Department of Amplification
“We want to amplify the voices from the grassroots,” said Ralph Nader. “Only the rumble of the people has any effect in Washington.” Nader spoke with a small group of reporters a couple of hours before his “People Have the Power” rally. He addressed local issues — the Longhorn Pipeline controversy, the Austin Fair Elections Act — while explaining that his new “Democracy Rising” campaign (www.democracyrising.org) is an attempt to connect these local issues (and the activist groups devoted to them) with a broader national agenda. Nader is most closely associated with Public Citizen and more recently the Green Party, but he describes Democracy Rising as an independent organizing effort focused on getting more people into local activism. “We want to demonstrate that the progressive forces are out here,” Nader said, “and find ways for them to recruit new members and create a general mobilization to put pressure on Congress.”
Nader’s 10-point national agenda includes campaign finance reform, living-wage initiatives, increased environmental protection, criminal and civil justice reform, national health care, and an end to corporate welfare. The progressive movement seems to have forgotten how to mobilize large numbers of people, he says, something the 19th-century populists and the original union movement did well over many decades. “So this is a learning experience for all of us,” Nader said. “We need to carry these efforts on from one generation to another, so we don’t have to start every time from scratch.”
Nader described a trio of “nefarious forces” against democracy — “autocratic ideologues,” “commercial militarists,” and “corporate welfare freeloaders” — gaining strength in the wake of 9/11. If these forces are allowed to triumph, he believes, “By far the greatest damage to our economy and our democracy will be by our own hands — far beyond the dreams of the terrorists.” He called on local activists to generate momentum against the D.C. tide, saying, “The only reservoir in our democracy is back home.”
Nader rejected the commonplace charge that his presidential candidacy last fall aided the “nefarious forces” by defeating Al Gore. “Even the Democratic pollsters no longer believe that,” he said, citing exit polls showing his vote was not decisive in Florida. “In fact, it was the Green vote that carried the Senate race [for Democrat Maria Cantwell] in Washington state,” he said. “I haven’t received a letter of gratitude for that one — even though it made the Senate 50-50, and set the stage for [Democratic control of the Senate].
“And what have they done with it?” he asked, pointing to the Democrats’ lock-step approval of Bush administration policies, especially the repressive “Patriot Act.” “When do these guys flunk?” He denounced the attempt to discourage independent candidacies as “arrogant — as if the country belongs to the two parties, and the rest of us should just shut up.” For Nader, that prospect is inconceivable.
This article appears in February 1 • 2002.
