Ralph Nader Radio Hour

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RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 103: Harvey Wasserman, Comedy, Listener Questions
March 5, 2016

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Ralph challenges old friend, Harvey Wasserman, on his claim that electronic voter fraud turned the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 and could also do so in 2016. Also, Ralph and Steve debate the value of comedy. Plus: Listener questions!

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Harvey Wasserman

Harvey Wasserman is a journalist, author, democracy activist, and advocate for renewable energy. He has been a strategist and organizer in the anti-nuclear movement for over 30 years. Much of his recent work has focused on the issue of electronic voter fraud. His book, due out later this year with co-author Bob Fritakis, is entitled, The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft.

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RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 103

Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan with my co-host David Feldman, who rumor has it, is vying to be Donald Trump’s running mate. Hello, David.

David Feldman: I read a book recently so that disqualifies me.

Steve Skrovan: You read a book. See, there you go. Reading books.

Harvey Wasserman: Well, was it a comic book? That’s the question.

Steve Skrovan: That voice is Harvey Wasserman who’s our first guest. We’re going to get to Harvey in a second here. Before, we want to check in with the man of the hour, Ralph Nader who had a birthday last weekend. Happy Birthday, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you.

Steve Skrovan: We are going to devote the entire second half of the show today to listener questions. We’ve been getting a lot of them from both Facebook and the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website. And we’re going to try to work our way through as many as we can. We’ll also hear, as always, from Corporate Crime Reporter, Russell Mohkiber, the Adrian Monk of the White-Collar Crime Beat. In the first half of the show though, we’re going to be talking about the possibility of electronic voter fraud, which leads us to our first guest. David?

David Feldman: Well, this week, Donald Trump swept through the South like General Sherman -setting fire to the Republican Party. The divided Republican Party – that got a laugh, Steve, so I’ll take credit for it.

Steve Skrovan: Okay.

David Feldman: That was Steve’s but I said it, so it’s funny. A divided Republican party in the general election will be a desperate one. So how the votes are counted becomes even more important. Our guest today is Harvey Wasserman, journalist, author, democracy activist and advocate for renewable energy. Harvey’s been a strategist, an organizer in the antinuclear movement for over 30 years. Much of his recent work is focused on the issue of electronic voter fraud. His book due out later this year with co-author Bob Fitrakis is entitled The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft. Welcome back to the show, Harvey Wasserman.

Harvey Wasserman: Well, it’s great to be with you, especially on the day after Sherman marched through Georgia. So we’re happy for that.

Ralph Nader: Harvey, it’s good to have on again. I want to go through a whole sequence here as if I’m cross-examining you so that the listeners get the idea of what’s going on, how evidentiary based it is, and what they can do about it - and especially if you live in the swing states like Ohio and Florida but also in states around the country that have these electronic voting machines. So once you state the case that you’re making, number one - when you make it - tell us why you think the elections of 2000 and 2004 at the presidential level were stolen because of these machinations involving what you call “stripping and flipping” and then define “stripping and flipping.” And then we’ll take it from there.

Harvey Wasserman: Okay. So Ralphy, I’m glad you mentioned evidentiary. The number one question there one has to ask. You know, people roll their eyes because it’s another conspiracy theory - aside from the fact that there have been plenty of conspiracies in American history that turned out to be true. The question I have to ask is: How is the electronic vote count in the United States in the 2016 election going to be verified? Where is the verification of the electronic vote count especially in states like Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Arizona where you have a Republican governor and a Republican Secretary of State? If you do not have a hand counted paper ballot that will tell you off the top that there is no way to verify the electronic vote count. We’re talking about a public election, an election for - not only President United States but the Congress, governorships state legislatures, all the way down to dogcatchers that’s being conducted on electronic voting machines. Most of which are 10 years old or older. I don’t know how many of your listeners are working on a 10-year-old personal computer, but these machines were bought a good decade ago. How do you verify the vote count on those machines? The fact of the matter is, you don’t. There is absolutely no public control, no back up. These machines are privately owned, mostly by corporations that have clear Republican Party ties and where the courts have ruled that the source code is proprietary. So if you start from a situation where we’re all voting on black box, we go in there, we push the – or whatever we push on the screen, it lights up or it doesn’t light up in many cases, you push at the end of the process, you push the button that says you’ve voted and you walk away with nothing. Now in some cases, they’ll give you – and they can’t give you a receipt actually because the receipt would allow you to sell your votes and confirm that you sold your votes. You walk away basically voting with nothing, there is no legitimate recount as we tried to do it in Ohio two times before. And it’s a scam.

