Ralph Nader, "To The Ramparts"

so I'm pleased to introduce Ralph Nader to politics and prose Nader was named by the Atlantic as one of the hundred most influential figures in American history and he continues to be a relentless advocate for grassroots activism and Democratic Change his 1965 book unsafe at any speed permanently altered the course of a reckless u.s. automobile industry and made Nader a household name although he was a household name in Connecticut because that's where I'm from and it's cool one of his greatest achievements was his successful lobbying for a 1974 amendment to the Freedom of Information Act which gave increased public access to government documents in to the ramparts Nader writes as a Washington DC activist and people's advocate showing how trumps crimes and misdemeanors followed the path of no resistance of Obama Bush and Clinton regimes which assured in the extreme rise of corporate power and the abandonment of the poor and middle classes Nader brings together the outrages of the Trump administration with the key flaws and failures of these previous administrations that have led to our nation and at its current precipice the New York Times writes what sets Ralph Nader apart is that he has moved beyond social criticism to effective political action now please join me in welcoming Ralph Nader Thank You Katie thank you all for coming it's raining this is good it's a good sign they're interesting people in the audience here and they make a lot of the points that I want to make but just consider 30 years ago who would have dreamed that an independent bookstore would triumph over borders and Barnes and Noble [Applause] that's part of exemplifying an important principle of our civic culture which isn't emphasized enough that our our country exhibits the movement from what was implausible to what became reality when I came to this town it was impossible to even conceive that the tobacco industry could be held to account not just in terms of their seducing youngsters into a lifetime of smoking and death but in terms of smoking in public places and when we took on the tobacco industry first with Airlines buses and trains on the grounds that non-smokers have a right not to have smoke blown into their lungs and their kids lungs we were called communists we were called subvert us of the American dream which is to smoke wherever they want all kinds of names but we were also told we were pie in the sky that the the grip on Congress is too powerful all right so you see what happened now what happened was due to lessor thousand people they were public health specialists very vibrant doctors especially one in San Francisco they were some litigators tort lawyers a handful of lawmakers the children's advocates people were trying to do with asthma never more than a thousand and they built it up and stuff spilled out of the internal files of the tobacco companies got out of 60 minutes and people began writing more about it and that got more smokers to be aggressive I remember when I was at university the students who smoked would actually come up to you and blow smoke in your face and say what a hell aren't you my smoking you walked into a classroom and if they were smoking walked into an exam and they were smoking in protest once I walked into a classroom my pajamas can you imagine how it is now imagine a young person today walking into a plane or bus or you know train and someone pulls out a cigarette or cigar I sat next to a guy and a planner he pulled out his cigar so you see what the old saying that the blasphemy of today is a triumph of tomorrow and we don't have enough of that in our minds we have the lowest expectations of our country that I've ever seen ever in my study of history and contemporary life and you can see how low the expectations are in a society full of solutions on the shelf that aren't applied on the ground by looking at the political system and the corporatist system and their incredible domination in spite of efforts to regulate them and break them up and campaign finance they have never been more powerful and in insinuated ways that most of us couldn't have predicted with the onset of the internet and what Facebook and Google and others now are doing to in effect decide what millions of people read about or see there's a recent contract that was exposed by Robert Falmouth at University of San Diego law school between Facebook and preteens and the preteens would sign the contract and Asher Facebook that they had the permission of one parent to have the material they put on Facebook be used in you know sent anywhere in Facebook's discretion imagine that kind of contractual child molestation would never have been predicted years ago when I was in law school we never would have seen what has happened to our freedom of contract completely destroyed by clicking on or signing on the dotted line giving up our constitutional rights to go to court trial by jury giving the vendor unilateral modification there's no such thing as a contract if the airline can modify your frequent fliers dump at will and say as long as you're flying the airline you've agreed the whole manipulation of consent and the access for wrongful injury in tort law these corporations are smashing at the fundamentals of freedom in our country private law of torts and private law of contracts inherited from England are the fundamental pillars of freedom in our country because we're supposed to be able to use them without asking anyone's permission no agency or anybody negotiate a contract or you go to a lawyer and file against a predator corporation that sold you a hazardous pharmaceutical or a car so that this is a very important to keep this in mind before we spin off into the frantic news of the day and sabotage our own expectation levels and that happens to the most rational and well-read people they want to know the latest what will molar do what will dr. Ford do and important as those are nothing is more important than a testing to I think what is a truism that the last chapter of the United States of America will not be written by the oppressors they will be written by us they will be written by our withdrawal our cynicism that masquerades as incite by our standing as bystanders so the worst script of history is written by informed by bystanders who could have done something about it and so on that score