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Here we go again. Another US election. In 2008, The Real news had a series of interviews with Ralph Nader, on the eve of Obama’s election. Nader made many prophetic statements, and they remain as relevant today, at the outset of the next election, as they were then. The US public, and so the rest of us, are trapped in a vicious circle of Americans’ own choosing; and we are about to go another round.

In part 3 he foreshadows what is happening in 2012, and outlines what has happened again and again in the past:

they’re so freaked out by not having another four years of Republicans (and this happens every four years, you know, 2004, 2000, 1996) that they make no demands on the Democratic nominee. We scanned in 2004 twenty groups who supported Kerry–labor, anti-poverty, civil rights, the ACLU–you know, all these groups that, you know, came out from the consumer, environmental, agrarian reform, antiwar, none of them made a demand on John Kerry. Same this year. They’re basically, “We’re so freaked out with McCain. Don’t make any demands.” Therefore, by not pulling Obama this way, they don’t make Obama better. And, of course, he’s being pulled by the corporate interests.

Here’s another prophetic statement:

When he gets a status of president-elect, you’ve got to watch the signs: Who’s going to be his transition team? Who are going to be his appointees? And who does he invite?

The question is whether someone who does not intend to change the system…can get in! He was never to be a transformative figure, never to be a Gorbachev; but did any of his supporters expect him to be so? In part 2, Nader says, “He does not have a challenging personality.” In Part 1 he says:

If you don’t pay attention while you’re a candidate, the chances of suddenly becoming a populist, you know, Paul Wellstone or whatever are very, very slim. Second of all, he doesn’t have a transforming personality. He doesn’t like to take on power.

In Part 3 he says:

That’s the key: fire in the belly. Rosa Parks had fire in the belly. … Barack Obama does not have fire in the belly. His advisors in private used to ask him, “Show passion.” And, you know, this is in private. And he’d say, “Is that enough passion?” And they’d say, “No, it’s not enough passion.” He doesn’t have the passion, and he won too easily.

“No Drama Obama”. He could not even take on BP, you think he can take on the system? Of course, there are those who argue that this is what has to be done in order to get into the seat of power. In Part 1, Nader responds:

To me, you can’t just say this is tactical. I know that Willie Brown said the other day, when I was on a stage with him, he said he has to get elected. [But] It doesn’t work that way. [Obama] was against the embargo on Cuba. He goes to South Florida. He says he’s for the embargo. He was against offshore drilling; he says he’s now for offshore drilling. He was against snooping on Americans without a warrant, and he still voted for FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] and the Patriot Act.

JAY: So the question is: what’s the mandate?

NADER: There is no mandate. It’s a landslide without a mandate. I mean, that’s the tragedy of it.
…The two-party system is a prison, and it’s got the voters in a slavery situation. It makes the voters become masochistic voters. How many more times, decade after decade, they vote for these two parties who betrayed them and basically turned the government over to large corporations?

As someone else said about Obama’s election, the voters projected onto him whatever they wanted to. Issues and stances fail candidates, but do not elect them. Feel-good is what elects presidents. Is there any surprise that Mitt Romney holds two stances on every issue!
And what mandate? These politicians claim mandates on so few votes! Look at Stephen Harper’s election in Canada. How can he claim to have a mandate, with so few people voting, and so few of the voters voting for him?
Nader said, in one of these interviews IIRC, that all that the large youth turn-out does is to create another generation of disillusioned youths.

As I’ve said before, the American electorate have disqualified themselves for the task. And I don’t even blame gerrymandering or the media; these are systems which the citizenry voted for, either actively, or passively let stand. The end result is an electoral system, in both US and Canada, that pivots on the least sophisticated members of the electorate–what the Ontario Tories targetted as “the urban stupid”!

Nader, in Part 3:

[inaudible] give you an example [inaudible] the trade union movement is stronger in Europe, out of the rubble of World War II, okay, through their trade unions’ cooperatives, multiparty system, people in Western Europe demanded and got for all their people, by law, universal health care, decent wages, decent pensions, paid-for week vacation, paid maternity leave, paid family sick leave, decent public transit, university–free tuition. Sixty-three years later, the Republican and Democratic Parties have not delivered the most basic fundamental benefits of a productive economy.

The show Family Guy says that the undecided are the most stupid people. No wonder. I used to be surprised when poll after poll showed people still undecided about Bush! The UK newspaper asked how 40 million people can be so stupid! Jon Stewart, exasperated with the Red States, asked, “What, do we have to get these people boats?”
No wonder attack ads work. No wonder the success of the Tea Party. The whole system is rigged to sway power via a very impressionable few.
No wonder that Nader’s disillusion was followed by his book, “Only the Superrich Can Save Us”!

Update 26 Jan. 2012: Ralph Nader gives brilliant advice to liberals, progressives, Democrats, and everyone else who does not want Republicans to win, and who wants Obama to deliver on his promises: Stay home! Demand that Obama delivers, or that you will stay home on voting day.

Really, what else do you have to lose? How many times are you going to go round this Merry-Go-Round vicious circle? Is there a lower bottom than Bush? You hit that one twice!