And this is what is scary: Not only were they not drunk or high this Saturday night, but it was arguable that they had not been so for the past few Saturday nights for quite some time. As Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, who introduced Nader, said, "They looked like people who give a shit."

So I'm reckoning that the U.S. government might want to rethink that drug war, unless they want a replay of the '60s without the diversion of lots of drugs. Nader has been systematically pulling this kind of crowd in university towns in the Northwest and the northern border states for the past few months.

George Bush and Al Gore, as it was pointed out with some regularity Saturday night, can muster only a tenth of what Nader turns out.

Here's another number. Jesse Ventura, the Minnesota Governor, told Nader he was running 8% in the Minnesota polls until when? Until he got into the debates.

Nader has been excluded from the three presidential polls planned for next month, but hasn't given up hope of crashing the party. Much of the focus of the rally was on urging supporters to build up the pressure needed to get Nader in the door.

It's enough to make you wonder what they put in the water up here. Seattle, Forbes magazine pointed out this month, is the home of 100 of the top 500 richest people in America. It is also the home of what progressives are starting to call the tea party for the next American revolution.

The World Trade Organization protests and the activism they sparked is clearly not going to go away. Jim Hightower, two-time Democratic Congressman from Texas, America's leading populist and Nader's Falstaff, said, "You folks here opened up a big old can of kickass, and they ain't never going to put the lid back on."

Nader is funded by the $10 and $50 cheques of the kind of people who attend his rallys, and people like Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Vedder and members of the union locals, like Teamsters 174 and the Seattle Postal Workers, who got behind him on Saturday. The California Nurses gave their backing to the Nader ticket last week. Nader pointed out that while the national union bosses all declared for Gore, behind the scenes they are saying to their locals, we're forced to do this, but you endorse who you want. As of last week, he had raised just under $1-million. He turns down any special interest money, soft money, or corporate money. Ralph Nader, as he is introduced, is the one American who is not for sale.

The evening is predictable, except for the fact that there is little emotion in evidence. There is little razzmatazz, none of the glitz and glamour the other parties strive for. Nader's campaign is defiantly dull, drawing another line between him and the rest.

The Suquamish chief welcomes us on behalf of the indigenous people of Seattle. A few boring white city council members bang on about their achievements. A black Baptist minister, Reverend Jeffrey, stirs the crowd like only a black Baptist minister can, and Jim Hightower throws out 10 minutes of one-liners. Eddie Vedder's songs bring down the house. Phil Donahue cheerleads from Minneapolis via a big screen and Nader, after his wild reception, merely iterates what everyone knows.

"Commercial interests have congealed into giant economic interests with such political clout that the two parties have merged into one corporate party, with two heads and different makeup."

He attacks the argument that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, insisting there is little difference between the two big-party candidates. Voting for Al Gore as the lesser of two evils means that four years from now you're stuck with the same choice, and four years after that you're stuck with his successor.

"If not now, when?"

As William Greider reported in The Nation last week, since the Seattle tea party, one international organization after another has scurried to catch up with the popular rebellions against globalization by announcing "initiatives" to promote human rights, the environment and worker protections. Leading multi-nationals have been eager to sign up as co-sponsors, since the new codes or compacts are all voluntary and toothless.

The purpose obviously is public relations -- improving the tarnished images of global corporations and portraying weak-willed international institutions as attentive and relevant to the turmoil of worldwide controversy. But even empty gestures can prove to be meaningful, sometimes far beyond what their authors had in mind.

An enduring truth, says Greider, is that important social change nearly always begins in hypocrisy. First, the powerful are persuaded to say the appropriate words, that is, to sign a commitment to higher values and decent behaviour. Then social activists must spend the next 10 years pounding on them, trying to make them live up to their promises or persuading governments to enact laws that will compel them to do so.

This movement has found its social activists. All us corporate cheerleaders (and some days I count myself among them) had better fasten our (Nader-created) seatbelts.

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