By Brian Carnell

Monday, December 6, 1999

Micah Sifry reports on Ralph Nader who appears to be eyeing another run for the presidency. In 1996 Nader ran on the Green Party platform which promises a return to outright feudalism, with the state exercising control over such basic decisions as whether you can buy or sell a house. Now Nader appears to have become even more reactionary, which of course pleases the folks at The Nation:

The average youngster, he points out, watches thirty hours of television a week, with three pernicious effects: They learn that violence is a preferred solution to life's problems, they are taught to value cheap sensuality in everything from sex to self-image to food, and they become addicted to entertainment that shortens their attention span. "What is wrong with a society that allows its most precious resource to be exploited?" he asks. "If there was a child molester in the neighborhood, would it be enough to tell parents to lock the doors?"

This seems to be the next big thing on the Left. For decades the Right has attacked the media as purveyors of smut that undermine America's Christian values. The Left version simply apes the Right word for word except it substitutes its anti-corporate evangelism in the place of the Right's anti-secular evangelism. Notice how Nader works in a public health analysis of television -- it's not just bad for you, it is addictive. The comparison to child molesters is brilliant. The only thing left out is an accusation that television executives market sex and violence to kids. Could we be looking at a future lawsuit by Public Citizen taking on the evils of the television broadcasting industry?

Nader demonstrates the Left's love affair with authoritarianism with an analogy that both his audience and Sifry seem to love.

But despite what we're up against, Nader is the ultimate anticynic. "If you were in a big lifeboat and the ship had just sunk and there's a big storm coming and you had to get to the island to save everybody in the lifeboat, and here you are rowing away and you look back and there's some guys who aren't rowing, they're listening to some music on their radio, what do you think you'd say?" he asked his Wisconsin audience. "Oh well, to each his own? You'd say, pick up those oars!" The crowd cheered.

At the beginning of this century Leftists were thrown into jail for distributing pamphlets protesting World War I. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes compared them to people who would shout "Fire" in a crowded theater. How striking that Nader chooses to compare his latest enemy, the media, to people who refuse to cooperate when onboard a lifeboat. In that situation you cannot just say "do whatever you like," you have to force the recalcitrant parties into action.

The various Green Parties have always been hostile to the notion of individual rights and Nader shows he is truly one of them. When Herr Nader is president, we will no longer be a nation of individuals protected by rights and freedoms, but members of one large lifeboat taking orders from Capt. Nader and his cronies.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Source:

Public Citizen No.1 Micah L. Sifry, The Nation, December 20, 1999.

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