Ralph Nader and Briahna Joy Gray in A Penetrating Conversation On the Major Issues, Challenges, Obstacles, and Opportunities Facing this Society's larger struggles for progressive change in 2024 and Beyond

How to Defeat AIPAC and the Israel Lobby (w/ Ralph Nader)

Bad Faith

Premiered November 16, 2023

Consumer advocate & former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader joins Bad Faith to weigh in on the revolving chairs of the Green Party's presidential candidates, the strategic value of Cornel West running as an independent, & how to decide between West and Dr. Jill Stein. Briahna also asks him to address recent reporting that he would "help Joe Biden win, how people power can beat AIPAC, and whether he, as perhaps the most prominent Arab-American politician in the US, has been able to connect with Rashida Tlaib since being censured by congress. Nader explains the immense value of his print media publication, Capital Hill Citizen, and why every leftist looking to push left politics forward should pick up a copy. Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube to access our full video library. Find Bad Faith with Briahna Joy Gray on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod). Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands)

VIDEO:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB-xVXo_Fmw

 

 

THE PANOPTICON REVIEW PRESENTS TWENTY OUTSTANDING BOOKS OF 2015

Please Note: The following list of books is not organized according to any personal hierarchy of the relative value of each individual book. Rather it is a list that seriously considers ALL of the books listed here to be of equal intellectual and cultural value and interest, albeit for different reasons. The bottomline on this list is that each one of these books is extraordinary and invaluable in their own right and represents some of the very best writing published in the United States in 2015.

--Kofi Natambu, Editor

SOS: Poems 1961-2013
by Amiri Baraka
Grove Press, 2015

 

The Scholar Denied:  W.E. B. Dubois and the Birth Of Modern Sociology
by Aldon Morris
University of California Press, 2015

Between the World and Me

by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Spiegel & Grau, 2015

Eye On the Struggle:  Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press
by James McGrath Morris
Amistad, 2015

 

Dalton Trumbo:  Blacklisted Hollywood Radical

by Larry Ceplair and Christopher Trumbo

University Press of Kentucky, 2015

 

F. B. Eyes:  How J. Edgar Hoover's Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature

by William J. Maxwell

Princeton University Press, 2015

 

The East Is Black:  Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination

by Robeson Taj Frazier

Duke University Press, 2015

 

Selected Letters of Langston Hughes 

Edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel

Alfred A. Knopf, 2015

 

The Trouble With Post-Blackness

Edited by Houston A. Baker and K. Merida Simmons

Columbia University Press, 2015

 

Writing On the Wall:  Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Edited by Johanna Fernandez

City Lights Books, 2015

 

Imagine the Sound:  Experimental African American Literature After Civil Rights

by Carter Mathes

University Of Minnesota Press,  2015

 

Unanswered Letters to the President, 2001-2015

by Ralph Nader

Seven Stories Press,  2015

 
Fracture:  Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial
Divide 
by Joy-Ann Reid
William Morrow,  2015

 
Once in a Great City:  A Detroit Story
by David Maranniss
Simon and Schuster  2015

 
Young Orson:  The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane by Patrick McGilligan
Harper, 2015




Showdown:  Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America 
by Will Haygood 
Alfred A. Knopf, 2015

 
 The Radical King
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Edited and introduced by Cornel West
Beacon Press, 2015

 Black Man in a White Coat:  A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine
by Damon Tweedy, M.D.
Picador, 2015




The Making of Asian America:  A History 
by Erica Lee
Simon and Schuster, 2015



The Sellout:  A Novel 
by Paul Beatty
Farra, Straus, and Giroux,  2015

 
HONORABLE MENTIONS

 
Empire of Cotton:  A Global History 
by Sven Beckert
Vintage,  2015

 
Black Hollywood Unchained:  Commentary on the State of Black Hollywood
Edited by Ishmael Reed
Third World Press,  2015
 
 
Under the Affluence:  Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich, and Sacrificing the Future of America
by Tim Wise
City Lights Books,  2015

