Your characteriztion of the 'fall' is too optomistic by half.
The battle between essentially capitalist and socialist states continues.
Note the increasing anger in Russia over NATO and the US bombing of
Yugoslavia.  Not to mention the elements in this country demonizing
China.
w
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 8:38 PM
> Subject: Fwd: [DAN] Fwd: Dry Rot- The Far Right Targets the Left
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Odell <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 11:18 AM
> Subject: [DAN] Fwd: Dry Rot- The Far Right Targets the Left
>
>
>
> [For list options, see bottom of msg]
>
> DRY ROT -- The Far Right Targets The Left.
> By Will Offley
>
> Canadian Dimension, January/February 2001
> Volume 35, Number 1
>
> Like most huge events in history, the fall of the Berlin Wall shook our
> world.  In doing so it also changed the ground rules of politics.
>
> Whether you call it paradigm shift or merely the temporary triumph of
> neo-liberalism, the dust from the Wall's collapse has clouded our vision
> for nearly a decade.  Without exception, currents of the left around the
> world have found themselves disoriented and scrambling to create a new
> vision and a new political framework within which to organize and to
> fight.  This has not only been true for the traditional Communist Parties,
> but for the non-Stalinist and anti-Stalinist left as well.
>
> The left has not yet been able to reconstitute a coherent vision of the
> new world we want to see issue from the ashes of the old, nor have we
> articulated the strategy or programme or organizations necessary to make
> that happen.  As a result, radical left politics have remained largely
> confined to "anti" politics for a decade or more: anticorporate,
> anti-globalization, anticapitalist.  We have remained locked down behind
> the relatively easy bulwark of what we're against, rather than venturing
> out into the exposed and more dangerous terrain of defining what we're
> for.  In addition, in some sectors there have been marked tendencies to
> view the capitalist system through the lens of conspiracism and
> irrationality, where plots and conspiracies replace class interests and
> mass politics as the motor forces of human society.
>
> This weakening of its culture, institutions and politics have rendered
> some sectors of the broad left vulnerable to the conscious and organized
> predation being carried out in Canada by a specific current of the far
> right. In the U.S. this dates back as far as the Gulf War, where
> neo-fascist currents like the Larouche organization and Spotlight sought
> to attach themselves to the movement against the war.
>
> Is the Canadian left immune from this sort of targeting?  No.
>
> Is the situation any different now, a decade later?  Yes and no.
>
> Yes, because Seattle has led to Washington, and from there to Philadelphia
> and L.A. and Windsor and Prague.  Quebec will be next, and it won't be the
> end.  The rise of the struggle in the streets against globalization marks
> the end of ten years of demoralization and confusion.
>
> There is a new dynamism and a new optimism, and if the path ahead is only
> partially visible, at least we're collectively underway again.
>
> However, one has only to look at Seattle to see that the growth of far
> right currents within and alongside the left and progressive movements has
> increased visibly over the decade.  There are also indicators that point
> to a change =96 during the Gulf War, the far right was active on the
> fringes, but by Seattle it seemed to be active at the very centre of
> things.  While the young militants faced down the cops and the gas in
> downtown Seattle, on a leadership level elements of that movement were
> being increasingly compromised politically by a de facto convergence
> between Ralph Nader and the most important far-right leader in the United
> States, the semi-fascist Pat Buchanan.  Five months later during the April
> 16th mobilizations in Washington, Buchanan shared a stage with Teamster
> leader Jimmy Hoffa Jr. as an invited guest of the AFL-CIO.
>
> Antiglobalist politics are not the exclusive preserve of the left.
> Though it springs from different roots, Buchanan's opposition to
> globalization and free trade is as genuine as ours.  He just takes it in a
> direction diametrically opposed to everything else we stand for =96
> protectionism, racism, exclusion.  Not only that, there have been plenty
> of examples this century to show the far right can be anti-corporate too.
>
> Throughout the 1920's Hitler's Nazi Party contained a minority current led
> by Gregor and Otto Strasser that was inalterably opposed to the German
> trusts... as well as the Jews, the Communists, Social Democrats, gays and
> lesbians, unions, etc.
