Slashdot Mirror

Do you want your representatives in Congress to vote their consciences? Then did you vote your conscience? Or, did you vote for some second-rate candidate that you didn't really agree with, because you thought he was "not as bad as Bush"?

I voted for Nader to send a message to both parties that I am not satisfied with the way things are going.

I am not satisfied with the Democrats ignoring poverty, military expansion, and labor rights, and civil rights.

I am not satisfied with their complicity in the war in Iraq.

I am not satisfied with the argument that "at least they aren't as bad as Bush", when they are up to the same tricks.

I don't care how much dirty campaign money they can raise: If they want my vote in the future, they need to get back in touch with progressive issues.

Of course, you might want to hear it from Nader himself about why he didn't cost Al Gore the election in 2000:

Al Gore won the election in 2000.

George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election.

No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned.

To say someone is a "spoiler" is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. American does not belong to two parties.

The Constitution does not mention parties.

This country had a rich history of third parties.

George W. Bush's recount strategy in Florida cost Gore the election.

The deceptive butterfly ballot, which Democratic officials approved, cost Al Gore the election.

Katherine Harris-style purging of tens of thousands of non ex-felons from the voter roles cost the election.

A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stop of the recount cost Gore the election. (See Jeffrey Toobin's book Too Close to Call).

Playing the "what if" game, Gore cost Gore the election in Tennessee, Arkansas, and each of the presidential debates.

Except for brief, progressive moments, such as at the convention, which helped his polls, Gore ran the usual, lackluster corporate Democratic campaign.

And they did. They voted for Bush, including more than 250,000 self-identified Democrats in Florida.

Moreover, a Democratic exit poll showed that Ralph's votes came 25% from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for Ralph.

In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph's voters would NOT have voted for Gore.

In New Hampshire, exit polls showed that Ralph "took more votes" from Republicans than Democrats, by a 2 to 1 margin.

If one accepts the flawed logic that suggests Ralph 'cost' Gore two states (New Hampshire and Florida), then it would also follow that Buchanan 'cost' Bush four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico) in 2000.

CNN's polling data said that if neither Nader nor Buchanan had run, Bush would have beat Gore 48 to 47 percent, with 4 percent who voted not voting.

For the last three years Democrats and media pundits have been smearing Ralph Nader and the Greens -- oblivious to the facts -- looking for a scapegoat for the failures of their own party and its candidates.

It is not the job of third-party or Independent candidates to make sure either of the two major parties wins.

That would be like asking a new start-up to make sure Microsoft or Apple has more market share.

Moreover, there are 100 million people in this country who do not vote. There are plenty of nonvoters for all candidates to attract.

Voting is not a zero-sum game.

Historically, third parties and Independents move very important agendas.

Neither party

I'm sorry, you seem to be operating under the mistaken assumption that there are only two parties to pick from. Allow me to share some info with you. For convenience, let's consider only the Presidential election.

There are actually 6 candidates for President who are on enough (I believe) states ballots to have a chance to win the election. Bush and Kerry, obviously, but also:

Mike Badnarik - Libertarian

David Cobb - Green

Ralph Nader - Independent

Mike Peroutka - Constitution

In addition, Roger Calero, the candiate for the Socialist Workers Party, is on the ballots in 14 states.

Finally, there are at least four other candidates who are on the ballots in at least two states:

(from ballot-access.org):

Socialist Party (Walt Brown) is on in Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.

Socialist Equality Party (Bill Van Auken) is on in Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey, Minnesota, Washington, and is in court in Ohio.

Prohibition Party (Gene Amondsen) is on in Colorado and Louisiana.

Workers World Party (John Parker) is on in Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.


More details can be found at ballot-access.org

And a list of political parties in the United States is available as well.

seems to be fiscally conservative anymore.

The Libertarian Party is.

I wasn't aware that he tried to get a deferment, if its true, I hate to point this out to you but its just one more case where he hasn't been straight with people, because he tells everyone he eagerly volunteered for Vietnam in order to serve his country. Flip-flop.

As soon as he had the nomination he nailed he turned back in to himself, a wishy washy centrist trying to offend no one, which is what the pundits told him to do to win the general election, he was neither for or against Iraq, nor for or against the Patriot Act, and his first policy initiative was a tax cut for big business. Unlike many people in America, it seems, I have a pretty good memory for political BS.

I don't recall him saying anything about the Patriot act, maybe he has I just missed it.

He believes some provisions of the Patriot Act - like the money laundering provisions - must be made stronger. Others - like the library and "sneak-and-peek" search provisions - must be made smarter, to better protect privacy and freedom while allowing our government to do everything necessary to track down terrorists and defend America.

It appears to me that you are looking for Black and White answers, served to you on a silver platter, with a side of chips. Congradulations, despite what you think, you are typical.

Don't expect any real change until you start voting for real change.