  

Billie Holiday:  The Musician and the Myth 

by John Szwed 

Viking, 2015

 

Sinatra:  The Chairman 

by James Kaplan 

Doubleday, 2015

 

Negroland:  A Memoir 

by Margo Jefferson

Pantheon Books,  2015

 

Give Us the Ballot:  The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America 

by Ari Berman 

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015

MJ:  THE GENIUS OF MICHAEL JACKSON
by STEVE KNOPPER
SCRIBNER,  2015

 

 

Ralph Nader and Cornel West To Lead a Democratic Party Primary Challenge Against President Obama in 2012

http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=3032

All,

While it's obviously clear that a serious primary challenge to Obama is not politically possible and can't possibly work on a practical level in 2012, it's still another ominous and significant sign that the President's re-election campaign is in serious trouble overall given the fierce and vicious opposition of the right and the growing deep demoralization, disaffection, and alienation on the left. While most of Obama's progressive and liberal base and coalition remains generally intact on the surface, it is still not clear at this point if the overall turnout of these voters will be as large, reliable, and secure as it was in 2008. It thus should be noted that if there is at least a 7-10% decrease in the voter turnout of his base (and a corresponding increase in turnout among Republicans and Tea Party voters) Obama could very easily lose his bid for re-election next year...Stay tuned...

Kofi

September 19, 2011

RALPH NADER CORNEL WEST UNVEIL PROPOSAL TO CHALLENGE OBAMA IN PRIMARIES

Progressive leaders led by Ralph Nader and Cornel West unveiled a proposal today to challenge President Obama in the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries in 2012.

The proposal, which has been endorsed by over 45 distinguished leaders, seeks to have a slate of six candidates run against President Obama, each representing a field in which Obama has never clearly staked a progressive claim or where he has drifted toward the corporatist right.

“Without debates by challengers inside the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries, the liberal/majoritarian agenda will be muted and ignored,” said Ralph Nader.

“The one-man Democratic primaries will be dull, repetitive, and draining of both voter enthusiasm and real bright lines between the two parties that excite voters,” Nader said.

A letter is being sent to a list of distinguished elected officials, civic leaders, prominent members of academia and the NGO community who represent the fields of labor, poverty, military and foreign policy, health insurance and care, the environment, financial regulation, consumer protection, and civil, political and human rights/empowerment.

The list of potential candidates also includes progressive democrats who have held national and state office and have fought for progressive reforms.

“We need to put strong democratic pressure on President Obama in the name of poor and working people” said Cornel West, author and Professor at Princeton University. “His administration has tilted too much toward Wall Street, we need policies that empower Main Street.”

The letter pronounces that without primary challengers, President Obama will never have to seriously articulate and defend his beliefs to his own party. Given the dangers our nation faces, that option is unacceptable.

“It’s time for the White House to get into the trench with organized labor and lend a hand. We know what we need, and we don’t need another campaign speech,” said Chris Townsend Political Action Director, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. “The absence of discussion or debate about the failed strategies of this administration only emboldens the corporate onslaught.”

The letter points to numerous decisions that have drawn criticism from Obama’s own Democratic Party including his decision to bail out Wall Street’s most profitable firms while failing to push for effective prosecution of the criminal behavior that triggered the recession, escalating the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan while simultaneously engaging in a unilateral war in Libya, his decision to extend the Bush era tax cuts, and his acquiescence to Republican extortion during the recent debt ceiling negotiations.

“Robust debate on the crucial issues facing our nation, including global environmental devastation, should characterize all races for national public office and the Democratic presidential primaries are no exception,” said Brent Blackwelder, President Emeritus of Friends of the Earth. “The public needs to hear whether a second term Obama will be like the first term Obama, or perhaps more like the 2008 presidential candidate Obama or something else altogether.”

The list of prominent leaders receiving the letter is being kept private as a courtesy.

