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Indybay Feature

Ralph Nader + associates at UC Berkeley

by Leni
I went to see Ralph Nader speak at UC Berkeley. The sell-out crowd at Zellerbach surprised me. Nearly everything in the press and the 'blogs' is totally negative, and you'd think that just a bunch of hecklers and tomato throwers would go. Instead, the crowd seemed nearly as large as the Howard Dean crowd Friday, with mostly sophomores instead of Berkeley community people.
jweb.jpg
The Daily Cal had been saying that many of the Free Speech anniversary events didn't have any students and only older people, but that wasn't the case here. I've wondered why Nader was always polling around 5% in 2000, but he is near 2-3% this year, despite the overwhelming left and liberal opposition. That's still pretty high compared to the libertarian etc. Here, he made me happy to hear him.

Outside, there were a few of the prominent repellant leftists, the sort who make new curious people run away and wash their hands. Joe Webb was yelling, and they wouldn't let us take pictures inside where he shouted a few autistic statements. He is a conservative too - he posts conservative stuff amidst his usual antisemitic junk, yet here he is, and he even gave $250 to Nader. It makes one sick.

First, some green party candidates and a Peace and Freedom person (I'm registered in that party but they should really bother listening and sort out their problems) spoke, including John Selawsky who is great. Todd Chretien of the ISO spoke. I believe the ISO organized this. He admitted that Ralph Nader was raising funds in Marin County at the moment and wasn't there, so he filled in the time, as ISO people are so skilled at doing- I learned this when a rich kid in high school invited a libertarian, ISO, RCP and democrat to faceoff. His voice at least isn't as shrill as others (like http://www.zombietime.com/how_berkeley_can_you_be/135-3576_102MVI.mov )
but he actually said, no exaggeration, that we have unions today because a communist reading circle with 9 people organized the San Francisco General strike of 1934. For God's sake - stop being such gutter dwellers, ISO.
After getting 10 pages through my book, some others came out. Peter Camejo was funny, very sane, made sense, was interesting. At the 90 minute point of the rally or whatever you call it, two actual hecklers emerged wearing a Bush mask and said something, but the green 'security' pointed at the exit sign and they went right out. It was notable that everyone was so polite. A quick google search will show that more liberals, which Berkeley is full of, hate Ralph Nader than even know about Daniel Pipes or David Horowitz, yet both of those two had double bag and body searches and really mean student security. Instead, there were over 1000 students who kept cheering.
Then some other guy came out and people yelled for Nader, then Matt Gonzalez came out. He is really smart and sane and pleasant. Then Nader finally came out. He talked about corporations screwing up childhood and everything else. Mining corporations, banks, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, defense, Halliburton, and how Bush himself is a corporation. Then, 45 minutes into the talk, as he was talking about Noam Chomsky and Medea Benjamin rejecting him, four Lyndon LaRouche people one by one popped up shouting something you couldn't hear as part of their initiation, as the green students ran to the previous one to urge them to go away. Nader explained what they were. Why do the LaRouche people oppose Nader more than Bush and Kerry. My perception is that their followers are naive people who decided they needed to be something more than a liberal, but this is all they heard about. They shut down a Paul Ehrlich talk last Spring. They have urged people I've met to quit school and join them because they always stress basically that the end is near and you won't need your own job or education or life or funds because everything's going to go to hell soon anyway. But I don't think they like Bush either. When I was leaving, they were clustered around the front door trying to get in and some police were coming.
Then Nader went on about more issues and encouraged everyone to become civically minded and vote for him in nonswing states. Then a progressive attorney encouraged everyone to donate $$$ for the man who hasn't taken a weekend in 40 years.
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TITLE
AUTHOR
DATE
Kerry =Bush
Tue, Oct 12, 2004 1:15PM
is amusing but not informative
Tue, Oct 12, 2004 11:24AM
Toby Shepherd
Tue, Oct 12, 2004 10:06AM
for nader
Tue, Oct 12, 2004 9:39AM
Nader=Bush
Tue, Oct 12, 2004 8:42AM
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