Ralph Nader came out in support of the ‘Occupy Together’ anti-corpo- rate greed movement Friday in D.C.
DEMONSTRATORS VOW TO SIT-IN INDEFINITELY;
POLITICAL ACTIVIST NADER OFFERS SUPPORT
Corporate bosses… crashed the country
on the backs of workers… and investors.
— Ralph Nader
By Alan Z. Forman
The “Occupy Wall Street” anti-greed movement that began last month in New York and spread coast to coast came to the nation’s capital at week’s end as some 100 protesters “occupied” Washington’s Freedom Plaza just two blocks from the White House to express outrage at America’s economic and political system.
“Occupy DC” organizers said demonstrators intended to stay in the city indefinitely and that more protesters were expected to join the group today.
The loosely organized demonstrations — which have no specific goals or agenda, nor remedies for correcting what demonstrators call the nation’s obsession with greed — continued also into Saturday in Baltimore, having begun early in the week at McKeldin Square in the Inner Harbor, where so far about 100 individuals have staged a sit-in and a small number have camped out overnight.
How many will camp out in Washington in support of the “Occupy Together” protest (the national movement’s umbrella term for demonstrations nationwide) is still unclear. However supporters in many cities insist their numbers are increasing.
Celebrities including filmmaker Michael Moore and actress Susan Sarandon last week notably joined in the New York City protest, and yesterday, political activist Ralph Nader weighed in in Washington.
CORPORATE FAT CATS ‘CRASHED THE COUNTRY’
The corporate fat cats that have been bailed out by big government “have crashed the country on the backs of workers, taxpayers and investors,” Nader told Baltimore photojournalist Bill Hughes, whose video interview with the five-time presidential candidate may be seen by clicking here.
In it, Nader charges, “The corporate bosses at the top… know that they have far too much power, they know they’re guilty of greed and disregard of the needs and necessities of tens of millions of people.”
Addressing the amorphous nature of the demonstrations, Nader dismissed criticism of the movement’s not having any specific goals or recommendations on how to fix the problem, explaining, “There’ll always be time later on for a more programmatic demand on Congress…. [so] let the turnout swell.”
Heralding the movement’s surprising spread nationwide, he said: “This is not a one-event situation… this is continuing, unfolding, deepening, reflecting the creativity of people whose names we’ve never heard of. People are coming out of the woodwork with great signs, music, great demonstration,… and the best slogan of all, ‘We Are the 99 Percent,’” a reference to the estimated one percent of individuals who control everything.
‘HEADING FOR A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN’
“Half of democracy’s showing up,” he added. “You start showing up where you live and work, and you’ll see, the power structure will start heading for a nervous breakdown.”
Predicting ultimate success for the varied demonstrations, “occupations” and sit/sleep-ins, he said, “They’ve hollowed out our economy, these big corporations. In the process they’ve hollowed out a lot of themselves, so they are very fragile, and they need to be pushed….
“I can tell you one thing, although I can’t document it; just based on my experience, they’re starting to sweat….
”Even though this is a completely peaceful, nonviolent movement… it has moral power. Moral power is what they’re afraid of more than anything else.”
His comments were presaged at midweek by President Obama, who expressed belief during a White House press conference that “people are frustrated. And the protestors are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.
“They will continue to be frustrated by it until they get a sense that everybody is playing by the same set of rules,” he said, “and that you’re rewarded for responsibility and doing the right thing” as opposed to working the system.
‘THE FRUSTRATIONS… PEOPLE FEEL’
“I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel,” the President added, “that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street, and yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place.”
The movement “started at the bottom, Nader explained. “It didn’t start at the top, this whole turning out; half of democracy is showing up. And just think, the attention of the country is now focused on all these events [from coast to coast], and no more than 100,000 people have shown up so far, [but] just imagine, what if 200,000, what if 500,000?”
Offering advice to the Occupy Together organizers, he noted that people in America “have a unified sense of fairness” about such matters. “After all, the Golden Rule has been around for a long time — and keeping it at that level is very important.”
Still, in answer to a question from a participant — “How close are we then to the tipping point where we can leverage some real change?” — the man who famously defeated General Motors and removed the Chevrolet Corvair from the streets of America four decades ago acknowledged, “It’s pretty far from that right now.”
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org
WATCH BILL HUGHES’ INTERVIEW WITH RALPH NADER (click here)
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