Here’s a partial list of endorsees:

James Abourezk
Former U.S. Senator, South Dakota
Gar Alperovitz, Professor University of Maryland, Co-Founder Democracy Collaborative
Norman Birnbaum
Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University Law Center
Dr. Brent Blackwelder
President Emeritus of Friends of the Earth
Ellen H. Brown
Lawyer and Author of Web of Debt
Edgar Stuart Cahn
Professor of Law, University of the District of Columbia
Co-founder Legal Services for the Poor
Pat Choate
1996 Reform Party Vice President Candidate
Charles Cray
Director of the Center for Corporate Policy
Peter Coyote
Actor, Author and Director
Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director, Organic Consumers Association
Charles Derber, Professor, Boston College
Ronnie Dugger
Founder, Alliance for Democracy
John Fullerton
President, Capital Institute
Rebecca and James Goodman, Northwood Farm
Randy Hayes
Director, Foundation Earth
Rainforest Action Network Founder
Chris Hedges
Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist of the New York Times and Author
Hazel Henderson,
Author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy
President, Ethical Markets Media, LLC.
Jean Houston
Psychologist, Anthropologist and Author of The Possible Human and The
Possible Society
Nicholas Johnson
Former Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
Former Administrator, Federal Maritime Commission
Alan F. Kay
Author of Spot the Spin and Locating Consensus for Democracy
Harry Kelber
The Labor Educator
Andrew Kimbrell
Executive Director, Center for Food Safety&
International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA)
Jonathan Kozol
Educator, Author of Savage Inequalities
Lewis Lapham
Former Editor, Harper’s Magazine
Leland Lehrman, Partner, Fund Balance
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun Magazine
Chair, Network of Spiritual Progressives
Dr. Richard Lippin, MD
Physician Forecaster, Board Certified in Preventive Medicine and
Advocate for both Individual and Institutional Prevention
Robert D. Manning
Founder and CEO, Responsible Debt Relief Institute
Author of Credit Card Nation
Dr. Samuel Metz, MD
Mad As Hell Doctors, founding member
Physicians for a National Health Plan, member of Portland chapter
Carol Miller, Community Activist, New Mexico
E. Ethelbert Miller, Board Chair Institute for Policy Studies

Ralph Nader
Citizen Advocate
Michael Parenti
Author
John Passacantando
Former Executive Director, Greenpeace USA
Erich Pica
President of Friends of the Earth
Vijay Prashad
Author and Professor, Trinity College
Nomi Prins
Author and former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs
Marcus Raskin
Author of The Common Good and former White House Advisor
Andy Shallal
“Democracy’s Restauranteur” and Owner of Bus Boys& Poets
Michelle Shocked
Musician
David Swanson
Author, War is a Lie
Chris Townsend
Political Action Director, United Electrical, Radio and Machine
Workers of America (UE)
Gore Vidal
Author and Political Activist
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Chair, The Shalom Center
Harvey Wasserman
Author of Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth
Cornel West
Professor and Author of Race Matters
Quentin D. Young MD
National Coordinator, Physicians for a National Health Program

Ralph Nader and Others Call for a National Leftist Challenge To President Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_lpRak2kXw

All,

This panel discussion on Lawrence O'Donnell's political talk show on MSNBC yesterday was by far the best overall discussion I've heard/seen yet of what the real stakes are in the current fight within the Democratic Party over Obama's abject and cynical capitulation to the Republicans with regard to his "compromise" two year extension of the heinous Bush Tax Cuts for the super wealthy. Everyone was excellent in this discussion with the highest honors going to the always amazingly prescient and still absolutely extraordinary 76 year old Ralph Nader, and the very impressive now ex-Democratic congressional representative from Florida Alan Grayson (who was unfortunately sacrificed in the now infamous November 2 Midterm elections in which the Republicans won the highest number of seats in Congress in a midterm election since 1948!) Check it out for a critical assessment with real teeth and intellectual clarity in it. Nader is a man who truly understands American politics in a profound sense and realizes that our job on the Left is not to sit idly back and kiss the President's clearly opportunist, inept, and transparently manipulative ass but to fight intelligently and courageously for what's right no matter what the odds are or appear to be. Finally, a very significant number of experienced, serious, and truly dedicated people on the Left generally are beginning to wake up from the national stupor and almost zombie-like state they've been in since Obama came to power...Check out and view the video link below. You won't be disappointed...

