nader's prerogative to
> >do so."
> >How is Nader's silence to be explained? As his spokesperson indicated, he
> >considers the electoral impasse to be nothing more than a dispute over the
> >spoils of government between two identical corporate-controlled parties. It
> >is something that ordinary people need not particularly concern themselves
> >with.
> >But how could that be? How could working people adopt an attitude of
> >indifference toward political forces on the right prepared to ride
> >roughshod over their democratic rights, as part of an effort to take full
> >control of the levers of power?
> >The working class must oppose the attacks on basic rights, but it must do
> >so from its own independent standpoint and with its own
> >methods. Opposition to the Republican right does not imply giving
> >political support to Al Gore and the Democrats. Experience has shown that
> >this party is incapable of seriously defending democratic rights against
> >the reactionaries in the Republican Party. What this crisis poses to the
> >working class is the need to construct it own political party, based on a
> >democratic and socialist program, to defend the interests of the vast
> >majority of American people.
> >Nader's refusal to oppose the Republican-led attack on democratic rights
> >demonstrates that his organization has no real independence from the ruling
> >elite. His "plague on both your houses" position may appear radical, but in
> >reality it is a form of adaptation and capitulation to the extreme
> >right-wing forces that dominate the Republican Party. Precisely because the
> >Greens are not based on the working class, in fact, they reject the very
> >notion of the class struggle, they are incapable of mounting any resistance
> >to the overt attacks on fundamental rights.
> >Nader's silence on the current crisis is consistent with his mechanical and
> >false conception that, because in an absolute sense an identity exists
> >between the two parties, insofar as they both represent the interests of
> >American big business, there cannot be any relative differences. But, of
> >course, such relative differences exist, and in times of political crisis
> >they can play a critical role in developments that affect broad masses of
> >people.
> >It is true that corporate interests dominate both parties and that the
> >political differences between them have narrowed as the political spectrum
> >of official politics has lurched to the right. But it is also true that
> >over the past decade a ferocious battle has been under way between these
> >two parties. This must have an objective source in conflicts between
> >different sections of America's economic and political elite.
> >The struggle within the ruling elite has escalated from a series of phony
> >investigations against the Clinton administration, to the shutdown of the
> >federal government, to the first-ever impeachment of a sitting president,
> >to the current effort by the Republicans to hijack the election. To pretend
> >that these events have no political significance is to deny reality.
> >The Republican Party is controlled by extreme right-wing forces, which
> >speak ultimately for powerful sections of the corporate establishment who
> >consider even Clinton's conservative policies an obstacle to the far more
> >extreme right-wing agenda they seek to impose on the country. They are
> >determined to lift all restrictions on the accumulation of personal wealth
> >and the exploitation of the working class. To achieve this, the Republicans
> >and their religious right, racist and fascistic supporters are prepared to
> >overturn democratic norms and constitutional rights.
> >The Democrats, who have increasingly turned their backs on the workers and
> >minorities in whose name they once claimed to speak, represent other
> >sections of the ruling elite and more privileged social layers, who seek to
> >defend the interests of American capitalism through the more traditional
> >channels of bourgeois democracy.
> >For working people to sit idly by while this battle is fought out within
> >ruling circles is to court disaster. The basic issue involved here is not
> >the fate of Gore or Bush, but the fate of the democratic rights of the
> >American people.
> >Nader's banal and complacent views were highlighted in recent remarks about
> >the results of the election. In a November 17 interview on National Public
> >Radio's Talk of the Nation program he said, "What's next? I don't think
> >anything is going to happen regardless of whether Bush or Gore is elected.
> >They will be deadlocked. It's too evenly divided. I don't think there are
> >going to be any major changes in direction."
> >Nader also told the New York Times that if Bush prevailed, his very narrow
> >margin, the closely divided Congress and the Texas governor's own
> >personality would limit the damage he could do. "He doesn't know very
> >much," Nader said of Bush. "He is not very energetic. He doesn't like
> >controversy."
> >This is an utterly false assessment. Does it make any sense that the forces
> >behind Bush, who have been prepared to throw the country into a
> >constitutional crisis and raise the specter of divisions not seen since the
> >Civil War, are suddenly going to opt for a more moderate course once they
> >take the White House? On the contrary, sensing that their position is
> >increasingly weak and unpopular, they will push ahead with their
> >reactionary agenda.
> >Nader, of course, does recognize that there are differences between the two
> >parties. That is why he spent much of his time answering arguments that he
> >was taking votes away from the Democrats, not the Republicans, and calling
> >on the Democrats to return to their "progressive roots."
> >Much more is involved on Nader's part than a theoretical error or a false
> >appraisal of the dispute between the two parties. His silence is also bound
> >up with political calculations of a reactionary character. Nader has said
> >nothing about the Republicans' actions in the election campaign because he
> >does not want to alienate right-wing forces whose support he is courting.
> >This is not new. In his acceptance speech at the Green Party convention in
> >June, Nader counseled Green members to appeal to conservative voters by
> >saying his campaign championed "traditional, not extreme values," such as
> >opposition to the "voyeurism of the media." He made no secret about
> >appealing to supporters of Senator John McCain and backers of even more
> >right-wing political figures.
> >He made common cause with Reform Party presidential candidate Patrick
> >Buchanan, joining the ultra-right politician in protectionist campaigns
> >against trade agreements with Mexico and China, which Nader declared were
> >"subverting American sovereignty."
> >Finally, Nader expressed support for the Republican impeachment drive
> >against President Clinton. In the course of his presidential bid he said he
> >opposed the Senate acquittal of Clinton, and declared that he would have
> >voted to remove Clinton from office. He reiterated this at a New York press
> >conference before the election, saying, "Clinton should have been convicted
> >by the Senate. He disgraced the office and lied under oath. Matters like
> >these cannot go without sanction."
> >By siding with the forces behind the impeachment campaign and in remaining
> >silent during the present political crisis Nader has, in objective terms,
> >aided and abetted the camp of right-wing reaction.
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