“Raiding Nader”
To the Editor:
You contend [in "What Nader’s Bid Really Means," GC Advocate, March 2008] that opponents of Ralph Nader’s most recent run for the White House are worried about his role as spoiler to any Democratic candidate, concerned with his political idealism, or scornful of third party politics. These reasons have nothing to do with his independent bid. On the contrary, Ralph Nader’s candidacy poses more fundamental problems. He shouldn’t bother with the presidential race because he has no substantive political agenda, no coherent vision for what his presidency would look like, and no demonstrated commitment to organized party politics.
You trumpet Nader’s commitment to "a universal, comprehensive, national single-payer health care system" as proof of his superior candidacy. That’s fabulous! I visited Nader’s campaign site to learn more about how he proposes to institute such a system, and found the same quote you cite, but absolutely nothing else. Unfortunately, Nader’s "Issues" page is little more than a flimsy menu of one-line policy prescriptions with nary a word about why they are worth supporting, nor a mention of how such programs would be implemented. This is change we can believe in? I’m not so sure.
These shortcomings, along with the disappointing absence of a stance on a woman’s right to choose, are components of a larger concern. Asked recently by a reporter why he wants to be President of the United States, Nader responded,
"We’re calling our campaign an ‘08/’09 campaign and by that we mean that we’d like to bring together in each Congressional district about 1,000 publicly conscious citizens who will form a watchdog lobby on Congress and put before them about 10 major redirections of the country, like single-payer health insurance, etc. As a person who has worked on the Congress for over 40 years and testified and exposed it, I can’t overemphasize [that] … the Congress can pivot the entire federal government. It’s the most powerful branch of government if it chooses to use its Constitutional powers, and that’s what we’re aiming for."
Huh? This meandering dodge raises a host of questions, but the one that leaps from the page is "why not run for the Congress if it offers the greatest hope for meaningful change?"
One answer may be that Ralph Nader is more committed to the limelight of public attention than seriously affecting political change. If he felt it absolutely necessary to challenge the Democrat’s pathetic commitment to the status quo, why wait until now to throw a hat into the ring. Where was Nader three months ago? A year ago? Where has he been in the four years since the last presidential race? Not building a viable base of political support, that’s for sure.
Nader’s unwillingness to engage in sustained political participation in national politics is symptomatic of the general illness sidelining the progressive "movement." Namely, there is no movement. This is captured perfectly in your final rallying call for liberals to dump the Democratic Party. You may be correct to point out that "this system is corrupt. And it’s rigged. And it’s rigged against you, and we can say ‘As long as we get Democrats in, everything’s going to be OK.’ It’s a lie. It’s not the truth. Do you really believe if we replace a crowd of corporate Republicans with a crowd of Democrats that anything meaningful is going to change? This has to stop. It’s that simple."
Your prescription that liberals should "join the Green Party or the Socialist Party USA, or whatever party tickles your fancy," however, seems a troubling inverse to the dominant political duopoly you attack.
While conservatives have managed to very successfully pursue a sustainable grassroots movement while simultaneously concentrating wildly diverse interests together under the "giant tent" of the Republican Party, liberals whimper and worry and look to disperse themselves as thinly as possible. What they need to do is come together in an organized fashion, not run away from the haunting specter of compromise. An exciting development in this year’s Democratic primary battles, especially in the Barack Obama camp, is that the newest generation of political participants is doing just that.
Indeed, young voters seem to have learned the lesson lost on older liberals desperately clinging to Nader’s pretend politics. The logic is simple: in order to affect change, you must govern; in order to govern, you must win. Until progressives suck it up, and shed their pretensions to half-baked notions of ideological purity, this country is in serious trouble.
Michael Busch
Political Science
GC Advocate Editor Responds:
I would like to thank Michael Busch for his thoughtful and passionate critique of my March editorial, "What Nader’s Bid Really Means." Although I greatly admire Michael’s work and agree in spirit with many of the ideas expressed in his letter, especially his argument that progressives must come together united, I feel it necessary to at least briefly respond to two specific critiques which I think are misplaced.
First, I would like to address Busch’s argument that Nader has no real plan for the platform that he has put forward on his campaign website and elsewhere, specifically regarding the issue of national health care. Leaving aside the fact that all politicians regularly make promises before actually laying out a plan of action, it is important to note that Nader has already offered at least one proposal for how to generate revenue for a national single payer health care system.
In 2000, when no one else would touch the issue, Nader laid out a plan for national health care that would be funded by a 3.5% payroll levy (much of which would be balanced by the fact that companies would no longer be responsible for providing health care to their workers) and an additional tax on stock transactions. This is a sound proposal that benefits all parties concerned, with the exception of Wall Street traders, perhaps, whose interests have already been disproportionately represented. That the webmasters at Nader’s campaign website have not made space for these facts or other policy discussions does say something about the competency of his campaign directors, but should not reflect upon the value of his ideas or his campaign.