Kofi

Ralph Nader On Corporate Capitalism, Class Struggle, 'Practical Utopias', and the Obama Administration

http://www.truthout.org/1014091

TRUTHOUT ORIGINAL

Truthout Interview With Ralph Nader: "Only the Rich Can Save Us"
Wednesday 14 October 2009
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Video Interview

Ralph Nader will always be remembered by his critics as the man whose bid for the White House in 2000 gave us eight years of George W. Bush. The disdain many liberals have for Nader still runs deep nearly a decade later.

But there's no denying the positive impact his activism has had on this country over the past half-century. Without Ralph Nader there wouldn't be an Environmental Protection Agency, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a Consumer Product Safety Commission, a Safe Drinking Water Act and so on.

Nader has also written scores of books, many of which spotlighted his crusade against corporate behemoths like General Motors and the two-party system he says has steered the country in the wrong direction. Simply put, Nader may be accused of being a "spoiler," but he's also a true believer.

Recently, I sat down with Nader to discuss his latest doorstopper of a book, "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us" a fictional account involving real-life public figures, including Warren Buffet, Ted Turner, Yoko Ono and Phil Donahue, who set off to start a progressive revolution using their enormous wealth.

Although fictional, Nader does not refer to this highly readable tome as a novel. Rather, he describes it as a "practical utopia."

"Historically, our country has benefited from 'practical utopias,' or utopian fiction" that "infused and gave vision to the progressive movement," Nader said in our wide-ranging interview. "But in the last 50 years or so, we just haven't done much practical utopian fiction."

In addition to describing how the theme of his book can become reality, Nader also offered blistering analyses of President Obama's job performance thus far and the debate surrounding health care reform.

Though I pointed out to Nader that the president has only been in office for eight months (at the time of this interview), he referred to Obama as a "concessionary politician" despite his short time in office.

"He doesn't like conflict, he doesn't like taking on the corporate powers - he demonstrated that as senator of Illinois and senator in the US Senate. He is what might be called a concessionary personality, a harmony ideology," Nader said. "In Washington, you project that from the White House and the shark tank known as the Congress will eat you alive."

Nader said Obama has "lost huge momentum" in his attempt to overhaul the health care industry, in part because "he's turned his back on liberals and progressives who elected him. He doesn't invite them, for the most part, to the White House, but he invites the CEOs of the drug companies, of the auto companies, of the banks, and he bails out these crooks on Wall Street."

As for his political aspirations, Nader did not indicate whether he would mount another presidential bid. But he said he wanted to see "a major, historical, progressive convention convened to sort of elevate the whole progressive movement, with a thorough agenda of empowerment and substantive justice, and very substantial financial resources."

"The progressive movement - if it's not demoralized, it's fractured," Nader said. "It doesn't have a sense of pride and identity for what its forebears delivered to the American people."

Secondly, Nader said, "Maybe this book will stimulate some billionaires and mega-millionaires who are enlightened and of advanced age and have no axe to grind, who will come forward and take [on] their great cause."

-----------

For more information on "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us," visit onlythesuperrich.org.

To see more Truthout Videos check out our video page.



Obama's Back and Our Own: Michael Moore Weighs in on Nobel Prizes and The Big(ger) Picture

All,

Excellent and insightful commentary by the best political documentary filmmaker in this country, Michael Moore (BTW: go see Moore's new film 'Capitalism: A Love Story"-- it's brilliant and right on target!). So I will join with Michael in cutting Barack some slack on the Nobel Prize and enthusiastically endorse Moore's far more important points on what we on the Left have to do to be "pro-active and push the agenda that we want to see enacted". I've been saying all that and more for a long time now of course but it can never be said (or acted upon!) too many times. These kind of reminders are always timely and necessary. So thanks for the heads up Michael! Now let's ALL get to work--including President Obama,,,

Kofi


Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore
Saturday, October 10th, 2009

Friends,

Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. "No, I don't think so," I replied. I thought it was important to remind him he's now conducting the two wars he's inherited. "Yeah," she said, "but to tell him, 'Now earn it!'? Give the guy a break -- this is a great day for him and for all of us."