Ralph Nader: Let me interject here. Who owns the voting machines? I thought the tax payer bought those machines, apart from the propriety software. Who owns the machine?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, there are cases where the federal government bought them. There may be leases out there we have not really would search it because there’s no reason to because these courts have said that no matter who votes and owns the machines, you can’t have access to the source code even though…

Ralph Nader: Let me – let me examine that. That can be overridden by a contract between the State and the software company. So here’s the question. The software company wants to have proprietary ownership obviously. And I want you to name the companies in a minute. But, if you represent a municipality or a State, and you're paying this software company, you can have a contract which in effect overrides the proprietary secret and allows the public interest to weigh in here. Why weren’t these contracts written that way? And who got paid off, if that was the case?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, you tell me, Ralph. I mean they don’t do it. They don’t do it. These…

Ralph Nader: No one has done it? No State? No municipality? Nobody?

Harvey Wasserman: Not that we know of. I suppose there may be an exception out there, but they didn’t bother to do it. Most of these machines were bought with federal money.

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Harvey Wasserman: And they help them to vote at. I mean, you recall Ralph in 2000, there was this whole lunacy with the hanging chads and the response of the federal government led by a congressman from Ohio - who went to prison named Bob Ney - was to put aside a couple of billion dollars and pass these machines out to localities. And then that part of it was not done. They have a vested interest.

Ralph Nader: Yeah. Now Harvey, you claimed that the 2000 election and the 2004 election were stolen in this way because you had Republican governors, Republican Secretaries of State and they dealt with these companies providing the software and that they stole the election. If they stole the election this way against the Democratic Party, against Al Gore, against John Kerry, well why is the Democratic Party not making this emblazed issue especially when they controlled Congress in 2009-2010. You don’t hear anything from the Democratic Party. Do they want to continue to lose the elections to the Republicans?

Harvey Wasserman: No. But you would have to guess that they would continue to want to have the same power as the Republicans when the time came. You know, we’re Greens, Bob Fitrakis, my co-author and I are Greens. Our interest in this – our partisan interest - is that should the Greens or another left third party ever get strong enough, we don’t want to have the elections stolen from us by the Republicans and the Democrats. The reality is, Ralph, that in 2000, when you had the temerity to run for President of the United States and everybody screamed at you, in fact, it was rigged by a stripping maneuver, when Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida used the computer program to strip more than 90,000 African-American and Latino voters from the voter rolls so that they couldn’t vote.

Ralph Nader: How could he do that? Let’s define stripping for our listeners. How could he do that?
Harvey Wasserman: Stripping is removing people – stripping people from the voter rolls. Very simple process.

Ralph Nader: On what basis?

Harvey Wasserman: In 2000, they used the idea that 90,000 ex-felon and now in Florida they had a law getting back to the Jim Crow Post-Reconstruction South, that if you’ve ever been convicted of a felon, you’ll lose your vote permanently, unless you have a private meeting with the Governor and he reinstates it. That was the law. So Jeb Bush went. He got his computer program, took the names of ex-felons from a number of different States, not just Florida, and if Jim Jones had been convicted of a felony in Alabama, and there was a Jim Jones on the voter roll in Florida, Jim Jones in Florida lost his vote.

Ralph Nader: That’s been well-documented, Harvey. That’s quite true what they did and it was Kathleen Harris, the Secretary of State for Jeb Bush in Tallahassee, who was involved in that. Okay. That’s a clear voter fraud question. Why wasn’t that prosecuted?

Harvey Wasserman: Because, you know, George W. Bush came into office, Al Gore totally folded, never said a word after the Supreme Court decision, still hasn’t said a word after the Supreme
Court decision. Now, there was a well-documented flipping electronically in Florida in Volusia County. About 20,000 votes were flipped from Kerry to Gore.

Ralph Nader: Define specifically flipping. Very carefully now…

Harvey Wasserman: Okay.

