Why Nader will go away for ever after outrageous comments

African Americans, and for that matter, Asian Americans, Latinos,Native Americans, Gays, Women, etc., all want to be appreciated and seen for their talents and abilities and not the color of their skin or their gender or sexual preference, as did my Austrian Jew Kibbutznik friend in 1980.True,the Kibbutznik chose to lose his Jewish identity as a Jew among Jews and America's minorities don't have that option. The goal, however is the same, even though the strategy to get to the goal may be different. To transcend racist, sexist, and hateful thinking is going to take a leap in consciousness and I think that leap is going to be spiritual in nature. It is going to be a radical inclusiveness.Deep down inside, we are all children of God, wanting to be loved and wanting to love as equals.It is not going to be ackowledged as spiritual in nature by some, and we people of faith are going to have to present our desire for radical inclusiveness at the table, in a universal way.

The focus has to be on healing.Healing is best accomplished by focusing on wholeness, wellness, oneness, and not illness. All that is going on that you accurately described, Bill, is the illness. The illness will go away when the right cure is given. The cure is the ackowledgement of all of God's children as brothers and sisters, then we go from there, breaking down barriers and institutions that prevent this.We can then build our brothers and sisters up through education, health care,etc. For those of us who know this, we have to proceed with haste and Obama has given us the biggest opening we have had since the sixties, lets go. It is time for change.It is time for new paradigms and ideaological constructs.

...that says it all about how the current party system, or 'two party dictatorship', works.

I believe the media, except for minor party websites, blogs, and other independent sites, totally ignored a joint statement put out in September by Ron Paul, Nader, Cynthia McKinney, and Chuck Baldwin about this:
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/61153

"The Republican/Democrat duopoly has, for far too long, ignored the most important issues facing our nation. However, alternate candidates Chuck Baldwin, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader agree with Ron Paul on four key principles central to the health of our nation. These principles should be key in the considerations of every voter this November and in every election."

"Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations.

"Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders.

"The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.

"The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds."

I have objections to parts of the last two principles. The debt's a huge problem, but FDR tried and failed to run a balanced budget during the depression and repudiated his platform plank within a year. It's a two-step process -- deficits now and catching up later. Deciding on what's too little and what's too much is rather a shot in the dark. Either way, disaster is near. The debt is definitely a long-term problem.

I also disagree with the statement on bailouts and subsidies. The credit system has to be restored to normal working order. That hasn't yet happened. But 'the people', through the government, should be getting a better deal than we've got so far. Example: Warren Buffet got a 10% yield on his preferred stock in Goldman Sachs. We got 5%. And Buffet got a better deal than we did on the common stock warrants, too. The Obama administration should go after these sweetheart deals. Will it? Or will Obama be a .. uh, toady?

As of this time, I don't believe Obama stands by any of these principles.

Steve -- One of the first comments I was going to make about your previously stated view of Nader (beginning at http://www.crossleft.org/node/6570#comment-54465) is that you don't understand him at all if you think that he was ever concerned with building a third party. His lack of interest in that is one of the reasons he's had a quirky relationship with the Green Party. His focus on his one big agenda item, corporate power, makes for an overlap or convergence of interests, but he will not subordinate his chosen mission to others' practical concerns.

I've suggested that his role should be thought of as a "prophet" and not as a "community organizer" or even a "perpetual candidate" type of person, like Harold Stassen, the perennial Republican candidate who ran in the primaries 9 times in the 12 campaigns from 1948 to 1992. As I've said before, imagine him as an Ezekiel, offending people by his strange, to them, symbolic statements calling for repentance or doom.

Although, in his anti-corporate quest, Nader is a 'populist', he's an odd kind of populist. He doesn't organize people, despite his calling for organizing against the corporate powers. He used to organize organizations -- advocacy organizations. You might call him a 'top-down' populist. He and the organizations he's spun off function as experts, testifying as advocates for 'the people' against 'the powers'. He's long on research and issue-raising, short on mobilizing. But that's Nader -- his strength and his weakness. It's up to others to make the most of what he has to offer.

And now back to what I consider to be the spurious issue of his 'racism'. If he had called Obama, or anyone else, an Uncle Tom, that would be unseemly. It's not good form for a white guy to do that. But that's the worst it would be. Unseemly not racist. Even you said only "not much of a right". But he didn't call Obama an Uncle Tom. People tend to hear what they want to hear -- I googled Obama-Nader-Uncle Tom, and found that at least half of the references had titles that indicated Nader had actually called Obama that. And almost all of them condemned Nader out of hand, regardless. Nader-hate is very common.

Although race isn't his focus, he has written on the subject. Here's a piece that he wrote for Counterpunch that was reprinted in The Black Commentator: A Product of Deep Poverty, Despair and Discrimination: AIDS in Black America (http://www.blackcommentator.com/195/195_aids_in_black_america_nader.html) How racist is that?

And here's a comment from The Black Commentator on "Uncle Tom":
http://www.blackcommentator.com/183/183_bruces_beat.html

"It seems that the definition of civility always depends on who does the defining and why. Ruling the term 'Uncle Tom' out of our lexicon as 'uncivil'..., besides being in line with current right wing complaints about the dialog African Americans have with each other, is just plain wrong. Banning that highly useful term is a way of shutting down discussion and analysis, a way to deprive us of a potent, historically and politically loaded term to describe a kind of dangerous and politically loaded behavior."

Considering that Obama has been, on balance, Wall Street's favorite candidate, it's appropriate to ask if he will be a toady to the financial industry and the corporate system, is it not? If that's okay, why not "Uncle Tom" instead of toady? Remember, it's not a charge, it's a question. For sensitivity's sake, the charge is best reserved for black commentators. Nevertheless, the reason for using "Uncle Tom" as a question is that the issue has already been raised by black commentators. Some worry that Obama, by virtue of his life experience of balancing identities and carefully and creatively negotiating the color line, and by virtue of the exigencies of political campaigning, has jettisoned almost in its entirety the "black agenda".

Although the rhetorical play of Uncle Sam vs Uncle Tom might be hard to resist, it would have been softened if Nader had framed it as an issue that has already been raised within 'the black community'. It it had been me, I would have stayed with something like 'toady'. But Nader is desperate to get visibility for his issue of corporate dominance and its tending toward 'fascism'. If you listen to the interview I linked to in my previous comment, you'll see that he is at a loss for how to break through the media barrier and how to get people moving on this issue. Provocative language can become irresistibly attractive. In his speeches and rallies, he gets small but enthusiastic crowds, but it's hard to leverage that into a mass appeal when the two parties and the media systematically freeze out the other parties. It makes it hard to bear, especially when you know that the platforms put forth by Nader and by the Greens would probably be supported by a majority or good plurality of the electorate.

Rather than him being out of touch with the times, you might just as well say that the times are out of touch with a large part of reality.

At a time when people, including me, are in a celebratory mood, we could use a band of prophets to remind us not to let our hopes and illusions run away with us. Pricking the balloons and getting us back down to earth is never out of place. However, it's never popular.