The Distant Ocean

I swear I'm not making this up

Apparently there are now documents showing that the U.S. knew about the plot to overthrow Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, but did nothing to warn him.  But see, this is apparently just a result of the CIA's hitherto unheralded reticence to take actions that might somehow affect other governments.  No, really. You should prepare yourself before reading the following paragraph (swallow any fluids, be sure you're not in a place that requires quiet, etc):

"The CIA was simply doing what it is we do, in terms of analyzing events and providing policy-makers with our best estimate of the events as they unfold," said the spokeswoman, who declined to be named. She added that alerting Chávez to the impending coup "would suggest we would meddle in the affairs of another nation."

Goodness, no--how could anyone possibly suggest that the CIA would meddle in the affairs of another nation?  It is to laugh!

From Jenin to Fallujah

Quick: what's depicted in the picture below?

A mosque in...Fallujah? Najaf? Mosul? Right idea, but wrong war. This is actually a picture I took in a mosque in the Jenin refugee camp in April of 2002, just a little over a week after the Israelis finished their murderous assault there. The Israelis had used this mosque as a sniper nest, since it was on the high ground overlooking the center of the camp. Just like the U.S. marine firing from a Fallujah mosque in the photo at left (from an article in the New York Times; thanks to zeynep for the pointer). As I've watched the news coverage from Fallujah, the similarity has been striking for me; it feels like it's 2002 again and I'm back in the West Bank, walking through mounds of rubble and shattered glass that used to be homes.

People in the Middle East know all too well images like the one above from Jenin, and Nablus, and Hebron, and other Palestinian cities. And when they see the images that are coming now from Fallujah, I have no doubt that they think of Jenin, and Nablus, and Hebron, and other Palestinian cities--just as I do. They see the American (or is it Israeli?) soldiers attacking the Iraqis (or is it Palestinians?). The analogy is unavoidable.

But this isn't just a misguided conflation based on surface resemblances; rather, it's reality finally being made manifest. Palestinians have long had no choice but to accomodate ludicrous notions of the U.S. being an "honest broker" for peace--as though any rational person who's aware of the facts could consider the U.S. a disinterested observer, with no bias toward either side--but they know exactly who it is that's financing Israel's crimes against them, and that those crimes are in fact a join U.S.-Israeli project. Still, in the Occupied Territories the U.S. role is always one step removed, and obscured by endless clouds of diplomatic smoke. In Iraq, though, the mask is finally off. The U.S. is doing the killing directly now, using some of the experience gained by its client state to carry out the same kind of destruction.

I'm reminded of the fact that Colin Powell would not go to Jenin in 2002, and in fact delayed his arrival in Israel to give the Israelis enough time to finish their atrocities in Jenin and in other West Bank cities--but the U.S. military was there, and was taking careful notes. Their interest obviously wasn't just academic; after all, Donald Rumsfeld was calling for the invasion of Iraq just hours after 9/11, and so in April of 2002 there was a pressing need to prepare for the upcoming urban warfare in Iraq (the formal plans to attack Iraq were drawn up just six months later, in October of 2002, even as the Bush administration was claiming to be giving the inspections and diplomatic process time to work). In other words, the U.S. had no interest in putting any pressure whatsoever on Israel over the atrocities in Jenin and elsewhere--but they were eager to see just how effectively the Israelis could kill Palestinians in close quarters urban combat, since they knew they'd soon be doing the same kind of killing in Iraq.

The result is that in the perception of many people around the world, the distinctions between the U.S. and Israel are all but gone. IDF units demolishing huge swaths of the Gaza Strip and U.S. aircraft, artillery, and troops laying waste to Fallujah are just two different manifestations of a singular policy. And the consequences of this perception for U.S. citizens--both those who support what's being done and those who don't--will be devastating.

