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Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Hesiod's recent post castigating Ralph Nader invited a slough of comments from all sides of the issue...as a Green supporter and a US citizen living in Europe, I feel that Hesiod's argument is somewhat simplified. As a matter of fact, I also think that the Dem-hating rhetoric of many Greens is also rather one-dimensional...although I share their frustration and desire for change.

This time around, I am torn between several choices with my vote (first of all assuming my vote really matters--if it doesn't, I'm just going to consider my trip to the polls an act of revolutionary parody)...Ralph Nader is really not my first choice for a presidential candidate, although the Green party certainly is--as some critics argue, Nader distances himself from the actual party leadership while fostering an image that he is invaluabe to their cause. If I decide to vote Democrat this time around, I have to see what pickings the primaries have left us with...and I really don't trust any of them fully, except for those like Kucinich at whom the mainstream scoffs.

In reality, I feel like the best chance for the survival of the United States's political integrity and cohesiveness (or rather, the scraps of which remain) is to progress towards a multi-party system, in which groups like the Democrats and Greens form coalition governments and run along common issues. In a situation like this, with a rabid group of neocons in power, we've got to do all we can to pull our fat out of the fire--but we have also got to pay careful attention to the ways in which we accomplish this. I would almost argue that working toward a coalition government is more important than campaigning for Democrats in an act of desperation, regardless of how desperate we truly are, because keeping things in the two party system will only continue the dishonesty and disproportional representation we've been dealing with in the past...

But I tend to ramble, and what I really wanted to do was ask what you guys think--is there a chance in hell that a coalition between Greens and Dems is possible, either before 2004 or after? Would it even be a good idea from your perspective? From where I'm sitting, only a handful of people see this as a possibility...but I really think it would make a critical difference in the way things turn out in future elections. So...get ready to click the comments button!

posted by Jenny at 1:32 AM |

Blogs...
The Lefty Directory
The Agonist Alas, a Blog Arms and the Man Back in Iraq 2.0 The Bitter Shack of
Resentment BlogLeft Body & Soul Corrente Counterspin Central The Daily Outrage Daniel Drezner Deborama Eschaton Kieran Healy Late Night Thoughts Long story; short pier Lying Media Bastards Magpie Matthew Yglesias Nathan Newman Oligopoly Watch Open Source Politics Pen-Elayne The RANT The ReachM High Cowboy Network Noose RuminateThis Rush Limbaughtomy Serenity The Seth Bulletin shock & awe Skippy the Bush Kangaroo South Knox Bubba Stoutdem TalkLeft Ted Barlow Tom Tomorrow veiled4allah Vegan Blog Wampum Where is Raed? wil wheaton

"Progressive" Media Adbusters AlterNet* BuzzFlash CommonDreams* CSPAN Cursor.org* Democracy Now! GNN MediaChannel.org MotherJones The Nation National Public Radio Truthout Utne The Village Voice Working for Change* ZNet

Global Presses Al-Ahram Weekly Al-Jazeera BBC World Desk The Economist Environment News Service* Financial Times The Guardian* Ha'aretz The Independent Inter Press Service* London Times Le Monde diplomatique Pravda Reuters Spiegel Tageszeitung World Desk @ cd World Press Review

Politics & Activism Congress.org DNC News U.S. House Floor Environmental Media Service Environmental Scorecard Find Your Elected Official Green Party* PollingReport.com RNC News THOMAS Today in Congress U.S. Bombing Watch* U.S. State Dept. News United States Senate U.S. Supreme Court White House News WorkingforChange* Texans For Peace Human Rights Watch FOR Center for Public Integrity openDemocracy MoveOn.org* Opensecrets.org Protest.net Amnesty International UN News Centre UN Treaty Collection
Consumer Awareness... Transnationale.org Behind the Label animalconcerns.org Corp Watch GetVegan Multinationals? MediaChannel.org Take Back the Media Sweatshop Watch Stop Gap Sweatshops! 10 To Never Buy Again Whole Foods Hurts Animals Stop ExxonMobil Boycott Shell Boycott Proctor & Gamble McSpotlight Fast Food Nation Prozac Spotlight Pharmaceuticals IMF/World Bank

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...in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

--Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Feel free to email me at JennyDC-at-AOLdotCom, but if I don't know you and you don't say otherwise, I assume that what you send is open to be quoted at this blog. :-)

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Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Way to go Wal-Mart...discrimination against women, environmental degradation, sweatshop labor, and illegal immigrants weren't enough...they've decided to shop for votes as well! Apply for employment at participating Wal-Mart stores, and they'll pay you 25% more than the usual going rate to cast your vote against reduced big box stores! Brilliant!
posted by Jenny at 1:58 AM |

Hesiod's recent post castigating Ralph Nader invited a slough of comments from all sides of the issue...as a Green supporter and a US citizen living in Europe, I feel that Hesiod's argument is somewhat simplified. As a matter of fact, I also think that the Dem-hating rhetoric of many Greens is also rather one-dimensional...although I share their frustration and desire for change.

