toledoblade.com

toledoblade.com, originally uploaded by costellojr.

Consumer activist and presidential candidate Ralph Nader has appealed to Toledo Mayor Jack Ford to save a small auto repair business whose property was involved in the construction of the new DaimlerChrysler plant in North Toledo.

In a letter written Tuesday to Mr. Ford, Mr. Nader, an independent candidate for president, urged the mayor to meet with Herman and Kim Blankenship, owners of Kim's Auto and Truck Service Inc., to work out a settlement that would allow the pair to keep their business.

"As part of an eminent domain seizure, this business is being offered less than the price of a modest home, $104,000. If this is allowed to continue, Kim's Auto will be deliberately forced out of business by your administration," Mr. Nader's letter states. "Kim Blankenship can't afford to buy a home with the money offered by the city; how then could she pay to rebuild a structure that must now adhere to all new codes, on one-quarter the money quoted by builders?"....Read on......

"Nader's Platform" courtesy onion.com

naderonion, originally uploaded by costellojr.

Bowling for Michael Moore

My neighbor Joe worked for General Motors as a plant manager in Lansing, Michigan between the 1950's - 80's. Resembling a repentant Robert McNamara he describes a zeitgeist within the company that serves as a working starting point for where we are now and how we've arrived.

In 1940 - age 16 - Joe sat in a Canadian classroom. An Armenian of French birth, Canadian code specified he sit on the left side of the room. The right side reserved for English and Canadian born students, the left, everyone else, Greeks, Jews, French, Poles, etc. He specifies the Canadian urgency to send troops to aid the Allies. Thinking of Canada today, the following will sound absurd: If you sat on the "right side" you were exempt from the draft, the "left side" however was required to mark a navy/army preference and attend boot-camp immediately.

Joe opted instead for an apprenticeship in metal dye making, a vital war effort, thus granting an exemption from war duties. Within five years he was a master dye maker and General motors became his home.

Back to the two inciting incidents. A young lawyer wrote a revolutionary book "Unsafe at Any Speed" highlighting corporate negligence within the industry and in particular, the GM Corvair. Joe explains messing with the Motown 3 is signing your own death warrant. "They dropped their fist on Preston Tucker's - Tucker Torpedo in the 50's. You think they saw a threat in this wiz kid Nader?" Though there are alternate versions of GM's attempted muckraking Nader, Joe's favorite insists call-girls were sent to seduce him in the cookie section of a grocery store. Joe insists Nader set a precedent with Unsafe. Not only were they unable to dig-up dirt, but Ralph sued - and won! Settling for an astounding $420,000 in 1965. GM was incidentally saddled with public apologies and a congressional inquiry.

Now, I said something about Michael Moore didn't I? Joe had his first encounter with Michael Moore in 1976. He insists most people don't know it but Michael Moore was a plant worker himself in his early years. Joe explains Nader's book didn't help GM sales, plus their settlement funded a man dedicated to regulating their cars. Japanese and German competition, gas prices, slumping sales hit GM hard. Labor union protests grew and grew. Joe says he himself remembers spending the better part of a year in those protest lines himself, until he became management.

On a cold Michigan morning he remember pulling into the plant, finding a hoard of strikers, lined up in the snow. He pulled up close, but not too close. He explains "going through the line meant getting some serious shit thrown at your car, you were liable to get hurt." He pulled up a hundred feet or so from the line. Idled. "Should have stayed home" he pondered.

A young man approached his car from the line. He introduced himself as Michael Moore. Here I stop him, wondering how you could remember that this kid and the Micheal Moore are the same person. He insists you "don't forget a guy like Mike." Mike said: "You don't want to go through that line do you?". Joe: "Hell no, if I knew they were here I would've stayed home." He said Mike explained the strikers demands, which sounded reasonable.

Perhaps Mike would find GM had other ideas in the near future. Maybe these Americans were more trouble then they were worth. Always complaining. They probably figured the Mexicans wouldn't complain, hell, they'd kiss our feet. Thinking like this that got us here.

Invariably Moore and Nader both began with GM. Moore's 'Roger and Me' touched me deeply as a child. The rabbits skinned for food, the evictions, the corporate negligence. I didn't get it for years, but it stuck with me. Are workers just rabbits you sell or skin? Hope to sell, but settle to skin?

