Ralph Nader: An American Political Activist

press. Each week he held two press conferences and made the transcripts available for public

went to work to support his family. He was hired as a apprentice to a bookseller were he

3.His family were in many community affairs, the family farmed and owned a gristmill. A gristmill grinds grain into flour. Later, his father purchased land along the Vermilion River where he developed a sugarcane and cotton plantation. The only Down side of this is that they owned and traded slaves.

received illegal campaign funds, but he also had to present himself as a viable asset to the Republican

“It is a natural evolution of our mass consciousness to begin to see third parties as a viable option; it is reflected in the corrupt and broken two-party system.” Michelle Augello-Page, an author and writer, uses this quote to speak to the frustration Americans feel about the two-party political system. Since the 1850’s, the Democrats and Republicans have received the majority of the popular vote, while third party candidates struggle election after election (Schechter). The two major party candidates don’t always speak to the issues many Americans want to be addressed. Therefore, Americans must consider voting for third party candidates to ensure democracy works for everyone.

The theme of the book is although times can be difficult you have to continue and push forward and patience will have good results.

parents at an early age and working as a merchant most of his life . He retreated to a cave in a near

Bush was born on July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut. Bush is the oldest son of his three brothers and one sister. He grew up in Texas from the age of two. He came from a constitutional inheritance with his grandfather. His mother was Barbara Pierce Bush. Before Bush became president, he graduated from Yale University. He then spent less than six years in the Texas Air National Guard. Then left the military to go to Harvard Business School.

the country goes about its elections. Never in history has such controversy risen as in

This is far from a self-help book, but rather, as Gladwell states in an interview with Anderson Cooper, “a community-help book” and one that Gladwell hopes will make society, “start thinking about ways to provide opportunities to work hard” (CNN Anderson Cooper 360) . This book truly does just that, and provides engrossing and concise narratives that enable the reader to have the clarity to see what the process of successfulness looks like, rather than solely looking at its final

Success is the chance to go out there and use the resources available to take advantage of opportunities that most people do not. Usually, things happen in life and it can prevent the process of obtaining success. In the readings, “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara and “Horatio Alger” by Harlon L. Dalton conveys the message that success is not always an everyday thing and it takes opportunities for it to become part of life. In “The Lesson”, an angered girl named Sylvia is taken on a field trip to a toy store with Miss Moore to learn a valuable lesson. The lesson is to become successful in society because it is the only way to make it to the top. On the other hand, “Horatio Alger” shows more of a realistic viewpoint where success is not as

He was born in Cairo, Georgia in 1919. He left and moved to Pasadena, Carolina.

young boy when he started working as a clerk in a telegraph company. He then worked for the

He was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana in 1941. It was a segregated mill town that Yusef once called

What is clearly evident, however, is that the working people of America have had to unite in struggle to achieve the gains that they have accumulated during this century. Improvements did not come easily. Organizing unions, winning the right to representation, using the collective bargaining process as the core of their activities, struggling against bias and