My Interview with Ralph Nader

I do some writing for the Green Pages from time to time (a small, national newspaper published quarterly by the United States Green Party). Just last week, I had the honor of interviewing
Ralph Nader about the new movie, "An Unreasonable Man", which chronicles his life and also takes on the "spoiler" question with great integrity, giving voice to all sides of the discussion. The film is a Sundance Selection. It is currently on the shortlist (top 15) for the Acadmey Award for Best Documentary, as well. I spoke with Ralph about some other topics of consequence, so those of you who are not necessarily "third party" may still find it a little bit interesting. Let me know what you think.


Ralph Nader Interview
w/ Matt Funiciello
January 10th, 2007

MF: Given your long history of extensive consumer research and analysis, you would probably be ill at ease giving any film a simple thumbs up or down but could I ask you to tell us what you thought about “An Unreasonable Man” (the new Nader documentary)?

RN: I think its a very motivating film for people around the country of various ages who sometimes get discouraged about about not being able to make a difference and also those who have never heard of their ability to make a difference. So for both the semi-active occasional citizen, as well as the person who really doesn't view himself or herself as a citizen activist it should have some impact. I hope that a lot of kids and school children see it. Its not an advertisement. It has critical voices against what I and my associates have done so it keeps your interest.

MF: Steve Skrovan told me you've seen the film twice. Was it different the second time?

RN: I thought it was even better the second time.

MF: Some of the attacks on you in the film were simply scathing (Eric Alterman's and Todd Gitlin's come to mind). I suppose we could just write those guys off as professional Democrats, but how do you answer the attacks from ex-Raiders like Gene Karpinski? He is so obviously conflicted about your role as a spoiler and as a mentor to him. Are these attacks more uncomfortable to sit through when the person making them is, or was, a friend?

RN: Well, Gene Karpinski worked with us and then he went on to head the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups which are a coalition of state and student funded (and run) public interest groups. And he lobbies a great deal in congress for control of air pollution, water pollution, heavy environmental emphasis. So, his framework is, “How do I get something done in Congress?” His answer is, “Keep supporting the Democrats who are more enlightened on these issues than Republicans.” His framework is not thirty major subject areas from the Department of Defense to the federal reserve to the FDA where again and again both parties have gotten worse and the Democrats have slid along with the Republicans on a sea of corporate cash into their campaigns. So, to watch Gene in the film is very touching, obviously. He was torn. It was great cinema, but I only knew him during the campaign as an all out opponent. I never saw that he was at all perplexed or conflicted, so that was news to me.

MF: Sadly, Michael Moore wouldn't agree to be interviewed for the film. Do you have any idea why? I mean, I'm sure its really embarrassing for him to have to explain his amazing change of conscience between supporting you and the Greens in 2000 and turning tail on all of us in 2004. I really don't think that he's ever adequately explained his abandonment of the third party tent. Has he ever said to you, “Ralph, here's why I did it?”

RN: No. He's basically cut off all communications not just with me but with all his friends who he attributed tremendous support to at low periods in his life after he was relieved of his editorship of Mother Jones and came to Washington to work. So he hasn't called back his friends and he hasn't called me back and he won't respond at all. I think he's just decided that he's going to go all out for Hillary. He said to me once, “I have a thing for Hillary”. Those were his exact words. He's into Hollywood. He's into his movies. He's into promotion, putting out books and ... its as if he's written off that chapter of his life entirely and ... he's done that before, himself. He does write off chapters in his life that he finds are unpleasant or able of pointing out his self-contradiction.

MF: The new film deals to some degree with the belief amongst mainstream Democrats that you and third parties like ours are stealing voters from them. Your embrace and adoption of that “Spoiler” mantle has enraged many Democrats, as we see in the film, but I believe that the phenomenon has also had some success turning Greens against you as in the 2004 elections. What would you say to Greens conflicted over their own perceived role as “Spoilers”?