I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could to crap all over Barack's big day. Did I -- and others on the left -- do the same?

We are weary, weary of war. The trillions that will have gone to these two wars have helped to bankrupt us as a nation -- financially and morally. To think of all the good we could have done with all that money! Two months of the War in Iraq would pay for all the wells that need to be dug in the Third World for drinking water! Obama is moving too slow for most of us -- but he needs to know we are with him and we stand beside him as he attempts to turn eight years of sheer madness around. Who could do that in nine months? Superman? Thor? Mitch McConnell?

Instead of waiting to see what the president is going to do, we all need to be pro-active and push the agenda that we want to see enacted. What keeps us from forming the same local groups we put together to get out the vote last November? C'mon! We're the majority now -- the majority by a significant margin! We call the shots -- and we need to tell this wimpy Congress to get busy and do what we say -- or else.

All I ask of those who voted for Obama is to not pile on him too quickly. Yes, make your voice heard (his phone number is 202-456-1414). But don't abandon the best hope we've had in our lifetime for change. And for God's sake, don't head to bummerville if he says or does something we don't like. Do you ever see Republicans behave that way? I mean, the Right had 20 years of Republican presidents and they still couldn't get prayer in the public schools, or outlaw abortion, or initiate a flat tax or put our Social Security into the stock market. They did a lot of damage, no doubt about that, but on the key issues that the Christian Right fought for, they came up nearly empty handed. No wonder they've been driven crazy lately. They'll never have it as good again as they've had it since Reagan took office.

But -- do you ever see them looking all gloomy and defeated? No! They keep on fighting! Every day. Our side? At the first sign of wavering, we just pack up our toys and go home.

So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people elsewhere are celebrating -- that America now has a sane and smart man in the White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for his two daughters.

Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have grumbled, "What has he done to earn this prize?" How 'bout this:

The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity. The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they watched the descendants of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had gone mad.

And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression.

So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago, billions of people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every other nation feel like they had won, too. When you've got billions of people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve.

One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio). The fact that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur -- and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as "Barack Hussein Obama"!) -- is more than reason enough he should be in Oslo to meet the King on December 10. Maybe he could take us along with him. 'Cause I also suspect the Nobel committee was tipping its hat to all of us -- we, the American people, had conquered some of our racism and did the truly unexpected. After seeing searing images of our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans -- and poor whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had been raised to hate -- we had all seen enough. It was time for change.

Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you promised to do. We need it. The world needs it.

My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah!

Fred (that's Norwegian for "Peace"),
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Ralph Nader vs. Barack Obama: The Pitfalls of the Politics of 'Race, Class, and Identity'

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/nader-defends-remarks-about-obama/

UPDATE ON RALPH NADER'S COMMENTS: An amended correction to some of my previous comments below:

All,

Now that I've had a chance to properly listen to all of Nader's actual critical comments today about Obama and the upcoming general election on YouTube.com it's clear that some of what Ralph said was improperly taken out of context by the writer of the article that I quoted (see below) in my earlier remarks. Therefore in fairness to both Nader and his overall analysis of Obama (a great part of which I thoroughly agree with) I have provided the following embedded video above of all of Nader's remarks in their FULL CONTEXT. So while I stand behind that part of my earlier remarks in the piece about the improper use of "racial" categories in Nader's analysis there is a much larger context to those remarks by Nader in the video that further supports what he said and why. As I said I find virtually nothing to disagree with in his general remarks which I find not only critically incisive, highly accurate, and important but necessary in any objective realistic assessment of Obama's limitations and shortcomings with respect to the highly compromised American political system as it is. Of course Obama is still the only viable candidate worth supporting in this election. But that fact doesn't mean that Nader's otherwise on target criticisms shouldn't be taken seriously and openly addressed by Obama and his campaign (and the rest of us) if he should ascend to the Presidency...

