Ralph's Revolt: Why Nader's Call to Rebellion Makes Sense

by Greg Bates

Why is Ralph running? Why is he doing this to his legacy, to his causes-to his country? Now, as Ralph's candidacy shows strength at times the entire country asks a different question: what are his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1567513166
• ISBN13: 9781567513165
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Common Courage Press
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Proves the Democrats Wrong

Greg Bates takes every hardcore Nader haters arguments and throws it back proving them wrong! He compiles all of their reasons why Nader should not run and delivers factual, logical counter explanations that prove them dead wrong. Backed by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, this book explains that there is nothing out there that is accurate that the Democrats can use to vilify Nader. "Ralph's Revolt" will maim all Democrats who think they have a reason why they need to break the rules of the Constitution and obstruct someone's right to run for public office.

Eye Opener

This is an outstanding summary of the case not only for Ralph Nader but for a third party. Great facts, lucid thinking and well presented with no wasted words.

Very effective defense for a third party, even now

Support for the Central American death squad regimes was organized by many of the people currently in power. The Reaganites, the author writes, spied on activists opposed to such support and the director of FEMA drew up plans to intern Americans on a massive scale if such opposition got too intense. Cheney and Powell presided over the murderous Panama invasion and to that resume should be added the massive war crimes against Iraqi civilian infrastructure, etc The democrats are no different. Bates quotes George Kennan, the State Department policy planning chief under Truman in 1948, explaining that the United States should devise a pattern of relationships where it could keep a large part of the world's wealth.. Jimmy Carter sent arms to Morrocco,Indonesia and Turkey to support their ethnic cleansing in their occupations of Western Sahara, East Timor and Cyprus respecively. He covered for the South Korean military's Tiannamen square style massacre at Kwangju, sent officers from the Argentinian neonazi military regime to train the Contras, etc. Clinton's welfare reform forces mothers with children to go to work for minimum wage, which even for a full time worker is not close to a livable income. Poverty decreased slightly during the Clinton years. After years of decline, wages rose back to their level of 1974. The slight improvements in the plight of ordinary Americans in the 90's is contrasted by the author (quoting Pollin) with the fact that from 1974 to 2000 the Gross Domestic product rose 70%, productivity rose 61%, etc. But the "booming" economy was based on fraud, huge debt-financed consumption and speculation. The democrats helped the Republicans effectively repeal the Glass-Steagal Act of 1934, eliminating much government oversight and restrictions on close relationships between corporations with stock, accountants and other sectors. Thus banks, accountants and corporations could conspire to cover up bad corporate financial data to keep the corporation's stock high.. During the Clinton years, the gap between CEO and worker pay went from 113 to 1 to 449 to 1. According to Bob Woodward, Clinton privately said in late 92' that his administratiion was Eisenhower Republican and that his policies would "help the bond market and hurt the people who voted us in." Bates shows how provisions in his first budget to restrict gold mining and federally subsidized grazing and timber sales on federal land were removed by his chief of staff Mack McLarty. This reduction in corporate welfare and land preservation could have saved the taxpayers a billion dollars. Clinton signed an Act in 1996, which lifted the ban on the export of Alaska's crude oil and limited the government's auditing of corporate profits on oil taken from federal lands. It allowed oil companies to sue the government to get interest payments. Bates then points out how Clinton-Gore curiously used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to preserve mountainous areas and forests in swing states. O

Vote Strategically; Vote Nader

It is farcical that the left demonizes the current president and his administration as being particularly egregious in their criminality, and by doing so affirms the lackluster Kerry as the antidote. Bush is more successful at being cruel says Bates, and little more; compared to Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy and Truman, he is "bushleague by comparison.." There is much analyzing too of the rightward drift of the Democratic Party here, and explaining how this is likely to continue without the threat posed by a serious and necessarily third party challenge; or second for that matter. Nader has easily done more for the American people than all of the other candidates and their running mates combined. Contrary to much even progressive conventional wisdom, he has continued his public service since 2000. When his name and the words "public servant" are uttered together it is not a cliched and perfunctory gesture. As opposed to the frontrunners and their ubiquitous cant and subterfuge, on the stump, in an interview, Nader's every word frames real issues in their proper context, is urgent, without a trace of superfluity, aware of the magnitude of the problems we face, with viable solutions. By natural right his message ought to appeal to the vast preponderance of the electorate. It is unfortunate, although not to underrate its significance, that the strongest argument Bates makes to encourage support of Nader's campaign is that of voting strategically under the rules of the Electoral College. Bates says the upcoming election is really 58 elections, each state's and the District of Colombia, and Maine and Nebraska wherein each district counts its votes separately. It is crucial to consider this in building momentum for a third party. Bates avers that in the other than about fifteen swing states, progressives will not be supporting Bush by voting for Nader. He goes even further and examines meticulously scenarios that may likely develop in which progressives even in smaller states with few electoral votes should feel safe voting for Nader. Noting that it is easier to sway power when it feels vulnerable Bates says in any event, progressives would do well to make a potential Kerry win as narrow as possible. Bates here clarifies that both Noam Chomsky, who wonders aloud how anyone could have taken his ABB comments otherwise, and Howard Zinn plan to vote for Nader because they are in the safe state of Massachusetts. Beyond that, however, he cites the ever astute Chomsky: "Activist movements, if at all serious, pay virtually no attention to which faction of the business party is in office, but continue with their daily work, from which elections are a diversion - which we cannot ignore, any more than we can ignore the sun rising; they exist." It hardly goes without saying that a Kerry win does not at all promise a progressive agenda. Kerry's supposed high minded ideals, says Bates, could translate into nefarious deeds. He points out that often the party