RN: Well, anyone who adheres to the “Spoiler” philosophy should not support a third party or lead a third party. The point of a third party is to start a “new politics”. We're going to move the agenda in the direction of the best interests of the people and their progeny and the environment and the world. If we start small ... thats the way great movements have always started. Very few movements suddenly, spontaneously, immediately come into fruition. Just look at our history. The women's right to vote movement, the anti-slavery movement, the worker decency movement, the farmer populist progressive movement, those took years and years to develop and if the people who decided to vote for those small parties in the 19th century instead had the same attitude that some liberals have today (of “spoilers”) they wouldn't have voted for the anti-slavery, or the woman's suffrage party or the labor party or the people's party. If we look back now ... aren't we glad that they did? Aren't we glad that they spurred on the two major parties and one or both of them came on board with some of these major issues and eventually ... its part of American life – a women's right to vote, the end of slavery. There's no politician in the two parties who would doubt those changes and oppose them now.
They have to develop a public philosophy. Either they go through life voting and supporting the “least worst” which has a corollary. Once you support the “least worst”, lets say John Kerry in 2004, you don't make any demands on John Kerry because you're so fretted about “the worst” winning that you don't want to upset John Kerry or expose him to any criticism from the progressive side. So, you lock yourself into a position where you're not only supporting the “least worst”, you're also signaling to John Kerry that he has your vote for nothing in return. For not any stronger stance on a wasteful military budget or Iraq or corporate tax reform or campaign finance reform etcetera. Its a very indentured status. Its important for the “least worsters” in our country to think about what attaches to a “least worst” position. The more “least worsters” there are, the more likely it is that both parties will get worse because there's one force that doesn't deal with that “least worst”, they pull on both parties, and thats the corporate interests. The corporate interests, twenty four seven, are pulling on both parties and millions of “least worsters” are giving (the Democrats, in this case) a free ride. Now, which way are the Democrats going to go? They're going to go with that which is pulling on them in one direction because no one is pulling them in the other direction.

MF: The “pie in the face” incident was very disturbing to watch for many Greens and it was included in this movie. How do you not become demoralized by such an incident?

RN: Two points on that part of the movie. Number one is that the guy who threw the pie later told people that he was a Green. Whether it was true or not, thats what he said. And the second is that the picture was unfairly slanted against me because what they didn't show is that right after the pie hit, I scraped off a huge amount and as he turned heel and headed for the exit, going past all kinds of people who could have tripped him, I threw probably a fourth of this mushy pie right back at him. Now you would think that they would have shown that, but they didn't. You can't edit a film that you have nothing to do with. Its really too bad they didn't show that.

MF: One of the really impressive features in the film was the footage of the Super Rally at Madison Square Garden. The media almost totally ignored these huge Green-Nader rallies all across the country. This is easily one of the most demonstrative representations of the press' absolute corporate allegiance. Sixteen thousand people paying twenty dollars apiece just to see you speak and the NY Times couldn't even be bothered to send a reporter! Obviously, the press is no longer free! What do we do?

RN: They (the press) look at the polls and they say that, “This is a two-party country, therefore, it is not important to cover these large rallies.” Thats what they look at. Actually, the Times did have a 700 word article but they buried it. What the Times ignored was a huge rally on Wall Street ... one of the biggest rallies ever. They didn't have a word on that. Thats right in their hometown, right in their backyard. It was a rather dramatic rally, very very substantive.

MF: Many Greens will be celebrating Martin Luther King's 78th birthday, just a few days away. Many Americans are aware that much of HIS legacy has been abbreviated by the mainstream media, especially his opposition to the Vietnam War and his call for Democratic Socialism. This new film deals with YOUR legacy. How do you think you will be judged 50 years down the road? Does it matter to you?

RN: I just look to the future. You can't do things about the past. If you just wallow in your laurels from past years, you lose that laser beam focus on expanding the strength and depth of a just democracy and effecting the world with the same spirit in practice. Its amazing how uninterested I am in so-called wins and victories other than just to give people motivation.

MF: Speaking of the 2004 election, Alexander Cockburn wrote, “The Democrats spent the year wasting money and passion attacking Ralph Nader whose early predictions of his ultimate drawing power at the polls turned out to be on the money.” If you decide to run again in 2008, is there any reason to believe that the Democrats may stop making you, or the Greens, their enemy and embrace a different, perhaps more fruitful strategy?

RN: Um, No. Its amazing how little they learn from history! They didn't pick up the issues we were spreading all over the country in 2000 which would have easily won for Gore, by a bigger margin than he actually did win the election (which, I believe, he did). In 2004, Kerry started out right. He basically said, “I'm going to take away Nader's votes by taking away his issues,” which is exactly what I wanted him to do. Unfortunately, he then fell into the hands of his political consultants and a number of people who thought they could make a short term profit by starting 527's and offering their services by going after our ballot access and our petitioners. So, I think that its just part of this two-party “elected dictatorship” virus. They just cannot stand to have competition to a level where they don't want to respond to the competition, they want to remove it from the arena by removing us from one state ballot after another; Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and many other states.