Help free Mordechai Vanunu (again)

In case you haven't heard, Mordechai Vanunu was just re-arrested by Israel. They're doubtless counting on Arafat's death and the US assault on Fallujah to push this story to the back pages. The US Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu is calling on people to send email, faxes, and make phone calls. Here's the contact information they provide:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon 3 Kaplan St. Hakirya, Jerusalem 91007 Fax: +972 2 566 4838 Email: rohm@pmo.gov.il

Tommy Lapid, Minister of Justice
29 Salah al-Din St. Jerusalem 91010
Fax: +972 2 628 5438
Email: sar@justice.gov.il

Tzahi Hanegbi, Minister of Internal Security
P.O. Box 18182
Jerusalem 91181
Fax: +972 2 581 1832
Email: sar@mops.gov.il

Ambassador of Israel
3514 International Drive NW
Washington DC 20008
email:ambassador_sec@israelemb.org
phone:202-364-5500
fax:202-364-5607
Public & Interreligious Affairs (202) 364-5542
Political Department (202)364-5581/2
Press Office(202) 364-5538

This heroic man served nearly 18 years in an Israeli prison, much of it in solitary confinement, for revealing Israel's nuclear arsenal to the world; the very least that we can do is send a few messages to help him out when he needs it the most.

An Open Letter to The Progressive

To: Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive

I read your "Letter to Incredulous Friends Around the World" with some incredulity of my own. There are several things in your letter--either stated directly or strongly implied--that would be worrisome coming from anyone who supported John Kerry, but which are particularly troubling coming from the editor of such a deservedly respected source of progressive news and commentary.

First, you cite Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Accords as one of the reasons that it's impossible to believe that Americans would have voted him back into office. But John Kerry also rejected Kyoto, as was made clear in this blazingly direct statement from one of his official policy papers: "John Kerry and John Edwards believe that the Kyoto Protocol is not the answer." While Bush's rejection of Kyoto is more aggressive, the fact is that the US would not have been participating in Kyoto no matter who was elected. You should know this, but your letter implies that you don't.

Later, you point to a ray of hope by saying that "55 million Americans said no to the Iraq War." Well, perhaps--but if they did, they certainly didn't do so on November 2nd in their vote for John Kerry, who said of Iraq: "I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning," and who furthermore tried to prove that he could prosecute the war even more violently than Bush by vowing that he would "not back off of the Fallujahs and other places, and send the wrong message to the terrorists." Voting for a candidate who spouts this kind of rhetoric hardly constitutes a "no to the Iraq War," as (again) you should know--yet your letter says otherwise.

You also said, "we are with you in abiding by the U.N. Charter." Well, you may be, and the rest of those 55 million Americans may be as well, but John Kerry most definitely is not. He made this crystal clear in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention: "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security." And of course he reiterated this same statement in the debates, in his advertisements, and in his stump speeches. Giving an international institution a "veto" over war-making powers is in fact one of the key principles behind the U.N. Charter, which asks nations to sacrifice a measure of sovereignity in exchange for a forum in which to mediate disputes that would otherwise have to be resolved through violence. By his vociferous dismissal of that principle, John Kerry couldn't possibly have been more direct in his rejection of the primacy of the United Nations.

Again: you should know this. In fact, I imagine that you do know this. Yet like many on the Anybody But Bush left, your opposition to George Bush seems to have taken you into a realm of cognitive dissonance in which Kerry's actual statements, positions, and policies are immaterial. It's as though because Kerry was the candidate running against Bush, in many people's minds he became simply the antiBush--the antithesis of all things Bush--so that his positions were automatically assumed to be the opposite of Bush's. Yet on several of the very issues you cite (Kyoto, the Iraq War, respect for the U.N. Charter), and a host of others, that was not even remotely the case.

You need to face up to the fact that Kerry was not the antiBush, but was in fact strikingly similar to Bush in many aspects of his international and foreign policy. He did not deserve a pass for these positions from the progressive community, but rather forceful condemnation. The standard rationalization for not doing so during the campaign was that criticism of that sort would only help Bush, but in writing about this after the election, you no longer have that excuse--and you do us all a disservice when you ignore or obscure these facts.

Finally, in response to Phillip Kerrigan of Australia, who responded to your letter with the admonition that we not "let John Kerry just fade away," I say this: yes, please, by all means let John Kerry fade away. And please let the progressive community never again be so deeply compromised, enervated, and divided by pro-war Democrats who know they can take our support for granted even as they forcefully reject our most cherished values.

Global warming a problem? Think again!

