AS THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DRAWS NEAR IT IS TIME TO SUPPORT THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES-I'll ask my supporters in Kansas to vote for Nader-Gonzalez, but others need to decide carefully whom to choose on other state ballots
By KEVIN A. STODA, former progressive candidate for President
I have been watching the ability of the Nader-Gonzalez ticket to succeed in getting on the Kansas' and another 44 state ballots. That is pretty good for a pair of candidates on a shoestring budget.
I have also appreciated the daily e-mails with consistently good insight on the enfolding financial and quality of living crises in the USA in 2008. Sign up for those mails here at http://www.votenader.org/ .
One of the more recent blogs from the independent candidates' website cites Noam Chomsky and John Dewey in the same breath on economy, politics, and business: The article is entitled POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS.
"As Noam Chomsky put it this week: 'The United States effectively has a one-party system, the business party, with two factions, Republicans and Democrats.'"
While John Dewey noted, "Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business."
POWER POLITICS AND KANSAS VOTER OPTIONS 2008
According to Nader, John Dewey defined power in the American system as "business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity and propaganda".
Another recent blog by Nader is "In the Public Interest: Derivative Casino." In the blog, Nader reminds us political economic historians, "In 1995, Congress enacted the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA) of 1995, which imposed onerous restrictions on plaintiffs suing wrongdoers in the stock market. The law was enacted in the wake of Orange County, California's government bankruptcy caused by abuses in derivatives trading. An amendment offered by Rep. Ed Markey would have exempted derivatives trading abuse lawsuits from the PSLRA restrictions. In defeating the amendment, then-Representative and now-SEC Chairman Chris Cox quoted Alan Greenspan, saying "it would be a grave error to demonize derivatives;' and, 'It would be a serious mistake to respond to these developments [in Orange County, California] by singling out derivative instruments for special regulatory treatment.'"
Nader reminds us that Greenspan and Congress were sleeping at the helm in the 1990s (as well as in this decade) in protecting American pensioner and investor interests. This was done simply for short term gains on the stock market.
This writing of Nader is on par with Paul Krugman's writings-and Krugman just got the Nobel Prize in economics. This is the sort of analytical eye that a third party can bring to American politics-if Americans allow both third parties and alternative candidates to come forward and threaten the system, as Ross Perot did in 1992.
In Kansas currently, McCain has a 12 to 14 percent lead over Obama, so I do not foresee me endangering Obama's chances of kicking the badly run Republican Party out of the White House.
KANSAS ALTERNATIVES FOR PREZ
Meanwhile, Kansas has a number of other candidates on the presidential list this year. There are the Libertarians, with Barr and Root as presidential and vice-presidential posts. Moreover, there is the perennial Reform Party, with Baldwin and Castle topping their party lists.
Interestingly, the Kansas State authorities tried to have Chuck Baldwin taken off the ballot in September, but this has been cleared up.
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