1. publicly financed campaigns - political campaigns are public institutions like libraries and schools
2. instant runoff voting - to remove the incentive to pick the lesser of two evils
3. open access to TV and radio - to allow dissenting opinions to be heard
4. proportional representation - to prevent hegemony of the largest minority and make the government a balanced representation of the people

I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find info on the other companies, but it was pretty easy... Here's some links for the other companies, just for fun:
Boeing (2)
Morgan Stanley
Fannie Mae
Apparently, Target isn't well-liked, either.
Safeway

Granted, you may not agree with all of these people's opinions, but the complaints are there.

[The following is a revision of a letter I have been distributing via email. I ought to have posted this earlier, but I lacked the courage. You can find the original on my website.]

Dear US Citizen,

I am writing to remind you to vote conscientiously tomorrow. I will also indulge in a little political activism by introducing some issues (watered stock, free trade, and others) for your consideration. As you read this message, keep in mind that I am not recommending that you vote for this or that candidate, but only that you think about what is at stake, make a choice, and vote.

I wish to bring to your attention a pattern of behavior by national governments that suggests that, in the world-wide political arena, the interests of citizens rank far below those of large corporations, and that the latter seek actively to diminish the influence of citizens on their governments' legislative activity. In some countries, citizens are even compelled by law to foot the bill for this nonsense. ;) It is worth noting that the worst consequences of this are not in the future: most US citizens feel so disenfranchised today that they either don't vote or vote for the lesser evil, and US taxpayers (citizens or not) bear the burden of unprecedented personal and national debt. If you don't vote, you will be capitulating, and the future of US politics will be that much closer to a foregone conclusion. As a citizen of the European Union and a resident of Switzerland, a very small sovereign state, I have learned that the rest of the world cannot afford apathy or carelessness on the part of registered voters in the US. You can think of this message as a plea for help.

[As you read this, please excuse the careless use of "Americans" where "US citizens" would have been correct.]

The first issue I want to discuss is the connection between corporations and public money. You may or may not be aware of the emergence of watered stock and pooling as a powerful weapons in the corporations' arsenal; for example, Microsoft and Cisco have managed to attain tax-free status by writing off stock options (and then earning some of that back when new stock is issued for the purpose of redeeming those options) and Citigroup recapitalizes and decapitalizes itself arbitrarily to achieve spectacular mergers (thus posing a great risk to the banking sector) -- right under the nose of the SEC. In a perfect world, this sort of abuse would have been reigned in already but, in our world, the possibility of relief seems remote. Let me make this plain: the watered stock write-off scheme amounts to a theft of public money and pooling needlessly endangers the stability of the economy. At the very least, insofar as stock represents a redeemable claim against a company's assets, it is a perversion of the modern economic perspective in which the stock market is allegedly as adequate a store of value as gold ever was.

Actually, said modern economic perspective was already quite perverse (in ways too numerous to mention) long before watered stock was even imagined. Such perversity is a natural consequence of the absence of an adequate standard of value, which was in turn an intended consequence of changes in policy that took place earlier in the century. Long ago, Alan Greenspan explained that the institution he heads today is a powerful instrument with which the government can confiscate part of the value of your money and, not incidentally, engage in deficit spending regularly. You might argue that calculated inflation is a small price to pay for being able to float a chronic debt and sustain a deficit as needed. You might argue that your national debt is presently unassailable because American households, which on average have a negative savings rate and face unabatable credit card debt, are financially overcommitted as it is. You might be wrong. Habitual deficit spending and the resulting chronic national indebtedness, along with the corporate welfare mechanisms that aggravate them, are to blame for your misery: the federal government uses inflation and national debt to mortgage your personal assets and your public resources, respectively, as effortlessly as a corporation uses watered stock to dilute the value of your share holdings. Think what you will of Greenspan's former support of the gold standard, but you have to admit that he was correct in predicting the practical consequences of failing to provide an adequate store of value, and in identifying the welfare state as the primary beneficiary:

Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes.

What he may not have realized then is that corporate welfare is just as likely a welfare scheme as any other.

It now behooves us to ask not only how this wave of abuse can be stemmed, but also how this sort of situation can arise even under the watchful eye of our elected officials. The answer is that, in the US, the Executive and the Agencies operate with considerable autonomy; many important decisions are often made away from public scrutiny, largely or altogether, and there is a vested interest on the part of large corporations to increase the autonomy, if not the stature, of these public servants. Consider the case of MAI, the Multilateral agreement on investment -- a charter of rights and freedoms for corporations. Those of you who have not heard of it should at least know that it was the culmination of attempts to transfer some important powers from the popularly elected legislative bodies to the executive officials of sovereign states and to give corporations the legal standing of sovereign states. Let me take a moment to explore the brilliance of these tactics.

• When decision making forums are sheltered from public scrutiny, executive officials can serve corporate interests with impunity.
• When corporations have the same legal standing as sovereign states, large multinational corporations have power over small sovereign states -- perhaps even those in which the company is incorporated.

Surely, you can give examples of an administration negotiating treaties that would be difficult to accept for a majority of citizens and impossible to ratify for most congresses; now, try to imagine a future in which the legislature is powerless to stop unfavorable or undesirable consequences of free trade arrangements that it did not have the opportunity to approve or reject. Surely, you can name instances of a corporation getting away with practices that a majority of citizens would condemn but which the courts are powerless to stop in the absence of adequate legislation or jurisdiction; now, try to imagine a future in which a corporation undertakes legal action against sovereign states for refusing to let it set up shop, or even for having laws and regulations that hinder it, such as strict environmental standards.

