-Caveat Lector- ----Original Message Follows---- From: Michael Eisenscher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: Nader fires salvos from Fresno Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 22:59:53 -0500 (CDT) fresnobee.com | Nader fires salvos from Fresno By John Ellis </B><BR> The Fresno Bee, The Fresno Bee http://www.fresnobee.com/localnews/story/0,1724,205956,00.html Nader fires salvos from Fresno Green Party presidential nominee blasts system. By John Ellis The Fresno Bee (Published October 22, 2000) It was vintage Ralph Nader on stage in Fresno Saturday afternoon. Speaking for well over an hour in the Tower Theatre -- a setting about as far away from a photo op as possible, on a stage devoid of political props such as a farmer facing low commodity prices, an elderly couple on Medicare or a student deep in debt -- the veteran consumer advocate and current Green Party presidential candidate delivered a blistering attack on the American political system. "Gore and Bush are relatively inconsequential," he said, referring to Democratic Party presidential nominee Al Gore and his counterpart, Republican nominee George W. Bush. "They matter less and less. In Washington D.C., it's the permanent corporate government. It's the 22,000 full-time corporate lobbyists swarming over Congress and the rest of the city. It's 9,000 political action committees." The losers, he said, are the American people. The winners, he said, are corporations who are "commercializing our education, corporatizing our universities, commercializing childhood itselfåa constant din of massive commercialism that says to usåeverything's for sale when it comes to corporate power. Our democracy is for sale, our governments are for sale, our children are for sale, our human genes are now for sale to the biotech industry, our personal privacyåis for sale. "It's time for us to say to these big corporations: You do not exist to be our masters; you exist to be our servants." It was a message that resonated with the overflow crowd of 750, who packed the seats and lined the walls of the historical Fresno theater. Outside the entrance, those who could not get a ticket to the sold-out event listened through speakers. The crowd ranged from university students to parents with children in tow to elderly people shuffling behind walkers. Everyone interviewed came away empowered, ready to vote for Nader. Many answered a Green Party plea after Nader's speech to donate their money or time. Ross Mirkarimi, Nader's California campaign director, asked those ready to give $100 to stand. Several did. He asked the same of people who could give $75. Green Party activists walked through the audience with clipboards in hand, signing up people to walk precincts or work phone banks. "It was very inspiring and a chance to hear some serious, thoughtful and intelligent addressing of some serious people issues," said Al Robles of Fresno, a registered Democrat. "He's got my vote, to say the least." In fact, many in attendance were disgruntled Democrats looking to Nader. Fresno resident Willa Hancock, 78, said Nader was the only politician she'd pay money to see. Raised Republican, she moved to the Democratic Party after the Watergate scandal. She voted for President Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Now, she has become just as disillusioned with the Democrats. "I think I'm pretty typical of the person who's going to vote for Nader," she said. "It's just a matter of being fed up with the status quo." Karen Peterson and her husband, Dick, organic farmers from the Kingsburg area, say they'll vote for Nader. Both depend on polls showing Gore ahead of Bush in California. They prefer Nader but, more than anything, don't want Bush in the White House. That, in fact, has been a rallying cry of Democrats trying to woo voters away from Nader: Don't waste your vote. Nader had an answer for that, too. He said the Green Party is working to become an alternative to the two major parties. If Nader can get 5% of the national vote, the party qualifies for federal funds in the 2004 election. "Rome wasn't built in a day, was it?" Nader asked before the speech. "Nor was Fresno. This is a party that is being built." And during his talk, Nader didn't forget Bush. He called the Texas governor "a big corporation running for president, disguised as a human being." The crowd responded -- as they did several times during the speech -- with wild applause, foot stomping and sign waving. Nader was given prolonged standing ovations before and after his speech. "You can believe what he says," said Richard Delgado of Fresno. "He is a candidate for the people. I think he has the most to offer. Gore or Bush, you can't believe either of them." Nader also took the opportunity of a Fresno visit to say that the United States -- despite its agricultural abundance -- has "failed miserably to effectively combat hunger." "Why," Nader asked, "after years of recognizing the plight of the hungry, are there still so many empty mouths to feed?" He added that both consumer and farmer are caught in a market increasingly controlled by big corporations, subsidized by tax dollars and concerned more with