When I was a senior in high school, our government teacher took us to a downtown

Flint to the IMA auditorium to hear a speaker. Turns out that all the schools in

the county had sent school bus loads of students to hear their speaker. His name

was Ralph Nader and he was the scourge of General Motors and we in Flint were in

the hometown, the birthplace of General Motors so to hear Ralph Nader speak to

almost 10,000 people in the birthplace of his sworn enemy. It was quite a moment

and I remember being so inspired by his speech and so moved and almost

deciding at that moment that I had to live a different kind of life. I had to be

active in a way that nobody had really taught us to be as a citizen of this

country but that day that stuck with me forever and Ralph Nader to me was a hero.

Years later, years later, I found myself out of a job and Ralph Nader heard about

that and said come to DC, I'll work for me, I'll give you a job and that's what I

did. I went to Washington DC and I worked at Ralph's headquarters for a couple of

years. It was really an exciting time. I learned a lot. I put out a little weekly

media critique newsletter called Morris Weekly and he funded it and provided

the office space and the staff and it was quite a good thing. But through my

adult years, I've also had a complicated relationship with Ralph Nader and

after a couple of years there at his headquarters and I decided to make my first

movie, Roger and me, about Flint and General Motors. He didn't like that and said

that it was time to end the endeavor and so I was once again out of a job and

continued making the film, collecting unemployment while making it no income.

When the film came out and it had become a big hit, people in his office

...