ne@nderthal, I would have liked to see the same thing from Chomsky that I would have liked to see from the rest of the Professional Left: That is, I would have liked to see them make demands of Kerry, who had the most power;As opposed to Nader, who had the least power.

2004 is notable for the collapse of the anti-war movement as it meekly got in line behind a pro-war candidate who openly demonstrated that he held nothing but contempt for it when he deigned to notice it. It could think of nothing better to do with itself than vent its collective spleen at Nader. I don't think that there will ever come a day when that stops bothering me.

I only single out Chomsky because he's the one whose quotes made it into this thread. I could just as easily have written about Benjamin, Solomon, Moore, etc. I would have preferred that he and the rest of the Left wing folk (as I said before) harness their energies to make demands of Kerry instead of Nader. NOTA knows, every time that idiotic "safe states" crap comes up, I want to beat my head against the wall. I consider that whole thing to be nonsense, which is the main reason I ended up not voting for Cobb. It's a "strategy" calculated not to bring change, but to placate (futilely, since you can't negotiate or win concessions from someone whom you never confront with your presence) the powerful. I try not to engage in dualism in political matters, but in this case, I make an exception. Run for office or don't run for office. If you believe in change, you have to believe in pissing off the powerful. "Safe states" be damned. You're right to call Chomsky a brilliant man, but his nod to that so-called "strategy" strikes me as less than brilliant. Who can take it seriously ? Especially in light of the fact that in the next breath, he's claiming that Presidential campaigns aren't even that meaningful ? Why bring any "strategy" up at all then ?

"So what do you expect to happen? Maybe in the middle of a national campaign..."

I expected the professional Left to stand by its professed true beliefs and deal with the consequences of doing so, rather than leaving Nader more or less alone to shoulder the burden. Not for Kerry's sake, but for the sake of myself and others they claim to speak for. This debacle of 2004 has forced me to wonder whether any of them truly speak for me at all. :( And I don't write that as some kind of apsiring "revolutionary" in the Che Guevarra sense. I'm pretty "petty bourgeois" myself. I've done a little work on local ballot measures for healthcare and public power. I eat meat. I even have a mortgage. :o :p