October 25, 2000

11:17 PM

Has there been a negative Nader thread here yet?
"According to his former editor David Sanford, Nader is a hypochondriac who refuses dinner invitations from anyone with pets, because he thinks cats cause leukemia, and simply hates dogs."
There are even crazy quotes.
posted by thirteen (32 comments total)

via Riothero (whom I think is going insane)
posted by thirteen at 11:19 PM on October 25, 2000

Was david Sandford the ONLY source for this? Where are the supporting sources?
posted by Neale at 11:33 PM on October 25, 2000

Ahh, they have links that skewer everyone else on the main page.
posted by thirteen at 11:41 PM on October 25, 2000

I would rather vote for a hypochondriac who refuses dinner invitations from anyone with pets than a half-wit corporate pawn who does not know the meaning of the work hypochondriac.

I won't vote for Gore either.
posted by DragonBoy at 11:49 PM on October 25, 2000

Well said, DragonBoy.
posted by Optamystic at 11:58 PM on October 25, 2000

Okay, so the guy isn't perfect. Who is? So the party leaves a lot to be desired. Which doesn't? If what we're after is perfection, we're talking about religion not politics. I'm for Nader because he most closely represents my views -- not because I agree with everything the guy has ever said or done.
posted by leo at 12:04 AM on October 26, 2000

Well said Leo, of course that is what everyone thinks no matter who they vote for.
I was pleased there is so little on Browne, but I suspect he is a pretty boring guy.
Some of the stuff on Nader's page is shocking, if true, but other misdeeds are easily understandable to me as normal fallaway/friction when dealing with strong personalities.
posted by thirteen at 12:16 AM on October 26, 2000

The page in question was linked from nader.org at one point. They recently redesigned — like that last few days — and all the external links are gone. So he knows about it, probably even mocked it a bit by linking to it.

I can personally refute the PIRG claim, though. They’re just not accurately describing how student fees work, at least, in my experience.

[Nader inside scoops] Full page ad in the NYT on Friday (10/27) and Nader is possibly, most likely, quite probably, going to be at Cooper Union (NYC) on saturday. Just can’t confirm it quite yet.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 12:30 AM on October 26, 2000

Sorry, thirteen, but it's been decades since I voted for a candidate because he represented my views. The last candidate I really wanted to vote for was Gerry Ford in 1976.

Since then, I've always pinched my nose and made my choice based on the lesser of evils. I'll be voting for Gore because I think a vote for Nader is wasted (and I think he's a flake, but then I remember him from the 60's and 70's) and because Bush is a blithering idiot. At least Gore's IQ is three digits.

Gore doesn't represent my views, but he comes closer than either of the other two. Not very close, but closer. And it may surprise people to learn that I trust him more than the other two. There's a really good reason why I don't trust Nader at all:

I hate Nader and have since I was in college. I've never forgiven him for managing to set up an organization at my university which legally extorted about a hundred dollars from me which I could not get back. Nader decided to finance his efforts at the time (1970) by a tax on students, established through a series of "PIRG"s, so-called "Public Interest Research Groups". The particular one that got my money was OSPIRG at Oregon State University, and they funnelled it up to the national organization. I was not given a choice to contribute; it was simply deducted from my student fees, which would have been lower without the deduction. I didn't have a lot of money then. It made a difference. (I lived in a trailer house and my rent was $35/month. $100 was a lot of money.)

I considered that despicable and unethical, and in my mind it outweighs anything I've heard Al Gore accused of.

posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:42 AM on October 26, 2000

Uh, Al Gore was the one who originally brought up Willie Horton for political reasons...that alone makes him worse than Nader in my book!

posted by black8 at 1:48 AM on October 26, 2000

Both soliciting monks and calling from the White House for illegal campaign contributions seemed fairly unethical to me.

But, Steven, I understand your anger toward the PIRGs. We got so sick of their grandstanding and arrogance at the UO we voted them off campus my last year. They’re still there, but they don’t get any student fees.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 1:59 AM on October 26, 2000

Steven, I hear where you're coming from. I worked for MassPIRG in the summer of 1994 - one of the worst jobs I've ever had in my life. I joined before I really realized what I'd be doing (I had just graduated High School). I am NOT the type of person who can ask other people for money. That's why my college Web development company was never profitable - I was doing a lot for very little.

