20 reasons to vote for Ralph Nader on November 2 1. Ralph Nader is not for sale. If you believe that big business' money is corrupting American politics, vote for the only Presidential candidate who practices campaign finance reform. Ralph Nader is accepting no PAC money, no corporate contributions and no soft money and no support from 527 groups. The other candidates just talk and look for the loophole of the moment. Nader walks the campaign finance reform walk while he advocates public funding and an end to political advantage for sale to the highest bidder. 2. Ralph Nader's forty-year record of fighting for the people of this country is well known. He's brought us safer cars, a cleaner environment and more open and accountable government. Everyone knows that politics is broken for the average guy and works smoothly for the rich and powerful. The only candidate capable of reforming the system is Ralph Nader because he knows what is broken, why it is broken, and how to fix it. 3. Ralph Nader is the most effective candidate in the race. In his 40 year career in Washington, he has been the driving forced behind such landmark pieces of legislation as the Motor Vehicle and Highway Safety Acts, The Clean Water Act, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Freedom of Information Act. Nader knows more about the workings of government than the other two candidates. He is also honest when he finds policies and agencies beyond reform without surgical removal of corporate controls. 4. Ralph Nader vigorously fought the confirmation of the Supreme Court justices Antonion Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The Democrats held the Senate during the confirmation votes for both justices: they voted 50-0 in favor of Scalia; later, 11 Democrats put Thomas over the top. A vote for Ralph Nader is a vote to fight for impartial, fair Supreme Court justices. He would never allow activist conservative judges to be appointed or confirmed. 5. With your vote, Ralph Nader will lay the foundation for a new American political movement that will begin taking political power back from the elites. A vote for Nader is a vote for the end of politics as usual. It will shift the power away from the corporations, their K Street lobbyists, and their attorneys and back to the citizens-as the Constitution intended. 6. Ralph Nader is the only candidate who demands health care for all. Forty-six million Americans have no health insurance-nearly a 30% increase since 1992. Ours is the only industrial democracy without healthcare for everyone. Our current system is also incredibly wasteful; we spend enough to provide universal coverage, but private administrative costs amount to a whopping one-quarter of all health care expenditures. 7. Ralph Nader fights to save America's family farms, noting that our small rural communities are the backbone of this country. The other candidates have accepted large contributions from huge agribusiness corporations' intent on displacing small farmers. 8. Ralph Nader is against the Death Penalty. John Kerry and George W. Bush are for it. 9. Ralph Nader has always been a strong supporter of affirmative action. He has fought bank red lining. He calls for an overhaul of the criminal justice system, decriminalization of drug offenses and community policing. Racial discrimination pervades America, from the workplace to the courtroom, from the banks to the police beats. To realize needed reforms, Nader argues we must redistribute power in this country without regard to race, creed, age, sex, or sexual preference. 10. Ralph Nader is the only candidate who has called for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, the "chokehold on American labor." Only Nader has a record of fighting vigorously for working Americans-by first opposing the WTO and NAFTA and now calling for their repeal and reform, to uphold worker's rights worldwide and to save jobs at home. 11. Only Ralph Nader has the courage and resolve to rethink our military budget now that the Cold War is over. We must cut the egregious waste and pork barrel weapons projects and improve the conditions our fighting men and women live under. We must not throw money away on a clearly unworkable missile defense system. We must work to abolish nuclear weapons. 12. Ralph Nader is the only candidate who supports equal rights for gays and lesbians-in the military, in civil unions, and on the job. As he says, "We will look back years from now at our current treatment of gays and lesbians as medieval." 13. Ninety percent of Americans want genetically-engineered food to be labeled so they can decide whether or not to eat it. Ralph Nader is the only candidate in the race who agrees with them. Kerry and Bush are against labeling. 14. Ralph Nader is not content that only the top 15-20% of the people in this country is doing well financially. He pushes for reversing 24 years of wage stagnation for the majority of Americans. Nader calls for the raising the minimum wage to its 1960 buying power, or about $10/hr. 15. Ralph Nader thinks it's high time the law be enforced against corporate crime and violence, which kills more people and causes more economic losses, by far, than street crime. 16. Hundreds of billions of your tax dollars are spent annually on subsidies and giveaways to large corporations in the United States every year. Ralph Nader is the only candidate who calls for an end to such corporate welfare and redistribution of the proceeds to rebuild the national infrastructure. 17. Child poverty is blight on the nation. Ralph Nader will fight for the abolition of child poverty in America. 18. Ralph Nader believes taxes should apply first to behavior and conditions we least favor, such as the clearly addictive industries (alcohol and tobacco), pollution, stock speculation, gambling, extreme luxuries, instead of the 5% to 8.5% sales tax on food, furniture, clothing or books. 19. The Federal Government subsidizes the logging of our National Forests to the tune of 1.2 billion dollars annually, yielding just 3% of the national timber harvest. Ralph Nader is the only candidate who would end all logging in our National Forests and use the 1.2 billion to restore those forests. 20. With your vote, Ralph Nader will lay the foundation for a new political movement in America that will begin taking political power back from the elite. A vote for Nader is a vote for the end of politics as usual. If you agree that Ralph Nader is the only Presidential candidate in the race capable of reforming politics so that the power rests once more with the people of America, instead of with big business, will you vote for Ralph in November? Do you expect your members of Congress to vote their consciences? Then shouldn't you?
from http://votenader.org/ Paul Z. ************************************************************************* Vol.21-Neoliberalism in Crisis, Accumulation, and Rosa Luxemburg's Legacy RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Zarembka/Soederberg, eds, Elsevier Science ********************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