A good friend of mine noticed this Reuters story on the as-yet unheralded benefits of global warming. Some choice bits:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rising global temperatures will melt areas of the Arctic this century, making them more accessible for oil and natural gas drilling, a report prepared by the United States and seven other nations said on Monday. [...]

Such a change would threaten coastal cities, change growing patterns for vegetation and destroy habitats for some wildlife, but an energy-starved world would have new areas for oil and gas exploration, according to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report.

The Arctic region, particularly offshore, has huge oil and gas reserves, mostly in Russia, Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Norway. Warmer temperatures would make it easier to drill and ship oil from the Arctic, the report said.

Who knew there could be such opportunity in adversity? Just think: those whose homes aren't washed away by rising ocean tides, and who manage to survive the increasingly frequent and severe hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes that will come as a result of global warming, will be able to continue driving their cars for several years longer.

So tell all those Gloomy Guses who think global warming is a problem to turn that frown upside down. The glass isn't half empty, it's half full--of melted Arctic ice, that is! Well, that and crude oil. But you get the idea.

Nader's violent death still a real rib-tickler for Kerry voters

Apparently the humor potential of Ralph Nader's violent death wasn't exhausted during the campaign. It's still funny! Just listen to what author and journalist Stephen Pizzo had to say on Alternet:

"Calm down Ralph, I'm not referring to you. For you I prescribe a long vacation – a road trip in a vintage Ford Pinto."

Ha ha ha! Do you get it? It's like this: "vintage" Ford Pintos used to explode in rear end collisions. So if Ralph Nader took a long road trip in one, he could be immolated in a fiery crash. See, Pizzo apparently disagreed with Nader's electoral strategy this time around--so Nader's painful death has become a source of humor to him! And what's even better is that there's irony here too, because according to Ford's own estimates, Nader's actions in exposing the dangers of the Pinto saved 180 people per year from burn deaths, and that many more each year from serious burn injuries. So for him to die that way would be really funny! It makes you wonder if Stephen Pizzo (or anyone dear to him) was ever in a Pinto that was rear-ended, but which didn't explode because of Nader's selfless actions. Boy, wouldn't that be a twist? Even funnier!

This echoes the chuckles Bob Harris offered us all when he ran a poll just before the election that humorously asked (he's a funny guy, you see--he writes for TV and movies), "What would you like to contribute most to Ralph Nader's campaign?" Among his suggested answers:

• A seat belt, air bag, and fire hood equipped ice floe
• A shiny new '65 Chevy Corvair

Ha ha ha! Get it? The Corvair bit? It's just like the Pinto joke. See, Bob Harris agrees with nearly everything Ralph Nader has to say, but he wanted John Kerry to win this election, and he thought Ralph Nader might affect Kerry's vote totals. So he used the suggestion of Nader's death as a punch line in his humorous survey. It's funny!

Go ahead and do some Google searches--I bet you can find plenty more examples of your own. You'd be amazed to discover just how many Kerry voters get a kick out of imagining a painful death for Nader. Take Robin Supak, a loving parent and self-described "Poke-mom" (Pokemon+mom, just in case you were wondering) who wrote in her "Song for Ralph Nader": "Please stop these dreams where you perish in a Pinto!" (that's her exclamation point, not mine).

Still not getting it? Well, maybe you could think of it this way: it's like 2004 is really 1984, Nader is Emmanuel Goldstein ("the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies"), and Kerry voters are living out one big Two Minutes Hate--only instead of lasting two minutes, it seems to have no end. And that's funny. Isn't it...?

You know what? Maybe you're right. Actually, that's not funny. It's not funny at all.

Democrats learning all the wrong lessons

There's a teeny, tiny chance the Democrats will learn the right lesson from this election (stop acting like Republicans and trying to position the party wherever we think the people want us to be), and a much bigger chance that they'll learn the wrong lesson (we lost because of "moral values"? you want us to be a values party? just wait and see!). I'm waiting with not-very-bated breath to see what happens, since I strongly expect it'll be the latter. And here's one of the first indications that that's just what they're going to do (from a story entitled, "Should Democrats Get Religion?"):

Now some in the party are saying that the Democrats need to reach out to these voters with a faith-based appeal. "I don't hesitate to stand up in a crowd and express how important faith is in my life. It is important to be able to express that in a way that is believable, and Democrats have to get comfortable doing that," Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., told the Washington Post.

