[SfN] Fwd: press from SunTimes

[Arun Bhalla]

------- Forwarded Message

Nader draws sellout crowd
October 11, 2000
BY KATE N. GROSSMAN STAFF REPORTER
Ralph Nader and his supporters aren't going away quietly.
A capacity crowd of 10,000 showed up at the University of Illinois at 
Chicago Pavilion Tuesday night for an old-fashioned rally for the Green 
Party presidential candidate.
"It's Ralph Nader night in big windy," television personality Phil Donahue, 
a longtime Nader admirer, told the cheering crowd, warming them up for the 
headliner.
"To those who would dismiss us as a nattering distraction to the big 
presidential show, we want you to know that Ralph Nader sold them out in 
Portland, Ore., Seattle, the Target Center in Minneapolis, the Fleet Center 
in Boston, and we knocked 'em dead in Flint," Donahue said.
The lifelong consumer activist has been traveling the country bringing his 
anti-corporate campaign message to packed houses of 10,000 to 12,000 people.
"Corporations were designed years ago to be our servants, but they've 
become our masters," Nader said. "But that can be changed by a new, 
powerful Green Party movement."
Besides Donahue, famed Chicago writer Studs Terkel, 1980 third party 
presidential candidate John Anderson, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder and 
documentary film director Michael Moore were on hand. Vedder sang Bob 
Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'."
"For the first time in 20 years, I see the possibility of a third party 
taking root," Anderson said.
Moore refused to accept popular wisdom about such candidates.
" `Ralph can't win.' . . . Who started that rumor? Don't you want to find 
the guy that started that rumor and strangle him?" Moore asked the crowd.
Nader offered a pro-environment stance, concern for the poor, an 
international perspective and an independent voice that drew young people 
in droves Tuesday night.
"The civil society in Washington is being closed out by a combination of 
political parties whose primary interest is raising money," Nader said. 
"That is undermining our democratic society in a very profound way."
It was the message many wanted to hear.
"I think we need a voice that isn't about money," said UIC undergraduate 
Kim Richards. "I don't like how the lines between corporations and politics 
are blending together."
Others said they came because they were dissatisfied with what major party 
presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore have to offer.
"I'm voting my conscience," said Scott Garrett, 32, a computer programmer 
from Arlington Heights.
For about 20 minutes, the Green Party collected an undetermined amount of 
money from the audience.


------- End of Forwarded Message