As someone who held my nose and voted for Gore (because Michigan was a
swing state), it's never clear to me why people choose to blame those who
voted for Nader. It seems to me that the real culprits are the Bush
brothers for effectively stealing the election in Florida as well as Gore
for failing to attract more voters in places like Tennessee and West
Virginia and for failing to use more aggressive tactics in post-election
campaign in Florida.
***************************************************************************
Matthew J. Countryman
Assistant Professor of History and American Culture
1029 Tisch Hall 1003
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
734 647-2434
On Wed, 16 Oct 2002 PNFPNF@aol.com wrote:
> Yes, a number of persons noted on this list during the last presidential
> election that it might be a moment to vote the lesser evil, and certainly it
> seems so in retrospect--consider that the French avoided LePen with "the
> crook not the fascist" and so are in less of a pickle than either we or the
> Israelis (too many of whom abstained at the time from voting for a corrupt
> etc. and so got Sharon). However, the real culprit seems to have been the
> huge number of persons not voting because they have been brainwashed into a
> sense of helplessness and cynicism over politics, whether through propaganda
> or quite real experience. And the lesson right now seems to be that this same
> sense of pointlessness/futility needs to got through, especially in those in
> their 30s or 40s, who seem the worst in this regard (some of the
> early/mid-twenties kids, maybe fearing the draft, maybe just wanting to live,
> seem to be moving). So, how do we do that? --I know, in my own case, in my
> 1957 or 1958, a very few students were forming a College SANE on campus, and
> to my "How can we possibly prevent nuclear war?" one woman said, "But suppose
> in Russia too some students are organizing and we can begin to [dialogue] and
> then the [adults] see it is possible. . ." Just a few lines that happened to
> get through; are there lines we can use now? Also are there lines, questions,
> we can ask the "mass" of people who feel Bush etc. are protecting them, are
> "doing a good job" ["Oh, how?" does not enough work, though you'd think it
> would!]--questions that will make people see the contradictions between their
> beliefs and what they're believing re Bush etc.?
> Paula
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Oct 28 2002 - 14:41:57 EST