If you'd rather read The Nader Dilemma on the web go to:
http://www.nostatusquo.com/Nader/index.html
Or a PDF document it's available at:
http://www.nostatusquo.com/Nader/naderdelimma.pdf
The plain text version is at
http://www.nostatusquo.com/Nader/text.htmlThe Nader Dilemma

The Nader Dilemma

by D. A. Clarke, Feminists For Nader
Copyright (c) 2000 D. A. Clarke. All rights reserved.

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Have you been hearing statements like these lately?

Nader can't possibly win; you're throwing your
vote away if you vote for him.

Any vote for Nader is a vote stolen from Gore.
Gore can't win if people vote for Nader.

If we don't get Gore in, Bush will win.

Therefore, if you vote for Nader, Bush will win;
a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.

If Bush gets in, he'll stack the Supreme Court with
right-wing Christian conservatives and overturn
Roe vs Wade.

Therefore, if you vote for Nader, abortion will become
illegal, and it will be your fault.

Therefore every feminist has to vote for Gore. To vote for
Nader is antifeminist. It's irresponsible.

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Many progressives in America today are facing a crisis of
conscience over their vote this November. A lot of people are
disgusted with and disaffected from the Democratic Party; and
some registered Republicans are also disgusted with their own
party. The reasons are largely the same: the moral and
intellectual poverty to which our two-party system has been
reduced, the blatant corruption practised by the politicians of
both parties. For the progressive or liberal voter, the Democratic
Party's rightward slithering over the last eight years, and the
corporate ass-kissing lavishly indulged in during the Clinton
presidency, have left depression and anger in their wake. Many
people who voted for Clinton describe themselves as having
been "betrayed," and they are looking for some kind of viable
alternative, a way to cast their vote without completely violating
their personal principles.

However, it's very difficult for a lot of us to figure out how to vote
for our principles in this election. On one level, it seems perfectly
simple. There's only one candidate out there for a progressive
voter.

There is only one candidate who has anything concrete to say
about any of the issues dearest to a progressive person's heart.
Only Nader has any substantial platform at all when it comes to
labour relations, the supralegal power of transnational
corporations, the flight of capital from the US industrial sector;
only Nader even admits that these things are major issues for
large numbers of people. Only Nader has anything solid to say
about environmental degradation; only Nader has any real
stance on corporate domination of media, suppression of
information, theft of the public airwaves, and many other very hot
topics that are on our minds these days. We live in times when
corporate power, not Federal or State power, is the most
invasive and frightening new force in most people's lives; only
Nader is even willing to admit that corporate power is anything
but wondrous and benign.

And frankly, only Nader has any credibility or integrity. Like him or
not, he's been consistently working for what he thinks is right for
the last 30 years. He's never been bought off, bribed, suborned,
co-opted, or watered down. He's never been caught with his
pants down and a startlingly youthful campaign aide in his lap.
And he's never been found with his pockets full of major stock
holdings in companies he just said something nice about in
public. For a fellow whose word carries a certain amount of
weight, who has some degree of celebrity, a little media
exposure, he behaves rather decently. Like an honest citizen, in
fact, trying doggedly to work in the public interest.

What a concept eh? A public figure, engaged in political life, who
actually behaves rather decently. After our last sorry 20 years of
sex scandals, sell-outs, violations of the Constitution, shabby
little wars serving shabby political agendas, and open bribery in
high places, it seems almost too good to be true. Is this guy for
real?

And it doesn't stop there: his running mate Winona LaDuke is
(a) a woman, (b) a woman honoured by both Ms and Time for
her leadership and vision, and (c) a Native American woman
who makes strong and unambiguous public statements about
indigenous land rights, the exploitation of women,
environmental injustice, and the need to re-enfranchise the poor
and marginalized people of this country in general. She's a
co-founder of the Indigenous Women's Network, and she
helped to lead a successful campaign that prevented the
massively destructive James Bay large-hydro development in
Canada. If Ivy League name-dropping impresses you, she just
happens to be a Harvard-educated economist as well. The only
woman we're used to seeing on the podium with a presidential
candidate is a Candidate's Wife; Winona is a refreshing change.

