Ralph Nader's letter to Condi - MUST READ!!

[proud2BlibKansan]

May 23, 2006

Hon. Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Rice:

Today (May 23, 2006) in The New York Times, you are quoted as saying, during your commencement speech at Boston College that, "There is nothing wrong with holding an opinion and holding it passionately. But at those times you're absolutely sure that you are right, go find somebody who disagrees. Don't allow yourself the easy course of the constant 'Amen' to everything you say."

Those words of yours echoed back to early 2003 when, prior to the invasion of Iraq, at least 13 associations representing millions of Americans each wrote to President George W. Bush requesting a brief meeting to convey both their concerns and pertinent information about why there should not be an invasion of Iraq. Included were associations of veterans, business, labor, former intelligence officials, church members, students, and women.

You'll remember that the President, so "absolutely sure that" he was right, had never met with any group which disagreed with him. At least, this is what the White House press office confirmed.

None of the groups received the courtesy of a reply - even to say no. Now that you have the perspective of more than three years since the invasion, do you think it was wise for the President to reject the advice you gave to the graduating students at Boston College?

Furthermore, would you entertain a delegation from several of these groups visiting you about the costly and falsely based Iraq war - groups that will not allow you "the easy course of the constant 'Amen' to everything you say?"

Sincerely,



Ralph Nader
P.O. Box 19312
Washington, DC 20036

http://democracyrising.us/content/view/492/151/

[NanceGreggs]

1. You're right ...

... this is a MUST READ!

[IndyOp]

2. Good Job! More, More, More!!

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[The_Warmth]

3. Owned

like the noob she is. Very well written, sweet and short. Well, not so sweet for BushCo.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. Good description

[Minnesota Libra]

4. I predicted about three weeks ago it was time for Nader to surface. nt

[MADem]

11. Yep....if this is simply strongly held belief at play, and not an opening

salvo for yet another joke of a run at the presidency, well, then he's changed.

[Minnesota Libra]

14. ".....he's changed" I'm not holding my breath. LOL nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. Has he said anything about running again?

[Minnesota Libra]

23. I'm sure he'll have to check................

......with the neocons/fundies for their contributions before he can make a decision like that.

[MADem]

46. I don't pay much attention to him--it's all that GOP money that he

took, hand over fist, to do nothing save grab a shitload of press and a small percentage of fringe voters, that made me put him in my "ignore the sorry, cheap bastard" category. He wanders about in his rumpled suits and Army-Navy store shoes, acting like Mister Poverty, and he's as rich as Roosevelt, and without one iota of FDR's character. http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/06/20/nader/ It ain't his money in and of itself so much as it is his fake poormouth image, and his stock portfolio. Plus the fact that he DELIGHTS in being a spoiler, the old fool.

Grandstanding bum--if he really cared about the future of the country, he'd do like Al Sharpton does--get in there, mix it up, and at the end of the day, back a nominee that best represents your views. I have no problem with a wide range of views, but when it gets down to the wire, all he does is shit in the punch.

[roody]

55. I thank Ralph every time I fasten my seat belt

for his committment to the public.

[MADem]

66. Well, he didn't invent them, but he did push them

They were invented by VOLVO nearly a hundred and sixty years ago. A guy named EJ CLAGHORN either got lucky or ripped off the idea, and got a US patent shortly afterwards. http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Seat-Belts:-Safety-On-The-Road&id=114354

But that 'unsafe at any speed' era was his finest hour. He should stick to consumer safety issues. He's already demonstrated how well he can waffle on corporate issues, when his purse is enriched. He hasn't the temperament or vision to be leader of the free world.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Was that here?

I think I remember reading that prediction on DU.

Good call.

[spindrifter]

5. This is the administration

that not only refuses to hear the other side, it pays (AEI, Lincoln Group, e.g.) to have only its side heard.

