What I Really Want To Know

I consider myself a third party activist. I only support independents and Greens and Libertarians. I do not vote for Democrats or Republicans, ever. As such, I am often asked my opinion by those who play the two party game. I try to be civil and decent. I try to help them understand my viewpoint and I sincerely try to understand theirs.

Over the last decade, I have asked a few questions that I really figure any two-party denizen should be able to answer ... simply to restore my faith in humanity's ability to reason if for no other reason. Can you help me?

I asked Alan Chartok (of our NPR affiliate, WAMC) and his pals on The Media Project, Ira and Rex, to comment on why the media gives Ralph Nader zero coverage during each election cycle. I asked this because I believe that ALL media ignores thrid party candidates on purpose to prop up our system of corporate machine politics. This of course raised the hackles of all three. All of their media mechanisms covered Ralph 2-3 times over the past year. In their view, thats much better coverage than other media gave him. They wondered aloud what my problem is, then? Rex Smith (the Albany Times Union editor) even piped in to say that he felt that Nader already had his time in the sun and that his message doesn't resonate any longer with the American public. Thats why they don't cover him.

There are two huge problems with this narrow answer to my broad question;

1) Does anyone who appreciates the promise of democracy really think that the 1/4 of 1% of media coverage Nader actually got in 2000 was "fair coverage" by any reasonable measure of the word? He was polling 10-18% during that election cycle and it certianly seesm thatbwere he given 10-18% of the coverage that he would have been in the debates which might well have given him a win. Can Nader or othr independents ever truly "resonate" with anyone when the populace is subjected to the two corporate candidates 100 times a day for an entire year and are not even made aware of their many other choices? 36,500 to 3 mentions. Is this really the "liberal" media's idea of "fair and balanced"?

2) If its just Ralph Nader who has worn us all out, why then does corporate media also basically ignore ALL the other independents and third party candidates, as well? In this election cycle, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, Chuck Baldwin, Gloria LaRiva and Roger Calero were all basically ignored, too. No one even knew about them. How could they possibly have "worn us all out" or "had their time in the sun"? Why is it that THEY didn't deserve to be covered at all? I'm not sure that I can see this behavior as anything short of willful and criminal manipulation of our information and our democracy.

A member of the local DFA chapter asked me Wednesday if I was "happy". You could see that Obama's victory made him feel that a cloud had lifted. His "team" had "won". I would write "Bob" off as a loon except that many other Democrats reached out to me withg similar sentiments, many of whom I respect greatly. To be frank, I feel sorry for people like "Bob". In my world, the ruling and the corporate classes control our democracy. That's a terrible truth but being awake to it allows me to avoid all the emotional highs and lows and the football team mentality that so many Americans seem caught up in.

I know that my fight as a citizen is a daily one against the corporate power that chokes democracy. Its never a winner take all battle waged once every four years. I don't suffer severe depression when a Bush is in office nor do I feel like I just ate a bag of mushrooms because we've elected an Obama. I don't expect the ruling class to deliver me any substantive change for the better regardless of which puppet they say is "our leader". I'm a realist.

I asked "Bob" the same question I have been asking Democrats for ten years, thus far;

"I have been working outside the Democratic Party because I do not believe that the change I want can ever come from such a flawed and co-opted machine. If just one Democrat would tell me what it is EXACTLY that has been accomplished over the last forty years by "working from within", I might better understand why you people do it. Just humor me ... tell me what specific piece of legislation has been passed by either corporate party that could demonstrably be considered pro-worker?"

"Bob" responded heatedly, "I'm not going to answer that but we're a damn sight better than the Republicans. Thats all I have to say." "Bob" then walked out.

This "walking out" is the reason why better than 100 million Americans don't vote in any election cycle. They see no visible, pragmatic reason to do so and we refuse to explain how it works to anyone's benefit to vote. Is it possible that we're not really sure ourselves?

It's Our Own Fault, No One Elses's!

(Published in "The Chronicle" March 6, 2008)

Dear Editor:

This past week, Ralph Nader announced his entry into the presidential race and caused quite the stir. Pundits used the word "spoiler" many times. Many unknown Poli-Sci professors had their day in the media spotlight opining that Ralph's Quixotic campaigns are largely irrelevant. Some editorialized about why someone with "no chance" of winning would even bother to run.

Lets just stop the propaganda for a minute. Gore ran a terrible campaign in 2000 and, even though he won, he refused to do anything about it (ignoring 57,000 stolen votes in Florida alone).

There were also six other candidates on that fateful Florida ballot who (using the "spoiler logic") cost Gore the election. Do you remember their names? No one does and they haven't been attacked and vilified like Ralph because he is the one that scares them silly! If Ralph Nader was ever allowed into (what passes nowadays for) presidential debates, he would totally destroy his opposition while pointing out the corporate interests each candidate is beholden to. When you are that effective, they have no choice but to ridicule you and call you names.

As for Nader's (extremely limited) chances of winning, that is completely our fault. We allow the corporate media to bestow millions of dollars of free coverage on the two-party candidates

and do nothing when they totally ignore third party candidates. Hillary and McCain and Obama will get media attention every single day this year until November and independent candidates

will get little or no coverage at all. Imagine how much stronger our democracy would be if everyone had to get equal coverage. Would independents fare better? You bet they would!

That said, it really does seem that we are simply incapable of voting in our own best interests. Even though we all complain about severe lack of choice, we also continue to vote Democrat or Republican in every election. A Republican friend of mine who does not support Nader's Quixotic presidential runs told me the other day that he was "kind of leaning toward Obama". I asked him why and he regurgitated some rhetoric about "hope and change". So, I asked him why, in a safe state, he would even consider voting for such a disappointment when he was perfectly free and clear to vote for an independent (like Ralph) who could further the cause of more and better issues and fairer ballot access? He looked at me blankly and that when I

remembered, once again, that very few New Yorkers understand that we live in a safe state.

If all Americans knew about safe states, we could likely wrestle control of our democracy away from its corporate sponsors in just one or two election cycles. New York is one of about forty states where the two-party candidates won't even bother to show up during the election cycle. They don't bother because they both know who will win already. If we ever realized this and voted accordingly, we would have a bloodless revolution overnight. If you've ever believed that the kind of democracy we learn about in school is actually possible, then you need to think outside the box and exercise your right to choose, wisely. Voting for and supporting Ralph Nader & Matt Gonzalez (or anyone other than the two-party candidates) is in all of our collective best interests. Food for thought. (votenader.org)

Sincerely,

Matt Funiciello

Eat Some Truth, Liar!