let me just give you example in the front rows John Claybrook now Jones a lot done a lot as head of Nitsa and auto safety and and with a few others but in one area without her it would have had not happened and that is the standard for safe seatbelts for children in cars right shoots a Lone Ranger on that scenic or known graduated ouch er went to work for Social Security Administration then interned under a political science fellowship with a congressman from Georgia who got interested in auto safety Hey somewhere here is Burt for where's Burt yes he I was with the Federal Trade Commission as an economist lawyer on any trust and he started was my help the American Institute of antitrust at a time when it was totally collapsing intellectually succumbing to the Chicago's monetized mind school of so-called economics and he built the whole brain trust advisory brain trust and began putting out studies reports petitions testimony before Congress without Burt none none of this would have happened there are a lot of people who are economists and lawyers right who are they working for it what are they gonna look back on when they're 80 what justice bandwagon did they miss like corporate lawyers here in the MIT in our midst is the greatest expert on energy in the United States of America who is never called by the media because the media now interviews each other on things you know judy Woodruff introduces the New York Times writer on energy but they don't interview someone who is advised several presidents starting before President Carter someone who's an engineer who's a lawyer who ran the Tennessee Valley Authority who ran the smart the utility in San Francisco who ran the water Municipal Utility in LA who advised Governor Brown who advised Governor Cuomo the first Governor Cuomo who is everywhere now showing how we can convert into renewable energy who started out as a nuclear power advocate until I convinced him otherwise now he is the best nuclear power opponent his name is David Freeman David where are you there is many he's negotiating the closed-down of the last nuclear plant in California how the would Pacific Gas and Electric Oh why are we so pessimistic why are we so withdrawn why are we so cynically sophisticated why have we given up on ourselves all the wisdom and these shelves they're ready to be applied this is nonsense you have a million people who are enlightened and progressive if each one is a bystander a million people have zero influence unfortunately we haven't developed biological systems where we can connect with one another and one contagious citizen can energy a tall arrest we have to do it all by ourselves and we're not doing it we're losing the charity race and not focusing on the justice race and we all know the difference between the two charity is important they have soup kitchens nice soup kitchens here in the District of Columbia the question is why do we need soup kitchens where is the justice that prevents the need for charity you have some of the worst poverty in the country here in the District of Columbia I just put out a tweet I don't tweet much and I do it indirectly I'd still use an Underwood typewriter and the tweet went this way if I remember it precisely the Republican politico's are energized by money and greed the Democrat politico's are compromised by money and greed guess who's winning so this is how they keep us at bay don't you know how bad the Republicans are yeah I think so I mean I can write a book in 20 minutes on how bad the Republican parties are they would totally shock Senator Robert Taft and Dwight Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt they are the cruelest most vicious party in the history of the United States they have actually voted against issues involving saving kids lives giving them adequate health care protecting them from toxics they have no shame whatsoever because we don't have a society that knows how to shame them instead they are landsliding the Democrats instead of the Democrats landsliding the worst most anti-worker consumer war mongering wall street toady on and on and on party a party staffed on Capitol Hill with levels of an arrogance and England ignorant never wedded together to that degree these people think that there's no such thing as climate disruption they think corporations will save the world they think problems with water pollution just stop polluting doesn't matter they don't believe in law and order for the rich and powerful so why aren't the Democrats landsliding them because their side is so frantically hypnotized by how bad the Republicans are that they give the Democrats free hand to approximate them and this is what this books about this book shows that Trump did not erupt spontaneously that all the things that we are appalled about Trump had precursors that erupted in their own way that we accepted let's start with the personal thing it's disgusting personal morals who was a pre court precursor that survived disgusting personal morals including rape and got away with it Bill Clinton that never was seen possible you could ever survive those disclosures both when in the New Hampshire primary and later on witness Lewinsky let's take lawlessness right now as we speak and Trump is droning and bamhi anywhere he wants special forces went into a hundred and forty countries last year maybe some with the permission of their dictators others not the world is our military killing field whatever happened to international law Trump is lawless he doesn't obey the Constitution he doesn't obey federal statutes he doesn't recognize international treaties guess who taught him prior presidents a constitutional lecture to university Chicago Law School extend to the lawlessness abroad of George W Bush he didn't invade and blow apart Iraq but he expand the drone warfare he expanded assassination he became the designated Tuesday morning homicide orderer imagine sitting in the White House with advisers and they say here's up do this and Mohammed I and put through this and you know they they don't like America you know it's like this and this New York Times report page one they got a prize for it Trump doesn't have the intensity to do that but the idea of our president being prosecutor judge jury executioner and cover up ur precedes Donald Trump it precedes Obama it precedes Bush it precedes Clinton but they all expanded it so now