Last night I attended People Have The Power, a Green Party rally and Nader speech held in San Francisco.

The rally was billed as a discussion of the current energy crisis in California. Most of it focused on current world events instead.

Green Party rallies are mysterious, head-scratching affairs. They’re part theater, part pep-talk, and part politics. Musicians (talented and otherwise) segue between confused talks by local politicians. Poets read their verse. The “EmCee” of the evening makes lewd and strangely non-topical jokes about Ralph Nader’s penis. The agenda is cast in draconian terms: “You and me vs. PG&E! Peace in the middle east! They killed us because we killed innocent Iraqis!”.

Ralph surrre likes to speak. He speaks about everything. He’s scattershot. He’s refreshingly off-the-cuff. He’s well-versed in domestic and world affairs. He hates corporations. He makes some interesting statements about the current crisis. He makes fairly content-less statements about PG&E. But when he finishes, I’m left with an unfortunate realization: Ralph Nader is strong at criticizing others’ actions yet weak at constructing his own.