(A Response to the Idiot, Andy Borowitz of borowitzreport.com)

Dear Andy,

Nice piece on Nader and Bloomberg. Wow, I just laughed and laughed til my sides hurt. Ha ha ha. The way you vilified that guy .... Wow, ha ha ha .... Gosh, I am still laughing!

It is due to people like you and propaganda like yours that so many illiterate Democratic Party sheeple are mad at this great and honorable (and anything but egotistical) American. If you feel well-informed enough that you regularly publish your opinion on the web then you must also be aware that you are simply touting the corporate Dem line. That would make you a pretty evil guy in most people's book, but just in case you really are writing from some kind of info-vacuum (or just don't read much outside of People Magazine and the Sunday Times), let me fill you in on some facts.

You know what facts are right? You know, those little things that make up a bigger thing I like to call ... the truth? After reading and absorbing and analyzing and questioning my facts and my truth, you will be better informed. Then, when you write your next bonehead missive excoriating Ralph, we can all skip the pleasantries and KNOW that you are a fully informed evil propagandist and not just an idiot who doesn't know any better.

1 - Gore won (as did Kerry). Why did these cowards back down and concede? Read some Palast for Christ's sakes!

2 - The difference in 2000 in Florida was 537 votes. More than 50,000 blacks were purged from the Florida voter roles. Do the math! Who's a bigger racist felon? Bush for stealing the vote from Black Floridians or Gore for allowing him to?

3 - There were SIX other indie or third party candidates on the Florida ballot in 2000. ALL of them had more than 537 votes. Gee, why was Ralph singled out?

4 - Ralph is not allowed in corporate media debates. He would slaughter the corporate stooges you are such a proud apologist for. I guess its not in an idiot's best interest to have real debate.

5 - Ten times more Dems voted for GW than voted for Nader in Florida.

Explain yourself or just eat some truth, you liar!

No Surprises Here

Looks like McCain and Hillary in 2008 - Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, again? There really are no surprises in national politics! Have we really learned absolutely nothing over the last four decades about how we are all manipulated?

The two major political parties will once again nominate Presidential candidates from the corporate wings of their parties and that will leave us ... corporate control as usual.

When this happens, we all have two choices - throw in the towel .... Or fight back.

If you choose to fight back, here's a good option: Join with a person whose life is one of dedicated service to the public interest.

To help him organize a political campaign in every state against corporate control over our lives.
Luckily, that person - Ralph Nader - is considering such a campaign. But he will need active and informed citizens in every Congressional district in the country.

He will need volunteers.

He will need funds.

He will need dedication.

That's why I've already signed on at Nader's exploratory web site: http://www.naderexplore08.org

Check it out. Donate money if you can. And spread the word.

In 2008, it's either sit back and watch the drift .... Or get off the couch and fight back.
I hope you will join with us in actually fighting back this time.

Making Nice With the Fascist Scum

I grew up in Canada but spent summers down here. My parents were both peace activist during Vietnam (my father is also a veteran). I would say that I grew up with Democratic ideals. As such, I voted for Clinton in 1992 as my first national vote stateside. I saw the "NAFTA/Health Care/Bomb Iraq Shell Game", saw the light and have voted for Nader and Greens and independents ever since. Why? Because I read and I have basic analytical skills.

While I recognize that most Americans don't read and that many are seriously challenged when it comes to matters that require critical thinking, I fail to see any benefit in having people active within our party who aren't really third party and who don't really understand what we're trying to do. These confused people who enter in and out of the Green Party periphery don't understand why we're here and I don't see the point in having them around. Are they useful and productive?

We really have to fight to change things. A few extra sheeple who've been recruited but who "never really drank the koolaid" are just a hindrance. they should never be viewed as an asset. When a Democrat or a Republican or a Libertarian or an independent realizes that joining the Green party is the only answer, thats GREAT! That person will stick with it because they arrived at this conclusion on their own and are smart enough to understand the underlying necessity in what it is we are trying to do.

Democrats, by virtue of their party registration alone, are not smart enough to understand this basic premise. As such, you can't expect these "recruits" you're worried about to be loyal and you can't expect them to do things that make sense from a third party perspective. They don;t have one. They're Democrats! I see no benefit in gaining warm bodies, Hillary, if the minds that come with them are brainwashed and malfunctioning.

As long as there are Republicans, the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex will rein and we will have war for profit. As long as there are Democrats, the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex will rein and we will have war for profit. We can't be nice to Dems by exaggerating their importance to us. Instead, be compassionate and peaceful to those amongst them (as I am). Help them doubt their party leadership by telling them the truth and plying them with good books and Green thoughts.

BUT, also be honest with them that we feel there party is EQUALLY responsible for Iraq, no health care, poverty, corporate control and all the rest of the world's ills. My "making nice" simply involves telling Dems that while they may not personally be fascists, their PARTY sure as hell is!

A Response to Some Greens About 2008

We simply cannot afford to make the same mistake again of thinking that a campaign virtually ignored by the media can also be a success for our party. A campaign that fails to be noticed is a failure for our party as it does not help us to build. Party-building is the main reason we run presidential campaigns in the first place, right?

We need to focus on the very real media blackout that exists and how to break it. A candidate who can get national media attention will yield us more membership and more resource and the possibilities of eventually gaining more ballot lines, the fabled 5% and access to the debates.

Lets all keep our eyes on that prize: NATIONAL MEDIA ATTENTION. The common ground here is that we all want the Green Party to grow and become the legitimate and credible alternative to the two corporate war parties, right? Is there anybody out there who disagrees? That said, no one person is even contemplating running with us who will get us the media attention that Ralph Nader will. That is simply a fact and we all know it to be true no matter our whims, desires, moods or strategies.

We need to stop arguing about the "who" immediately. If Nader seeks our nomination, he will get it. Saturday night in Reading was proof positive that the grassroots and their representatives know exactly what we need to do in 2008. We love Ralph, we respect him and we want him to run. The energy is there. The only pertinent question is, "Are we able to show a credible candidate (like Ralph) that we are a party deserving enough that legitimate candidates would seriously consider seeking our nomination?" We need to convince Ralph to run with us. Waiting for an under qualified or lesser-known candidate to beg for our nomination seems to suggest a secret desire for our party to fail.

Running a Green who no-one knows is always going to be a serious mistake. We already made it once and we all seem to agree that it was, at the very least, not a party-building experience. As such, lets not do it again. Most people I know who are not Greens think that Ralph Nader was our candidate in 2004, anyway. They have no idea who our actual candidate was because he (and our party) didn't get any media attention.

Running a Democrat who garners only small amounts of very negative media would be a huge mistake, as well. Cynthia McKinney is a wonderful, brave and articulate woman who deserves our support BUT she is also a Democrat and she also has the rare distinction of being thought of as a loose cannon and a conspiracy theorist by both the Fox News crowd AND the NY Time's crowd, as well. She is not anywhere as well known as Ralph and her resume is considerably shorter. Running her would be a terrible mistake (and it will split our party again).

