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02.12 FiveBooks Interviews > Lorraine Adams on The Truth Behind the Headlines
Ref. : Letters to the editor
02.10 LET’S REMAKE THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS
02.09 Cancer rates triple among New York police officers who responded to 9/11
02.08 The seed emergency: The threat to food and democracy
02.07 Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering
02.04 Your Day at the Beach Could Soon Lead to a Night at the Hospital
02.03 Obama Won't Touch Climate With a 10-Foot Pole
02.03 Komen reverses decision to cut Planned Parenthood funding
02.03 Reforming EU Deep-Sea Fisheries Management
02.02 By defunding Planned Parenthood, the Susan G Komen Foundation betrays women
02.02 Ohio Tries to Escape Fate as a Dumping Ground for Fracking Fluid
Ref. Dollars for Doctors - How Industry Money Reaches Physicians
Ref. 2010 Comparative Price Report Medical and Hospital Fees by Country - Graphics
Ref. Health at a Glance 2011 - OECD Indicators
Ref. : Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA (Part 2) [Graphics] (Part 1 is here)
Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
02.07 Did Obama make the economy worse? Not according to most statistics
02.02 ABC's Iran Propaganda
02.02 The Ongoing “Foxification” of the Wall Street Journal
Daily The Daily Howler
02.05 Why the AGs Must Not Settle: Robo-signing Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
02.04 THE CAGING OF AMERICA
02.03 Senate Votes To Ban Its Members From Insider Trading... Kind Of
02.12 Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It - Interactive Map: Where Americans Most Depend on Government Benefits
02.12 CPAC attendees more focused on the economy than their right-wing leaders - video
02.10 The Cancer in Occupy
02.10 How Opus Dei Influenced Rick Santorum
02.10 People Are Not Leaving the Labor Force
02.09 Obama, Explained
02.09 OPED: The White Underclass
02.09 EDITORIAL: A Terrible Transportation Bill
02.09 THE OBAMA MEMOS
02.06 Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?
02.04 Soaking the Poor, State by State
02.04 Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian's Rosy Outlook On The Future of Politics
02.03 SUPERBOWL XLVI: Are You Ready for Some Football???
02.03 Buffett rules: Sheldon Whitehouse introduces the Paying a Fair Share Act - video
02.02 Secrecy Shrouds ‘Super PAC’ Funds in Latest Filings
02.01 Rich Patrons Are Major Source of Romney’s Cash
02.10 This is no bailout for Main Street America
02.10 Why the Foreclosure Deal May Not Be So Hot After All
02.10 Matt Taibbi assesses the $26 billion settlement designed to aid victims of foreclosure fraud - video
02.10 Foreclosure Deal to Spur U.S. Home Seizures
02.08 Banks Paying Homeowners to Avoid Foreclosures
02.07 App Stores Create 500,000 U.S. Jobs
02.07 The Payroll Tax Fight
02.07 Obama super PAC decision: President blesses fundraising for Priorities USA Action
02.06 How Privatizing Government Shovels Cash to Parasitic Corporations and Undermines Democracy
02.05 We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income
02.03 PRIVATE INEQUITY
02.02 The New American Divide
02.02 American Airlines proposes to end all four pension plans
02.01 Economics 101
Ref. We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income
02.03 What the Occupy movement must learn from Sundance
02.02 US plans to halt Afghan combat role early surprise Kabul
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COMMENTARY:
Ralph Nader Speaks in Baltimore: “Americans Need Moral Courage!”
Ralph Nader at the U. of Baltimore
Nader’s message emphasized that Americans need a good dose of “moral courage” to take on the corporate controllers of this country. A vast majority of the people, he said, need to get over “their own sense of helplessness and powerlessness.” He railed against the fact that power in this country is exercised “by the few” over the many. The reason for that, he explained, is that “self-government isn’t just a slogan. People need to be in charge, but in order to do that, they need to show up!”
Nader has led the way on so many different fronts, he’s hard to categorize. Trained in the law, he has for decades championed the consumer and the fragile environment against the perpetual excesses of Corporate America. His book, Unsafe at any Speed, propelled his name into the public’s consciousness. Despite setbacks, he wrote that the essence of a citizen’s movement “is persistence.” Born in Winsted, Connecticut in 1934 to Lebanese immigrant parents, Nader graduated magna cum laude from Princeton and with distinction from the Harvard School of Law. From Public Citizen to the Pension Rights Center, the many organizations he has helped to form and energize continue to be in the forefront of the struggle for social and economic justice.
Nader asked: “Why do people vote against their own interests? The clear example of that, is the people who voted for George W. Bush.” He ripped into Bush for funding the Missile Defense Program (MDP) to the tune of $9.5 billion a year, while allowing AMTRAK “to crumble.” He labeled the MDP “a boondoggle that will never work. It is too easily decoyed.” Because of the huge deficits established by the present regime, Nader called Bush “a taxer of grandchildren,” since they are the ones who will have to pay the debts, assuming there is still an economy around to allow them to do so.
Nader concluded, “The big secret in a democracy is that the people have the power. If they would realize it, exercise it, organize it and focus it, with a fraction of the their free time.” If the people want a living wage, universal health care, their public works restored to a decent level, to stop the tax cuts for the rich, to have clean water to drink and clean air to breath, he said, “They need to get involved in the political process...get motivated.” If they don’t, he warned, they will get “more criminal wars, fabricated wars...bringing home our dead soldiers, sick soldiers, traumatized soldiers." In order to turn the present situation around, he said, “The people need to believe in themselves, believe that they have the power...and then to take action.”
Kevin Zeese, who recently won endorsements for his bid for the U.S. Senate from Maryland’s growing Green and Libertarian parties, also spoke at the event. He is strongly anti-Iraq War and pro-environment, and opposes any U.S. attack on Iran. He criticized one of his opponents, Rep. Ben Cardin (D-MD), for telling the electorate that he’s for peace in Iraq, while he’s “voting for the war” in the U.S. Congress. Cardin, he added, is also against any “exit strategy.” Zeese said the U.S.'s “lopsided” relationship with Israel means that “the U.S. taxpayer is complicit in what is going on there,” and that the Israeli-Palestine question “can’t be ignored any longer. It needs to be debated. It’s the root cause of our own security problems and the root cause of terrorism against the U.S.”
Also speaking at the spirited affair was the Green Party’s nominee for governor of Maryland, Ed Boyd, a U.S. Navy veteran. Boyd charged, “Marylanders are being ‘Enroned’ by the corporations.” One of the main problems confronting the state’s voters, he said, is that the local utility, Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE), is planning to hike its rates a staggering 72% this July, a move he strongly opposes. He is demanding that the incumbent GOP governor, Robert Ehrlich and one of his Democratic challengers--Baltimore’s Mayor Martin O’Malley--return the substantial campaign contributions they have received from BGE’s parent company, Constellation Energy. Ehrlich, who also grabbed a $16,000 contribution in 2002 from the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, took in $54,000 from CE; while O’Malley, who poses as a foe of Big Business, reined in $45,000.
As part of the event, R.B. Jones, a Baltimore-based journalist and poet, read three of his anti-Iraq War poems. Musical entertainment at the rally was provided by Bilal Salaam, a lively jambe drummer and rapper.
To see a video of R.B. Jones reading his anti-Iraqi war poems, visit here.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on June 21, 2006.