"That's not a problem," you say, "because Public Citizen told us about MAI in the nick of time." That's not the point; the point is that MAI is evidence of an alarming, long-standing pattern of behavior: as Noam Chomsky has said, our governments really are, and have been for a long time, trying to undermine democracy. Consider, as further evidence, the case of Australia's MIGA, an agency that predates MAI and obviates the "need" for it.

Now, the two leading candidates, Al Gore and George Bush, look at the issue very differently, saying that free trade creates jobs, without mentioning what kind and where. Actually, Bush has even said that it is the duty of the administration to "sell" free trade (on WTO's terms, of course) to US citizens! Ralph Nader, on the other hand, has said that he wants the US to withdraw from the WTO and that we should re-examine the premise of so-called "free trade" agreements. I was going to give you a reference to Nader's website with that last statement, as WTO/NAFTA was one of the three key issues on his home page until just a few days ago, but now it is not even in the issue summaries. What could this mean? I think it means that he has pushed one of his favorite issues into the background because he needs enough votes to get federal funding for his next campaign. And this, in turn, suggests that American politicians think that the US electorate is politically comatose. You can help prove them wrong: a strong showing by Americans on election day would tell US politicians and corporations and the world that Americans are still in control of their political system. It would be a great sequel to the Battle of Seattle, with a lot less violence and just as much press coverage. Realistically, you probably cannot afford to act as resolutely as José Bové, but you can vote.

When I think about US politics, I think of the fable in which a master presents some options to his student, threatening to beat him with a cane if he chooses poorly; the essence of the problem is that the student cannot choose any of the options presented to him without risking bodily harm. (You should now take a moment to discover how the student can avoid the beating and what the moral of the story is.) You can and should vote for the presidential candidate who will most closely represent your interests, as you have more valid options than the mainstream media seem to suggest: you can vote for George W. Bush; you can vote for Al Gore; you can vote for Ralph Nader; you can vote for Harry Browne; and you can vote for some other candidate (yes, there are more) though his name may not appear on your ballot. If you cast a so-called "useful" vote, you are supporting a system in which you have a lot less influence than you otherwise might, and you might get beat with a cane. Of course, if you don't vote, you have no voice, nor will you ever, and when you and I finally get beat with a very stiff cane, no one will hear us scream. Please, vote.

Yours,

Alejandro Gómez de Argüello

[The following is a revision of a letter I have been distributing via email. I ought to have posted this earlier, but I lacked the courage. You can find the original on my website.]

Dear US Citizen,

I am writing to remind you to vote conscientiously tomorrow. I will also indulge in a little political activism by introducing some issues (watered stock, free trade, and others) for your consideration. As you read this message, keep in mind that I am not recommending that you vote for this or that candidate, but only that you think about what is at stake, make a choice, and vote.

I wish to bring to your attention a pattern of behavior by national governments that suggests that, in the world-wide political arena, the interests of citizens rank far below those of large corporations, and that the latter seek actively to diminish the influence of citizens on their governments' legislative activity. In some countries, citizens are even compelled by law to foot the bill for this nonsense. ;) It is worth noting that the worst consequences of this are not in the future: most US citizens feel so disenfranchised today that they either don't vote or vote for the lesser evil, and US taxpayers (citizens or not) bear the burden of unprecedented personal and national debt. If you don't vote, you will be capitulating, and the future of US politics will be that much closer to a foregone conclusion. As a citizen of the European Union and a resident of Switzerland, a very small sovereign state, I have learned that the rest of the world cannot afford apathy or carelessness on the part of registered voters in the US. You can think of this message as a plea for help.

[As you read this, please excuse the careless use of "Americans" where "US citizens" would have been correct.]

The first issue I want to discuss is the connection between corporations and public money. You may or may not be aware of the emergence of watered stock and pooling as a powerful weapons in the corporations' arsenal; for example, Microsoft and Cisco have managed to attain tax-free status by writing off stock options (and then earning some of that back when new stock is issued for the purpose of redeeming those options) and Citigroup recapitalizes and decapitalizes itself arbitrarily to achieve spectacular mergers (thus posing a great risk to the banking sector) -- right under the nose of the SEC. In a perfect world, this sort of abuse would have been reigned in already but, in our world, the possibility of relief seems remote. Let me make this plain: the watered stock write-off scheme amounts to a theft of public money and pooling needlessly endangers the stability of the economy. At the very least, insofar as stock represents a redeemable claim against a company's assets, it is a perversion of the modern economic perspective in which the stock market is allegedly as adequate a store of value as gold ever was.

