AN OPEN LETTER TO RALPH NADER:
Dear Ralph Nader,
I just read your open letter to Obama. In it, you spend several paragraphs blaming Obama for not fighting for poor people or people of color or the Palestinians. You call him all manner of names including an Uncle Tom.
While I don’t speak for Obama, I'd like to respond by telling you why I voted for Obama. Scratch that, let me tell you why your rant is yet another reason why I never have and never will vote for you:
Ralph Nader, I've watched you ever since you were a consumer advocate on PBS. You were good at that. You were knowledgeable. You had actual ideas and strategies which you conveyed to the masses with passion and focus. But when it comes to politics, you've consistent run half-assed, late-to-the-party, myopic campaigns that force people to not take you seriously.
If you put just 25% of the work that Obama, Clinton or even Ron Paul put into reaching their bases you'd be a serious contender. Instead you just pop up randomly and whine about stuff on talk shows. And your letter which is filled with sideline criticism of others on issues you yourself have done nothing to address only further illustrates this.
Now is there a machine/concerted hustle at work to maintain a 2-party system at the expense of truly independent representation for all? Yes.
Is there bias in the media against folks who are attempting to speak truth to power? Yes.
Are masses of voters afraid of hard change that goes beyond platitudes and gets into sifting through the nasty entrenched messes we've made over the generations designed to benefit some at the expense of others? Yup.
Is Obama open to being manipulated by lobbyists, idolatry, corrupt special interests? Yes.
But what are you, Ralph Nader, doing about any of this beyond bitching and moaning every 4 years?
Ralph Nader, where's your 10-point plan (or any point plan) on any issue of import that you're working on implementing or championing on local or state levels? Where's the middle east policy on your end that you claim Obama doesn't have? What's your plan for the working poor who you claim Obama ignored? Where's your townhall meetings in various cities discussing consumer/voter-based issues? Where's your community organizing efforts to reach communities of color and poor whites at a grassroots level that you claim Obama won't? I don't recall you settin' foot in a single barrio, black neighborhood, trailer park or inner city school to help out.
In short, where's your elbow grease, dude?
Now to be fair, I visited your site Vote Nader (www.votenader.org) and there’s a couple ideas there like “equality for all” and "we need to be more environmentally responsible, "but there’s no meat on your bones, fella. There’s no strategy or policy offerings to separate your positions from that of any of the 50 million bloggers who write about similar issues in their pajamas each day.
Look, Obama may well turn out to be the biggest political hustler in the history of this country, for all I know. But at least he made the effort to put together the machine, personnel and plan required to win. At least he gave voters some ideas—albeit really broad, read-'em-as-you-see-'em ideas—to wrap their heads around. At least Obama took the game seriously enough to get in it and play it like he gave a damn about winning. Consequently, we now have 4 years to see if this brother is all talk or can actually heal-toe-it- like he knows it.
But that ain't you, Nader. Not by a long shot.
Ralph Nader, my guess is you'll do what you've done for the last 20 years: You'll take your flickering post-election spotlight and warn everybody about how evil the president-elect is gonna be until the media gets tired of you around Thanksgiving, as they normally do. Then, in about 3 and half years, you'll pop up like the political groundhog you are on John Stewart or Bill Maher or some other show that caters to college kids and white liberal slackasses so you can bitch about you could've fixed the country if only voters hadn't been so brainwashed by the "corporate puppets" and their "puppetmasters" (get some new slang, please!). You'll swear that you saw it all coming and all we had to do is list.
Then, as is your want, you'll launch yet another uninspired, poorly organized, bootleg $5.99 campaign complete with a running mate that's even more obscure and even less compelling than you are. You'll proceed to insult 3/4ths of the media. They'll ignore you and you'll quit because "the machine is out to get to get you.
So lemme give you some advice as you geek up for Nader/SomeRandomGuy 2012:
There is a machine. There is a hustle at work. There are powerful groups of elites not only in this country but in this world who are so greedy, so selfish, so corrupted by sin and power that they'd sink the entire planet if it meant staying afloat long enough to enjoy watching everyone else drown.
But they ain't checking for you, Ralph.
They figured out a few years ago that you're the political equivalent of a studio thug. You're the emcee in the Che Guevera tee and cargo pants whose got the pseudo-revolutionary, street festival-ready rhetoric down pat. But in terms of rolling up the sleeves and sweatin' out in the trenches, you ain't built for that. Not anymore.
They don't ignore you out of fear or frustration. They ignore you out of boredom, Ralph. Your rants are as tired as your wardrobe. It's you not Obama that's the empty suit.
By the way: I read Harriet Beecher Stowe's book when I was 11 years old, plus my family's from the south; I don't need no triflin' Cliff's Notes on racial history from the likes of you to know that while you may or may not be a bigot, your "uncle tom" characterization of Barack Obama was indeed a bigoted statement. Fact is, you don't know enough black folks or enough about Black folks to be talking about who the good ones are and who ain't. Stay in your lane of swinging at windmills.
See you in 4 years. Again.
