This is my response to an opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury New, Thursday , 01/29/2004.
---
This week, the San Jose Mercury News gave considerable space to John Pearce's diatribe entitiled "Don't do it Ralph. Don't run." Thursday Night's debate between Green Party leader Peter Miguel Camejo and Norman Solomonn covered the issue of "Should the Greens run a Presidentail Candidate" in a more balanced manner, yet it was not covered in main stream media.
The answer to that question depends on whether or not you believe in acting on principle or making your vote a tactical decision. If one looks back at times of crisis in the United States, there has always been a third party standing for principles that made a fundamental difference. In the elections of the late 1840's and 1850's, a tactical voter might have chosen a Whig candidate over the Democrats because they had a more reasoned approach to slavery. It was a third party that provided a principled alternative and eventually Lincoln and the Republicans gained power. There is much to say for principled third parties.
If the Democratic Party is to be our saviour from George Bush, as Mr. Pearce claims, then I would ask you which Democratic party is it? Is it the Democratic Party of Barbara Boxer, who voted to support the War with Iraq, voted to give President Bush unique powers to wage that war and failed to oppose even one provision of the Patriot Act? If Senator Boxer, one of the more "progressive" members of the Democratic party does not take a stand, should we think that she did not know what she was voting for? She is surely more intelligent than that.
Personally, I agree that Nader probably should not run. I would much rather see the candidate be Peter Camejo, who has demonstrated his political acumen and reasoned approaches to solving the problems of the United States during the gubernatorial debates last October. Perhaps, out of a sense of balance, having referenced Mr. Pearce's anti-Nader WWW site, you might also reference the alternative articulated in the Avocado Declaration, online at at http://www.cagreens.org/longbeach/avocado.htm.
This letter is incorrect on at least three counts: Our website was not an "anti-Nader" site, nor was my OpEd a diatribe, nor is voting for Nader "acting on principle."
Faced with the prospect of a second Bush presidency, voting for "the lesser of two evils" is most assuredly the more principled thing to do. Otherwise, you might smugly vote "your conscience," then watch in the next few years as the Supreme Court outlaws affirmative action and a woman's right to choose; as Bush continues tax cuts that create debt so massive NO progressive goal will be conceivable for a generation at least; as he pillages the environment for corporate gain. And on and on and on. Is that the price we are supposed to pay so that Nader voters can have the satisfaction of voting for the "perfect" candidate instead of the better candidate?
We don't think so.
I've heard people invoking their perfect political nirvanna all my life as the reason they won't "sell out" and vote the lesser of the available evils. Problem is, I've never seen their vision come anywhere close to reality. Are we supposed to wait for...?? Here's what I do see. I have a 3-year old daughter, and the president is pillaging her future in very real terms: crushing debt, compromised national security, eviscerated personal liberties, the certainty of a Scalia-led Supreme Court (can you imagine that?!), and the list goes on and on from there -- exactly how long are we to embrace this known disaster to hold out for the extremely improbable scenario you describe?
So what if Democrats are far from perfect? We're talking about a generation of carnage if Bush is reelected. Please vote, and please vote Democratic, holding your nose to whatever extent is necessary.
Signed,
John Pearce
Posted by: John Pearce on February 27, 2004 06:12 PM