Run her for Congress as a Green and run Ralph for President. This is a no-brainer. I don't know about you, but I'll throw my resource behind both campaigns, enthusiastically.

I am not holding up a gun and saying "Just do what I tell you". I'm not threatening to "take my ball and go home". I'm just predicting what will happen (again) if we proceed slowly and without common sense. I am stating the obvious. 2008, with Bloomberg in the race, is our year. This is the year to run Ralph and grow our party again. If we start planning early enough, we can make this our best national campaign ever. I am not proud to say that I predicted 2004's disastrous result perfectly, but I did. I believe that 90% of the grassroots Greens I know did as well. For the good of the party, we need to go with the positive.

Ralph for President. Cynthia for Congress. Both with our full support. This time around, I would love to predict that we're going to stop all the infighting and announce our intent early and do something that makes sense. We owe it to our grassroots and we owe it to ourselves. We can do it. I predict that we will!

Ron Paul Meetings

Those who know me are aware that I am, first and foremost, a strong advocate of the Three D's: Discourse, Debate and Democracy. After that, I am a Ralph Nader supporter. After that, a Green. I know many of you that I count as friends who, unlike me, are working from within the two parties and I respect that choice.

While I can't see myself working for a two-party candidate under any circumstance, I do plan to come out and meet some fellow citizens who are politically active and ho plan to support Ron Paul in the Republican primaries. From what I have read, I see Congressman Paul performing much the same function that Denis

Kucinich does in running for his party's nomination. While Paul, with strong connections to the Nixon and Reagan administrations could hardly be considered "alternative", he has certainly not been a party loyalist and has a more Libertarian viewpoint of the world than many within his party. He has consistently voted against the Patriot Act and the Iraq War and is, to say the least, a strong advocate of our Constitution.

If you are interested in hearing one of the many alternative political viewpoints that exist outside of mainstream television politics, then come out and meet local Ron Paul supporters. Their first meeting is tomorrow, Wednesday August 8th at 7:30 pm at Rock Hill Cafe in downtown Glens Falls. I may just see you there!

Will Nader and the Greens Ride Again?

The short answer is, it really does seem probable ... even likely. I just got back from Reading, PA where I attended the Green Party's Annual Convention, "Green For a Change". It was a great recharging of the batteries. It was wonderful to see so many of my fellow national delegates. We email each other and debate and discuss and argue all types of things endlessly all year long and the convention is a great opportunity to actually talk face to face, mend some fences, set some limits or just plain wrassle.

I know that my posts in our various email battles usually become more pointed and more civil after attending such gatherings.

A short rundown is easy. I arrived on Thursday. Many others who had come from as far away as Hawaii, were already attending workshops on Dismantling Racism, Running For Office, Peace Actions, Green Strategy, Fundraising and many other various and sundry topics.

Friday morning, I attended a workshop given by NY state's own Mike Seller (Cobleskill's 23 yr. old Green Mayor) and Rebecca Rotzler, New Paltz's outgoing Green Deputy Mayor. They had lots of insight about the nuts and bolts of governance and were very direct in speaking to the issues of limited resource within the party for aiding officeholders with campaigns and problem resolution.

Plenary sessions began Friday afternoon and, finding that we had, in fact, achieved a quorum, we watched several presentations on next year's possible convention sites (Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Oakland/Berkeley). We spent some time that evening listening to a number of presidential candidates, Green and otherwise, who had come seeking our nomination. I especially liked Jared ball, a young man from the DC Statehood Greens who was extremely poised and articulate and strong in his presentation.

On Saturday, we voted for our secretary and new steering committee and spent some time speaking (a minute each) about what we thought should happen with electoral/presidential politics in 2008. Four people, myself being one of them, got up to speak in support of a Ralph Nader/Green candidacy. Three of us were applauded enthusiastically, one massively. Only one of the other 50 or so Greens who spoke mentioned David Cobb and Pat LaMarche and how proud they were of them both. There was massive silence. Only two Maine Greens twinkled. One speaker advocated for a Cynthia McKinney Green candidacy. A few people clapped and some people twinkled.

That same night, Ralph came to speak. There were a little over 300 people there (mostly national delegates). There was a standing ovation and the crowd chanted loudly, "Run, Ralph. Run!" for about two minutes. Ralph was very inspirational and there was a feeling in the air of such great possibility.

I should explain that there are "paper state" Greens in our party. Basically, these are Greens
from states without ballot status or any real mechanism for measuring party support in their state who have somehow been assessed delegates anyway (we like to call them Democrats and
obstructionists). These people are often suspiciously anti-Nader but they are also a very small minority within the party. The other group of anti-Nader or anti-presidential run Greens are those concerned about ballot access for their state parties in places like Texas or Illinois or Pennsylvania itself. These people want to make sure that they get an unknown to run who will spend a lot of time working on party building in their states, unlike Ralph, who always makes an honest effort to go to every state at least once and only hits the bigger states multiple times.

My sense of things is that 2004 is clearly over. ABB is dead and a vast majority of us are just champing at the bit to run a presidential candidate. If the respective Green reaction to Nader and then McKinney on Sunday was any indication, we all really want Ralph to run but if he won't do it, we want to keep the McKinney "door" open a crack.

I organized a private discussion with Ralph and a hadnful of other Greens after his appearance and it certainly was my feeling that, collectively, we are all just dying to finish off what we all so happily undertook in 2000.

McKinney, appearing Sunday afternoon, looked great in her movie, American Blackout, that was screened before she spoke. I was somewhat dissappointed with her ability to inspire. She seems so capable and fearless and articulate and direct on C-Span and in her film but not so much when she is at the podium live. She is someone we all should respect and appreciate but it was also obvious from the smaller, slightly less enthusiastic crowd that she is not going to be our candidate. Many of her own advocates amongst us were talking (rudely) throughout her allotted time.

McKinney dropped a lot of hints about 2008 that left no room for guessing but it is my prediction that Ralph is going to run and he's going to run with us again and that this action will help make the Green Party whole so we can start building again.

Taming the Giant Corporation

I had the good fortune to attend a conference in Washington this past weekend sponsored by the Public Citizen and the Center for Responsive Law. It was overfull (they expected 250 people and there were about 380 registrants). As such, I didn't get to attend all of the seminars and forums and discussions but I saw much that was invaluable.

Bernie Sanders and Denis Kucinich spoke at the conference and I was able to interview James Ridgeway (the man who first broke the "GM is tailing Nader" story) and also Medea Benjamin of Code Pink fame for Hudson-Mohawk Independent Media Center.

