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Nader's Hope for 2016: An "Enlightened" Billionaire with Progressive Vision Article  headline from Common Dreams for June 23, 2013

It is doubtful that our country has seen any more dedicated, effective, intelligent, and knowledgeable  progressive than Ralph Nader. Nader has bucked corporate America, been threatened by them, and has seen federal laws written as a result of his efforts over the last nearly 50 years. Long ago Nader began pointing out that there was no substantial difference between the two major political parties. They both got money, which some have called the life blood of politics, from the same corporations. Nader now rests his hope for Progressivism in an enlightened billionaire. This kind of change in some one as thoughtful and knowledgeable as Nader must provoke the most serious self-reflection among progressives that they have yet had to face.

Nader, in effect, is saying that the people can no longer successfully challenge money. He is saying, in effect, democracy is dead. If he is right, what then?

I surmise that Nader sees the power of global wealth and the system of global capitalism and sees no way that ordinary people can prevail against the monster that our country is largely responsible for creating. Around the world from Europe to the Middle East to Southeast Asia  and South America we see massive resistance by millions of ordinary citizens against the economic  and social environment that global capitalism has produced. We also see the masters of that system ignore or seek to destroy that resistance.

Progressives must now ask themselves whether global capitalism has in fact defeated democracy. If we say no, we must say, with the same candor as Nader, why not. If we say yes, we must begin to articulate how, if at all, Progressive values can be restored and maintained in the political, economic, social and  cultural milieu that now define the world we live in.

For my part, I still have some confidence that mass resistance can still overcome centralized power, even in this technologically advanced global environment.

Global corporations have a significant advantage over other forms of human organization including political institutions such as nations. Large multinational corporations have faster means for decision making. They have the ability to deploy resources very quickly and to subordinate individuals, nations and organizations to their objectives. Political decision making is frequently slow, especially in a democracy, which, I suspect, is one reason the Obama administration has become increasingly authoritarian and secretive.

To successfully oppose such a controlling entity people must use their numbers to, in effect, render themselves useless to this human-based corporate monster whose only source of income is, ultimately, other humans. Without a market, capitalism goes nowhere. Historically masses of humanity have overcome wealthier, better organized and technologically advanced opponents. For example, the Soviet Union, barely out of feudalism, was able to defeat the Nazi military by throwing huge numbers of human beings against them and suffering huge losses in the process, but the human mass prevailed. Organized labor was able by its sheer numbers to shut down General Motors by sit-ins, now called occupying, in the 1930s. John L. Lewis and his coal miners defeated the power of the coal companies in the 1930s. Nader, obviously, believes this can no longer be done. I suspect the power of global capitalism is, in his mind, too great to defeat by mass resistance.  (He may also think that such a solution, given the military technology of the corporate state, would lead to massive, perhaps societal-destroying, violence.) I think, however, that the fact that people are toppling powerful regimes in the Middle East and South America, regimes which have frequently deployed advanced military technology against them, evidences that a determined people in their large mass can bring organized, advanced power to its knees. The people of Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc. are forcing European states to reconsider their cozy relationship to big banks and wealthy investors. The European Union is considering a transaction tax on the trillion-dollar-a-day trading in currency and other financial instruments. This has been the fiscal home of the very rich. Similarly, the tax havens of the wealthy are undergoing tighter controls to insure that the wealthy pay their taxes on this sequestered wealth. Much of this is happening because people in their numbers are in the streets energetically demonstrating that they know why they are suffering economic deprivation. People may yet prevail over the instruments of their oppression.

What I have written above is premised on non-violent protesting. If this, in the context of a winner-take-all global economy, is not possible then the horrors of carnage to exhaustion will descend upon us. This is the consequence that, in my opinion, prompted Nader to opt for salvation through well-motivated wealth.

 There is a natural progression in human consumption-based economies from need to want to greed. This progression is not only out of control in capitalism, it is enshrined. In a time of decreasing resources and increasing population we must obviously find a better economic system.

Protests are highly emotional things in which reason gives way to categorical thinking and ideological irrelevance. The massive protests in Brazil are already confronting the all too pervasive divide between middle-class and working/poor class groups. An account of the efforts to bridge this gap, titled Brazil’s Left Is Eager to Lead the “Swarm”, may be found at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/06-0

All I value has been created by human beings.  That their marvelous capabilities should be crushed in a multi-dimensional excess that they are incapable of controlling, challenges the depths of sorrow and despair we humans can feel. But, as Pete Seeger says in his song My Rainbow Race, I will give it one more try.

Bob Newhard