I was afraid daily at MassPIRG for not reaching my "quota" (which I think was $75 a night). Extremely stressful until I washed out and started writing for the teen section of the local paper making $50 an article.

With regard to your student fees going to MassPIRG, at most colleges and Universities the student government decides what student fees will go to which organizations. So if you had an issue, you should have blamed and challenged the organization that existed supposedly to represent your interests.

Though your comments remind me of the UMass Republican Club who were up in arms about their fees going to the UMass pagan organization, the GLBT org and other liberal organizations.
posted by bkdelong at 6:09 AM on October 26, 2000

I definately feel these quotes will substancially affect the way I vote this year, especially considering the first one on the page is a JOKE by Dave Barry.
posted by Doug at 7:01 AM on October 26, 2000

Dave is running this year, isn't he?
posted by frykitty at 7:22 AM on October 26, 2000

Because of his negative personal attacks, I am no longer voting for Dave Barry.
posted by gyc at 9:03 AM on October 26, 2000

How come nobody is talking about Riothero, I think we need to stage an intervention.
posted by thirteen at 9:30 AM on October 26, 2000

Hey man, if you don't like what PIRG does, you can fill out a form and get your 5 or 6 bucks in student fees back.

Please tell me where the form is for me to get my fees out of the sports teams that are wearing uniforms made in some chinese sweatshop! What PIRG gets pales by comparison.

PIRG is a great campus resource for sweatshop info, and other issues that are important to consumers. Don't pick on PIRG. PIRG is cool.
posted by snakey at 11:29 AM on October 26, 2000

They make the student body pay for the athletes uniforms? That would piss me off too.
posted by thirteen at 12:05 PM on October 26, 2000

Riothero clearly is going off his onion, thirteen. In fact, considering some of his recent rants, I'll go you one better:
I think Riothero IS Nader. Consider:

bullshit like this is straight from the lab and god loves you and the government doesn't want war and it's the best movie since repo man and if i stoppe drugging the world might end anyway and breatharianism and immortality for anything

I'm pretty sure I've heard these exact words emanating from Nader's automaton head in one of his flat-affect speeches.
posted by Skot at 12:12 PM on October 26, 2000

Even if Nike pays for most, or even all of the uniforms, why shouldn't I be able to get my money out in protest?
posted by snakey at 12:12 PM on October 26, 2000

Snakey: I figure the athletes should pay for their own uniforms. If the uniforms are donated I don't see what you mean,you are not out any money. If anything you would be profiting from Nike's largess. If it works I would like to try it on a larger scale and get all the money I have ever paid in taxes that was spent on the last 12 military interventions that I did not approve of. It burns me up that every cent I will ever pay in taxes was blown on a single missile launched to blow up that aspirin factory in Africa. Won't even pay for the whole missle.
I am finding it hard to concentrate today, maybe I need an intervention too.
posted by thirteen at 12:31 PM on October 26, 2000

I love the mystery of the Luxury house, it sounds like a Scooby-Do episode:

"Zoinks! You're Ralph Nader and you live like a king!" Ralph and Hef walk in and sit down on some big ass cushy couches and out come two playboy bunnies serving up martini's. Possibly a cameo of Dean Martin tossed in there.

nalphnadersucks.com or nadersucks.com is set up by people who wanted to give nader a taste of his own medicine when he proposed that everyone should take a domain of something they dont like and add sucks to it to criticize them. I logged in and saw a bunch of "Nader is a loser vote Browne" crap, while I posted how much I loved this idea and though it trashes my guy it defends free speech and easy access to criticisms.

There was a link to the realchange people and there was little discussion about how trivial and false those articles were. But mostly it was just hate spewing which really defeats the purpose of the site and gives people like ICANN more incentive to get rid of "sucks" sites under some trademark bullshit. Good job guys.

You're not going to change my mind by posting "Nader is an asshole, dudez."


posted by skallas at 12:36 PM on October 26, 2000

But think, man! Nike's logo all over the team that I'm paying for. Games on TV give Nike free advertising, and like it or not, my money is being spent supporting sweat shop labor!