Her speech at the Beijing International Women's Conference is
a worthwhile read. To quote her very briefly on the subject of
indigenous women, "We, collectively, find that we are often in the
role of the prey to a predator society, whether for sexual
discrimination, exploitation, sterilization, absence of control over
our bodies, or being the subjects of repressive laws and
legislation in which we have no voice." Gee, she sounds rather
like a feminist to me.

Of course, at that same Beijing Conference, another politically
visible woman from the US was speaking; Democrat Hillary
Clinton stood up and said, "It is a violation of human rights
when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution."
In Iceland, on her speaking tour, she called for an end to the
international trade in women's bodies. She has publicly
condemned many abuses of women and girls. Hillary, in fact,
has often sounded like a fairly reliable feminist when in front of a
microphone. Pity she's not running as Gore's VP, right? Well,
maybe.

When I consider how very little she has had to say about her
husband's sexual misconduct, I get an uneasy feeling about her
much-touted feminism. Let's suppose you can overlook or
discount a charge of rape from 20 years ago; many feminists
can't, but let's suppose for the moment that you can. It's harder
to overlook the contemporary incidents, Clinton's sexual
harassment of campaign and White House staff. Raving
Republicans rightly pointed out that mainstream US feminists
were in a strangely forgiving mood when Clinton committed
offences even more blatant than Clarence Thomas's; and
contributing to the chorus of No Comments and feeble
defensiveness was Hillary herself. On the podium she can
declaim a pretty good line about women's rights; but on the
home front she hasn't the guts to divorce the guy for his
repeated infidelities, or even to make a public statement critical
of his lousy attitude to women. It's Stand By Your Man time,
apparently, when we get too close to home. To paraphrase the
immortal Hitch-Hiker's Guide, this is clearly some new
meaning of the word 'feminist' with which I was previously
unfamiliar.

So what's the point of this depressing digression?
Hillary-bashing is pretty boring; I actually don't have it in for
Hillary in particular, she's no worse than the average career
politician and a bit better than some; and so I'll leave off being
mean to her in just a moment. My point is that, just as with
Gore's soi-disant environmentalism, Ms Clinton's feminism
seems to be coming in a distant second to the advancement of
her political career. In sharp contrast, Winona LaDuke's activism
is her career. Just like Nader's activism is his career.

This is a significant difference, an important difference, for
people who are feeling tired of the Democrats -- tired of betrayal,
tired of hearing high and inspiring rhetoric that turns out to be
flak-written ad copy as sincere as a Hallmark card, talk that is
never walked and was never meant to be. People who actually
have principles and act on them -- people like Winona and
Ralph -- are an attractive novelty these days. A breath of fresh
air, in fact.

So it should be simple, right? Just vote for the guy who does
walk his talk, the guy who has some brains, some ethics, some
sincerity, genuine compassion for working people, genuine
loyalty to fundamental ideals like justice and democracy, and a
real live Outspoken Female Activist running mate who also
walks her talk. Should be an easy call for the average feminist,
no? But of course, in a rigged two-party system with a lot of big
money on the table, it's never that simple. Nader's a third-party
candidate, and we all know about third parties and the US
electoral system.

It's easy to sum up the "reasons why Nader can't win." I've been
hearing them recited lately in every tone of voice from dreary
despondency to spittle-flecked ranting. The Greens don't have
any money; he's got no media coverage; he entered the race too
late; no third-party candidate has ever won a US election; he's
not an insider and he hasn't been preparing for the last 20
years; he has no experience in elected office; he's too
self-righteous; he's too smart, the American people won't like
him; the public is stupid, they think everything is fine; everything
is fine, there's no place for reformers in a fat and happy
economy. And so on. I'm sure you've heard it all.

And to be honest, no matter how keen you are on the Greens,
it's hard to believe confidently that they are going to rush up from
behind and have a runaway victory at the eleventh hour. It would
be great, it would be a priceless moment in history for us all to
witness, but if you asked me to bet my life savings on it, I
wouldn't. I'm not saying it is flat-out impossible; just that the
odds are not real good.