Kofi


[My comments from earlier today]

All,

Ralph Nader is typically both right and wrong in his critical assessment of Obama for all the correct (and incorrect) political reasons. I strongly support Nader's right and even obligation to be intelligently critical of Obama when and where it's necessary in both ideological and political terms. There's absolutely nothing wrong with him making his own independent analyses and judgments of what he thinks Obama is doing or not doing in his campaign. As a leftist/progressive candidate that's exactly what he's supposed to do--sharpen and heighten the contradictions and put forward radical alternatives. That's not only perfectly fine but absolutely necessary.

However, for Ralph to lamely suggest that Obama's personal racial makeup should (or could) dictate whether his politics are progressive or not is just racist nonsense. To the degree that Obama or any other black politician is progressive/liberal (or conversely reactionary/rightwing) in their politics is ultimately dependent not on who or what they are in so-called "racial" terms but what they actually advocate, represent, and struggle for in real ideological and political contexts. Condoleeza Rice, Clarence Thomas, and Colin Powell to name just three obvious examples among many others we could also name are all black/African American but that didn't stop them from being the reactionary right wing Republicans that they are. Of course we can and should denounce and attack what we don't like about their politics; but to expect or demand that simply because they're black to "do the right thing" politically, is not just being naive but also somewhat delusional at best about what the actual relationship is between cultural/racial 'identity' and ideology.

For example: Being designated an 'Uncle Tom' or a 'sellout' doesn't merely entail that one be vaguely 'disloyal' to a specific ethnic group's aims and objectives (however that is defined by other members of that group) but that objectively a person does or doesn't do something concrete that adversely affects a specific group's citizenship status or functional ability to survive and advance in actual social, cultural, economic, and political terms in the larger society.

What Nader is saying in his statement absurdly reduces his otherwise important political criticism of Obama to whether Obama is individually "black enough" to do what Nader is proposing should and could be done in terms of his politics. That's complete and utter bullshit and has the real effect of actually undermining the real content and value of what Nader is (very clumsily and stupidly) trying to say. It ain't a very progressive or radical approach either strategically or tactically on Ralph's part and only makes him look and sound like a bitter and clueless racist jerk instead of a sophisticated political radical who is properly demanding that Obama take far more ideological and political responsibility for the positions that he takes or doesn't take in this election on major poverty and class issues.

Unfortunately Nader and the American Left generally far too often fall into these kind of self inflicted traps and wind up doing themselves and more importantly their political positions a grave disservice. I really wish the American Left and Ralph Nader would GROW UP and finally learn how to organize, mobilize, and educate people by advocating and maintaining a much more mature and constructive relationship between strategy, tactics, goals, and ideology than engaging in these kind of mindless ego centered racebaiting and genderbaiting games. It's far beneath where Nader's and our own political discourse should be if we truly call or consider ourselves to be progressive. The class war or the mammoth struggles against racism, sexism, imperialism, anti-semitism, and homophobia certainly won't be addressed or resolved by simply determining what anybody's personal identity is or isn't--that's for sure...

Kofi


Photo by Judy DeHaas Ralph Nader, who is running for president, talks about Barack Obama in his Washington, D.C., office Monday. Nader said Obama should "candidly describe the life of the poor."

Nader: Obama trying to 'talk white'
By M.E. Sprengelmeyer
Rocky Mountain News
June 25, 2008


Ralph Nader, who is running for president, talks about Barack Obama in his Washington, D.C., office Monday. Nader said Obama should "candidly describe the life of the poor."

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader accused Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic Party nominee, of downplaying poverty issues, trying to "talk white" and appealing to "white guilt" during his run for the White House.

