[Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Fw: <PEF> Ralph Nader_Open letter to Senator Barack Obama: IMP...

[LAURELCG at aol.com]

Thanks, Jim for sending this.  I have admired Ralph Nader for a long  time, 
and know that he has done good work.  
 
However, this letter illustrates perfectly the  confrontational style of the 
Baby Boom generation.  That generation  also has done good work,but I, for 
one, am so relieved at the prospect that our  new president is of a new 
generation and has the potential to lead us  into  a new political style.
 
The revolution, if there is one, is a cultural revolution, with the  
potential of bringing into balance the social processes.  I find it  difficult to read 
Nader's letter, but would like to have help from some of you  to analyze the 
content.  Is he right?  Correct?  How would  President Obama get out of the 
bind that Nader describes, assuming he would want  to.
 
I'm not at all ready to move beyond the celebration and euphoria of the  
election.  This is a symbolic event, not just a political one.  And as  we've 
heard somewhere, Symbol is key.  Bill Moyers is calling it a  catharsis.  
 
For any of you who are going through grief, I want to share something  else.  
I have thought a lot about the coming holidays, and how  difficult it will be 
this year to stay in the moment as I celebrate.   But being alone on election 
night, watching the celebration in Grant  Park, unexpectedly waylaid me, not 
having Fred here to share my ecstasy or  being able share what I know would 
have been his.  These moments are  precious, showing me the values we shared, 
and how deep that sharing  was.
 
I am so grateful for this community.  You epitomize, those  values, and you 
comfort me.
 
Grace, peace, love and blessings,
Jann McGuire   
 
In a message dated 11/7/2008 11:34:02 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
jfwiegel at yahoo.com writes:

November 3,  2008

Open letter to Senator Barack  Obama

Dear Senator Obama:

In your nearly  two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and
change," "change and  hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet
there is an asymmetry  between those objectives and your political
character that succumbs to  contrary centers of power that want not
"hope and change" but the  continuation of the power-entrenched status
quo.

Far more than  Senator McCain, you have received enormous,
unprecedented contributions  from corporate interests, Wall Street
interests and, most interestingly,  big corporate law firm attorneys.
Never before has a Democratic nominee for  President achieved this
supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why,  apart from your
unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street  bailout, are these
large corporate interests investing so much in Senator  Obama? Could it
be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate  record and your
presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal  plants,
offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872  Mining
Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on  the
corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget,  for
example) you have shown that you are their man?

To advance  change and hope, the presidential persona requires
character, courage,  integrity— not expediency, accommodation and
short-range opportunism. Take,  for example, your transformation from
an articulate defender of Palestinian  rights in Chicago before your
run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a  dittoman for the hard-line
AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic  oppression, occupation,
blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over  the years of the
Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the  West Bank
and Gaza . Eric Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December  2007
issue of The Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are  opposed
by a majority of Jewish-Americans.

You know quite well that  only when the U.S. Government supports the
Israeli and Palestinian peace  movements, that years ago worked out a
detailed two-state solution (which  is supported by a majority of
Israelis and Palestinians) , will there be a  chance for a peaceful
resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you  align yourself with
the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous,  demeaning speech to
the AIPAC convention right after you gained the  nomination of the
Democratic Party, you supported an "undivided Jerusalem  ," and opposed
negotiations with Hamas— the elected government in Gaza .  Once again,
you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1,  2008
poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of  Israelis
favored "direct negotiations with Hamas." Siding with the  AIPAC
hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians  advocating
dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when  he
wrote "Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian  society
by the Israeli state."

During your visit to Israel this  summer, you scheduled a mere 45
minutes of your time for Palestinians with  no news conference, and no
visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would  have focused the media
on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip  supported the
illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international  law and
the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli  casualties
which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to  every
400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of  a
statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement  with
acceptance of the Arab League's 2002 proposal to permit a  viable
Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full  economic
and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel , you  played
the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians  with
the feeling of much shock and little awe.

David Levy, a former  Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip
succinctly: "There was almost  a willful display of indifference to the
fact that there are two narratives  here. This could serve him well as
a candidate, but not as a  President."

Palestinian American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that  Obama did
not utter a single criticism of Israel , "of its relentless  settlement
and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable  for
millions of Palestinians. …Even the Bush administration  recently
criticized Israeli's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese  civilians
[see _www.atfl.org_ (http://www.atfl.org/)  for elaboration] . But Obama  
defended Israeli's
assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its 'legitimate  right to defend
itself.'"

In numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing  in Haaretz, strongly
criticized the Israeli government's assault on  civilians in Gaza ,
including attacks on "the heart of a crowded refugee  camp… with
horrible bloodshed" in early 2008.

Israeli writer and  peace advocate— Uri Avnery— described Obama's
appearance before AIPAC as  one that "broke all records for
obsequiousness and fawning, adding that  Obama "is prepared to
sacrifice the most basic American interests. After  all, the US has a
vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace  that will
allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq  to
Morocco . Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and  mortgaged
his future— if and when he is elected president.," he said,  adding,
"Of one thing I am certain: Obama's declarations at the  AIPAC
conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace  is
bad for Israel , bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian  people."

A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the  way you
turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You  refused
to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having  visited
numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single  Mosque
in America . Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in  Washington
D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before  a
frightened major religious group of innocents.

Although the New  York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008
titled "Muslim Voters  Detect a Snub from Obama" (by Andrea Elliott),
citing examples of your  aversion to these Americans who come from all
walks of life, who serve in  the armed forces and who work to live the
American dream. Three days  earlier the International Herald Tribune
published an article by Roger  Cohen titled "Why Obama Should Visit a
Mosque." None of these comments and  reports change your political
bigotry against Muslim-Americans— even though  your father was a Muslim
from Kenya .

Perhaps nothing illustrated  your utter lack of political courage or
even the mildest version of this  trait than your surrendering to
demands of the hard-liners to prohibit  former president Jimmy Carter
from speaking at the Democratic National  Convention. This is a
tradition for former presidents and one accorded in  prime time to Bill
Clinton this year.

Here was a President who  negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt ,
but his recent book pressing  the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid
Apartheid of the Palestinians and  make peace was all that it took to
sideline him. Instead of an important  address to the nation by Jimmy
Carter on this critical international  problem, he was relegated to a
stroll across the stage to "tumultuous  applause," following a showing
of a film about the Carter Center 's  post-Katrina work. Shame on you,
Barack Obama!

But then your  shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of
American life. (See  the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt
Gonzalez, on _www.votenader. org_ (http://www.votenader.org/) ). You have 
turned your back on  the
100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites,  African-Americans,
and Latinos. You always mention helping the "middle  class" but you
omit, repeatedly, mention of the "poor" in America  .

Should you be elected President, it must be more than an  unprecedented
upward career move following a brilliantly unprincipled  campaign that
spoke "change" yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the  concentration
power of the "corporate supremacists." It must be about  shifting the
power from the few to the many. It must be a White House  presided over
by a black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden  here and
abroad but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control  of
labor, consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of  foreign
policy. It must be a White House that is transforming of  American
politics— opening it up to the public funding of elections  (through
voluntary approaches)— and allowing smaller candidates to have  a
chance to be heard on debates and in the fullness of their  now
restricted civil liberties. Call it a competitive  democracy.

Your presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated  cowardly
stands. "Hope" some say springs eternal." But not when  "reality"
consumes it daily.

Sincerely,
Ralph  Nader


 
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