MF: It seems obvious that it will be McCain versus Hillary in 2008. I won't come right out and ask if you're running again or seeking the Green Party's endorsement in 2008, but you have often said that you will run as long as no one else is making the need to do so irrelevant. Many Democrats say that they have Barack Obama or Denis Kucinich. Do you see anybody that is a legitimate, progressive, candidate? Is there somebody “out there” this time?

RN: Well, I don't see anybody in the Democratic party. Not because they're all the same in terms of candidates, but the party comes down hard on candidates like Kucinich and closes them out in March or April when the primaries have been decided and the press has declared which nominee is going to win. So, they don't go 'til November, number one. They lose the most intense time period of interest for the American people which is after Labor Day. Secondly, and most importantly, is that outside the two parties I don't see anybody coming to the forefront. They're all very comfortable in their lives, you know? Jim Hightower has a nice media empire, all power to him. Bill Moyers, who could raise, by my guess, at least 50 million, has huge support and name recognition and was the subject of a draft website a few months ago and he hasn't shown any interest in running. There's nobody. Just name the people you would call progressives in the country that are reasonably well known and ... they're not interested. Its a very arduous process to run. Huge. Not only during the campaign, not only at the election but it also takes a long time just to close down, with all the federal election commission regulations and rules and compliance reporting ... So, people just don't want to go through it. They don't want to go from Holiday Inn to some hostel, campgrounds, wherever. They don't want to go through the groveling process of trying to raise money.

MF: Well, they've watched you do it. It doesn't look like a whole lot of fun.

RN: Yeah, thats right. Nobody's coming. Now, I think that the people we're going to see in the future, maybe not in '08, are going to be billionaires who run as independent candidates. I mean, Bloomberg, if he runs in '08, is going to run as an independent, probably, and he can spend 300 million dollars and hardly feel it. He's got a wealth of 5 billion. You can see that's a little bit more than annual interest, but not all that much more. There are a huge number of billionaires being created every year now and some of them are fairly young and a very small number can be considered progressive. Like I say, why not? Perot did it. It was a stop/go campaign of rather bizarre dimensions and he got 19 million votes! Thats enough to get a billionaire to run just for that mark in history he or she would make. So, unfortunately, I think that the main threat to the two parties' dominance are going to be billionaires ... not anyone else. I mean, thats they way I see it, because I don't see millions of people taking a few hours of their week and locking arms with one another coast to coast to really build a new political movement. That doesn't mean you don't keep the flame alive, that doesn't mean that you don't organize or mobilize the hard core because thats the essence of any future growth but the fact is that the only time the press will take you seriously is when you show up in the polls and when you have a lot of money. If you have a lot of money, they'll immediately poll you. There are enough disaffected, alienated, people that they'll just say, “We want anybody but the two parties. We're going for this new candidate because he's got the (or she's got the) money.”

MF: Many Democrats seem to feel that Howard Dean having the DNC's chairmanship is going to make a difference this next election. Do you think that will have any effect at all on how the Democrats behave towards Greens and other real progressives this time around?

RN: No, I think he'll only make a difference in terms of the Democrats mobilizing in states which they have abandoned. He may make a difference in getting the vote out but on a policy basis, they've got him pretty much in chains. “They” meaning Nancy Pelosi, Rob Emmanuel, Harry Reid. I mean, they basically said to him, “Look, you're our representative. You're our agent. We're the principals. You work for us and we'll make the agenda.”

MF: I know many Greens who simply canceled their subscriptions to the Nation in 2004 when they demanded “Don't Run Ralph”. I think that most readers could have stomached an op-ed saying this but for the entire editorial staff to kowtow to the Democrats like that was truly frightening to behold. Are there any real progressive periodicals left or have they all sold out to the mainstream? Which ones might you currently recommend?

