Clinton's book and Nader

[Michael Costello]

I went to Barnes and Noble and browsed Clinton's book yesterday.

He didn't talk about the DLC much, although he mentioned he was in it, and that they had Republicanish ideas about business, the military and some other things. I saw him on C-SPAN the other day and he said he was "pro-business and pro-labor" (no wonder he was called Slick Willie).

All of this left a bad taste in my mouth. It reminded me of Hillary's book where she watched the Labor Party in England and said them singing The Red Flag and calling each other comrade was "outdated".

All of this in a country where the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage is below what it was thirty years ago, hours worked has increased to where it's #1 in the industrial world ahead of Japan, more and more prisons are being built to just lock people up in gulags. Also, now that the US government has no one challenging it worldwide, the owners of foreign capital have the US engaged in a war in Iraq, send $1 billion to fight against the workers of Colombia every year to a government run by a man linked to the AUC paramilitaries, sending billions to Israel which continues to build settlements in Palestine, sent the military into Haiti recently in addition to all of the other foreign intervention the US does on behalf of US foreign capital owners. Things are getting worse and worse for working people in the US, the wealthy have US imperialism embracing pre-emptive attacks, and have corporate radio from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity saying we should embrace Abu Ghraib torture. Luckily, aside from within the US, most of the rest of the world is not so insane.

So Clinton, Kerry the NAFTA-signing multi-millionaire and so forth can have fun moving the party to the right, out of the control of working people and so forth, I can just cast a vote for Ralph Nader. It's indicative of how things are that as the Democratic leadership manuevers the party away from labor to business, how they lash out at candidates who still talk about Taft-Hartley and stand up for labor like Nader. Trying to appeal to the 49% of eligible voters who didn't vote in 2000 might hurt them in taking things in the direction they want, better to try to kill people having a choice. I see many people here don't want people to have a choice other than the Republicrats, and looking at ballot access it seems like they'll have some success, but then again, people can always just stay home if the Democrats manage to knock Nader/Camejo off the ballot in their state.

[Lindacooks]

1. Really. How do you feel about

a woman's right to choose, protecting the environment, public education, sending our children to fight a war based on a lie, drilling in ANWAR, developing renewable energy sources, funding medical research, etc. etc. etc??

There are more important things at stake than business. And BTW, Kerry wants to raise the minimum wage.

[Frances]

2. People can stay home for every election

if Bush wins in 2004 because your vote won't count after that

[11cents]

3. How about, instead of using this Democratic board

...for what I suspect isn't the first prancing display about you and your vote and you and your vote and you and your vote, you and the MOST IMPORTANT VOTE IN THE COUNTRY, YOURS, SO WE ALL NEED TO HEAR ABOUT IT -- instead of doing that, you just go ahead and vote for Nader. Go. Ahead. And vote. For Nader. And better yet, contribute to his campaign. Contribute a lot. Give until it hurts, because there's a principle at stake here, and you're all about the principle. Give. Ralph Nader. Your money.

But there's no need to tell us about all these things you're doing on behalf of Ralph Nader, all these sacrifices you're making. Unless what you're really after is attention, and from mere Democrats at that.