And this:

"We Democrats better think long and hard about what happened ... and how our party is going to connect with the hopes and aspirations of the people," Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., after watching Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., an 18-year Senate veteran, go down in defeat. "We have lost the ability to connect with people's value systems and we're going to have to work to get that back."

And Michael Lerner of Tikkun is pushing the same message in slightly more touch-feely fashion (predictably taking the opportunity to pimp his own "politics of meaning" as well):

Tens of millions of Americans feel betrayed by a society that seems to place materialism and selfishness above moral values. [...] They want their lives to have meaning--and they respond to candidates who seem to care about values and some sense of transcendent purpose.

While I don't disagree with Lerner's core message in this article, if trying to position themselves strategically on the "moral values" issue is the only thing the Democrats do as a result of the 2004 debacle, they're in for a lot more pain--and so are we all. And pushing them on just this one front from the left (and thus effectively enabling their delusion) will only make it that much easier for them to get it wrong.

To progressive Kerry voters: You broke it--now are you willing to do what it takes to fix it?

To progressives who voted for Kerry in this election, and especially to those who backed Nader in 2000 but shifted to supporting Kerry in 2004, I say this: you need to accept that you made a serious mistake, and resolve never to make that mistake again. By supporting Kerry and the Democrats when they were ignoring nearly every one of your deepest concerns, you only pushed them towards their stunning defeat and ultimately helped to re-elect George Bush.

More than any single group, it was progressives who could have put positive pressure on the Democrats. But instead many of you muzzled your voices and muted your criticisms, worried that any negative word might hurt Kerry's electoral chances. You ignored or rationalized away Kerry's Bush-like stances on a host of critical issues; after all, he'd certainly be better on some issues, and you let that be enough for you. The Bush threat was just too great. So you set aside your conscience and justified your support for Kerry by saying that you were being "practical" or "adapting to a changing situation." But when you put out those Kerry/Edwards signs with the message "A Stronger America" at the bottom, surely you must have been thinking: is this what I've waited four years to hear the Democratic Party say? When I was protesting the Iraq war, when I was writing letters and making phone calls to try to restore the liberties taken from us under the USA PATRIOT Act--is this what I wanted to hear?

Of course not. Yet that still wasn't enough to make you change your mind; you went along with it all and played the part of the good soldier, because you'd accepted the binding logic of surrender: Bush must go, and therefore Kerry must win. So you silenced your conscience, set aside your misgivings, and forged ahead. And on November 2nd you went out and voted for a candidate who had demonstrated just how deeply misguided he was on Iraq when he said: "I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning."

And for putting up with all of that, what did you get? George Bush as president, and a Democratic Party that's weaker and more compromised than ever. I've seen many progressives, still in denial, saying "I did my part" by voting for Kerry. Sorry, but not by a longshot--unless you mean that you did your part in helping re-elect George Bush, and assuring continued Republican domination of the US electoral scene for years to come.

I know that that wasn't your intention. I understand that your willingness to support Kerry was born out of a genuine (and quite valid) fear of the effects of four more years of George Bush, and that you felt that you were doing the right thing--no matter how disagreeable it may have been. You were following your best judgement. The results, however, have proven that that judgement was flawed.

But there's something you can do to make this right. If you're determined to continue working within the Democratic Party framework, you should contact your local party leadership--the sooner the better--and tell them that you'll no longer settle for candidates like Gore and Kerry. And you have to be genuinely willing to follow through on that pledge. If the Democrats run another Kerry or Gore in 2008 (in the form of Hillary Clinton, say, or Dick Gephardt), you have to be willing to withhold your vote, even if it may mean a Republican victory. If you don't think you could handle that outcome, consider that if you had withheld your vote this time--as you should have done unless you truly believed in the bulk of Kerry's positions--the Democrats would have lost more decisively and would have been that much more open to reform. But since progressives threw in their lot with Democrats and made it a relatively narrow margin, the Democrats may continue in their denial and refuse to learn the right lesson this time around. By giving them your support for free, you only delayed the inevitable.