RN: What's interesting about the Nation, they really, in '04, they represented the politics of fear and ... they just freaked out. They had a full page editorial, “Ralph, Don't Run” they allowed me the same space responding to them. I did, in terms of their own history of 140 years or so of dissent and I recommend that people read that. I mean, “In These Times”, “Progressive”, they're all “least worsters”. They're all politics of fear - “Be practical. Don't make any demands, Don't condition your vote,” they counsel. There was a great progressive publication called the Oklahoma Observer and (their editor) was probably one of the most progressive journalists in America, and still is. He cut me out of his newspaper. He used to print my column. He never responded. He would never respond to my calls and letters. He printed a letter saying to the readers, “Why is the Oklahoma Observer printing my (Ralph Nader's) column?” So, HE was totally freaked out. His name's Frosty Troy. There's really only one publication left that I could really call progressive and thats the “Progressive Populist”. They have all kinds of articles and reprints of articles and they don't display the politics of fear.

MF: Greens already know that the so-called “new congress” is not going to be substantially different than the “old congress”. With Nancy Pelosi taking impeachment off the table on day one, what are your thoughts about this?

RN: Well, the only argument on her behalf is that if Bush and Cheney were impeached (and it would be a twofer if it ever happened), she would become the president, so she's in an awkward situation. But what she did was she put the kibosh on her chairmen, like Chairman John Conyers of the Judiciary Committee. She literally demanded that he write an op-ed, which he did last year in the Washington Post, saying “impeachment is off the table but I'd like to have a bi-partisan committee of inquiry.” Yeah, I'm sure the Republicans are lining up in front of his door trying to sign up for that preliminary tiptoe forward. She didn't HAVE to do that. Its interesting how a constitutional system decays. It was alive to impeach Nixon if he hadn't resigned just in time and it was invoked to impeach Clinton who was accused about lying under oath about sex but with the largest high crimes and misdemeanors in modern American history, if not all American history, by George Bush; everything from a criminally-initiated outlaw war based on lies and deception and wire-tapping without court approval and torture as a system of interrogation and deprivation of civil liberties and locking people up without charges and without lawyers indefinitely ... I mean you can just go on and on about impeachable offenses. The Democrats, who, with various degrees of intensity before '06, criticized Bush for all this ... then, they become in control of Congress and they take it off the table which means they also take off any kind of likely censure movement. What does that do? It basically institutionalizes a lower and lower bar for presidents to engage in outrageous behavior with impunity. I mean, they don't look at how these “passes” they give Bush are going to effect the future of politics in America. In that sense, the Democrats showed their true hand, didn't they?

MF: Seemingly, many in the Peace movement abandoned their goals and voted Democrat this election. Aside from their immediate betrayal (removing impeachment from the agenda), the Democrats almost seem to be helping the Republicans escalate their war by using the report of the Iraq Study Group. Was that report just another empty shell created to justify escalation or is there a case to be made that there's “meat on them bones” and its just being ignored?

RN: I think it was mixed. I mean, one, it had very good factual summaries of whats going on over there and that was not reported because they focused on the recommendations. The second is the process of some sort of structured withdrawal was recommended and thats good, although I would have a different approach as to the withdrawal. The third is they emphasize the need to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and thats a bold move in Washington these days. Baker's always been good on that which is why the pro-Israeli APAC so despise him. The fourth, where they really stubbed their toe, so to speak, not unexpectedly, is they argued for the privatization of the Iraq Oil Industry, which is a no-no in Iraq, completely. And they may have a different version of privatization than the corporate oil companies in this country, but they'd have a hard time convincing Iraqis that there's any difference. The indication was, it would be heavily under the influence of the U.S. Oil companies. So, in that sense, they didn't want to go after Bush too much because the report was intended to persuade Bush. You don't look to that report for any cogent, systemic criticism of George W Bush. They were not into the accountability frame of mind. That isn't what they saw they were asked to do. In a way, its almost a skeletal report with a few rips here and there because if you don't focus on the main culprits and the accountability, you're not going to draw the conclusions on domestic and constitutional policy and foreign policy and military policy that would come from that chapter on accountability.

MF: What would be your last words to Greens reading this all across the country?

RN: If you're a “least worster”, don't participate in a third party because then you're just a Trojan Horse.

MF: Thank you very much for your time, Ralph. You've been very generous.

