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do you know ralph nader's a presidential candidate?
by janine Bandcroft
a lot of people don't. in this, the 'greatest democracy on earth,' there's a complete media blackout against the man .... with tiny exceptions.
yesterday, on a corporate news channel, there were soundless images of him speaking, with the news announcer announcing ralph's arrival in austin and promising more from ralph to follow. i'm not sure how much they followed up, but more of nothing is never enough.
why are the american people being denied an opportunity to know about a
presidential platform? probably because ralph nader and his running
mate, matt gonzales, are trying to connect with, as ralph puts it, the
1% of americans who are actually doing the day to day work of
democracy.
who are those folks? they're the ones attending municipal council
meetings, organizing rallies for peace and an end to economic violence,
writing petitions, and lobbying their representatives. 1% of the
populace, claims ralph, are working to protect the democracy america
holds up as a shining example to the world it bombs. he cited an
ancient greek philosopher who said that 'to know, and not to do, is not
to know.' not only does the corporate world not want us to know, but
they especially don't want us to do - and their media reflects that
philosophy of lethargy.
ralph's interested in promoting democracy, and not in an imperialist
way. in the last election the democrats promised to talk impeachment,
and to begin to end the invasion of iraq. in fact, over 50 billion
addiitonal dollars have been designated towards that effort, with
approval from many otherwise elected democrats, and especially turncoat
nancy pelosi. ralph and matt are offering a real alternative.
they're talking about electoral reform, so that votes are counted in a
way that actually represents the will of the electorate. as a canadian
i know (and mentioned) that, while multiple candidates makes for a
thriving democracy, it can result in a tyranny of the minority unless
the votes are counted in some sort of proportionally representative
manner. (i also let the folks know that, in a previous decade, the
majority of canadians voted for the parties who said they weren't going
to implement nafta, but we got it anyways because brian mulroney was
elected with 30 something percent of the vote. we need electoral
reform. we don't want to provide america with their energy needs even
before we meet our own needs - it's not that we don't love y'all, i
said, but it's cold in canada!).
one reason my friends and i went to hear ralph nader speak is because
they're so disappointed with barack obama's turn to the right. it seems
there are increasing numbers of people who feel that same way. last
night we learned that obama's getting more money from corporate lawyers
than the other candidate in the 2 party duopoly. we also learned of a
website - corporatecrimereporter.org.
ralph spoke about personal vs. civic power - americans have lots of
personal power, he suggested, able to travel (though not to cuba and
yes, he agrees the embargo is stupid and should be lifted) and earn
money and buy things .... but americans don't have so much civic power,
especially when it comes to democracy. they're political slaves, he
says, encouraged to vote for the least worst candidate and led to
actually think of any other candidates, aside from the two, as harmful
to democracy. 18,000 people die every year in the united states because
they have no health care. ralph wants americans to raise their
expectations. there's talk of a google sponsored three way debate in
california, that'd be a start.
ralph is saddened by the numbers of otherwise reasonable and
progressive people who tell him he should drop out of the race. there's
actually a poll, he said, that shows al gore got more votes against
bush in a previous election because ralph was running. if the ancestors
had been afraid to 'throw their vote away,' as ralph supporters are
accused of doing, women would still be unable to vote and there would
still be slavery. (not that slavery has been eliminated, of course ...
ask any migrant worker)
ralph took questions from the audience - he agrees there needs to be
reform of the central banking system, he doesn't like the security and
prosperity partnership, he's concerned about poverty and medicare and
would implement a canadian style health care system - with
improvements. he thinks there should be one federal set of procedures
for getting a presidential candidate on the ballot rather than
different rules state by state. one of the volunteers decided they
ought to make posters - how to add ralph nader to your ballot - at
every polling station. a man who wrote the software for the diebold
voting machines said he knows it's faulty, he knows those machines
don't work.
in closing ralph talked about eugene debs who was asked if he had any
regrets. eugene said his only regret is that americans, who have so
many opportunities, don't seem to want much of anything that's really
important. to know, and not to do, is not to know.
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