we're numb to it we're numb to it it doesn't even make the headlines anymore some would say well you know that's the fruits bitter fruits of empire well let's bring it back home our adversaries came out of countries that we carved up with the British and French and installed dictators and backed them to the hilt diplomatically militarily and politically and they happen to abuse their own people and Rome people began to wonder who's behind the abusers and then when 9/11 occurred we were surprised why are we surprised what would we have done if the shoe was on the other foot and instead of reacting multilaterally to bring the perpetrators to justice we blew apart Afghanistan and then Iraq and now it's filled into twenty countries and Hillary's war overthrowing Gadhafi who is cutting deals and behaving himself and disarming going to the White House and getting Obama to order the overthrow with planes and all the rest of it against the position of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who said to both of them do you realize what happens when you overthrow a dictator in a tribal society they didn't care and now you've got a half a dozen countries in chaos in that area Libya Mali so on so all list is basically to to get us to the level where we say the Constitution puts a burden on us it starts with We the People it doesn't start with we the Congress it doesn't start with we the corporation it doesn't start with we the Pentagon it starts with we the people and that burden means that we pull back on our sovereign power which we have wildly delegated to our government which in turn has assigned it to the corporatists and so we have now a maturing corporate state where the ties between business and government are like this it's just today and in Washington pose how about this one ninety percent of the people in this country are upset with airline fees it's like you you you get hit with a fee for everything but breathing or going to the restroom so what does the Congress do they recognize that the leading complaint by people about the airline's conveyed to Congress are airline fees except for Southwest which doesn't have these $200 reservation fee changes and other imposed penalties which you are by the way told you you agreed to in the fine print contra well the word last week was the section and the FAA authorization bill was going to give the Department of Transportation modest regulatory power against inappropriate fees or unreasonable fees and the opinion was overwhelmingly for it well they dropped it on Friday they cut the section now I sent a survey to all members of Congress earlier this year listing all the freebies the airline's give guess what the members of Congress not us they have all kinds of freebies all kinds of privileges all kinds of exemptions from how they treat normal passengers and we sent one to every one of the 535 people including our friends not one responded we sent it again not one responded it was written up in a Washington Post not one responded why because that's the reason not just the campaign contribution that's the reason that they haven't passed airline passenger rights and years now this is not one of the most serious problems in the world but it illustrates the total arrogance of this Congress collectively I said I always say to people when they say what can we do I say it starts with Congress that's your tool the smallest most powerful branch of government the government the branch that can be a trip to a trim tab for the executive and judiciary that story the framers set it up the other two branches do not have the appropriation power they don't have their tax power they don't have the confirmation power they don't have the investigative power that Congress can have in terms of quickly and openly to mention some of its leverage and there are 500 33 35 of them we know their names we can know their names they want our votes more than they want money from special commercial interests why aren't we controlling them what would it take to control them history shows some of the things we've done and some of the things you've done in the audience tell me any major change in justice in the United States of America apart from the Civil War any major change women's suffrage abolition of slavery farmer populist progressive reform labor labor unions Medicare Social Security you name it that ever took more than 1% of active citizens involved mobilizing for the reform sometimes 300 people as long as they have public opinion behind them if they have public opinion behind them and they're organized in congressional districts and now they can weave together much more insistently with the internet the press reluctant as it is to cover the civil community and the civil society will cover what they do because they're getting signals of real power out there they will cover power but it's not happening and why isn't it happening well if you take the population at large and you start deleting millions of people who are not able to link together Congress watchdog clubs three five three to five hundred hours a year open up a couple offices full time in each congressional district you'll have a lot of millions of people who just can't do that because of their ill they're obligated family terribly impoverished etc millions of people but you don't need more than 1% and the nice thing about that 1% is that on major transformational changes in this country you have liberal conservative convergence on living wages never mind what the think tanks are trying to divide and rule never mind the ruling groups who for 2,000 years have developed a strategy of divide and rule and it's amazing how people fall for it and there are things that are so obviously without having to be sandpapered as reproductive rights there's immigration now there's prayer in schools the usual traditional ones but look at living wage look at full health care look at cracking down on corporate abuse and corporate crime and corporate monopolies look at a decent fair tax system look at the accountability desires of people of people in positions in power comes in seventy eighty ninety percent even without an organized move to advance in the media breaking up the big banks comes in at ninety percent they know what's going to happen next another crash and another bailout and it won't be just a big banks crashing so you have this