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I wrote an email to Ralph Nader to explain why I am afraid to vote for him, even though he has worked for all of us for decades,even though he has created much pressure for change through his many organizations. Ralph: An Independent Citizen He has pointed out that Bush and Kerry appear to be extremely close in the polls, but in late October, those very polls are only indicating what 40% of the registered voters state! That leaves about 40% of the population that are registered but undecided who could vote for Ralph Nader!. He only needs about 22% in a close election like that to win the Presidency! (20%, 20%, 22%) A firm grasp of math is, as we now know, seriously important. And neither our government nor the mainstream media seem to care about what is fair throughout an election period: It's as if the two parties is a system that pretends to allow all comers to compete, but by a process of elimination during primaries, they eliminate all but one candidate from each of TWO PARTIES! And then, that is all that is talked about and all that is heard from for the rest of the process! Nader travelled all over the country, holding town meetings, explaining clearly and truthfully the huge amount of evidence there is for saving what is called a democracy and is really a corporate oligarchy! Do you know anyone who understands this? Do you understand it yourself? You can verify all of this kind of information for yourself: Just go to his web site and start looking things up in other places! You don't have to trust Ralph, even though you will after you do some research! I would always vote for him if he would galvanize his support in some way. Not everyone has a computer or is on the internet. His information should be published. He needs to overcome the apathy and misinformation out there: Especially, the belief that an Independent cannot become President. We as a nation need to admit how much influence the media is actually having on this. During the month of October, 2004, Nader supporters have been passing out information flyers and prior to that, the house parties were used to gather supporters together and educate those interested enough to drop by. Did you know anyone who went to one of these? Did you know anyone who was holding one of these? He actually said, in an interview on NPR, that his goal as a candidate was to bring about necessary change by garnering a public mandate for a return to democracy, and that to do that he is making available to the American public, basically reams of missing information about how their government has sold them out to huge corporations, who in turn have sold their country out for huge profits. He wanted support getting out the information and ideas that would be good for people instead of support for abusive multinational corporations. Incidentally, check out where everything is being made that is sold in the big box stores. Do we really want a better price for things at the expense of our ability to have businesses and employment here? Can that kind of economic plan really work long term? Think about it. Talk about it. Supporting his candidacy was all about using him to speak for us against the selling out of our country to multinational corporations. If his support had grown to a large enough base, as shown by getting him on the ballots in the 50 states, a public mandate would form for overturning the current way of doing things that hurt people and help corporations. Unfortunately, in this lazy representative democracy we think we live in, most are getting all their thoughtfood from television and purchased media houses who are biased, or worse, SOLD OUT! Whoever is actually elected needs to know that many people know, (hopefully a majority, but even 30% would be problematic to the purchased candidates, both in the White House and the Congress,) {...that many people know...} about the problems that are not being addressed by their representatives or by their President, and demand major changes! It isn't just the White House, is it? It's called a public mandate and it would hold any elected candidate responsible for undoing the harm done by the corporate sellout of our country through Congress and the White House, and to make our country responsible to the people again. Last November, if his specifics had won out over their rhetoric, and we had recognized the truth in what he disclosed, and the momentum had built up in ways that we could have all recognized, then voting for Ralph Nader again or for the first time would definitely have been one of the right things to do. We just have to know that we can count on each other, and that would take a miracle. Keep praying and waiting for this TRUTH to be heard by more Americans! But along with acknowledging that we probably need supernatural help ripping our country away from the established corporate/government oligarchy, we need to take individual responsibility for doing what each of us can do to get this information and these ideas out to the rest of the people in this country. If Michael Moore can do what he dared to do, and if all the others who have researched and published can risk doing what they have done, certainly you and I can volunteer to pass out flyers or send $50 to help out...Next time. Next time is fine with Ralph, who has run twice in an uninformed country he is trying to save from it's own ignorance. Ralph, who ran the second time at 70 years of age, and who stated in one of his meetings in Florida that his plan is a 16 year plan! He knows what he is up against! OUR IGNORANCE OF WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON THAT IS AGAINST OUR INTEREST! Ralph has done so much, for so long, for the people in this country. He's been up against the odds the whole time: Let's give him our support. It might happen without Ralph, but for sure It won't ever happen without us. How great would we become, having wrenched the power away from big business, and from the government that enabled them to steal that power away from us? From the government that is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people! It would have been great if now were the time and we should all know it. The problem was, we could not trust the media to tell us how many Nader supporters are out there because many were afraid to express their support to the pollsters, for fear it may encourage more, but not enough, and put Bush back in office. We shall never know what really happened though, because our voting system is now what is called a "black box voting" environment: We are asked to trust another corporation (Diebold), whose software is proprietary to their business! We cannot even have the software checked! But, the problem is even larger than that: Go to Bev Harris' web site, www.blackboxvoting.org, to see what a confused mess this election really was from the standpoint of the equipment used! And, the clincher is that the CEO, who lives in OHIO, made a public statement that he promised to bring the election to Bush this November! Oh, yeah... At the New College visit, in Sarasota, Florida, Nader made it clear: He only wanted your vote if you saw a poll you could believe the day before the election, and Bush and Kerry were extremely close in the polls. But, there would have to be a winning 22% overall, or he would be seen as the reason Bush wins. I personally would rather put that back on those who didn't vote their conscience. But, that would not be fair in this environment of Big Money candidates. No. This political war will be waged in steps over the next four to eight years as we struggle to become better informed citizens, and fight to reclaim our democracy from the jaws of bottom line 'greed.' It will be interesting to see how many of us make it through the transitions. Mary Ann Curmanskie editor@thinkscapes.com |