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Ralph Nader
72 quotes
“When Reginald Blamer, in the book, went on "Meet the Press" and was questioned by Woodcock Toad, known as "Woody..." [Blamer] revealed his better self. He basically became a more humane person from this jolting experience, and he feared that the majority of Republicans were going to vote him out... some have a soft core... and their better angels [are] revealed under different kinds of stress and pressure.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the book, the appeal is to their fear glands... the fear of not getting re-elected. The fear of being challenged in a primary inside their own party... The greed glands were approached by the lobbyists, who tried to turn this mass movement of the people of our country to take control of Congress... They poured campaign money into their stalwarts...”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“American politicians over the past 25 years have learned to quietly dismiss big rallies, demonstrations, and even temporary occupations, because they have gone nowhere.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've been part of these mass protests... almost invariably on a Saturday, when the members of Congress are gone. ...The [organizers] ...are so exhausted that they don't... have the energy left to pass the funding buckets around... where they could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and on Monday morning open an office with full-time lobbyists... Members of Congress have very good antennae... [they can sense that] there's no stamina... not a lot of follow-through.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]n this book... the rallies... are different... they build from day to day... and... it's led by people who are full-time... and they open offices in Washington. ...Three enlightened billionaires come to town and they say... "Hey, let's fund this"... and a brain trust.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy requires work. ...The more they feel they've got the members Congress on the run, the more energized they become.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the back of the book, I have the indictment of Congress. People... have no idea the damage... that Congress has inflicted. Its abandonment of its Constitutional powers as the most powerful branch of government. Its selling of elections for money and campaigns. Its closing out, even the people... I've seen Congress degrade to levels I've never believed possible. It's impossible to get through to some members'... offices even now, unless you're a campaign contributor. You might get the switchboard, if it isn't on voice-mail. Can you imagine..?”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Congress... has become a secret tyrannical bastion of Wall Street, and that outrages people...”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My hope is that... I will open Democrats' and other progressives' eyes to the many values shared by the Left and Right... like the desire to end corporate welfare and convert to a renewable energy (solar) economy. ...the way to defeat Trump... is to embrace (not marginalize) issues such as raising the minimum wage. ...It is a question of do or just further fade away.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the minimum wage of fifty years ago—$1.60 per hour—were adjusted for inflation, today it would amount to about $11 per hour. A long-overdue minimum wage hike would... end a decades-long windfall for employers... while [they were also] receiving many tax breaks and subsidies.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People are being pushed around, disrespected, defrauded, injured, and given the runaround by arrogant corporate bureaucrats using nameless, robotic, and tyrannical "fine print" contract barricades.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[E]stablish a public national complaint-handling system using the Internet to help consumers, taxpayers, and workers... It will also be a good way for policy makers to detect patterns. Patterns lead to deterrence...”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hillary Clinton has completed her four-year tenure as Secretary of State to the accolades of both Democratic and Republican Congressional champions of the budget-busting “military-industrial complex,” that President Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address. Behind the public relations sheen, the photo-opportunities with groups of poor people in the developing world, an ever more militarized State Department operated under Clinton’s leadership.A militarized State Department is more than a repudiation of the Department’s basic charter of 1789, for the then-named Department of Foreign Affairs, which envisioned diplomacy as its mission. Secretary Clinton reveled in tough, belligerent talk and action on her many trips to more than a hundred countries. She would warn or threaten “consequences” on a regular basis... As reported in the Wall Street Journal on December 10, 2011, “In place of the military, the State Department will assume a new role of unprecedented scale, overseeing a massive diplomatic mission through a network of fortified, self-sufficient installations.” To call this a diplomatic mission is a stretch. The State Department has hired thousands of private security contractors for armed details and transportation of personnel. Simply guarding the huge U.S. embassy in Iraq and its personnel costs more than $650 million a year – larger than the entire budget of the Occupational Health and Safety Agency (OSHA), which is responsible for reducing the yearly loss of about 58,000 lives in workplace-related traumas and sickness.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Militarizing the State Department, by Ralph Nader, CounterPunch, February 8, 2013
“Many Senate Democrats are throwing in the towel on the nomination of William Barr for Trump’s attorney general. One would think that Senate Democrats would be appalled at Barr’s long-time unyielding conduct and writings asserting that the President can start any wars he wants even if Congress votes against it! An example of this is the constitutionally undeclared criminal invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush. Barr was also George H.W. Bush’s Attorney General and has been a long-time defender of executive branch lawlessness. One would think that Barr’s insupportable drive for more corporate prisons and more mass incarceration would upset these Senators... Expect the further decay of a Department of Injustice, shielding a chronically lawless President and turning the rule of law on its head.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ralph Nader in Democrats may be surrendering the rule of law, Alternet (19 January 2019)