RN: Thank you

SCATHING Attack on Bush by Olbermann

Sometimes, I regret my intentional lack of television at my house. Especially, when I am sent a commentary like the one below. This is Keith Olbenrmann talking directly to President Bush on MSNBC. I truly hope that he has a safe house somewhere to hide out. He refers to the "planned obsolescence of ordinance" in speaking about humvbees and war profiteers. The guy is brilliant and brave. He is also certain to be the next invitee on our of our vice presidents little duck-hunting sorties. ;-)



Special Comment About "Sacrifice" By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC "Countdown"
Wednesday 03 January 2007

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene?
Would you at least protest?
What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?
What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them - and then announced his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?
This is where we stand tonight with the BBC report of President Bush's "new Iraq strategy," and his impending speech to the nation, which, according to a quoted senior American official, will be about troop increases and "sacrifice."
The president has delayed, dawdled and deferred for the month since the release of the Iraq Study Group.
He has seemingly heard out everybody, and listened to none of them.
If the BBC is right - and we can only pray it is not - he has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for "sacrifice."
Sacrifice!
More American servicemen and women will have their lives risked.
More American servicemen and women will have their lives ended.
More American families will have to bear the unbearable and rationalize the unforgivable - "sacrifice" - sacrifice now, sacrifice tomorrow, sacrifice forever.
And more Americans - more even than the two-thirds who already believe we need fewer troops in Iraq, not more - will have to conclude the president does not have any idea what he's doing - and that other Americans will have to die for that reason.
It must now be branded as propaganda - for even the president cannot truly feel that very many people still believe him to be competent in this area, let alone "the decider."
But from our impeccable reporter at the Pentagon, Jim Miklaszewski, tonight comes confirmation of something called "surge and accelerate" - as many as 20,000 additional troops - for "political purposes" ...
This, in line with what we had previously heard, that this will be proclaimed a short-term measure, for the stated purpose of increasing security in and around Baghdad, and giving an Iraqi government a chance to establish some kind of order.
This is palpable nonsense, Mr. Bush.
If this is your intention - if the centerpiece of your announcement next week will be "sacrifice" - sacrifice your intention, not more American lives!
As Senator Joseph Biden has pointed out, the new troops might improve the ratio our forces face relative to those living in Baghdad (friend and foe), from 200 to 1, to just 100 to 1."Sacrifice?"
No.
A drop in the bucket.
The additional men and women you have sentenced to go there, sir, will serve only as targets.
They will not be there "short-term," Mr. Bush; for many it will mean a year or more in death's shadow.
This is not temporary, Mr. Bush.
For the Americans who will die because of you, it will be as permanent as it gets.
The various rationales for what Mr. Bush will reportedly re-christen "sacrifice" constitute a very thin gruel, indeed.
The former labor secretary, Robert Reich, says Senator John McCain told him that the "surge" would help the "morale" of the troops already in Iraq.
If Mr. McCain truly said that, and truly believes it, he has either forgotten completely his own experience in Vietnam ... or he is unaware of the recent Military Times poll indicating only 38 percent of our active military want to see more troops sent ... or Mr. McCain has departed from reality.
Then there is the argument that to take any steps toward reducing troop numbers would show weakness to the enemy in Iraq, or to the terrorists around the world.
This simplistic logic ignores the inescapable fact that we have indeed already showed weakness to the enemy, and to the terrorists.
We have shown them that we will let our own people be killed for no good reason.
We have now shown them that we will continue to do so.
We have shown them our stupidity.
Mr. Bush, your judgment about Iraq - and now about "sacrifice" - is at variance with your people's, to the point of delusion.
Your most respected generals see no value in a "surge" - they could not possibly see it in this madness of "sacrifice."
The Iraq Study Group told you it would be a mistake.
Perhaps dozens more have told you it would be a mistake.
And you threw their wisdom back, until you finally heard what you wanted to hear, like some child drawing straws and then saying "best two out of three - best three out of five - hundredth one counts."
Your citizens, the people for whom you work, have told you they do not want this, and moreover, they do not want you to do this.
Yet once again, sir, you have ignored all of us.
Mr. Bush, you do not own this country!
To those Republicans who have not broken free from the slavery of partisanship - those bonded, still, to this president and this administration, and now bonded to this "sacrifice"- proceed at your own peril.