It may take more than one election to set this right, or it may never happen at all, but it comes down to this: the Democrats' "incremental co-optation" approach to victory is doomed, and accomodation to it will only prolong its demise. As progressives, we have the power to make sure that that option is foreclosed to them sooner rather than later. This is the best opportunity we've had in years to force the Democrats to start acting like an opposition party again, and we may not get another before it's too late. Please don't squander it.

Norway closer to joining the EU as a result of Bush's victory

Here's one positive result of Bush's victory--and one that supports the thesis I put forward previously regarding the likelihood of international opposition in the face of another four years of Bush:

The reelection of US President George W. Bush could push Norway closer to joining the European Union, Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said on Wednesday.

"If the distance expands between the two sides of the Atlantic I think that many people in Europe, including myself, will see a need for a closer foreign policy and security cooperation" between European countries, said Bondevik.

If the EU matures to the point where it can act as a countervailing force to US hegemony, that can only be a good thing.

This Party is Over

Yes, they really did blow it. Consider the mind-numbing reality here: the Democratic Party, as led by the DLC, has now lost the White House twice to George Bush. No, really: George Bush! Yes, really: two times. I swear I'm not making this up.

Not only that, but they somehow managed to do even worse in 2004 than they did in 2000, despite the fact that Bush now had a record as president--and a record of lies, disastrous policy decisions, and utter incompetence to boot. And they don't even have the consolation of wailing about the unfairness of the electoral college, since Kerry not only lost the electoral college but also failed to win the popular vote (not by a slim margin, either, but by millions of votes). And the Democrats lost seats in both the House and Senate as well.

Let's all take a moment to recall now that Kerry was chosen and championed by the Democratic elite (and then marketed to and accepted by the rank and file) because he was "electable." Sure, he was no progressive, but he was electable. Yes, he was an Iraq hawk in a party with more than 90% doves, but he was electable. Ok, he was a USA PATRIOT Act backer in a party galvanized by its opposition to that grotesque assault on our liberties, but he was electable. So good people set aside their beliefs, chucked their values in the closet, and gave Kerry their support in spite of their serious misgivings about him--and all because he was supposedly electable. Winning mattered more than anything else, and the formula for winning (so we were informed) was to back John Kerry to the hilt and keep your damn mouth shut, despite the fact that many of Kerry's policies looked just like Bush's.

I remember the first thing I heard from Kerry in regards to the presidential election. MoveOn had just solicited statements from the Democratic contenders as to why MoveOn members should support them. Kerry's main reason? That he would work to keep abortion legal. Faced with one of the worst US presidents of all time and a host of issues he might have hammered home or used to differentiate himself, Kerry chose the most safe, hackneyed, predictable Democratic rhetoric he could muster. That was when I first realized that I could not support John Kerry. And that was why, when I heard all these dubious claims that he was more electable than mildly (and I stress "mildly") progressive candidates like Howard Dean, I just shook my head in disbelief. Could the Democrats possibly be foolish enough to repeat their disastrous strategy of 2000?

Yes, they could.

The Democrats have labored for years now under the delusion that they could win elections by endlessly pursuing the "center." The Republicans, on the other hand, realize that in order to win, you have to shift the "center" towards you. Put the two together and you see that the "center" the Democrats have been pursuing has been steadily moved to the right by the Republicans. Unless and until the Democratic Party resolves to become a true opposition party and undertake the difficult work (now much more difficult, after so many years of neglect) of shifting the frame of debate in this country away from the right, it will continue to lose elections. And we will all suffer the results--not just for the next four years, but quite possibly for decades.

In short: this Party is over.

Democrats: Did you actually manage to blow it?

So it looks like Bush is very likely going to win--and not only that, but Kerry won't even take the popular vote! Even Al Gore managed to do that much, ferchrissake. Astonishing. If things continue as they're going now, the Democrats will have blown it against one of the most arrogant, corrupt, bumbling politicians of all time, with a raft full of issues that they could have used to batter him utterly into submission--if only they'd had the backbone and integrity to do so. But instead they decided to run yet another mealy-mouthed discount Republican, a USA PATRIOT Act supporter, an Iraq war supporter, a corporate shill. In a year where over 90% of their base strongly opposed the Iraq war, they decided to focus on the economy as their major campaign issue. They chose to triangulate rather than to inspire. They chose to adopt Republican positions instead of doing the hard work to shift the political debate in this country to the left, as a genuine opposition party would do. And it looks like we're all going to pay the price for it.

