"A VOTE FOR NADER IS A VOTE FOR BUSH."

If I wanted to vote for Bush, I'd vote for Bush.

Suppose I didn't vote at all. Would I then be voting for Bush?

No. The above argument is a conformist sledgehammer meant to discourage people from voting specifically for Nader.

"Nader is an egomaniac."

Kerry is an egomaniac. Bush is an egomaniac. Yet nobody describes them in those terms. Are we only to vote for pro-war war criminals?

The point is that hiring a smarter President to enact stupid war policies will not save America from catastrophe. Ethel the Blog recently spotted Mark Weisbrot's article on the Federal debt. To repeat:

The post-9/11 age of American empire will close not with a bang but a whimper, suffocated by the laws of arithmetic, the constraints of public financing, and the limits of foreign borrowing. What remains to be determined is how much the U.S. will pay -- in lost and ruined lives, as well as bills for future generations -- and how many enemies it will make throughout the world, before coming to grips with reality.

So, Kerry or Bush, we get a crisis. Also see Engdahl's article, in a more panicky tone. Meanwhile, most of America goes blithely along, consuming the planet, pretending Kerry and Bush are the only two choices, thinking the future will be like the past except everyone will be older. Eh?