Ralph Nader is a self-centered ass hat!

The BBQ Pit
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I think I finally understand erislover’s thinking on the point. His criterion is a party that is likely to win at some point, whether it be during an election or sometime in the future. Mondale may not have been likely to win the presidency in 1984, but the Democrats were likely to win seats in Congress in 1984 or 1986, and the Democrats as a whole would have had a chance to win the Oval Office again in 1988. And so on and so forth every two years. Whereas third parties and independent candidates, like Anderson in 1980 and Nader in 1996 and 2000, have no chance of winning ever - at least if they don’t garner 5% of the vote during a national election and thus qualify for federal election funds. erislover sees the national political arena as it has been for the last century or so - Republicans and Democrats dominating the field and taking action to keep it that way - and thinks this is going to be the Way It Is, world without end, glory hallelujah. He doesn’t understand that such things are not fixed, that they can and do change. So he assumes that the not-so-conservative party is the only one that will ever be able to represent the interests of the liberal center and the left in the US, despite their record to the contrary. Therefore, black not being white, any vote that is not directly for this not-so-conservative party is a vote either directly or indirectly for the conservative party.

Keep those blinders on, buddy, and don’t come crying to the Pit when Kerry inevitably disappoints you.

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So you deny there was any major grassroots political activism in the US around the question of legalizing abortion nationally, and if not, that such activism had no effect on the Supreme Court’s decision whatsoever?

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Nope.

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A President with minority backing can still negotiate support from select members of the opposing party, creating some degree of effect.

But Ralphie-boy would have nothing to trade.

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Oh BTW, Olentzero ?

Please explain how the difficulties of a Democrat absolve your “candidate” <NelsonMuntz>HA-HA!</NelsonMuntz> from being totally impotent himself?

Yes, do—explain to us all how somebody else’s problems (solvable ones) makes your “candidate” viable? :rolleyes:

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Then how would you have justified voting for Mondale in 1984 when it was clear he wasn’t going to win?

Bosda, you self-satisfied little asshat whinger, I never said anything about Nader’s viability. I was trying to point out that the Democrats aren’t any more immune from being politically hamstrung than you make Nader out to be. Simply saying “Nader would have a rough time of it with Congress” is not a sufficient argument for not voting for him.

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I am denying that the activism had a significant effect, or even a small effect.

Please relate to me which judge switched his vote on the basis of all this activism.

And OBTW, also explain why 30 years of concerted right-wing activism -at a higher intensity than Planned Parenthood could muster by the way- has failed to overturn Rowe v. Wade.

-------- erislover sees the national political arena as it has been for the last century or so - Republicans and Democrats dominating the field and taking action to keep it that way - and thinks this is going to be the Way It Is, world without end, glory hallelujah. He doesn’t understand that such things are not fixed, that they can and do change.

Sure things change. But it is difficult to think of an example where a non-centrist third party has ever risen to the top 2 slots.

I find it interesting that so-called radical leftists don’t get up in arms about an electoral system that does such a mediocre job of reflecting public preferences. Heck, from the looks of this thread, it appears that democratic theory isn’t even of passing interest.

I chalk it up to feel-goodism trumping analysis. But YMMV.

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…barring the independent and prior collapse of one of the two main parties, of course.

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HA-HA! I struck a nerve, there! Here, I’ll stick him again.

Nader would not have a “rough time of it”, you illiterate, fanatical monkey-humper! He would be totally impotent! All that your crazed jabber & popskull-addled yammering demonstrates is your complete ignorance of the US Constitution.

The President can’t do fuck all without funding from Congress.

I hope Crazy Ralph has a lot of friends in the wind power industry, 'cause he’s not even gonna get the bread to light the White House from Congress.

HEY! Anybody notice that the word “ralph” is slang for “vomit”? Some things are so suitable, you’d think it was planned. :smiley:

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I am reminded of Michael Parenti’s take on the 1980 election.

Brief Historical Review
Ronald Reagan was going up against Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter had his work cut out, given that he chose to fight inflation at the end of his term, rather than in the beginning, as a typical politician would have done.

Carter’s reluctance to put the lives of the US hostages in Iran at risk also hurt, as did backdoor dealings of Reagan’s advisors with the Iranian government. There were also the usual Republican nationalistic appeals, of course.