I spent some time with Ralph discussing the 2008 elections. My friend Jay had the opportunity to film the last event of the conference (Amy Goodman interviewing Ralph about corporate power). It was amazing and he gave Amy the tape to use on Democracy Now this week so keep an eye out for it.

For more information on the "Taming" conference, go to "tamethecorporation.org". Tyson Slocum was particularly inspirational (www.citizen.org/cmep/index.cfm). He is the Director of Energy Policy at Public Citizen.

I also had dinner with Clint Coppernoll, a lifetime activist currently working to grow and organize "Congress Watch" for Publioc Citizen (http://www.citizen.org/congress/). We agreed to try and get a Congress Watch organized for CD 20 and to keep an eye on Hillary walking into 2008's election cycle.

I would reccomend taking part in such a conference to anyone whose batteries need recharging. It can really rejuvenate you to see how many other capable inteligent people are working towards social justice without thanks or other meaningful remuneration. It made me feel much less jaded about my own investment of time and effort.

Ralph Nader Visits Smalltown America

Lifelong consumer advocate and Green/Independent presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, visited our sleepy little town for the second time a week and a half ago. The visit was phenomenal. We (the Adirondack Progressives) set up 7 events in one day between Albany and Glens Falls.

My son, John, and I picked Ralph up at his home in Winsted, Connecticut in the wee hours of the morning Friday May 25th and brought him to an interview at WAMC's Albany studios (our local NPR affiliate). Alan Chartok, the station's "Political Guru" and resident Nader-hater, was nowhere to be seen. Ralph spoke with Joe Donahue and Julia Taylor, hosts of the station's morning show, The Roundtable, for about a half hour. It went very well. You can listen to it as soon as they get the podcast up on their website which they have assured me they will do once they fix some technical problems they often have posting live interviews.

Time Warner News, WRGB, Fox, WNYT and TV 8 all gave Ralph some TV coverage. The Times Union, The Daily Gazette, The Troy Record, Metroland, The Saratogian and the Glens Falls Post-Star all did fairly good pieces on the visit or, at the least, reasonable advance stories. I could not believe how good the Post-Star piece was (especially given how much the editorial staff seem to hate me, Ralph, Greens and intelligent discourse in general). I actually had to send them a "thank you" email for their great coverage. Those of you who know me, know how difficult and wonderful that must have been for me at the same time (it was).

That said, media coverage wasn't the big deal this time around. The Spectrum 8 Theater in Albany and Aimie's Dinner and a Movie in Glens Falls premiered the film, "An Unreasonable Man", which is an excellent, critically-acclaimed, documentary about Ralph's life. It deals with
his Quixotic runs for national office head on giving all sides plenty of room to rant. It is truly an eye-opener for many two-party pragmatists, conservatives and Ralph-haters alike. The film is an inspiration to all who see it and if there is any justice in the world, Al Gore will be required to use the profits from his recent blockbuster ("The Inconvenient Festival of Alternative Energy Consumption") to buy free copies of "Unreasonable" for every high school and college campus across the nation.

The book signings were great. Ralph was selling copies of his newest book, "The Seventeen Traditions". This short biography is about his very different, but quintessentially American, upbringing in Winsted. A friend of mine called it sentimental and meant it as high praise. He is an academic and is extremely well read and once told me that he saw my connection to Ralph as a sentimental one and he labelled the book as a confirmation of same. I guess thats true because
every attack the Dems level at Ralph just strengthens my resolve to protect him and hit them right back. I know Ralph to be a good man and their vicious attacks against someone they
revered simply because they aren't intelligent enough to see his motives (or explore them). This strikes me as propagandistic, hypocritical, shallow and cruel.

We did two book signings, three sets of Q & A after premiere showings of the film, a fundraiser for the Sanctuary for Independent Media and a speech/forum at Glens Falls High School for seniors from four area high schools. The student forum was simply excellent and was the highlight of the day. I wish we could have stayed there all day. Ralph told the 400 some odd students that they needed to stop worrying so much about a "career" and get out there and "fight for justice". Damn! He said that it was time to put down their blackberries and laptops and "get serious" about the issues. Many students interviewed afterward said that they were extremely pleased with Ralph's stance that they were more than old enough to tackle these problems themselves and that, in fact, they were the only ones who could (or would) do so. There's no doubt in my mind that he inspired them.

The Spectrum showings of AUM were both sold out and we stayed after the second showing for almost an hour and a half. It was so cool to hear some of the more open-minded Democrats who showed up to see what all the fuss was about. They weren't nearly as upset after watching the film. The propaganda started to melt away and they started to understand both the math and the "good fight". The first woman who asked a question told Ralph that she was till a "little bit mad at him" (for his role in Bush's election) but she also said that she could see he was a really good man who was just doing what he though was right, even what was necessary.

If we had discourse like this every day, we wouldn't be such a stupid, classless, narrow bunch of dopes intent on killing kids to line our pockets or keep gas prices down, would we? Too bad we don't!

Am I Really The Only One Who Sees It?

I have spent some time thinking since Ralph Nader's visit a few weeks back. I had ample time to talk with him about many things as we traveled from place to place but the subject we kept coming back to was the 2008 presidential race (which, according to the mainstream media, has already begun).

I have been fairly convinced since John Kerry's (seemingly purposeful) loss in 2004 that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic contender this coming year. I have been equally certain that John McCain will be the Republican standard bearer. Ralph listened to what I had to say about them and then asked what I thought of Barack Obama. I told him that he was a faux progressive whose candidacy was likely designed to funnel real progressive support away from truly progressive candidates like Kucinich or Gravel. I said I thought it quite likely that Obama would join forces with Hillary before the whole thing was over. "Its a twofer. A woman president and a black vice president. They're shoe-ins."

I asked Ralph what he thought would happen. He said that most people inside the beltway understood the selection process fairly well and that the insiders were betting with me on all fronts - McCain and Hillary (likely with Obama as VP).

Now, I don't believe that we have real democracy here in the U.S. We are most often given a narrow difference between two corporate candidates both of whom are corporate. The one we actually "choose" has very little effect on how well corporate America does after the election because they are both guaranteed to have been corporate America's choice to begin with.

I see McCain and Hillary as obvious and pre-destined because the lapdog media has given them four years of extensive free advertising at the national level. I don;t even need to think about pundits and their blathering. I also don't need to worry about the "polls". I know they will be the candidates because corporate media doesn't give anyone a multi-million dollar advertising deal for nothing.

They are much, much wiser investors than that.