Actually, said modern economic perspective was already quite perverse (in ways too numerous to mention) long before watered stock was even imagined. Such perversity is a natural consequence of the absence of an adequate standard of value, which was in turn an intended consequence of changes in policy that took place earlier in the century. Long ago, Alan Greenspan explained that the institution he heads today is a powerful instrument with which the government can confiscate part of the value of your money and, not incidentally, engage in deficit spending regularly. You might argue that calculated inflation is a small price to pay for being able to float a chronic debt and sustain a deficit as needed. You might argue that your national debt is presently unassailable because American households, which on average have a negative savings rate and face unabatable credit card debt, are financially overcommitted as it is. You might be wrong. Habitual deficit spending and the resulting chronic national indebtedness, along with the corporate welfare mechanisms that aggravate them, are to blame for your misery: the federal government uses inflation and national debt to mortgage your personal assets and your public resources, respectively, as effortlessly as a corporation uses watered stock to dilute the value of your share holdings. Think what you will of Greenspan's former support of the gold standard, but you have to admit that he was correct in predicting the practical consequences of failing to provide an adequate store of value, and in identifying the welfare state as the primary beneficiary:

Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes.

What he may not have realized then is that corporate welfare is just as likely a welfare scheme as any other.

It now behooves us to ask not only how this wave of abuse can be stemmed, but also how this sort of situation can arise even under the watchful eye of our elected officials. The answer is that, in the US, the Executive and the Agencies operate with considerable autonomy; many important decisions are often made away from public scrutiny, largely or altogether, and there is a vested interest on the part of large corporations to increase the autonomy, if not the stature, of these public servants. Consider the case of MAI, the Multilateral agreement on investment -- a charter of rights and freedoms for corporations. Those of you who have not heard of it should at least know that it was the culmination of attempts to transfer some important powers from the popularly elected legislative bodies to the executive officials of sovereign states and to give corporations the legal standing of sovereign states. Let me take a moment to explore the brilliance of these tactics.

• When decision making forums are sheltered from public scrutiny, executive officials can serve corporate interests with impunity.
• When corporations have the same legal standing as sovereign states, large multinational corporations have power over small sovereign states -- perhaps even those in which the company is incorporated.

Surely, you can give examples of an administration negotiating treaties that would be difficult to accept for a majority of citizens and impossible to ratify for most congresses; now, try to imagine a future in which the legislature is powerless to stop unfavorable or undesirable consequences of free trade arrangements that it did not have the opportunity to approve or reject. Surely, you can name instances of a corporation getting away with practices that a majority of citizens would condemn but which the courts are powerless to stop in the absence of adequate legislation or jurisdiction; now, try to imagine a future in which a corporation undertakes legal action against sovereign states for refusing to let it set up shop, or even for having laws and regulations that hinder it, such as strict environmental standards.

"That's not a problem," you say, "because Public Citizen told us about MAI in the nick of time." That's not the point; the point is that MAI is evidence of an alarming, long-standing pattern of behavior: as Noam Chomsky has said, our governments really are, and have been for a long time, trying to undermine democracy. Consider, as further evidence, the case of Australia's MIGA, an agency that predates MAI and obviates the "need" for it.

Now, the two leading candidates, Al Gore and George Bush, look at the issue very differently, saying that free trade creates jobs, without mentioning what kind and where. Actually, Bush has even said that it is the duty of the administration to "sell" free trade (on WTO's terms, of course) to US citizens! Ralph Nader, on the other hand, has said that he wants the US to withdraw from the WTO and that we should re-examine the premise of so-called "free trade" agreements. I was going to give you a reference to Nader's website with that last statement, as WTO/NAFTA was one of the three key issues on his home page until just a few days ago, but now it is not even in the issue summaries. What could this mean? I think it means that he has pushed one of his favorite issues into the background because he needs enough votes to get federal funding for his next campaign. And this, in turn, suggests that American politicians think that the US electorate is politically comatose. You can help prove them wrong: a strong showing by Americans on election day would tell US politicians and corporations and the world that Americans are still in control of their political system. It would be a great sequel to the Battle of Seattle, with a lot less violence and just as much press coverage. Realistically, you probably cannot afford to act as resolutely as José Bové, but you can vote.

When I think about US politics, I think of the fable in which a master presents some options to his student, threatening to beat him with a cane if he chooses poorly; the essence of the problem is that the student cannot choose any of the options presented to him without risking bodily harm. (You should now take a moment to discover how the student can avoid the beating and what the moral of the story is.) You can and should vote for the presidential candidate who will most closely represent your interests, as you have more valid options than the mainstream media seem to suggest: you can vote for George W. Bush; you can vote for Al Gore; you can vote for Ralph Nader; you can vote for Harry Browne; and you can vote for some other candidate (yes, there are more) though his name may not appear on your ballot. If you cast a so-called "useful" vote, you are supporting a system in which you have a lot less influence than you otherwise might, and you might get beat with a cane. Of course, if you don't vote, you have no voice, nor will you ever, and when you and I finally get beat with a very stiff cane, no one will hear us scream. Please, vote.

