Ralph Nader came to the Phoenix Civic Center last night and Sam and I went to see him. The speech was the kickoff of a national speaking tour, and a campaign for his new group entitled "Democracy Rising."

Nader's speech was an excellent one. Several weeks ago there was a series of stories in the National media asking: "Where has Nader gone since the election?" and I have to admit that I wondered as well if his pride had been hurt too much. But his speech last night demonstrated to me that he is as active as ever.

He focused on "forks" in the road and asked the question of why we chose the path we did. He focused on 4 such forks:

1. The Illegality of Industrial Hemp. A substance that has over 5000 uses, including and most important as a paper-making material (saving substantial numbers of trees), was banned by the US government in the 1930s. It is illegal to grow it in the US, but not to import it, which we do -- at a very high rate. The logging industry played quite a role here.
2. Intercity Trolley systems. During the 30s and 40s the market for automobiles had reached saturation. To expand the market, the US Automakers, including GM, bought the intercity trolley systems from every major city in the country -- and destroyed them. These companies were convicted of criminal violations of the Lantham Act just after WWII, but the judge in the case only invoked a fine of $5000!
3. Public Airwaves. US citizens legally own the public airwaves. Yet, these communication channels are owned and controlled by an ever-decreasing oligopoly of companies that have no accountability to the public. Nader, I think it is safe to say, is a well-reasoned individual, his arguments are usually based on sound logic. But his discussion of "local news" in our media system can be described as no less than a rant. He ranted about the lack of real news on our public spectrum -- how instead we get sports, weather and gory crime stories, but no reporting on the civic system.
4. Solar vs. Nuclear Power. In the 1950s a government commission recommended that if the USA embraced solar power, that by 1975 a majority of households would be running on clean, solar energy. But because of the influence of the Atomic Energy Commission, among others, we instead embraced Nuclear power.

Nader used these examples to discuss the current political situation in the country. He very cogently argued how corporations have a propensity to say "NO". That in essence, corporations are single-minded entities, whose sole goal is to achieve profit. Nader argued that this extreme power must be harnessed and used for the common good. That we, as the citizenry, must make these corporations say "YES".

It was a wonderful speech. It has reinforced my support for the issues he fights for. He stayed after the speech and answered questions and signed books (Sam and I got a book signed). Before the speech, one of the people working for Nader asked the crowd for $250 donations. One man got up and said something to this effect: "I have followed Ralph Nader for 25 years and watched him fight during that time. $250 over 25 years is a bargin."

We have been so busy the last few weeks. In order to reduce commute time, we moved about 15 miles north of our old apartment. The new place is in Mesa, AZ. Then spent a week back home, partaking in former watering holes and visiting family.

The move however, meant that we had to change service providers. The provider promised to have the cable modem up and running the day we moved in. The servers were finally back online, full-time 17 days after that. I don't think the cable and telephone companies are ready to support a large population of broadband users, unfortunately, their oligopoly status guarantees them the market despite their service. Since the cable modem is notoriously unsecure, I had to resurrect an old 486 as a firewall and get that running IPMASQ and IPChains. Finally, though, things are returning back to the day-to-day routine.