Letter of the day: Nader an alternative to procorporate parties

Last update: February 8, 2008 - 5:40 PM

A Feb. 5 Star Tribune editorial claimed that Ralph Nader "undermines the democratic process" by running as an independent, anticorporate candidate and refusing to join the Democratic Party.

The reality is that it's the two major parties in this country that undermine the democratic process by excluding all independent voices who seek to challenge their monopoly on power and the corporate domination of our political system. In 2000, the Democrats and Republicans colluded to exclude Ralph Nader from the debates even though a majority of Americans said they wanted him in them. In 2004, the Democratic Party and its supporting organizations spent tens of millions of dollars on lawsuits to keep Nader off the ballot in a vain attempt to ensure that voters would have to vote for their prowar candidate John Kerry.

The editorial also claims that Nader would have been able to have a major influence if he had given a national convention keynote at the Democratic National Convention, like Barack Obama in 2004. There's no chance that the Democrats would ever, in a million years, allow Nader, who earned his reputation by attacking corporate interests -- the very same interests that provide the majority of funding to the Democratic Party -- to give a keynote speech at their convention.

There's nothing funny about the prostitution of our political system to big corporations. I sincerely hope that Ralph Nader will again run for president to provide a voice to those fed up with corporate power, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the $500 billion military budget, the criminal injustice system and racist war on drugs, and the enormous gaps between rich and poor in this country. If he doesn't run, big business and their two-party system will be laughing all the way to the bank.

DAN DIMAGGIO, MINNEAPOLIS;

CHAIRMAN, 2004 NADER FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY

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