Yours,

Alejandro Gómez de Argüello

The best system that's been thought up to assure a true majority is INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING. Basically, the system lets you vote for your top three candidates, in my case Ralph Nader, Harry Browne, and some one else who I'd think up later. Now, let's say that no one gets a clear (50% + 1) majority. Then, the first-choice votes for all but the top two or three and the second (and, if necessary, third) choice votes would be counted towards these top few. Whoever gets the true majority first wins the election. This way, we'd get no more Clintons (elected with This has been argued to provide for a stronger presidency, as the winner would have some sort of mandate, but it still sucks that turnout is less than half (theoretical) nationwide. (I happen to think that if an election has less than half the eligible voters nationally voting, it should be redone. Wishful thinking, I know :) So, for all you lazy bastards who are not thinking of voting, remember: If you do not get involved in politics, politics will get involved with you. (Also, if your state has you voting for judges, vote NO to all of them. They are all pricks. It's also a lot easier and a lot more fun.)

---
Check out Ralph Nader for President. He doesnt need a .com
---

Huh? Yes he does.

http://www.votenader.com/


- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

So I'll vote for Gore in Florida on behalf of my Texan swapmate, and he'll vote for Nader in Texas on my behalf. It's not Single Transferable Vote, but it's the best system available.

You can do this too.
Find a friend you can trust who usually votes against your candidate, and agree among yourselves that you will both vote for your favorite third-party candidates. It's that simple.

OK, I like in Massachusetts. There's not a chance in hell my vote will tip the balance from Gore to Bush, in fact Gore is certain to win by a landslide. We might as well hand those electoral votes over right now... which is essentially what the pundits do when they count electoral votes at this point in the race.

If you're a conservative who happens to think that Bush is a complete dolt (I know many who feel this way), AND you happen to live in a state which is solidly Bush turf, what the hell do you have to lose by voting Libertarian, The Constitution Party, or The Natural Law Party? It's not like you're going to hurt Bush by not voting for him, in your state he's going to win! This gives you some freedom to vote your conscience without potentially tipping the race toward the Democrats (who are the party I would vote for if my state were up for grabs).

My point is that only a few states are still undecided... if you live in one of then maybe it makes sense to vote "strategically". But for the most of us it's pretty safe to vote our conscience... me I'll be voting Nader because that's who I like. And I don't feel the slightest concern for the outcome.

BTW: the Reform Party main page is down right now, so I didn't exclude it out of any malice (though I do think Buchanan is a fascist); I assume that's because of the Buchanan rift in the party. Speaking of that, Buchanan taking over the Reform Party has only benefited the Republicans as it's basically killed a major contender party. Wonder if Buchanan was really a poison pill for the party... I guess we'll know if Buchanan re-joins the Republicans after gutting the party and leaving the entrails asunder...

Sure, government will restrict our freedom less in a libertarian world, but who will fill that power gap left, when the government has less influence over the people?
CORPORATIONS!
Replace Gov't censorship with corporate censorship. Do you really want Walmart decides what CDs should be widely available? They are the number 1 seller of CDs already. So now, the only way we can influence those that control our lives the most (corporations) is by being smart consumers.
Pretty much libertarianism replaces the vote as a mean of change with the almighty $$$Dollar$$$, which means the rich still will have the greatest say.
And this is why I'm voting for Nader

Nader wants censorship of the Internet too.

False.

This is simply false, what more can I say? Go read his platform. Note that the "Education and Children" section makes no mention of censorship. In fact, this is one of the primary differences between Nader and the other candidates. Nader is most concerned about advertisiers exploiting children for marketing purposes. Ads mock authority, encourage children to nag their parents, and use other greedy tactics designed to sell junky products. In contrast, the other candidates are distracting by the "morality" or "values" issues. i.e. they want less violence and smut in television, film, and the internet. Nader is simply objecting to the advertisements.

-m

• The CPD's third criterion requires that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recent publicly reported results at the time of the determination.

• The Commission's third criterion considers objective evidence of national public enthusiasm or concern. The factors considered in connection with this criterion are intended to assess public support for a candidate, which bears directly on the candidate's prospects for electoral success. The factors to be considered include:
  1. The findings of significant public opinion polls conducted by national polling and news organizations.
  2. Reported attendance at meetings and rallies across the country (locations as well as numbers) in comparison with the two major party candidates.

Under the 1996 rules, Ralph Nader definitely qualified to debate. Pat Buchanan might have qualified too. Although he's on the ballot in a lot of states (49 or 50 I think) I doubt that Harry Browne would have qualified to debate under the 1996 rules. At least Nader and Buchanan are showing up in the polls.

The CPD is running scared. I hope Nader blows them out of the water and that their wreckage sinks the corporate rafts they've been floating on.

By the way, last night Nader was again prevented from even going near the debate forum.

VOTE NADER

• The CPD's third criterion requires that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recent publicly reported results at the time of the determination.

• The Commission's third criterion considers objective evidence of national public enthusiasm or concern. The factors considered in connection with this criterion are intended to assess public support for a candidate, which bears directly on the candidate's prospects for electoral success. The factors to be considered include:
  1. The findings of significant public opinion polls conducted by national polling and news organizations.
  2. Reported attendance at meetings and rallies across the country (locations as well as numbers) in comparison with the two major party candidates.

Under the 1996 rules, Ralph Nader definitely qualified to debate. Pat Buchanan might have qualified too. Although he's on the ballot in a lot of states (49 or 50 I think) I doubt that Harry Browne would have qualified to debate under the 1996 rules. At least Nader and Buchanan are showing up in the polls.

