Ralph Nader

Last Updated: September 13, 2000

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Campaign Website: http://www.votenader.com/
Email: campaign@votenader.org
Campaign Address: Nader 2000 Primary Committee, Inc. P.O. Box 18002 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: 202-296-1600 Fax: 202-265-0183

REDUCE OVERALL IMMIGRATION - opposes

The Green Party supports a shared open border with Mexico.

CHAIN MIGRATION

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VISA LOTTERY

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AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS

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ANCHOR BABIES

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IMPORT WORKERS - OPPOSES

On June 21, Mr. Nader appeared on the National Public Radio call-in show "Talk of the Nation" discussing the issues of his Presidential campaign. A listener asked his position on H-1B skilled worker employment visas. He replied by saying that many of the jobs could be filled by American workers whose skills were convertible. Mr. Nader concentrated his answer on the damage to the sending countries, emphasizing the problem of the brain drain effect on places like India and China. The United States is "piling them up in this country leaving their native countries without their talents," he responded. American companies are "sucking out of the entire world the most talented, skilled, knowledgeable people." Mr. Nader also opined that American immigration policy should include the consideration of the brain drain on sending countries.

BORDER CONTROL

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WORKER VERIFICATION

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INTERIOR ENFORCEMENT

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FEDERAL FORCED DOUBLING OF U.S. POPULATION - supports

Nader does not focus on population growth, rather, he tends to focus on the effects of population growth: air & water pollution, toxic dumps, the results of a rapidly growing industrial nation. He has refused to answer most direct questions about immigration but he is aware of the consequences and has declined to speak out against the status quo federal policies that are forcing another doubling in U.S. population.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Ralph Nader is nothing less than the founder of the modern consumer movement. He is a unique character on the American scene. His first book, "Unsafe at Any Speed (1965)," was not merely a call for higher standards of automotive safety, it was also a challenge to the unsophisticated American acceptance of corporate authority of that time. For his effective portrayal of the General Motors Corvair as criminally dangerous car, the company unsuccessfully attempted to entrap Nader with call girls in the cookie section of a grocery store. His subsequent winning suit against GM provided the seed money for the first Public Interest Research Group in Washington, D.C.

http://www.salon.com/bc/1999/01/26bc2.html

Born in Winsted, Connecticut, in 1934, Ralph Nader was raised by his Lebanese immigrant parents in an atmosphere of citizen activity. Mr. Nader remarked in an April 2000 interview, "It was a very civically responsible upbringing. My parents said to the children, 'The other side of freedom is civic responsibility.' So we were always encouraged to participate and try to improve our community and not be passive onlookers or bystanders. Our parents would take us to town meetings in my hometown, which were often pretty robust displays of discussion between the citizenry and the selectmen and mayor."

http://www.progressive.org/intv0400.htm

Nader graduated magna cum laude from Princeton in 1955 and received an LLB from Harvard in 1958. He is the co-author or editor of more than a dozen books and founded many organizations including Public Citizen and the magazine Multinational Monitor. His public interest career has focused on several related topics, including corporate responsibility, greater citizen empowerment, government accountability, more citizen control over public assets, public funding of political campaigns and worker rights. He wrote the Concord Principles in 1992, a 10-point program which briefly outlines his political objectives.

http://www.votenader.com/issues.html

The excesses of corporate power have been a major focus. In particular, Nader has drawn aim on corporations' immense power, which has been favored by pliant legislators in the form of tax breaks, giveaways, bailouts, overseas marketing assistance and the varieties of corporate welfare from the taxpayers.

http://www.votenader.com/press/Corporate/corporate1.html

In order to see how loyal the business community was to the country that provided the freedom in which to grow and prosper, Mr. Nader contacted 100 of the largest corporations and proposed that the CEO lead the next shareholders' meeting in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Only one company found the suggestion to be amenable.

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/board.html

Nader's level of expertise on his chosen issues has made him reticent on other subjects of public importance. He has been downright unresponsive about numerous mainstream issues, such as abortion, gun ownership or school vouchers. William Safire noted in a New York Times column (3/21/96) that Nader would not "be smoked out on such issues as immigration or affirmative action, preferring his own turf: restraining corporate power, term limits, public campaign financing, product safety and 'a new model of electoral politics.'" Candidate Nader has declined to answer the detailed Project VoteSmart (www.vote-smart.org) survey on its wide array of issues (including immigration) despite being contacted on six different occasions.

In a rare statement about immigration, he remarked in 1996 that "If people in California had these tools of democracy, you wouldn't have such a proposal (the California Civil Rights Initiative, which repealed affirmative action) on the ballot. There would be a far healthier economy. The struggle between people against people in these immigration matters would not occur. There would not be a U.S. policy for supporting the Mexican oligarchy of repression and poverty, leading to massive convulsion among the peasants in Mexico, who are being dispossessed from their eijidos."

http://www.wco.com/~dragon22/naderradio.html

Another complicating factor is the position of the Green Party on immigration and the whole concept of citizenship. Number two in its "interconnected Key Values of Green politics" is Social Justice: "Greens want to replace the worldwide system of poverty and injustice with a world free of all oppression based on class, gender, race, citizenship, age, or sexual orientation."

http://www.greenparty.org/values.html

It is a curious choice of party affiliations when one considers Nader's lifelong dedication to the rights of American citizens.

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