True Love Travels on a Gravel Road

I'm not too surprised that presidential candidate Mike Gravel (D–Xanadu) is endorsing a Green Party candidate for the office. After all, Ralph Nader semi-endorsed Gravel last summer and introduced him at the 2007 Take Back America Conference. I am surprised that Gravel is endorsing…um…this guy.

Mike Gravel announced that he has decided to support the campaign of Green Party Candidate Jesse Johnson running for the nomination on the Green Party Ticket.

…

Why did Gravel choose Johnson from among the other candidates vying for the nomination in all the campaigns of all available political parties? Gravel explains, "I'm supporting Jesse because he began his political career with the determination that the environmental plundering must stop. He placed every other interest on hold to run for office, in his home state and now nationally, to challenge the corporations that destroy our national resources and then harvest from this practice a toxic energy source; coal. The mountain top mining practices devastate the landscape by blowing apart mountains and then carbon belching plants burn the coal creating a form of energy that serves as one of the major contributors for global climate change."

Consider this a Wednesday Fun Link, I suppose.

Comments

[A]

Amazing how the term "power to the people" can be twisted to mean give more power to the government.

[Tyler Durden]

Hard to believe, but I once met Ralp Nader working as a waiter. He ordered clam chowder, which I jizzed in a couple times. And yes, he ate my cum.

[Jaybird]

I caucused for Mike Gravel!

My group was considered too small and so they busted me up and forced me to pick between Hillary and Barack.

[Jonathan Hohensee]

I was just about to ask if Mike Gravel was still running. I hadn't heard from the guy in a while.

I saw him speak down here in Florida. I was thisclose to asking him a long, rambling question about "Deez" and when he asked what "Deez" where, I'd tell him "deez nuts" but I made the right choice and chickened out.

[Cesar]

A-

Progressives are under the sad delusion that the government is the people.

[Stephen Gordon]

Just a few days earlier, Gravel had mentioned a possibility of running as the LP prez candidate.

[db]

As an employee of one of those "carbon belching plants" I would be happy to see the authors of such rants disconnect from the grid so they do not have to take part in the "environmental plundering."

Strangely, these people seldom seem to voluntarily do this. Why would they not act on their convictions? Wintertime would be a particularly appropriate time to show their dedication to the cause.

[Cesar]

I'd be more than happy to disconnect myself from a carbon-bleaching plant if I had the option of then hooking up to a nuclear plant. Oh wait, we're not allowed to build new nuclear plants because of the environmental lobby.

[Mark]

No hat tip to Nick Lowe?

[J sub D]

What Cesar said, make it a double.

[joe]

A lot of people mouth off about the Green Party without knowing anything about their platform.

Next to the LP, the Greens are probably the most anti-government, pro-localist, anti-centralized authority out there.

But that doesn't fit with the stereotype of The Undifferentiated Left.

[BakedPenguin]

joe and Hillary and Chomsky are the same!

[joe]

And Stalin.

And HITLER.

And Margaret Singer.

Did you know that HITLER supported animal welfare legislation?

Look, just ask Jonah Goldberg. He'll explain it all to you.

[Cesar]

Joe-

Where are they libertarian? Where they advocate the nationalization of railroads, airlines, mines, and a about a half a dozen other industries? Or when they want to take us back to pre-Reagan marginal tax rates?

[joe]

Why don't you go to their homepage and find out, Cesar?

I'm certainly not a spokesman for the Green Party.

Buncha loonies if you ask me.

[Cesar]

Joe I've read their platform, and it sounds like a standard European Social Democratic platform from the 1970s.

[joe]

I guess if you can't tell the difference between "local workers councils" and the federal government, then you could say they support "nationalization" of industries.

But then, that just brings us back to the Undifferentiated Left thing.

Most people think that all politics is laid out on a simple, one dimensional scale. But not libertarians!

They realize that it's only EVERYONE ELSE'S politics that are laid out on a simple, one-dimensional scale.

[Cesar]

Joe, would it make you any happier if the town council outlawed abortion than if the federal government did it? I didn't think so.

[Cesar]

Oh yeah, those local worker's councils? In another time they would be called "Soviets".

[TGGP]

I actually think Kevin Carson's ideas for "mutualization" of public property (like schools) has a lot of merit to it. It's hard to say who its real "owners" are, possession is 9/10ths of the law (do you want to give Europe back to the Neandertals?), and if that's the way to disconnect it from the taxpayer's teat, so be it.

I have lot of hate for the coal folks too. They just reel in the pork, special thanks to Robert "KKK" Byrd and all the "green" and "clean coal technologies" is just more money in the trough. Of course with public utilities it's hard for a genuine capitalist to support any of them, though I think the French and Japanese have shown how workable nuclear power can be. I say we go back to the past described in The Myth of Natural Monopoly.

[Brian Courts]

Completely OT, but the New York Times has identified "Kristen" complete with myspace page (and yes, photos).

[Rimfax]

I would endorse Jesse Johnson just because he rocks! Oh wee oh wee oh!

[joe]

Cesar | March 12, 2008, 8:26pm | #

Joe, would it make you any happier if the town council outlawed abortion than if the federal government did it? I didn't think so.
Cesar | March 12, 2008, 8:30pm | #

Oh yeah, those local worker's councils? In another time they would be called "Soviets".