convergence where where people live work and raise their family the ideological seasons are nowhere near as prominent as we see them on Fox News or NPR because empirically they have to respond to reality they want health care they want clean air they want clean water they want decent streets they want public services they want fair play regardless of whether they're red state or blue state or conservative or a liberal it's the citizen movement that overcomes the divide and rule tactics and strategies but to do that we've got to move from sociology to psychology because psychology makes us ask important questions of ourselves do we know what we would like to have done in this country and world of ours this temporary stay we're given I'm sure we do there's a fundamental strain of fair play and the vast majority of people all over the world do we have the time to do anything about it we make time do we have knowledge of other people who share our views that we can connect with arm and arm yeah once we get over the small talk and the text messaging do we have the self-respect to put all all these in motion that's what it's all about self respect about the plight of humanity and the natural world and posterity self respect that breaks up our daily routine tyrannical as it is for all of us self respect to show up and stand tall how many of you have begged your friends who agree with you just to come to a meeting come to a March come to a demonstration come to a City Council come to excuse me a court a courthouse don't have time I have other commitments if we don't have if you don't have time for democracy we don't have time for ourselves and the most fundamental sense so I want to end on the statehood issue there aren't 500 people in this entire City who spend more than 10 or 20 hours a year trying to get statehood trying to get self-government if you took a poll it comes in at 72% where's the gap we had an entire afternoon on statehood at Constitution Hall pretty symbolic building for that purpose in September of 2016 along with eight days of civic mobilization it was the greatest combination of civic leaders and civic thinkers and doers on more issues and reforms ever brought together in American history and it was blocked out by the press it was all about Trump those days all about fantasies all about trivia all about entertainment at no time for people who over 50 years in that Hall changed the course of American history the teachers had no time to bring him out of the law schools and put him in the chairs they had no time the mayor of DC had no time to go down Pennsylvania Avenue or Constitution Avenue and open for hours of experts and mobilizes on DC statehood although a couple previous mayor's showed up and C council person and so on we plastid the entire Northwest part of the district and Capitol Hill and other parts with thousands of posters and put out press releases and public radio was not interested local public radio they weren't interested and so in that Hall [Music] we're about 250 people out of 3500 seats and it was free there was a nominal charge but anybody who couldn't pay was free so what what here's a here's a jurisdiction the only national jurisdiction in the world where votes are permitted where the people cannot vote for their members of Congress and they don't care and part of it is oh what's the difference this is a badly governed it'll always be badly governed the politicians the corporate interests the developers what's the difference how easily we escape from facing ourselves in the mirror and suddenly our culture has become one where you're not supposed to harangue your fellow citizen why are you asked all drell why do you scold people because I hear from people about their grievances about the loss of their loved ones to preventable practices because I listen to Johns Hopkins University School Medicine that told us in a peer review study backed by other previous studies that 5000 people die every week due to preventable problems in hospitals not counting clinics and doctors offices and these are physicians and that was their lowest estimate and those are real people aren't they they're not just statistics two hundred and fifty thousand a year the third leading cause of death in America because I listen to these people and there's nothing special about me there's nothing special about me say oh you can do it Ralph you can do it Joan you can do a bird you can do it David you're special there's nothing special about us except the thirst for justice as the reason for being that's what's special about us we want to project our conscience something that's not denied anybody in our country it's available it's free there's no ticket to admission to engage in a vibrant productive democracy now let me just end on this note we published in the 70s and the best-selling book on Congress ever written was on the Donahue show was all over and came out and paperback several editions I went to a publisher a couple years ago and I said how about an update this is a major publisher he said are you kidding nobody will buy a book on Congress I said what's happened he said it's information overload you know they can get anything on the internet or they're just not interested that's our that's our survey data I went to other publishers not interested now there are books written on Congress but a lot of them are a little biographical there some of them are narrow some of our technical but this should be a raging bestseller on Congress so what was my default position I decide to write a fable called how the rats reformed the Congress and it's a very realistic book once you get over the opening pages in the joke of the rats coming up from the catacombs beneath Congress and into the plumbing this is what I'm reduced to now I must say it is a very motivating book it'll be out in a couple weeks but I couldn't get a publisher for it people aren't interested I always believed that if something is important it can be made interesting that's what the best journalists do that's what the best writers do that's what the best speakers do this by the way other rats reformed Congress and if anybody thinks it's trivial and frivolous this is the indictment this is a realistic indictment it is so bad now you can't reach people in Congress you can't reach their staff they have voicemail often hours at a time during daytime business