“This is clearly the most dangerous political movement since the Civil War, the GOP under the corporate fascist Trump’s thumb. He spread a whole breed of mini-Trumpsters who are getting far too much publicity compared to their opponents. Everything we fought for, for over 50 years, is at stake here...This is an order of magnitude we have never seen before. We have never seen a party literally trying to repress the vote, miscount the vote, purge the vote, intimidate precinct worker volunteers and steal elections. They have actually basically said, ‘Any election we lose is because it has been stolen from us.’ That is the word of a dictatorship party.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in "Ralph Nader Tells Democrats: Crush the GOP" by Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan (2022)
“[These leaders]... chose higher ethical behavior, declining to avail themselves of the routine excuses about duty to shareholders, competitive riskiness, government regulation or other pretexts most executives employ (...) Each of the CEOs profiled here displayed forthright candor, competence, and a recognition of the complexities of society that shape the bottom line. Most of the CEOs I’ve met ... are afraid to share their views candidly. These twelve spoke out. They endorsed politicians. They spoke out against injustice in a variety of ways, sometimes to their own detriment. They held controversial views. They were not going to leave their conscience at home when they went to work. Part of their vision was to be complete human beings. These CEOs were willing to admit their mistakes in public. They provided a climate of self-correction. This is something most big CEOs never do, under advice of their corporate law firms.(...) The more you look into them, the more they reveal what successful CEOs should be about within the norms and standards of a civilized society.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ralph Nader Profiles 12 Leaders Who Did It Right In The Rebellious CEO, Alain Hunkins, Forbes, (14 November 2023)
“In addition to stimulating the economy, creating more jobs, and establishing less need for public welfare assistance, the movement for a... living wage... teaches how little it... takes to change the balance of power... especially when there is overwhelming public opinion... These lessons... should be, applied to winning the myriad of public interest, ecological, and civil rights struggles that the ultra-rich and their commercial interests obstruct... increasing wages... decreasing militarism and crushing... military spending... decent and affordable housing and healthcare, reducing... carbon emissions... to prevent catastrophic climate change... enabling democracy at all levels.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“America's business leaders said NO to the idea of revolting against the British monarchy. ...In later decades, commercialists... consistently said NO to efforts to end child labor... to starting labor unions... to the regulation of railroad and banking abuses... to the 40-hour work week and progressive taxation... to antitrust laws and the regulatory agencies... to a woman's right to vote (they feared the women's vote against exploiting child labor and cheating consumers), and NO to the minimum wage, Social Security, universal healthcare, and to... protect the environment, empower consumers, reduce government secrecy, protect ethical whistleblowers, and... to reduce commercial fraud on the government as with Medicare and military contracts.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Exxon/Mobile, Pfizer, Citigroup, General Motors, Lockheed/Martin, Proctor & Gamble, United Health Care, Comcast/NBC Universal, Apple, and many other giants garner revenues as large as numerous nation states... Most are global... but there is no public global government holding them accountable... [T]here are dictatorial trade agreements that corporatists conjure up to subordinate the general population's labor, consumer, and environmental protections—a stunning end-run around our courts and legislatures. These protections are seen as "non-tariff trade barriers"... [T]hese... entities have a clear and obsessive unity of purpose—money for bosses... for shareholders, money to buy lawyers and politicians to take down laws and whatever else slows the pace of hoarding wealth.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here we are in corporate occupied territory, otherwise known as Washington D.C. ...I've seen it ...become a very sophisticated expression of the plutocracy ...[Y]ou have the plutocracy ruled by a few wealthy, developing an ever more penetrating oligarchy ruled by a few politicos, indentured to the super-wealthy. ...With their corporate attorneys they have developed one of the most sophisticated controls of a formerly democratic society... turning the very institutions, Congress, the courts, the executive branch, against the people... What they do is simply keep the myths alive, like "We have Democratic elections." We do not.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They say we have a free... independent judiciary, but... on the big questions of abuses of power, like going to war without congressional declaration... which is a requirement under out Constitution (and we have not had a declaration of war since 1941...) The courts have a very convenient doctrine. It's called, "This is a political question, invading Iraq, and we don't deal with political questions. This is to be decided between the Congress, which abdicates its duty, and the Presidency"... When citizens say "We don't believe in that. We're going to go to court," and go all the way to the Supreme Court to challenge this illegal war of criminal aggression against Iraq, they have another convenient doctrine... "You have no standing to sue." So all the American People have no standing to sue..? Well, who has a standing to sue... dealing with a criminal war of aggression... with all... who have died? Well, who has standing to sue? Only one person. The Attorney General, and guess who his boss is, the President.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To show you how much of a straight-arm the majorities in Congress are giving the people back home. They had a tax bill... for the rich, and the powerful, and the corporate, increasing the deficit, starving the public works investment and all the rest, and they didn't even have public hearings in the committee level, that's unheard of. Then they had five bills to destroy people's rights to have their day in court, if they're wrongfully injured. They got it through the House of Representatives, blocked in the Senate by the Democrats. They didn't even have public hearings in the House Judiciary. Then they tried to get rid of Obamacare, and they lost by one or two votes in the Senate, and they didn't even have public hearings.”
Ralph Nader (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source