[Olney Blue]

6. I doubt Condi had time to read it. She's busy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1293851

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. It's also probably about time for some new shoes

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/breaking-sec-of-state-condi-rice.html

[robbedvoter]

7. I'd like to see that Wall Street article of 2001 wishing W luck and

expressing the opinion that Bush, rather than Gore will smack the corporations and do everything all right...(details are fuzzy). Why exactly did I waste 5 minutes of my life on this? What earthshattering thing that none of us thought of did the genius write here? :shrug:

[BrklynLiberal]

9. I believe this is an article about THAT article.

Ralph Nader's political olive branch to Bush
By Barry Grey
30 March 2001

Earlier this month former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader co-authored a column that appeared on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. Entitled “Ending Corporate Welfare as We Know It,” the article by Nader and Robert Weissman (editor of the Nader-backed Multinational Monitor magazine) presented a generally positive picture of the newly installed administration of Republican President George W. Bush.

Nader and Weissman sought to couch their enthusiasm for aspects of the Bush administration—above all its extreme nationalist and unilateralist predilections—in measured terms. The article, published March 7, began:

“If it took Richard Nixon to go to China, could George W. Bush be the president who ends corporate welfare as we know it?

“That doesn't appear likely. But in a budget outline that offers little reason to smile to those concerned about the concentration of corporate power, the Bush administration has offered a glimmer of hope on the corporate-welfare front.”

Nader and Weissman went on to praise Bush's budget outline, published the preceding week, for proposing a reduction in funding for three federal programs that provide government subsidies to corporations: the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Export-Import Bank and the Advanced Technology Program.

“These are positive steps,” wrote Nader. He then proceeded to applaud Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, who “has voiced skepticism about the Wall Street bailouts regularly engineered by the International Monetary Fund in coordination with his Department.”

The thrust of the article was that the proposed scale-back in the above named programs and O'Neill's public criticisms of IMF bailouts were promising moves, but only partial steps. “But while all these initial moves are in the right direction, there is much, much more to do to rein in corporate welfare,” wrote Nader.

In conclusion, the authors of the article respectfully reminded Bush of his “commitment” to (quoting Bush) “reduce subsidies that primarily benefit corporations rather than individuals” and wondered whether the new president would show “the political courage to offend the very corporate fat cats who funded his campaign.”
<snip>

more
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/mar2001/nad-m30.shtml

Another article that mentions the Wall Street journal article:

Rose-Washing Ralph

<snip>
As if that wasn't enough, Nader has spent his post-election sucking up to George W. Bush, most notably in a Wall Street Journal article wherein Nader slobbered wet kisses all over Alcoa bigwig and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. But perhaps this is just a big thank-you from Ralph to Dubya for the Bush campaign's having shelled out big bucks to run Gore-bashing, pro- Nader TV ads in places like Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington.
<snip>

more..
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010423Baker.html

[robbedvoter]

12. Thanks! That was as much as I read (not a WS subscriber, mois)

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. That was 5 years ago

Maybe he has changed his mind since then?

[robbedvoter]

25. Consequences of his actions didn't change though.

I have yet to see him take responsibility for it. Or even a half assed W type "sorry". He ran again in 2004, remember? AFTER the war started!

[pnwmom]

26. Thanks for the timely reminder. I especially liked the American Politics

article, which says:

"And why would Ralph want a Bush win? Is it just because he claims that would force the Dems to the left...
... or could it be, at least in part, that Nader himself is more conservative than he lets on?

Considering that Nader openly wooed Pat Buchanan's followers, one has to wonder. Here's some evidence for the latter view. Check it out: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow at the far-right National Center for Policy Analysis, wrote an article on Nader's conservatism (and his attempts to woo conservative institutions such as Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard) that was published on the NCPA's website on September 20, 2000.

...It turns out that Nader has conservative roots and a not implausible argument that he is a conservative. ...the earliest piece I was able to find by Ralph Nader was published in the ultra-conservative American Mercury magazine in March 1960. (The American Mercury was a highly respected magazine in the 1920s and 1930s, but fell on hard times and was sold to some ultra- conservatives in the 1940s, who turned the magazine sharply to the right. Until the founding of National Review, it was the most prominent conservative publication in America). ...