So we're back... 2004. Joe's 80. Nader's 70. Mike's 50. Joe's retired and says GM has tried each year to roll back GM retiree benefits. Nader's slammed in the press unrelentingly, called an egomaniac, for fighting for you, in my case before I was born. Moore is not so easily defined. He's certainly the biggest filmmaker of the year. He and Nader joined forces so elegantly in 2000 and he made a great campaign commercial for Ralph... The ad was a spoof of the Mastercard's 'Priceless' ... shown 11 times on TV - and resulted in litigation between Nader and Mastercard. Nader won in court. He always wins. Perhaps it's the Goliath vs. Nader instead of vice versa. I think of him as the big little guy.

Where is Michael Moore? One of the great filmmakers. But what will be his legacy? Tearing down Bush? Maybe the sequel, Fahrenheit 9-12 will attack Kerry's administration (or Bush's 2nd term) equally vigorously? Perhaps introduce US arms to Israel and it's influence on terror, Kerry's vision of the aparteid wall as a white picket fence, Vanunu jailed for blowing the whistle.

I suppose the supreme irony is if Moore backed Nader today, he could have got him in office. How many million people saw Fahrenheit? If the film ended with puppets Bush/Kerry, and then the magnificent --- Nader! How could people resist?

I feel like going bowling tonight.... bowling for Heinz-Kerry...



A \/ote for /\/ADER / CAMEJ0 is a \/ote for justice...

Ralph Nader Emancipates Washington D.C!!!!

You might be thinking that a guy like Ralph Nader can never be President. After all he's never held public office, he's honest, he's not bribed by the most ugly, insidious lobbyists. His biography is illuminated with true progressive reform, not a list of incumbent terms, e.g. "held office 92'-96' ..." rather... 'founded', 'created', 'wrote', 'fought', 'objected' are mainstays in Nader's realm.

Look at Abraham Lincoln. Surely the most honest man to ever hold office in the US. A third party like Nader. Why keep Ralph Nader out of the debates? They learned their lesson with Lincoln. After a traveling series known as the 'Lincoln Douglas Debates' the little known Illinois lawyer led a minority 3rd party into the presidency at a time this country was faced with a crumbling nation, perhaps the most unsure and bloody time in US history. If they allowed Nader to debate... it would all be over... He would rip down their facade and lay waste to their useless rhetoric, false patriotism...

We need the honesty and integrity of Ralph Nader now more than ever. The Cold War is over. They've created the phrase 'War on Terror' to fund their ailing agendas. During the Cold War the US was under a threat of nuclear annihilation. We bankrupted the Soviets, but is it possible for the 'War on Terror' to bankrupt us, morally and financially?

Today Washington D.C. is a cesspool of lobbyists buying out politicians like Southerner's auctioning fresh slaves.

Lincoln gave us resolve to fight the slavery of human beings. He put his money where his mouth was and stopped America from tearing apart at the seams. Today it is Ralph Nader who will abolish the slavery of politicians. Free them of their lobbying slave masters.

Proclaim your independence from manipulation/propaganda/deceit. Their records largely speak for themselves.

Visit Open Debates...

A \/ote for /\/ADER / Camej0 is a vote for Freedom.

THE REAL SPOILER: "It is 50 percent more likely for a black vote to be "spoiled" than a white vote"

Side Note: Check out www.outsourcing.org -> whose gonna' miss a hundred thousand jobs here, a hundred thousand jobs there? America strong like bull...

Nader has been saying the system is 'rigged':

Sean Gonsalves - Cape Cod Times - 08.03.04

A race between "Manchurian Candidates" Until black votes are courted -- and counted -- like white votes, America has a one-party system

Having given the NAACP the cold shoulder, President Bush did find it in his compassionately conservative heart to address a National Urban League gathering.

It was during his Urban League speech that the president alluded to the popular myth that gets trotted out whenever there's a national election approaching: The Democrats take 'the black vote' for granted but 'they' don't really have blacks' best interests at heart.