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This is why there's a crisis of conscience. If Nader seemed
likely to win, there would be no question; every progressive in
the country, and some maverick conservatives, would have their
ballots all pre-marked right now. But if you think the Right
Candidate can't win, or that the odds are bad anyway, then
you're asking yourself, "Am I right to cast my vote for the Right
Candidate? Or should I be using my vote for the Wrong
Candidate, just to shore up the wall against the Worst
Candidate?" And that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, has to be
the Shrub, Dubya, the Lord High Executioner of the Lone Star
State. (Now, I don't really have to tell you everything that's wrong
with Dubya, right? If you haven't figured it out, go read Molly Ivins'
book.)

When Democrats sit down to tell you why you really should vote
for Gore instead of Bush, there's an awkward pause. What can
you say about Gore, really? I mean, what's to like?

Gore's lost any credibility he had as an "environmentalist." As
many have quipped, it's as if he never read that book of his, let
alone wrote it. He sat there in DC with his fearless leader Mr
Clinton and said "Nuffin" while our national forests were (are!)
being sold off at bargain basement prices to clearcutters; while
our environmental protection laws were bent and broken for the
convenience of corporate profit-hounds; while Detroit thumbed
its nose at air quality standards and fuel conservation; Mr
"Environmentalist" Gore reliably had Nuffin to say every time.
The US continued to pout and drag its feet in world
environmental councils and negotiations over greenhouse
gases and global warming; Mr Gore said and did Nuffin to
change our national stance. SUVs take over our roads, 30
thousand Americans die every year from air pollution; Mr Gore
says and does Nuffin.

Now, here you have a guy who goes to all the trouble, prior to an
election, to write a book (or have one written for him) telling us
all how concerned he is about our planetary environmental
crisis. Then after he gets elected -- when he's actually in a
position of high office, with the ear of the media and the spotlight
on his desk -- he says Nuffin so loudly that you can hear the
trees falling in the distant forests. You gotta wonder about that
guy's campaign promises this time around. You're gonna trust
this known poseur and liar?

This pretty much leaves his defenders and his party with Nuffin
to say also; but they have one trump card. Bush is so awful.
Bush is so scary. Bush is even more corrupt, even more cosy
with corporate power, than Gore. Gore's pro-death penalty?
Yeah, but Bush actually seems to get a kick out of signing the
warrants. Gore's a born-again who thinks gays are "abnormal"?
Yeah, but Bush's right-wing Christian buddies make Gore look
like a Unitarian Universalist. Gore's a rich boy from a rich family
with investments in companies who are messily involved in our
international policy? Yeah, but wait till you see what the Bush
clan and their interests add up to. Gore's a bit of a liar, a touch of
the sleazebag? You ain't seen nothin' folks, Bush is the
Godfather himself, with a colourful fantasy life as Attila the Hun.
There's just one wonderful, irresistible, charming, delightful,
untarnished thing about Gore: he isn't Bush.

We may remain kind of unconvinced. These are differences of
degree we're talking about here, not differences of kind. Is he
really all that different? Is one rich dishonest guy much different
from any other rich dishonest guy? Would a Bush regime be
able to accelerate and encourage corporate mergers and the
consolidation of power and wealth any faster than the Clinton
regime has? Would a Bush invasion of Iraq have killed even
more civilians? Would a Bush embargo of Iraq be killing even
more people than Clinton's still is? Could a Bush regime
possibly waste even more money than Clinton is wasting on the
pathetic sequels to Star Wars?

Would a Bush refusal to discuss electoral reform be any more
final than Clinton's was? If a Bush administration sites a toxic
waste dump in your town, is it any more toxic than if Gore put it
there -- as Clinton did in Ohio, after promising voters there that
he would not -- ? Are 45 million Americans without health care
any more without health care if Bush is president, than they
already are under Clinton? And are the homeless people any
more homeless under Bush than they are now under Clinton, or
than they would be under Gore? How can they have less than
they've got, when they've got Nuffin?