Rand Paul locks his office in a heavily guarded Senate office building you have to do the cell phone to get into a senator's office suite they don't have public hearings on the tax law they want it to smash the tort system they had no public hearings they got five bills to the House of Representative they have no public hearings on major issues this is unheard of unheard of degradation when you call the people look and see whether your campaign contributor so you can get through to an intern how how are we going to stand for this they're using our power and turning it against us our delegated sovereign power and turning it against us so I hope that you'll go out and start conversation in a very fundamental look in the mirror away everything starts with the conversation every justice movement starts with a conversation between two people for 10 we've shown that in our own history and we've also shown but we don't learn that it's a lot easier and we think I had a little book we had a signing here called breaking through power it's easier and we think I give all kinds of examples not just 10 years ago 20 years ago throughout our history less than 1% isn't that an optimistic recognition of historical experience to know that it takes so few good people representing a majority opinion anybody here from epic mark it's mark here there's a little group down on Connecticut Avenue that's the main bulwark to try to salvage what privacy's left in an Internet age I went there a few months ago they're just like eight or nine 10 people and they're shaking the foundations and you'll hear more from them with their litigation and their petitions and their reports and their reading the fine print of Google and Facebook it's easier and we think that is the best conversation starter when you talk to people who don't think anything can be done que sera sera whatever will be will be just say don't you know it's easier than you think and you get a movie so thank you very much we have questions though yes sir two-part questions uh you brought out the fact that the psychology is important in this thing well you know you know your friend Freud learned that he couldn't do psychology unless he used Socratic method to get people's ideas out first okay you know from law school that's how law school is taught okay so you have masses and you want them to work together but how do you listen to them first and integrate their ideas and that's a very difficult task how would you do it you can't just say hey I have this great idea people all have their own view of what has to be done and that's that's why you go down what Samantha says say the abstraction ladder people are manipulated and enraged against one another with use of abstractions images ratio whatever you go down to where they live work and raise their families I mean I I've been in the deep south and gotten standing ovations for saying the same thing I say in Massachusetts why well because you know conservatives don't go working for Walmart say I'm a conservative I don't want a minimum why that gives me the wherewithal to support my family right so you can see where this conservative worker may vote for Trump but not what it dissipates so that's one way you communicate another way you communicate is the high points of our own history the best practices you go down south you know the populist progressive movement started in East Texas in a couple of hundred counties they signed up hundreds of farmers door-to-door and a dollar dues just like $50 today and it swept across the country so you you're in Indiana you talk about Eugene Debs say so best practices is another way a third is care for your children and grandchildren that is you may not care about yourself about what about your children and your grandchildren means said that was one way to get parents to wear seat belts and get their kids through her seatbelt as that projection forward and brings out the best in them if they've given up you know on themselves various ways so that's I'll tell you I like I can't even though I say it's easier we thinking it is the depth of surrender in this country is totally staggering and part of it is because people are kept so busy with anxiety fear dread too low paid jobs thousand dollar-a-month day care huge commutes having to take care of ailing parents and Grandpa you say who has time right but you go into New England where you have the town meeting former government and you have small towns and there is no barrier whatsoever for you to be part of the local legislature because that's where the town meeting is if it doesn't go to referendum right so there's no transportation problem there's no voter suppression problem right there's nothing and they're dying because people don't show up so there you are the probably classic Democratic institution in the world hand it to people and they can't be bothered to walk four or five blocks or across the street to the local school auditorium to participate well naturally the ones that do are often the shouters and the shouders can be very abusive just five six of them can jam up a town's town me and that turns away the others but they're looking for excuses what do you mean turns away the others the for excuses we get for people not being active citizens that are out the time they don't have the knowledge even if they had the time and a knowledge they don't want to be slandered in public and abused and even if they had the time and knowledge and they had asbestos skin it won't matter because the big boys will decide whatever they decide so there you are the escape the escape rationale it's just total nonsense you talk to you think your taxes are being used what no you think the damn potholes are being no do you think that lake is polluted yes do you think the politicians aren't listening to you they're not listening well what do you mean you don't have the time you think your property taxes are discriminatory do you think that they're not cracking down on the health insurance industry doesn't matter so it does take it does every neighborhood has influential people who are civically active that's the court touch that's that that's where you want to get to because they already are believable and they're known and so you're not seen as an outsider if we had a thousand full-time lecturers in this country to get full medicare for all single-payer whatever