
              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 7  Num. 52
             ======================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 
RALPH NADER -- 03/24/96
=======================
Ralph Nader appeared on Meet The Press (a.k.a. "Meet The 
Depressed") on March 24, 1996, and was interviewed by Tim 
Russert.
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
TIM RUSSERT:
We're back on Meet The Press. With us now, consumer advocate 
turned presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Mr. Nader, welcome.
 
 
RALPH NADER:
Thank you.
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
*Why* are you running for president?
 
 
RALPH NADER:
Because we're part of a larger and longer-term political movement 
to build democracy in concrete ways; to strengthen the roles of 
the voter-citizen, tax-payer, consumer, worker, and shareholder; 
and to confront, and to give competition to, the two parties: 
Tweedledum-Tweedledee/Republican-Democrat, which are 
increasingly, essentially, a party of, by and for big business. 
The dominance, the supremacy of, these global corporations over 
our government, over our marketplace, over labor, over consumers, 
over small businesses through these franchise agreements, is 
getting completely out of hand, and on a collision course with 
democracy.
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
Now on Tuesday, voters in California will find your name and the 
"Green Party". If you become the nominee of the Green Party on 
Tuesday, will you run as presidential candidate all the way 
through November?
 
 
RALPH NADER:
In all probability.
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
What, what hesitation?
 
 
RALPH NADER:
The only... It's up to the Green Party.
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
But as far as Ralph Nader's concerned, you're in the race all the 
way.
 
 
RALPH NADER:
Correct. Unless a lot of "Greens" volunteering all over 
California aren't in favor of that. But they make the final 
decision.
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
Now people in the White House will say, "Listen. When it comes to 
issues, when it comes to the crunch, Bill Clinton has been there. 
When there was a bill which would limit the stockholders' ability 
to sue, Bill Clinton vetoed it. Just last week, when there was a 
bill which would limit product liability, ability of people to 
sue for defective products, Bill Clinton threatened to veto. Bob 
Dole would have signed both those bills. And Ralph Nader, if 
*you* run, in California, you're gonna drain votes from Bill 
Clinton and *you* may elect Bob Dole."
 
How do you respond?
 
 
RALPH NADER:
First of all, those two vetoes were unusually good news from the 
White House and President Clinton deserves to be commended for 
[it]. He took on big business contributors to his own campaign 
and did the right thing by wanting to keep the doorways to the 
courtroom open for people who've been defrauded or wrongfully 
injured.
 
However. In the first 3 years of his tenure, he's been 
consistently on the side of big business when it's conflicted 
with labor and consumers. Jerry Jarzinowski(?) of the National 
Association of Manufacturers said over a year ago to me that he 
really liked Clinton; that Clinton was strong on businesses' 
issues like NAFTA and GATT and he was pretty indifferent on 
issues close to Labor's heart, like raising the minimum wage, 
labor law reform, etc. What we have seen here is, not only Bill 
Clinton, but the Democratic Party, with Al Fromme(?) and the 
Democratic Leadership Council, pushing more into the corporatist 
"right" and away from the "progressive" wing of the Democratic 
Party.
 
And it really is of singular indifference what the impact of this 
"Green movement" is on Clinton and on Dole: they're perfectly 
free to adopt the "new democracy" tools, which we call the 
"Concord principles", that I ran on in a "none of the above" 
write-in candidacy in New Hampshire in 1992. There's no patent on 
it!
 
By the way, of the 6300 write-in votes in New Hampshire in 1992 
that I received, 52 percent were Republican, 48 percent were 
Democrat. I think a lot of the people that are going to vote 
Green, many of them would've stayed home, and some of them 
would've been Republican and some of them would've been Democrat.
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
But people are gonna say to you, Ralph Nader: "In the end, this 
is a real world. Would you prefer to have Bill Clinton, or Bob 
Dole, sitting in the Oval Office? Because one of those two men 
are gonna be president."
 
 
RALPH NADER:
I would prefer *neither*, in the "real world."
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
Who would you prefer sitting in the Oval Office?
 
 
RALPH NADER:
That's why we're expanding this new political movement! So we get 
people who rise from a deliberate, established civic confidence 
in our country; who rise from the grass roots; who know where 
they come from; who don't just toss their hat in the ring, go to 
the fat cats, raise money, and say, "I promise you I'll do 'this, 
this' if you elect me president" -- and then all we see are 
broken promises.
 
Our democracy is deteriorating! And it's deteriorating because 
the political government is increasingly captured by the 
corporate government.
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
It wouldn't bother you if you woke up in November of '96 and 
said, "Bill Clinton was not re-elected today because he lost the 
state of California to Bob Dole. And the reason was: Ralph Nader 
siphoned off 6 percent of voters who would've voted for Bill 
Clinton?"
 
 
RALPH NADER:
If that happens to Clinton because he refuses to adopt very 
important campaign finance reform, sponsor initiative referenda 
recall all over the country, have inserts in various company 
bills that are being bailed out for illegal monopolies to help 
consumers voluntarily to join their own consumer action groups, 
give tax-payers standing to sue the federal government, elect 
shareholders who *own* these companies to have some control, 
including the pension trust -- he deserves it! Because it's so 
easy to up-end Dole by moving with a vision of a concrete 
expansion of our democratic tools! Democracy solves problems. 
It's the best mechanism to solve problems I think ever devised. 
And democracy brings the *best* out of people in this country. 
We've got too many problems we don't deserve, too many solutions 
we don't apply. It's all open for Bill Clinton to move into that 
arena and reduce any challenge that comes to him.
 
 
TIM RUSSERT:
And if he embraced some of your visions, as you're talking about 
this morning, you would be then reluctant to challenge him all 
the way through to November?
 
 
RALPH NADER:
Not at all! Politicians always need an opposition that *stays* to 
its convictions and holds them to their promises.
 
                   [...to be continued...]
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
     I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like "Conspiracy Nation" sent to your e-mail 
address, send a message in the form "subscribe cn-l My Name" to 
listproc@cornell.edu          (Note: that is "CN-L" *not* "CN-1")
-----------------------------------------------------------------
  For information on how to receive the new Conspiracy Nation 
  Newsletter, send an e-mail message to bigred@shout.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Want to know more about Whitewater, Oklahoma City bombing, etc? 
(1) telnet prairienet.org (2) logon as "visitor" (3) go citcom
-----------------------------------------------------------------
       See also: http://www.europa.com/~johnlf/cn.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------
          See also: ftp.shout.net  pub/users/bigred
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

