Ralph Nader on Running for President

[roxiejules]

Run time: 01:34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj3evOYCta4   Posted on YouTube: August 02, 2010 By YouTube Member: CSPAN Views on YouTube: 626   Posted on DU: August 05, 2010 By DU Member: roxiejules Views on DU: 813

 
Ralph Nader comments on whether he'll run for president again and who he'd like to see run for president. Excerpted from BookTV's In Depth.

[dtotire]

1. He Is a POS n/m

[RufusTFirefly]

3. Terrific point-by-point analysis of his statements and articulation of your objections

Thanks so much.

[frylock]

6. very insightful

[Turbineguy]

2. He'd like to see Palin for President?

[breadandwine]

4. Obama's Republicanism has created a perfect storm for Ralph to run again.

Ralph will run again in 2012 and the Democratic wing of the Democratic party will stay home in disgust in 2010.

We are toast.

[roxiejules]

5. Ridicule is the cost of defying power...

"We will again be told by the Democrats that the least-worse candidate they select for office is better than the Republican troll trotted out as an alternative. We will be bombarded with slick commercials about hope and change and spoken to in a cloying feel-your-pain language. We will be made afraid. But if we again acquiesce we will be reduced to sad and pathetic footnotes in our accelerating transformation from a democracy to a totalitarian corporate state. Isolation and ridicule—ask Nader or McKinney—is the cost of defying power, speaking truth and building movements. Anger at injustice, as Martin Luther King wrote, is the political expression of love. And it is vital that this anger become our own."

- Chris Hedges

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/ralph_nader_was_right_about_barack_obama_20100301/

[activa8tr]

7. That kind of bullshit gave us George W Bush.

I am sorry, Ralph Nader, you have had your day in the sun, perhaps too many. Isn't there some car company you can sue? How about you just stop screwing America? THAT would be a great suit, sue Ralph Nader for screwing with America's sanity.

[roxiejules]

8. What did Nader do to screw America?

[activa8tr]

9. Were living off planet Earth between 2000 and 2009?

Nader played a major role in getting Bush elected, and keeping purists from becoming pragmatists.

Let me spell it out in two sentences.
Nader had a clear choice in 2000 to throw his support behind Gore, when it was numerically impossible for Nader to do anything other than help Bush get elected. He chose to be a purist, and we all suffered because of what his followers did, throwing away their votes on Nader, and giving us Bush.

We are all suffering because of it. Sorry if you missed all the misery we are suffering because some refuse to be realistic and work for the common good, just spout off their own purist thoughts, never thinking of the consequences for themselves and others.

[roxiejules]

12. I didn't miss the misery.

Except I think it started before Bush and every four years gets worse. I don't want to be a 'least worst' voter.


"Anyone who says he or she cares about the working class in this country should have walked out on the Democratic Party in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA."

"And it has only been downhill since...welfare reform, the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, which gutted the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act—designed to prevent the kind of banking crisis we are now undergoing......At what point do we stop being a doormat?"

- Chris Hedges

[TheEuclideanOne]

14. If I can make a small correction

He didn't choose to be a purist, he chose to be an Egotist. Perhaps he was craving the glory days when he was actually very relevant to the wellbeing of the country, or maybe (as seen in this interview), he thinks that he is the chosen one and must run so that he can be the one and only progressive candidate to save america. Regardless of the actual motivation, at the end of the day, the result is the same as you outlined.

I would actually vote for the Ralph Nader of the glory days, but not this guy. This version of Ralph Nader could give a shit, he just wants to be famous once every four years and could give a shit about the repurcussions. Actually, I would not even vote for the old Ralph Nader unless he actually had a mathematical chance of winning.

[activa8tr]

15. small correction noted. n/t

[Red Knight]

19. Actually, you're wrong

The Supreme Court got Bush elected--not Nader.

And....what has electing corporate Dems gotten us? We're still sliding down the slope into this growing corprotocracy--still at war.

You call that victory?

We need progressive candidates--period. You can salute the Democratic flag---but if it's being held by Wall Street it doesn't feel like "change" to me, or in line with what this party is SUPPOSED to stand for.

But if it makes you feel good...hey, go for it. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

See where we are twenty years from now with this continued failed starategy.

[bitchkitty]

16. I used to feel the same way.

I don't any more. I'm sick of voting for the lesser of two evils. I am sick of silver-tongued liars.

How many more times of being lied to and misled will it take for you?

[watajob]

17. Amen!

NINE presidential elections under my belt and I've had to hold my nose every time. Well, actually, eight. I actually thought BO was going to do some good. You know the old saying: There's no fool like an old fool. *sigh*

[CrawlingChaos]

10. K&R - because he's right....yet again. (n/t)

[mmonk]

11. Thanks.

Jim Hightower would be interesting. If ever allowed near the debates, he would make them interesting.

[roxiejules]

13. No kidding!

:)

[Ken Burch]

18. Ralph SHOULDN'T run again.

And this party shouldn't do the kind things that would DRIVE him to run anymore.

Fair enough trade-off?

[Iggo]

20. Jeezus, still?