On the plus side, Carter maintained that Reagan was an extremist, prone to deficit spending and a believer in economic theories that lacked any sort of empirical evidence. In short, Reagan promoted voodoo economics.

And now on with our story
Anyway, Parenti was at a party following Reagan’s victory. Many in the room were shaking their heads, while Parenti couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. After all, the Democrats and Republicans were the same, right? Neither would nationalize the commanding heights of the economy or even Coca Cola. It was difficult for poor Mr. Parenti to spot the differences between Carter and Reagan.

An associate of Parenti’s told him to pipe down: there were El Salvadorans in the room. You see, they weren’t particularly happy about a Reagan victory. Although I trust that they admired the worker’s vanguard as much as the next guy, there was the small matter of military support for the El Salvadoran generals, which put their families at risk.

It was these small differences- you know, life and death- that to them distinguished the Democrats from the Republicans.

Sometime later Parenti began to appreciate these distinctions. It is unfortunate that not all have caught on, however. Ah well, the wheels of progress turn slowly.

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Uh… yeah.

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Well, I took some time to read up on the case, reading the opinions, finding out which President appointed which justices, reading transcripts of the oral arguments. But it wasn’t the information I was looking for. I guess what I really need is transcripts from the confirmation hearings for Burger, Blackmun, and Powell - three justices appointed by Nixon, who in during the 1972 campaign called the Democrats the party of “amnesty, acid, and abortion” - thin evidence, yes, but obviously a polarizing statement meant to portray himself as an opponent thereof. It would seem apparent, then, that if Nixon packed the court with appointments, he’d do it with justices whose views matched his own on the major issues, like abortion. If he wanted to keep it either illegal or severely restricted, he’d try to appoint judges who would deny legal challenges to the individual state laws. At the same time, the womens’ liberation fight had been heating up. and the demand for abortion was at the top of the list. The period from 1969 to 1973 saw literally hundreds of protests - like the “Women’s Strike for Equality” in Aug 1970 that drew 50,000. I honestly regret I don’t have more on this, but given the small amount of evidence I do have, I’d be honestly very surprised if there were no correlation at all between activism on women’s rights in the 1970s and the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade.

The case may not be overturned, but plenty of other legislation has chipped away at it - like the Hyde Amendment, parental notification laws, the furor over intact dilation and extraction (“partial birth”, as it is wrongly called), and so on - so that it has very little effective power today. Were it otherwise, abortions would be available in far more than the 10% of the US counties it’s available in today. Right-wing activism has been just as effective in reducing a woman’s right to an abortion as left-wing activism was in getting that right granted in 1973.

Maybe not here, not yet - but it has happened. Britain’s Labor Party was a party of the extreme left when it first got its start in the 1800s. Now look at 'em. There’s no iron-clad feature of the US political arena against a non-centrist third party repeating the feat.

Oh, I despise the Electoral College jes’ fine and think it ought to be thrown out lock, stock, and barrel. But that’s not the subject of this Pit thread, is it?

Parenti wasn’t all that far off in his assessment of the Democrats and the Republicans, really - Carter funded opponents of the Sandinistas through the CIA and sent $10 million in military aid and advisors before he left office. Would he have stopped that cold in 1981 had he been re-elected? I find it hard to believe.

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Olentzero
— Roe v. Wade:
Well, you present weak evidence, which I suppose beats, “no evidence” which is what I have offered. I believe there’s a copy of Woodward’s The Brethren floating in the M4M archives, but I can’t put my hand on it now. My impression though is that justices tend to ignore letter writing campaigns, although admittedly they do pay attention to public opinion, witness their shifting stance on gay rights.

At any rate, I would note that the right’s ability to chip away at reproductive freedom is directly proportional to their successes at the electoral level. Luckily, the Christian right is susceptible to symbolic gestures: apparently the occasional theocratic mumbling and fortuitous glurging goes a long way with that crowd.

----- Britain’s Labor Party
I’ll look into that hypothesis. (I suspect that this thread will die beforehand though).

---- Oh, I despise the Electoral College jes’ fine …

Um, ok, but I’m not talking about the Electoral college. I’m talking about “Winner-take-all voting”, also known as, “First-past-the-post” voting. It’s what permits a POV reflecting 20% of the population to be marginalized in public debate.