freak the doctor much more efficient on and on if they spoke to a thousand people a week well advanced you know clubs gatherings small groups here yard let's say a thousand fan out around the country and they have good conversations with a total of thousand people each a week that's a million people a week that's fifty million people a year what mega billionaire couldn't fund that whose it was enlightened you see we never think of that right Oh God how do you reach people huge people in small groups small communities that they're they're always gathering in every town for all kinds of ways yes first I should say when I started law school in 1969 my paper that you had to write for legal writing was based on your stuff did you flunk yeah I did quite well what can we do about the Supreme Court with or without Kavanagh it's it's I mean the court that we studied back and they did was the Warren Court and we looked it looked like we were just gonna keep making progress and things turned around abruptly and it's gone right ever since and now it's I mean we're back to Lochner well first of all any of you read this book democracy in Chains by MacLean professor at Duke it's here you have it here it outlines how much more energy and savvy the corporate right-wing has then our side right it's just unbelievable they just decided that they're going to take over the three branches of government exactly and they did it with you know a so-called brain trust like James Buchanan at George Mason and others they did it with these think tanks and they did it with money and I did it tactically to advance gerrymandering by switching like five hundred state legislative seats in various states to get the gerrymandering thing in 2010 and she outlines at all she actually got into the archives the Heritage Foundation the federal where's our side right I mean for every Koch brother you have George Soros for every think-tank where as I said we we have the polls our issues have the polls on our side and they they perpetrated a not so silent coup d'etat and got the majority state legislatures governors and here are the three branches maybe you'll change a bit in November but how long do we wait right now the supreme court and the supreme court that was Duda though Democrats winning elections and losing the electoral college so why aren't they trying to abolish the Electoral College that's already on the way to being abolished by a citizenry do you know about national vote power is it called it's just seven people hired by Steve silverstein who is a retired computer executive in San Francisco he's already gotten enough state legislators to reach a 172 electoral votes you go to 270 and it's over basically California New York and others have passed laws saying if 270 if enough states pass laws that represent 270 vote electoral calvess will give our electoral college votes whoever wins the national vote so that whoever wins the national vote wins the electoral college I think of the devastation on that you know there were lifetime appointments carriers are young yes so how do you change it well that's going to take pretty dramatic provocation which seems to be on its way to develop an impeachment process so it isn't a big deal see I think judges that systemically subvert the sovereign power of the people to the domination of corporate power see they're basically supporting an artificial entity here again and again over real people right and it's gonna get worse with artificial intelligence and the internet and so on that is to me a grounds for impeachment because what they're doing basically is subverting the rights of real human beings to the supremacy of commercial corporations in all ways civil rights civil liberties on and on on I mean they're seizing the civil rights that were used for for real people and 14th amendment all that now if that becomes a persistent pattern and affects health safety war peace civil rights civil liberties we have got to seriously take this case to the Congress some people have said 15-year terms you know there are long range difference in differences here but you know it does come down to who who wins the electoral college which is me I always when I write Donald Trump I I refer to him as our selected present say yeah he didn't win the popular vote Kerry Kerry almost did it in Reverse if 60,000 votes shifted in Iowa he would have won the electoral college even though George Doug Bush won the popular vote in 2004 so that's why they're not interested because you know they're in Ohio oh yeah that's why they're not interested because you know sort of like a roulette game here you know it can favorite one way or the other and this has happened five times in American history the candidate who got the second votes most number of votes won the presidency we're in a cut into a country we're in the world and something like this happened and it is not aid a high-profile issue thank you yes hi what if anything have you changed your mind about are you sure you want to say if anything huh yeah whatever look what if anything garlic that was the answer if you want to be a little more specific I want to know if you've changed your mind on anything politically related in your in your life oh yeah yeah believe it or not I started out as a libertarian I started out you know I didn't like government regulation and then I faced reality as I connected with more and more problems at grassroot America can I just ask about how old were you when you would wouldn't you say you changed from libertarian to it was a gradual process in the early 20s like I did I I didn't like public housing because it disadvantaged landlords unfairly taxpayer and then I saw the slums and I saw what landlords did change my mind thank you I give you more examples but I attended your Calaway whistleblower awards ceremony on Thursday I also attended the whistleblower summit in July at these events at the July event there was this big congressional luncheon with chuck Grassley and all these politicians that praised whistleblowers they came from all over the country to our to state their grievances and then discussion stopped all the lip service stopped whistleblowers continued to whistle blow they continued to get retaliated against nothing is done there's no traction in Congress how can we transform the whistleblower event from a one-day wonder into a year-round