Period.
Full stop.
Friday, Team Nader opened their latest release with the above, reminding people of just what is it at stake in the 2008 election. Though, as Ava and C.I. note this edition, Amy Goodman wasn't concerned with the issues the Ralph Nader-Matt Gonzalez ticket is proposing, you may be and, if you are, you can click here to go their issues page. If you prefer to access online streaming instead of text, you can click here for videos from the Nader campaign. (Mike and Wally say you have to check out Nader's hoop shot at the end of this video.)
Last week, Barack Obama announced he would be the first presidential candidate to reject public financing since the system was created following the revelations of Tricky Dick's 'antics' in the White House. Idiot commentators on the 'left' rushed to marvel that it was still kind-of like public financing because Barack gets so much 'grass-roots' support and small donations. Regular readers know that's a lie as Ava and C.I. have been documenting that for nearly a year now. But those late to the party can check out Jay Mandle (Washington Post) reporting that small donors are 3% less this cycle than they were at the same time in 2004 and Mandle pointed out:
Contributions of less than $200 do not have to be itemized in reports to the Federal Election Commission, so we have no idea how many are made. We also cannot rely on the candidates' rhetoric to match the facts. During a Feb. 26 debate in Cleveland, for example, Obama said that "we have now raised 90 percent of our donations from small donors, $25, $50." His campaign's own data from January 2007 through January 2008 show that 36 percent of donated funds were from small donors. Obama probably meant that 90 percent of the individuals who contributed were small donors, but the number of donors has not been verified.
Small-dollar donations to Obama have surged this year, and those donors became crucial in the spring as the battle to secure the Democratic nomination intensified. But for most of his campaign, big donors have been Obama's mainstay. Employees of investment bank Goldman Sachs, for example, have contributed more than $570,000 to his campaign.
Don't smoke Barack's "hope-ium" unless you want to be a deranged addict. He is no cuddly smoking caterpillar.
Ralph Nader is saying not just end the illegal war, he's saying end corporate control of our government. He's saying we clean up all the messes.
This is our fiction edition (our regular summer read) so we should note two things (1) this piece isn't fiction and (2) neither is Ralph Nader. If you're not taking his campaign seriously, you might ask yourself why that is?
There's a candidate in the race, running for the White House, who fits your check list if you're on the left. If your vote matters to you, if you'd like to use it to change the country for the better, you should be following the Nader-Gonzalez campaign.