Since 2000, when he claimed there was no difference between Republicans and Democrats, Ralph Nader has had blood on his hands.
By his own admission, on Sunday’s Meet the Press, pollsters indicate that 39% of the votes he received in Florida in 2000 would have gone to Gore, with only 25% to Bush. He fails to follow the math to its conclusion, though -- a clear Gore win in Florida by 13,111 votes – if Nader had not run.
Nader didn't mind because he got what he wanted in 2000 -- party clashes.
In the August 2000 issue of Outside Magazine, it was reported that when Nader was asked if threatened with a gun to his head, who would he vote for – Gore or Bush – he immediately said, “Bush.” Why? “If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win.”
With almost 4000 American military dead, to say nothing of the multi-fold more disabled, poorly cared for, often with ruined marriages and families, together with estimates between 88,000 to almost a million Iraqi citizens, leaving a dangerously angry generation of uneducated orphans – all as a result of the Bush administration’s determination, beyond reason, to oust Saddam Hussein and control the future of the oil-rich land – there is a lot of blood that has been shed. In a war that was a phony response to 9/11.
Al Gore would not done this to Iraq – or to Americans. Therein lies a huge difference.
When Nader ran again in 2004 – despite Bill Maher and Michael Moore publicly dropping to their knees before their former hero, on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher”, and begging him not to run – he claimed it was because he alone was willing to end the war in Iraq – the war his ego facilitated.
Nader’s 2004 run was largely unsupported and pathetic, especially when he knowingly accepted – and defended – donations from top Republicans aiming to split the democratic vote.
Now, in 2008, Nader claims he must run again, this time to take on corporate control of the government. Again he seeks to fix what he made worse. It was his interference in majority rule that put the U.S. government in the hands of the most corporate-friendly President in history – the man who filled Cabinet posts with the lobbyists who had fought federal agency oversight.
Al Gore would not have populated the entire executive branch with industry lobbyists aiming to censor scientific evidence. Another major difference.
Whatever Gore's flaws, these unarguable differences have had significant, deadly consequences.
If Ralph Nader were the man he once was – the crusader for American consumers – he would put his energy into the important voting issues that have been rampant since 2000 - the Help America Vote Act (written by the corrupt and jailed Congressman Bob Ney under the influence of Diebold money transferred by Jack Abramoff), the hackable voting machines, the illegitimate purging of voter registration lists, the uncounted ballots, the corporate intimidation of election officials. There was an important role for Nader to play.
Instead, Ralph Nader has forsaken us. And “We, the People” are worse off for his betrayal.
We owe it to our selves, our families, and to the world, to see this 2008 candidacy for what it must be: empty, without value, and over.
