OUT SOON FROM CORPORATE WATCH:

WITHER THE ALTERNATIVE

A Corporate Watch US Election Special

“Sooner or later, you're gonna listen to Ralph Nader”
The Buzzcocks, I Hate Fast Cars (1978)


NADER ON CORPORATE POWER

"Our country and its principles are abandoned by the very economic powers that control our destiny. Autocratic global corporations are deep into strategic planning. They openly and confidently strive to control our jobs; our environment; our political and educational institutions; our food, drugs, and other consumptions; our savings; our childhoods; our culture; even our genetic futures. Toward these ends, they incessantly move to control our elections and our governmental institutions."
Ralph Nader, Independent US Presidential candidate, The Good Fight(2004)


NADER ON POVERTY

"In 1941, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis made a prescient observation when he wrote: “We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both.” Today, that concentration of wealth and its political power has reached stunning intensities. In large companies, people who work in the same enterprise are now earning $1 for every $416 that the CEO takes away. In 1940, it was $1 for every $12. Today the financial wealth of the top 1% of households exceeds the combined wealth of the bottom 95% of American households. Earlier this year Bill Gates’ wealth was equal to the combined wealth of the poorest 120 million Americans. Whatever this enormous imbalance says about the Great software imitator from Redmond, Washington, it means that about tens of millions of Americans, who work year after year, decade after decade, are nearly broke. What democracy worth its salt would have led to this profound inequity?"

Ralph Nader, 2004


NADER ON IRAQ

"We want to have a responsible six-month withdrawal of the US military and corporate occupation, and an internationally supervised election, so that the Iraqi people don't feel that they're facing a permanent military occupation and the control of their oil resources and of public government. If they feel that, the majority of the Iraqis are going to support the insurgency. They're not going to distance themselves from the insurgency."

Ralph Nader, 2004



THE 'MAIN' PARTIES

“Do you want to get fucked by someone who tells you they're going to fuck you, or do you want to get fucked by someone who lies to you and then fucks you?'

Michael Moore, Stupid White Men (2002)

“The Democrats say one thing ('Save the Planet') and then do another – quietly holding hands behind the scenes with the bastards who make this world a dirtier, meaner place. The Republicans just come right out and give the bastards a corner office in the West Wing. That's the difference'.

Michael Moore, Stupid White Men (2002)

“Friends, you are being misled and hoodwinked by a bunch of professional 'liberals' who did NOTHING themselves for eight years to clean up these messes – and who now can't stop themselves from attacking people like Ralph Nader, who has devoted his entire life to evey single one of these causes. What unmitigated gall! They blame Nader for giving us Bush? I blame THEM for being Bush! They suck off the same corporate teat”

Michael Moore, Stupid White Men (2002)


FACT

“Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who approved the data on which the purge was based, was also Bush’s Florida election campaign director. She later had the privilege of declaring George W. Bush the winner of Florida’s 21 electoral votes, and thereby President of the United States, by a margin of 537 votes over Al Gore. The more than 90,000 voters wrongly targeted by the purge would have overwhelmingly voted for Gore, giving him Florida’s electoral votes and the presidency.”

The Real Florida Election Story (2003) (based on Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy)


ASTONISHING OUTBREAK OF COLLECTIVE AMNESIA.

“Why Nader could be the nail in Democrats' coffin”
- He holds just a few per cent of the votes, but that could be enough to tip the scales the Republican way - just as it did in 2000, reports Paul Harris (UK Observer Sunday October 3, 2004)

“Ralph Nader...the leftist spoiler candidate” (UK Daily Telegraph 5.10.2004)

“If the Independent Ralph Nader was not running (Kerry's) lead would grow to 49 points” (UK Independent 4.10.2004)

“Democrats fear Nader could ruin new support” (UK Times 4.10.2004)

“Nader – seen as the possible spoiler for John Kerry's chances” (UK Independent 20.9.2004)

“Nader...blamed by many Democrats for costing Al Gore the White House in 2000” (UK Daily Telegraph 16.9.2004)


AND WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED TO MICHAEL MOORE?

“The anger now levelled at Nader seems so personal, so intense, from Baby Boomers who blame him for Gore losing the election (he didn't lose). I look at these individuals...and I wonder why Nader seems so personally threatening to them. It's taken a while but I think I've got it figured out: Nader represents who they used to be but no longer are. He never changed. He never lost the faith, never compromised, never gave up. That's why they hate him”

Michael Moore, Stupid White Men (2002)


“I've been very disappointed and very saddened by Ralph...in his later years he has become, you know, somewhat bitter and vindictive”

Michael Moore (UK Observer 23.5.2004)


“At the end of his speech, (Michael) Moore handed out underwear and ramen noodles to students who pledged to vote for Kerry.” (Associated Press Saturday October 9th, 2004)


THE EFFECT ON THE US VOTER?

“Funny you should ask about Nader - I have a personal history there. I voted for the guy in the 2000 election... in Florida... so I turned out to be one of those 500-something votes that won Bush the election. I have huge respect for Nader as a person and an activist, but there's no way I'm voting for him again.”

Email from Florida (October 2004)


THE EFFECT ON THE UK...

“Mr Nader, who has been distracted by attempts to get on the ballot, has had little time to campaign here”

Guardian reporter Gary Younge's interpretation of Democrat lawyers' frantic attempts to keep Nader off the presidential ballot 6.10.04


Number of articles featuring John Kerry in the UK press over the last month (LexisNexus search 6.10.04): way over 1000

Number of articles featuring Ralph Nader in the UK press over the last month (LexisNexus search 6.10.04): 32 (all bar two naming Nader in passing).


SO WHAT ABOUT THE GREENS?

“The Greens' sensibility is still counterculture, but they've become far more inclusive, recruiting union members and urban minorities while also talking about governing issues with less froth, more substance. Double the minimum wage to $10 an hour. Repeal the NAFTA and WTO agreements, also the Taft-Hartley Act. End poverty -- literally -- with a new system to guarantee "sustainable livelihoods" for all, worthy work and living wages, decentralized economics and politics, an economy transformed to sustain nature rather than destroy it. "There are no good-paying jobs on a dead planet," Cobb observes.”

CBS News, 12 October 2004

Number of references to David Cobb, US Green party presidential candidate, in the UK press over the last month (LexisNexus search 6.10.04): 2 (both in passing)


“He who pays for the media is free to invent the truth”
Phil Toms, New Zealand (posted on Indymedia UK)

Ummm...Ralph Nader isn't the Green candidate. He's running as a Reform Party candidate
in most states.

Matt

nader isn't standing as a green you dolt.

Nader is a fool. He's just helping Bush get re-elected. Its like those Respect arses helping Labour keep their seats by taking voting of the Lib Dems. I don't support the Lib Dems or the Democrats in the US but tactically its better to have either of them in than the respective incumbents.

Come on there must be a few people on the old Island who understand something about the world - everyone who is aware of anything is voting for Bush - he is the only teacher and the only positive influence on revolutionary forces ever!

Without Bush we would have nothing. Kerry and the Liberals are like Blair - they get away with murder and discredit the whole idea of politics democracy and resistance..

Wake up liberal fools - to vote for Kerry is to vote to hide the ugliness and corruption of all things - I am sure that no one will respond to this comment with even an atom of brain cells -0 - but please do -
Anarchist especially must vote Bush - it sthe only time that voting makes sense - Go ralph - go Iraqi insurgents - go gog go