Will Bush's presumable outright refusal to allow us access to
RU-486 be substantially different from Clinton's or Gore's 8-year
foot-dragging and temporizing in making it available to US
women? Either way, we still don't have access to it. A difference
that makes no difference, as the old saying goes, is no
difference.

But no, there's a difference, there's this one difference, insist the
Gore defenders. There's just this one difference you can't brush
off. Say what you will about them, the Democrats still defend a
woman's right to choose.

Specifically, Gore's advocates say that Bush, if elected, will
promptly pack the Supreme Court with Bible-thumping
Neanderthals who will do their damnedest to speed up the
erosion of women's right to safe and legal abortions (an erosion
which hasn't slowed down noticeably during Clinton's
Democratic presidency, we have to note in passing). At least
Clinton devoted some FBI resources to protecting clinics from
mad right-wing assassins. Reagan just grinned vacantly and
looked the other way, and Bush will do the same. Worse, Bush
owes favours to some very rich people with some very weird
ideas about women's rightful place in the world. "Afghanistan
isn't that far away," as one very sincere gentleman wrote to me
recently. Keep an eye on those Promise Keepers, folks, and
dust off your copy of The Handmaid's Tale.

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So here's the rub. Obviously the Democrats, running scared with
a candidate who's barely saleable (except to corporate backers,
of course), need to capture some electorate. Time to woo the
women's vote (gee, have we seen this happen before?) or
rather, to threaten it, to browbeat it, to bully women into voting for
Gore by painting an apocalyptic picture of what will happen if we
don't.

If Bush wins, say the Democratic honchos and honchas, Roe
will be overturned. Abortion will once again be illegal in the US.
(And if you take the "Afghanistan" fellow literally, this will shortly
be followed by a loss of the franchise, imposition of the veil,
deprivation of medical care, stonings in the streets, and
purdah.) And it will be all your fault if you didn't vote for Gore. You
will be personally responsible for every woman who dies from
some lousy self-induced or back-alley abortion, because you
irresponsibly and stupidly threw your vote away when you could
have helped us to fight the Antichrist!

On the other hand: if the Green party doesn't get at least five
percent of the national vote, they will lose their chance to get at
least $12 million in matching funds from the Federal
government to use in 2004. Without some more capital to buy
some more media coverage and to fuel some more outreach,
the Greens are going to have a hard time keeping it together.
The two-party system that's stifling US political life, keeping this
country in a state of social stagnation and under the thumb of an
almost-hereditary ruling class, is really tough to crack. The
Greens need those votes, to get that money, to strengthen their
party, to give us some kind of freedom of choice in future
elections. Or we could be stuck with these same two
rich-people's-parties for another how many years?

If we cast our votes for Gore then we do, in a sense, tacitly
endorse the rule of the super-rich, the blatant corruption, the
warmongering, the lying-cheating-and-stealing that has
distinguished our most recent Democratic presidency only
slightly less than that of its Republican predecessor. Not
appealing. Revolting, in fact. But if we cast a vote for Nader, we
feel a sense of risk; will Bush win because of my vote?

I'm no Pollyanna myself. If Bush is elected, he may indeed pack
the Supreme Court at the behest of his buddies and his
bankrollers. They may indeed overturn Roe. If that happens,
there will indeed be lives lost. There will be suffering. A certain
number of American women will go to jail for providing or
attempting abortions, a certain number will die from
incompetent abortions. Wealthy women, of course, will continue
to have access to safe abortions.

But under a Gore administration that continues along the lines
dictated by Wall Street, the lines to which the Clinton
administration has obediently hewn, millions of women will
have no medical coverage to pay for an abortion; millions of
women do not live near any of the few remaining hospitals that
offer abortion services in the US. Wealthy and
upper-middle-class women will continue to have access to safe
abortions. Poor women and working class women will have
unwanted children, or will risk their lives with amateur abortions
or quack abortionists.

Looks like we have a choice between only wealthy women
having access to safe abortions . . . or both wealthy and well-off
women having access to safe abortions. Real meaningful
choice, eh? Talk about the lesser of two evils!