>
> Nor is the far right confined solely to the hardcore neo-Nazism of the
> Heritage Front or the Northern Hammerskins.  It's relatively easy to ward
> off the interventions of groups that put swastikas on their literature.
> It's considerably more difficult when the politics of the groups in
> question are cloaked in progressive rhetoric and hidden behind coded
> language. Between Wolfgang Droege and Stockwell Day there is a whole swamp
> of currents and organizations =96 conspiracist, anti-Semitic, some with
> hidden fascist agendas, some totalitarian, some merely far right.
>
> Some of these are targeting the left.  There is reason to be concerned.
>
> ******
>
> Although they're based at different ends of the country, they seem to be
> made for each other.
>
> The Radical is a monthly tabloid published in Quesnel, B.C. since June
> 1998 by Arthur Topham, a self-described anarchist who regards himself as
> "a natural, sovereign and unique critter who doesn't need any centralized
> forms of authority telling me how to run my life."
>
> Discourse and Disclosure is a more irregularly-published bimonthly, also a
> tabloid.  It has been put out by editor Sue Potvin since May 1996.
> Potvin, formerly a resident of Ottawa, now resides in Greenwood, Nova
> Scotia. Potvin is considerably less forthcoming about herself than is
> Topham.
>
> Both publications share common positions on many different issues.  Both
> are opposed to globalization, the WTO, the MAI, NAFTA, the World Bank, the
> IMF, and now to the FTAA.  Both are opposed to the increasing corporate
> domination of the economy and most other sectors of everyday life.  Both
> have editorially supported the mobilizations against globalization, from
> Seattle to Prague.  Both have condemned NATO, and the West's aggression
> against Yugoslavia.  Both oppose clearcutting and support many
> environmental causes.  Both are strongly supportive of Canadian
> nationalism.  Both have even run articles endorsing gay and lesbian
> rights, and have been outspoken in support of native struggles from
> Ipperwash to Gustafsen Lake. When you realize that each has survived
> hand-to-mouth for years, with very shaky finances, the announcement in the
> November 2000 issues of each publication that they were moving towards
> appearing as a joint publication makes a whole lot of sense.  The Radical
> is distributed widely throughout the hinterland of B.C; Discourse and
> Disclosure appears to have a broader national distribution.  Both share a
> number of regular contributors.  To move toward joint publication is a
> completely logical step in extending the reach of two papers which have
> essentially identical editorial approaches.
>
> In fact, the similarities go far deeper, but this requires you to get out
> a fine-tooth comb and start a much closer examination of both
> publications.  Both papers are riddled with conspiracy theorists.  Both
> have supported the politics of David Icke, the new age anti-Semite who
> argues the world is being run by a conspiracy of blood-drinking lizards.
> Both regularly feature and support the activities of the far-right Detax
> movement.  Both exhibit numerous links to various prominent anti-Semites,
> militia supporters and white supremacists.  And because of these
> similarities both have become important vehicles in English Canada for the
> politics of the third position current of Canada's far right, third
> position because this current of the right rejects capitalism AND Marxism.
>
> Although a definite current of the far right, the third position current
> is distinct and apart from the mainstream of the neo-Nazi movement, which
> has attacked it in vitriolic terms.  D&D's editor has herself been
> directly criticized by a fascist web site in the following terms: "Sue
> Potvin publishes a Canadian tabloid titled Discourse and Disclosure
> =2E...[which] believes aboriginals (Native North Americans) are the planet'=
> s
> chief (no pun intended) victims and contains an enormous amount of White
> guilt and rants about not only what Whites have "done" to these sacred
> aboriginals, but to the world in general.  There is also so much ranting
> about corporations that it's hardly distinguishable from your local
> Marxist/communist publication."  Clearly it would be a misrepresentation
> to equate Potvin's publication with mainstream neofascism, as this is
> simply not the case.  However, it's also undeniable that the political
> content of both The Radical and Discourse and Disclosure extensively
> overlaps the politics of neonazism, anti-Semitism and some of the most
> crazed conspiracy theorists on the planet.  Judge for yourself:
>
> ** On more than one occasion D&D and Potvin herself have quoted
> extensively from the U.S. newspaper, The Spotlight , which has been
> described as "the most significant voice of the far right".  It is
> published by the Liberty Lobby, itself described as "the major source of
> anti-Semitic propaganda in the United States" , and whose leader, Willis
> Carto, has been publicly quoted as stating that "only a few Americans are
> concerned with the inevitable niggerification of America" and "the Jews
> came first and remain Public Enemy Number One."
