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[Fwd]: Nader Endorsement
call 1-888-NADER-96 to help in the last week of the campaign
note that the "Pacific Party" is the green party in Oregon
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Subject: Willamette Week endorses Nader
Willamette Week, Portland's city newsweekly, endorsed Ralph Nader for
president in its Oct. 23 issue. It is a historic break from consistent
endorsement of Democrats for Willamette Week, a metropolitan-wide paper
with a press run of 75,000, one of the larger publications in Oregon.
Ralph was interviewed by Willamette Week when he was in Portland Oct. 18.
President
Ralph Nader
Pacific Party
With this election, WW breaks a tradition. For 20 years, we have always
endorsed a Democratic candidate for president-even sure losers like
McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis. This year, the Democratic candidate for
president is a sure bet to win. Nonetheless, a combination of our growing
skepticism for the two-party political system, an awareness of the deep
flaws in Bill Clinton and the extraordinary opportunity presented by the
candidacy of Ralph Nader lead us inexorably to a different kind of
endorsement in 1996.
There is, of course, a case to be made for Bill Clinton, a man who would
serve the majority of Americans better than his Republican opponent, Bob
Dole. We won't give much credit to Clinton for the American economy's
strength, but we will laud his efforts on a number of other fronts.
Because of Clinton there is a Brady Bill, an extension of the family leave
act and a reduced federal deficit. Because of Clinton, the Supreme Court
has been injected with some much-needed moderation. Because of Clinton,
this country still has affirmative action and now has more women and
minorities in federal posts than ever before. Because of Clinton, the
tobacco industry is finally on the run. On the foreign policy front,
Clinton's ventures have mostly been cautious, strategic and successful.
That said, there is much to dislike about Clinton's administration. There
is the matter of Clinton's ethical porousness, which even Democrats have
to admit is downright embarrassing. There are the perhaps unanswerable
questions about Filegate, Whitewater and the suicide of Vince Foster.
Clinton has also taken a number of positions that we dispute. We are
actually less concerned by his support for welfare reform than others. But
we are truly troubled by a number of other bills he has signed into law.
One is the 1995 telecommunications bill. This bill will lead to the
consolidation of the communications ons industry in a way that is frightening
to anyone interested in keeping media power from falling into the hands of
a few international conglomerates. Another example of Clinton's
injudicious politics is his approval of the salvage logging rider, which
allows the U.S. Forest Service to sell large stretches of ancient timber
without any kind of judicial or administrative review. Moreover, his
surrender to the auto industry on fuel-efficiency standards, his
willingness to weaken our civil liberties and his promotion, with tax
subsides, of this nation's arms-export industries all give weight to the
creeping feeling that Clinton's ideals have succumbed to realpolitik.
Our largest problem with Clinton, however, stems from his utter abdication
of any responsibility for cleaning up the cesspool that is our system of
campaign finance. Despite his claims to the contrary, Clinton has been the
central actor in a campaign of filthy fund-raising that Common Cause has
called the most corrupt in more than two decades. Enter Ralph Nader,
perhaps one of the few living Americans for whom the label "hero" is not
hyperbolic. Nader is campaigning on a platform of restoring the tools of
democracy, cleaning up the brothel that is Washington, D.C., and reining
in the excesses of global corporate hegemony.
For the past 30 years, Nader has worked tirelessly on behalf of average
Americans, and in so doing has managed to make the sometimes-callous
landscape of American capitalism more navigable. He first came into
prominence in 1965 with his effort to hold General Motors accountable for
its dangerous Corvair and has subsequently become almost synonymous with
the consumer-advocacy movement.
The man's legacy is breathtaking. Thanks to his efforts, we have workplace
safety regulations, environmental protection and food-packaging
guidelines. We have Nader spinoffs all over the country, including OSPIRG,
arguably the most effective consumer-advocacy group in Oregon.
The November election is a foregone conclusion. We are not naive enough to
believe that Ralph Nader will be elected president-or, frankly, that he
even wants the job. But we do not think a vote for him would be wasted.
It's what happens on Nov. 6 and beyond that concerns us. Will Washington,
D.C., continue along the path of least resistance? Or will a strong
showing for Nader help to build a movement that will seek to check the
unchallenged priorities of corporate globalization? Will it allow us
finally to come to grips with the corrosive influence that campaign money
has had on our democracy?
Nader says it will. He says that, with enough support, his work will
continue after the election to put in place a serious challenge to the
two-party duopoly that has, we are beginning to believe, outlived its
usefulness in Washington. A boost for a Nader-backed movement is our best
hope of sending Democrats a message that there are voters who are fed up
with Clinton's faux-progressiveness and that, if we put our collective
shoulders into it, we can start the boulder of a new politics rolling.
patmazza@teleport.COM Public Access User --- Not affiliated with Teleport
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 220-1016 (2400-14400, N81)
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a forum for anti-authoritarian political opinion, research
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------------------------------------------------------------
ELECTRONIC TEXT-ONLY VERSION
October 22, 1996 published weekly #7
In this issue:
Why Vote?
