In <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0728-09.htm" title="My Plea to John Kerry: Stand Up for the Progressive Agenda that the Majority of America Already Agrees With" author="Michael Moore">My Plea to John Kerry</a>, Moore's take on Nader, for whom he worked in the 2000 campaign is this: <bq>And what I and others try to explain to Ralph before he decided to run is that you already did your job. The Democratic Party of 2004 is not the Democratic Party of 2000. the threat, the threat that you posed in 2000, they got the message. And it was <b>carried on by Howard dean and Dennis Kucinich and others in this year</b>. And they helped push the Democrats toward where the majority of Americans that liberal progressive majority, is at. You did a great thing and now, they are in a better [pl]ace.</bq> Michael Moore is using his splendid oratory skills to pull the wool over people's eyes. The Democratic party is different? Kerry has collected more money in July than Bush! Almost all of it from corporate sponsors. Notice the phrase above with emphasis added, <iq>carried on by Howard dean and Dennis Kucinich and others in this year</iq>. Where are they now? Dean washed out, with no support <i>whatsoever</i> from the DNC, because his ideas were too out there. Kucinich never stood a chance and his push to force the Democratic Party towards a more progressive stance is felt so strongly that no one even knows if he's running anymore or not. <bq>So my appeal to the Nader voters, to the Greens out there, is that we have a different job to do this year. And this is so misguided and so wrong and so uncool. So uncool to be doing this. I think that when it comes to that day people will know what to do.</bq> What is it uncool to be doing? Exhorting people to vote for a candidate they don't agree with? Exhorting people to vote for the lesser of two evils? Which is less evil? The President that sneers as he fucks you over or the President who promises he won't fuck you over, then denies he's doing it while he's fucking you over? Is it more evil to call the richest people in America "my base" or more evil to promise to change America for the poor, then do exactly nothing for four years and blame partisan bickering Congress. Why is Bush able to get so much done without being hindered by partisan bickering? <bq>But I would not have the Democrats spending any time attacking Ralph Nader. All right? That is the wrong way to go. what the Democrats should be doing, and I have heard Kerry say this, is we need to give, <b>we need to give those who are thinking of voting for Ralph Nader, a reason to vote for john Kerry</b>. That is the right answer. That is the right answer.</bq> No shit. You know what, though? John Kerry needs to give people a reason to vote for John Kerry. We've already seen a candidate who endorses some sort of health-care plan that <i>still</i> leaves pretty much the whole show in the hands of privately-owned and -operated HMOs. Sure, we'll be able to say that millions more people are insured (assuming the plan gets passed at all), but they'll just have the same shitty, impossible-to-claim insurance that everyone else already has. Whoop-dee-doo. Except for the really poor, of course. They can just waltz into a hospital and get whatever health care they want. For free. I know because Rush Limbaugh told me. Afterwards, Moore tells a story about going to a screening of his movie with Kerry's daughter and a bunch of 18-20 year olds. After the movie, he asks how many people will vote for Ralph Nader. Hands shoot up. Kerry's daughter is shocked. I think the Kerry party really buys their own myth. They really believe that anybody but Bush mantra. If it's anybody but Bush, then why not Nader? At least he's saying more or less what I want to hear, instead of taking stances that obviously politically motivated. Moore tells her: <iq>...you have to tell your dad that, you know, because they, some of the kids that gave their reasons</iq>. And there are good reasons to vote for Ralph instead of Kerry. If this was a halfway sane country, you wouldn't have to vote for just one of them. You should easily be able to say you prefer Ralph's ideas. If Kerry gets into the white-house, it's more of the same Clinton-style policies, which wrap their steely grip inside a warm and fuzzy mitten, so no comment there, but Bush? No way. I vote <i>against</i> Bush. Let's say each voter gets 25 points to allocate to the candiates. Here's how an American should be able to fill out a voting ballot: <ul> George Bush --- NOFUCKINGWAY (-15 points) Ralph Nader --- FINEBYME (+10 points) John Kerry --- WHATEVER (0 points) </ul> Now wouldn't such a system nicely express the nuance of your opinion much better? Instead, we have this cockamamie horse-race wherein you only have one point to allocate and lots of people (though obviously not enough) are considering assigning it to Kerry in a way of making a negative vote for Bush.