Ralph Nader is a revolutionary, which is why he scares some people to death. He has concluded--after working in Washington, DC for 40 years--that both major political parties are corrupt and are no longer responsive to the needs of the people. He believes that Congress and the Executive branch have been captured by the money power of corporations, and that the existing system must be utterly cleansed and replaced by a government of, by, and for the people.

Nader spoke to a crowd of about 400 supporters at Seattle Center on Sunday, October 10. He intends his campaign to be the springboard to a revitalized civil society in which an informed and energized citizenry takes back the power of the government and brings corporations to heel. "Corporations must be subordinated," Nader said during his campaign speech. "They should never be given the constitutional rights of real human beings. The sovereignty of the people must replace the power of corporations."

Washington Lock-down. In his 40-year career as a consumer advocate, Nader has witnessed the growth of corporate power and the withering of efforts to serve and protect the American people: "There used to be a time when you could really get things done," he said. "Safer cars, the Environmental Protection Agency, saving lives in the workplace, the Freedom of Information Act, and so on." (These are all initiatives for which Nader himself was primarily responsible.)

But today, he says, the situation has changed. "Washington is closed down. Do you understand that? Washington DC is corporate-occupied territory: every department, every agency is controlled by these corporations. I know. I've been studying them for years. We interact with them. [The corporations] have their executives in the Treasury Department, the Defense Department, the Interior Department, the Agriculture Department. They're surrounded by 30,000 full-time lobbyists and thousands of Political Action Committees. And the same is true on Capitol Hill, which we call 'Withering Heights' nowadays."

As a result, the power of government serves the interests of the corporations, and corporate crime goes unpunished. Announcing his candidacy for President, Nader said: "The dreaded supremacy of corporatism over civil institutions, stomping both conservative and liberal values alike, has broken through any remaining barriers [posed] by the two major political parties. Corporatism has turned federal and state departments and agencies into indentured servants for taxpayer-funded subsidies, budget-busting lucrative contracts, and dwindling law and order against the widely publicized corporate crime wave."

Party of Cowards. Nader believes the Democratic party has been weakened and co-opted by reliance on corporate money. From his campaign speech: "We cannot rely on the Democratic party to defend our country against the worst Republicans who ever slithered or slimed into public office. For 10 years, the Democrats have been losing, losing, losing, at the local, state, and national level. They even lost an election they won, in 2000. They even lost the Congressional elections of 2002 because they took the hottest issue in the mass media, the issue where the Republicans were most vulnerable--the corporate crime wave--off the table. Enron and WorldCom were all over the mass media, but [the Democrats] didn't mention it, because they're dialing for the same corporate dollars. You don't bite the hand that feeds you."

He condemns in particular the liberal Democrats who have endorsed John Kerry during this election, despite Kerry's positions on the war, the PATRIOT Act, "tort reform," and other issues. "In their cowardliness, [the liberals] are demonstrating that they have no breaking point. Anyone in politics who has no breaking point has a ring in his or her nose for the duration, and is going to be drawn by the 'least worst' party into the pits, along with the country. You have to have a breaking point and say to the politician you have chosen as the 'least worst': 'This far and no farther.'"

The Democrats label Nader a "spoiler," a title and a role which he has embraced. His campaign T-Shirts feature a picture of the Liberty Bell and the slogan: "Revolutionaries always spoil corrupt systems."

Nader is explicit about his desire to call the Democrats--and especially the "liberal intelligentsia"--to account for giving Kerry a free pass. Speaking of his former supporters who recently called for liberals to vote for Kerry, Nader says: "They made no demands on Kerry, whatsoever. This is why Kerry can become a hawk, because he knows he's got the liberal votes in his pocket; because the liberals' operating mantra this fall is 'Anybody but Bush, leave Kerry alone, make no demands on him.' So he's free to be pulled further into the grip of the corporate supremacists. It's time for us to turn on them and say 'You've got the responsibility to make demands on the [party's] agenda for progressive policies.'"

Hope for Democracy. Ultimately, Nader sees hope not in either of the two major parties, nor even in a third party. He believes that only an informed and active citizenry engaged in "daily democracy" can break the stranglehold of corporate money. In the announcement of his candidacy, Nader said: "It took a strengthened populace against the 'malefactors of great wealth' to...abolish slavery, open the vote to women, the unions to workers, the cooperatives to farmers--to temper the large mine owners, industrialists, railroads, and bankers. Today, there is a compelling necessity for a new strengthening of the people to reform and recover their public elections from the grip of private financing--to rescue our public authorities from the corporate government of big business."

Nader's work will continue after the election, because: "The unceasing enlightenment of humankind requires sensitive humans to enlist in a marathon, not a sprint."