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Nader: Voters should take their duty seriously

Government should be as accountable as sports teams, candidate tells UH audience

By Dusti Rhodes
The Daily Cougar

According to the latest candidate to join the race for president, one of the biggest threats to our political system is a population with a better knowledge of sports than government.

"If (people) were as astute, dedicated and sharp as voters as they are sports fans, our country would be in much better shape," Ralph Nader said during a speech at UH's Cullen Performance Hall on Tuesday.

Nader, who declared himself an independent candidate for president Sunday, put the government's future in the hands of his audience, saying voters should hold politicians as accountable for the direction of the government as sports organizations are for the performance of their teams.

Pin Lim/The Daily Cougar

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Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, formerly of the Green Party, discussed accountability in the government and in corporations during a speech Tuesday at UH's Cullen Performance Hall.

"We don't want to be part of a stadium full of people (where) you got someone bellowing out over the PA system, 'What is the difference between ignorance and apathy?' and the crowd roars back, 'We don't know, and we don't care,'" Nader said.

Nader's speech focused on the importance of voter responsibility in patriotism. He said democracy is weakened every time a citizen doesn't pay attention to his or her civic responsibilities.

"The only place where democracy comes before work is in the dictionary," Nader said.

"Imagine if voters had mass levels of knowledge, evaluation, analytic insight -- you would immediately lose in the next election dictator Tom DeLay, who misrepresents Houston," Nader said, calling the U.S. representative from Sugar Land "Washington, D.C.'s epitome of an authoritarian legislator."

Nader was sincere, lighthearted and humorous throughout his speech taking time to address the issues, which he felt needed serious attention -- particularly the corporate accountability that brought him into the public eye with his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, which examined safety issues in the automobile industry.

"It is time we declared our independence from corporate rule and domination," Nader said, adding that it's time the "sovereignty of the people be reasserted and that corporations become our servants and not our masters."

Today's corporations, he said, betray the United States by sending jobs overseas with the approval of the president and taxpayer incentives.

Nader also touched on the nation's poverty level, once again holding large corporations accountable for households who are no longer able to function with only one "breadwinner."

Nader's visit was sponsored by the UH Department of History.
 

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