Here is my own moral dilemma. The freeing of women from
brood-mare slavery hinges on women's ability to prevent
pregnancy, and when necessary, to terminate unwanted
pregnancy. I'm not denying for one second that this is a
fundamental feminist issue. But surely it's not a fundamental
feminist solution to ensure this freedom only for women above a
certain income level, preserving "rights" which in practise only
the wealthy and the well-off can exercise.

What does it mean to define this constrained choice -- between
access to safe abortions for a slightly narrower, or a slightly
broader, set of fairly privileged American womanhood -- as the
only choice that matters? Does it take priority over all other
considerations of social justice for all American women? and
what about all those people in other countries in the world as
well, whose lives are affected, often ruined, by American
commercial empire, aka our foreign policy? As feminists, can
we persuade ourselves to vote for the continuation of our
government-by-wealth which yearly condemns hundreds of
thousands of people to death, millions to privation and
disease? When we recall that women are foremost among
those millions?

When we are told that Gore is the only candidate for the feminist
voter to consider, are we really being told that Gore is the only
candidate for the wealthy or upper-middle-class feminist voter? I
have to wonder. And I have to admire the political savvy of the
boys who have managed to back us into this corner.

Working-class feminists, poverty activists, or feminists who feel
a loyalty to all women regardless of class, are being put in an
invidious situation here; asked to ignore all other
considerations, betray our loyalty to the working class and the
poor, postpone all our concerns about peace, justice, and
planetary survival, and vote the corporate ticket in order to
preserve access to abortion for what looks more and more like
a privileged few among us in either case. A larger privileged few
with access to legal abortions, or a very tiny privileged few with
access to top-dollar illegal ones; is this a difference that makes
no difference? Or is the upholding of Roe essential, no matter
how restricted the numbers of women actually able to exercise
the legal right it protects?

What's Roe worth to ya? That's what the Dems are asking us,
with cynical confidence, holding Roe hostage for our complicity
in their other crimes against women.

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As feminists we are used to, and sick'n'tired of, the call to
"postpone" our feminist agenda in the urgency of a larger cause.
If the Democratic candidate for office is anti-abortion, or ignores
the issue (remember McGovern?) we're supposed to vote for
him anyway; after all, it's "selfish" to put specific women's
issues ahead of national issues like stopping the war or fighting
poverty -- and of course we mustn't let those Republicans win!

In other words, if abortion rights are not what the Dems are
selling in any particular election, then both personal and media
bullying will be directed against this particular feminist priority,
stigmatizing feminists for having too narrow a political vision.
But when it's the only card they have left to play, all of a sudden
the Dems are more-feminist-than-thou-ing it all over the op/ed
pages, telling us that the one and only issue on which we
should base our voting decision is the preservation of Roe.

That's today. Today, when the Democrats instruct women in how
we should vote, the call is to narrow and specialize our feminist
agenda to one issue, to make that our only cause. We are now
being wooed as a single-issue special interest group, and the
larger polity be damned.

But we have known for decades that feminism is by its nature
not a "special interest" politics, but a consistent and inclusive
political and ethical stance. Women come in all colours, so
racism is a feminist issue. Women bear the greatest burden,
suffer the most, in poverty and deprivation; so poverty is a
feminist issue. Women are consistently underpaid, sexually
harassed on the job, denied promotion, exploited; so labour
rights are a feminist issue. Women suffer most in war-stricken
countries; peace is a feminist issue. Women's reproductive
systems are sensitive to persistent toxins; environmental
degradation is a feminist issue. Women make less money than
men, and are slipping into poverty faster than men; affordable
health care and housing are feminist issues. Women are
mothers, or at least all mothers are women; child care, child
support, and quality of life for children are feminist issues.

There is hardly any social justice issue that does not bear
directly upon women and therefore rightfully engage the
attention of feminists. Even the corporate new world order, the
malfeasance of the IMF and World Bank, the machinations of
the WTO, all bear harder on women around the world; it is the
women who are locked into the sweatshops, exploited in the
brothels, exported as mail order brides. The prevailing
GNP/GDP method of assessing and reporting national wealth
and productivity erases women's work and women's worth; even
the way governments do their book-keeping is a feminist issue.
Feminists have been writing and campaigning and struggling
on all these fronts for decades.