The second and far more salient point that Busch raises is the specter of a permanently divided left. This is a serious problem and I sympathize with Busch’s argument. No one would like to see the left united and in solidarity more than I would. However, I have to take issue with the false "us/them" dichotomy that underlies Busch’s argument regarding the Democrats. Busch seems to assume that all politics is a struggle between Democrats (on the left) and Republicans (on the right). While this has never been true, it has certainly never been less true than it is today. The new generation of Obama supporters, whom Busch touts as somehow more enlightened than the idealistic dinosaurs like myself who support Nader, are precisely the people who need to understand this fact the most. While I admire and would encourage their enthusiasm and their willingness to work hard and fight for change, the supposed divisions within the left are not going to be healed by enthusiastically supporting the Democratic Party – indeed, the Democratic Party has a tendency to simply absorb and appropriate the left. If these young voters are really so committed to change, perhaps their talents would actually be better put to use as one of Nader’s 1,000 congressional watchdogs – a plan that recalls the noble efforts of "Nader’s Raiders."
Although Busch claims I argue that "liberals" should leave the Democratic Party, I said nothing of the sort. In fact, I don’t care at all what liberals do, since to be "liberal" now means little more than to have a lukewarm commitment to social tolerance and a strong commitment to free markets. Thomas Friedman, let’s not forget is largely considered a liberal, and yes, the Democratic Party, in this sense, is also liberal. That anyone on the political left and anyone as well informed and clear-minded as Busch would even use the word outside of that context is stunning to me.
What I did say, however was that current members of the Democratic Party, to whom I would now add this enthusiastic group of young Obama voters, who care about things like democracy, fair elections, national health insurance, global warming, or corporate corruption, should leave the Democratic Party because their party is doing nothing to address those problems. In other words, my argument was that people should stop supporting a party that does not support their interests. If you are convinced that the Democratic Party supports your interests – if you worry about poverty (at least the kind that makes it to your doorstep every now and then) but have a nice upper middle class income and are also worried about taxes – then vote for the Democratic Party. If you work for an HMO and want a raise, but are worried about abortion rights, then vote for the Democratic Party. If you are a professor of Literature and want to marry your gay partner but don’t want to have to give up your summer home in the Hamptons, then vote for the Democratic Party.
If you’re not well off or content with the status quo however, then you should leave the Democratic Party and support and actively help to promote viable third parties that will address your concerns. Nader is not organizing a third party, and maybe he should be, but he is making a space within the political landscape for those parties’ voices to be heard. If you live in a swing state by all means vote against the Republicans – they’re bad! – but when it comes to volunteering your time, when it comes to donating money to a campaign or when it come to city council, state senator, or congressperson, I would urge everyone to give your support to those who address your political and economic interests. This is the coalition that needs to be built (a coalition against the status quo); this is the tent under which real change will be possible. Perhaps when they lose a significant portion of their membership the Democrats may finally get the point; hopefully by then, it won’t matter what they think.
"Art and Authenticity"
Dear Editor:
I never respond to reviews of my work ["Toward A New Urban Decadence," GC Advocate, March 2008] unless it’s to correct what I believe is a factual error or misconception. Nor do I normally send letters or emails flattering the author of a good review because I’m all too aware of the self-serving networking that can result from such behavior. However, I was so taken by the lucidity and precision of this writer’s review that I cannot resist expressing my gratitude. It’s the closest reading of my writing that I’ve ever seen in the last two decades. Unlike many reviewers and interviewers who normally read only a chapter or two and skim the rest, this writer has obviously put a lot of work into this review. Thank you. That said, I do feel compelled to correct a misconception. Never have I said that writing that issues directly from cultures of poverty is "inauthentic." On the contrary, I consider Hubert Selby, Jr., for example, one of the writers who was able to write so cogently and movingly about his own underclass experiences that I have enormous regard for him and was inspired by his writing. Another example is novelist Panait Istrati, an impoverished Romanian who taught himself to write in French with the sole purpose of communicating with Romain Rolland, the French humanitarian writer whom he admired the most. I consider those who can effectively communicate the underclass experience without recourse to the usual educational crutches and coddlings awarded middle class writers to be superior to the latter. What I had said is that there is a deplorable lack of communication and understanding between the very poor and the middle classes. Often denied an education that would allow them to describe their vivid experiences to other classes, the poor are often left without a voice to communicate the truths of their lives, whereas those more likely to be trained in articulation, the middle class, have no interest in examining or understanding the lives of the poor. It goes without saying that the best literary portraits of underclass life come from the few who have lived it and miraculously articulated it. To find one’s voice, one’s discipline and one’s literary acumen in an environment of need, violence, chaos, and deprivation, all caused by economics, is miraculous, and this has led to the creation of several of the best books in contemporary American literature, from Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, to Panait Istrati’s Kyra Kyralina to the writings of Donald Goines.
Bruce Benderson
Author of Sex and Isolation
Lavelle Porter Responds:
(I appreciate Bruce stopping by the GC Advocate website to respond to my review. The following is a slightly modified version of my online response to his comments):
I admit that point could have been more clear. If I had to write this again I’d express it differently. I wasn’t trying to discredit art from the underclass wholesale. The writers you cited, Selby and Goines, are exemplary. I was merely trying to express some reservations about the lust for and emphasis on "authenticity" (whether based on a class or racial authenticity) that comes from some bourgeois intellectuals. I get a little suspicious when work is critically celebrated simply because it (supposedly) came from "the streets" and not because it is valuable or meaningful in any other way. It is precisely this lust for the authentic work that leads us to get duped by certain dishonest and unscrupulous artists who misrepresent their underclass bonafides. Gangsta rap in particular is rife with foolish authenticity posturing, and in recent years we’ve seen some specific literary examples of this as well.
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