One thing people have noticed about Hillary is that she suffers from a sense of entitlement. She felt she deserved the Democratic nomination simply because she was a Clinton. Never mind that Bill only served for eight years due to the good graces of Ross Perot, that he never got even 50% of the vote, that he more resembled a Republican than a Democrat, that under his rule the Democrats lost control of Congress – never mind any of that. And screw issues. Hillary was supposed to be it, and we were not to expect more.
But it’s not just Hillary. Democrats in general feel that sense of entitlement. They presume to represent progressives without offering truly progressive alternatives. And they go postal if true progressives challenge them.
Well, Hillary’s gone now, and it’s time to take a closer look at this Obama character. For this I turn to Ralph Nader, Mr. Spoiler, and an interview by Tunku Varadarajan published in the Wall Street Journal last weekend, “Don’t Call Him Spoiler“. His insight, per usual, is cutting edge.
Varadarajan: Mr. Obama has opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement, and said that he wants it renegotiated; he’s chastised the Big Three in Detroit for opposing higher CAFE standards; he emphasizes at every opportunity that he takes no money from lobbyists. What [do you] think of that?
Nader: You see, that’s all permissible populist rhetoric that the corporations understand and wink at. Look at who gets the corporate money. Six out of seven industries giving money, through PACs and individual executives, etc., are giving more money to the Democrats than to the Republicans. I mean, John McCain’s having trouble raising money, even now.
Obama’s taking large money from the securities industry, the health insurance industry . . . I’ve gotten used to this ritual where the companies give Democrats this leeway, and say, ‘Well, Obama’s gotta say that stuff, but he’ll come around. There’s no way he’ll touch Nafta or touch the WTO.'”
Varadarajan: So is it all just a charade?
Nader: Yes, a charade. His health-insurance plan lets the health insurance companies continue their redundant, wasteful, often corrupt – in terms of billing fraud – ways, ripping off Medicare.
I think he’s on to something. We do have the semblance of a two-party system. It just never works out that we are offered two substantially differing policies on issues. But people would not put up with a one-party system in a representative democracy, and we do have different temperaments. (Temperamental differences are really the essence of the two-party structure.) So corporations tolerate Democrats, like the Clintons and Obama, so long as they don’t go too far. In the meantime, progressives are ignored, ridiculed, demeaned. Even by Democrats.
So is Obama a corporate shill?
“He’s not an agent,” Mr. Nader grants, “but he moves in an environment that’s conditioned by corporate power. If he wins, you’ll see his appointments in the Defense department, the Treasury and so on, they’ll be pretty much what the lobbies and PACs want.”
All is not lost with Obama, says Nader, and I take slight comfort:
Mr. Nader is clear that he prefers Mr. Obama to Hillary Clinton. “With her, we’ll just get what Bill gave us. I think she’s like Bill Clinton. With Obama, there’s the possibility of some fresh start, just like Kennedy did the Peace Corps. You see, when Obama got out of Harvard Law School, he went to work for a short period with a group I started in New York, the New York Public Interest Research Group. Then he went and did neighborhood work in Chicago, so it’s not like he’s coming off some corporate mountain.
“But he’s made up his mind to be a very conciliatory, concessionary, adaptive politician to the reality of corporate power. And people like him are told, ‘Look, if you don’t adhere to certain parameters and expectations, you’re going to have a hard time winning any nomination or election.’ And Obama’s made his peace with that.”
Perhaps this is why Obama manages to inspire so many people without every really saying much … people are hungry for change, and Obama is smart enough and sly enough to know he’s got to appease the corporations who finance the parties and own the media. He’s learned the system.
He’s not a transforming leader. He was not a transforming senator. He was not a challenging senator, the way [the late Paul] Wellstone was.
So what exactly does Nader want? It is at this point that most Democrats fall on the rejoinder that we should settle for incremental progress, and that Nader is just feeding his ego. But Nader offers up a host of policy suggestions that few Democrats would even recognize, much less advocate:
Labor reform, repealing Taft-Hartley. You see, the labor unions line up in favor of the Democrat Party and they get nothing. For heaven’s sake, they went ‘x’ number of years without even adjusting the minimum wage to inflation. I’ve never seen a less demanding organized labor movement, but what have the Democrats given them? … lip service on [ending] Nafta and the WTO, and better protection of individual investors’ rights, rights that corporate capitalism violates repeatedly.
On health care, “we believe in single-payer health, full Medicare for all.”
He is also “opposed unalterably to nuclear power. We think the country should go solar, in all of its different manifestations, including passive solar architecture.”
Mr. Nader wants to slash “the bloated, wasteful military budget. This thing is so out of control that it’s unauditable. But Obama wants to increase the military budget, which is currently distorted away from soldiers and towards these giant weapons systems, and keeping troops in Korea and Japan.”
And as for the tax system, Mr. Nader wishes that the Democrats would adhere to his philosophy, which is that “we should first tax things that we like the least, or dislike the most, as a society, before we tax human labor, and necessities . . . through a sales tax. “So we should tax securities speculation first, before we tax labor. If you go to a store and buy $1,000 worth of products, you pay a sales tax. You buy $1 million worth of derivatives, you pay no sales tax!”
I hear the scurrying of little feet, Democrats running for cover. Don’t even think of asking them to be advocates for such policies.
No matter. The Nader effect is gone, he’ll have no impact on elections ever again. Democrats will sue to keep him off the ballot (the DNC filed 24 lawsuits in 18 states in 12 weeks to prevent choice in 2004). And he’ll get no media coverage, save from FOX, and the Wall Street Journal, who rejoice in his candidacy, feeling it will help Republicans.
Since I announced my run, I can’t get on Charlie Rose. Or Diane Rehm or Terry Gross [of NPR]. I haven’t been on Jim Lehrer yet. I got on Wolf Blitzer twice, on CNN. Fox News calls me more than anybody. They have the same attitude, of course – ‘Here comes the spoiler!’ But how can you spoil something that’s spoiled already?
“I don’t complain much publicly. I’ve been told by a lot of the television bookers around the country, ‘Ralph, they don’t like you.’ So the door is shut.
Which goes to reinforce the notion that the media, which is owned by giant corporations with an interest in almost all policy issues, runs these campaigns, decides who is viable, who is not, and who will be allowed to have access to the public mind. And it is clear that anyone who advocates for progressive causes such as those set forth by Nader above need not bother.
But I say to myself, ‘Should we close down and go to Monterey and watch the whales?’ No. Better to fight when you have a small chance, than to fight later when you have no chance at all.”
Indeed. Fight on, Ralph. Things must get much worse before they get better, but things will get better. Too bad you won’t be around to enjoy it.
Piece of Mindful 