{news} Re: [haroldburbank] Nader endorses Harold Burbank for Congress

Tue Sep 2 18:13:00 EDT 2008

Beautiful article! Congratulations, Harold!

On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 2:06 PM, David Bedell <dbedellgreen at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> http://www.thecornerreport.com/index.php?title=nader_channels_eugene_debs_gains_support
> [some typos corrected]
>
> Nader channels Eugene Debs; gains support; endorses Burbank for
> Connecticut'
> s 5th Congressional District
> English (US) September 1st, 2008 by admin ( Email )
>
> By Gale Courey Toensing
>
> SHERMAN, Conn. - When people ask presidential candidate Ralph Nader what he
> wants to achieve, he has a simple answer: A better world, he says.
>
> "I simply start with what we all hope to achieve -clean elections,
> universal
> heath care, and a living wage - the modest first stage improvements for a
> civilized, caring society," Nader told a group of several dozen people at a
> private house party on Sunday.
>
> Not many people would disagree with those goals or with Nader's battle to
> take back the country from the multinational corporations that now control
> the government, or the dozen or more put-people-first issues that he and
> his
> vice presidential running mate Matt Gonzalez have put "on the table" on
> their website http://www.votenader.org , Nader said.
>
> A visit to the website details Nader and Gonzalez's platform, but also
> provides a reminder of the remarkable list of achievements Nader has gained
> as a citizen activist for more than four decades. He was responsible for
> safety belts in cars, the creation of the Freedom of Information Act, the
> Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health
> Administration (OSHA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Safe
> Drinking Water Act, and more. He founded or helped start more than 100
> public interest groups that help improve safety and the quality of life for
> all Americans.
>
> "Ralph Nader has saved more lives than anyone else in America," one
> supporter said.
>
> The party had two objectives: to raise funds for Nader's presidential
> campaign and to announce his support for Harold Burbank II, the Green Party
> candidate who is running for Congress in the state's 5th District against
> first term Democratic incumbent Chris Murphy, and his Republican challenger
> David Cappiello, a state senator from Danbury.
>
> Harold Burbank II is challenging first term Democratic incumbent Christ
> Murphy for the 5th District congressional seat.
>
> Burbank, a civil rights attorney, introduced both himself and Nader to the
> gathering. The two men's friendship goes back several years. Burbank
> volunteered his legal services to Nader's 2004 presidential campaign.
>
> Burbank has worked in the peace and justice movement for 30 years. During
> that time he worked in the public sector, including the attorney general's
> office, and has never worked for a corporation. Among the issues Burbank
> supports are universal health care, full employment with a living wage and
> job protection, and ending the war in Iraq and U.S. imperialism.
>
> He calls for the impeachment of President George Bush and Vice President
> Dick Cheney for war crimes.
>
> "No one is above the law, especially for war crimes under international
> treaties such as the UN Charter, Geneva Conventions and Nuremberg Charter,
> which make war crimes the ultimate crimes against humanity," Burbank said.
> More information about Burbank and his positions is available at his
> website
> at http://www.newmenu.org/haroldburbank
>
> Burbank is the only candidate for Congress that Nader has ever supported
> during his long career as an advocate for public safety, the environment
> and
> honest government.
>
> Nader launched his fifth bid for president last February. So far, he has
> qualified for the ballot in 45 states, plus the District of Columbia
> without
> having filed a single ballot access lawsuit. This year, Nader has exceeded
> his "personal best." which occurred in 2000 when he was on the ballot in 43
> states and D.C.
>
> Relaxed and informal, Nader spoke extemporaneously to the group and held a
> question and answer period afterward.
>
> This is the first time in the history of the country that a minority party
> actually represented the majority opinion of the people, Nader observed.
>
> The public's "discomfort" level is reflected in the current polls: 81
> percent of Americans polled think the country is going in the wrong
> direction; 75 percent think corporations have too much control over our
> lives; and 61 percent think the two major parties are failing.
>
> Historically, most third parties espouse issues that are supported by a
> minority and later picked up by one of the major parties, such as the 19th
> century anti-slavery and pro-women's rights movements.
>
> "So, were coming in on a bizarre situation where we now are the dissenters
> and our positions are supported by the majority," Nader said.
>
> But people have bought into the two major party system and the likelihood -
> or certainty - that one of its candidates will win - and that's why they
> keep voting for them, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
>
> "This always upsets me because the 60th seat at Wimbledon has a shot at
> center court; the 60th seat at the NCAA has a shot for the final four, but
> the third seat in the presidential candidacy is considered tilting at