John McCain may still hear the applause of small crowds - he has somehow inured himself to the hypocrisy, and the tragedy, of a man who considers himself the ultimate realist, courting the votes of those who support the government telling visitors to the Grand Canyon that it was caused by the Great Flood.
That Mr. McCain is selling himself off to the irrational right, parcel by parcel, like some great landowner facing bankruptcy, seems to be obvious to everybody but himself.
Or, maybe it is obvious to him and he simply no longer cares.
But to the rest of you in the Republican Party:
We need you to speak up, right now, in defense of your country's most precious assets - the lives of its citizens who are in harm's way.
If you do not, you are not serving this nation's interests - nor your own.
November should have told you this.
The opening of the new Congress on Wednesday and Thursday should tell you this.
Next time, those missing Republicans will be you.
And to the Democrats now yoked to the helm of this sinking ship, you proceed at your own peril, as well.
President Bush may not be very good at reality, but he and Mr. Cheney and Mr.Rove are still gifted at letting American troops be killed, and then turning their deaths to their own political advantage.
The equation is simple. This country does not want more troops in Iraq.
It wants fewer.
Go and make it happen, or go and look for other work.
Yet you Democrats must assume that even if you take the most obvious of courses, and cut off funding for the war, Mr. Bush will ignore you as long as possible, or will find the money elsewhere, or will spend the money meant to protect the troops, and re-purpose it to keep as many troops there as long as he can keep them there.
Because that's what this is all about, is it not, Mr. Bush?
That is what this "sacrifice" has been for.
To continue this senseless, endless war.
You have dressed it up in the clothing, first of a hunt for weapons of mass destruction, then of liberation ... then of regional imperative ... then of oil prices ... and now in these new terms of "sacrifice" - it's like a damned game of Colorforms, isn't it, sir?
This senseless, endless war.
But - it has not been senseless in two ways.
It has succeeded, Mr. Bush, in enabling you to deaden the collective mind of this country to the pointlessness of endless war, against the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
It has gotten many of us used to the idea - the virtual "white noise" - of conflict far away, of the deaths of young Americans, of vague "sacrifice" for some fluid cause, too complicated to be interpreted except in terms of the very important-sounding but ultimately meaningless phrase, "the war on terror."
And the war's second accomplishment - your second accomplishment, sir - is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.
Because if you sell the Army a thousand Humvees, you can't sell them any more until the first thousand have been destroyed.
The service men and women are ancillary to the equation.
This is about the planned obsolescence of ordnance, isn't, Mr. Bush? And the building of detention centers? And the design of a $125 million courtroom complex at Gitmo, complete with restaurants.
At least the war profiteers have made their money, sir.
And we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.
You have insisted, Mr. Bush, that we must not lose in Iraq, that if we don't fight them there we will fight them here - as if the corollary were somehow true, that if by fighting them there we will not have to fight them here.
And yet you have re-made our country, and not re-made it for the better, on the premise that we need to be ready to "fight them here" anyway, and always.
In point of fact, even if the civil war in Iraq somehow ended tomorrow, and the risk to Americans there ended with it, we would have already suffered a defeat - not fatal, not world-changing, not, but for the lives lost, of enduring consequence.
But this country has already lost in Iraq, sir.
Your policy in Iraq has already had its crushing impact on our safety here.
You have already fomented new terrorism and new terrorists.
You have already stoked paranoia.
You have already pitted Americans, one against the other.
We ... will have to live with it.
We ... will have to live with what, of the fabric of our nation, you have already "sacrificed."
The only object still admissible in this debate is the quickest and safest exit for our people there.
But you - and soon, Mr. Bush, it will be you and you alone - still insist otherwise.
And our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers will be sacrificed there tonight, sir, so that you can say you did not "lose in Iraq."
Our policy in Iraq has been criticized for being indescribable, for being inscrutable, for being ineffable.
But it is all too easily understood now.
First we sent Americans to their deaths for your lie, Mr. Bush.
Now we are sending them to their deaths for your ego.
If what is reported is true - if your decision is made and the "sacrifice"is ordered - take a page instead from the man at whose funeral you so eloquently spoke this morning - Gerald Ford:
Put pragmatism and the healing of a nation ahead of some kind of misguided vision.
Atone.
Sacrifice, Mr. Bush?
No, sir, this is not "sacrifice." This has now become " human sacrifice."
And it must stop.
And you can stop it.
Next week, make us all look wrong.
Our meaningless sacrifice in Iraq must stop.
And you must stop it.
-------

