In his response to The Nation magazine (see www.naderexplore04.org), Ralph Nader missed the point, but oddly, so does The Nation.

Lesser-evilism is always distasteful, wimpish, and not the kind of flaw that one comfortably shows the world. And yes, the Democratic Party is too hopelessly lost in its own cowardice and timidity and envy of Republicans to be more than a pale shade of what it once was, or might be. Greens, Libertarians, Socialists of all stripes, and in their hearts, even many Democrats, are disgusted with themselves for advocating a vote for a Democratic president -- any Democratic president. But they will vote for one nonetheless, because George W. Bush is insane, and if allowed he will quite literally destroy the earth and all life on it.

It is one thing to admit that the United States of America is, without any question, an imperial empire -- the greatest and most powerful the world has ever seen. We have not begun to ask how a just empire should behave, or what responsibilities it has to its citizens and to the rest of the world. Though the rest of the world has been making broad hints for quite a while now, these are unanswered and largely unasked questions for most Americans, who respond to accusations of world domination with "Who, me?"

It is quite another thing to admit that the Caesar of this empire is mad, and is intent on using His power (it's certainly not "ours" any more) to fulfill the biblical prophecy of a tiny but powerful group of Christian madmen, and begin the final days of Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ragnarok. This is too paranoid a vision to be believed even when the truth of it is all around us. This is too cynical and preposterous to speak of publicly, even though it has been carefully articulated in magazine articles and books, even on television, for several years now. The king is mad. He is not just naked or evil, as in myth and fairy tale, but insane.

Think of Caligula with 7,000 atomic weapons. Think of Genghis Kahn with the world's largest supply of chemical and biological weapons. Think of Hitler with the world's strongest economy and most powerful military. George W. Bush is all of this and more: he has the conviction that he is the primary instrument of God's will, and he believes that these are the Last Days. This mad king must go.

Four years ago I and a great many others chose to vote for Ralph Nader or David McReynolds or some other third-party hopeful because we believed that there was no significant difference between Gore and Bush. Both would enrich the rich, impoverish the poor, leave the middle to its dreams of the good consumer life, and continue to make the world safe for corporations. In 2000, a vote for a Nader or McReynolds, even for a Buchanan, would be a voice against the duopoly of the major parties and a step towards the return of grass-roots democracy in a corporate-controlled America. It might not defeat the Republicrats, but it would put them on notice. It would move the center to the left. It would help restore a more balanced political spectrum.

The problem now, in 2004, is that there is no "center," no median voice or balance point of the average of political parties to be moved. Those at one end of the political spectrum are off the board, playing an entirely different game, responsible to no one but themselves . . . in other words, mad. Like an equation where one side of the equal sign contains an infinite number, the problem of Bush cannot be solved or even influenced by mediation or compromise or "sending a message" to the parties or the party leadership. We know that mad kings do not listen to the masses, even when the masses gather in the tens of millions in the streets of the world. Gore would have listened. He wouldn't have liked what he heard, but it might have moderated his actions.

So what can one do about a mad king? One can always stand on one's principles, like Joan of Arc, and smugly watch while, instead of oneself, the world is put to the torch. Small comfort there. Saying that one's own principles are "better" than someone else's is perfectly ordinary --everyone does it. But saying that one's principles are better than everyone else's is exactly what Bush is saying, and exactly as crazy.

Even Republicans realize this, and point to the abandoned civil liberties, the economic rapacity, and the replacement of harsh fairness with self-interest and greed as being antithetical to the basic tenets of Republicanism. They, like the more radical left, will find it hard, perhaps impossible, to vote for a Democrat. More and more Greens and Socialists and Libertarians recognize this. The king must be removed from his throne. The only other choice risks the death of the world as we know it, or perhaps just the death of the world.

Now, about Ralph. It's not about you, Ralph. It's about us. Please run in every safe state, and please do not run in any swing state. In fact, the Greens and Socialists and Libertarians should run for every conceivable local and statewide office. This is the only way that parties grow and gather the strength and respect that makes them viable, and eventually, powerful. So yes, let Ralph run. Let a thousand Ralphs run. But before all else, the mad king must go.

=Eric Bagai
   February 20, 2004
   Portland, Oregon
P.S. for the SP-USA: I have been a card-carrying Socialist for some years now. I know Walt Brown. I like Walt Brown. In another year or another time I would vote for Walt Brown for president. But today I will damn him to the deepest ring of Socialist hell if he takes one vote away from the defeat of George W. Bush. Before I am a Socialist I am a citizen of the world, and today the world is in great danger.