[nader-colo-students] Update on Tuesday Denver Protest; The Gardens; 50% of student vote

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

Hi everyone,

For those of you that can make it to Denver for Tuesday's Third
Debate 
Protest (10/16), the start time has been changed from 6:30 P.M. to 6 
P.M.  We had 60 people last week, and this week we would like to get 
100.  If you can't make it 'till 6:30, then meet us at the Denver
Post 
at 6:30.  Bring your drums, accordions, and kazoos as we "Beat Down 
the CPD/Make Noise for Ralph."  I hope to see many of you there.

Also, please go to the Salon magazine link below for the best article 
I have seen on the Madison Square Garden's Nader Rally last Friday.

http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/14/nader/index.html

For those of you that want to hold a college house party, I can come 
speak at your event if you are within two hours of Denver.  Planning
a 
"Nader Halloween" house party might be a good idea.  You can even use 
the Democracy on Death Row theme.

Also everyone should know where the polling place is nearest to their 
campus.  If you can, make plans to call likely Nader voter's using
the 
lists of names you've been collecting.  You could plan to have a 
shuttle to help take students to the polls.  Also let students know 
about absentee voting and its deadlines.  

Everyone should be planning to take time off from studies/work for
the 
last three days of the campaign.  From Sunday the 5th to Tuesday the 
7th of November, you should be leafleting the dorms, and calling 
likely Nader voters to see if they have any questions.  You will also 
tell them where the polling place is.

This is also why collecting phone numbers of Nader voters is so 
important.  If you are collecting names and numbers of likely Nader 
voters, also send these to me.  I'll give these to the national 
campaign, which helps them to analyze which campuses have the most 
likely Nader voters.  This determines if your campus or area
newspaper 
will get a Nader ad.

Another idea is to reach out to high school seniors in you area.  I'm 
sure we can pick up their vote and use them to plaster fliers around 
town.  For those of you running low on time, picking up a high school 
helper might help with a lot of busy work especially with leafleting 
and posting fliers.

Thanks for all your hard work.

In a national poll, we currently have 20% of the student vote.  Only 
three more weeks to go so lets get 50% of the student vote.!

Damon

-----------------------------------------------------------------
NADER SUPPORTERS will rally on Tuesday OCT. 17 to PROTEST Nader's
exclusion from debates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                           October 15, 2000
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
For more information, contact: Nancy Harvey, Colorado Campaign  
Coordinator
(303) 964-8226, Nader 2000 Colorado
        coloradonader@totalspeed.net

        Denver area supporters of the Ralph Nader presidential 
campaign will rally at local media outlets on Tuesday, October 17th 
-"Beat Down the CPD/Make Noise for Ralph" to protest Nader's
exclusion 
from the third Presidential debate.  The march will begin in front of 
the Rocky Mountain News Building at 400 W. Colfax in Denver at 6:00 
pm.

        In addition to protesting Nader's exclusion from the 
presidential debate series sponsored by the Commission on
Presidential 
Debates, the local rallies will call upon the media to fulfill their 
obligations to the public interest (as specified in the 1934 
Communications Act) by covering the presidential candidate's 
grassroots support as evidenced in the large crowds he is drawing 
across the country.

        Nader was barred from participating in the first two debates, 
despite the fact that a huge majority of people polled want to see
him 
included.  More than 100,000 signatures have been recorded on an 
online petition calling for Nader's inclusion in the debates. See:

        <http://green.votenader.org/cgi-bin/petition-sigs.cgi>

There have been several ,include Nader super rallies, across the 
country, the most recent one being at Madison Square Garden rally
this 
past Friday where 15,000 noisy and enthusiastic supporters angrily 
criticized Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader's exclusion 
from the recent presidential debates and hailed him as a 
reinvigorating force for democracy.

        A recent poll conducted for Reuters/MSNBC by pollster John 
Zogby released October 5 showed a "surge" of support for Nader with 7 
percent. It also showed Al Gore and George W. Bush running neck and 
neck, 46 to 40 percent, following the first debate.  Polls asking if 
people want Nader included in the debates are showing that 65-90%
want 
to see the Green Party candidate in the debates.


                               # # #

COLORADO NADER CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS:
2785 N. Speer Blvd., Suite 305
Denver, Colorado
303-964-8226
coloradonader@totalspeed.net  * coloradonader2000.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
     BACK TO THE GARDEN
     Nader Attracts a Big New York Crowd

   	Micah L. Sifry is the senior analyst for Public Campaign, a
	non-partisan organization pushing for publicly funded
         elections.


	Editor's Note: Micah L. Sifry's  book on the prospects of
	America's third parties will be published next year by
         Routledge.


         John Lennon meets C-SPAN.

	That's the only way to describe Ralph Nader's three-hour
	blockbuster "super-rally" Friday night at Madison Square
	Garden. Fifteen-thousand mostly white 20- and 30-somethings
	paid $20 each to support Nader's presidential campaign	and to
	hear Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, Ani Difranco and Ben Harper
	rock the house. But Nader himself was the top bill, and the
	crowd sat and cheered through a vintage hour of Nader's
         scathing and visionary critique of American politics.

	Funny thing is, neither Nader nor most of his core entourage 
of
	lawyerly young and not-so-young men and women know anything
	about Vedder, Smith, Difranco or Harper's music. But the
	college kids and slackers who are thronging Nader's volunteer
	ranks certainly do. In fact, the same thing attracts them to
	both: independence from all the hucksterism, dishonesty, 
greed,
	short-sightedness and inauthenticity of American mainstream
         culture, which is to say corporate culture.