The CPD is running scared. I hope Nader blows them out of the water and that their wreckage sinks the corporate rafts they've been floating on.

By the way, last night Nader was again prevented from even going near the debate forum.

VOTE NADER

Who keep these morons in power.

Many people don't like the idiots running this country, but no one wants to risk voting for a
candidate they belive in.

I don't see a lesser evil. Bush is a stupid Texas redneck with a penchant for coke and executions (But not abortion. Go fig on that one...),
while Gore is an android that likes gun control and censorship.

Neither of these candidates represents anything *close* to what I believe in, and both are bought by the highest bidder.
(i.e. The major corps that annoy and violate the people so much.)

For me, it *IS* coming down to two candidates: Browne and Nader.
I'm going to vote for a candidate I *believe* in, not what someone else tells me to believe in.
Yes, it's gonna be a losing vote - but at least it wasn't a wasted vote.

Richard
(And unlike many of my posts, that was not a troll.)
----

sometimes i wonder if those people mumbling about the black helicopters, echelon, wearing tin-foil hats are right.

sometimes

tagline

Nader, at least, supports binding "none of the above" voting. (Near the bottom of that page.)

I'm not arguing against a standard. But Ralph Nader, for example, is on the ballot in most states (link is to map showing which states) in the country. Yet the vast majority of people heading to the polls will have to form their opinion about the choices on their ballot through some means other than having seen him in the debates (or the relentless onslaught of post-debate deconstruction). This amounts to free publicity for the two candidates who need it the least. In fact, stations that did not carry the debates have been chastised by the chairman of the FCC for not doing so. This is not only unfair, but dangerous to democracy. I have a right as a citizen to more information than I was given about my choices on the ballot this Novemeber-- and the government and the broadcasters behind these debates have a responsibility to provide it in a more even handed way. The effect is almost censorship, in that the loud chorus of Republicrats has the fundamental effect of drowning out the other voices.

You shouldn't be afraid of big government, you should be afraid of big corporations. They're running the government, anyway.

Don't think that you have to choose beween Gore and Bush, either. That's like saying you have to choose between Win 98 or Win 98SE. If you want to change things, if you want to put the people back in control of our country, if you want better education, then VOTE FOR NADER, DAMMIT!

I am from the US, and I'm pretty sure that a bunch of armed rednecks couldn't defend our country from squat. That's why we have the army. I don't think we have much of a chance of overthrowing our government by force, either, if that's what you think an armed militia is for. (Citizens with rifles vs. F-16 = one sided battle). If you want to change things, you have to vote the corporate-funded Republicratic pigs out of office, and elect someone like Ralph.

Personally, the first time some bastard uses a gun to kill an innocent person... okay, didn't have to wait long for that one... I feel that I am justified in voting to not allow anyone to have a gun. Too bad. If you really need to kill someone, you should be pissed enough to use your own two hands.

As for the second amendment, I don't care what it says. If it's wrong, we can amend it.

Dude, I followed your link to www.votenader.com and I tell you... If I was in the US that Nader guy would get my vote hands down! I put a link on my site and I hope some US citizen will see it, follow it and vote instead of me.. :) .. It's a shame we don't hear much about any other than the two big candidates here in Sweden...
--
"No se rinde el gallo rojo, sólo cuando ya está muerto."

So am I - that's why I'm voting Nader on November 7th.

-------

That's what Harry Browne stands for, eliminating social programs and social progress. Remember one of the individuals who will be suddenly empowered will be corporations. Think big-business is out of control now, wait till Browne gets his turn in office. Make no mistake about it, Libertarianism is the new Republicanism, just less Jesus. Just look at his views on abortion. He should just become Buchanan's VP.

Back to the real issue, the problem is in a debate when one person says something especially stupid (anti-net propaganda) its the other person's job to jump right on it. But Gore just smiled showing agreement. If this isn't the best reason to open up the debates to third party candidates I don't know what is. Toss the Lib, Green, and the Socialist and we'll have a real debate.

Info on 3rd party candidates can be found here:

Nader
Browne
McReynolds
Buchanan

Read up before you vote, please. show is hardly a place to find facts.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. see Ralph Nader for more.

there's no way they can stop people copying and distributing copyrighted materials, just look at warez.

i wonder what nader thinks about this. or gore or bush for that matter. would it be plausible to make a "Digital bill of rights"?

---
pack

From the title image at their website I can identify the "logo's" of the OS's that will be presented at this event; except for the ? below, anyone care to enlighten me.
Amiga, OS/2, ?, GNU/Linux, *BSD, ?, BeOS

Nader bounced from convention even though he had a ticket! Tell your neighbours/friends/relatives:

What do you want out of slashdot?
-- More than news!

