[nader-colo-students] Only two more weeks for voter registration!

["Damon Haley " <dhaley@greens.org>]

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Hey Campus Naderites,

Below are some missions that the D.C. would like you to strive for on 
your campus this week.  Further below I included some press releases 
capturing the excitement of last weekend's rallies that should appeal 
to students.  The press releases are from votenader.com Campus 
newsletter.  If you would like to subscribe to this, goto 
http://lists.votenader.org/mailman/listinfo/campus or send your email 
to corey@votenader.org and ask to be subscribed.  If you would like
to 
see what has been posted so far, visit:
http://www.greens.org/colorado/list_archives/campus/maillist.html

Also, does anyone need bodies to help them with voter registration 
drives on their campus?  There are only two more weeks to register!  
Many students and volunteers in the Denver/Boulder area could come to 
your campus the weekend of Sept. 30th or Oct. 7th.  I would need to 
give the volunteers notice, so let me know ASAP.

Damon
<dhaley@greens.org>
www.coloradonader2000.com
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Web Mission:

Register Online!  Send a link to http://www.beavoter.com/ to 25 of 
your friends and emphasize the importance of registering to vote.

If you need English/Spanish voter registration forms to print see:
http://www.denvergreenparty.org/fom-serve/cache/51.html

Action Mission:

Let it be known that you disapprove of Ralph Nader's exclusion
from 
the Presidential Debates.  Hold a teach-in, rally, or other visible 
action on campus to coincide with the first debate on Oct. 3 in 
Boston.  Make sure you get covered in the campus media!

Print Mission:

This week, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will 
hold their semi-annual meeting in Prague, Czech Republic.  While these
organizations claim to promote economic growth and create jobs by
bailing poor and developing, they actually force countries pay off 
their debts while ignoring their own people.  In other words, they 
illustrate the trend of reckless globalization promoted by 
multinational corporations and their friends in the Democratic and 
Republican parties.  The policies of the Fund and the Bank encourage 
free trade and lax labor laws, perpetuating labor abuses in
developing 
countries.  In turn, corporations take advantage of the policies by 
paying low wages, ignoring workplace safety standards, and firing 
workers that try to organize unions.

In letters to the editor this week, capitalize on the coverage of the
IMF/World Bank meeting.  Argue that Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke are
have an independent voice that stands up to corporate globalization
perpetuated by the IMF and World Bank.

· Nader and LaDuke believe that the IMF and World Bank have led to
poverty, deepening economic inequality, and environmental degradation
all over the world

· Nader and LaDuke would fight the unfettered corporate
globalization
like those promoted by the IMF and World Bank, and demand that these
institutions focus on people ahead of profit

· Nader and LaDuke would negotiate trade agreements to force
multinational corporations operating abroad to respect labor laws and
environmental standards in debt-ridden nations

Ralph Nader has a different position from Gore and Bush on
globalization.  He can stand up to multinational corporations because 
he is not owned by them.  As the media covers the IMF and World Bank
meeting in Prague from September 26-28, use it as an opportunity to 
tell your friends and colleagues how Ralph Nader differs from Gore
and 
Bush and puts people before corporations when it comes to 
globalization issues.

Green machine: Nader, Moore and Donahue rock Whiting 
By Christofer Machniak
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER 
Friday, September 22, 2000 

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----------

FLINT - Phil Donahue brought the energy, Michael Moore brought the 
humor, and Ralph Nader brought the heavy-duty intellectual arguments. 

The Green Party's celebrity trio bombarded more than 850 at Whiting 
Auditorium with their populist message on Thursday, hoping to court 
the youth and union vote to back Nader, the party's presidential 
nominee. 

Their message: Reject corporate America and the two mainstream 
political parties. 

"It rocked," Nicole McLaren, a 17-year-old Grand Blanc High School 
senior, said after the event. "I thought it was going to be boring, 
but I thought it was very interesting." 

Nader, a famed consumer advocate most noted for exposing unsafe cars 
in the 1960s, focused his verbal salvos on the issues Vice President 
Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush agree on. 

According to Nader, these include: favoring capital punishment, 
spending billions of dollars to train a military to fight an unknown 
enemy, and exporting industrial jobs to countries like China where 
workers earn 32 cents an hour in the name of globalization. 

"So here is Flint, Mich.," Nader said. "People worked hard all their 
lives. They fought the wars. They bled. They died. They paid the 
taxes. They come back home. They work five, 10, 15 years. They make 
good products. ?Then one morning they go to work and get the pink 
slip. 

"And nothing can be done about it, right? It's all inevitable. 
Corporate globalization is inevitable. It's only inevitable if we'll 
make it inevitable by not organizing a political party movement that 
can." 

Moore, a Flint-area native best known for his film "Roger & Me," said 
Flint voters shouldn't vote for Gore because of the continued 
hemorrhaging of jobs locally over the last eight years. He said
voters 
should vote based on their dreams, not what they fear. 

"If we go ahead and vote for (Gore), and he has this great showing in 
Flint Nov. 7, what's the message?" Moore said. "Thanks for the last 
eight years Al, Bill. Is that the message you want to send? 

