"This is a city (Baltimore) that needs to be civically aroused because its lost so much and it has been demoralized....discouraged." - Ralph Nader Shriver Hall June 2003

Two weeks ago Democracy Rising, a group dedicated to keeping alive the excitement that Ralph Nader's campaign for president generated in 2000, brought their tour of the country from Buffalo to Baltimore on June 26.

Nader, the featured top speaker, described the night as a tremendous success. Nader said, "There was a big turnout of the citizen groups, the tables, and a very impassioned audience. It was an audience full of people who are active and need to be reacquainted with one another in their community."

The event included several local speakers on diverse issues of community concern. diverse yet crucial natures. Unfortunately one of the night's head liners, Representative Dennis Kucinich, was unable to make it to the event. He was detained on the House floor dealing with health care legislation, an issue which Kucinich has made a prominent part of his platform while running for the Democratic nomination for president.

Wendy Foy spoke on behalf of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Ms. Foy was obviously not a polished speaker. The size of the crowd stunned her as she stumbled through the beginning of her speech. But like an avalanche gaining speed down hill she gained her momentum. Ms. Foy expressed anger with the local politicians and their neglect of fair housing .She told the devastating tale of the flipping swindle that had tricked her and left her and a small child in a house without a proper working furnace in the middle of a Baltimore winter. She told the audience that it was, "time we take a stand and do it for ourselves."

Emphasizing the flipping schemes that have run rampant through Baltimore, her speech and anger peaked when she shouted to the crowd, "this summer we have a great chance to flip this city on its head." Shortly afterward she announced her intent to run for city council in the 9th district.

Samantha Price spoke on conditions at the Baltimore City Detention Center. Price's talk was an eye-opening description of how prisoners are being treated in the Detention Center. Price said that during her "stay" at the BCDC eight women committed suicide in the time she was there due to lack of medical care. She told pointed out to the audience that often the BCDC goes for extended periods of time without any power. Dangerous conditions were caused by the lack of proper climate control equipment at the prison. Price told the audience "you all have to remember if it's 80 degrees outside it is 115 degrees inside (the prison)."

Ms. Price ceded the stage to spoken word artist Dream Deferred who assaulted the crowd with her aggressive style of poetry. Her piece entitled "Illiterate" poked fun at the "city that reads" literacy program. "A city that reads but no one does."

Her verse veered off into the deeper realms of the political problems of Baltimore when she railed against the apathy of those around her. "Why do you complain about it if you don't vote?" Dream's performance came to a screeching halt as she bellowed to the audience, "wake the fuck up and vote!"

The next speaker was Tim Johnson he ambled to the podium with the gait of a man that has fought long and hard with no reward. Johnson began to spin his tale with a grace that seemed oddly out of place without the slide guitar of the Delta blues. He had been an employee with Bethlehem Steel for 29 years, six months shy of being eligible for his pension. At that time the International Steel Group took over operation of Bethlehem Steel stripping him of his pension eligibility.

Johnson explained that he would now have to work until he is 62 years old just to be eligible for a pension he was promised when he was 20 years old. As the realities of his misfortune set in, he asked the crowd in a hushed tone, "Is your pension guaranteed?" Not a person in the audience replied.

Nader who spoke earlier in the afternoon at the steel workers labor hall said that people like Johnson, "are the people who lost out in de-industrialization and the export of jobs from America. And they were basically left without any marketable skills, in middle or advanced age, having lost their pension. These are the human tragedies that never get the attention of our dear politicians or never get the attention of the mass media."

Pat Cruz, co-chair of the Maryland Green Party, spoke on several issues from her family's own struggle in reaching the American dream to the roadblocks to adequate health care. Her most insightful moments took place when comparing the Japanese occupation of her ancestral home of the Philippines to the US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Cruz spoke of the Americans in World War II as being the liberators of her family from the bombed out hole they were living in. But now she wonders "how many Afghani and Iraqis live in bombed out holes waiting for someone to come liberate them."

Benita Paschall of the Baltimore Prevention Coalition and host of the WOLB radio program "State of Emergency" talked about racism in the healthcare system. Paschall emphasized that "competitiveness should not be the basis for health care." Paschall also said that "This system is not working. It has not worked. We must change the status quo."

Also speaking at the rally was Dr. Kwame Abayomi, a Baltimore city councilman. Abayomi began by celebrating victories like Governor Ehrlich's recent of signing of a medical marijuana bill along with the fact that Maryland has become the first state to restore voting rights of ex-felons. But Abayomi's speech wasn't all good news. His description of Baltimore as a city "drowning in alcohol" came with some surprising facts. Abayomi said that "Baltimore is home to more liquor outlets than 26 states in America." In a geographical comparison Abayomi said that neighboring Anne Arundel county has 200 liquor outlets in its 400 square miles where as Baltimore city has 1,600 in its 84 square miles.

After a message delivered by Kucinich via telephone, it was Nader's turn to address the crowd. Describing the Bush administration as fascist, Nader warned of the dangers of the merger between government and private companies. He joked that the economic boom of the late 1990's "should have raised all boats, instead it raised all yachts."

Nader focused on the fact that 47 million workers in the US are not making a living wage. He also said that the labor force is at its lowest and child poverty at its highest in 60 years. "One thing prisons don't have enough of," Nader asserted, " is convicted corporate criminals."

In a later interview, Nader said that working people need to be defended. "There are millions of these people who did nothing but work hard for their companies and are tossed on the slag heap of corporate globalization along with their families, pensions and hopes of retirement."