Ralph Nader - My Presidential Candidate

In the last several presidential election cycles, the name Ralph Nader has become synonymous with the word “pariah”. In Republican circles, people don’t seem to have any problem with Ralph’s running for office (their mistaken assumption is that he pulls voters from the Democrats). It’s much more likely that his five decade career as a citizen activist has raised their ire because they may profit directly by investing in companies he may have sought to regulate or restrict. Nader’s staunch defense labor and the environment put him on the side of “big government” from their perspective.

Many Democrats respect Nader deeply for his championing of “their” issues but many of them have fallen prey to the propaganda casting him as the “spoiler” of 2000. Some even blame Ralph for the entire Bush administration and all its foibles. It doesn’t matter to them that there were five other candidates on the Florida ballot with enough votes to “spoil” Gore’s election. It’s unimportant to them that Gore put up no fight when most analysts agreed he had won. They don’t care that Gore lost his home state (and Clinton’s) and ran a campaign that made Kerry’s 2004 effort look lively by comparison.

Perhaps the real reason Democrats have so vilified Ralph is that he had the nerve to say out loud what just under 25%* of us already know, “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties.” He never said there was NO difference, just that it was slight. Given the almost entirely corporate sponsorship of Hillary Clinton, John McCain, George Bush and Barack Obama, it would seem that he was absolutely correct.

As 2008 approaches, we will be asked the proverbial question, “Which hamburger (candidate) do you prefer – a Whopper or a Big Mac?” Strangely, those wanting a salad can never be included in the framing of this question. We are expected to debate and anguish over the merits of each offering and to ignore the fact that corporate sponsorship has rendered them all pretty much identical to one another.

On May 25th, a man who has addressed this two-party problem quite directly will arrive in Glens Falls for a visit. This man believes that wars are created by the military-industrial-congressional complex (he sees the loss of human life on both sides as preventable). He knows that clean air and workplace safety are not “left” or “right” issues. He knows that a “conservative” with cancer needs health care just as much as a “liberal” injured in a car crash. He knows that seatbelts and airbags don’t ask for your party registration before they save your life - they just work.

Ralph Nader will be at Red Fox Books signing copies of his new autobiography, “The Seventeen Traditions”. He and film-maker, Henriette Mantel, will also attend the premiere of “An Unreasonable Man” at Aimee’s Dinner and a Movie. The documentary is the highly acclaimed Sundance Selection about Ralph Nader, his life and his legacy.

For more info, contact: Matt Funiciello (518) 361-6278 mattfuniciello@earthlink.net

* According to the BOE, 52.8% of registered voters in Warren County were Republican in 2006. If you combine blanks and third party registrants into a group, it is 24.3% of the electorate and the Democrats, 22.9%. Food for thought.

Post-Star Shuts Down More Free Speech!

** Please note that the piece below was shamelessly reprinted without permission or recompense to its author.

The Post-Star shut down its online forum because they didn't like what was being said. They refused to print two of my letters to the editor during the last mayoral campaign without explanation. They refused to tell me why even when pressed. They cancelled the only liberal op-ed column they had when they very suspiciously dropped Molly Ivins months before the 2004 election. They gave Lee Ann Womack's concert in Glens Falls better space, pictures and about 4 times more coverage than they subsequently gave to two-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader when he came to Glens Falls. What ever will they think of next? The quote below is an announcement posted on the Letters To The Editor section of their online version. What a great day for Free Speech!

"The Post-Star has decided to remove all commenting on letters to the editor at this time. Our letter writers are held to a standard that requires them to sign their letters. The commenting feature online does not require the respondent to be identified. We don’t feel that is fair. If anyone would like to respond to a letter, they must be held to the same standard as the letter writer and be identified. They can do this by writing their own letter to the editor through the Web site or responding directly to the editor."

Adirondack Progressives Bring Ralph Nader to Glens Falls

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Matt Funiciello (518) 361-6278 mattfuniciello@earthlink.net

Former Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader To Speak in Glens Falls May 25th

GLENS FALLS – Former presidential candidate and progressive activist Ralph Nader will return to Glens Falls on Friday, May 25, 2007 for a variety of events including an appearance at a Glens Falls High School, a local premiere of the documentary “An Unreasonable Man,” and a book signing at Red Fox Books. Ralph Nader’s visit is sponsored by Adirondack Progressives, a group of local people interested in fostering a local dialogue on today’s most important issues.
The day’s events will begin at Glens Falls High School where Nader will speak to students and participate in a student forum beginning at 1:00 pm. He is expected to speak about media reform, the Iraq War, the threat of corporate power and its dangerous convergence with government, and the role of third parties and citizen activism in the political process.
The documentary film “An Unreasonable Man,” a Sundance Film Festival Official Selection, will premiere locally at Aimie's Dinner & Movie (190 Glen Street, Glens Falls). The film traces the life and career of Ralph Nader, one of the most unique, important, and controversial political figures of the past half century from his public emergence as nemesis of General Motors in 1966, through his leadership of the Consumer Movement, to his latest controversial forays into electoral politics. Following the first showing, Nader and filmmaker Henriette Mantel will be on hand to discuss the film and take questions from the audience. Tickets are on sale at Rock Hill Cafe (19 Exchange St Glens Falls) and High Peaks Java (153 Maple Street, Glens Falls) for $75 each. The price includes a copy of Nader’s latest book, The Seventeen Traditions.
At about 3:30 pm, Ralph Nader will sign copies of his latest book (The Seventeen Traditions) at Red Fox Book Store (28 Ridge Street, Glens Falls). The book looks back to the earliest days of Nader’s own life to his serene and enriching childhood in bucolic Winsted, Connecticut. From listening to learning, from patriotism to argument, from work to simple enjoyment, Nader revisits seventeen key traditions he absorbed from his parents, his siblings, and the people in his community, and draws from them inspiring lessons for today's society. Warmly human, rich with sensory memories and lasting wisdom, it offers a kind of modern-day parable of how we grow from children into responsible adults—a reminder of a time when nature and community were central to the way we all learned and lived.
Ralph Nader is one of America's most effective social critics. He has run for the office of US President twice, as the candidate of the Green Party in 2000 (America’s third largest and fastest growing political party), and as an Independent in 2004. For forty years his documented criticism of government and industry has had a widespread effect on public awareness and bureaucratic power and has inspired a whole population of consumer advocates and citizen activists.
Nader first made headlines in 1965 with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a scathing indictment of the auto industry for producing unsafe vehicles that led to congressional hearings and a series of automobile safety laws passed in 1966. Since then Nader has been responsible for at least eight major federal consumer protection laws such as the motor vehicle safety laws and the Safe Drinking Water Act and the launching of federal regulatory agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environment Protection Agency (EPA), and Consumer Product Safety Administration, and the Freedom of Information Act of 1974.
Nader also helped establish the PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups) the student-funded and controlled organizations that function on college campuses in 23 states. Their impact alone has been tremendous. The groups have published hundreds of ground-breaking reports and guides, lobbied for laws in their state legislatures, and called the media's attention to environmental and energy problems. The largest of the Nader organizations is Public Citizen, founded in 1971 and with a current nationwide membership over 100,000.
[END]

Crooked Democrat Judge Fines Nader $89,000 For Running for Office

I have attached a truly frightening piece below about the lengths to which the Democrats have now stooped to quash democracy and shut down third party candidates. The Democrats, through actions like this, are succeeding at making the Republicans look like the good guys. When I read articles like this, I am quite relieved to be associated with neither set of ruling class, neo-corporatist swine.