Nader also wrote an anti-public-housing article that appeared in the October 1962 issue of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, a venerable free market group. Wrote Nader, "A vicious circle begins to operate; as private property is undermined by public competition, private investment is discouraged by the threat of more public housing. As local property taxes increase, the prospects diminish for new or expanding industry."



Here's a link to another interesting essay.

http://www.slate.com/id/1006380/

"Nader's response to all this heartfelt hand-wringing has been to scoff and sneer. On Good Morning America, he referred contemptuously to his old disciples as "frightened liberals." The Green Party nominee is spending the final week of the campaign stumping in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Washington--the very states where a strong showing stands to hurt Gore the most. Nader has said he wants to maximize his vote in every state in hopes of attaining the 5 percent of the vote that will qualify the Green Party for $12 million in federal matching funds in 2004. Speaking to foreign journalists in Washington yesterday, he explicitly rejected Internet vote-swapping schemes that could help him reach this qualifying threshold without the side effect of electing Bush president. In various other TV appearances, Nader has stated bluntly that he couldn't care less who wins.

This depraved indifference to Republican rule has made Nader's old liberal friends even more furious. A bunch of intellectuals organized by Sean Wilentz and Todd Gitlin are circulating a much nastier open letter, denouncing Nader's "wrecking-ball campaign--one that betrays the very liberal and progressive values it claims to uphold." But really, the question shouldn't be the one liberals seem to be asking about why Nader is doing what he's doing. The question should be why anyone is surprised. For some time now, Nader has made it perfectly clear that his campaign isn't about trying to pull the Democrats back to the left. Rather, his strategy is the Leninist one of "heightening the contradictions." It's not just that Nader is willing to take a chance of being personally responsible for electing Bush. It's that he's actively trying to elect Bush because he thinks that social conditions in American need to get worse before they can better.

SNIP

" Nader further and shockingly explained that he hopes in the future to run Green Party candidates around the country, including against such progressive Democrats as Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Sen. Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, and Rep. Henry Waxman of California. "I hate to use military analogies," Nader said, "but this is war on the two parties."

SNIP

"If Nader's goal were actually progressive reform--a ban on soft money, a higher minimum wage, health-care coverage for some of the uninsured, a global warming treaty--it would be possible to say that his strategy was breathtakingly stupid. But Nader's goal is not progressive reform; it's a transformation in human consciousness. His Green Party will not flourish under Democratic presidents who lull the country into a sense of complacency by making things moderately better. If it is to thrive, it needs villainous, right-wing Republicans who will make things worse. Like Pat Buchanan, Nader understands that his movement thrives on misery. But the comparison is actually unfair to Buchanan (words I never thought I'd write) because Buchanan doesn't work to create more misery for the sake of making his movement grow the way Nader does. From a strictly self-interested point of view, Nader's stance is the more rational one."

[speedoo]

13. Thanks for the reminder, of what a dipshit Nader is.

The self-obsessed tool is as responsible as anyone for the fact that * is in the WH.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I agree but I still like his letter

[pnwmom]

27. He's good at saying things people want to hear. But everything he says

is in service to his grandiose plans to remake the world. In his own selfish way, he's another GWB.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Skip Intro]

10. Would there even be a condi or bush regime had it not been for ralph?

Nonetheless, great letter.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. Good point

I wonder if he is trying to make up for that . . .

[pnwmom]

29. He's not trying to make up for anything. He's just looking for another

opening.

[desi]

24. Well there would be somebody just like Condi

and a regime just like the Busheviks since "there is no difference between the two dominant parties." F**k Ralph Nader.

[Minnesota Libra]

30. Very good point - and with all those.........................

.....neocon/fundie political contributions it's obvious that without Nader and that 2% of the vote Nader took Gore would have been President all this time. OMG, I hate Nader even more than I hate neocons/fundies. The neocons/fundies do what they do because they are actually stupid enough to believe what they're doing is right. Nader, on the other hand, knew what he was doing was wrong and would hurt everyone and yet he did it anyway. That in my book is the classic example of a traitor.
:rant: :rant: :rant:

[pberq]

34. Once again we have the rewriting of history by the anti-Nader camp

Ignored is the fact that Al Gore could not even win his home state of Tennessee - and this was not Nader's fault.