What would you like to see more of?
-- I would like to see more political stories. I would love to see Slashdot used as a mobilization force for the geek voters of the world. With many geek disinterested and feeling that vote or not vote, not much will change, maybe it is time we flexed our muscle as a community. Nader anybody? Debates anybody? .. we are so busy pushing the technical limits of our world.. we may let it get legislated away. I am reminded of this slashdot article of Tim O'Reilly debating Q. Todd Dickinson and the thing that stuck with me about the debate(conversation?) was a statement by Dickinson where he basically said "Tim, I agree with you, where was your voice when we needed it to convince others." We had the Patent Office Director on our side, and he didn't hear a peep of support from us. Right or wrong, the responsibility for the problems in our realm of expertise may be our fault because WE DIDN'T STOP IT.

What would you like to see less of?
-- FUD coming from our camp. I use linux on a daily basis, but if the day ever comes where I am spreading FUD about Windows - that may be the day I should be using Windows. (Just cause it is from our side, doesn't make it right)

Robert
^ This was all posted by a 19 year old - so feel free to dismiss it as silly. You may also feel free to plan your life around my posts.

What do you want out of slashdot?
-- More than news!

What would you like to see more of?
-- I would like to see more political stories. I would love to see Slashdot used as a mobilization force for the geek voters of the world. With many geek disinterested and feeling that vote or not vote, not much will change, maybe it is time we flexed our muscle as a community. Nader anybody? Debates anybody? .. we are so busy pushing the technical limits of our world.. we may let it get legislated away. I am reminded of this slashdot article of Tim O'Reilly debating Q. Todd Dickinson and the thing that stuck with me about the debate(conversation?) was a statement by Dickinson where he basically said "Tim, I agree with you, where was your voice when we needed it to convince others." We had the Patent Office Director on our side, and he didn't hear a peep of support from us. Right or wrong, the responsibility for the problems in our realm of expertise may be our fault because WE DIDN'T STOP IT.

What would you like to see less of?
-- FUD coming from our camp. I use linux on a daily basis, but if the day ever comes where I am spreading FUD about Windows - that may be the day I should be using Windows. (Just cause it is from our side, doesn't make it right)

Robert
^ This was all posted by a 19 year old - so feel free to dismiss it as silly. You may also feel free to plan your life around my posts.

How about this? A member of the green party needs only to adhere to these 10 key values. The candidate's platform is what THEY feel is important, unlike Republicrats, where the platform is controlled by the party. Ralph Nader's platform may be shocking to people who aren't used to having to consider real issues.

So, what exactly are you saying, Katz? That politics just doesn't matter to us "enlightened" citizens of The Net? This "politics sucks, so we can just ignore it" attitude is one thing I find really frightening about the Net culture. This kind of thing is funny to hear coming from Slahdot, considering how you are always posting outraged articles about the freedoms that are being taken away from us every day by the marriage of politics and corporations.

I am one of those young people that you think are just apathetic and disinterested in politics. The reason people have become disinterested in politics is that they have no say in it. We just tell ourselves that the political system is working fine without us, while it's being hijacked by corporate interests. Now what was a two party system has merged into a single party system with two faces, two identical candidates backed by the same corporations. Perhaps you will wish you hadn't been so quick to declare politics dead, when they take away your right to print articles saying what you believe. To quote Ralph Nader: "If you're not turned on to politics, politics will turn on you."

In a letter widely distributed on the Internet, Moore asked the majority of Americans -- the non voters -- to rebel by casting their votes for Nader. "Friends, we are losing our democratic control over our country - Corporate America has merged and morphed itself to such an extent that just a handful of companies now call the shots. They own Congress. They own us," Moore wrote in the letter addressed to non voters.

• One vote DOES count: The Republocrats took over the House in '94 by winning 19 districts with under 1,000 votes each. Assuming the total number is 19,000, that translates to one vote per school district in the US.
• Non-voters are the largest political force in America: Consider that the predictions say that only 46-49% of those eligible to vote actually do. That, my friends, makes for a plurality. The non-voters actually construe more than half the electorate and are their voices heard? The shortwave broadcast I heard suggested that if every person who was to vote Nader called two of their friends and converted them from the Legions of Morons (the republocrats and Democritans), then Nader would be the Big Dog.
• To get involved costs something, but not getting involved costs more. Moore talked about how he wanted to get on a school board to throw out his principal, who he felt was unfair. He was a lazy bastard and called the board of elections, which told him: 1. Even though he was barely 18, he could run. 2. He only needed 25 signatures to get on the ballot. 3. They would mail him the petition. He succeeded in terminating the principal AND the assistant principal.
• Nader has done more quantitative good than both major-party candidates combined. Airbags and the NHTSA are thanks to Ralph Nader's work against GM. We are not as exposed to radioactive matter thanks to Nader.

... Of corporations taking over our government.

I'm paying for the movies, tv shows, whatever to come into my house. Why shouldn't I be able to copy it and watch it later? What do I do if I'm not home when the programming is on?

Guess we're all gonna be even more fucked pretty soon.

Vote Nader!