>
> ** The December 1999 issue of Discourse and Disclosure appeared with a
> guest editor, Jim McKee.  McKee has contributed frequently to the paper on
> numerous topics.  Three months earlier a letter from him appeared,
> condemning immigration and stating that "in recent years, we have been
> bringing most of our immigrants from countries where the predominant
> religions are non-Christian, and the cultures are quite different from
> ours.  Integrating these people into Canadian society poses problems that
> didn't exist for the British and European immigrants....Our heritage of
> Christian standards is being swept aside."  McKee's racism assumes even
> sharper definition when it's recalled that on May 13, 1997 he held a
> public meeting in his Glenarm, Ontario home which was addressed by Paul
> Fromm.  Fromm, the head of several racist organizations, gained notoriety
> ten years ago when the Toronto Sun obtained a video of his appearance on
> stage at a December 8, 1990 meeting of the Heritage Front, flanked by a
> huge Nazi flag and giving a Nazi salute.
>
> ** D&D features a regular column on the activities of the Canadian Action
> Party written by Carla Marie Dancey, CAP's representative to Elections
> Canada.  In 1997, Dancey was the Reform Party candidate in Ottawa South,
> where she immortalized herself on the topic of "ethnic" immigration.  An
> article in the May 18, 1997 Edmonton Journal reported that "Canada's
> immigration system is racially driven to ensure at least 85 percent of
> people who come into the country aren't white, a Reform candidate said May
> 17. =91If you look at the immigration system right now... they've got it
> divided according to racial lines,' said Carla Dancey....  =91Eighty-five
> percent of the people coming into the country have to be ethnic and 15
> percent white, because before they had 85 percent white and 15 percent
> ethnic and they decided that was racist.'"  Paul Fromm's thoroughly racist
> Canadian Immigration Hotline liked this quote so much it was promptly
> republished on its web site.
>
> ** Almost every recent issue of Discourse and Disclosure features at least
> one article by Tom J. Kennedy, the Ottawa tour organizer for David Icke in
> 1999.  Kennedy's main area of activity centres around the Detax movement.
> He has published material on the Internet that he has reprinted from
> neo-Nazi and Holocaust Denial websites, and he has also publicly admitted
> to a friendship with Ernst Zundel that goes back nearly twenty years.
> Currently, Kennedy has a brief tribute on the web naming his friends,
> mentors and leaders; this list includes not only Sue Potvin, but also Paul
> Fromm, Ernst Zundel, David Icke, David Irving, Glen Kealey and no less
> than ten leaders of the Detax movement.
>
> ** Potvin herself has editorially promoted the Detax movement, an
> ultra-right tax denial movement that is in many respects the Canadian
> equivalent of the Posse Comitatus, the U.S. current in the 1980's that was
> one of the key predecessors to today's militia movement.  Writing in a
> front-page article in the May/June 1997 issue of her paper entitled
> "Canadian Challenges The Illegal Income Tax System", Potvin extensively
> profiled David Butterfield's B.C,-based "Shareholders of Canada" and
> echoed its claim that no one need pay income tax, since "it's illegal".
> However, Potvin's editorials have rarely been as overtly far right as
> those of her other regular contributors.  On occasion she has even
> publicly distanced herself from some of her most extreme contributors.
>
> ** Other D&D articles continually harp on the same conspiracist themes,
> whether it's on the New World Order plot that murdered Princess Diana
> (Sydney White, September-October 1999), or the New World Order plot to
> take away our guns (John Welham, Sept/Oct. 1998), or the conspiracy of the
> Illuminati to control the world economy (Fred Kirkman, August 1998).  And
> as for Canadian nationalism, contributor Ed Benson gave a flavor of D&D's
> politics in the August 1997 issue when he wrote that Canada has been
> "reduced to being the major financial and atomic benefactor of Red
> Communism; a country which condones the jailing of people for displaying a
> sign in English; a country that allows democratic votive fraud and
> military sedition; and a country that permits bare-breasted women on the
> streets."