Also, during the campaign Nader was completely marginalized by the MSM. Gore had every chance in the world to make his case, but what did he come up with? Wishy-washy DLC rhetoric.

Nader was actually speaking to the needs of the majority of Americans - but of course this was barely reported in the MSM.

Please understand, this is not a critique of the Al Gore of 2006 - he has changed, and he has my full support now.

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. Assuming that there was no election fraud in Tennessee in the

'00 election, that is. Seems I read that Tennessee was fraught with election shenanigans. And ** couldn't even win his Country, without stealing. And Nader can go "Cheney" himself.

[pnwmom]

43. Florida would have been an EASY victory for Gore -- w/out Nader.

[MADem]

47. How do we know, really? Was DIEBOLD in TN????

I think they shaved around the margins of EVERY close state they could get their paws on...

And no offense, but your comment suggests that the majority of Americans are dumb as posts--if Nader was speaking truth to power, he would have gotten a better turnout, but he only got the fringe 'principle over reality' types who couldn't SEE what was at stake.

Nader wouldn't shut UP, he was on every talking head show, over and over again, and got WAY more coverage than his lousy few percentage points merited, and he didn't spend a dime of his multimillion dollar, corporate portfolio in the effort--instead, he spent money provided to him by the GOP.

A real man of the people, not! A cheap, rich, spoiler. There's no fool like an old fool.

[SammyWinstonJack]

48. !

:applause:

[stevenleser]

52. Gore didnt win Tennessee because

he stuck to his anti-gun positions knowing full well that it might result in the NRA taking him out in Tennessee. The NRA spent millions making sure that every Tennessean heard their mantra that Al would take their guns away if elected. If you know anything about that part of the country, you know why that made a difference.

Interesting that those who like Nader and trashed the Democrats for being too much like Republicans would bring up something like this when it was sticking to a progressive stance that resulted in this loss.

[tabasco]

60. LMAO. You attempt to divert attention from states in which

Nader made the difference by throwing out "Gore couldn't win his home state!"

Now tell us some more about rewriting history.

Part of rewriting history is ignoring basic realities, such as splitting coalitions. You're doing a heckuva job!

[Minnesota Libra]

61. ".....splitting coalitions" you're definitely on track...............

....because without the splitting coalitions Gore would be President and we wouldn't be saddled with this WH Idiot. :puke: Nader is a traitor!!:puke:

[pnwmom]

70. Gore's policy issues are the SAME as they were before. Nader was lying

when he said that Bush and Gore's policies were the same. He was out to punish the Democrats, pure and simple.

[CanSocDem]

38. Maybe you have to be outside of the USA...

...to appreciate Nader's' charge that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Some days it is visible right here on DU.

His letter is consistent with everything he has ever said or written. Some people here have tuned him out despite the volume of his anti-corporate voice and the fact that he sometimes sounds like the only American with the courage to stand up to AMERICORP.

[pnwmom]

44. No, you have to be outside the realm of REALITY to believe Nader's charge

that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

[MADem]

49. Anti-corporate voice??? Check out the bum's STOCK PORTFOLIO

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/06/20/nader/

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemId=9114

Mister "Do as I say, not as I do." Totally lame excuses: I take the money, but I still complain...yeah, like anyone listens to that old crackpot! He talks the talk, but he can't even CRAWL the walk...

He's as hypocritical as Monkeyboy in a flight suit, supporting the troops but never doing the heavy lifting. Screw him.

[dogday]

22. Amen----- No Pun Intended

:eyes:

[The Wielding Truth]

28. Has he constantly been after her like this ?

She's been lying for Bush and herself since they started together. Everything she stands for is shaded by her big big lies! Sorry she chose this path. She could have worked for human rights, freedom, and peace, but she chose Corporate power.