OpEdNews
www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__070502_democrats_tighten_no.htm
May 2, 2007
Democrats tighten noose on Nader and Greens in punitive attack on "Third Party" candidates
By Michael Richardson

The Democrats are tightening the financial noose around Ralph Nader for his failed bid to obtain ballot access in Pennsylvania during his 2004 Presidential campaign. Nader had been deprived a place on the ballot after extensive litigation, brought by the Democrats, and was later assessed a hefty $89,821 penalty by the Pennsylvania courts to be paid to the Democrats for court-related costs. Nader appealed the assessment and was recently denied a hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court. Emboldened, lawyers for the Democrats have now entered the costly order as a final judgment in an ongoing effort to enforce the penalty.

Nader attorney Oliver Hall says about the post-election vendetta, "They have overreached and gone way too far, it is unprecedented." The obvious chilling effect on independents and minor party candidates is not lost on Carl Romanelli, the 2006 Green Party would-be candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania. Romanelli, too, has been hit by the Democrats with a huge bill for their costs in removing him from the ballot and has been ordered to pay $89,668.

If successful in Pennsylvania, Democrat legislators around the country will likely introduce similar punitive election laws in other states, particularly "swing" states, in a preventive effort to keep independents and minor party candidates off the ballot.

Capital University law professor Mark Brown has studied the 2004 legal wrangling that took Nader off the ballot in Pennsylvania and recently published a law review article on the affair. Brown discovered the Democrats were aided by a judge who may have been motivated by animus toward Nader's candidacy.

Nader needed 25,697 signatures on his nomination petitions to get a spot on the Pennsylvania ballot and submitted approximately 52,000. A week after filing the petitions the Secretary of State accepted Nader's nomination after tossing about 5,000 signatures for various reasons. That same day, August 9, 2004, eight Democrat "objectors" represented by two dozen lawyers challenged some 37,000 of the remaining signatures. After weeks of legal wrangling eleven judges were assigned the monumental task of a line-by-line review of Nader's petitions.

Judge James Collins, who assessed the $89,821 bill, led the review declaring Nader's petitions were "rife with forgeries" and that "this signature gathering process was the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this Court." Collins alleged that "thousands of names" were "created at random"…a view dissented from by Justice Saylor of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who declared the Nader campaign had not been shown to have engaged in any kind of "systemic" fraud and that only 687 signatures out of 51,273 had actually been rejected for forgery.

Professor Brown has discovered that Judge Collins personally ruled that 568 of the 687 purported forgeries were fraudulent leaving the other ten judges to find only 119 forgeries. Collins and two of the other reviewing judges discarded thousands of signatures on very "technical and complicated" criteria including a missing middle initial, use of ditto marks, or mixing printing with cursive writing. Collins ended up rejecting 70% of the 10,794 signatures he reviewed.

Brown wrote in his law review article, "Moreover, the eleven judges who reviewed Nader's signature submissions apparently employed different standards to invalidate signatures at alarmingly different rates." In a footnote, Brown notes that 3,500 signatures were invalidated for unstated reasons.

Brown writes there was a "concerted Democratic program to purge Nader from the presidential ballot." Further, "The lesson to be drawn from the 2004 presidential race is that neither major party can be trusted to police a general election ballot. Major party interests naturally lean more toward rigging and sabotaging than insuring fair and competitive fights."

"The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court pressed just under a dozen judges into service at different locations over the course of two weeks to canvass 52,000 signatures submitted by the Nader campaign. Not only did this Herculean effort push the Nader campaign beyond its legal and technical capacity--some of the proceedings were not even attended by Nader's lawyers--the eleven judges invalidated signatures at alarmingly different rates."

"Forcing lawyers to scramble among a dozen courtrooms in as many days to uphold an agency's decision authorizing ballot access is neither measured nor productive. The practice is not only constitutionally objectionable, but it also facilitates a moneyed effort to veto a political outsider's participation in the electoral arena."

Attorney Hall says that Ralph Nader is still reviewing his options regarding the costly and punitive order issued by Judge Collins to punish Nader's bid for public office.

Professor Brown concludes his analysis of the Democratic legal attack on Nader, "I suspect that as long as America's political system rewards an empty lust for power, politicians and judges will continue to turn blind eyes to fair procedures."

Permission granted to reprint. Authors Bio: Michael Richardson is a freelance writer based in Boston. Richardson writes about politics, election law, human nutrition, ethics, and music. In 2004 Richardson was Ralph Nader's national ballot access coordinator.

Chris Hedges Says He'll Work for Nader in 2008

When the book, "War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning" came out, intellectuals and peace activists alike flocked to it. It was intelligent, well-reasoned and written by a true craftsman with some truly horrific war stories to tell and a keen eye to analyze the costs for all concerned. Hedges says that he will work for Ralph Nader in 2008 if he runs again (he will). In Hedge's article, he talks about the corporate rape of our government and how Nader is one of the only national figures to recognize this and to speak openly about the corrupt corporate ownership of our nation. He notes that someone with Ralph's incredible resume must have only entered the public arena to fight the "rapists" after their purchase of the Republican Lite Party back in the 1980's and this presumes that those who further the "ego trip" theory are just buying into propaganda for those too limited intellectually to think for themselves.

Thank you Chris Hedges for being brave enough to tell the truth! I sincerely hope that the "propaganda-eaters" don't malign and abuse you for telling the truth, though I suspect they will. They don't appreciate the truth at all and they don't like to talk about it either.

On a similar topic, I spent half a day on "Democratic Underground" about a month ago and was kicked off (with absolutely no explanation). For those unfamiliar, DU is a website with many forums to discuss "progressive" issues, like who you like better, Gore or Hillary. They also enjoy talking about which pro-war Democratic candidate they should vote for to end the war. Not exactly a hotbed of rational thought .... but they're Democrats. What do you expect?

