Democracy Now!

The past two days has brought two great segments of Democracy Now.

Yesterday, they aired a segment they did with Ralph Nader in June at a conference called “Taming the Giant Corporation”. I think I am starting to realize that Nader is my man for domestic policy and Chomsky is my man for foreign policy and high-level analysis. Anyway, it is really amazing to see that at 73 years old, Ralph Nader has not lost any of his spunk, his ability to retain information, and his quick off-the-cuff speaking. Here is a snippet from the interview that really hit home with me (emphasis mine):

AMY GOODMAN: How do you think mass movements should organize themselves and hold politicians accountable, make them more accountable to citizen, civilian, non-citizen movements than corporations?

RALPH NADER: Well, let’s start with the easy things, like half of democracy is showing up. So why don’t workers who have lost their jobs or their pensions to industries that have gone to communist China with US Department of Commerce subsidy and encouragement, why don’t they mass and rally? I mean, who’s keeping them from rallying and massing? American Idol? Is that what’s doing it? I mean, let’s stop making excuses for ourselves. Let’s take the farmers, the dwindling number of farmers. They have great important causes that mesh with environmental causes at times, and the whole issue of genetic engineering and the dispossession of the small family farm by the big suppliers corporations and the big buying corporations. Why don’t they come to Washington, the way they did twenty years ago with their tractors? Show up!

I have found that to be so true the past couple of months. In my efforts to get some sort of meaningful global warming group going in the city, I’ve found lots of interested people but almost no one that is even willing to click on a link to RSVP for an event. This is a huge problem.

You can view the full transcript of the Nader segment here and the full show in video here.

And today, another great show. They dedicated most of the show to the Jena Six, an extremely disturbing and ongoing story of unbelievable racism going on in Louisiana. You can view the full transcript here and the full video here.

Enjoy.