Election Review, Part 1: Federal & State
How This Could Work Better
They Have Got To Be Kidding
------------------------------------------------------------
New Web Site Address!
In our ongoing efforts to find ourselves in this bewildering
cyberuniverse, ETS! has changed (and improved) its web site.
Back issues and all sortsa spiffy links can now be found at:
http://speech.csun.edu/ben/news/ets/.
Many thanks to Ben (whoever he is!) for his great work in
getting us up and available; and to other folks who've
offered to help. We're not done yet as we sort out how best
to get the word out and link to the issues and events ETS!
readers care about.
Why Vote?
"Don't vote; it only encourages them." It's an anarchist
sentiment, but so widely shared you can buy it on a bumper
sticker at any truck stop in the country.
The only problem is, voting doesn't encourage them. Money
does. Politicians, and the big money that bankrolls them,
don't care what individuals do at the ballot box. Elections
in the U.S., especially at the federal and state level, are
so fundamentally corrupt that voters are irrelevant;
outcomes are purely a function of money and demography. The
only candidates who can conceivably win in 99% of such races
are so tied to business interests that control the two major
parties that when they must choose between the interests of
the public and the interests of the rich, the public almost
always loses.
"If voting could change things, it would be illegal."
So why vote?
While the U.S. makes voter registration more difficult than
virtually any other democracy, that's mostly a case of
hedging bets; elites don't fear a process that can mostly be
controlled by money. What they <ital> do <end ital> fear is
widespread citizen participation. Hence, "it's your civic
duty to vote" is a double-edged sword, because <ital> voting
by itself <end ital> is a dead end. What will change things
is so many people getting involved in the political process-
-far more involved than simply punching a card every year or
so--that they cannot be ignored, co-opted, or denied.
In the current setup, voting serves elite interests very
well, by convincing the rest of us that change is impossible
and we can't make a difference. But that doesn't mean the
process of voting itself is corrupt; just the rules
governing it. Rules that prohibit anyone other than the
wealthy from running; rules that discriminate against
independent or third party candidates; rules that discourage
lower income, younger, and inner city people from voting;
and so on.
There are two reasons why someone deeply distrustful of the
current political system, and the candidates it offers,
should still vote.
1) Elections, and campaigns, offer a gateway to greater
citizen interest in and (once we realize how badly we're
getting screwed) reclaiming of the political process.
2) There are occasionally races, particularly at the local
level, where one or a handful of people can have a real
impact, and where the contrast between candidates are so
clear that a small number of votes can make a difference in
peoples' lives and the future of a community.
The apathy induced by a public disaster like Clinton vs.
Dole will keep a lot of good people at home, and may well
allow extremely destructive people into lower offices. That
should be opposed. Also, good people do run for office--
usually not in the major parties--and even if they have no
chance of winning, their activism should be encouraged, and
they should be thanked, with our votes. Even though I
believe the process is irredeemably corrupt, I'll go to the
polls November 5.
Election Review, Part 1: Federal and State
Disclaimer: these are my biases and reasonings. Don't trust
them any more than you would those of any other publication.
Think for yourself!
<bold, underline> President<end b/u>. Absolutely the only
moral choice for President is Ralph Nader. Period.
Clark Humphrey in <ital> The Stranger <end ital> a few weeks
ago had a sarcastic aside (do they print any other kind?)
wondering why self-identified anarchists would vote for "Mr.
Regulation." It's simple, Clark. Anarchists--and anyone else
interested in curbing the abuses of the corporate megastate-
-want mechanisms that reign in the power of people who
control public policy. The state, primarily, expands that
power. Any proposals that decentralize power and that would
encourage public good, not corporate profits, as the basis
of public policy have to be supported. Ralph Nader is the
only candidate with any visibility even broaching these
subjects.
Even if the race between Clinton and Dole were in doubt,
these two venal politicians are so indistinguishably
destructive that each must be opposed. Clinton's rhetoric is
less offensive, but his track record--and the fact that
progressive politicians are less likely to oppose his
initiatives than Dole's--make him even more dangerous. It is
hard to find <ital> any <end ital> issue involving money on
which Clinton isn't at least arguably as bad as Reagan and
Bush: environment, military, welfare, free trade, corporate
welfare, civil liberties, prisons, drug war, bashing youth,
supporting dictators, corruption, judicial appointments, ad
nauseam. Moreover, unlike what you may have read in every
mainstream paper in the country, this abyssmal record isn't
a cynical move to the right; Clinton has always been there.
He was just as conservative as governor of Arkansas, just as
conservative in founding the DLC and in his '92 campaign.
There is absolutely no reason to believe a second term will
be better.
Bill Clinton is the clearest proof in decades that the
"lesser of two evils" approach is flat wrong. Don't waste
your vote on Clinton, Dole, or billionaire populist (now
there's a sick joke!) Ross Perot. Of the other ballot
choices, beware of Howard Phillips (right wing fascist),
John Hagelin (transcendental meditation as the national
religion) and Charles Collins (monetarist freak). Harry
Browne is, unfortunately, from the pro-corporate wing of the
Libertarians. Vote Nader.
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