With the exception of Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Thomas Sowell, and Clarence Thomas, I bet just about every black person in America thinks that's hilarious. Me? I'm wiping the tears from my eyes as I write this.

No doubt, Mr. Bush acknowledged that things ain't perfect in the Grand Old Party, and so forth and so on. But seriously, how dumb does the Republican leadership think black folks are?

First of all, on the superficial PR tip, if Republicans want to attract more blacks to the fold they need to get someone who comes across like Obama (not Osama) did at the DNC last week. And no, Alan Keyes -- as educated and articulate as Republicans might think he is -- is never going to appeal to the black masses.

And despite Colin Powell having proven he can do the "camel walk (dance)" in an interview with Harvard's Henry Louis Gates, that doesn't translate into the GOP having a big enough tent for us all to stand under. Justin Timberlake can dance his butt off, but that doesn't make him Luther Vandross.

Now, let's skim beneath the surface. According to Alma Gonzalez, spokesman for the Voter Protection Coalition in Florida and special counsel to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, "Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents showed up at the homes of absentee voters, many of whom were minorities, and asked them if they had really voted, if they had actually sold their votes, and otherwise questioned them in an unfriendly manner while revealing side-arms."

Reminiscent of the good ol' Jim Crow days, Gonzalez said that his organization is asking the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to conduct a formal investigation into the matter.

So how about it, President Bush? Would it be asking too much for you to ask your brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to look into that?

Aberration? Consider what Greg Palast, author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," reports.

"Once again, in 2004, the same tricks that were used to eliminate legal black Democratic voters in 2000 have returned with a vengeance. While the state of Florida tells reporters they are not using these corrupted 'felon' lists to eliminate voters, in fact they are, throughout the Republican counties," Palast said last week.

Something else Palast notes: According to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the Harvard University Law School Civil Rights Project, nearly half of America's "spoiled ballots" -- one million -- were cast by black voters.

The study referred to above also found that it is 50 percent more likely for a black vote to be "spoiled" than a white vote. In Florida, it was found that a "black vote" is 10 times more likely to be rejected as invalid as it is for a "white vote."

"In the 2000 race, 95,000 African-American votes were dumped in the Florida swamps, marked as spoiled," Palast further observes. "While the Democratic Party has finally discovered that one million black votes are lost in each election year, the question remains whether they will actually do something to protect black voters, or as in prior years, shrink away, fearful of alienating white voters."

Why do the majority of voting blacks cast a Democratic ballot? Is it blind loyalty? No. Most blacks I know who vote Democrat do so while holding their nose, choosing what they consider to be the lesser of two evils.

Until the concerns of black voters are held on par with those of white voters, millions of blacks will continue to see the presidential elections as essentially choosing between two "Manchurian Candidates" -- "sleepers" who've been implanted by corporate America to rule the White House; mere figure-heads representing the two factions of America's one party system -- the Business Party.

As Malcolm X used to say: "You can't expect a chicken to produce a duck egg."



A \/ote for /\/ADER CAMEJO is a \/ote for LOVE

****WELCOME TO YOUR RALPH NADER/CAMEJO SAFE HAVEN****

Welcome Home! It'll be a week before we're really firing on all cylinders so stop bye often. This is a NADER SAFE HAVEN so no badmouthing the Good Man. A little friendly constructive criticism is always welcome... Like: "Nader... you so crazy."

We recommend Pearl Jam RIOT ACT while reading the blog, save Bu$hleager for last... if you've never heard it (it's banned off corp. radio) you don't know what you're missing so preview/buy it at itunes (P.J. supports Nader so why not the shameless plug?) and after you pickup the 'free download of the week' sample some Noam Chomsky and download for FREE the entire 9-11 report. (Audiobook section)

The Democratic Convention speeches are FREE on itunes - the Rev. Sharpton speech is in particular a gem, so grab it and if you're good with editing make an edgy little music video with it like the Beasties did of NADER. While you're there some other great video clips are... McKinney and CIA and Crack.. enjoy... thanks for stopping in, hope to see you back soon...

!!!!!!LET'S CRISTEN THIS SHIP ALREADY!!!!!!!

A VOTE FOR /\/ADER / CAMEJ0..... is a Vote for Peace...