The "progressives" I was chatting with were discussing the new Nader film, "An Unreasonable Man". They were literally calling Ralph an "idiot", "a fucking asshole" and a "scumbag". I can only assume that this Democrat venom is residual from the 2000 presidential run although none of these idiots could explain their way out of a paper bag nor do they feel that they owe me, their enemy, any explanation. In their minds, Nader was that guy who was "not a factor" when they mailed out all the debate invitations but who became the "ONLY factor" when Al Gore ran such a weak-assed campaign that he lost his own home state and Clinton's, too! All I did on the forum with a particularly stupid chatter was call Hillary a "fascist". I backed that up by asking how someone can support the Imperialist/Big Oil/Ruling Class agenda and vote for illegal occupation and genocide and also refuse to debate your legitimate opponents, Tasini and Hawkins? I may have also pointed out to a few Nader-haters that there were many other third party candidates on the ballot in Florida in that infamous election and that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM had enough votes to "spoil it" for Gore. Using the Dems own questionable math skills, shouldn't they be propagandizing against all of those candidates! Why have they persisted in vilifying only ONE guy, especially when that one guy has done more for them than any elected official has ever done?

I guess they don't like having a conversation or they're just frightened that their "logic" doesn't make any sense? Very strange behavior, indeed. These "sheeple" who call themselves progressives lack even a basic willingness to try and defend their viewpoint and their blind obedience to their party bosses. This fearful behavior fortifies me in my certitude that Ralph is right and that we need to support him in whatever number of elections he may choose to run in.

Peace to all those with open minds who are brave enough to stand up and fight!




Pariah or Prophet?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070226_an_unreasonably_principled_man/
Posted on Feb 26, 2007
By Chris Hedges

I can’t imagine why Ralph Nader would run again. He has been branded as an egomaniac, blacklisted by the media, plunged into debt by a Democratic Party machine that challenged his ballot access petitions and locked him out of the presidential debates. Most of his friends and supporters have abandoned him, and he is almost universally reviled for throwing the 2000 election to George W. Bush.

I can’t imagine why he would want to go through this one more time. But when Nader hinted in San Francisco that he might run if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton became the Democratic Party nominee, I knew I would be working for his campaign if he indeed entered the race. He understands that American democracy has become a consumer fraud and that if we do not do battle with the corporations that, in the name of globalization, are cannibalizing the country for profit, our democratic state is doomed.

I spent the last two years reporting and writing “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” The rise of the Christian right—the most dangerous mass movement in American history—can be traced directly to the corporate rape of America. This movement, which calls for the eradication of real and imagined enemies, all branded as “satanic,” at home and abroad, is an expression of rage. This rage rises out of the deep distortions and dislocations that have beset tens of millions of Americans shunted aside in the new global marketplace. The massive flight of manufacturing and professional jobs overseas, the ruthless slashing of state and federal assistance and the rise of an unchecked American oligarchy have plunged many Americans into deep economic and personal despair. They have turned, because of this despair, to “Christian” demagogues who promise magic, miracles, angels, the gospel of prosperity and a fantastic Christian utopia. And the Republicans and the Democrats are equally culpable for this assault.

There are only two solutions left. We must organize to fight the corporate state, to redirect our national wealth and resources to fund a massive antipoverty campaign and curb the cycle of perpetual war that enriches the military-industrial complex and by extension the two political parties that dominate Washington, or we must accept an inevitable Christo-fascism backed by these corporations. Don’t expect glib Democratic politicians such as John Edwards, Sen. Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama to address these issues. They are, as Nader understands, hostage to corporate money.

Nader, perhaps better than anyone else, has grasped the long, disastrous rise of the corporate state.

He and his small army of activists helped write citizen legislation in the 1960s and 1970s that gave us, among many bills, the Clean Air Act, the Mine and Health Safety Act and the Freedom of Information Act. He worked with and was courted by sympathetic Democrats. Presidential candidate George McGovern saw him as a potential running mate, but Nader refused to be enticed directly into the political arena. He was a skilled Washington insider, one of the greatest idealists within the democratic system.

But the corporations grew tired of Nader’s activism. They mounted a well-oiled campaign to destroy him. These early attempts were clumsy and amateurish, such as General Motor’s use of private detectives to try to dig up dirt on his private life; they found none. The campaign was exposed and led to a public apology by GM. Nader was awarded $425,000 in damages, which he used to fund citizen action groups.

Lewis Powell, who was the general counsel to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and would later be appointed to the Supreme Court, wrote a memo in August 1971 that expressed corporate concerns. “The single most effective antagonist of American business is Ralph Nader,” the memo read, “a legend in his own time and an idol to millions of Americans. ... There should be no hesitation to attack [Nader and others].”

Corporations poured hundreds of millions into the assault. They set up pseudo-think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, which invented bogus disciplines including cost-benefit and risk-management analysis, all geared to change the debate from health, labor and safety issues to the rising cost of big government. They ran sophisticated ad campaigns to beguile voters. These corporations wrenched apart, through lavish campaign donations and intensive and shady lobbying, the ties between Nader’s public interest groups and his supporters in the Democratic Party. Washington, by the time they were done, was besieged with 25,000 corporate lobbyists and 9,000 corporate action committees.

When Ronald Reagan, the corporate pitch man, swept into office he set out to dismantle some 30 governmental regulations, most put into place by Nader and his allies, all of which curbed the abuse of corporations. The Reagan White House worked to gut 20 years of Nader legislation. And, once a fixture on Capital Hill, Nader became a pariah.

Nader, however, did not give up. He turned to local community organizing, assisting grass-roots campaigns around the country such the one to remove benzene, known to cause cancer, from paint in GM car plants. But by the time Bill Clinton and Al Gore took office the corporate state was ascendant. Nader and his citizen committees were frozen out by Democrats as well as Republicans. Clinton and Gore never met with him.

“We tried every way to get the Democrats to pick up on issues that really commanded the felt concerns and daily life of millions of Americans,” Nader says in the new documentary about his life, “An Unreasonable Man,” “but these were issues that corporations didn’t want attention paid to, and so when people say why did you do this in 2000, I say I’m a 20-year veteran of pursuing the folly of the least worse between the two parties.”

The Clinton administration pushed through NAFTA, gutted welfare, gave up on universal healthcare, deregulated the communications industry and abolished federal aid to families with dependent children. It further empowered the growing corporate state and exacerbated the despair that has fueled its allies in the Christian right.