And on all these issues, the Democrats have failed and failed
and failed again. They have refused to treat women and
women's rights as anything but expendable and irrelevant, very
low indeed on the priority list as compared to really important
stuff like corporate profit and political gamesmanship. We are
being asked to vote for people who have betrayed us time and
time again. They got some nerve, these guys.

Anyway, what the Democrats are asking of -- or demanding from
-- women voters today is to forget every feminist issue except
Roe. If you vote for us, for the corporate establishment, they tell
us -- if you are good girls -- we will not take Roe away. But you
must not disobey your kindly masters by voting for that other guy.
(You know, the guy who actually has something substantive and
positive to say on all those other feminist issues, the guy who
actually takes women seriously enough to share the rostrum
with one... and by the way, who supports abortion rights as well.)
If you disobey us, the not-so-kindly masters will get into power
and then you'll really catch hell.

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Well, no matter how angry we may feel about this hectoring from
people who have betrayed us time and again, it's not an easy
call.

Bush is evil, that's pretty obvious. Gore is almost as evil, that's
also pretty obvious. They're both rich boys who don't give a
damn about anything but how their investments and their
friends' investments are doing -- that's glaringly obvious. Any
comparison with these two white-collar criminals makes Nader
come away looking like Honest Abe Lincoln -- also pretty
obvious. But alas, it doesn't end there.

If you believe the Doomsayers for Gore, then the choice you're
faced with as a feminist voter is a classic moral dilemma. It's
the moral dilemma of, let's say, the Resistance fighter.

You know the scenario, right? You've read about occupied
France or occupied Viet Nam or occupied Anywhere. Or at least
you've seen the movies. Your country is occupied by Bad Guys.
You want to run away and join the Resistance -- join the
underdogs, fight the good fight, get a few licks in at the people
who are ruining your life and everyone else's. BUT. If you get
caught and they find out who you are, they'll kill your entire family.
They'll probably do some pretty nasty things to those you love
before killing them; and that's not even counting what they're
likely to do to you.

So you're in this moral dilemma; if you do what your conscience
says is the right thing to do -- join the resistance, make the
gesture, take that potshot at the great and powerful -- then you
take the risk that you individually, or the resistance collectively,
will lose. If you lose, your actions may bring harm to others that
you care about. They may even blame you and hate you for
having "caused" this harm. And your conscience also tells you
that it's not fair for others to suffer for your actions. No matter
what the Hollywood version says, the moral character of
Resistance fighters is very much up for debate. Some of their
surviving relatives and friends still see them as self-indulgent,
egotistical wannabe heroes, making their grand gestures at
everyone else's expense. Others simply see them as Heroes.

This is the moral dilemma which the doomsayers have set up
for feminist and female voters. If you vote for Nader you are
increasing, by your tiny little pico-percentage, the risk of a Bush
victory; and if Bush wins and all the threats that are made about
his winning come true, then women could be deprived of legal
abortions; and that would definitely be harm to people you care
about. Yet, the other horn of the dilemma is also a sharp pointy
one: if you vote for Gore, you are endorsing a corrupt and
increasingly repressive political system which is also harming
women here and abroad, and you are diminishing the chance of
any successful challenge to that system ever being possible, by
weakening the showing of the Green party in this historic
election. There's a lot of money for the Green party riding on this
vote.

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Did you think I was going to tell you how to vote? You gotta be
kidding. I wouldn't presume to do that. All I'm trying to work out
here, for my sake as much as anyone else's, is the nature of the
Nader Dilemma. I'm trying to summarize all the smoke and
flames and competing claims, and bring it down to the bare
bones of the issues. People are feeling very, very passionate
about this, you know. There are progressive-type people who
think Nader should just get the hell out of the race -- now this is
a real tribute to the political deadlock that the corporate backers
have engineered here, when progressives want the only
progressive candidate to drop out!. There are also
progressive-type people who are trying to get every person they
know to vote for Nader. Both are equally sincere. Friendships
are being endangered here, heated rhetoric is being
exchanged. It's the most exciting election in years, actually.