Ralph Nader: …because your new book – we’re talking to Harvey Wasserman. His new book with his co-author is called The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft. So you’ve described stripping and that does go on as voter suppression and it’s been written about. Now, specifically define flipping.

Harvey Wasserman: Flipping is merely taking a vote for one candidate and electronically flipping it to another candidate. This was done in Volusia County in Florida in 2000. And it was massively done in Ohio in 2004 between 12:20 and 2:00 AM after the votes were counted on election night. J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Secretary of State of Ohio - and you have two consecutive presidential elections decided in States where the Secretary of State, who ran the election, was a co-chair of the committees for Bush and Cheney, small conflict of interest, was never pressed, never said a word. So at 12:20 at night, there was screenshot taken where the outcome of the election on CNN showed John Kerry winning Ohio by 4.2% - over 200,000 votes. Suddenly, the electronic vote count went dark and then no more votes came in until 2 o’clock in the morning, when suddenly George W. Bush was leading by 2.5%. So the electronic vote count was flipped from a 4.2% margin for John Kerry to a 2.5% margin for George W. Bush.

Ralph Nader: Okay. And – okay.

Harvey Wasserman: And it’s just…

Ralph Nader: Harvey, let me interject here. You used the passive voice, was flipped. Who flipped it? Was it premeditated? And why didn’t the Democrats even after Kerry and Edwards abandoned any kind of recount - they threw in the towel as you know the day after the so-called election - why wasn’t any prosecution? All it took, you know, was any local prosecutor. There’s got to be some prosecutors who aren’t bought and sold in Ohio, because what you just described could not happen accidentally, correct?

Harvey Wasserman: Absolutely correct.

Ralph Nader: Okay. It’s a premeditated crime under Ohio law, correct?

Harvey Wasserman: Should be. Absolutely.

Ralph Nader: Okay. Now, you and I and others got John Conyers, who is a veteran member of the House of Representatives from Michigan to have an informal House congressional hearing on this. Could you describe that, because they excluded me from testifying, but you were involved in it? What happened? Who testified? And what was the result?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, Bob Fitrakis and I testified and others and nothing happened. You know, they ran up a nice big record. And I got to tell you Ralph that we sued in federal court and won and nothing happened. What happened was – they actually denied me. I voted in Columbus at the same precinct since the 1980s - they denied me an absentee ballot. I was a – plaintiff in – a co-plaintiff - in the Federal lawsuit. My co-author, Bob Fitrakis, was one of the attorneys. We won in Federal court a decision mandating that all the 88 counties in Ohio bring their records to Columbus. By this time, we have a new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat. She set up a repository in Columbus. The 88 counties were ordered by Federal law to bring in all their records from the 2004 election. And when it came time for them to bring them in, 56 of the 88 counties had nothing to bring. They said that their records had been destroyed. We had one county Board of Elections say that all the ballots have been destroyed. They used hand drawn ballots. All the ballots have been destroyed because a coffee urn had spilled on them. One county said that they had accidentally put everything out with the recycling. So there was no recount. Federally mandated via Algenon Marbley, a Federal judge, our lawsuit, and there was never a recount.

Ralph Nader: Name the lawsuit and the Federal judge.

Harvey Wasserman: King-Lincoln Bronzesville lawsuit. It was Algenon Marbley was the judge. Now, Ralph, in that 12:20 to 2:00 AM period where the vote count was flipped, J. Kenneth Blackwell was in charge of the electronic vote count. He had given them the contract, a no bid contract to a company called GoTech, which was aligned with Smart Tech. The head of the company was a guy named Mike O’Connell. He is the guy who did the flipping. We deposed him in a Federal court the day before the 2008 election. And we got very, very close to getting him to tell us what happened. We think he was going to crack. And then in December of 2008, he died in a mysterious single passenger air crash in Canton in December 2008. So we – Mike O’Connell would only be deposed now from the grave. We find that very suspicious.

Ralph Nader: Let’s go back to the court decision for our listeners. How can I get the details on the court decision? Do you have a website you want to give them?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, we – it’s at freepress.org, www. freepress.org. Bob and I have written seven – well this would be our seventh book about electronic election theft.

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Harvey Wasserman: It’s not voter fraud.

