A Call to Action

The New York Times Book Review stated that Ralph Nader’s book, The Good Fight, is fundamentally a call to action.  Last week when I attended Ralph Nader’s talk  at Westfield State College I understood why.  His first point is that we do not expect/demand enough of our government; we should ask for more.  Why sit back and not ask?  One concept was to teach civic citizen  classes as he sees a decline in understanding or caring.  He went on to discuss ‘community economic self-reliance’ – “let’s put some meaning into community,” he stated. 

His community economic self-reliance words produced a large shoutout to credit unions and discussed their importance as cooperatives of the people.  And, then he gave the example of the Schumacher Society and BerkShares, another very interesting concept. 

I can’t write here the passion in his talk but from the few sentences above, I think you get his message.  He believes we have been brought to “ouch”, yes, I think we are all feeling that pain; and believes that more of us need “fire in our bellies” so we can deter “ouch” in the future!