Media Musings: Is Nader like Thomas Paine?
Thomas Paine was on “Meet the Press” Sunday.
The master of powerful argumentation in pamphlet form, Paine is one of the greatest heroes of the American Revolution, relegated now to the back pages of our history. His greatest problem was he was a brilliant contrarian and fearless truth teller. Those qualities still bring about denunciation, attacks, and bitter reprisals to this hour in the world, including the United States.
In the bitter winter of December 1776, Washington’s troops were ready to leave the battle, bordering on total disintegration and defeat. Then, “The American Crisis, Number I” arrived, written within the passion of Paine’s mind, with words that ring down our corridors of memory: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Washington ordered the entire pamphlet read to the troops at Valley Forge. The army regrouped, closed ranks, and the rest is our nation.
Before that, his “Common Sense,” more than any publication, paved the way for the Declaration of Independence. It sold 500,000 copies in eight months. He took no profits.
His work in Europe was as vital, as he supported the uprising of the French people in the Revolution and wrote another masterpiece, “Rights of Man I and II” in 1791 and 1792 respectively. He argued for popular education relief of the poor, pensions for the aged, and public works for the unemployed, financed by a progressive income tax. The book was a sensation, went into eight printings and was a must-read in America. (Sounds like a New Deal, doesn’t it?)
In religion he was a deist and opposed organized religion. He was immediately called an atheist and attacked by the orthodox. Paine died in 1809, still battling power, privilege, and religious superstition, in poverty and racked with bouts of excessive drinking.
So now we come to the modern Thomas Paine, Ralph Nader. For five decades he has spent his fortune attacking vested interests of all kinds. So, there Nader sat, with Tim Russert, lean at 70, aiming his verbal barrages at power, privilege, and the betrayal of the American people by the political parties.
After announcing that again he rides into battle for the White House, Nader’s still resonant attacks point to corruption of the entire political process, which is now owned by Wall Street, itself often corrupted. Then he moves on: the environment is being savaged by those same interests, the poor are voiceless, millions of children live in poverty, the working poor rise in numbers every year, and medical care for the elderly is a tattered patchwork.
The two major parties pushed Nader to the sidelines last time and he had to fight to be heard. This time, going as a pure independent without the Green Party, they will be able to marginalize him even more.
Which is a tragedy of no small proportion.
Over the course of the centuries since Paine showed the Western World a new vision of freedom and independence, the Supreme Court and progressive legislatures have taken the hope and hollow words of the First Amendment and made them alive, freeing speech and ideas.
Why do the Democrats so fear this man?
Is Nader really that big a threat, or will he, in modern First Amendment law and philosophy, force the debates, if he is allowed, to stop yelling half-truths and slogans and meet him in open forums where ISSUES and SOLUTIONS and IDEAS are enjoined?
So, as the gathering storm of political warfare can been seen on our horizon, remember how much we have lost to big media, cable news shouts and harangues, big money, and the airing of ideas. If they had allowed our modern Thomas Paine to make his case, what an interesting election it would have been. It won’t happen.
(Ed Kimbrell is a professor in MTSU’s School of Journalism.)