It all comes back down to the original argument at the head of
this article. You have to figure out how convinced you are by
each item on the list, and how you assess your particular voting
situation. (Just for fun, I tried to come up with a fairly brief
response to each item on that list -- the soundbite version of this
lengthy essay! (see: http://www.nostatusquo.com/Nader/clarke2.html )
Aside from the cynical Democrat spinmeisters who are just
trying to bully you into voting for Their Guy, there are lots
of good people out there who are deeply convinced by the
"Nader Kills Roe" argument, and they will quite sincerely tell
you that voting for Nader is antifeminist.

Obviously, I personally don't believe this. If I did, I wouldn't be
writing about a dilemma, because there wouldn't be any
dilemma (in my mind anyway). If voting for Nader were patently
antifeminist, no one would be agonizing over this decision. But
to cast a vote for the only candidate with a social justice
platform, the only candidate who addresses such a long list of
issues all affecting the quality of women's lives -- this can hardly
be called "antifeminist". To vote for Nader means that you've
wrestled with the dilemma, and with difficulty decided that you
think that supporting the Green Party now, despite a degree of
risk, is the best investment you can make in a decent future for
women in this country and elsewhere in the world. No one can
do more with her (or his) vote than that.

Those who vote for Gore, because they have come to a different
conclusion after wrestling with the dilemma, are also trying to do
their best. It would be foolish to say (as the Democrats and the
pundits surely will) that a Gore victory implies the whole-hearted
support of the American people for another four years of
presidential malfeasance, corporate domination, and rich folks
generally running riot... or that the war on Colombia will be all
your fault because you voted for Gore. That kind of
blame-throwing is silly.

Most feminists who vote for Gore will do so, figuratively
speaking, with a gun held to their heads. The questions for all of
us now are, Is the gun loaded or not? and How do I feel about
voting with a gun held to my head?

:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:

Essay by D. A. Clarke, July 2000
Written for Feminists for Nader
http://www.nostatusquo.com/Nader/index.html

Send responses and comments to the author
c/o votenader@nostatusquo.com

If you are interested in what feminists have to say who are
actually planning to vote for Nader, visit the personal comments
page: http://www.nostatusquo.com/Nader/guestbook.html

SOME OTHER LINKS RELEVANT TO THE NADER DILEMMA:

A good Nader campaign website:
http://www.nader2000.org/

A Vote for Nader is Not a Vote for Bush
by Alexander Cockburn of The Nation:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/072000-104.htm

Bush and Gore Make Me Wanna Ralph by Michael Moore:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/07192000.html

Interview with Winona LaDuke by Alicia Montgomery of Salon:
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/07/13/laduke/index.html

:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:
Thanks to that tremendously creative troublemaker, instigator
and rabble-rouser Nikki Craft, who coerced me into writing this
essay. http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/Nikki/
:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:

Legal Malarkey: This article is copyright 2000 by D. A. Clarke. My
intention in this copyright is more like copyleft, as follows:
Please feel free, or even encouraged, to forward this text, copy it,
reproduce it mechanically, and so forth. However, don't alter the
text or misrepresent the authorship. Any copies you distribute
must be complete and properly attributed (unless specific
permission is granted to do otherwise) and preferably should
preserve these end-notes. If you quote any part of it in some
other essay or article, please provide the URL to the original so
your readers can refer to it. You're welcome to reprint it in paper
media without charge or restriction, but copyright remains with
me and is not for sale. In other words: be ethical, and have fun.

Want a text version of this article for emailing? Want to be added
to the Feminists For Nader mailing list? Any other general
questions? Want to tell us an interesting story related to this
article or give us feedback about our website? Write to
votenader@nostatusquo.com

On our website at the bottom of the supporters page there
are various Nader icons you can post on your website and
html coding supplied that will automatically link to
Feminists For Nader. On the same page there is a list of
other things you can do to support the Nader/LaDuke
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We'd love to hear when this article is reproduced elsewhere so
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