It Was the Best of Votes. It Was the Worst of Votes

In November, 1999 I cast my vote for Ralph Nader for president. How, you might ask, could I have done such a thing?

I thought George W. Bush was a sick joke, and my skin crawled when I saw and heard Al Gore speak. I also recall that Nader's mantra was about the need for another political party as an alternative to the two corrupt ones, the Democrats and the Republicans.

It seemed as if the choices were all bad; three clearly self-righteous males. Name your poison.

Contrary to the hues and cries of those who claimed that I helped elect Bush, since we still have the electoral college system, not a truly democratic popular vote system, I claim innocence of those charges. And also since we have that electoral college system, the SCOTUS (from the early Neanderthal SCROTUM, smelly sack) appointed Bush as president. As I recall Gore won the popular vote regardless of my and others' protest vote.

Now, in retrospect, it was the best of votes. As supporting evidence of that seemingly unrealistic claim I urge you to read Chris Hedges' essay on the subject of Nader and his corporate executioners, and which you can access here.

It's been said that we go forth on the feet of heretics. Nader was seen by most, including me at the time, as an out of touch voice crying in the wilderness. One could be forgiven for not taking him seriously. However his claims and accusations have been more than borne out. It's no longer considered seditious to point accusing fingers at elected politicians on the take. That's been well documented. Non-elected persons, lobbyists, now write legislation and pay off elected politicians to vote for it. In the late 1990's that was not yet widely believed and understood, which was one of Nader's problems.

Another of Nader's problems was that he was seen by many as a real pain in the ass, one whose ego was so huge that he thought of himself as a savior. (It fell to Bush actually to talk and behave like the Messiah.)

Hedges points out that corporate America took Nader very seriously, and spared no expense in bringing him down. They realized he was, and still is, a genuine threat because he spoke truth to the public about the power of corporate money.

Nader's true downfall came when big money realized that, as it is said of unpopular ministers in religious circles of the South, "he done quit preachin' and gone to meddlin".

Nader should not and will not be president. If you worry that Obama is struggling to keep his party "faithful" in line, in spite of his attractive personality, one might call it charisma, Nader would be a total disaster as a leader. Charasmatic he is not.

That said, I've been wondering what role he should play in our political/economic culture, now that his accusations have been borne out. He'd never get Senate approval of a nomination for a cabinet position. The lobbyists are too strong, and have too much ownership of the Senate for that to ever come about. He's a lightening rod for corporate controlled media, so he's not likely to get a job as a columnist for any main stream media publication.

Perhaps he's where he should be and wants to be; the gadfly. But gadflies are not often in good repute with, nor appreciated by, the public. And it's the public which needs to come to the realization that he speaks in its interest. Progressives like me wonder why so many members of the public continue to vote against their own interests.

My good friend Thomas, who writes to the blog, WhereDoYouTouchGod.blogspot.com, has asked me how I deal with my own realization that, as Chris Hedges pointed out in another recent essay, we are standing on the precipice of a disaster waiting to befall our civilization. My response, not necessarily an answer, is that humanity has been approaching and retreating from this kind of precipice for thousands of years.

Humanity is not perfectible, though many scientists and evangelicals believe it is ,all the while professing different and diverging roads for accomplishing and realizing that end.

Evangelicals believe that faith is the only true path to perfection. Scientists argue that knowledge is the only reasonable way. Evangelicals believe that only faith can save us from sin. Scientists argue that only knowledge can save us from ignorance.

It's neither sin in the religious sense nor ignorance in the scientific sense that blocks our way.

We are descended from all the life forms which have existed, and preceded us, on this planet over the eons. They survived as species according to, and by virtue of, the evolutionary mechanism of survival of the fittest. We, as their progeny, inheritors of their genes and anthropological/cultural memes, are prone, nay destined, to prey on others for what we need, believing, convinced that what we need is what we want and deserve.

The Evangelist says that God loves those who give cheerfully; the scientist says that Humanists love those who study diligently; I say that Nature loves those who prey.

As it is said in Desiderata: "Go quietly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence--------, no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should".

Peace be unto you.

Leanderthal