May 2, 2003
Below is Tim Robbins' post-election Nation piece justifying
his support of Nader --- with some comments from me to Tim.
________________________________________________________________
"What I Voted For" by Tim Robbins ["AND LOOK AT WHAT YOU GOT, TIM"
by HGL]
The
Nation / August 6, 2001 (at:http://www.gp.org/articles/robbins_08_01_01.html)
In
mid-June Tim Robbins spoke at the annual dinner of the Liberty Hill Foundation,
which funds grassroots organizing in Los Angeles. In recognition of his
politically engaged films and his activist commitments, the foundation gave him
its Upton Sinclair Award. Following is an edited version of his remarks. --The
Nation Editors [WITH ADDED COMMENTS BY HGL]
About a month ago in a New York theater, I was approached by an agitated older
couple. "We hope you're happy now," they said. "With what?"
I said, suspecting the answer they gave. "Your Nader gave us Bush." [YES HE DID, TIM. BUT EVEN MORE IMPORTANT, NADER WANTED
TO GIVE US BUSH -- BUT MORE ABOUT THAT LATER.]
Now,
this wasn't the first time since the election that I had been attacked by irate
liberals who saw my support of Ralph Nader as a betrayal, as blasphemy, as
something tantamount to pissing on the Constitution. Before the election Susan
and I had been attacked in the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times; we'd received
intimidating faxes from a leading feminist admonishing us for our support for
Nader. [GOOD FOR HER. YOU'RE FOR FREE SPEECH, RIGHT?]
A week before the election we'd gotten a phone call from a Hollywood power
broker, who urged us to call Nader and ask him to withdraw from the race. [GOOD FOR HIM TOO. AT LEAST YOU'VE GOT SOME SENSIBLE PEOPLE
WHO CAN PHONE AND SAY YOU'RE SCREWING UP] If he did so, this mogul said,
he would contribute $100,000 to the Green Party. I told him that no phone call
from us would sway this man, [BECAUSE NADER'S A
MADMAN, TIM, AN EXTRAORDINARILY SMART ONE, WHO WAS OUT TO PUNISH THE
CLINTON-GORE DEMOCRATS FOR IGNORING AND DISSING HIM.] That this was not
a politics of personal influence and deal-making [WHICH
NADER HAD DONE ALL HIS LIFE] and that the Green Party probably wouldn't
take his contribution [MAYBE]. After the
election I read an article in which a famous actor criticized supporters of
Nader, calling them limousine liberals of the worst kind, unconcerned with the
poor. [SO WHAT? ACTORS SAY STUPID THINGS ALL THE TIME.
CONSIDER SOME OF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING HERE.]
It
was not easy to support Nader. In no uncertain terms the message sent to us by
colleagues and business associates was that our support of Nader would cost us.
Will it? I don't know. After the election one of our kids was admonished in
public by the aforementioned Hollywood mogul. And who knows what fabulous
parties we haven't been invited to. [COME ON TIM, WHAT
HAS THE ELECTION COST THE POOR, SCHOOLS, CIVIL LIBERTIES, THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ,
AND GOD KNOWS HOW MANY OTHERS?]
So,
what to make of all this? [YES, I'M SURE YOU ARE
CONFUSED] As someone who has voted defensively in the past and at one
time recognized all Republicans as evil incarnate, I completely understand the
reactions of these people.[GOOD. THERE'S HOPE FOR YOU.
THAT'S WHY WE'RE HAVING THIS TALK]. I like these people. Eight years ago
I would have said the same thing to me. But a lot has happened that has shifted
the way I think. After talking with friends in Seattle after protests there,
after going with Susan to Washington, DC, and talking with activists at the
IMF-World Bank protests, after talking with 13-year-olds handing out pamphlets
on sweatshops outside a Gap on Fifth Avenue, after watching the steady drift to
the right of the Democratic Party under Clinton, I have come to the realization
that I would rather vote my conscience than vote strategically. [EVEN IF IT MEANS HAVING RIGHT-WING PSYCHOPATHS LIKE BUSH,
CHENEY, ASHCROFT,& RUMSFELD IN POWER AND RUNNING THINGS? TIM, HAVE YOU
REALLY THOUGHT THIS THROUGH?]
