Live from the Nuke Free Zone

First of all, unrelated to the body of this post, For The Ride… reports that Haloscan has trackbacks now. So, all you folks on blogger and blogspot can see who’s referencing your blog posts in their blog. We’re on Movable Type here at the Zone, which has trackbacks built in, but it’s still a nifty feature.

And now in the main point. Governor Dean is out of the Democratic presidential race as we reported earlier. However, Ralph Nader, that nemesis from the 2000 elections, is in. And here’s what Dean had to say about that:

Ralph Nader has made many great contributions to America over 40 years. But if George W. Bush is re-elected, the health, safety, consumer, environmental, and open government provisions Ralph Nader has fought for will be undermined. George Bush’s right-wing appointees will still be serving as judges fifty years from now, and our Constitution will be shredded. It will be government by, of, and for, the corporations - exactly what Ralph Nader has struggled against.

Those who truly want America’s leaders to stand up to the corporate special interests and build a better country for working people should recognize that, in 2004, a vote for Ralph Nader is, plain and simple, a vote to re-elect George W. Bush. I hope that Ralph Nader will withdraw his candidacy in the best interests of the country we hope to become.

First of all, I’d like to note that the Dean scare that “he’ll run as an independent!” is untrue. (I’d honestly expect that more out of Dennis Kucinich, but that’s just my opinion.) He explicitly states that he’ll be on the Dem nominee to stay progressive. Right now, the most important thing in my mind is that we get rid of the damage that George W. Bush has created in this country, and that means voting for whomever the Dem candidate is, even if it ends up being Kerry. (Not that I have anything against Kerry, he’s better than some of the other options we had.)

I wish I could remember where I came across it, but somebody compared our two party system to a cancer on the body politic, and somebody else responded, “Yes, but it’s been trucked into the emergency room battered and bruised, and gasping for breath. It doesn’t do much good to treat the cancer if the patient isn’t going to live through the night.”

Hence, I’m behind Governor Dean on this one. It is more important to make sure that the patient is stabilized (e.g., getting rid of Bush) before we can work on the cancer. And if Ralph Nader can’t see that, he’s blinder than I thought. And this year, this time, the way to make change is through the Democratic Party, not by burning it all down and rebuilding it.

See the article just below this one if you’re still inclined to believe in Nader’s thought that the Dems and the Republicans are both the same.