---- Carter:

Sandinista:
In Nicaragua, I doubt whether Carter would have supported the Contras, like Reagan did, eventually in conflict with US law.

In El Salvador, Carter’s support for the Generals was diminishing. Reagan’s support increased.

Whether a small dictatorship is funded to the tune of $10 million or $100 million actually matters.

Hm. I used to table for CISPES, as it happens. Funny how my recollection is so foggy.

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The above is just unrealistic, but that’s not the really offensive part of what you said. This is:

You’re saying it would be nice if people who supported third parties all moved to the same area. No, it’s not more realistic that they’d want to remain in THEIR HOMES AND COMMUNITIES while simultaneously being represented by politicians who support their issues; that’s too much to ask. No, according to you, they ought to relocate to be with other radical weirdos. BUT THEN you go on to say that if they don’t, they’re not on the moral high road, they’re just voting third party and thinking that’s enough. Fucking ridiculous.

No, you are just too blinkered to see that your system would totally eliminate the possibility of voting third party EVER because they will NEVER (according to you) have a chance of winning. But you won’t admit that you are adamantly against third parties. Why? It’s glaringly obvious. Just be honest for one second, willya?

No, I’m in favor of a multi-party system. It’s you who desperately needs to conflate that with being for Bush.

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The campaign for abortion rights was anything but a letter-writing campaign (although that may have happened as well). Public opinion was manifested pretty effectively in the years leading up to Roe v Wade, and, as you say, it seems the justices paid attention to it.

I’m not entirely against it, really. I’d just like to see the arena opened to more parties.

Quantitatively, yes. One party gave less money than the other. Qualitatively, no - both parties were involved in supporting a viciously bloody and undemocratic regime to support their countries’ own foreign policy interests, when they clearly had no business doing so.

Did you think at that time that $10 million was a more acceptable sum than $100 million, or were you in favor of the US completely withdrawing from El Salvador?

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Jesus Christ, are you intentionally ignoring my posts as a whole and focusing on them one at a time, hoping to nitpick your way to glory here? I support third parties, I think politics needs many parties, I want proportional representation, elected by party line voting in multi-seat elections and approval or single transferrable voting in single-seat elections. What I don’t want is to sit around and pretend that any of this will just happen because I’m voting for a third party. It won’t. One of the ways third parties could increase their representation is to take their very small numbers and come together in one place. That’s just knowing how fucking voting works and winners are elected. Six percent of the national vote, and you think you’ll be able to get all these greens in the office to represent you? Don’t be fucking stupid. Just don’t. There are ways it will happen. Pining for “integrity” in votes isn’t going to do it; appealing to your own self-righteous bullshit isn’t, either.

It is a (note the singular) fucking suggestion and it would actually accomplish something. Contrast this to voting, and whining afterwards. One method has a realizable goal; the other has self-centered asshats (courtesey of the OP).

Are you becoming more stupid as the thread goes on? I know I’ll never vote third party under this voting system!

Because I am not against third parties. What I am for are voting systems that encourage third parties. Such systems enable you to vote for candidates you like a lot without hurting candidates you also approve of, only less so. This, of course, would be a step forward for third parties. Allowing people to effectively (STV) or literally (approval voting) vote for more than one person would definitely encourage third parties. I trust that is obvious. If I hate third parties so much, why on earth would I be so vocal of a proponent for voting systems which benefit the little guys more than the bigger guys (partly line)?

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So let’s turn your own comments on you: what are you doing to change the voting system, besides whining about it and voting for Democrats?

But you honestly think that failing to support third parties with your vote AND trying to talk other people out of voting for them helps third parties?

The problem is that I think there are many people who are registered Democrats who would be better represented by the Green party or other alternate parties, but like you, they vote for the lesser of the two evils instead of the greater good. I really don’t think you’re fighting ignorance by trying to convince people to continue supporting the status quo and just whining about the voting system to no avail.

Whatever. I’m doing a fuck of a lot more than just pining and appealing. I don’t need to offer your my resume to feel good about how I’m doing my part to work some change in American politics. Before you call me self-righteous, just remember who is trying to convince whom to betray whose conscience.