There
is something truly significant happening today. A new movement is slowly taking
hold on college campuses, among left-wing groups in Europe and human rights
groups throughout the world. The protests in Seattle in 1999, the IMF-World
Bank protests in Washington, DC, in 2000, and the continuing presence of
agitation wherever corporate entities gather to determine global economic and
environmental policies do not, as the media portray them, merely reflect the
work of fringe radicals and anarchists. [TO SOME
EXTENT THEY DO, IN SOME WAYS NOT] Such events arise out of a broad-based
coalition of students, environmentalists, unions, farmers, scientists and other
concerned citizens who view the decisions made in these cabals as the frontline
in the battle for the future of this planet. This is a movement in its infancy
that I believe is as morally compelling as the early abolitionists fighting to
end slavery in the eighteenth century; as important as the labor activists
advocating workplace safety and an end to child labor in the early 1850s; as
undeniable as the scientists who first alerted the American public to
widespread abuse of our environment by corporate polluters. All of these
movements met with overwhelming condemnation by both political parties, were
ignored and then criticized by the press, while their adherents were harassed,
arrested and sometimes killed by police and other agencies of the government. [YES, TIM, MUCH HAS BEEN WON BY POPULAR MOVEMENTS PRESSURING
THE POWERS THAT BE, ESPECIALLY TIMID LIBERALS] But because of their
tenacity, we were eventually able in this country to create laws that ended
slavery and established a minimum wage, Social Security, unemployment
insurance, environmental responsibility and workplace safety. [BUT TIM BABY, NOW CHENEY ET ALL WANT TO ROLL BACK WHAT HAS
BEEN WON, AND GO FURTHER. YOU AND SUSAN NEED TO COME TO GRIPS WITH HOW POWERFUL
AND EXTREME RIGHT- WING REPUBLICANS HAVE BECOME, REALLY! THEY ARE RUNNING THE
REPUBLICAN PARTY, THE WHITE HOUSE, CONGRESS AND THE SUPREME COURT. BUT RALPH
WOULDN'T TALK ABOUT THEM WOULD HE? -- BECAUSE HE HAD TO MAKE HIS STUPID
TWEELDLEDEE-TWEEDLEDUM POINT. ARE YOU GETTING THIS?]
Despite
years of progress in our own country on all these issues, we now face a
resurgence of child and slave labor, of unsafe working conditions, of
sweatshops and of wanton environmental destruction in the Third World wrought
by the very same corporate ethos that resisted for years the progressive gains
in the United States. In the interest of profit margins and economic growth,
our corporations have reached out to the global economy and found a way to
return to 1850 on all of these issues. Enabled and emboldened by free trade and
the protections granted by NAFTA, GATT and the WTO, we have farmed these
problems out to other countries. [PREACH BROTHER, I'M
WITH YOU HERE] Amid our booming [NO LONGER
BOOMING FOR THE REST OF US, TIM] economy this is an uncomfortable
concept to embrace. It certainly is not being written about in our official
journals. [HAVE YOU BEEN READING WHAT PAUL KRUGMAN
SAYS?] But it is being shouted on the streets, and the protesters'
arguments bear an incontrovertible moral weight. Ralph Nader was the only
candidate to talk about these issues and to embrace this new movement as his
own. That is why Susan and I voted for him. [AND
PERFORMED AT HIS RALLIES AND ENCOURAGED LOTS OF OTHER PEOPLE TO DO THE SAME,
RIGHT?]
Last
year's election brought us to an important crossroads. [YOU
BETCHA!] The closeness of the race lifted a rock to expose the corrupt,
manipulative and illegal way in which elections are run in this country. [PRETTY AWFUL, HUH. BUT TIM, BUT THESE RIGHT-WINGERS WANT TO
MAKE IT EVEN WORSE] Indeed, the election year's most surreal and
humorous moment was when Fidel Castro offered to send observers to monitor our
election. Aside from the obvious voter fraud in Florida, a brief spotlight was
focused on the racist practices that have accompanied elections for years.