Gore's failure in 2000 taught the Democrats nothing. What I want to know is: will they actually learn a lesson from it this time? Will rank and file Democrats finally wrest control of their party from the DLC, and pull the party to the left--where it belongs? How many more failures at the Congressional and presidential levels will it take before they finally realize that the country doesn't need two Republican parties?

And will all the progressives who tossed aside their values and muzzled their criticisms in order to support Kerry realize that in doing so, they only made Kerry and the Democrats weaker, and helped Bush get reelected? Exactly as Ralph Nader and his spokesman Kevin Zeese so presciently predicted, by the way.

We still don't have have the final results, of course, and it's possible--though very unlikely--that Kerry could still somehow pull it out. But frankly, no matter what the final result turns out to be, these criticisms are still absolutely warranted...because the very fact that this election wasn't a complete Democratic slam dunk shows just how far gone the Democratic party is.

More tomorrow.

No matter who wins, progressives lose

In terms of the presidential election, November 2nd, 2004 is not a bright day for progressives. The first half of that is obvious, of course; having George Bush as president for four more years is almost too painful to contemplate.

But the alternative is most definitely not a cause for celebration either. If progressives do help Kerry take the presidency, they will have just succeeded in installing a pro-war politician who has attacked George Bush from the right on issues like Iraq, terrorism, and support for Israel, and who (in coordination with the Democratic party leadership) has thoroughly rejected progressive values and squelched even the most modest forms of dissent within the party. More on that here. That's nothing to celebrate, to say the least.

And Kerry will be able to carry out his declared Bush-like policies (particularly in the realm of foreign and international policy) with scarcely any domestic or international opposition, as I've written before. Progressives who think otherwise are just fooling themselves, in my opinion. I'd love to be wrong on this, but I saw it with my own eyes under Clinton, and I can't see any reason to expect that it would be different this time around. Just the opposite, in fact; the scare that Bush has given liberals and progressives will make them that much more accomodating to Kerry's worst policies than they were to Clinton's.

But the negative effects of this election for progressives go much deeper. I've watched as an entire procession of progressives I've respected in the past have thrown their support to Kerry and--more to the point--have attacked Ralph Nader for his decision to run, tarring him with poll-tested Democratic spin about Republican support, accusing him of being nothing more than an egotist, questioning his sanity or his morals, and far worse. It's possible to disagree with Nader on tactics or judgement without rancor, but in my experience the number of people who've done that is vanishingly small. Instead, the norm has been insults, smear tactics, condescension, and arrogance directed towards Nader and those who are supporting him this year. The low point for me was when I saw Bob Harris "humorously" suggest that the best fate for Nader would be to put him in "a shiny new '65 Corvair" or to strand him on "a seat belt, air bag, and fire hood equipped ice floe." If the image of Ralph Nader's death in a fiery car crash doesn't give you the giggles, well, you just haven't tapped into the 2004 progressive zeitgeist.

This election has also demonstrated just how paper thin progressive support for democracy really is, and how quickly it can change when someone like Nader dares to go against the grain. I've seen one ad running on several progressive sites that actually asks, "What have you done to STOP Ralph Nader?" (emphasis theirs, not mine). Roll that one around in your mind for a while. People like Norman Solomon and FAIR founder Jeff Cohen have made it their mission (and contribution to the Kerry campaign) to discredit and attack Nader; to his shame, Cohen is acting as a consultant to the "Unity Campaign," an initiative whose sole purpose is to undermine Nader. The Orwellian terminology there is particularly telling--"unity" in this case means "unity behind Kerry," or perhaps more accurately, "unity against Nader."

These progressives have offered scarcely any complaint as the Democrats have used dirty tricks to undermine the Nader campaign's efforts to get on the ballot in various states; in fact, the silence has been deafening. Apparently it's an appalling travesty when Republicans do this kind of thing in Florida, but it's perfectly acceptable otherwise--as long as it's directed at the right target, that is. That's "unity" for you.

