February 4, 2009
7:00 pm	to	9:00 pm

Woodward Center, WSC   6:00pm Reception   7:00pm Program

All are welcome to attend!
Honored by Time magazine as “One of the 100 Most Influential Americans of the Twentieth Century,” and recently as “One of the 100 Most Influential Figures in American History,” by The Atlantic, consumer advocate and presidential candidate for the Green Party, Ralph Nader, has devoted his life to giving ordinary people the tools they need to defend themselves against corporate negligence and government indifference.

With a tireless, selfless dedication, he continues to expose and remedy the dangers that threaten a free and safe society. Nader was featured recently as the subject of the critically acclaimed documentary, “An Unreasonable Man.”  He has also written his introspective book, The Seventeen Traditions about the earliest days of his own life, where he revisits seventeen key traditions he absorbed from his parents, his siblings, and the people in his community, and draws from them inspiring lessons for today’s society.

Nader’s foray into public life began in 1965 when he took on the Goliath of the auto industry with his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, a shocking exposé of the disregard carmakers held for the safety of their customers. The Senate hearing into Nader’s accusations and the resulting life-saving motor vehicle safety laws catapulted Nader into the public sphere.

Believing that Republicans and Democrats are so ideologically close he calls them “tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.” Nader organized the Green Party’s first presidential campaign in 1996 to challenge the “duopoly” of the two-party system. He received 700,000 votes on a limited campaign budget of $5000 and he ran again in 2000, receiving 2.8 million votes. His goal is to build the foundation of a third political party and a robust progressive political movement that rally around issues rather than empty slogans and figureheads.

Both citizens and corporate audiences listen intently to what Nader has to say. Years after they graduate, college students tell him how his lectures changed their lives. His message is simple and compelling: “To go through life as a non-citizen would be to feel that there’s nothing you can do, that nobody’s listening, that you don’t matter. But to be a citizen is to enjoy the deep satisfaction of seeing the prevention of pain, misery and injustice.”