>
> Discourse and Disclosure functions as the public voice of a far right
> current that first came clearly into sight during the 1993 campaign of the
> National Party of Canada.  Since the National Party's demise, many D&D
> supporters have remained active in its successor organization, the
> Canadian Action Party, particularly in CAP's leadership.  Regular
> contributors to Discourse and Disclosure include party leader Paul
> Hellyer, CAP's national president Connie Fogal, at least three CAP
> regional directors , and more than 10% of CAP's candidates in both the
> 1997 and 2000 federal elections.  D&D supporters have also been visibly
> active in and around numerous other organizations since then, including
> several PIRG organizations, Concerned Citizens Against Free Trade, David
> Orchard's campaign for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives,
> the Council of Canadians, various anti-globalization groups and others.
>
> The Radical appears to have taken a completely different trajectory, only
> to wind up at the same spot.  Where the D&D current appears to have set
> out to penetrate various sectors of the left, The Radical appears to have
> engaged in a process of political evolution away from anarcho/green
> politics towards those of the far right.  Both papers share both a common
> editorial approach and a common pool of writers.  David Icke has appeared
> repeatedly in both papers, and has been listed on the masthead of both as
> a contributor.  (The May/June 2000 issue of Canadian Dimension features an
> assessment of Icke and his backers in greater depth than is possible
> here). Numerous other writers besides Icke appear regularly in both The
> Radical and Discourse and Disclosure.  including Bev Collins, Joseph
> Duggan, Robert Rodvik, John Welham, Eva Lyman, Pat Bennett, Kevin Annett,
> and Connie Fogal, among others.  Joseph Duggan is David Icke's main
> Vancouver organizer, whose speakers' bureau Strong Eagles Productions
> organizes tours in Vancouver and B.C. for much of the conspiracist right.
>
> Bev Collins made the cryptic comment in the April 1999 issue of The
> Radical, "are you prepared for an American military officer under United
> Nations command to enter your home and remove you and your family because
> of Y2K?", and went on to hint darkly about a battalion of British troops
> on "training exercises" at the time outside Rossland, B.C.  This has been
> one of her main preoccupations for a long time.  In August 1996 she
> authored a long piece in D&D entitled "U.S. Militia Victim Of Negative
> Image Makers", which stated that "more than three million patriots in the
> U.S. today have joined with law enforcement and a cross-nation militia
> organization network".  She went on to add that "the militia is not, as
> those in power would have you believe, some extremist band of thugs."  On
> the contrary, she wrote, "militia members are said to be everyday,
> ordinary American citizens who care enough to take steps to protect their
> country against corrupt government."  She pooh-poohed the armed Freeman
> standoff taking place in Montana by simply declaring the Freemen were not
> really militia, after all, which probably came as news to them.
>
> Collins' links to militia activity do not seem to be confined to
> ideological support alone, either.  According to David Lethbridge of the
> Salmon Arm Coalition Against Racism, "not long before the 1997 federal
> election, Collins attended and spoke at a secret meeting of the Texas
> Light Infantry, one of the earliest militias to be set up after the [1992]
> Estes Park gathering which founded the contemporary militia movement."
> Bob Holloway, one of the key organizers of the Texas Light Infantry, is an
> associate of Louis Beam, Grand Dragon of the Texas Knights of the Ku Klux
> Klan.
>
> John Welham has written for both papers as well.  He authored a piece in
> the July 1998 issue of The Radical entitled "Why Federal Income Tax Is
> Illegal" which stated in part "Revenue Canada has done a fantastic job of
> brainwashing Canadians into believing that federal income tax in legal.
> Nothing could be further from the truth....No one has to pay income tax to
> the federal government.  It's illegal...."  The following month his
> article was picked up by Discourse and Disclosure and reprinted verbatim.
>
> And not least, both paper have given extensive publicity to the various
> leaders of the Detax movement, including Eldon Warman, Tom J. Kennedy,
> Byrun Fox, Hans Krampe, David Butterfield and others.  On more than one
> occasion Discourse and Disclosure has published four-page supplements on
> Butterfield's group, and The Radical has also repeatedly run ads for
> various Detax seminars and public events.