Nader, a thorn in the Democratic Party's side since the 2000 presidential election, has taken various shots at Obama in recent days while ramping up his latest independent run for president.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Rocky Mountain News on Monday, he said he is running because he believes Democrats, like Republicans, are too closely aligned with corporate interests.

Economic exploitation

Nader was asked if Obama is any different than Democrats he has criticized in the past, considering Obama's pledge to reject campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.

"There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American," Nader said. "Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards."

The Obama campaign had only a brief response, calling the remarks disappointing.

Asked to clarify whether he thought Obama does try to "talk white," Nader said: "Of course.

"I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law," Nader said. "Haven't heard a thing."

"We are obviously disappointed with these very backward-looking remarks," Obama campaign spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said.

Plans to visit DNC
Nader said he plans to travel to Denver during this summer's Democratic National Convention, hoping to highlight an alternative agenda that he thinks the party should pursue. His appearance in the city is sure to anger some Democrats who believe his presence on the ballot during the contested 2000 election cost Al Gore votes, helping Republican George Bush win the disputed election.

Nader rejects that blame, saying Democrats "scapegoated" him instead of looking at other factors that contributed to the defeat.

'Appeal to white guilt'

Nader said he is not impressed with Obama and that he does not see him campaigning often enough in low-income, predominantly minority communities where there is a "shocking" amount of economic exploitation.

He pointed to issues like predatory lending, shortages of health care and municipal resources, environmental issues and others.

"He wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician," Nader said. "He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up."



June 25, 2008
Nader Defends Remarks About Obama
By JULIE BOSMAN
New York Times

Update | 5:15 p.m. Asked about Ralph Nader’s critical comments at a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday, Senator Barack Obama said Mr. Nader had not been paying attention to his campaign, where “I’ve devoted multiple speeches, town hall meetings to” the issues Mr. Nader raised.

He added: “Ralph Nader is trying to get attention. It’s a shame because if you look at his legacy in terms of consumer protection, it’s an extraordinary one.”

Update | 4:45 p.m. Mr. Nader had called to explain, but not apologize for, the comments he had made about Mr. Obama in The Rocky Mountain News. He said Mr. Obama has not discussed poverty in the inner cities enough, and the fact that he is African-American should make a difference.

“What difference it should make is that he would be more sensitive and determined to bring elevated visibility and concrete programs to deal with these issues,” Mr. Nader said. “Wouldn’t a woman president be expected to be more responsive to women’s rights? It’s just more natural.”

He said that Mr. Obama “obviously made a tactical decision that he’s not going to campaign politically as Jesse Jackson did.”

“He wants to come across that he’s not politically threatening to the white power class and the liberal intelligentsia,” Mr. Nader said. “It’s been a brilliant tactic.”

Earlier, Mr. Nader had stood by the comments he made to a newspaper on Wednesday, in which he suggested that Senator Obama has not devoted enough time to poverty in inner cities and rural areas and “wants to talk white.”

Chris Driscoll, a spokesman for Mr. Nader, said on Wednesday afternoon that Mr. Nader would not retract his remarks or issue an apology.

In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News, Mr. Nader, who is running for president, said of Mr. Obama, “There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson?”

Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, called the remarks “downright delusional” and “reprehensible.”

Mr. Driscoll responded by reading a statement from Mr. Nader. “Obama’s abstract campaign has been delusional and irresponsible when it comes to avoiding concrete policies that truly defend and empower the 100 million Americans living in poverty or near poverty,” he said.

Mr. Nader, a consumer advocate and former Green Party nominee for president, is running as an independent candidate this year on an anti-corporate agenda.

