I voted Nader in 2000 and do not regret it. Because on the fundamental economic issues, the GOP and Clinton Democrats had morphed into one. I really could care less about affirmative action, abortion or gays or drilling in Alaska or flag burning, even though i hew to all the politically correct elite liberal positions on those issues. But i care most about wages, jobs, and the hollowing out of the middle class, rural/urban poverty and corporate globalization.
Whether it be on NAFTA/WTO, deregulating the banking industry (Overturning of Glass-Steagall), protecting the accounting industry (Securities Litigation Act--which Clinton did veto, but was overriden with help from the likes of Kerry), deregulating telecomm, Clinton did not do much to stop the spread of corporate power and its stranglehold on our democracy and Gore's "people vs powerful" just rang hollow to us true progressives after 8 years of triangulation.
The cattle ranchers have won a billion dollar settlement from IBP. IBP controls a huge percentage of the cattle buying industry. Ranchers have been reduced to serfs essentially, and these guys are fed up with both the GOP and Dems for not doing anything for them. So now the courts are doing for ranchers what the political system has failed to do:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040217/ts_alt_afp/us_food_farm_tyson_040217
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The Clinton administration didn't lift a finger in its antitrust dept. to stop any of the corporate mergers (IBP now owned by Tyson!!). So i can't really say on this issue, Bush is any worse. The Freedom to Farm act is an abysmal failure and a complete sell-out of our Democratic legacy to rural America who no longer vote for us. Come Nov., i'll vote for the Dem, because of foreign policy issues and to stop the neocons, but this is to let you people know why some of us see little fundamental difference between the two parties.
great article on how Smithfield, another evil meat packer, is now taking over Poland...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4101-2004Feb1.html