> windmills," Nader said.
>
> The major parties understand "intuitively" that the system itself is
> "monumentally obstructive," locking out challengers through a variety of
> questionable methods, including harassing petitions and getting petition
> signatures for specious reasons.
>
> That's why one of Nader's top priorities is to open up the elections
> process
> and the presidential debates. The first step is to get rid of all special
> interest funding and have public funding of elections, an initiative that
> the two parties claim to support, but they never actually implement, Nader
> said.
>
> It's all about civil liberties, Nader said.
>
> "Let's face it, people who are well to do can live in a world of their own
> that's pretty comfortable and they have a lot of personal freedom, but
> along
> with tens of millions of other Americans, they don't have civic freedom,"
> Nader said.
>
> He quoted Cicero, who said, "Freedom is participating in power."
>
> "That's a fantastic definition of freedom," Nader said. Civic freedom is
> having a say in whether the country goes to war or not, how taxpayer
> dollars
> are used, and whether everyone is going to have health insurance, he said.
>
> People often ask Nader why he doesn't try to achieve his goals outside of
> the electoral system.
>
> "Because for 20 years ever since the Democrats started dialing big time for
> corporate dollars, they've shut the door on solutions and we can't get
> anything done. We can't get congressional hearings; we can't get regulatory
> agencies to respond to our petitions," Nader said.
>
> Perhaps one of the most cogent questions Nader posed - and answered - was
> "When was the last time we solved a major problem? We couldn't even clean
> up
> and help people after Katrina and it's because of the paralyzed government.
> The government has been hijacked by big corporations whether it's the
> Defense Department or the Treasury. So you try to bring young people into
> the electoral area, try to mobilize new energies and you push the system so
> its fangs come out when you challenge it and you force people to look at
> themselves in the mirror and ask themselves how do they continue to succumb
> to a two party duopoly that makes them vote against people they believe in
> and for people they don't believe in," Nader said.
>
> He quoted labor leader Eugene Debs, an American labor leader in the 19th
> and
> early 20th centuries, who was one of the founding members of the
> International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
>
> More than 100 years ago, Debs said, "It's better to vote for someone you
> believe in and lose than vote for someone you don't believe in and win
> because that someone's going to betray you."
>
> Nader stressed the importance of bringing young people into the process.
> "If
> you don't do that the future is pretty clear: Things are going to get worse
> and the concentration of power gets worse."
>
> He rolled out the statistics:
> --100 million poor people "and the Democrats never mention the poor, only
> the middle class, which is shrinking";
> -- 47 million people who make $10 an hour or less before deductions. "You
> can't live on that," Nader said.
> --50 million people without health insurance
> --50 million who are underinsured
> --18,000 people dying each year because they cannot afford health care
> --58,000 people dying because of work-related diseases
> --65,000 people dying because of air pollution.
>
> "At the end of his career, Eugene Debs was asked by a reporter around 1920
> -
> and, by the way, he ran for president five times so I have an affinity for
> him - 'What's your greatest regret?' And he said, 'My greatest regret is
> that under our Constitution Americans can have almost anything they want,
> but it just seems like they don't want much of anything at all,'" Nader
> said.
>
> Americans' expectations -- or demands - of their government are the worst
> in
> the western developed world, Nader said.
>
> He pointed out that, at the end of World War II when Europe was in rubble
> and America was the most powerful country in the world, Europeans through
> their social democratic governments, trade unions, associations and other
> non-governmental organizations demanded -- and got - universal health care,
> decent pensions, living wages, efficient public transportation systems,
> four
> weeks or more of paid vacations, day care, paid maternity leave, paid
> family
> sick leave, and universal free tuition to universities.
>
> "We don't have any of that here today, 63 years later," Nader said.
> People are faced with two choices, Nader said.
>
> "We can sort of give up on ourselves and live in our comfortable personal
> lives and accumulate our estates or we can elevate our own self respect and
> develop a determination to turn things around. And I have no doubt that
> they
> can be turned around. There are a lot of good people in this country. They'
> ve just got to get to know each other civically, not just socially," Nader
> said.
>
> He estimated that the political system and agenda could be turned around by
> about one million people organized into congressional watch dog groups,
> 2,000 per district with two full time staff to bring the first stages of
> improvement to the collective life in America.
>
> "It's not all that much. I'm told there are 10 million bird watchers in our
> country," Nader said.
>
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