Ralph Nader: Okay. Let's get back to this point. Why isn’t there one prosecutor - there are a lot prosecutors, you know, in Florida, in Ohio - why didn’t one prosecutor with all this evidence you have, why didn’t they take it and move against this criminal behavior?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, you know, if you can psychoanalyze the Democratic Party and tell us why they haven’t done this, I’d be glad to know. John Kerry had a $7 million fund designed specifically to deal with election theft. He went windsurfing at 1 o’clock the day after the election. We told him - we were in touch with his people in Columbus - there were 250,000 votes and Ohio…

Ralph Nader: Yeah. But you dodged the question. I’m not talking about the Democratic Party. I’ll get to that. I’m saying one prosecutor with the evidence that you put out and in federal court and all. Why didn’t one prosecutor, either Ohio or Florida, prosecute?

Harvey Wasserman: You know, I have no idea, Ralph. I could never answer - maybe because Jim Garrison doesn’t live in Ohio. But nobody has come forward to do it.

Ralph Nader: All right. Let’s get to the Democratic Party. You can say that John Edwards and John Kerry - and I agree - they threw in the towel. But there are other Democrats, who have to be considered worried about this. They’ve lost elections, they’ve lost two presidencies in Florida. You're right, they did steal the election, and Gore didn’t want to pursue it. The Democratic Party blamed the Green Party. There were 537 votes before the recount that was stopped by 5/4 decision in the Supreme Court led by Scalia, stopped the Florida Supreme Court order, which was underway to have a full state recount. So, just that ex-felon maneuver was 90,000 votes. So, it’s a lot more than 537 votes - not to mention other things like a quarter of a million Democrats in Florida voting for George W. Bush in 2000. But why wasn’t there some Democrats, some local officials, some local prosecutors, why didn’t they do anything in Florida either?

Harvey Wasserman: Ralph, I wish I knew.

Ralph Nader: All right. You don’t know the answer to that. Okay. Now, how about some of these great investigative reporters, Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica, Seymour Hersh, Jeff Gerth, you know, people you know. None of them ever moved on what you presented to them. So what was their problem?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, Greg Palast did it and Bev Harris did it. They covered it pretty well. I mean, we got it out there…

Ralph Nader: Yeah. But we’re talking about the heavyweight press, Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, AP. I mean, they’ve had some pretty fearless investigations of bad things. The New York Times just had two long articles in Sunday and Monday, devastating article on Hillary’s critical role in the unconstitutional illegal war in Libya, that blew apart the country spreading into Central Africa and weapons everywhere in the Middle East from Gaddafi’s weapon cache. So – and, you know, and the New York Times endorsed Hillary - so there are gutsy reporters. This is a Pulitzer Prize winning opportunity, Harvey Wasserman. How come nobody stepped forward with the major press? Was it that you didn’t contact them?

Harvey Wasserman: You know, that’s right. And what we – we were interviewed by the New York Times. They had my picture in the New York Times sorting through ballots in Troy County in Troy Ohio and they just never followed through on it. I think there’s a scene in A Few Good Men where Jack Nicholson says, “You can’t handle the truth.” I don’t think these guys can handle the truth. This is a total delegitimatization of the entire American sham of the…

Ralph Nader: Okay. All right. Let me ask you another question here. Quickly, name the private corporations who have this proprietary software. Tell our listeners who they are.

Harvey Wasserman: Okay. Originally, it was Dieboldt, which has been taken over by Dominion now DSNS. DSNS is the big one. The other one is called Triad, but DSNS is the number one corporation. They were originally with Chuck Hagel, who stole a Senate seat in Nebraska twice in a row and nobody said any word about that except us. I mean, we can’t even get funding, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: There’s enough you put in the public record that some local prosecutor, some Democratic official, party, some investigative reporter should have picked it up and run with it. And it keeps going on, you were saying. It’s not just ancient history. You're saying this is going to happen this year.

Harvey Wasserman: Ralph, the stripping this year is worse than ever. You know, there’s voter ID…

Ralph Nader: Yeah.

Harvey Wasserman: They are stripping millions…

Ralph Nader: Yeah.

Harvey Wasserman: …of people from voter roll…

Ralph Nader: But this…

Harvey Wasserman: [00:19:31 inaudible]

Ralph Nader: But the flipping…

Harvey Wasserman: This Democrats think they’re going to waltz into victory. There’s nobody out there to vote. Why don’t you think the voter turnout in 2014 was so low?