"If the founding fathers and mothers of this country had operated on 
fear instead of courage and their dreams, we never would have this 
country." 

Donahue, the former television talk show host and Nader's national 
campaign committee chair, hit on many of the Green Party's base 
issues: the environment, gay rights, and drug decriminalization. He, 
too, raised the debate issue. 

"Let's get it on," Donahue said. "Let's have a real presidential 
election." 

The Flint campaign stop was the second of three Thursday, sandwiched 
between events in Ann Arbor and East Lansing. The swing, dubbed the 
"nonvoter tour," moves to Minneapolis today. Nader is fighting to
move 
his poll numbers out of the single digits. 

The trio were joined in Flint by three other speakers: Sam Riddle, a 
Flint political insider, E. Hill DeLoney, president of the Flint 
branch of the NAACP, and Dean Braid, an executive board member of UAW 
Local 599. 

Riddle questioned Clinton's motives for holding an event the same day 
as Nader. He also said the subject, disability issues, seemed 
manufactured especially in light of a Journal reporter who was denied 
wheelchair access to all events when Gore visited Flint earlier this 
month. 

DeLoney praised Nader's contribution, but said she only spoke to 
encourage people to register and vote in November. 

Braid talked about the irony of the Buick City Assembly Center
closing 
in 1999, even shortly after receiving a prestigious award for 
producing quality vehicles. 

The event's message resonated with many in the crowd, a mix of young 
and old who started to arrive an hour before the event and listened
to 
Mayjune, a roots rock band. 

McLaren attended as an assignment for government class. As she and 
three classmates left the event carrying lawn signs, placards and 
other campaign memorabilia, she said she would vote for Nader if she 
could. 

The students said they liked how the speakers made complex issues
easy 
to understand, although the only one old enough to vote remains 
undecided. 

"I want to support (Nader) more than Gore, but I'm new to voting," 
said Geoff Ward, 18. 

Christofer Machniak covers Flint city government. He can be reached
at 
(810) 766-6304 or cmachniak@flintjournal.com. 


 
Green Party supporters fire up crowd 
By KARESSA E. WEIR
NEWS STAFF REPORTER 
Friday, September 22, 2000 

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----------

Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader knew just what to say 
to get a crazed reaction from more than 1,700 people seated in the 
heart of the University of Michigan. 

Offer them a free education. 

"The business of giving a credit here, a gimmick there to make it
more 
affordable - forget it," Nader said. "It would cost $32 billion a
year 
to give every public college student a free education. We now spend 
$70 billion a year to keep troops in western Europe to protect 
affluent countries." 

"All education, from elementary to secondary to higher education, 
should be free." 

Speaking before a standing-room-only crowd at the Michigan Theater, 
Nader was flanked by filmmaker Michael Moore and former talk show
host 
Phil Donahue on his three-city "Non Voter Tour" of Michigan. 

If Nader is elected president in November, tuition fees would 
disappear at every community college, college and university in the 
nation, he said. Nader also promised to end environmental racism and 
corporate welfare, legalize the production of industrial hemp,
provide 
universal health care and end economic sanctions against Iraq. He 
supports gay and transgender equality "across the board," he said. 

The consumer advocate pledged to withdraw the United States from the 
North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on 
Tariffs and Trade, both of which earn the ire of organized labor. 

His speech created an enthusiasm touched by wistfulness in many of
the 
young supporters. "I wish someone like him could get elected," said 
Ann Arbor resident John Nolan. 

A rallying call for the crowd was Nader's exclusion from the series
of 
presidential debates which begin in two weeks. The Committee on 
Presidential Debates, led by former heads of the Democratic and 
Republican parties, will not allow third party candidates - including 
Nader and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan - to participate. 

Nader also worked to dispel the fear that by voting for him, 
left-leaning Democrats are ensuring the victory of Republican George 
W. Bush. Political scholars have attributed the re-election defeat of 
Bush's father in 1992 to the role played by Ross Perot. 

"They are fossil parties with no grass-roots support," Nader said. 
"They can't get more than half the people to vote. But we are going
to 
bring out the biggest college and university vote in American 
history." 

"Millions of progressive Democrats are told that the party must cater 
to the right wing because they could lose them to the GOP and you've 
got no place to go. They are wrong. We will be the green magnet and 
the green hammer to bring our message home." 

Moore - a Flint native whose film "Roger & Me" took on corporate
giant 
General Motors - urged the audience to keep alive Ann Arbor's 
reputation as innovative and ahead-of-the-pack by rejecting the two 
major political parties. 

"Ann Arbor is the leader of all that is good in this country," Moore 
said. "This is not the time for Ann Arbor to play the follower role. 
Show this country the courage of your convictions." 

Donahue energized the crowd by slamming the policies of President
Bill 
Clinton and Vice President Al Gore on capital punishment, drug use
and 
military spending. "Ralph Nader and (running mate) Winona LaDuke are 
gonna rock this nation," Donahue said. 

Call Karessa E. Weir at (734) 994-6818 



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