Excerpted below, by Ralph Nader, via CounterPunch.org:
… Read more ...Americans Need to Start Showing Up
Time to Topple Corporate Dictators
By RALPH NADER
The 18 day non-violent Egyptian protests for freedom raise the question: is America next? Were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine around, they would likely say “what are we waiting for?”
From CounterPunch:
… Read more ...But in Maine, Greens actually matter and the Democrats take them quite seriously. In fact, a few years back when Green John Eder was elected to the legislature with 65% of the vote, the Democrats sought to correct that scary development by redistricting him. And Greens have popped up elsewhere such as on the charter commission and the council of the state’s large city, Portland.
From Counterpunch:
… Read more ...The Federal Bureau of Investigation pays a black man (Ronald Wilburn) $30,000 to offer a bribe of $1,000 to a black Boston City Councilor (Chuck Turner). What’s wrong with this picture?
US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz does not think anything is wrong with this picture. After Chuck Turner’s October 29 conviction in his federal corruption trial, she called a press conference, at which The Boston Globe reported her as saying that “Turner faces his predicament because he had ‘made choices of his own free will.’”
From CounterPunch:
… Read more ...Emanuel’s access to the highest echelons of the Democratic Party corporate establishment and to attendant hordes of cold cash for the asking makes it a good bet that he will waltz through the Democratic Party primary campaign one which will amount to a coronation ceremony rather than a competition…
These include environmentalists well aware of his role in pushing through the “pragmatic” appointment of energy industry shill Ken Salazar and Obama’s catastrophic jettisoning of his campaign pledge to continue the ban on off-shore drilling.
From Counterpunch (read the full thing here):
… Read more ...There seems to be agreement on all points on the political spectrum that our current elected government doesn’t really represent the American public. Whether this relates to the fact that they are elected by a mere 30% of eligible adults is hotly debated on the left…
In my mind it makes more sense strategically to nibble around the edges of electoral reform.
from the Nov. 7 issue of Counterpunch. org:
Talking to Nader about the Campaign, on November 5.
AC: In 2000,you drew nearly 10,000 people to a speech in Portland, Oregon. This year you got barely 2,000 in in the whole of Multnomah County where Portland lies, perhaps the most progressive county in the nation.… Read more ...
Alexander Cockburn, editor of CounterPunch, has written a “CounterPunch Diary” critique of Senator Joe Biden that scathes the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee for his connections to the banking industry, his apparent vanity, and his foreign policy. In further discussing foreign policy, the piece contains a surprising comment on the third party field (from a writer that supported Ralph Nader‘s 2000 and 2004 campaigns:
… Read more ...Meanwhile, Ralph Nader seems to be dropping his bid to the level of knock-about.