“I’ll reform Wall Street and fix Washington,” McCain says. That’s bold talk. And it’s a lie. Perhaps, the Arizona Senator never received the memo. For, Washington has been in Wall Street’s pocket–and the pocket of anyone else with money to spend–for generations. Populist rhetoric isn’t going to get the job done. The only person in Washington who cares enough to change the score is Ralph Nader, and the establishment has effectively silenced his campaign.
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17 years ago on a very cold and windy snowy day in Washington DC, I was standing on 19th and M looking for a cab to go the airport around noontime.
An impossible task.
A pretty ramschackle (even by DC standards) taxi pulls up. There is a passenger in the back.
Driver rolls down the window and says that his passenger is only going one block more and if I’m going to the station or the airport, I should get in.
I did.
The passenger was Ralph Nader.
So even though the establishment is silencing him so he doesn’t siphon off votes from one of the candidates, I endorse his kindness and thoughtfulness and secon Mr. Burn’s nomination even though Ralph Nader would ban salami from the school lunch program.
I would love to live in a country without a two-party system, where thinkers like Nader and Ron Paul and parties like the Greens and the Libertarians could be any more than a spoiler.
Unfortunately, government’s role at this point in time is to perpetuate the status quo and protect the oligarchy, not allow for real change.
I believe Obama is an exceptional leader with a keen mind, a big heart, and some great ideas, but we’re still hearing pretty much the typical Democrat spiel in this campaign. I’m not sure it’s his fault, he has to play the hand he’s dealt.
Still, he’s better than the alternative.
We’re starting to see a side of John McCain that seems a lot less grounded than the old maverick he used to be. He actually seems more like Bush than ever.
Tom,
interesting, the nader story. Recently an Obama door to door salesperson came to talk to me. This person summed me up good from my house and clothing that i might be an obama voter.
Course my decision is more to vote or not to vote.
I immediately said that, or i could vote for nader again. Response was with anawkward sigh:
oh no, that’s all we need now is another nader voter.
I’m just saying… don’t insult us past old nader voters… or we tend to stay home and dig up the weeds in the sidewalk cracks so grassroot campaigns take hold.
who needs washington?
PS: I also remember the survey the voting researchers sent around to high school kids in the year 2000. You really don’t want me to elaborate on those details.
oh, a kinda nader story…
last year when I was traveling through heaven and hell at the same time, i managed to read nader’s Seventeen Traditions in a book store. Sorry, ralph, I didn’t buy it, but i did visit the website. Then a couple days later i ended up traveling through his town in a simpler more quaint connecticut than the connecticut on the coast. However, I was speeding well over the limit in a 30 zone. I was driving a rental car with massachusetts plates.
When the cop pulled me over I told him i wasn’t going to a funeral, but i was going to a hospice, which is actually more urgent than a funeral. I think he thought i was just telling stories. He took my license and saw i was from Indiana, an even more country bumpkin state. Anyway, the cop looked me in the eye after that, believed my story (and it was true), and said i should slow down because he doesn’t want to see me in a bad place, too. I saved the warning ticket and tucked it away in my Nader book that i did buy years ago about politics. (Actually, ralph, i would rather have the seventeen traditions book. it’s your best stuff.) and thought his place has his spirit or he got his spirit from this place.