Whether it's the roadblocks outside polling places in African-American voting
districts or the disappearance of African-American names from voting registers,
the ineffective and antiquated voting machines in low-income voting districts
or the exposure of the Supreme Court as a partisan political institution, the
picture is the same. Powerful people in the American ruling class fear
democracy. [AND YOU HELPED THEM GAIN THE WHITE HOUSE,
TIM.]
There
was a time when I would have said that it is the "evil" Republicans
who fear democracy. But the sad realization I have come to after the 2000
election, and after experiencing the reactions to our support for Nader, is that
you can count the Democrats in that bunch, too. Not only do they fear democracy
but many in the Democratic Party elite fear, if not outright despise, idealism.
I have lost a great deal of respect for a party that admonished its progressive
wing, that had no tolerance for dissension in its ranks and sought to demonize
the most important and influential consumer advocate of the past fifty years.
But we shouldn't be surprised. [YES, THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY IS WHAT IT HAS BEEN FOR A LONG TIME. IN IMPORTANT WAYS IT IS AS IT HAS
BEEN SINCE FDR AND TRUMAN: A CENTRIST, CORPORATE STRUCTURE WITH A LIBERAL WING].
A similar reaction occurred earlier in this century when another leading
advocate, Upton Sinclair, was running for governor of California. The power
brokers of the Democratic Party did everything they could to isolate him. If
they gave any support at all to his candidacy, it was halfhearted, while some
even endorsed his Republican opponent, Frank Merriam. And the press? They
demonized him, said he was anti-business, said he was an egomaniac. Sound
familiar? [I AGREE WITH YOU THAT DEMOCRATS HAVEN'T FUNDAMENTALLY
CHANGED IN MANY YEARS. BUT TIM, THE REPUBLICANS HAVE CHANGED A LOT. BEGINNING
WITH REAGAN IN 1980, THEY'VE BECOME HUGE, WEALTHY, FEROCIOUS FIRE-BREATHING
POLITICAL MONSTERS DETERMINED TO MAKE THE WORLD OVER IN THEIR IMAGE. AND SO NOW
YOU'D RATHER HAVE THEM RUNNING EVERYTHING BECAUSE .... IT DOESN'T MAKE
ANY DIFFERENCE?]
Most
of the Nader supporters I met were the real deal, people who have dedicated
their lives to advocacy. These were the people at the center of the struggle
around controversial, difficult issues; their political engagement was way
beyond and deserving of much more respect than that of many people who would
wind up criticizing them. [I TOO LOVED THE SPIRIT AND
ENTHUSIASM THE NADER CAMPAIGN TAPPED. BUT IT TAPPED WHAT WAS ALREADY THERE, IT
DID NOT CREATE IT. AND SANER MOVEMENTS CAN TAP IT TOO. TIM, NOBLE HEARTS DO NOT
EQUAL CLEAR THINKING. ARE YOU REMEMBERING THIS?]
The
judgmental and patronizing attitude of those in the generation that fought to
end the Vietnam War and work for women's rights is disappointing and
discouraging, but understandable. But I am not of the opinion that Bill Clinton
was the best this generation had to offer, [NOR I, AND
CERTAINLY NOT POOR, WOODEN, CONFUSED AL GORE] and I would like to
believe there is a dormant power still left in these progressives [OF COURSE THERE IS] who have yet to acknowledge the
importance of the new movement growing around them. I would like to believe that
the children of the Vietnam era who protested that unjust war were concerned
with more than self-preservation, with issues beyond not losing their lives to
the war. I would like to believe that feminists--recognizing which gender works
predominantly in sweatshops and which gender is predominantly sold into
slavery--would acknowledge these issues as their own, and begin looking beyond
reproductive rights as the only litmus test for a candidate. I would like to
believe that higher ideals drive all of us, ideals that have to do with the
world at large. [TIM, ELECTORAL POLITICS ARE ABOUT
REAL-WORLD POWER AND WHO HAS IT, NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO BELIEVE IS
TRUE. WE GO FORWARD WITH HOPES AND DREAMS, BUT WE TRY HARD TO LOOK CLEARLY AND
ACCURATELY AT THE WORLD WE CONFRONT. RIGHT?
