The Largest Minority

October 7th, 2008 @ 2:45pm by Manila Ryce

The following is an article pieced together from a few emails I received from Toby Heaps, National Media Coordinator for the Nader campaign.

Arbitrary “Internal Judgment” - The Exclusion of Choice and Suppression of Democracy

In a recent WSJ/NBC national poll, Ralph Nader pulls 5 percent. Contrast that to the most recent Gallup national poll, where Nader polls a fraction of one percent. Why the big difference? Answer: Gallup, the 800-pound gorilla of the polling world, doesn’t list Ralph Nader as one of the Presidential candidates in the primary polling question.

Are you kidding me? No. We are not kidding you. And guess who the Commission on Presidential Debates depends on to do its polling to see which Presidential candidates get to debate before tens of millions of Americans tonight in Nashville? You guessed it: Gallup.

I called Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief at Gallup (pictured above left). You can call him too at 609-924-9600 or e-mail him directly at frank_newport@gallup.com.

“Is there an objective standard you use to keep Ralph off your primary polling question?” I asked Newport. “No,” He replied. “We use our internal judgment to decide.” Whoa! Gallup’s “internal judgment” keeps Ralph Nader out of their polling.

So, I tried again: “Any ballpark levels of support Gallup looks to as a threshold?” Newport replied again, “No.”

Again, it was just subject to unidentified “internal judgment criteria.”

There are some polling agencies — such as Ipsos/McClatchey and CNN/Opinion Research Corp. — that include all the major third party candidates. Not Gallup.

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October 7th, 2008 @ 7:06am by Manila Ryce

Vice Presidential Candidate Matt Gonzalez was barred from the 2008 Vice Presidential Debate hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on October 2nd, just as Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader was barred from the first Presidential CPD Debate on September 26th.

If you’d like to see all major candidates participate in a debate please visit Third Party Ticket.

Spread this video along and help them reach their goal of 10,000 pledges today!

October 6th, 2008 @ 2:44pm by Manila Ryce

Saturday Night Live’s summarized version of the vice presidential debate starring Jason Sudeikis as Joe Biden, Queen Latifah as Gwen Ifill (plus 20 pounds), and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin (minus 20 pounds).

October 6th, 2008 @ 11:21am by Manila Ryce

This is the Pathfinder column from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil is the super-fuel. Nothing else does all the things oil does, from heating, fuel, plastics, food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and clothing. It has the highest energy conversion rate of any fuel and it constitutes 40 percent of global traded energy and 90 percent of transport (Financial Times, 4 January, 2004). But aside from its contribution to global warming, it’s also running out.

Or so we are told. Despite the record rise of oil recently, this is mainly speculator-driven and not due to any real shortage of oil. What is running out is cheap oil. In fact the world has only used 15 per cent of known reserves, with at least another 20 per cent recoverable by today’s technology (BBC Online, 21 April 21, 2004). Though pundits talk about hitting peak oil, estimates for this turning point range from already to as far away as 2050. As supply diminishes and prices rise, more expensive options like the Canadian and Venezuelan tar sands, with capacities rivaling Saudi Arabia, will become profitable to extract. But the rise in costs will be mirrored by a rise in the price of everything dependent on oil, and for the world’s poorest billion people, this could be a sentence of death by starvation, with a likely proliferation of food rioting, instability in liberal democracies and an upsurge in the ruling class’s faithful stand-by, fascist repression. Meanwhile, as the stakes rise, so do the international tensions. Oil is already determining many countries’ domestic and foreign policy, and few people doubt its role in recent wars. Governments are increasingly jumpy. Oil production plants, and bottleneck sea-lanes, are particularly susceptible to guerrilla attack, and with no in-house reserves Europe or America could be reduced to chaos in weeks (New Scientist, 28 June). Worse still, the ruling elites’ increasing inability to keep their oil-starved military up to scratch may make wars more likely rather than less, as weakened capability could provoke opportunistic pre-emptive attacks by rivals.

Socialism faces a rather different problem. It is predicated on communal sharing and participation, which in turn rely on the fact of material sufficiency. Should anything threaten this sufficiency, the basis of socialism itself would be threatened. Today, for example, over 50 percent of world rural populations have no access to electricity (UNDP World Energy Assessment, 2000). Though not a problem to capitalism, which doesn’t care about non-effective, i.e. non-paying demand (for more on this see page 19, this will be of the first importance in socialism. Even allowing for waste reduction in the west, that electricity must be found.

There is no single alternative to oil, so a suite of alternatives will have to be employed. Of the non-renewables, gas won’t last much longer than oil, and coal, the chief source of electricity globally, though there is up to 250 years worth at present usage, is dirty stuff to burn. Carbon capture technology may mitigate this, but is at an early stage.

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October 5th, 2008 @ 3:47am by Manila Ryce

It’s taken awhile for me to get this Denver footage out, but there will be more to come soon. It’s old, but the message still stands.

On August 27th in Denver, CO during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the Nader campaign held an “Open the Debates Super Rally” in which Rosa Clemente, Sean Penn, Tom Morello, and Ralph Nader spoke to an audience of 4,000 people. Before the event, Iraq Veterans Against the War led a march towards the Pepsi Center where the Democrats were holding their convention. This is footage from that day.

October 3rd, 2008 @ 10:05am by Manila Ryce

October 2nd, 2008 @ 4:52pm by Allison Kilkenny

That’s right — from the people who wiretap your phones and are praying for a government bailout comes the TOTALLY fair and nonpartisan vice presidential debate!

Of course, this isn’t your League of Women Voters, tired, outdated debate! This baby is organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the group run by Paul Kirk (D), who has lobbied on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, and Frank Fahrenkopf (R), the nation’s leading gambling lobbyist.

But since Kirk is a Democrat and Fahrenkopf is a Republican, the Commission HAS to be nonpartisan, right? Well, it is, unless of course you’re a candidate representing Independents, or the Green party, or you’re poor, or anti-corporation. Then you can’t get into the debates to save your life.

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October 2nd, 2008 @ 12:34pm by Manila Ryce