An Unreasonable Man

I have now seen "An Unreasonable Man", a documentary about Ralph Nader and his legacy as spoiler, crusader, icon and raider. It's very good and its premiere will be in NYC on January 31st. I'll be there giving out bread. This article from the NY Times shows the film to be on the short list for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards this year. If you have not seen the trailer, please check it out. It's fantastic. Eric Alterman blasting Ralph for running in 2000 is priceless. You can feel the venom entering your veins .... ;-)

'www.anunreasonableman.com'



January 3, 2007
Controversy Rules Oscar Contenders
By CHARLES LYONS

“I didn’t go there to make a point,” said Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker, about traveling in Iraq to make “My Country, My Country,” one of four documentaries about the war contending for Oscar nominations this year.

“I don’t think I would risk my life to make a point,” she added, seated in her comfortable TriBeCa office early last month. “But I did feel it was important to understand this war — and to document it — and I didn’t think that the mass media was going to do it.”

Ms. Poitras, 42, used her own camera and recorded sound herself as she followed an Iraqi physician for eight months. An outspoken Sunni critic of the American occupation, he was seeking a seat on the Baghdad Provincial Council during the national elections in January 2005, but did not win.

“My Country, My Country” may not capture the best-documentary Oscar, or even be selected as one of the five nominees, to be announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Jan. 23. (The awards ceremony is on Feb. 25.) But its presence on the highly competitive feature-length documentary shortlist — 14 other films are on that list — highlights a shift toward gritty, guerrilla filmmaking, a willingness to tackle controversial subjects, no matter the obstacles.

Issue-oriented documentaries dominate the shortlist, chosen by the 138 members of the documentary branch of the academy. Eighty-one films met the eligibility requirements; of those, the members who voted selected 15 and will further narrow the field to the 5 nominees.
“This is the year of the angry documentary, of the ‘Take back America’ documentary,” Sheila Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films, said in a telephone interview. “The theatrical documentary,” she added, “has replaced the television documentary in terms of talking back to the administration. That’s one of the only places where one can do it.”

But one pioneering filmmaker, Albert Maysles, did not seem enthusiastic about the trend. “I am a strong advocate of distancing oneself from a point of view,” he said recently. “What is good for the documentary world in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ ” — Michael Moore’s 2004 film — “is that Michael’s heart was in the right place” for viewers who agreed with him, he said. “But he damages his cause because he is out to get people. He’s using people in a nonloving fashion to serve the purpose of his argument. If what you think is correct, what do you have to fear in telling the full story?”

Stanley Nelson, the director of another shortlisted film, “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple,” said that while Mr. Moore was “over the top,” his work occupied a significant position within the genre. Speaking at an Upper West Side coffee shop, Mr. Nelson said, “What’s fascinating about documentary today is the different ways to approach it.”

Referring to his own film about Jim Jones, who led the mass suicide in which more than 900 people died in Guyana in 1978, Mr. Nelson said: “It was essential for us not to say that this guy was only evil. Just by being somewhat objective, we were being revolutionary.”

Mr. Nelson’s comment reflects a climate in which the pursuit of objectivity in documentaries is hardly the norm, as it had been during the 1950s and ’60s. In that period, American filmmakers like Mr. Maysles advocated “direct cinema,” where the camera was thought of as a fly on the wall, capturing but not commenting on life. Still, some of the shortlisted documentaries adopt this approach more than others in treating subjects like these:

¶Global warming: Davis Guggenheim’s box office hit, “An Inconvenient Truth,” with former Vice President Al Gore.

¶Religion: Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing’s “Jesus Camp,” about born-again Christian children at an evangelical summer camp in North Dakota; Amy Berg’s “Deliver Us From Evil,” about Oliver O’Grady, a former priest and convicted pedophile; and Mr. Nelson’s film about Jim Jones.

¶Race: Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s “Trials of Darryl Hunt,” about a wrongly convicted African-American man.

¶Free speech: Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck’s “Shut Up & Sing,” on the fallout after Natalie Maines, of the Dixie Chicks, publicly criticized President Bush on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

¶The political campaign process: Frank Popper’s “Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?,” which follows the 2004 grass-roots campaign of Jeff Smith, a Missouri Democrat, for Congress.

¶The two-party political system: Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan’s “Unreasonable Man,” a profile of Ralph Nader.

In addition to Ms. Poitras’s film, the three other shortlisted documentaries on the Iraq war are James Longley’s “Iraq in Fragments,” Deborah Scranton’s “War Tapes” and Patricia Foulkrod’s “Ground Truth.”

Ms. Kopple, a two-time Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker who once worked for Mr. Maysles, said more people were seeing documentaries because they wanted to watch passionate stories about unforgettable characters.

“Audiences are smart enough to decide for themselves if they agree with the point of view onscreen,” she said. “I’m not sure that ‘distance’ is a positive thing in nonfiction filmmaking. I think there’s a time and place for distance; in television journalism, for example.”

