[nader-colo-students] Ralph Nader Rallies Students to Get Out the Vote

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

Dear Student Supporters, 

In 1996, more than 94 million voters—more than 50 percent of the 
electorate—failed to turn out for the Presidential Election.  Among 
young people, the numbers were even lower where only 28% of citizens 
ages 18-24 cast a vote for their nation's President.  These drop out 
figures point to a severe and fundamental breakdown in our 
democracy.  It is up to us to change those numbers. 
  

The Nader/LaDuke campaign has been an exercise in the politics of joy 
and justice.  And yet, for decades, the corporate two party duopoly 
has told you—the youth of America—that there is no joy in politics 
and there is no justice in politics.  It is time for change.  We can 
all feel a new movement growing, but it must be pushed on, it must 
not fall prey to the politics of sorrow and disillusion. 
  

The corporate media and the politicians they support, the very people 
that have led to this poor turnout among youth, have completely 
ignored your generation, writing you off as lazy and apathetic.  And 
yet, a recent survey conducted by the Harvard University Institute of 
Politics shows that 60 percent of students have been actively 
involved in community service. 

Here stands a blatant contradiction. 

You know that most of your classmates are NOT apathetic; they have 
simply thrown their hands in the air believing that their voices will 
never be heard. As one poll showed, 40% of youth think politics is 
"about money and lying."  Maybe many young people don't vote because 
they are smart enough to see through the look-alike, talk-alike 
candidates who serve only corporate interests and talk down to 
today's youth as if they do not see through the smoke and mirrors. 

But you do. 

As a young supporter of this campaign, you are living proof that 
young people engage themselves in politics because of issues, not 
rhetoric; because of actions, not promises; and because there is a 
real and palpable possibility for progressive change.  The success of 
our campaign and our movement depends heavily upon your engagement to 
politics. 

When the media and the corporate politicians in Washington behave as 
if they're telling you that you can't make a difference, tell them to 
take a look at history. As much as they try to downplay your power 
for social, economic, and environmental reform, by calling your 
ideals naïve and politically unrealistic, they cannot contest the 
fact that young people have been the driving force behind every 
social movement from the civil rights, anti-war and environmental 
struggles of the 1960's to the anti-sweatshop organizing today.  I 
ask America: Without the energy, passion, and idealism of our youth, 
where would we be today? 

Let's show them where we are today, riding the crest of the protests 
in Seattle, DC, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Prague, forming a 
worldwide movement of people over profits, a movement where people 
matter foremost. 

I ask you, the students organizing for this campaign, flanked by 
fellow students on over 900 campuses nationwide, to join me on Nov. 
5th to kick off a National Student Get Out the Vote Drive.  On this 
day, hold a rally on your campus to galvanize your fellow supporters, 
then go out and "paint the campus" Green, and let that renewing color 
spill over into your community.  Go door-to-door canvassing, table, 
dorm-storm try to reach every student at your school, and every 
citizen in the surrounding neighborhoods.  Let them know why you're 
voting your conscience, and why you feel that they should too. 

On November 5th, I will rally with Cornel West, Michael Moore, 
Barbara Ehrenreich, Patti Smith, Randall Robinson, Phil Donahue, 
Danny Glover, and thousands of supporters at the MCI Center in 
Washington D.C.  Please stand in solidarity with us by localizing the 
politics of joy and justice and throwing Get Out the Vote (GOTV) 
rallies at your campus on this day. 

With a successful GOTV drive, and with the issues driving our way to 
the polls, we will deliver a shock to the American political duopoly 
on November 7th, and move one step closer to reinvigorating American 
Democracy, as America's third largest and fastest growing party—the 
Green Party. 

I am calling on you, the youth of America, to lead this drive, to 
prove to the media that you do care, and to prove to the amalgamated 
Democratic-Republican party that their days as the majority are 
numbered, for the youth of America are tired of the corruption and 
the hopelessness.  We can take an important step towards deepening 
our democracy for future advances in justice and progress. 

Let's Get Out the Votes! 

Sincerely, 
Ralph Nader 



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