The
young people who have helped launch a quest for an alternative party, one that
will not compromise this planet's future for campaign donations from corporate
sugar daddies, believe the Democratic and Republican parties are united on the
major issues of our time. [TIM, YOU NEED TO STUDY THE
HISTORY OF THIRD PARTIES TO UNDERSTAND HOW TINY THE CHANCES OF SUCCESS ARE, AND
HOW LARGE THE COST CAN BE. NADER'S VOTES IN FLORIDA BROUGHT FIERCE
RIGHT-WINGERS TO POWER. READ A LITTLE OF THE NEW BOOK, "CHANGING THE
POWERS THAT BE: HOW THE LEFT CAN STOP LOSING AND WIN" BY G. WILLIAM
DOMHOFF (at: http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/). THERE ARE REAL ALTERNATIVES TO
NADER'S KAMIKAZE STRATEGY WHICH INCLUDED, AMONG OTHER THINGS, DEFEATING
PAUL WELLSTONE.]
This
new movement is a rejection of politics as usual, a rejection that has
frightening implications when you consider the progressive community's reaction
to it. Have we become our parents? [TIM, YOUR PARENTS
WERE VERY LIBERAL AND SO WERE MINE. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?] Are
we the Establishment? [NO, BUT YOU HELPED THE FAR
RIGHT WING OF THE ESTABLISHMENT SEIZE THE STATE] Are we now the status
quo that so cynically rejects those with ideals and dreams, that says to the
idealist that there is no room for that in this election, that one must vote
strategically, that we can't afford our dreams, that we must accept the lesser
of two evils? [YOU BET YOUR BIPPY WE WANT MODERATE
DEMS RATHER THAN THIS CHENEY-ASHCROFT-RUMSFELD MOB OF GANGSTERS] The
couple in the theater, the Op-Ed columnist, the Hollywood mogul and the actor
beat their drums once every four years for their candidate and talk about their
opponents as if their election will end civilization as we know it. [TIM HONEY, SINCE THE FALL OF RICHARD NIXON, THE RIGHT WING
HAS BEEN GROWING STRONGER AND FIERCER. THIS MUCH IS TRUE] This is a gay
Op-Ed columnist who would not vote for the one candidate who unashamedly
supported same-sex marriage; this is a mogul who would not be having any more
sleepovers and private screenings in a Republican White House; this is an actor
professing to care about the poor who couldn't seem to find his way to the
picket line to support his own union's strike. [TIM,
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY RACIST SCUMBALLS VOTED FOR FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT?
FOR ADLAI STEVENSON? FOR JOHN KENNEDY?]
I
don't respect armchair activists. [BUT YOU DO
RESPECT AIR-HEAD ACTIVISTS?] I respect the kids outside The Gap who
don't compromise. I'm not ready to cede their idealism and passion and vision,
to compromise their integrity for a Democratic Party that aspires to be
centrist, for a Democratic Party that supports the death penalty, that
dismantled the welfare system while increasing corporate welfare, that helped
create the economic system that tears at the heart of the labor movement. [TIM, VOTING FOR LESS EVIL DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO LOVE THE
PITIFUL CHOICES YOU HAVE. THE QUESTION IS, WHICH REGIME PROVIDES BETTER TERRAIN
FOR EDUCATING PEOPLE --- WHEN MODERATE DEMS HAVE POWER OR WHEN RIGHT-WING THUGS
CONTROL THE MESSAGE OF THE DAY, WEEK, YEAR, APPOINT JUDGES, MAKE WARS, ETC?]
