[wordup] Citizens' Sense of Powerlessness Is Corporate America's Biggest Asset

[Adam Shand]

all i can say is, "amen".

Via: http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6289&group=webcast
From: http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=16699&group=webcast

Citizens' Sense of Powerlessness Is Corporate America's Biggest Asset
by Marc Borbely 
8:59am Wed Jan 9 '02

Ralph Nader spoke tonight about the sorry state of democracy in the
United States, at a book-signing event at Olsson's Books and Records.

The United States is suffering from a lack of democracy, Ralph Nader
said tonight, speaking at a book-signing event at Olsson's Books and
Records in Washington, D.C. The few are dominating the many, he told the
crowd of between 200 and 250, who were predominantly white and mostly in
their 20s, 30s or 40s.

The country's rulers are powerful because they are united, and because
those being ruled think (wrongly) that they're powerless, Nader said.
"The biggest asset of corporate America is the feeling by tens of
millions of people that they don't count."

He said there should be a constitutional amendment addressing the rights
of corporations. Corporations, he said, are currently given all the
rights and privileges of people, but many legal immunities that
individuals don't have. He also said that beyond granting people rights,
laws must ensure that people have the ability to exercise those rights.
"We need facilities to allow people to easily band together as workers,
consumers, taxpayers and so forth."

The lack of democracy means the powerful have been able to ignore the
plight of the poor, Nader said. One in three workers in the country are
not making a living wage of $10 per hour, he said. When T.V. economists
and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan spoke of a booming economy
in the last few years, they were talking about wealth "without talking
about distributional realities," Nader said. "Poverty is a no-no word."

Nader attacked the debate commission, which decides who gets to
participate in the nationally televised debates. The commission, Nader
said, is not a government entity but rather a private corporation
sponsored by beer companies and run by Democrats and Republicans
("Anheuser-Bush-Gore," he called it). Its decisions served to greatly
limited the number of people he was able to reach in his campaign, he
said.

Nader said he was the only candidate in the 2000 presidential elections
who campaigned in all 50 states. Nevertheless, he said, he was able to
reach only 1 percent of the number of people he could have reached by
being allowed to participate in one nationally televised debate.

One of his projects over the next two years, he said, will be to "finish
off" the debate commission and "replace it with a people's debate
commission." The crowd at Olsson's applauded.

It also means the nation may be making a mistake in its war on
terrorism, endangering itself rather than averting future threats.
Aiming to kill or capture terrorists in Afghanistan, the U.S. military
is bombing and destroying a whole country, he said. "It's like burning
down a haystack to find a needle." Efforts to make the United States
impenetrable to terrorists are futile, he said. If more voices could
have been heard or taken into account as the country was preparing for
war, Nader said, the country might have taken a wiser path.

Nader made a pitch to the audience to participate in the ruling of their
world. "Democracy is not a spectator sport," he said. To increase voter
turnout, he said, there ballots should include a binding "no" option.
Under his proposal, if enough people voted no, he said, the slate would
be wiped clean and a new set of candidates would have to be found.

The former candidate said "it's too early to tell" whether he'll run
again for president in 2004. He ended his comments by urging that the
U.S. flag never be waved in protester's faces. The flag, he said, was
never meant to be used as a bandanna. He said the flag stands for a
nation "with liberty and justice for all."