profits than with producing safe, affordable food. Belinda Guerrero of Fresno said Nader was the first real candidate that she could remember. She -- and many others -- decried his exclusion from the presidential debates. "I'm excited," she said after the speech. "I think this is the beginning of the end of the two-party system." The reporter can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 441-6320. Q&A WITH RALPH NADER Q. The Valley has been designated a high-intensity drug trafficking area. How would a Nader administration address that? A. Our failed war on drugs is endangering our communities, imperiling police, wasting tens of billions of dollars and, because it is criminalizing what is a health problem instead of rehabilitation for drug addicts, is filling our prisons at $40,000 a prisoner and making the corporate-prison industry even richer. The way to go is to look at drug addiction as a rehabilitation challenge, focus on youngsters in terms of prevention, have community policing where the police work and live in the community, which is the best way to make a community safe, and decriminalize marijuana so we can begin to move this into a rehabilitation-health problem. Q. What is your stance on numeric caps for legal immigration and/or quotas for specific countries for immigration, and whether there should be amnesties for illegal immigrants? A. The first stage for our immigration policy is stop supporting oligarchs, dictatorships, authoritarian regimes that drive people to leave their native lands out of economic desperation or political repression. Lots of people from Mexico and Central America would now be in those countries, not in this country, if they had a decent chance in a democratic society to have an adequate standard of living. We cannot have open borders. That's a totally absurd proposition. It would depress wages here enormously, and tens of millions of people from all levels, including scientists and workers, would be pouring into this country. One way is to provide work permits for people who come in and do work for short periods of time that Americans don't want to do instead of criminalizing the border. Q. Do you support a guest worker program? A. Yes, under work permits, so everything is above board. So they are not exploited. Right now, employers have the best of both worlds. They exploit workers, they make huge profits, and they escape prosecution. Farm labor, whether American or unlawful immigrants, don't have the protection under labor laws that industrial workers have. The idea is to bring all farm labor under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Q. A number of farmers in this area feel too much water has gone to help the environmental cause. What would be your solution to settle this battle? A. California agribusiness has gotten a free ride with dirt-cheap water for too long. They're not paying the adequate price for that water. And if they start paying an adequate price, they will use the water more efficiently and the public will get a return. ... The cities have to pay far more for water than agribusiness. The difference is staggering ... because of the lobbying power of big growers. Q. President Clinton has talked about this being the largest economic expansion in history, but it hasn't reached the Valley, where we have double-digit unemployment. How can we get an economic expansion that touches all areas? A. There are a lot of answers to that. One, of course, is that California has one of the highest child poverty rates in the United States. In 1980 it was 15% of the children growing up in deep poverty. It is now 25.2%. That is unconscionable. If you add a near-poverty category, it goes up to 46%. Why? The economy is booming in California, but the wealthy are taking most of the gains. So we have to ask ourselves, what do we do? One is a living wage. People work here full time, they ought to have a living wage. One-third of the nation's work force does not work for a living wage. Second, universal health insurance. The third is to deal with pesticides, herbicides, contaminated drinking water, hovels instead of affordable, decent housing. Where do we get the money for that? How about taking it from the hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate subsidies, giveaways, handouts, bailouts that make Washington, D.C., something of a bustling bazaar of accounts receivable and bringing it back into the neighborhoods and communities where that public investment is so important. -- John Ellis =========================================== ______________________________________________ You can subscribe to Solidarity4Ever by sending a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and unsubscribe by sending an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is a read-only list, but if you have an item you want posted, send it to the list moderator at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, who will determine whether it is appropriate for redistribution. You can temporarily suspend delivery by sending a request to the same address. Notify the moderator at the time you want delivery resumed. 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