f-
Take Back the
Night march
page 2
VOLUME
mmm
wmm
Plan a trip to see
The Planner
pages
Addictions that
plague campuses
page 12
The ghost of March
Madness past
page 23
DATE 3/8/01 www.elon.edu/pendulum
Nader returns to campus
27years later, the message remains
Mandie Danielski
Pendulum Reporter
“The real building process for
leading the world in ways that count
takes time, energy and talent,” said
Ralph Nader, public activist and
consumer advocate, in his speech to
the Elon College community yes
terday evening. “And those cannot
be purchased.”
His speech, sponsored by
Elon’s Liberal Arts Forum, ex
pressed to a large and largely en
grossed audience of about 1,000 his
vision for deepened democracy,
urging all to take on more respon
sible roles as citizens.
Nader, who calls himself a
“full-time citizen,” was nominated
by the Green Party to lead a third-
party presidential election last year,
along with vice presidential candi
date Winona LaDuke.
Though the campaign proved
practically fruitless for votes (the
Adam Waterson / Photography Editor
Green Party’s influence only
slightly dented Gore’s and Bush’s
support), Nader and his “Raider”
supporters continue to actively strive
for stronger political competition,
greater citizen rights, safer.environ
ments and more.
After graduating magna cum
laude from Princeton in 1955, Nader
attended Harvard Law School where
he experimented with issues in au
tomobile safety. His research even
tually led to a published article in
The Nation titled “The Safe Car
You Can’t Buy.”
Some years later, he published
the best-selling book “Unsafe at
Any Speed: The Designed-In Dan
gers of the American Automobile,”
which targeted General Motors and
changed American auto industry
legal standards.
He also delivered a speech at
Elon in fall 1974 with similar mes
sages. Now, after a forty-year ca
reer, Nader has accomplished much.
Not only has Nader exposed
the dangers in cars but also in street
vendors’ hot
dogs, commu
nity drinking
water and cor
porate business
giants.
In his ad-
dress in
McCrary The
atre, he tackled
poor econom
ics, saying hun
dreds of bil
lions of wasted
dollars should
be better spent
on schools,
clinics and
technology to test drinking water,
just a few of the unsupported do
mestic issues he named.
. In response to the United
States’ successful economy, Nader
said, “Rising tides usually lifts
boats. Our rising tides are only
lifting yachts.”
He passionately commented
on the control of large corpora
tions over consumers’ rights, say
ing their methods are “of the
Exxons, by the General Motors
and for the DuPonts.”
Problems like insufficient
health care and detrimental pollu
tion have improved since Nader’s
formation of the Public Citizen
group in 1971,
Such laws and agencies bom
from the group’s efforts include
the Safe Drinking Water Act, the
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), the En
vironment Protection Agency
(EPA) and the Freedom of Infor
mation Act of 1974, which created
access to the government.
Currently 80 Green Party
-members in 22 states occupy
elected positions in government.
The Green Party promotes
several key values, including re
spect for diversity, social justice,
nonviolence, personal and global
responsibility, grassroots democ
racy and others - all of which Nader
addressed yesterday. With the
Green Party, Nader launched third-
party presidential campaigns in
1992, 1996 and 2000.
Mark Garabedian, a senior
political science and international
relations major at Elon, said that
while many disregard any running
third party, “Sometimes the larg
est role a third party plays in an
election is to bring out issues that
would otherwise go unnoticed.”
Part of Nader’s criticisms tar
geted the Republican and Demo
cratic Parties’ campaign tactics.
“They are remote from their histori
cal roots,” he said. “They obviously
believe they don’t have to earn their
votes like everybody else. They’re
distracted with this frenzy search
for money.”
Nader expressed his appeal in
speaking with students at Elon since,
“Students have higher expectation
levels for the future,” he said. “They
are not yet ground down with life,
they have a lot of energy and when
you propose or describe how much
better the world can be students
react very well. They have a sense
of possibility.”
He also addressed education
issues, stating that “an enormous
gap in our formal education” exists,
distorting our ideas of crime, vio
lence and welfare specifically.
Adam Waterson / Photography Editor
Our education on government
he said is like “eating a ton of saw
dust without butter,” but that citi
zens must take new approaches.
He advises that students in
terested in alternatives to the two
dominating parties should look into
the Green Party’s student organiza
tion, Campus Green. He hopes to
have 900 chapters all over the coun
try, including Elon College.
He suggested that young
people use their energies to change
attitudes, to change public policies
and to change the present political
identity crisis.
“For at least the last 20 years
we’ve seen two parties practicing in
protective imitation,” he said. “They
are becoming more and more like
one another, pursuing the same ends,
getting the same money from the
same corporations, and depriving
the country of the fair choice we
deserve in elections. This compro
mises our democracy. It’s not good
enough for the American people.”