How
embarrassing it must be for Democratic senators that the embodiment of
political courage in this country is now a Republican from Vermont. [WHAT ABOUT PAUL WELLSTONE, TIM? WASN'T HE MUCH BETTER THAN
A RECENTLY RECOVERING REPUBLICAN? WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE HIS
RECOMMENDATIONS, AND JOHN CONYERS'S RECOMMENDATIONS, AND THOSE OF LOTS OF OTHER
PEOPLE WHO HAVE LONG BEEN ACTIVISTS FOR THE FORCES OF GOOD? TIM, IT'S TIME FOR
YOU TO START LISTENING TO THEM! YOU'VE OVERDOSED ON NADER'S NONSENSE.]
Maybe it's time to stop demonizing people for their political affiliations and
to follow the example of the man who risked his political future to follow the
voice inside him. [....AND NADER'S INNER VOICE SAID: "PUNISH
THE DEMS, PUNISH THE DEMS." AND SO HE DID.] To reject politics
as usual and follow our grassroots hearts; to form alliances in unlikely
places. [YUP, NADER LED YOU INTO AN UNUSUAL ALLIANCE
WITH THE BUSH-CHENEY ADMINISTRATION, WHICH IS CERTAINLY AN UNLIKELY PLACE FOR
SOMEBODY WHO BELIEVES IN CIVIL LIBERTIES AND SOCIAL JUSTICE TO GO.]
It's
a long struggle for justice. It is grassroots movements that create real
change, and no grassroots movement ever got anywhere compromising its ideals. Real
change won't happen at Washington cocktail parties or in the Lincoln Bedroom.
It is arduous and messy, and takes relentless agitation. It took over a hundred
years of advocacy to eliminate slavery, over a hundred years to put an end to
child labor and over a hundred years to establish the minimum wage. This
movement is in its infancy, but it is alive and it's not going away. Its door
is wide open to you. It's a frightening threshold to cross but an essential
one.
[TIM, RALPH NADER HAS MADE YOU A REAL-WORLD POLITICAL IDIOT, AT
LEAST TEMPORARILY. YOU HAVE TOO MUCH MOVIE POLITICS AND NOT ENOUGH REAL
POLITICS.
TIM, I'M SORRY, BUT ON THE QUESTION OF NADER AND ELECTION 2000, YOU
ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM AND NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION. SOME NADERITES HAVE
REALIZED THE CAMPAIGN STRATEGY WAS A MISTAKE, BUT NOT YOU. IF OR WHEN YOU EVER RECOGNIZE
THAT NADER WANTED TO BLOW UP THE ELECTION TO PUNISH THE DEMOCRATS, WILL THAT
CHANGE YOUR MIND? OR DID YOU SUSPECT IT ALL ALONG?
YES, NADER'S CAMPAIGN BRILLIANTLY TAPPED INTO AND MOBILIZED A REAL
PROGRESSIVE AND HUMANE POLITICAL LONGING, VISION AND MOVEMENT. AND IF NADER HAD
JUST PULLED OUT IN A FLORIDA AND A FEW OTHER STATES HE WOULD HAVE HAD AN
ENORMOUS POSITIVE EFFECT. BUT TIM, NADER DID THE OPPOSITE OF THAT, HE
CAMPAIGNED IN FLORIDA JUST BEFORE ELECTION DAY. YES, FOR HIS OWN PERSONAL
REASONS, NADER UNWAVERINGLY DIRECTED HIS CAMPAIGN STRAIGHT AT A VERY LOONY AND
VERY DESTRUCTIVE GOAL: DEFEATING THE DEMOCRATS. AND, REMARKABLY, HE SUCCEEDED.
HE GOT WHAT HE WANTED. NADER HAS NEVER SAID "OOPS." HE'S NEVER SAID
"SORRY 'BOUT THAT," AND NEITHER HAVE YOU.
AND NOW WE ALL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT NADER DID
-- INCLUDING NOW THE BUSHIES WAR IN IRAQ!
-----------------------------------------
LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU WANT TO CHAT AGAIN. I THINK THAT SOONER OR
LATER YOU'RE GOING TO RECOVER FROM THIS. YOU'LL BE FINE AND EVENTUALLY YOU' LL
REDISCOVER YOURSELF AS A SANE AMERICAN RADICAL WORKING IN THE WORLD WE REALLY
LIVE IN.
GIVE MY BEST TO SUSAN,
- Harry
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