She agreed with Mr. Maysles about letting a story unfold naturally. “The most important factor, in my opinion,” she said, “is not do we grow too close to our subjects, it’s are we willing to go on a journey with them that may not end up as we first envisioned it?”

One director who took such a journey was Mr. Guggenheim with “An Inconvenient Truth.” Speaking from Los Angeles, he recalled the beginning of his own transformation after watching a presentation by Mr. Gore on climate change, which became the centerpiece of the film.

“All movies are personal,” Mr. Guggenheim said. “When I make a movie, I don’t have activism in mind; I have an experience in mind. Before I saw Al’s slide show, I was not an environmentalist. But when I saw it, it shook me to the core.”

In a telephone conversation in New York with Ms. Ewing and Ms. Grady, the directors of “Jesus Camp,” Ms. Grady said their film was as “balanced as humanly possible for us.”
“It’s unattainable to have no point of view at all,” she said. “We’re human, and we did the best we could.”

With its concentration on national politics, the academy passed over a clutch of well-made films that in other years might have fared better: for example, Christopher Quinn’s “God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan”; Doug Block’s “51 Birch Street,” an exploration into the lives of his parents; and Ward Serrill’s “Heart of the Game,” about girls’ basketball.

Similarly, the three remaining shortlisted movies, all set in foreign countries other than Iraq, may face an uphill battle. They are Lucy Walker’s “Blindsight,” about six blind Tibetan children; Yael Klopmann’s “Storm of Emotions,” about the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip; and Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi’s “Sisters in Law,” a profile of two Cameroon women — a judge and a prosecutor — fighting for women’s rights.

However the academy members vote, Ms. Poitras said she already considered “My Country, My Country” successful. She cited a scene she had shot at the Abu Ghraib detention center: a 9-year-old Iraqi boy is being held for some unspecified reason by American Army officers who call him a dangerous juvenile. Moments such as these, she said, “will bring a sense of questioning and shame about some of the things we are doing in Iraq.”

So even a filmmaker like Ms. Poitras, who by her own account employed a subtle and patient approach, may have made a point after all. In the current climate for documentaries, she certainly is not alone.

A Non-Revisionist Ford Story

As we enter this new year, lets start it off with a quick rally around the truth instead of the usual horseshit we are being fed by the corporate media.


Gerald Ford, Unsentimentally
By Matthew Rothschild ">http://www.progressive.org/node/4358>
December 27, 2006

Sorry, but I refuse to let my tear ducts open over the death of Gerald Ford.

There's something profoundly undemocratic and vaguely medieval about the almost mandatory salutes that we, the people, are supposed to offer when a former Presidentdies.

The niceties of custom all too often reinforce the habits of blind obedience to the unworthy wielders of power.

Say no ill of the dead, we are told.

Hogwash. Let's look at Gerald Ford's record.

The first thing he did was to pardon Richard Nixon, even though ten days previously he had said that the special prosecutor should proceed against "any and all individuals" and a year before, he averred that "I do not think the public would stand for it."

The pardon short-circuited the necessary prosecution of Nixon, which would have served as a salutary check on future inhabitants of the Oval Office. Instead, the pardon set a precedent for such flagrant lawbreakers as we have in the White House today.

If impeachment of Bush and Cheney may be just a remote possibility, prosecution and incarceration remain inconceivable. And so Bush and Cheney, thanks to Ford, can float comfortably above the law.

On domestic policy, Ford was a standard issue Republican, vetoing social spending bills, cutting food stamps and housing and education programs, infamously denying aid to New York City while all the while boosting Pentagon spending. And, in a move Bush and Cheney would have applauded, he proposed the nation's first official secrets act to provide criminal penalties for the unauthorized disclosure of classified material.

On foreign policy, Ford was damnable.

He fronted for Pinochet in Chile, and kept aid flowing to that vicious strongman.

And on December 6, 1975, Ford and Henry Kissinger flew to Jakarta to meet with dictator Suharto and to give him a green light to invade East Timor.

According to a declassified State Department cable, here was part of their conversation.

Suharto to Ford and Kissinger: "We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action."

Ford: "We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have."

Kissinger: "We understand your problem and the need to move quickly, but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned."

Ford and Kissinger returned to the United States, and Suharto launched his invasion hours later.

Suharto's invasion and occupation cost the lives of 200,000 Timorese.

But never mind. We're not supposed to remember those things. Just that Jerry Ford was such a nice guy.