Editor:

On Friday, October 20th, I had the great privilege of going to Big Bridges to hear Ralph Nader speak. Before I went to this event, I was a truly undecided voter. I'm sure that most everyone at the Claremont Colleges can relate to what I was thinking - should I vote for Nader, who I think may be a more moral candidate than the others, or should I demonstrate my opposition to much of what Bush wants to do by voting for Gore? I surprised myself this year in how much I found that I really did care about the presidential election. I am usually very comfortable in my apathy, and although I've been eligible to vote for three years, I admit that I have as of yet never exercised that right. But something about this election is really stirring up my desire to act on what I feel is the right thing to do. Indeed, I'm sure that every one of us (voter, non-voter, Republican, Democrat, Green, Reform, etc.) wants nothing from this election but to exercise our choice to vote in the way which deep down we feel is the RIGHT thing to do.

Watching the presidential debates was not a heartening experience for an eager new voter such as myself. Either Bush was disgusting me with his views on the environment and the military, or Gore was disgusting me with the way that he always had to get in the last word. Both Bush and Gore were disgusting me with the way that they would support themselves with specialized examples that could only confuse people who didn't already understand the candidates' plans in detail. In the end I came away feeling, I'm sure, what many other college students felt as well. I hated Bush's ideas, but I trusted that in his heart of hearts he thought his plans were the right thing for our country; on the other hand, I liked Gore's ideas but everything he said seemed like it was thinned out to attract as many voters as possible. Obviously these are the only two candidates who have a chance of winning, and the fact that I had a say in who would become the President of the most powerful nation in the world suddenly didn't seem so exciting anymore.

I went to see Nader in the hopes that his speech might help me to decide what I thought was the RIGHT thing for me to do with my precious vote. And the thing is, he did. Everything that frustrated me about the other candidates - views I didn't agree with, the feeling that I couldn't trust this person, the fear that this candidate only cared about my vote and not about what he felt was right - was completely absent in Nader. He spent so much of his Big Bridges speech educating us, giving us hard statistics, making himself as clear as possible. He even went so far as to confront us as college students - the people who he was trying to get to vote for him - by asking how we could live with ourselves if we simply made use of our advantages without trying to make other people's lives better as well. It is my feeling that the most trustworthy speakers are those who support their beliefs to the extent that they are willing to make their audiences uncomfortable. And unlike so many other politicians, including the Green Party candidate who spoke just before him, Nader chose NOT to play on our fear and hatred of what "the enemy" (whoever that may be) is doing. Nothing he said made me want to go out and hurt people, or bomb corporations, or scream at people who disagreed with me. If there is only one emotion that I felt throughout his speech, it was sadness. I see my fellow students worrying about whether or not they're going to make enough money, wishfully thinking of all the fun stuff they could buy with it, and then (myself included) wasting their time in Southern California traffic in the cars they've been told they NEED to have, or spending precious time in front of a television show or a video game. Before I attended Friday's speech, I knew how sad the world can become when driven by greed. But never have I seen a politician who feels so deeply about these issues, and works so hard for positive change, as does Ralph Nader.

I will agree with people when they say that a vote for Nader is idealistic and not realistic. But really - how much chance do we GET in our lives to be idealistic? Are anyone's grandparents idealistic? How many people's parents are idealistic? Don't misunderstand me; I'm not saying that I think that Nader will win, and I'm not necessarily saying that I even want Ralph Nader to be the President of the United States. My time abroad last year has woken me up to just how responsible the U.S. is to the rest of the world, and I recognize that Nader doesn't fully address many important foreign policy issues. But regardless, Nader's views on big corporations need to be called to the attention of every American, and I'd say that getting a noticeable number of votes for President is a damn good way of getting people's attention. If nobody who believes in Nader is going to vote for him, then all the people who will just vote for the party they always vote for (like my parents) will NEVER take what he has to say seriously. And the importance of what Ralph Nader has to say is so overwhelming that I feel it is our responsibility as idealistic young students to shed light on these issues as much as we can.

As for that other issue, that of whether Bush or Gore will become our President, I can only say this. If the voting citizens of the most powerful country in the world have no idealism and aren't true to their own morality, then our world will never get better. And yes, this is a tight election in which every vote counts - but who's to say that other elections won't be just tight in the future? And how can any of us know that in four years, we as people will care as much as we do right now about what happens to this country? Truly we have to seize this moment while we still feel passionate about it.

I do not believe that I am alone in sensing that as President, Bush would do at least what HE feels is most morally right for our country and the world, which is certainly a step in the right direction. May I also remind you that our great government is set up so that no one person has absolute power over what happens to our country, especially in situations where the majority of Americans oppose that one person's views. But if anything, please PLEASE vote (or choose NOT to vote) according to what you feel is the right thing to do for our country and the world, and don't start your voting career by getting comfortable with actively supporting what you feel is the lesser of two evils.

(P.S. I made a very good recording of Nader's Big Bridges speech; I would be happy to copy it onto a cassette to loan to those of you who didn't hear it. My extension is x72296.)

Sincerely,

Libbie Schrader '01