Please Read and Please Be Jealous

bbaldwin · Post by **bbaldwin** » Mon May 08, 2006 11:43 am

Just to make you all jealous I have to get the word out:

Last month while I was on the close up trip in DC we went to see a pacifist speaker. Everybody walked down to fill up all the rows near the front, but the day we left for the trip, I had fallen down the stairs of my house and injured my ankle, so it would hurt too much to go down there, so I sat near the aisle in the back row. About fifteen minutes into the speech/debate a man walks in and sits down next to me. I recognize his face from somewhere, but don't know quite who he is, so I just say "Hi" and he smiles and says "Hi" and we continue to listen to the speaker. About 10 minutes later he says he has to go and gets up and leaves. On the bus I ask one of our program instructors if he recognized the guy who was sitting with me and just laughs and says, "Yeah, I talked to him in the bathroom, man. That was Ralph Nader." So now I'm like holy shit. I sat with, and made small chat with, fucking Ralph Nader. That really made my day.

Just thought I'd let you all know.

Post by **Captain_Obvious** » Mon May 08, 2006 12:00 pm

Hahaha that's awesome.

If that man hadn't run for president in 2000, Al Gore almost certainly would have won, and Bush 2 never would have become president. You could easily argue that that Ralph Nader is responsible for 90% of the mess that our country is in right now.

That said, he's always seemed like a cool guy and I know I'd have a great time sitting next to him.

smantie · Post by **smantie** » Mon May 08, 2006 1:03 pm

He's from my home state!

Honestly, Nader is one of the best politicians around. He sticks to his beliefs better than anyone else, he fights for what he believes in and he's not afraid to speak his mind. He's also featured at the end of Rage Against the Machine's "Testify" music video which makes him uber cool

The whole "he ruined the 2000 elections" is bullshit. It really is. He was on track to get 6% of the vote, and he ended up with about 3%. If he dropped out most people would have voted someone else, and he did not get too many votes in Florida as it was. Anyways, if he dropped out and made it seem like his voters would vote for Gore, I'm sure many Buchannan voters would have turned to Bush in reaction. He ruined the 2000 elections just about as much as Kucinich ruined the 2004 elections (he got a few votes at the Democratic National Convention), which wasn't at all.

Rickshaw · Post by **Rickshaw** » Mon May 08, 2006 5:49 pm

Ralph Nader LOVES beer!

Just a little fun fact

Post by **Captain_Obvious** » Tue May 09, 2006 12:24 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#2000