problem that people gravitate toward and give real traction to well actually you touched on something has been real progress we had the first conference on whistleblowers ever in the early 70s here in Washington people whistleblowing on Pentagon contracts people was blowing on corporations labor unions and so on and at that time there were no protections that the word whistleblower meant you were a snitch it had no dignity to the word and so gradually because we had some laws passed one of them signed by George Herbert Walker Bush and others had a merit Protection Board and I know there's a lot of problems with that but at least it recognizes the right of bringing your conscience to work kind of like a civilian Nuremburg right it recognized that then there was groups like gap you know gap government accountability that's the citizen group that provided very good legal representation to for example meat and poultry inspectors of blew the whistle working for the Department of Agriculture and we're told to shut up and let dirty chickens go to market so then you had litigation then you had certain provisions and laws in the early water pollution law that we helped pass in the early 70s you had a right against being retaliated against if you reported a company was violating a water permit for example if they were talented against you you had a cause of action the states began following and by the way this thing is now a worldwide phenomena professor robert vaughn who just retired from American University Law School wrote a book on all the whistleblower laws in over a hundred countries so you can see it is building in the right direction with a lot more to but to be done we have we need in every county in our country a award ceremony for whistleblowers to give them support because they go through hell you know the you you often see my sister Claire gives the Calloway award for moral courage every year and she gave a couple days ago to sandra black who blew the whistle on the Savannah River nuclear storage company they fired her because she told the truth about the cover-ups and then was reinstated but she went through hell the other guy blew the whistle on a Japanese medical equipment company was selling in this country and they were shutting people up and he spoke out and he really went through hell you know you don't really get the sense until you can talk to him what they go through for example when he was fired all his friends said why is John not working he was vice president of this company did he commit a crime or something say it took like years to four or five years before he got his award they both got awards and reinstated so yeah there's you know you best answer your questions to call out professor Vaughn well they on top of it these are good success stories but I think from what I've heard the overwhelming majority of whistleblowers still get retaliated against there's no even sandra black those people that conspire to fire her they were stole all of them I'm just saying and the momentum is in the right direction and everybody's got to build on it everybody needs to build on and you have any suggestions how this could be built into us it was the best way is more gaps more government accountability groups that the regional and state level because they provide real firepower they connect with the media and they provide pro bono representation now go into court and they subpoena documents just look that up you'll see what I mean we just need regional ones where are all these enlightened billionaires they can change the country don't take it sick of five-course meals every night we'll take this last question you have lived through numerous administrations and also you have run for president of the Green Party and I voted for you what I'd like to know is how does the Trump administration compared to the previous administrations that you have lived through what kind of impact has it made on your mind well it's obvious is the worst except except for they haven't gotten to sin - a big war yet but they have systemically not enforced statutory requirements and the consumer labor and environment and other areas now you would think to be a remedy for that this isn't prosecutorial discretion where you got a lot of polluters and you don't have enough prosecutors so you pick some worst polluters and the others you're not enforcing the law this is Pruitt and Mulvaney and all these guys brazenly saying they are not going to they're shutting down the enforcement arm they're taking the federal cop off the corporate crime thing and there is no ready remedy for us as citizens other than using the Administrative Procedures Act which is prolonged and it just affects the agency to to petition directly and get them out of office to say you took an oath of office and enforce the laws of this agency you said so to Congress under oath in your confirmation process you're doing exactly the opposite systematically brazenly openly defiantly you should be expelled from your job and there's no ready remedy for that in terms of a private citizen action you must have cried literally cried when the Consumer Protection Agency was dismantled under Mulvaney well yeah I don't cry i bellow but I mean the it is it is true I mean Mulvaney came over part time from the Office of Management budget he's the worst of the worst by the way a lawyer from South Carolina who was a member of Congress hated deficits and cut the IRS budget to the bone so they couldn't collect any of four hundred billion dollars there's no no no probity there and he basically said we're going to shut it down and the front one of the functions is the promotion of Wall Street promotion of Wall Street was established to bring Wall Street to bay to prosecute the Wall Street crimes that's how brazen they are right now do you think they'd get away with this if we really had an opposing party worthy of the name going back I mean I mean Senator Robert Taft would demand investigative hearings mr. conservative in the 1950s it's just there the that the Democrats don't have the energy the tea party people in the Congress I've often said give me four of these guys and they'll roll the entire progressive caucus it's because they have donors to you never have their own city cures I was just told by a high official the afl-cio is good I was sitting down I was on the phone and I said how can