My favorite political blogger (and good friend), Gail Jonas’ blog can be found at THINKING OUT LOUD. Click the link, bookmark the page. You’ll be happy you did. Unlike Salon and the big poli-blogs, Gail’s voice is reasoned, passionate and individual…you won’t find her spewing the same old party lines.

Today, Gail posted on two of my favorite people, Howard Zinn and Ralph Nader. If you’re a Nader hater (I know you are and also know you don’t have a reasoned reason for being one.), do read on.

ZINN, NADER TEAM UP TO HOLD DEMOCRATS’ FEET TO THE FIRE by Gail Jonas

Full disclosure: Zinn and Nader are only teamed up in this post because I think joining together their ideas on how to get the frontrunning Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to address crucial issues makes sense.

On February 23rd, Howard Zinn’s article, “Election Madness” was posted at Information Clearing House. Zinn describes election madness that seizes the country every four years: I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth. But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice¦.

Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, Read the rest of this entry »

Just when you thought that democracy was absolutely DEAD in the United States (Clinton and Obama paying off superdelegates with millions of dollars in cash money = bye bye democracy, hello pay to play!), Ralph Nader comes along to remind people that ANYONE can actually run for President. Even someone with lofty ideals and concern for the wellbeing of the global citizenry.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the consumer advocate said great changes in U.S. history have come “through little parties that never won any national election.”

“Dissent is the mother of ascent,” he said. “And in that context I’ve decided to run for president.”

Of course, if you haven’t heard of Eugene Debs or how his candidacies brought us social security, child labor laws, some small level of corporate oversight, minimum wage and much more, you’re not that tapped into the history of U.S. politics and Nader’s words fall on deaf ears (fancy that, a U.S. citizenry that isn’t well-versed in U.S. history or the actions of their own parties!)
On how his candidacy impacts the Democrats: “If the Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form.”

Of course, we all know the Dems are really, really good at handing elections to the Republicans (Remember that sad sap, Al Gore, who handed Bush victory? Why aren’t more people upset at him for the last 8 years?) so nobody should be surprised if Hillary somehow steals the nomination from Obama, then gets her ass handed to her by McCain.

[tags]obama, clinton, nader, president, election[/tags]