Ralph Nader: Right.

Harvey Wasserman: [00:19:41 inaudible]

Ralph Nader: Voter suppression. No one’s arguing the absence of voter suppression except for why the Democrats don’t make any bigger deal out of this in Republican States but it’s the flipping that’s premeditated crime after the vote precinct closes. That’s the premeditated crime that you claim you've documented and that is why I keep asking: this is an easy investigative opportunity for a journalism prize. It’s an easy prosecution. It doesn’t happen. Before I go further, what is your remedy? Do you think we should be like Canada? Canada, you have old-fashioned paper ballot, big country, by 11:00 PM, everybody knows in Canada the Northwest Territories, Quebec, you name it, Maritime Provinces who won and who lost. Why aren’t we like Canada? And are there kickbacks in the procurement area that have been prosecuted? Now, it’s often the easy crime with these voting machines being sold to high prices to government agencies. Can you cover that quickly?
Harvey Wasserman: Yeah. One is that the congressman - who was instrumental in pushing the Help America Vote Act, Bob Ney - he did go to prison for kickbacks and spreading these machines. Canada, Germany, Ireland, now. Ireland had an electronic voting. They got rid of it. Romania, Japan, all have hand counted paper ballots. In Germany, the hand counted paper ballots agree with the exit polls to within a quarter of 1% and that’s what we have now.

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Harvey Wasserman: …Hand counted paper ballots. You have universal automatic voter registration where everybody when you turn 18, when you get your driver’s license, your…

Ralph Nader: And – yeah. okay. So all these countries doing it the right way, especially Canada. Now, let me ask you this. Do you have any doubt that in Ohio in Florida in 2016 - they’re going to be closely contested between the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates; they’re controlled by the Republican Party; the governors are Republican; Secretary of States are Republican; everything's in place for another rerun - do you have any doubt that they’re going to steal the election if the Democrats are say, a half one or one percent ahead?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, they can definitely do it. There’s no doubt that they have the opportunity to do it. And what these guys do is, because they’re all anti-choice, you know, they justify doing it because they’re saving babies. That was Mike O’Connell’s line, the guy who ran the company of that flipped vote in Ohio in 2004. He would justify doing anything including flipping elections because he was saving babies from abortion. That’s the justification; and it can be done. There are some States where you have Democratic governors and Democratic Secretaries of State as well, but those aren’t the key swing states.

Ralph Nader: Is there such thing as electronic voting machine with paper verification and who has it?

Harvey Wasserman: They’re working on – well, they’re on one in California. It’s a fairly complicated set up. I suppose it could be done but it makes no sense to do it. It’s expensive. It’s complicated. Why not just cast hand counted paper ballots? And they have a justification in California, because there’s so many different languages spoken there, and they’re working on something there. But the bottom line is, there’s no reason not to have hand counter paper ballots. You do have some complications with people who are blind or have other disabilities. Those can be taken care of. That’s always what they hide behind is that, you know, you need electronic machines because of the disabled thing. Now, these things can be worked around. The bottom line is well, we want to have, Ralph, is a four-day National holiday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday where everybody is off work so that working people could vote. It’s a real hardship on a Tuesday, you know, people have to just leave work. That’s not right. You have a four-day national holiday, the polls are run. This is what we call the Ohio plan. The polls are run by college and high school students who get paid $15 an hour and senior citizens. They count the ballots at the end of the day and you have universal automatic voter registration. When you turn 18, you’re automatically registered to vote. That’s it. Why should we have to run drives to get people registered to vote? It should be automatic.

Ralph Nader: Harvey, let me ask you this question. There have been others, Johns Hopkins for example who have raised the flare of electronic voting machine frauds. I suspect there are at least three or four real specialists in this area that seemed to warn the public the way you are. Do they agree with you and have you ever brought them on an open letter or some sort of collaborative petition to the powers that be and release it to the press in order to put your flare at a higher level of visibility? How about the Johns Hopkins experts?

Harvey Wasserman: The Brennan Center in New York has confirmed that the voting machines are hackable. We’ve had a number of public hacks where computer experts have just gone, you know, flat out in front of the cameras, taken an electronic voting machine and, you know, made mincemeat out of them. And you got to remember, Ralph, that the machines now are 10 years old. All these machines were bought under the HAVA Act in 2003, 4, 5. The better the year – they’re both…

Ralph Nader: Yeah. But saying...