they not do this and how can they not do that there are millions 125 million non voters coming up in November 125 million all they need is 10 million of them to move from non voters to voters and that's a matter of ten weeks knocking on doors neighborhood meetings and so on how could they now do this and they could landslide the Republicans he lowers his voice this guy's a total loyalist he said Ralph they don't really want to win I said what he said they want to win their own seats but they don't want to really win the election over the Republicans in take power I mean this is a guy that goes to all kinds of meetings I mean there is this idea that they think there's catastrophe ahead and they don't want to be held responsible for it and when you see how they contend I listen to the radio c-span debates of members of Congress running against each other over the years it takes me sometimes 15 minutes to figure out who's the Republican who's a Democrat and in this I just think how many of you know lap times quarterly that's a great journal every three months it has one theme like rule of law greed gambling love money war Sean goes through all histories it's wonderful stuff I just wrote a article for him which I passed out to all elite first-year law students at Harvard a couple weeks ago put it right on their desk and it's it's called land of the lawless lawless Ness is the norm in our country for the rich and powerful it is the norm and and the law schools refuse to recognize that that corporations are violating the law and if they get caught one percent at a time it's too much for them whether it's pollution laws or consumer laws or payday loan rackets or landlord building codes or they do it generically by rigging private contracts fine print or by keeping you from conflict resolution and or by getting the government to regulate us instead of them under the guise of deregulation which is a way of shifting the government regulate our parts of the corporate regulatory part so anyway if you want to get it it's an 8 HL record org you get the whole thing this is the most comprehensive concise documentation of arguably one of the biggest issues confronting us ever which is the destruction of the rule of law when it comes to the powerful and Harvard Law record is h:l record o-r-g they reprinted it and so how many people you think polled want rigorous enforcement of regulatory laws between 85 and 90 percent of people again and again but the Democrat Party does not represent that opinion you see this business of left right conservative read this is just manipulation apart from of you know maybe a half a dozen really like reproductive rights its manipulation and very effective manipulation why are we fooled at and flummox so easily why are we fooled in flummoxed so easily when I was campaigning I would say to people have you ever seen a politician who doesn't flatter the people and they sort of laugh and I said well tell me if you have I'll show you a visiting Martian manipulation fooled flummoxed flattered they're they're very good at it and we've got to cut right through there luckily I had a choice lucky choice of parents because when my father would receive politicians in a restaurant they had a long counter and the politician would come and say hi I'm salsa running for hi I'm so lonesome hi I'm Sergeant hi and my father would be at the coffee urn and he'd be the last hand shook my father would've lime go and you know he's a hike mister yet what I want to talk with you I don't want to just shake your hand come on sit down have a cup of coffee you worry what you stand for we're so easily flattered Reagan was a fantastic flatterer [Music] so lion communicators what is he communicate you know we have to be aware of cruel men with smiles cruel men with smiles if anyone else has a pressing question because we're gonna have sign books by the way the best gift you can give a youngster today is a book an actual print book and you can show how I show them how to open it okay and show that you're respecting their intelligence by giving them a print book so I hope that you'll buy the book for yourself and you'll give it as a gift it's also a gift to a local library branch because all over the country their their budgets are are hurting this book by the baby will be I've written like ten books that are never reviewed in the Washington Post New York Times never so you have to get it you can't learn about it alright so will yes we should have civic skills seminars all over the country including your whistleblower rights just like H&R Block has storefronts we should have them all over the country hide it be a skilled citizen all right if you want a copy of Ralph Nader's to the ramparts we have them available at our register you

Channel: Politics and Prose

Views: 141,428

Keywords: Ralph Nader, To The Ramparts, Ralph Nader To The Ramparts, Ralph Nader 2018, Ralph Nader interview, Ralph Nader book, Ralph Nader Donald Trump, Ralph Nader Trump, Politics and Prose, Ralph Nader Politics and Prose, Consumer Protection agency, Ralph Nader consumer protection agency, Mick Mulvaney, Ralph Nader Mick Mulvaney, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, corporatists, Ralph Nader corporations, Ralph Nader corporate interests, Corporate interests, #resist

Id: OWxc_kYmPTE

Length: 69min 18sec (4158 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 01 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/korrach]

I'm glad that old school progressives haven't lost their mind like the Democrats have.

[u/Exoslovakia]

Ralph Nader discusses his book, "To The Ramparts", at Politics and Prose on 9/23/18.

Since the release of Unsafe at Any Speed in 1965, Nader has led the charge against destructive and exploitative corporate power. The co-founder of public interest groups including Public Citizen, Critical Mass, Commercial Alert, and the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, Nader continues to demonstrate the efficacy of grassroots activism for democratic change. His new book is a searing analysis of how Big Business, abetted by the flaws of recent presidential administrations, created the political climate that put Trump in the White House. As provocative as ever, Nader takes both Democrats and Republicans to task for their failures to curb corporate excesses and their abandonment of the poor and middle-classes.