THE NEW YORK TIMES VERSUS NADER--AND DEMOCRACY

Edward S. Herman

In its editorial, "Mr. Nader's Misguided Crusade" (June 30), the New York Times assails Nader's candidacy and campaign on grounds that are partly fraudulent and misleading (as I describe below). But it is also clear that this attack is based ultimately on the owners-editors satisfaction with the political and economic status quo, which Nader is calling into question. The editors claim that the two parties offer voters a "clear-cut choice," so that there is "no driving logic for a third-party candidacy this year." It follows for them that Nader is just an ego driven "spoiler," even though it is conceded that he has a "right to run."

According to the Times, while Nader is close to Gore on the issues, he rejects him because Gore is "too much of an incrementalist." This misrepresents the serious differences on the issues, but it also ignores Nader's fundamental argument--that Gore and Bush are both hostages to big money, so that just as Clinton served the monied interests with only token gestures to the majority, Gore is sure to do the same. It is not Gore's incrementalism, but rather what Gore is likely to do given his and his party's financial obligations, that differentiates Nader from Gore.

In his excellent acceptance speech at the Green Party Convention on June 25, Nader made numerous suggestions for needed policy changes--resting on "peoples" rather than "corporate yardsticks"--that neither Gore nor Bush have addressed. Among other matters, Nader mentioned: (1) An ending to the support of foreign dictators and the introduction of "foreign policies that support the peasants and the workers for a change." (2) A sharp reduction of a bloated military budget that is badly out of control, a situation resting on the fact that weapons manufacturers "foist weapons systems on the Pentagon, working with a PAC-greased supine Congress." Nader would finally declare that long elusive "peace dividend" that will surely continue to escape Gore-Bush. (3) Labor laws that "facilitate the organization of trade unions" and that provide the kind of statutory "social wage" that most European countries have had in place for many years. (4) Major public investments in schools, health clinics, mass transit, drinking water systems and other services that directly benefit the majority. (5) An attack on inequality via a revised tax system that no longer serves the corporate elite. (6) An ending of the "epidemic of silent environmental violence," that rests on corporate domination, as in the continued subsidized logging of the national forests.

Across the board, Nader laid out a philosophy and program that was sensitive to majority and not corporate needs. He also stresses the importance of relieving America's children from "the most intense marketing onslaught in history" and the dangers of "giving too much power to the merchant mind...because its singular focus and its self-driven impulses run roughshod over the more non- commercial values that define a worthy society." This attack on advertising, consumerism, and the "let-the-fur-fly" individualism and business culture that business domination has spawned must have sent cold chills down the spines of the editorial board.

The New York Times never reproduced Nader's acceptance speech, although it has found endless space for trivial charges and counter-charges between Bush and Gore, fine details of their personal histories, and the status of the horse race between the approved duopolists. The blackout of Nader's speech made it easier for them to make the false editorial claim of little difference between Gore and Nader. But it also allowed the paper to keep the issues under cover.

One of Nader's campaign aims was to force a discussion of major issues that the duopolists and their backers don't want addressed. In their treatment of Nader the Times has gone to some pains to evade those issues and to make like all the real ones are being debated between Gore and Bush. Thus, in addition to failing to give its readers Nader's acceptance speech, it has covered his campaign with great superficiality, not discussing his criticisms and programs, but reporting on his financial wealth ("Nader Reports Big Portfolio in Technology," June 19), his attack on the corporate financing of the presidential debates (June 20), and the possible effects of his candidacy on Gore's electoral prospects (June 22). So the Times not only refuses to evaluate Nader as a candidate in terms of his relative integrity and intelligence, it is unwilling to allow him to discuss basic issues in a public forum. It says his "only realistic role" this year might be to throw the election to Bush--but that may be because the Times (and its confreres) will not permit Nader to serve an educational function.

But the Times's dismissal of Nader does rest in large measure on his policy positions and democratic philosophy. The editors are explicitly satisfied with the range of policy options Gore and Bush allow. When they claim that Gore and Nader are not far apart on environmental issues, they do not discuss whether or not Gore would follow up any promises with action--they do not review the Clinton record in this regard, or analyse the effects of financial dependency on the gaps between promises and realization. But that is because they don't care that much about the realization of any populist promises.

 The Times does allow that Nader is different on "trade" policy, with Nader the "protectionist" and Gore and Bush both allegedly better serving the interests of the working class. "Protectionism runs counter to much of what Mr. Nader has fought for over the years." (The editors note that foreign competition has had beneficial effects on the auto industry.) The Times bias here is long-standing, and so is their misrepresentation of the contesting positions and facts. The paper has long buried polls that show the working class opposed to the trade agreements that it and the corporate community favor. The editors can never put it this way, but essentially they claim that the working class doesn't recognize its own true interests, only big business and the Times do, and that by a coincidence once again what's good for GM is good for us all. They also distort Nader's position, which is not anti-trade, but is against rules that take the right to control foreign investment and trade out of the hands of democratic communities, in some cases giving them over to distant bureaucracies without democratic accountability.

The Times speaks for the plutocratic establishment; Nader opposes that establishment; and the paper's news and editorial position hostile to Nader follows accordingly. But it also notable, and a bit more sinister, that the paper will not even allow Nader's positions to be honestly presented and the issues he wants to address to be debated. The plutocracy reaches deeply into constraining the public's right to know.