The Return of Ralph Nader

All,

It's GREAT NEWS to know that once again Ralph Nader is going to seriously demand that all three candidates in the race for the Presidency take full and complete political and ideological responsiblity for both their stated and unstated positions on the issues. Unlike many others who fear and despise him I am very happy to see Nader back in the political arena again because his truly radical critiques of the present political and economic system and the politicians who serve it is very important and goes a long way toward properly calling all the candidates out and "sharpening the contradictions" in the present battle between Obama, Clinton, and McCain. After all this is what REAL DEMOCRACY is truly all about and it's at best INFANTILE for the Democratic Party and their presidential candidates to pretend as though their feet shouldn't be held to the fire. That's precisely what we ALL should be doing no matter who we support! As I said back in both 2004 and 2000 when Nader was unjustly and absurdly accused of sabotaging and thus 'spoiling" the so-called "inevitable victories" of John Kerry and Al Gore IF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CANDIDATES ARE NOT TOUGH, ORGANIZED, AND PROGRESSIVE ENOUGH TO FIGHT THE REACTIONARY RIGHT WING REPUBLICANS TOE TO TOE AND PREVAIL ON THE MERITS OF THEIR POSITIONS THEN THEY DON'T DESERVE TO WIN. While it's clear that I personally support Obama for the Presidency (and will continue to do so) I still feel the exact same way about this election as I did in previous races: In this particular case it's up to Obama himself to seriously address and honestly confront the more than legitimate and necessary political criticisms and analyses that Nader has made and will continue to make of him, Clinton, and McCain.

SO WELCOME TO THE PARTY RALPH and please stay on EVERYONE'S case like you always have...We need it...


Kofi

"Dare To Struggle, Dare To Win.."


Ralph Nader Enters Presidential Race

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Ralph Nader lashed out at the Democratic presidential candidates Monday after they said he could hurt their chances of taking back the White House.

Ralph Nader's decision to again run for president is drawing criticism from Democrats.

The longtime consumer advocate announced Sunday that he will launch his fourth consecutive White House bid -- fifth if his 1992 write-in campaign is included.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Nader accused Illinois Sen. Barack Obama of name-calling and challenged him to "address the issues."

"Above all, explain why you don't come down hard on the economic crimes against minorities in city ghettos: payday loans, predatory lending, rent-to-own rackets, landlord abuses, lead contamination, asbestos," Nader said.

"There's an unseemly silence by you, Barack -- a community organizer in poor areas in Chicago many years ago -- on this issue," he said.

Nader called Sen. Hillary Clinton the Democrat "most loved by big business," referencing a Fortune magazine article from last year.

The June article said Clinton had "probably the broadest CEO support among the candidates" at that point.

Many Democrats fear that Nader, who turns 74 this week, could draw votes away from whoever gets the party's nomination, potentially helping presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain win the White House in November. Obama and Clinton were quick to pounce on Nader after he made his announcement.

"He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and, eight years later, I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about," Obama said at a town hall meeting Sunday.

Clinton also said Nader "is responsible for George W. Bush" and called his candidacy "regrettable" during a Boston, Massachusetts, fundraiser Sunday night.

"We can't assume that we're going be able to win overwhelmingly," she said. "We're going to have to fight for every state, and Ralph Nader is a problem."
Earlier, Clinton said Nader -- who says environmental policies are central to his platform -- "prevented Al Gore from being the greenest president we could have had."

Nader has long rejected accusations that he served as a spoiler in 2000, effectively helping Bush beat Gore. Nader stood by his contention that Gore won the 2000 race because he took the popular vote, saying Florida's electoral vote "was stolen from him."

Nader said Democrats should "concentrate on the thieves who steal elections" instead of "scapegoating the Greens," a reference to the Green Party, the ticket he ran on in 2000.

"The Democrats ought to look themselves in the mirror and ask themselves why they have not been able to landslide the worst Republican Party and the White House and Congress over the last 20 years," he said.

Nader said he does not believe that any of the candidates, including McCain, will come through on pledges to reduce the influence of special interests in Washington.

"First of all, if they wanted to do that, they'd put front and center public funding of public campaigns," cracking down on corporate crimes and other issues. "Washington has closed its doors on citizen groups," he complained, calling the nation's capital "corporate-occupied territory."
"We have to give the system more competition, more voices, more choices, more freedom, more diversity," Nader said in a defense of his candidacy.