>
> If you judge a book by its cover, you'd have to conclude that The Radical
> is radical =96 after all, every issue is festooned with peace symbols,
> anarchist A's, hemp plants and (cruellest joke of all) little pictures of
> Che.  It would be much more accurate to say that while the layout may be
> radical, the editorial content's been taken so far to the right that it's
> off the page.  And it's not like Arthur Topham is the first, either.
> Throughout the last century, every single current in the broad left has
> seen defectors from its ranks crossing over to the far right.  Benito
> Mussolini left the Socialist Party to lead the Italian fascist movement.
> Many sections of the Comintern experienced losses to fascism during the
> 1930's, like the split of the Jacques Doriot wing from the French
> Communist Party.  Lyndon Larouche came out of the Trotskyist SWP.  Why
> should we expect hippie anarchism to be any different?
>
> The problem is, The Radical, like D&D, has connections and it has
> influence.  The current November issue demonstrates this clearly.  It
> contains articles by militia supporter Bev Collins, Detax activist Tom
> Kennedy and Wiebo Ludwig supporter Allan Johnston. It has a column by Hans
> Krampe stating that this federal election "may very well be our last
> chance to deal with despotic and treasonous systems in a democratic and
> relatively peaceful manner.  After that, who knows what will happen." ,
> accompanied by an editorial calling on readers to refuse to register their
> guns.  But others are present as well.  There is an article by the Prince
> George Green Party.  There is an article by Vancouver Parks Board
> commissioner Roz Cassels, elected on the Green Party slate.  There is a
> letter from 72-year-old Betty Krawczyk, currently serving a one-year
> prison sentence for her participation in the logging blockades in the
> Elaho Valley.
>
> This is where we find the danger from this current.  They have a hearing
> within our ranks, and it looks like a pretty big one.  Both papers have
> systematically courted sectors of the left, the greens and anarchist
> currents, most spectacularly in the case of The Radical.  Over the last
> year Topham's paper has featured front-page articles on the Elaho
> blockades, Toronto Green mayoralty candidate Tooker Gomberg, the Vancouver
> Mayworks Festival and the David Suzuki Foundation.  The March issue
> featured a full-page ad on the back cover placed by the World March of
> Women for International Women's Day.  Articles and letters have been
> printed from and about the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Friends of
> the Earth, the Cariboo Green Party, Vicki Husband of the Sierra Club of
> B.C., Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, the Valhalla Wilderness Society, the
> Council of Canadians, Amnesty International, SPEC, Check Your Head, the
> New Internationalist, Greenpeace, Leonard Peltier, the Sierra Legal
> Defence Fund and others.  Articles by Noam Chomsky appear regularly.  And
> the paper continues to be distributed not only by the progressive Magpie
> Magazines, but by the leftie Peoples' Coop and Spartacus bookstores.
>
> Third-position politics are a threat to the left, the green movement and
> progressive organizations in general.  To counter them, first and above
> all we need to expose them to the light of day.  Many of the cases above
> have a very simple explanation, that Potvin's and Topham's politics are
> largely concealed from public view, and therefore neither known or
> understood by many who associate with these papers.  This is pretty common
> with crypto-right currents..  But there will undoubtedly be those who
> defend The Radical and Discourse and Disclosure, just as there are at
> least some who appear prepared to accept Wiebo Ludwig as an ally, and
> David Icke as a guru.  This will require not only exposure, but political
> struggle as well.
>
> In the final analysis, the rejection and marginalization of third position
> politics require many of the same political discussions that will be
> integral to any process of rebuilding the left.  What is at stake?  A
> rejection of irrationalism, of conspiracy theories, of scapegoating.
> Repudiating Canadian nationalism.  Moving beyond a reflexive
> anti-capitalist politics to begin to develop a broad vision of the world
> we want to be able to leave to our children.  Articulating what we're for,
> and how we intend to get there.  Redefining socialism. And reconstructing
> the left.