This time around, I am torn between several choices with my vote (first of all assuming my vote really matters--if it doesn't, I'm just going to consider my trip to the polls an act of revolutionary parody)...Ralph Nader is really not my first choice for a presidential candidate, although the Green party certainly is--as some critics argue, Nader distances himself from the actual party leadership while fostering an image that he is invaluabe to their cause. If I decide to vote Democrat this time around, I have to see what pickings the primaries have left us with...and I really don't trust any of them fully, except for those like Kucinich at whom the mainstream scoffs.

In reality, I feel like the best chance for the survival of the United States's political integrity and cohesiveness (or rather, the scraps of which remain) is to progress towards a multi-party system, in which groups like the Democrats and Greens form coalition governments and run along common issues. In a situation like this, with a rabid group of neocons in power, we've got to do all we can to pull our fat out of the fire--but we have also got to pay careful attention to the ways in which we accomplish this. I would almost argue that working toward a coalition government is more important than campaigning for Democrats in an act of desperation, regardless of how desperate we truly are, because keeping things in the two party system will only continue the dishonesty and disproportional representation we've been dealing with in the past...

But I tend to ramble, and what I really wanted to do was ask what you guys think--is there a chance in hell that a coalition between Greens and Dems is possible, either before 2004 or after? Would it even be a good idea from your perspective? From where I'm sitting, only a handful of people see this as a possibility...but I really think it would make a critical difference in the way things turn out in future elections. So...get ready to click the comments button!
posted by Jenny at 1:32 AM |

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Blogs...
The Lefty Directory
The Agonist Alas, a Blog Arms and the Man Back in Iraq 2.0 The Bitter Shack of
Resentment BlogLeft Body & Soul Corrente Counterspin Central The Daily Outrage Daniel Drezner Deborama Eschaton Kieran Healy Late Night Thoughts Long story; short pier Lying Media Bastards Magpie Matthew Yglesias Nathan Newman Oligopoly Watch Open Source Politics Pen-Elayne The RANT The ReachM High Cowboy Network Noose RuminateThis Rush Limbaughtomy Serenity The Seth Bulletin shock & awe Skippy the Bush Kangaroo South Knox Bubba Stoutdem TalkLeft Ted Barlow Tom Tomorrow veiled4allah Vegan Blog Wampum Where is Raed? wil wheaton
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
-Milan Kundera

"Progressive" Media Adbusters AlterNet* BuzzFlash CommonDreams* CSPAN Cursor.org* Democracy Now! GNN MediaChannel.org MotherJones The Nation National Public Radio Truthout Utne The Village Voice Working for Change* ZNet

Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama.
-Audre Lord

Global Presses Al-Ahram Weekly Al-Jazeera BBC World Desk The Economist Environment News Service* Financial Times The Guardian* Ha'aretz The Independent Inter Press Service* London Times Le Monde diplomatique Pravda Reuters Spiegel Tageszeitung World Desk @ cd World Press Review

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-George Santayana

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Politics & Activism Congress.org DNC News U.S. House Floor Environmental Media Service Environmental Scorecard Find Your Elected Official Green Party* PollingReport.com RNC News THOMAS Today in Congress U.S. Bombing Watch* U.S. State Dept. News United States Senate U.S. Supreme Court White House News WorkingforChange* Texans For Peace Human Rights Watch FOR Center for Public Integrity openDemocracy MoveOn.org* Opensecrets.org Protest.net Amnesty International UN News Centre UN Treaty Collection
Consumer Awareness... Transnationale.org Behind the Label animalconcerns.org Corp Watch GetVegan Multinationals? MediaChannel.org Take Back the Media Sweatshop Watch Stop Gap Sweatshops! 10 To Never Buy Again Whole Foods Hurts Animals Stop ExxonMobil Boycott Shell Boycott Proctor & Gamble McSpotlight Fast Food Nation Prozac Spotlight Pharmaceuticals IMF/World Bank

We should admit, rather, that power produces knowledge...; that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.
-Michel Foucault

Culture Stuff The Atlantic Online BlogCritics christian + feminist ctheory The Frankfurt School Mark Harden's Artchive National Geographic The New Yorker NY Review of Books PBS Religion & Ethics Pop & Politics Salon

People to Read Carol Adams Noam Chomsky Umberto Eco Barbara Ehrenreich Michel Foucault M.K. Gandhi Henry Giroux Donna Haraway Bob Harris Thom Hartmann bell hooks Arianna Huffington Molly Ivins Sut Jhally Douglas Kellner Naomi Klein George Monbiot Michael Moore Ralph Nader Greg Palast John Pilger Arundhati Roy Edward Said Howard Zinn More

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
-Albert Einstein

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