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Nader’s VP Choice Weakens Independent Movement8 comments to Nader’s VP Choice Weakens Independent MovementLeave a Reply |
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Copyright © 2012 Washington Hotlist - All Rights Reserved |
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Nader’s VP Choice Weakens Independent Movement8 comments to Nader’s VP Choice Weakens Independent MovementLeave a Reply |
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Copyright © 2012 Washington Hotlist - All Rights Reserved |
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Nader’s VP choice is irrelevant. Nader’s candidacy is not about winning. If it were, he’d have been in it from the get go. He is about bringing issues to the fore that the front runners have chosen not to confront because they are too controversial, with the expectation that these questions will be asked of them and force them to take a public position.
Nader was quite emphatic in his position regarding the allegations of his influence on the outcomes in 2000 and 2004. If the Democrats had truly been the party of choice, his place on the ballot would have been a no never mind.
Nader had been a hero of mine ever since he’d written Unsafe At Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, the famous exposé of the auto industry, when I went to hear him speak at a nearby university.
He was ten minutes late, and apologized sheepishly when he bounded onto the stage, saying that his plane had been late, and the governor had ordered the highway patrol to give his car an escort.
He lost a bit of his luster for me that night when he sheepishly mentioned that they’d driven at ninety miles an hour to make the engagement.
No one in the audience seemed bothered by the discrepancy between that somewhat jarring admission and his image as a strident defender of truth and justice in the face of corporate misfeasance.
He even got a knowing, appreciative round of laughter as he made a joke of it.
I always wished that he’d never mentioned it, or better, that he’d been thirty minutes late, and had apologized for that, instead.
I never quite trusted him after this incident, and I wouldn’t take him at face value now.
Vince: My first car was a ’63 Corvair purchased used from a family member who was in the used car business. It ultimately went to a cousin who drove it all over New England duriing his college years, swears he never changed the oil, and honestly believes that there was no oil in the crank case. Other than ultimately falling apart around him, it was a great little car for its time, the horizontal air-cooled engine of which certainly could have had its place in today’s technology. Even in todays market, small car’s are being marketed to youth, who are handling them inappropriately. They are being killed and maimed by the scores….still unsafe at any speed.
D__, I think we should let the kids drink sooner, and drive later.
It’ll never happen, though, short of some dramatic societal shift.;-)
Vince: erstwhile ‘responsible’ adults do both and shatter families in the process.
Given the rate at which teen age drivers kill themselves (and others), and the fact that the area of the brain that controls risk evaluation doesn’t mature until the mid-twenties, I would raise the legal driving age to at least 21.
And I would permanently take away the license of ANYONE at ANY age found to be driving under the influence. After the FIRST violation.
One chance and you’re done!
That should reduce the carnage on the highways.
As for Nader and his VP choice: I don’t believe anyone gives a damn. This is not 2000. Nader is a non-factor in this election.
Steve: a nicely crafted position statement.
There’s never any doubt where Steve stands on an issue when he tells you what he thinks.