>
>
> ++++++      ++++++
>
> The article above deals with the Nader/Buchanan convergence only briefly
> and in passing, in order to situate the Discourse and Disclosure / Radical
> phenomenon within a broader set of political coordinates.  Space
> considerations prevented the inclusion of the facts and reasoning
> underlying this characterization and as a result the text of the article
> on this point is quite sketchy, only making assertions without proving
> them.  However, the criticism of Nader is both fair and accurate.
>
> Ralph Nader has been engaged in a political convergence with Pat Buchanan
> on issues to do with globalization and the WTO for quite some time.  He
> admits this publicly.  On November 28, 1999, Buchanan and Nader appeared
> on a chat room session hosted by Time Magazine entitled "The Battle In
> Seattle".  Both stated their current relationship in the following terms:
>
> "QUESTION: Have Messrs. Nader and Buchanan discussed WTO-related issues in
> depth together? Or is it strictly a marriage of convenience - "the enemy
> of my enemy is my friend" sort of thing?"
>
> Ralph Nader: "Nonsense. We've discussed this for five years. We've held
> press conferences. And it's a cooperation of convictions that we must
> defend and improve our democracy so that we can agree to disagree freely."
>
> Pat Buchanan:  "Ralph and I have been in this battle for almost six years
> since the great NAFTA fight. And we stand together firmly on one
> principle, that whatever the decisions about the economic destiny of
> Americans are, they will be made by the American people and not by the
> trans-national corporations in collusion with this embryonic institution
> of world government."
>
> <<http://www.time.com/time/community/transcripts/1999/112899buchanan-nader.=
> html>
>
> One left wing web site carries an article from last June stating much the
> same thing:  "That Nader is tailoring his campaign to reach potential
> Buchanan voters was underscored by comments made by an official from
> Nader's camp in the presence of this reporter. The official predicted that
> Buchanan would be the =93first to break the truce=94 between the two
> third-party candidates.  When this reporter asked the official about this
> truce, he replied that while there was no written pact, Nader and Buchanan
> had worked together since the anti-NAFTA campaign in the early 1990s, and
> that there was a =93mutual agreement=94 not to criticize one another. Nader
> has, in fact, refrained from attacking Buchanan's right-wing positions on
> abortion and immigration, and remained silent on Buchanan's long-standing
> ties to anti-labor textile bosses in the South."
>
> (Jerry White, U.S. Green Party candidate Ralph Nader courts Buchanan
> supporters", World Socialist Web Site, June 27, 2000,
> <<www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jun2000/gpl-j27_prn.shtml> Significantly,
> Nader's organization reportedly refuses "to confirm or deny" persistent
> allegations it is being funded by U.S. textile biollionaire Roger
> Milliken, one of Buchanan's key corporate backers.  See Ryan Lizza,
> "Silent Partner: The Man Behind The Anti-Free-Trade Revolt",
> <<www.thenewrepublic.com/011000/lizza011000.html>)
>
> Nader's positions on globalization permit this convergence.  His
> acceptance speech for the Green Party presidential nomination last summer
> pointed out that his goals "are also conservative goals.  Don=92t
> conservatives, in contrast to corporatists, want movement toward a safe
> environment, toward ending corporate welfare and the commercialization of
> childhood? Don=92t they too want a voice in shaping a clean environment
> rooted in the interests of the people? Don=92t they too want a fair and
> responsive marketplace, for their health needs and savings? Let us not in
> this campaign prejudge any voters, for Green values are majoritarian
> values, respecting all peoples and striving to give greater voice to all
> voters, workers, individual taxpayers and consumers. As with the right of
> free speech, we may not agree with others, but we will defend their right
> to free speech as strongly as we do for ourselves."
>
> <<http://www.votenader.org/press/000625acceptance_speech.html>
>
> One of Nader's group spelt this out more bluntly in March 1999.  Mike
> Dolan, field director for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch stated in a
> PGA listserve discussion that "the populist movement against the so-called
> "free trade" agenda of the transnational corporate elite transcends
> partisan politics; whatever else you say about Pat Buchanan, he will be
> the only candidate in the 2000 presidential sweepstakes who will
> passionately and unconditionally defend the legitimate expectations of
> working families in the global economy."
