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Ralph Nader Coming to LSU
By Jonathan Specht
Ralph Nader, an independent candidate who is running for president and has previously run in 1996, 2000, and 2004 will be appearing at LSU’s School of Music on Wednesday, September 17 at 7:30 PM, in the Coral Room #115. Learn more about Nader and his views at www.votenader.org. Following is an interview with the candidate.
Why should a college student vote for you, and not one of the major party candidates?
Because I won’t betray them, lie to them, deceive them, turn my back on what is of concern for them. Like student loan rip-offs, lack of affordable health-care after they graduate, and their future jobs being sent overseas. Even white collar jobs are now being sent to India and China. I also want to get rid of this boomeranging war on drugs. We don’t send nicotine addicts or alcohol addicts to jail. We treat them. I want to clean out our jail cells of those who are arrested simply for being addicts, and throw corporate criminals into their cells.
You’ve previously said that the Democrats ought to win by a blowout this year, given conditions in this country. After recent polling showing a tight race, do you stand by that statement?
They always manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. They have gone to the corporate side of issues more and more, and blurred the distinctions. Voters want clear distinctions. They want bright lines. Here’s a choice: I’m offering a very clear distinction. Democrats have lost ground, but they can recover it. There’s growing unemployment, rip-off credit cards, huge waste in the military budget, and bailouts of Wall Street crooks. They can win if they hammer those issues home. Democrats always keep going to the right. It’s a losing strategy. Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry, and now Obama have all done it. They rely on liberal voters because they have nowhere to go, and try to snatch two or three points from the right.
But after Senator McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin, can you still say there isn’t a clear cut difference between the two tickets?
With that pick, McCain is cloning himself in image of Bush. But Democrats aren’t hammering the issues home that working Americans care about.
You’ve said that you’d like to see 16 year olds be able to vote. Do they have the level of judgement necessary to make a decision that serious?
Yes. If we lower the voting age, they will get excited, and they can really have discussions with their teachers in class about the issues. Then they’ll run home and talk about it at home. You know, when you’re 18 and you go off on your own, you lose enthusiasm. Sometimes the younger people really take it more seriously. If you’re old enough to drive and work, you should be able to vote.
Why aren’t you endorsing Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney?
Because I’m running. We think we’re number three nationally in terms of support, way ahead of the Green Party. We’re at 6-8% in support depending on the state. I gave the Green Party a big boost in 2000. But they tend to be petty and divisive, and can’t stay together as an organized party. The Green Party is only 31 state parties, and they’ve been around for decades. We’ve only been running since May, and we’ll be on at least 45 state ballots.
In terms of being “organized,” wouldn’t it be better to be running on a party ticket?
Well, it would be good to have another party, but the ground has to be laid first. We need people who are willing to do the work of putting together an organization, and not just show up to rallies and be excited and then go home.
We recently had the seventh anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and Osama Bin Laden is still alive. How would you defeat Al Qaeda as president?
We’ve been doing so many wrong things over there that we’re becoming a recruiting magnet. Our occupation in Iraq is a magnet for new members of Al Qaeda. We need to be humanitarian superpower. Military power in Afghanistan is not working, Admiral Mullen even said so recently. We need more efforts at growing infrastructure and creating jobs to win over the people of Afghanistan.
But wouldn’t those doing community work in Afghanistan need protection?
Yes, they need protection, but pretty soon that gets the local community, the tribal leaders against them. Whereas if the local people are starving and people come and give them money and bread, then they get rooted in the communities. If you try, you’re going to be able to.
How would you improve science education in this country?
We need to define science more broadly to help local communities. What we need is science for the people. Science should mean people testing drinking waters that big companies are selling to communities for pollution, testing polluted soil, looking for lead contamination in toys. That’s the kind of science we need to be teaching our students. Medical research needs more emphasis on prevention, on fighting things like TB and malaria, and not products like Viagra.
How would you change our tax system?
We would first tax that which society like the least or dislike the most. We would have a securities tax, derivatives taxation, tax the addiction industry, higher gambling taxes, a carbon tax and tax on other pollutants. Then we can give tax relief to workers.
But couldn’t a carbon tax become a burden on the working class?
Well, you don’t do it at the gasoline pump level. You do it way way upstream. You make sure that speculation on Wall Street doesn’t raise prices to begin with. Second, you get alternative energy to be more efficient. You can rebate some to the people if it does affect prices at the pump. Eventually, we’ll have hydrogen cars, industrial hemp, and solar energy, because carbon-based technologies will be dis-incentivized.
You mentioned industrial hemp. Do you think the oil industry is preventing industrial hemp from becoming legal?
Yes. Why can we import it from Romania, France, and China, but can’t have our farmers grow it? The farmers want it. The people want it when they learn about it. Even in the paper industry, some are coming around because we’re running out of forests. It makes great paper.
Originally Published: Issue 705 - September 17, 2008
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