I don't like that one bit, and have absolutely no recourse to get my money out. And yet Steve complains about PIRG -- you really gotta wonder about that.
posted by snakey at 12:43 PM on October 26, 2000

Wouldn't it be easier to ban advertisments on student athletes uniforms? No advertising for them. Or, again, make the people who wear the uniforms pay for them.
I know next to nothing about this PIRG, but it does not sound like it has anything to do with the actual education people are paying money to receive. Voluntary payment seems like a good way to fund such things. You should not be paying for the stuff you don't want, Steven should not pay for the stuff he does not want, and in the end we are all happy.
posted by thirteen at 1:25 PM on October 26, 2000

I disagree. A university is the kind of place where these differing viewpoints should be expressed. Whether it's PIRG or the young republicans, Free speech is free speech.

I think student fees should go to a range of organizations that express different viewpoints. But should student fees support human rights violations? Absolutely not.
posted by snakey at 1:48 PM on October 26, 2000

The student government at Oregon State only had a minimal amount of control over its budget, as strange as it may sound. Large portions of it were given to the football team, and other allocations went other places. And OSPIRG got their cut.

The thing was that the student government were only allowed to change any budget allocation by 5% in any year either way over what it had been the previous year.

The whole thing got so stinky that at University of Oregon, someone ran for Student President on the platform of abolishing student government and eliminating the fee paid to it.

And he won. But the University wouldn't let him do it. We at OSU all cheered for him.

No, I still consider OSPIRG's funding to be both unscrupulous and unethical. They always justified it as being an organization that would work on things in our interest, but if they ever actually did anything like that while I was in college, I never heard about it. Actually it was just a shakedown for the national organization.

So even if Nader actually had a chance, I would never vote for him.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 2:06 PM on October 26, 2000

It's not free speech if Steven has to pay for it. I think you are right, those viewpoints should be expressed, but they should not be given a free ride. If you believe in something enough to go out and spout off, you should care enough to fund your own endeavors.
And again, you should not have to finance human rights violations. There were no teams of anykind where I went to school (I am not sure what the High School uniform deal was) so I am not familiar with any disturbance regarding them. Are you upset that part of you tuition funds the buses and stadiums?
posted by thirteen at 2:16 PM on October 26, 2000

By your logic, should we shut down the school newspaper? It expresses controversial viewpoints. Ban student monies to build sculptures or pay for art around campus? Student funds pay for these things as well.
posted by snakey at 2:39 PM on October 26, 2000

I am not sure how a student newspaper is funded. I do think the money you pay to your school stops being student money, and becomes tuition. I do not think the school should be spending your tuition money on uniforms or sculptures or political groups. They have a obligation to keep your tuition affordable. Mandatory fees to fund things you do not believe in are inherently unfair, be it sweatshops, or the socialist lunch league. If a group cannot survive without extorted money, it was not of much value anyway.
I thought student government used volunteered time and effort to raise money to buy gifts (like statues) for the school, am I wrong? Anything not given freely is stolen, and is not something to be proud of.
I am so loving this spellcheck.
posted by thirteen at 4:05 PM on October 26, 2000

The "student newspapers" at every school I've ever attended, and every one my wife has ever attended, have been self-supporting through advertising dollars.

Athletic programs at many, but not all, institutions are self-supporting. Those that aren't are usually part of the university's overall budget, not student fees, and at those schools it's more likely that the student athletes are both students and athletes rather than major-league dreamers.

PIRG, however, is a political organization, clear and simple, and used its influence to institute "negative check-off" fees at most campuses. In Florida, this fee structure was actually thrown out by the courts - if PIRG wanted student funding, it had to get it like every other student group.

Basically, PIRG's funding scheme was a way for one student organization to claim special status and dupe all those who were less vigilant into funding them. For an organization that supposedly represents the public, it worked a nefarious scam at the public's expense.

--

Anything not given freely is stolen, and is not something to be proud of.

This is why I always vote for tax cuts. Even if I want to pay the tax, 49% might not.

posted by mikewas at 6:02 PM on October 26, 2000

Actually, having worked at a college newspaper, I can tell you that only a small amount of the real cost of the paper is paid for by advertising. And I know my student fees paid into that stadium, and will continue to do so for upkeep, etc.

The real issue here is not whether or not student fees support speech on campus -- they do. But whose speech are these funds supporting?

The big corporations license exclusive deals to plaster McDonalds, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola logos everywhere on a campus maintained with student fees. And the students? Where is our speech? The enemies of PIRG are missing the real problem: corporate control over the universities.

PIRG is a small step to stopping this madness, and to provide some kind of balance, it should be supported with student fees.


posted by snakey at 8:25 AM on October 27, 2000