I guess if they're VERY BAD LEFTISTS, you don't actually have to know anything about them to critique them.

[Cesar]

Joe, is Dondero spoofing you? All I'm saying is the Green Party isn't very libertarian. In fact the Democratic Party is probably closer to us than the Greens.

[Fletch]

Joe (P-eanut brain) Boyle-

Next to the LP, the Greens are probably the most anti-government, pro-localist, anti-centralized authority out there.

The Greens-

1)Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives and not be subject to the will of another.

Except for "Welfare", "Medicaid", "Socialist InSecurity", "Public Education", "AFDC", "animal rghts", "endangered species", Etc.

2)All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.

Agreed- it's known as 'free- market capitalism'. (And- Fuck "Welfare" for those ignorant shits who can't or didn't learn the basic K-8 education that already costs our society $100K/ea.)

3)We must maintain an ecological balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and our planet.

I'll start believing this when this 'author' murders everybody who is violating the 'ecological balance'- (especially herself...)

4We promote non-violent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.

Can you say, "extinct within 3 generations"?
(Hint: From their "definition"- do they "breed"?)

5)Therefore, we support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away from a system which is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few.

Them dastardly Jews surely control everything...

6)A successful economic system will offer meaningful work with dignity, while paying a "living wage" which reflects the real value of a person's work.

(Notice that this declaration of a "successful economic system" offers no actual "policies"... other than paying a "living wage".)

Meanwhile the most ignorant person living on Planet Earth deserves $9.72/hr if he/she happens to live somewhere in America...

7)We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics.

And??

Women are obviously "inferior"- see the last 30,000+ yrs of (male dominated) human history.

Perhaps "women" could have possibly "stepped up their game" even once in that "time-frame"?

8)and we support the leadership of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles.

Unless they're a "libertarian"-- then, we'll absolutely vote for the "Democrat".

10)We seek to protect valuable natural resources--

Can you say "ballot access"?

[Cesar]

Joe's just a bit upset these days because his party is coming apart at the seems.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

.. in the past, when I have been faced with un-votable (is that a word?) candidates for the D's and R's, I have to admit that I voted for the Green candidate.. I guess I figure that a three-party system is better than a two-party system .. let the leftists fight it out and maybe we can reform the R's ..

.. Hobbit

[Yogi]

What, no South Park open thread? Did I detect a medical research funding commentary in tonight's episode?

[BakedPenguin]

As for me, I thought Weigel should have added Gentle Giant to the soundtrack behind Gravel. Then it would have been Prog & Prog(ressive politics).

We could have had 100+ posts on which was harder to listen to.

[joe]

Cesar,

Nice little personal jab, I guess you gave up on your point. What was your point again?

Oh, yeah, because the Greens are left, that means they support big government. Except, of course, when they don't.

Fletch,

You don't understand the difference between "I don't like the Greens" and "The Greens are a party of big government," and you're insulsing MY intelligence? Uh, nice one. You really got me there!

[VoluntariToast]

joe, chill with the contentless posts for a bit. Let's read together what the Green Party has to say on things I think are important. Searching for "voluntary" on gp.org:

Just as we cannot expect that individual purchases of organic food will cause all food production to become organic, we cannot expect that voluntary approaches will be sufficient to fully replace current energy supplies with clean energy, since only a tiny percentage of the energy supply can be affected by a volunteer purchasing approach. [nyah]

Beside lots of "voluntary contribution" and "voluntary financing" references, all that's left on their site is some boilerplate in the first "Democracy" section of the platform docs about voluntary individual activity and a couple of references to "individual action, community responsibility," which is an odd turn of phrase in my anonymous opinion.

Ok, not interesting? I admit, I may be harping on voluntarism in so many words. Let me take a breath and look at it from a less buzzwordy point of view (but let me make it clear that "voluntarism" best describes my politics). Try this -- the only place "individualism" appears:

The consensus process prioritizes the shared mission and principles of the group over the stance of any one individual, with the understanding that each group member benefits from a decision made for the common good. At the heart of the process is the belief that we can all learn from each other. [...] The reconciliation of individualism with community good represented by the consensus philosophy shows the way. [nyah]

With my cursory glance of their platform papers and site, I can't say that the US Green Party describes its ideal as big government, and it seems to take care not to explicitly encourage this impression. However, surely these excerpts reflect collectivist stances expressly justified as necessary for "green" activist activities to work. In a political party, that means power to government. If they didn't want to give government more power for their pet rock hugging, then it would have no place in a political party's position (and the platforms would look small-L libertarian).

One might be tempted to respond with "well yeah, that's what it'll take to survive!" Except I don't buy that, and I don't have to. It isn't the government's place, which should be manifestly clear. However, a more important point is that if it takes a government to do something big, then either (a) it would have taken a fraction of effort to inform interested parties who would expect a fraction of the resources in doing the same thing, or (b) it wasn't a worthwhile project.

(Of course, this brings us back to Leftists' obsession with centrally-managed utopias.)

[Matthew]

Are Joe and Cesar boyfriends?