“For 20 years,” Nader says in the film, “we saw the doors closing on us in Washington, on our citizen groups and a lot of other citizen groups, and what are we here for? To improve the country. We couldn’t get congressional hearings, even with the Democrats in charge.”
There is a fascinating rage—and rage is the right word—expressed by many on the left in this fine film about Nader. Todd Gitlin, Eric Alterman and Michael Moore, along with a host of former Nader’s Raiders, spit out venomous insults toward Nader, a man they profess to have once admired, the most common charge being that Nader is a victim of his oversized ego.
This anger is the anger of the betrayed. But they were not betrayed by Nader. They betrayed themselves. They allowed themselves to buy into the facile argument of “the least worse” and ignore the deeper, subterranean assault on our democracy that Nader has always addressed.
It was an incompetent, corporatized Democratic Party, along with the orchestrated fraud by the Republican Party, that threw the 2000 election to Bush, not Ralph Nader. Nader received only 2.7 percent of the vote in 2000 and got less than one-half of 1 percent in 2004. All of the third-party candidates who ran in 2000 in Florida—there were about half a dozen of them—got more votes than the 537-vote difference between Bush and Gore. Why not go after the other third-party candidates? And what about the 10 million Democrats who voted in 2000 for Bush? What about Gore, whose campaign was so timid and empty—he never mentioned global warming—that he could not carry his home state of Tennessee? And what about the 2004 cartoon-like candidate, John Kerry, who got up like a Boy Scout and told us he was reporting for duty and would bring us “victory” in Iraq?

Nader argues that there are few—he never said no—differences between the Democrats and the Republicans. And during the first four years of the Bush administration the Democrats proved him right. They authorized the war in Iraq. They stood by as Bush stacked the judiciary with “Christian” ideologues. They let Bush, in violation of the Constitution, pump hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into faith-based organizations that discriminate based on belief and sexual orientation and openly proselytize. They stood by as American children got fleeced by No Child Left Behind. Democrats did not protest when federal agencies began to propagate “Christian” pseudo-science about creationism, reproductive rights and homosexuality. And the Democrats let Bush further dismantle regulatory agencies, strip American citizens of constitutional rights under the Patriot Act and other draconian legislation, and thrust impoverished Americans aside through the corporate-sponsored bankruptcy bill. It is a stunning record. Bush is the worst president in American history. If Gore, or Kerry, had the spine to take him on, to challenge corporate welfare, corporate crime, the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate bailouts and issues such as labor law reform, if either had actually stood up to these corporate behemoths on behalf of the working and middle class, rather than mutter thought-terminating clichйs about American greatness, he could have won with a landslide. But Gore and Kerry did not dare to piss off their corporate paymasters.

There are a few former associates in the film who argue that Nader is tarnishing his legacy, and by extension their own legacy. But Nader’s legacy is undiminished. He fights his wars against corporate greed with a remarkable consistency. He knows our democratic state is being hijacked by the same corporate interests that sold us unsafe automobiles and dangerous and shoddy products. This is a battle not for some unachievable ideal but to save our democracy.
“I don’t care about my personal legacy,” Nader says in the film. “I care about how much justice is advanced in America and in our world day after day. I’m willing to sacrifice whatever ‘reputation’ in the cause of that effort. What is my legacy? Are they going to turn around and rip out seat belts out of cars, air bags out of cars?”

These corporations, and their enraged and manipulated followers in the Christian right, tens of millions of them, if left unchecked will propel us into despotism. The corporate state has rigged our system, hollowed out our political process and steadily stripped citizens of constitutional rights, federal and state protection and assistance. This may be the twilight of American democracy. And it is better to stand up and fight, even in vain, than not to fight at all.

Chris Hedges’ latest book is “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”

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

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.

Howie Hawkins Visits Glens Falls

Adirondack Progressives Host Fundraiser for Green U.S. Senate Candidate, Howie Hawkins
For Immediate Release
Contact: Matt Funiciello (518)361-6278 or mattfuniciello@earthlink.net

June 26, 2006 – Local progressive and Green Party activist Matt Funiciello announced today that candidate for U.S. Senate from New York, Howie Hawkins, will be the guest of honor at a dinner and fundraiser to be held at 6 p.m., July 22, 2006, at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe in Glens Falls. The event is sponsored by the Adirondack Progressives. Local musician Carrianne Skidmore will provide entertainment and a vegetarian buffet will be served. Tickets are available at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe and also at High Peaks Java; there is a suggested donation of $25. Hawkins faces incumbent US Senator Hillary Clinton in the fall election.“Hawkins represents the best and brightest of the Green Party,” said Funiciello, a former member of the Green Party's National Committee, himself. “We’re extremely proud to have him as our party’s candidate against the pro-Iraq, pro-Patriot Act, pro-globalization, former WalMart board member, Citizen Hillary.”“An independent opposition party like the Greens is the most effective way to advance peace, justice, and a sustainable society,” Hawkins said, “It is not just the peace vote that is open to alternatives. So are the millions without health insurance, the workers who are losing wages and benefits and their very jobs, the environmentalists who see no program to address global warming, and the women and people of color who are losing their recently won rights. All have reason to be dissatisfied with Clinton, who is taking them for granted as she rebrands herself a ‘moderate’ for her presidential run.”“Clinton has been a consistent war hawk on Iraq and, indeed, all the wars initiated by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. She is more responsible than any other person in America for killing the single-payer national health insurance bill that had about 100 members of Congress as co-sponsors in 1993,” Hawkins added.Howie Hawkins has been active in movements for peace, justice, the environment, and independent progressive politics since the late 1960s. A former Marine, he helped organize opposition to the Vietnam War and was a co-founder of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976. He was a co-founder of the Green Party in the United States in 1984 and currently serves on the Green National Committee.After attending Dartmouth College in the early 1970s, Howie worked as a carpenter in New England and helped start up a construction workers cooperative that specialized in solar and wind energy installations. Howie moved to Syracuse in 1991 to be Director of CommonWorks, a federation of cooperatives working for an economy that is cooperatively owned, democratically controlled, and ecologically sustainable. A member of Teamsters Local 317 and active in the national Teamster rank-and-file reform caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Howie presently works unloading trucks and rail cars at UPS.Howie's articles on social theory, cooperative economics, and independent politics have appeared in many publications, including Against the Current, Green Politics, International Socialist Review, New Politics, Peace and Democracy News, Peaceworks, Resist, Society and Nature, and Z Magazine . He is the editor of Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006).Adirondack Progressives is a group of local Independents, along with members of the Green, Democratic and Republican parties interested in fostering a local dialogue on today’s most important issues. They are currently also organizing a fall appearance by Green candidate for N.Y.S. Governor, Malachy McCourt. McCourt is a longtime activist, author of the NY Times bestseller A Monk Swimming, and brother of Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt).

For more information about this and other Adirondack Progressive events, contact Matt Funiciello at (518) 361-6278.

For Campaign Information: www.hawkinsforsenate.org and www.malachyforgovernor.com