Harvey Wasserman: Yeah.

Ralph Nader: Like the Johns Hopkins specialists saying they’re hackable is different than saying they’ve been hacked at midnight after the voting precincts closed. Do any of these experts go all the way with you on your description of these crimes?

Harvey Wasserman: Yes. We have Ron Veyman and Steve Freeman and a number of other high level computer experts basically come out - this is the phrase they use, Ralph - it’s a “virtual statistical impossibility.” All the statistical experts who’ve looked at the – mathematicians and so on - who’ve looked at the flipping that went on in 2004 used the term “virtual statistical impossibility.” And so yes, and we had – for example, we isolated the 11 key swing states in 2004. And in all 11 States, except Wisconsin, which had a Democratic Secretary of State, in all 11 – in 10 of the 11 key swing States in 2004 where the election was decided, there was a red shift, a shift from Kerry to Bush. And two of those States, Colorado and Florida, they stayed in the Bush column. In four of the States, they stayed in the Kerry column, they didn’t shift enough. But in four of the States, they shifted from Kerry to Bush including Ohio. And those were the State that decided the election. And then…

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Harvey Wasserman: …every State petitioned who’s looked at…

Ralph Nader: Yeah. Let me ask you. Let me give you a chance. You have a multi-point reform program. Do you want to run that by very quick? Then I want to take this to our two jurors, David Feldman and Steve Skrovan, who must saying to themselves, “What’s going on here?” And would you be willing to answer the questions that come from our listeners who are as puzzled as I am why the Democratic Party doesn’t do anything, why nobody in the Democratic Party in an official capacity doesn’t do anything to State or local level, why there are no prosecutors, why there are no leading investigative reporters. This is the political story of the decade, easily in the USA and our listeners saying, “Is something wrong. We don’t understand. We want to ask Harvey Wasserman the question.” So run through your really interesting reforms and then I’m going to throw it to Steve and David to see what they’ve been simmering to say.

Harvey Wasserman: Okay. Well, if you want to ask the question it has – I will give you the program in a second. The one – the two people who are most responsible for not dealing with this are Al Gore and John Kerry. And you can ask, why these two guys have not followed up this. One gets a Nobel Prize, one becomes a Secretary of State and neither one of them have said a word about the elections that they actually won. And then, you know, our program of reform is very simple. Universal automatic voter registration, 4-day weekend for voting, universal hand counted paper ballots. And basically, that’s it. And the polls run by college students, high school students, 15 bucks an hour, senior citizens as well. And as you say, Ralph, it’s a big country but we can have a hand counted paper ballot decision by midnight. certainly on election day.

Ralph Nader: And any – has anybody put a bill in the State legislature or Congress reflecting what you just said?

Harvey Wasserman: No. Nobody wants to deal with this. Bernie Sanders has…

Ralph Nader: Not even – not even john Conyers, your friend?

Harvey Wasserman: No. No. Bernie Sanders has endorsed universal hand counted paper ballots. And he’s the only one that came forward.

Ralph Nader: Has he endorsed automatic registration?

Harvey Wasserman: I think he has actually. Tom Hartmann told me that he has done those two things.

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Harvey Wasserman: So I believe he has. But beyond that, no one is talking about it.

Ralph Nader: [MISSING]

Harvey Wasserman: Okay. And what kind of presence that you had on radio, TV? Have you been on NPR? Have you been Diane Rehm Show, Terry Gross? Have you been any of these NPR and PBS shows?

Harvey Wasserman: Ralph, we cannot get on NPR, the NPR station in Columbus, Ohio on this. They will not have us on.

Ralph Nader: Charlie Rose? Charlie Rose?

Harvey Wasserman: No. Nobody.

Ralph Nader: How about state NPR? Wisconsin’s got a good one. Have you ever tried that?

Harvey Wasserman: We’ll try them all. The book will ready in less than a month. We’re going to let you know if you want to help us…

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Harvey Wasserman: …with publicity. We’d appreciate it but…

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Harvey Wasserman: …we can’t even get a grant, Ralph. We can’t get any money at all to help us.