[mom cat]

31. He nailed her good.

[Metta]

32. Good for him. What she says is certainly empty rhetoric.

She's another one that's betrayed human incarnation.

[Martin Eden]

33. Throwing Condi's words right back in herf ace!

I love it!

[peacetalksforall]

35. Brillinat! Absolutely up front brilliant! Recommend! n/t

[pberq]

36. Kick & Nominated !

[proud2BlibKansan]

40. thank you

[NNadir]

37. But those speaking against the war did not prominently include Nader.

Mr. "Bush is the same as Gore," had different fish to fry at that time the war was approaching, important shit, like the NBA.

He is inserting himself here, after the fact. He had no problem with Bush when Bush ran for the office of the Presidency. In fact Nader went out of his way to make Mr. Bush seem more moderate by comparing him to Al Gore.

Fuck Nader, Corporate CNN mouthpiece. His sudden interest in Iraq is about the same quality as Chuck Hagel's sudden interest. It's after the fact Repuke hand wringing. Nader's chief interest in this entire debacle has been chanting (often into CNN's right leaning microphones): "The Democrats suck! The Democrats suck!"

He has no such problems with Republicans. He seems to only have recently discovered who Condie Rice is. Maybe he was confusing her with Madeline Albright up until today.

I was at the two major war protests in New York, the January (freezing cold) protest and the April protests after the war began.

I heard nothing for, or about, or from Nader. Fucking Nader, as far as I can tell, was hanging out at his town house, nice and comfy. He had nothing to say.

Fuck Nader, the freak. I despise that man. He is fraudulently attempting to distract attention from his own culpability. He forgets that none of this had to happen in the first place, except that he placed his bizarre (and unjustified) ego above his country and his planet.

[pnwmom]

45. Exactly. It's all about his ego, nothing more.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

54. BULLSHIT-I saw him speak on 9-13-01 and he was alreadywarning on Iraq

that dubya would use this as an excuse. Gore, on the other hand, went on TV around this time and gave the 'george w. bush is my commander in c hief' speech with a big ol' shit-eatin' grin. (I still like al-due to his actions in later years, though)

ralph's been speaking against the war constantly. he just doesn't get on TV. What prominant voice does-outside of officeholders and the straw man of 'hollywood types" chomsky, zinn, medea, and the rest are virtually banned from TV. it took cindy sheehan to break through

[pnwmom]

68. But his ego prevented him from helping Kerry to defeat Bush. So now

we're stuck with the President who has left it to "other Presidents" to end the war.

If Nader wasn't trying to make things worse, he would have encouraged vote-swapping. That he didn't was the final straw for this swing-state voter. I used to respect him, but his narcissism overwhelms everything else, IMO.

[WinkyDink]

41. "Dear Ralph: Now that you have the perspective of 5 1/2 years

since your entry into the 2000 Presidential election, do you think it was wise of you to reject the notion that there was a distinction between Gore and Bush, to the former's merit?"

STHU.

[Kenergy]

42. LOL ! Good one Ralph !

I actually like Ralph, but think he made an error in judgement in not supporting
Kerry in '04

[WI_DEM]

50. Didn't Ralph say in '00 that there wouldn't be any difference if Bush or

Gore won that election?

[pnwmom]

57. Yup, he certainly did. Real smart guy, that Nader.

[dad]

62. http://www.votenader.org/ why_ralph/index.php?cid=3

Didn’t Ralph say that there was "no difference between the Democrats and Republicans?"
-------------------------
Ralph did not say — as has been repeated ad nauseum — that there was NO difference between them.
He said that overall there were few major differences for which the Democrats were willing to fight -- differences not just in rhetoric but in reality.
The Republicans have become very good at electing extreme Republicans, and the Democrats have been very good at allowing them to do so.

[desi]

65. ''vote nader'' AGAIN ...???

