deja vu all over again

The tragedy of Ralph Nader is that he's actually correct in the broader sense that the two-party system as currently practiced in this country is letting us down. It's just that the tactic he's choosing to protest that fact is about as effective as suicide bombing, in terms of having any hope of effecting change in the underlying dynamic of the situation. Like it or not, for right now the Left's priority is going to have to be getting the Right out of its position of power, and the nuances of the individual positions be damned; as has been said, the trouble with protests is that it depends upon the other side in the argument having a conscience to appeal to, and at the present time all indications have been that the American Right simply doesn't -- what they don't shout down, they ignore, and to hell with whatever the people may think of them for doing it. Sure, the Democrats are still beholden to corporate interests, but they at least have some sense of shame to work with. (And I say this having gone out of my way to vote for Nader in 1996 when he was a write-in candidate; since then he's sadly squandered much of the reputation he so painstakingly built up with his consumer advocacy by insisting upon playing this role of True Believer in races where the votes he gets end up working against the interests of the voters casting them for him.)

But enough of politics, I'm tired and I mostly wanted to mention that I finally mailed off my query package to Agent #1 on Saturday... They are alleged to report in one month on whether or not they'd like to see the actual manuscript.

(Well, okay, one more political bit: what's this business of amending the Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to become President? Bush isn't content to send everybody else's jobs to India, now he's outsourcing his own...?)