Ralph Nader: Okay. Before I – before I throw it to Stephen and David, give your website once again, indicate you’re willing to answer these questions from our very serious listeners. We have serious listeners. These are not people who suffer from justice fatigue and short attention span, Harvey. So are you willing?

Harvey Wasserman: Oh, of course. Absolutely. We would welcome @freepress – you can write at truth@freepress.org. You can go free press through our website and you can write me directly. I’ll give you my email which is solartopia, S-O-L-A-R-T-O-P-I-A, @gmail. I’d welcome any inquiries. And, you know, it’s beyond me why no one wants to cover this. It’s just too big if you – if you reveal and then if you lift the curtain on Wizard of Oz, everything falls apart. We are living in a total fraud. Even you, Ralph, you know, they continue to hammer you for daring to run in 2000. And no one will deal with the fact that the election was stolen. And, you know…

Ralph Nader: Yeah, I agree with that. What I don’t understand is why, with all the prosecutors, all the investigative reporters, all the media that likes sensational stuff and, you don’t deal in rhetoric, you’re very specific, nothing happens. So let me throw it to Steve and David. What are you thinking listening to this? This is a political crime of the decade, if what Harvey is saying is true.

David Feldman: Steve, can I go first?

Steve Skrovan: Go first, David.

David Feldman: I think when Reagan got elected, he said America should be run like a corporation and we’re being run by a corporation. The shareholders do not have a vote. So I’m not trying to be glib here but maybe we have to reform corporate America first before we get to vote. If you own stock in IBM, you don’t get any say in anything.

Ralph Nader: Steve?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, if you own a stock in America, apparently they’ll either…

David Feldman: Yeah.

Harvey Wasserman: And, you know, this is who is by the way three seven seats in 2014 were pretty sure were stolen and then just Kay Hagan in North Carolina. And she just walked into the – into the mist and didn’t say a word. We know she won.

Steve Skrovan: Harvey, as I listened to this, you make a lot of great points. But, you know, if I’m a juror and this is a trial, I’m hearing a lot of circumstantial evidence and I’m not seeing a smoking gun. What do you think the concrete, smoking gun evidence, the best evidence you have is to convince people. who are obviously not willing to – or are reluctant to even look at it – that this and that there’s a real, real problem here.

Ralph Nader: Especially on the midnight flipping, Harvey.

Harvey Wasserman: You’ve got 11 States and we have a screenshot of the CNN at 12:20 at night at 11 States, key swing states. Wisconsin is only one that didn’t shift. 10 of the 11 swing states electronically shifted from Kerry to Bush, including four that switched definitively from Kerry to Bush with electoral votes. But in all of 10 of the 11 States, you had red shift, 100% in the direction from Kerry to Bush. It’s a virtually statistical impossibility. I’ll can line up a thousand statisticians and maybe one or two of them will say, “It was random,” but there’s no way this happened as a virtual statistically impossibility without some kind of divine hand intervening here. But yeah, we do have a problem. These are black boxes, these are electronic voting machines. That’s why you want to have hand counted paper ballots. As long as you don’t have hand counted paper ballots, they’re going to be able to get away with this.

Ralph Nader: Yeah. But Harvey, listen. As what Steve was saying, you got midnight flipping. That means there are human beings that are basically changing the election results that close at 8:00 PM or whatever by finagling these electronic machines. Obviously, it takes more than one human being and if you’ve got a dozen who are involved in this cabal and it’s done in one State after another and election after another, there’s no whistleblowers? There’s nobody who leaks?

Harvey Wasserman: It’s doesn’t – it doesn’t take a dozen. It takes three. It takes the governor, the Secretary of State and the IT guy. That’s all that they…

Ralph Nader: And give me – and give me their narrative with each other after the precinct closes at 8:00. What would they say to each other in order to flip it?

Harvey Wasserman: They would say, “Gore and Kerry are pro-choice and will allow abortions to happen, therefore babies will die. Bush is anti-choice. He’s going to stop abortion. Therefore by flipping the election, we are saving babies’ lives.”

Ralph Nader: Okay. And I’m talking about the mechanics, not the rationale. The…

Harvey Wasserman: Although…

Ralph Nader: The governor says to the Secretary of State - he gives your arguments - and then he says, “Do what you have to do.” So you mean the Secretary of State then individually without any assistance flips votes in various precincts in Ohio?