Ralph Nader, Suicide Bomber
How the Great Crusader used the Green Party to get his revenge
by Harry G. Levine
May 3rd, 2004 1:20 PM


On Friday, October 13, 2000, at Madison Square Garden, the largest of Ralph Nader's "super rallies" kicked his campaign into high gear. It was a great event in many ways. Fifteen thousand ticket buyers cheered songs, jokes, skits, and pep talks delivering timeless radical truths about wealth and power in America. Nader's speech was actually the low point, circulating randomly through riffs about corporate power, health insurance, the environment, and what Ralph Nader had accomplished.

But Nader also served up disturbing untruths. Most notable was his insistence that Al Gore and George W. Bush were "Tweedledee and Tweedledum"—they look and act the same, so it doesn't matter which you get. I went home angry. But it took me a while to understand that my progressive hero had turned suicide bomber—that Ralph Nader had strapped political dynamite onto himself and walked into one of the closest elections in American history hoping to blow it up.

<snip>

Later I was introduced to Nader's closest adviser, his handsome, piercingly intelligent 30-year-old nephew, Tarek Milleron. Although Milleron argued that environmentalists and other activists would find fundraising easier under Bush, he acknowledged that a Bush presidency would be worse for poor and working-class people, for blacks, for most Americans. As Moore had, he claimed that Nader's campaign would encourage Web-based vote-swapping between progressives in safe and contested states. But when I suggested that Nader could gain substantial influence in a Democratic administration by focusing his campaign on the 40 safe states and encouraging his supporters elsewhere to vote Gore, Milleron leaned coolly toward me with extra steel in his voice and body. He did not disagree. He simply said, "We're not going to do that."

"Why not?" I said.

With just a flicker of smile, he answered, "Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them."

There was a long silence and the conversation was over.

Just please GO AWAY Ralph !!!!

eta:

What does Nader want to do in the 2004 election? Does he again want to defeat the Democratic candidate by taking swing-state votes? "Absolutely," says Gary Sellers. This time the Greens will likely run David Cobb, who is committed to a safe-state strategy. Nader is not. So voters in Florida and other battlegrounds where the differences will again be razor-thin can expect to see a lot of him. The stampede of his prominent 2000 supporters means many of them know what their former hero has in mind. But there are always new suckers to con. In 2004, as in 2000, Nader's real campaign slogan is: "Vote for Ralph Nader. You too can punish, hurt, and wound the Democrats."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0418,levine,53179,1.html

[pnwmom]

69. Thank you for the link. I like the Village Voice but I had missed this.

[mike_c]

51. BINGO-- Nader is right again....

:toast:

[pnwmom]

56. Too bad he can't apply the same lesson to himself.

He wasn't listening in 2004 when his friends begged him not to run again, or at least to encourage "vote swapping" so that Kerry wouldn't lose votes in swing states.

[dad]

64. http://www.votenader.org/ why_ralph/index.php?cid=3

Why doesn’t Ralph just sit this year out?
--------------
Someone has to be in the race to keep the two parties responsive and make sure that the issues the Washington insiders don’t want to address get raised all the way to election day, since most Americans only start to pay attention to the election after Labor Day.
They told African Americans and women "to wait" when they wanted the right to vote.
They told students during Viet Nam, and they told the civil rights and labor leaders that it wasn’t "the right time." It’s never the time for pioneers and trailblazers.
The stakes are always high. (Think of Soviet-US nuclear missiles in 1984.)
According to both parties who want to avoid challenges, there is no such thing as a suitable year, ever.

[paparush]

53. BUSH: Unsafe at any Speed

[banana republican]

58. NADER IS UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED

Who the f**k is responible for this mess.

If he had not run in 2000 would any of this crap have happened???

I trust him less than *.

[Greyhound]

63. Gore, or more specifically Gore's campaign staff, is far more responsible

for our current mess than Nader ever was.

[Voltaire99]

59. God bless Ralph Nader...

...who opposed the war while fools like Hillary and Kerry were busy endorsing it.

Give 'em hell, Ralph. The Democrats sure don't know how to.

[pnwmom]

67. If he was really against the war, he would have helped Kerry dump Bush.

Kerry didn't start the war, Bush did, and the Senate did not have access to the information that he did.

If Nader really cared, he would have allowed vote swapping.