And the anti-Nader campaign among progressives goes even further. Respected progressive web sites like Common Dreams have published a seemingly endless stream of hit pieces on Nader, but have allowed hardly a word in defense of Nader or critical of Kerry. FAIR, which found many occasions to criticize media handling of Nader during his presidential bid in 2000, has become mysteriously silent regarding the media's treatment of Nader in 2004 (e.g. regarding the double standard applied to donations from Republican supporters to Nader and Kerry). The overriding priority among many progressives has been to undercut Nader and to prevent any criticism of Kerry that may possibly have the side effect of reducing his electoral support. It's been quite striking to me--not to mention bitterly ironic--to see just how similar this de facto censorship has been to the de facto censorship we see every day in the corporate media.

In short, the progressive community has revealed that it can be just as opportunistic, venal, anti-democratic, and accomodating to injustice as any other political group in this country. Not that this was news to me...but seeing it in action has been deeply dispiriting.

Sadly, no matter who wins this election, progressives have already lost.

An Open Letter to Michael Moore

Michael,

As a progressive, I read your final words to voters before the 2004 election with despair. It's sad (no, pathetic) to watch good progressives like yourself selling your souls to John Kerry and the Democrats. You're not content just to vote for Kerry because you feel it's an imperative in order to remove Bush, which is a perfectly understandable sentiment; no, you've rationalized it to such an extent that you are now acting genuinely enthusiastic about Kerry, and as a result you've blinded yourself to who he actually is. And sadly, you're far from alone among progressives in doing so.

You had this to say about voting for Kerry: "We’re the ones always being asked to make the huge compromises and to always vote holding our noses. No nose holding this time." Really? You won't have to hold your nose? Despite the fact that Kerry wants to wage war in Iraq more viciously than Bush, opposes the Kyoto Protocol, opposes the International Criminal Court, supports the USA PATRIOT act, enthusiastically pushes for so-called "free trade" in general and supports the WTO and NAFTA in particular, backs Israel to the hilt, and--possibly the worst of all--bellows over and over and over that he will "hunt down and kill" the "terrorists" no matter where they are, under the exact same preemptive doctrine pursued by the Bush administration? And that's just scratching the surface (see this article for a more detailed look at some of Kerry's most egregious positions).

In light of these positions of Kerry's, I can't imagine how anyone who calls themself a progressive could vote for Kerry without holding their nose--yet that's just what you say you'll be able to do. I fully understand that many progressives feel compelled to vote for Kerry simply because of their fear of and anger towards George Bush, but you've gone well beyond that: you've sold your soul to the Democratic party and John Kerry, and you've embraced your new "friends" (your word) with all the ardor of someone taking up a new religion.

And like a religious convert, you're in denial about inconvenient contradictory information, as you demonstrate so clearly when you say this: "Yes, Kerry was wrong to vote for authorization for war in Iraq but he was in step with 70% of the American public who was being lied to by Bush & Co. And once everyone learned the truth, the majority turned against the war. Kerry has had only one position on the war – he believed his president." I have no doubt that you know that Kerry proclaimed that he would still authorize the Iraq war even knowing that there were no WMDs there. Yet you're so much in thrall to Kerry and so sick with Anybody-But-Bush fever that you're willing to pretend that that never happened, and to give Kerry a pass.

The irony is that it isn't Ralph Nader--the man you attack in your letter--who will be the death of progressive causes in the US; rather, it's people like you, who've tossed aside your values and your judgement in your support of John Kerry, and who are allowing him to co-opt your voices and your influence without so much as a peep against his Bush-like positions on critical issues like Iraq and Kyoto. You say that Ralph Nader has "lost his compass"--yet Nader's values and positions have remained steady and constant since 2000, when you strongly supported him, and he continues to be one of the most intelligent and articulate progressive voices we have. You're the one whose compass is missing.

I urge you to reconsider your support for Kerry. Not in terms of your vote, or even your advocacy for Kerry over Bush, but in realizing that despite the fact that you'd be pleased if Bush is voted out of office, you should also not be pleased that the best the Democrats could give this country--in this year of all years--was John Kerry.