Nader Brings Campaign to Eau Claire
Friday, September 5, 2008 at 12:00:00 AM
News Advisory
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chris Driscoll, 202-360-3273, chris@votenader.org (national); Aaron Brewster, 715-703-0353, brewstaj@uwec.edu (local)
RALPH NADER AND MATT GONZALEZ TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE AND RALLY IN EAU CLAIRE, WI, FRI. SEPT. 5
On Friday September 5, at 12:30 p.m., Ralph Nader and running mate Matt Gonzalez will host a news conference in the Alumni Room of the W.R. Davies Center, at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Following the news conference, at 1 p.m., Nader will hold a rally in the Council Fire Room of the W.R. Davies Center. The university is located at: 105 Garfield Ave., Eau Claire, WI. For more information, call Aaron Brewster at 715-703-0353, or email: events@votenader.org.
The theme of the rally, "Open the Debates," reflects the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign's call for inclusive, democratic Presidential debates. Right now, they are limited to the candidates from the two corporate parties. The debates are controlled by the so-called Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation which was created by the Democratic and Republican Parties in 1987, which Walter Cronkite called an "unconscionable fraud" because the CPD format "defies meaningful discourse."
In addition, the candidates will speak about the growing, multifarious crisis Wisconsin residents confront, starting with a tanking economy, increasing environmental pollution and a health care system broken beyond repair. The latest Census Bureau figures for Wisconsin reveal a falling median household income and a rise in the poverty rate from 8.8 to 12 percent between 2000 and 2007--and that does not include the impact of the current economic downturn.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, as of 2004, Wisconsin was among the 10 states whose total employment was hardest hit by NAFTA-related job losses, with a net loss of 25,403 jobs. Nader/Gonzalez would withdraw and renegotiate NAFTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
On August 19 the Environmental Protection Agency designated six counties -- Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Dane, Columbia and Brown -- as violating federal standards for fine-particle pollution. Coal-fired power plants (along with automobiles) are a primary source of fine-particle pollution. As of 2005, 54 percent of Wisconsin electric utility power came from coal, according to Wisconsin State Energy Statistics.
"Wisconsin faces a triple crisis in health care: the skyrocketing cost of health insurance, increasing numbers of uninsured, and a severe deficit in the state's Medicaid program," warns the Wisconsin Council of Churches on its health care web page. The council adds that "employers now spend an average of 15 percent of payroll for employees' health care premiums, and health care costs are rising 9 percent per year, which hurts wages, profits, job creation and new investment in Wisconsin. Over a half million Wisconsinites--fully 10 percent of our population have no health insurance coverage at some point during the year. Lack of insurance is a significant factor in premature death and bankruptcy."
While Obama and McCain offer health care plans that would enrich private insurance companies at the expense of tax payers, the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign favors a Canadian-style public health insurance system with private delivery and free choice of hospital and doctor.
The Nader/Gonzalez team would fix Wisconsin's drastic air pollution problem and create many new jobs with its crash program to switch the nation to a non-nuclear, non-fossil-fuel, solar-based economy--which is "off the table" for Obama/McCain. Enormous improvements in proven energy efficiencies from consumer, home and building technologies can become the norm if Washington overcomes the energy companies' lobbies that do not want to see their sales diminish.
Also "off the table" for Obama/McCain but on the table for Nader/Gonzalez is a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild and repair the Nation's crumbling schools, clinics, roads, bridges and other vital public infrastructure, with funds coming from cutting the bloated, wasteful military budget that devours 50 percent of the federal government's operating expenditures.
Mr. Nader and Mr. Gonzalez will address these and many other critical issues the major party candidates have taken "off the table" that the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign has put on the table, including:
- a comprehensive, negotiated military and corporate withdrawal date from Iraq;
- a single-payer, Canadian-style, private delivery, free-choice public health insurance system for all;
- a living wage and repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act;
- a no-nuke, solar-based energy policy supported by renewable, sustainable, energy-efficient sources;
- a carbon tax to deter global warming;
- an end to the corporate welfare and corporate crime that has resulted in millions losing pensions, savings and jobs and squandered tax dollars; and,
- more direct democracy reflecting the preamble to our constitution which starts with "we the people," and not "we the corporations."
WHO: Independent Presidential Candidates Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez
WHAT: News Conference and Rally
WHEN: 12:30 p.m., Friday, September 5, 2008
WHERE: W.R. Davies Center at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 105 Garfield Ave., Eau Claire, WI
About Ralph Nader
Attorney, author, and consumer advocate Ralph Nader has been named by Time Magazine one of the "100 Most Influential Americans in the 20th Century." For more than four decades he has exposed problems and organized millions of citizens into more than 100 public interest groups advocating solutions. He led the movement to establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and was instrumental in enacting the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and countless other pieces of important consumer legislation. Because of Ralph Nader we drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments. Nader graduated from Princeton University and received an LL.B from Harvard Law School.
About Matt Gonzalez
Matt Gonzalez was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2000 representing San Francisco's fifth council district. From 2003 to 2005, he served as Board of Supervisors President. A former public defender, Gonzalez is managing partner of Gonzalez & Leigh, a 7-attorney practice in San Francisco that represents individuals and organizations in mediation, arbitration, and administrative proceedings before state and federal regulatory bodies. Gonzalez graduated from Columbia University and received a JD from Stanford Law School.
About the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign
According to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted from July 27-29, Ralph Nader is at 6 percent nationally (equivalent to about 10 million eligible voters), higher than his highest major poll numbers during the same time period in 2000 and approaching the 10 percent threshold required for eligibility to participate in "America's Presidential Debate in New Orleans," a Google-sponsored event scheduled for September 18. In the key swing state of Michigan -- whose Democratic voters were partially disenfranchised by the Democratic National Committee -- an EPIC-MRA poll found Nader at 8-10 percent.
For more information on the Nader/Gonzalez campaign, visit: votenader.org.
