| Volume 8, #22 | August 4, 2004 | POLITICS WITH BITE! | CONTACT | HELP | 
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Backtalk! ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org. Bolivia's Gas War Continues"The new president, Carlos Mesa, said almost immediately upon taking office that the gas deal will be subject to a "binding referendum." He says he is running an "interim" government that will call a constitutional convention and early elections to democratically elect a successor."And look what happened. They put five convoluted items on the ballot, and didn't give people the choice to fully nationalize the industry. The people voted, essentially, to impose greater restrictions on the foreign companies in the gas business and to give the government a bigger cut of the deal. But the mainstream press is characterizing it as an thumbs up to foreign exploitation of gas reserves. Surely tighter controls and more government revenues were better than the way things stood, but by voting for those concessions, it's considered a stamp of approval. Voters are damned if you do, damned if you don't. Lisa Melyan Portland, OR Ed Note: Folks wanting to keep up on the latest on Bolivia's gas war and a whole bunch of other south of the border stuff might want to check out www.narconews.com David Cobb Takes High RoadDear Editor,I heard that Jeffrey St. Clair's piece of personal bitterness toward David Cobb, the Green Party nominee for President, was going to be used to fill out the next edition of Eat the State! I hope ETS! doesn't start printing similarly libelous smear pieces and become known as Eat Our Own! I was a member of the group that drafted the floor rules for the presidential nomination at the national Green Party convention. The rules were approved by the 100+ member Coordinating Committee representing all the affiliated state Green Parties. There is absolutely no truth to the charges by some Nader Campaign employees and Jeffrey St. Clair that the rules were rigged. We had a vote, and the majority of delegates voted to nominate David Cobb. It was grassroots democracy at its finest and most painstakingly tedious. Among Jeffrey's bizarre charges is that Democrats were allowed to protest outside the convention. Well, why shouldn't they be? Should Green conventions set up no-protest zones around the perimeter of our events, so that free speech is stifled? Jeffrey lists some campaigns in which David Cobb didn't participate. So what? We leftist organizers pick and choose the campaigns on which we wish to personally focus all the time. I happen to know David Cobb from my days living in Texas before I moved to Seattle. David has been a tireless pro-democracy, anti-corporate activist for as long as I've known him. He even quit his day job to become a full-time activist. He makes much less money now as an organizer than he did as a lawyer. I doubt there is much chance he will ever be a millionaire like Ralph Nader. Interestingly, it was this same Jeffrey St. Clair who criticized the Green Party for getting behind Ralph Nader in 2000. I guess he is now admitting the Green Party (an organization for which he has always held bitterness) was right. And now, he doesn't think people have the right to vote for anyone but Ralph Nader. That's part of the attitude that drove many Greens away from wanting to have anything more to do with the Nader campaign. We don't want to be associated with a campaign that attacks fellow activists in this manner. David Cobb has suffered hundreds of these sorts of smears, on an almost daily basis, from Naderites. The Greens grew tired of it. We in the Green Party know David for the awesome, selfless, organizer that he is, and we voted for him to be our messenger. Ralph Nader has a great anti-corporate critique. But David Cobb has solutions, like corporate charter revocation and instant runoff voting. Aside from David Cobb simply being a better candidate, I don't want to vote for Ralph because Ralph had his chance to present his message in 2000. Many times, he attacked the two-party system. But not once did he mention the solution (instant runoff voting). Since Ralph never offered a plan how to take down the two-party system, Ralph has no legitimate beef with the two-party system. Indeed, his campaign is convincing millions of Americans that the two-party system is the only way to make a difference. Ralph has dropped the ball. David Cobb has picked the ball up. One of Cobb's jobs since leaving the practice of law has been for the Center for Voting and Democracy, which advocates the electoral reforms Americans desperately need. Another of his jobs has been with the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy, which has educated thousands of activists on what it would take to put pay to corporate power permanently. Each of the 400+ delegates who voted for David in Milwaukee had their own reasons for doing so. It is presumptuous for Jeffrey St. Clair to ascribe one motivation to 400+ delegates. David Cobb's campaign is building the long-term infrastructure to undo the two-party system. Ralph Nader's campaign is just building...Ralph. Sincerely, Brent White TS Responds: My, word does travel fast in Green Party circles. The article ran in the last issue, this letter arrived before it hit print, but after it went to layout. If I didn't know better I'd (only) think we'd been infiltrated. Jeffrey St. Clair's piece did not "fill out" ETS!. St. Claire and Cockburn's "Nature and Politics" is a clockwork regular column and has been since forever--and we appreciate them donating their work. We are nobody's party organ nor hit machine--we publish stuff that one or more of us disagrees with all the time, and we don't pull reliable columnists or cartoonists whenever we think they might offend somebody (or even practically everybody). I've just read the piece in question again and it certainly doesn't strike me as particularly depraved--but then, I'm not a Green Party member (though I vote Green whenever given the chance, at least so far). The article does make allegations that I don't know the truth of one way or another--taking one example, St. Clair says that Cobbs' people allowed Democrats to "intimidate" voters on their way into convention halls. You say the Democrats were simply protesting outside. I wasn't there, but I have listened to the Dems attack Nader for four years now; I don't know if Cobb supporters have any responsibility, but I can imagine what the demonstrating Dems might have been up to. ETS! is a place where dialogue can happen. St. Clair had his say, you've had yours and I'd like to encourage others to chime in on the issue if they like. However, to keep to the "high road" you might wish to avoid (for example) implying in the last sentence of your letter that the admirable and respect-worthy Nader is running simply because he has a big head. For one thing, it's good politics. Some of us haven't made up our minds yet and can get kind of irritable when we hear Green Party activists talking like Democrats. A Green infiltrator responds: At the risk of exceeding my quota by "chiming in" for a second time, I feel the need to point out that the problem with St. Clair's piece is not that it is depraved or likely to offend someone; it's that it's an attack damaging someone's reputation that is not based in factual evidence (see definition of "libel"). Besides the refutations presented by Brent White and myself (in last issue), readers can visit www.greensrespond.org/stclair and counterpunch.org/reiter07202004.html. I think Troy misunderstands Brent's last point. It's not about disrespecting Nader; it's about the crucial difference between institution-building for the future and running an independent campaign that leaves nothing behind after November.--LS |
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