Ben

The Really Big Point in the article is that the rights we Americans have are much, much easier to legislate away than to protect. Could you imagine an America in which the only 'free speech' is that which the corporations allow? DeCSS is the tip of the iceberg. As mentioned in a previous /. article, The Right To Read is inching closer to a reality. The two best things I can suggest at this point in spacetime are the following: 1. Support the EFF. They are the spearhead, and unlike the ACLU are not entrenched in the public consciousness. Donate something.. ANYTHING. (If you're paranoid, send 'em a money order.)
2. Vote For Ralph Nader and Against ALL Incumbent Senators. The first link takes you to the site of the only candidate who has been and is willing to take on the corporations and the two major parties, the Democritans and the Republocrats, who are all sleeping together like some incestuous menage-a-trois. He takes NO PAC money, NO soft money. He is the only candidate to have visited all 50 states. (So donate a few bucks, huh? :)And w/r/t the senators: The second link takes you to the website with the roll-call vote which passed the DMCA. S. 2037 (1998) was the number of the bill which became the DMCA. (Check it out. You'll see it's true.)

-Elendale (and one more thing, vote Nader!)

There... got that out of my system. Do they really expect this to hold up? It would be insane! I want to say that everyone would toss their VCRs out the windows, but i somehow doubt that would happen. Hot damn we need open source media or something to that effect. Or we need Nader in office for the next 8 years (or 4 at least) BTW, Vote Nader!!!

-Elendale (Do it! At least look at the site...)

Wide acceptance of low-emissions vehicles is almost completely dependent on the existence of a, for lack of a better word, refueling infrastructure. People don't want to have to drive across town to the one electric recharge station (or hydrogen station, or whatever) when they could drive their combustion car 2 blocks. And they dont' want to run out of whatever fuel they're using out in the middle or nowhere, or in a bad neighborhood, etc.

Of course, I am a liberal environmentalist, but I don't think that has anything to do with it (how many liberal environmentalists buy computers OR cars to begin with?)

Vote Nader

-Elendale (and that's all i have to say about THAT, except: Don't be a loser! Go vote!)

Karma burn coming
As i meta-troll again

The traditional media outlets are perhaps most influential around election time, when candidates fight tooth and nail for a splash of positive coverage, "face time," and a 3-second sound bite on the nightly news. It would be intriguing if the "new media" indeed were to inject substance into how political elections are conducted. Like many, I am disenchanted with mainstream election coverage that resembles a horse race, with running "So-and-so is 4 points ahead in the polls today" updates in place of the more substantial "My stance on issue X is as follows: [Insert esssay here]." I'd much prefer the days of the Lincoln-Douglas debates over the pith-and-mud we have suffered in the recent past, and I honestly believe that the current "be everyone's friend" approach to political campaigning in the U.S. is the underlying cause for apathy and cynicism among the voting public. I look with guarded agathism to the new media to counteract this.

Nader has an interesting and provocative site; while I don't agree with everything he advocates (by a long shot), I do respect his taking a very public stance on contentious issues, and I wish more candidates would do the same.

Find out which of the two-sided liars will do the least damage to our freedoms and vote for that person.

Vote for Ralph Nader!

'Nuff said.

The only truly wasted votes are the ones which are either never cast, or cast for a candidate the voter does not like.

RIGHT ON! Check out www.votenader.com End the plutocracy!

Nader's really quite interesting because he's the only candidate to strongly oppose corporate funding of government, the only candidate to support universal health care, and the only candidate who really supports worker's rights.

If you're not familiar with his platform, you should at least give it a chance; it's much more reasonable than other third party alternatives.

Also, it's worth thinking about signing the petition to get Nader into the debates. Right now the Democrats and Republicans have created a system that prevents third parties from being heard in the national debates. They don't want a repeat of what happened when Perot was in the debates in '92. But third party candidates are critical in that they bring up issues that the other candidates don't want to consider. This is important regardless of whether you support Nader as a candidate.

Sorry to rant about politics, but I think Nader provides an alternative to the republicrats with which so many of the /. readers seem to be dissatisfied.

-Elendale

Karma burn coming
As i meta-troll again

Politics, now more than ever, need to be taken up wherever possible..discussed over every medium, because these are the people that are going to be passing or vetoing legislation that says what we can and can't do. Sure may as well just leave politics to CNN (whose parent company is time warner major contributer to the DNC and RNC) I only wish there could've been a blurb or link for Nader up there.
(= GreenCow =)

Vote Gore to stay the same:
Gore is a diligent and intelligent man with a great amount of political experience. Very comfortable with his political position, any new or significant changes are doubtful.

Vote Nader if you actually give a shit:
Nader is a self made man who has taken a personal initiative to make changes that will benefit others. Take a look at his web site and his up front and blunt views. www.votenader.com Make a difference.

The Media and Big Business:
______________________
The mainstream media would never present this story to the American public. A much larger and more powerful CORPORATION owns every media business. Corporations love Republicans because they cater to tax cuts and the rich. Decisions made for the general public are not those produced by the greedy but by those who have the moral strength to think of another's well being before that of their own.

Big Brother is not the government. Big Brother = Big Business

Many other posters have said this already, but I wanted to add my voice to list of people who say: Vote Nader!

You can also check out the site I am working for for People Over Profit, which is an indipendant political organization in Vermont that supports Ralph Nader for president.

The site will not be up for a few weeks, but it will be at www.peopleoverprofit.org. Once I have a presentable prototype it will be up on my personal site, and that should be today or tommorow.