election 2000

Now I know some of our readers have been Nader supporters. But the evidence is mounting that Nader, once an environmental and consumer hero, has fallen to little more than a Republican dupe. I can't understand why anyone still listens to the guy.

In 2000 Nader made a collossal mistake that cost Gore the election. Part of that mistake was what seemed an inexplicable statement that Gore and Bush were equivalent. I knew this was bullshit just like I knew it was bullshit when Gore, Cheney and Powell claimed Hussein was tied with al-Qaeda. And events since then have proven Nader was as "mistaken" as Bush, Cheney and Powell. The question always was: was Nader mistaken or lying? Either way, Nader only won 3% of the vote in 2000, not enough to do him any good, but enough, in key swing states, to help deliver the election to Bush.

I don't know about 2000, but by 2004 Nader was abandoning all pretence of values. Nader abandoned the Green Party, yet expected them to follow him blindly. They chose not to. In 2004 a large chunk of Nader's money and support came from Republicans. Among those Republican who went out on a limb for the self proclaimed messiah of the left was none other than John McCain, whose legal team did their best to get Nader on the ballot in Florida. As the Greens went their own way, Nader turned to Republicans, John McCain in particular, to save his campaign. The result? Nader got .3% of the vote...one tenth of what he got in 2000.

Back in 2000 and 2001, when it became increasingly clear that Bush's entry into the White House was accompanied by much fraud and that he could not be called our elected president, so much as our SELECTED president, sadly most of the Democratic Party structure allowed the bloodless coup take place with more confusion than anger. Nationally, it was really only the Congressional Black Caucus that tried to object. They couldn't even get a single Senator helping them out.

On the state level only one state Democratic Party advocated that the Party refuse to accept the stolen election: the Oregon Democratic Party. All other state parties decided to accept the stolen election and allow Bush to take power without a protest. We now know what a horrible mistake THAT was, being the first of many ongoing attacks on our Constitution and our democracy and allowing the insane invasion of Iraq which we now know Bush already had planned when he stole the election.

I wrote a letter back then to my own New York State Democratic Party, urging them to stand with the Oregon state party in opposing the acceptance of the stolen election. I received a condescending reply in essence saying, "there, there...we have better things to do with our time than stand up for American democracy." In retrospect there wasn't much that the New York Democratic Party accomplished in that sad period, so one wonders what they really WERE busy doing back in 2000 and 2001 that prevented them from standing up for democracy. But they shamefully remained silent...much like the rest of the official party structure.