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Eris: Maybe I’m dreaming, but I don’t think it’s impossible for the US to switch to approval voting or whatever.

IIRC (I sure hope IRC) the Constitution says that the states chose those in the House of Representatives. There is nothing stopping them from pooling a few districts and having them chose a group of Reps. This would automatically stop gerrymandering, which may make the plan sellable.

The downside is that the set of Reps would cover larger districts. Still, if a group of Reps are covering an area that is (say) less than 50 miles on a side, I don’t see too much room for complaint.

Once a single state switches to this system, then there would be a pretty strong demonstration effect, IMHO.

Oddly, discussion of this issue is fairly rare in nonacademic circles.

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I suspect that insofar as the justices were affected, newspaper editorials played a much larger role than demonstrations.

<<Some of our disagreements are getting fact-intensive, btw. Let me tell you what I’ve found out about the British Labor party. It was formed in 1900, won its first 2 seats in 1902 and won over 50 seats in 1906. This is from memory of an Encyclopedia of World History. My WAG is that they got Liberals to switch parties in certain districts. Another WAG is that these first few districts were overwhelmingly non-conservative. A third hypothesis is that parties voted as blocks at that time, so a member of Parlement could only reliably “vote his conscience” if he opted out of the Liberal party. Consider this an intermim report, although again, this thread will probably die before I gather more info.>>>

Yeah, so would I. But I act on the basis of the world that I live in, not the world I want to live in. I suspect that this outlook of mine (and Eris’) is a semi-fundamental tempermental difference between us (although it could be characterized differently, of course).

Here’s a pretty good example.
First, here are some links (which I’ve skimmed, only)
El Salvador
http://www.icomm.ca/carecen/page75.html
Nicaragua:
http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/niessayx.htm

In Nicaragua, Carter was not friendly to the Sandanistas. Nonetheless, I doubt whether he would have followed the policy of “Rollback” that Reagan did. That is, Carter would not have directed the CIA to organize and arm the Contras.

To me, there is a big distinction between, “Not supporting the Sandanistas” and “Arming the Contras”: for one thing, the latter costs human lives.

Olent appears to think that the 2 policies are qualitatively similar. As I am focused on the direct consequences of these policies on human life and welfare, the 2 policies appear to me to be qualitatively different.

Of course, the fact that I am generally skeptical about the inevitable benefits of “Revolution”, slants my thinking. Mind you, I’m not unilaterally against all revolutions: I merely believe they should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Sorry for the meandering and length of this post.

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No kidding. I’m reminded of the old joke, “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.” As for your research on the Labor Party, I still maintain that Labor was to the left of the Liberal Party and is therefore a non-centrist party that successfully rose to the top 2 slots of a national political scene. And therefore I maintain that such a feat is possible here in the US as well.

I’d run across one of those articles in my own research (the icomm article) but the other one I hadn’t seen yet, and I think they both reinforce my point. Here are a few quotes for illustrative purposes. From icomm:

You’ll note that Carter shifted his policy because of conservative criticism. Had there actually been a qualitative difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, I think it likely Carter would have defended his approach on its own merits. Instead he capitulated to the right. But with what effect? From the NS Archive site:

It doesn’t matter whether it was Carter’s $10 million or Reagan’s $100 million, the goal was to prevent a successful uprising and revolution by the Sandinistas, and both Carter’s and Reagan’s actions had a tangible cost in human lives. Call it “rollback” or call it “democratization”, Carter has Nicaraguan blood on his hands same as Reagan.

Similarly, the doctrine of “regime change” in Iraq was written in 1998, under the Clinton-Gore administration. The whole brouhaha about Iraqi WMD, which this administration now admits don’t exist, started under Clinton as well. The whole basis for this stupid war and occupation was laid during a Democratic tenure in the Oval Office. And the next Democratic contender for the job wants to keep it going. We already see what the effects are - an angry native population steadily coalescing into a resistance movement, US troops angry because they’ve been there far too long and want to come home, and the only reconstruction going on benefits the companies sent in to dismantle the old economy. Why in the hell would I want to vote for a Democratic candidate who thinks continuing a program, which another Democrat set into motion and is now being zealously overseen by Republicans, is a good idea?