>
> (Email to PGA listserve entitled "Trade Patriot Buchanan", February 3,
> 1999, quoted in Mark S., "The Progressive Left's Dirty Little Secret:
> Public Citizen, IFG and the Far Right",
> <<www.tao.ca/~resist/theleft'sdirtylittlesecret.html>)
>
> Nader has repeatedly appeared on television broadcasts with Pat Buchanan
> over the last year and refused to criticize Buchanan's racist, sexist,
> homophobic, xenophobic and chauvinist politics.  Take the following
> exchange from Meet The Press, October 1, 2000:
>
> "Mr. Buchanan: Millions of Americans -- majority oppose NAFTA, a majority
> oppose this China policy, a majority didn't want that war in the Balkans.
> They want the troops home, they want the borders defended, they want a
> conservative Supreme Court, I believe."
>
> Mr. Nader: "A majority -- yeah."
>
> <<www.buchananreform.com/library/default.asp?id=3D145>
>
> And that characterizes Nader's opportunism, an opportunism that stems
> directly from his attempts to elicit support from Buchanan's core
> constituency, estimated at around 25 million Americans.  Nader repeatedly
> shares a stage with Buchanan and politely disagrees.  He very seldom (if
> ever) criticizes Buchanan's core political positions, whether on abortion,
> or immigration, or much of anything else.
>
> Nader has repeatedly shown himself ready to engage in unprincipled
> coalition-building including groups from the Christian right:  "The
> coalition of citizens that came to Seattle to protest the WTO in November
> 1999 added new partners when the anti-PNTR campaign directed by Citizens
> Trade Campaign, a branch of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, chose to rally
> the anti-globalization forces against PNTR status for China. These
> included such conservative groups as the Family Research Council. Straying
> from their focus on economic globalization into security issues and
> international relations, CTC sought to win allies by portraying China as a
> security threat both to the Asia-Pacific and the United States. This
> brought such America-first and decidedly militaristic groups as the
> American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars into the coalition. CTC
> Director Lori Wallach makes no apologies for this type of unprincipled
> coalition-building. Strategizing about the upcoming battles of the fair
> trade movement, Wallach is optimistic because of the movement's new
> allies. "The Seattle Coalition has new friends from the China PNTR fight.
> National veterans groups, such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and
> American Legion, worked on Republican House Members, often in conjunction
> with local small business people. Indeed, the intense local organizing
> that was developed in an attempt to counter the corporate cash revealed a
> potentially powerful overlap between the memberships of VFW, American
> Legion, and other fraternal groups and main street business associations
> and union members."
>
> (Tom Barry, "Seattle Coalition Has New "Friends", Foreign Policy In
> Focus, (a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the
> Institute for Policy Studies, June 21, 2000, found at
>
> <<www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/poogresp/vol4/prog4n25.html>
>
> It should be apparent that a substantive case can in fact be made
> regarding Nader's convergence with Buchanan.  This article centred on the
> specific phenomenon of the Discourse and Disclosure/The Radical Alliance.
>
> However, the broader issue of left/right convergences and coalitions is an
> issue that will need to be addressed over the coming months and years, as
> the anti-globalization movement is politically vulnerable to overtures
> from currents like Buchanan and others further right of him.
>
> From=20time to time the left will find it shares a position with the right.
>
> Even a dead watch is right twice a day.  Just look at Buchanan's current
> position on the causes on the resurgence of the Intifada: the crisis was
> created by the "illegal" West Bank settlements; it was sparked by Ariel
> Sharon, who deliberately provoked the current situation; it's a popular
> uprising; the Palestinian people "have been occupied, persecuted and
> oppressed for decades" (see Pat Buchanan on Face The Nation, October 10,
> 2000, which can be found at
> <<www.buchananreforn.org/library/default.asp?id=3D153>).  The fact we may
> agree with all these theses does not alter the fact that for Buchanan they
> are informed by an unconcealed anti-Semitism, and we can no more ally with
> or converge with or work with him any more than we would Hitler.  The
> problem is not that Nader shares some political positions with Buchanan,
> but that he is converging with him.
>
> Will Offley is a Vancouver-based researcher.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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