	I don't know if this is just a momentary coming together,
	driven by people's heightened disgust at another pablum
	election but fated to fade away once the polling places close,
	or if it's the cementing of a new and potent 
political-cultural
	force that took its first steps last year in Seattle and is
         searching its way forward.

	But Lennon came to mind as Nader leaned into the opening
	cadences of his hour-long speech, one of the best I have heard
         him give on the campaign trail.

	"Welcome to the politics of joy and justice," he started, a
	hopeful beginning that in other venues has quickly turned into
	an overwhelming recital of all the betrayals perpetrated by 
the
	Clinton-Gore administration. But that night Nader was in a 
more
	visionary, uplifting mode, reminding the audience that the 
last
	time he spoke in the Garden, it was the October 1979 "No 
Nukes"
	rally, and "since that rally, not one new nuclear plant has
         been ordered in the U.S.A."

         We can win, he was telling the audience. Back to the Garden, 
indeed.

         Imagine...


	Reminding everyone of all the things they have lost control
	over -- their privacy, the ability to raise their children 
free
	of corporate commercialism, their right to choose a doctor, to
	know what's in their food and air, the great commonwealth of
	public lands and the airwaves, trillions in pension funds -- 
he
	asked the crowd, "isn't it time for the American people to 
take
         control of what they already own?"

         Then I really heard the echoes of Lennon:

	Imagine if we had our own TV and radio stations, instead of 
the
         corporate, homogenized media we now have.

	Imagine if they began to pay rent to us, the owners of those
         airwaves, for a change.

	Imagine if we could use the airwaves not just to transmit
	information, but to connect people to people to be creative 
and
	dynamic participants in the making of our own civic culture,
	rather than a nation of spectators and purchasers, which is
         what big business wants.

	Imagine if workers controlled their own pension funds, so when
	they invest in those giant corporations they could force
         changes in their behavior.


	OK, it's not quite the poetry of Lennon -- "Imagine there's no
	heaven, it's easy if you try." Nader is probably more
	comfortable testifying before a congressional committee on
	C-SPAN than he is inspiring a mass audience with flowing
         rhetoric.

	Still, Friday he tried valiantly and succeeded in conveying,
	with the words if not the poetry, his vision of a renewed 
civic
	society. He reminded the young people in the Garden of all the
	struggle and sacrifices of the abolitionists, the 
suffragettes,
	the trade unionists, the dirt-poor farmers of East Texas who
	built the Populist movement of the 1880s and 1890s, the five
	young black men who sat in at a lunch counter and ultimately
	forced the Supreme Court to outlaw "separate but equal," the
	women's equal rights drive, the environmental movement, and 
the
         gay and lesbian civil rights movement.

	He implored the crowd: "Think of the courage, think of the
	determination, think of how badly they wanted justice -- and
         take motivation from it."

	He reminded his listeners: Standing against all of these
	movements, were the dominant businesses of their time, who 
said
	no to their demands for justice. The crowd of thousands
	listened closely -- you could see them all because, in a nice
         democratic touch, the Garden's house lights were left up.

	Against the entrenched established interests, Nader quietly
	told them, "the American people periodically rose up and said
         yes -- we're going to have the power."

         The crowd roared its approval.

         Sing Along With Ralph

	And then, in a scene that, let's face it, is every
	progressive's fantasy, the all-star bill of speakers and
	performers -- Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Bill Murray, Phil
	Donahue, Michael Moore, Vedder, Harper and Difranco -- 
thronged
	the stage to join Patti Smith in a roaring rendition of 
"People
	Have the Power," her populist anthem from the album, "Dream of
         Life."

         The people have the power
         The people have the power
         The people have the power
         The people have the power

         The power to dream / to rule
         to wrestle the world from fools
         it's decreed the people rule
         it's decreed the people rule

         LISTEN!

         I believe everything we dream
         can come to pass through our union
         we can turn the world around
         we can turn the earth's revolution
         we have the power
         People have the power ...

	Nader was clapping and swaying to the music, standing to the
	back, until Ani Difranco gently grabbed his arm and pulled him
	up to a mike to sing along. In a moment Nader was leaning into
	the refrain, singing as heartily as Sarandon and Robbins, who
	were grooving  like the days of wine and roses had never
         passed.

	By the end of the song, Nader was flushed and a bit teary,
	genuinely overwhelmed by the moment. The man who prefers
         perspiration to inspiration was getting it.

	"We are rewriting history," Smith shouted to the crowd. "We 
are
	going to reclaim our political process. Don't forget this
         night."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Last night, Ralph Nader made an appearance in a skit on Saturday Night
Live! The skit featured a debate with all the ex-presidents' sons and 
at one point they colluded to keep out third party candidates, saying 
'we can't have these independents, they're ruining everything!' Then 
Nader and Buchanan showed up as super heroes, Ralph with airbags 
protecting him and Pat as some sort of anti-immigrant crudaser. Then 
everyone started punching each other and Ralph and Pat kicked their 
asses.

Then, at the end of the show, one of the cast members stood at the 
front of the crowd next to the host with a "Let Ralph Debate" sign, 
which was prominently displayed throughout the closing shots.  Looks 
like Ralph is now part of the popular culture!


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