The Endlessly Maddening (for Liberals) Case of Ralph Nader

[PhilipShore]

MOVIE REVIEW | 'AN UNREASONABLE MAN'

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/movies/31nade.html?bl&ex=1170392400&en=6372625cfc929005&ei=5087%0A

Early in the documentary “An Unreasonable Man,” it is noted that Ralph Nader is more likely to be remembered for his 2000 presidential campaign than for the decades of advocacy that preceded it. And the movie, an admiring but hardly uncritical portrait of Mr. Nader, confirms this suspicion by devoting nearly half of its more than two-hour running time to the 2000 election and its aftermath.

That event seems at once irrelevant and urgent, lost in the mists of pre-9/11 history and painfully topical. Certainly the passage of time has not cooled tempers or settled arguments. And so, much of the second half of “An Unreasonable Man,” directed by Steve Skrovan and Henriette Mantel (a former associate of Mr. Nader, she is also interviewed on camera), consists of talking heads talking past one another.

To liberal media critics like Eric Alterman and Todd Gitlin, Mr. Nader is “self-deluded,” “intellectually dishonest,” a “megalomaniac” and worse. His moral vanity, in their view (which is hardly theirs alone), cost Al Gore a decisive margin of victory over George W. Bush. Spoiling it for the Democrats, Mr. Nader’s detractors (among them some former allies) contend, was his intention all along.

This charge is disputed by members of his campaign staff, who also repeat his central claim that the Republicans and the Democrats are basically a two-headed corporate oligarchy, rather than genuinely distinct political forces.

[Stuckinthebush]

1. I'm still pissed at Nader

but I do think that he firmly believed he was in the right. He is correct that both parties are owned by the corporate oligarchy. I wonder though, if he had a crystal ball that told him what would happen with a Bush presidency, if he would have dropped out of the race to insure that Bush did not become president. Who would have thought that Bush would have been so damn bad for the world? Well, there are those of us here that worried about that, but even we didn't know for sure what type of havoc he would bring to the world.

Nader, to me, is a sad case of a man who has always wanted to do the right thing and wound up hurting the people he was fighting for. Honestly, while I'm pissed about 2000 still, I can continue to applaud him for his pro-consumer fights in the past.

[mike_c]

2. Nader exercised his constitutional rights as an American...

...and should never be faulted for it. If his candidacy damaged the nation, by helping Bush to win, then the problem lies with our electoral system, not with anyone who exercises their absolute rights within that system. It is time to get rid of two party democracy. We need a genuine multiparty electoral system that encourages representation for ALL Americans.

[newburgh]

3. Ignoring the voting mishaps of 2000 and blaming Nader is just more proof

for his oligarchy/duopoly statements. This has been a problem since 2000 and no Democrat, save for Mr. Conyers, has even tried to attend to it. Here we are in 2007 and this problem is barely making news or statements from Democrats in spite of stronger and stronger evidence proving that there are/were major problems. And now to read the Black Box Voting's "The road to Boondoggle is paved with good intentions" report that the liberal lobbyists were THE driving force behind DRE's! Thank god for bradblog.com or this huge issue would be totally ignored.

Mr. Nader is a strawman. What about the Dem/Rep continued collusion in allowing the corporations to control our government? That fact is the elephant in the room above all else....