No More Naders

I just admitted in my last post that I was one of the three million odd voters who made it possible for George W Bush to steal the presidency in 2000. We are so close to the same scenario in 2016 that I am really scared. I really felt like the way to build on the peace and prosperity at the end of the Clinton administration was to get behind a genuine liberal like Ralph Nader. While I fantasized a little about him actually winning and what that would look like in reality, my main goal was to make a protest kind of statement that the Democratic Party cannot take "us" for granted. It was cringe-worthy watching Al Gore capitulate to his campaign consultants. First he was all wooden and passive aggressive with the smirking chimp, refusing to actually attack back and more importantly just "me tooing" all the right wing frames about taxes and immigration, etc. Then he picked Lieberman as his running mate and refused to campaign on the successes of the administration he was part of. Gore did not take advantage of having Bill Clinton stump for him, and ran against his boss by making his infinitesimally small contribution to the election narrative all about morals and his supposed superior family values. In short Gore played to the right wing's perception and did not look at the really existing state of the union.

Obviously the Clinton years were not perfect, but there was enough good there to build on in a Gore administration. The alternative was just unbelievable. But I, and many people like me who voted Green based on hope and an imperfect understanding of that really existing state of the union, did not have the cautionary tales of the past in living memory that could have given me perspective. I was only barely aware of Reagan's October surprise and Nixon's ratfucking skulduggery. I did not even understand the horrible implications of George H. W. Bush's "Willie Horton" campaign. Clinton's indiscretions did not bother me, but his violation of the war powers act in the Balkans and his continued pursuit of "free trade" that threatened my livelihood did. Gore's seemingly obsessive and puritanical drive to exorcise all the moral demons of his boss while not addressing the economic and social issues I cared about was a real turn off.

Okay, that was sixteen years ago. Today we have Bernie Sanders playing the role, however obliquely, of Ralph Nader. By 2004, it was clear that Nader's subsequent run for president was all about Ralph and the movement I thought I was a part of was dead. Now it was a matter of saving the republic and I enthusiastically supported John Kerry after he won the nomination. A common trope I heard from supposedly serious people was that you don't switch horses mid-stream. When I would answer "even if the horse jumped in that stream against your will and was trying to drown you in it?" The reply would generally be some sort of ad hominem about my intelligence, maturity, or liberalism. Such high thinkers my pals.

Nader was third party from the beginning, it was all about showing the Democratic Party that they couldn't take us for granted and we weren't going to accept republican lite. "They aren't entitled to anyone's votes" was the common refrain from Naderites, meaning the Democrats. Now, you had to be a political junkie to realize just how awful George W. Bush was before he stole the presidency. This time around there is no question that any republican winning the presidency would be an absolute disaster. And the left candidate is a long-time elected official who caucused with the Democrats for his entire tenure in congress but was never dependent on or beholden to them as Clinton style DLC triangulation tried to co-opt the republicans. Sanders is running for the nomination of the Democratic Party and has not threatened to go the third party route if he doesn't win. Therefore anyone is free to vote for him now and still have time to support Hillary Clinton if she wins instead. No problem right?

Now the joke of "don't switch horses mid-stream" is on us. As in, we either do the almost impossible task of electing a Democrat to succeed the Democratic President or we all drown. There has been so much talk about supposed Berniebros who trash Hillary Clinton all the time and refuse to vote for her under any circumstances. I have yet to witness one myself, all the Sanders supporters I have encountered seem passionate but reasonable and share my goal of keeping the republicans out at all costs. The only person I know personally to make the "I won't vote for Hillary no matter what" speech was a middle-aged woman who as far as I know is a life long true socialist radical, not a "bro." I suspect that a good percentage of these "bros" are paid or unpaid GOP trolls posing as democratic socialists and making loud noises for purity. And in the age of social media this kind of fraud is extremely plausible, it only takes a few articulate trolls making tirades to convince the weak-minded to follow them.

I for one am not going to make the same mistake in 2000. Here's my unfortunately titled post on Bernie Sanders from last May, I still believe in it. Now if we can all just act like grownups and not make hissy fits and tantrums while debating who should be the leader of the free world we might not wake up the morning after the election to PRESIDENT CRUZ.

Crass Recuperation

Once a song is recorded and published, it belongs to the public right?

As most people know, politicians like to have some popular song playing in the background as they approach the podium for a speech. For much the same reason that professional wrestlers have an identifying song blasting from the venue's PA system when they enter the arena and head to the ring, politicians need to build excitement for the canned stump speech they deliver to throngs of supporters. But what happens when the song used is utterly antithetical to the politician co-opting it?

The dumb-ass governor of Wisconsin recently found out. It seems he's been lately wading into battle, with unions and working people of course, to the sounds of Dropkick Murphys' I'm Shipping Up To Boston. Even while AWOL from the actual job and office he is supposed to be occupying he uses the song to convince the big money boys and fascist rubes he is fit to be president in Iowa and California. This college dropout likes to tout his being "unintimidated" but what do you call his strategy of warming up to a band that his supporters were protesting just a few short years ago?

I was able to find a post by the renegade union SEIU reporting the song DKM released in support of the teachers and other civilized Wisconsinites protesting walker's scheme to wreck public education and destroy unions. But it seems most of the backlash by republican cretins calling for a ban or boycott of those union-loving lads from Boston seems to have disappeared down the memory hole. I suppose they needed to alter the past in order to use I'm Shipping Up To Boston as scott walker's fight song. Or is he really so dumb that he just thought this was a cool song from a gangster movie (The Departed) and did not realize this band is one of the most pro-union, pro-working class forces in America?



I mean they put out a tweet explicitly stating "stop using our music in any way...we literally hate you !!! Love, Dropkick Murphys" because, yes Scott Walker deserves hatred for all the hardship he has caused to so many Wisconsinites. But as you can see from the tweeting trolls, blind loyalty to a sycophantic ideologue is a default for angry morons. Right wing authoritarian followers are easy to wind up and vicious when pointed at their out-groups. What exactly do these mouth-breathing supporters of Scotty find appealing in him? I would find it very satisfying if the tweeters who are adamant in telling DKM how much they suck and how they need to keep their politics to themselves and should be "tolerant" showed up at one of their shows and tell DKM fans how they feel.

It is a special kind of arrogance to recuperate one of the few symbols of resistance to free market fundamentalism and use it as a theme song. So no, once a piece of music is recorded and becomes a freely existing packet of 1s and 0s, it is not public property. Hat's off to DKM. Hopefully I will have time in the future to write about how much the Murphys have meant to me since I was introduced to them in 1998, long before the full-court press against unions in Wisconsin kicked off. But I will leave you with my favorite DKM song. I hope my sharing it is in keeping with the spirit it was recorded in. For these are dark days indeed.

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