Harvey Wasserman: No. What they do is they tabulate the – they tabulate the votes. They have to compile the votes. And so what happens then is that the IT guy, the person that has the contract -who's electronically counting the vote - hits a couple of key strokes. It takes about 60 seconds.

Ralph Nader: In other words, it goes from the Secretary of State to the proprietary software company that does the dirty job?

Harvey Wasserman: No, they would have hired an electronic compiler, a company that will…

Ralph Nader: Right.

Harvey Wasserman: …compile all the electronic results. So that’s what happened in Ohio…

Ralph Nader: Okay. And they’re the ones who get the directive – they’re the ones who get the order?

Harvey Wasserman: Yes, that’s how we think it happened in 2004. You have to remember in 2004, the electronic vote count for the State of Ohio was done on servers that were in the basement of a building in Chattanooga Tennessee on the same server farm that handled the email from the Republican National Committee and for Karl Rove. And the guy who did the electronic filing in 2004, Mike O’Connell, worked for the Bush family as well as having the contract with State of Ohio – a slight conflict of interest.

Ralph Nader: By the way, just tell our listeners, remind them how – what was the official vote disparity that got George W. Bush beating Kerry in Ohio in 2004, your home state?

Harvey Wasserman: Well, at 12:20 at night, John Kerry was ahead by 4.2% and we’re over 200,000 votes in Ohio. The election had been called for John Kerry in Ohio in 2004. That was at 12:20 at night. We have the screenshot from CNN. At 2 o’clock in the morning, the vote count, it went dark. The all vote count procedure went dark at 12:20. And at 2:00, they emerged with George W. Bush winning by 200 – 2. 5%. And initially, it’s 130,000 and it came down to 118,775 votes. That was the…

Ralph Nader: Right.

Harvey Wasserman: …official final margin for George W. Bush, even though 250,000 votes are still to this day uncounted from the Ohio 2004 election.

Ralph Nader: There were really shenanigans in Ohio and, you know, like in Oberlin somehow the lines were very long and people couldn’t wait three, four hours because that was a heavily Democratic precinct. Yeah, we’ve heard that. Harvey, we’re running out of time but we – this is going to be continued. This has got to be pursued. Two points. One is: the Democrats engage in shenanigans. This Iowa caucus where Hillary apparently squeaked through ahead of Bernie - Bill Curry who writes this political column for Salon, says that Bernie won the popular vote there. And the Iowa Democratic Party doesn’t want to release certain details because they favor Hillary. And of course, we know what is going on historically in Chicago, in the old days, and phony voting and under the political machines here and around the country. So, you know, there are books written on the history of stolen elections in American past. So we’re not trying to say, you know, this can’t happen. But let me ask you one question. Finally, and we’re going to continue this in coming programs and I hope the listeners will really, not only ask questions but say, “I know a prosecutor who’d bring something like this case.” Have you ever been publically cross-examined by a tough inquisitor who knows about voting machines, proprietary and the history of voting in America? And would you be willing to expose yourself to that public cross-examination?

Harvey Wasserman: Of course, I love it.

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Harvey Wasserman: And don’t think it’s – that what used to go in Chicago - let’s look at how Rahm Emanuel allegedly got elected in Chicago. This is one of the reasons the Democrats don’t want to touch this, because they want to defend themselves against exactly what happened in Chicago which is a renegade leftist that they couldn’t control. And so, you know, it’s not…

Ralph Nader: So they both want to take advantage of these voting machine shenanigans. But my skepticism is: there’s got to be some honest people inside these parties, inside the media, inside the prosecution world, who basically say, “No, we’re not going to go along with the theft of democracy in the United States that has such serious consequences.” Listen, Harvey Wasserman, tell our listeners how they can reach you and we’re going to have to conclude, because we’ve run out of time.

Harvey Wasserman: Okay. It’s at freepress.org. You can write to us at truth@freepress.org or write to me, Harvey Wasserman at solartopia@gmail.com, S-O-L-A-R-T-O-P-I-A @gmail.com, and we are happy to answer any and all questions.

Ralph Nader: Thank you very much, Harvey Wasserman. If listeners wonder about Solartopia, Harvey Wasserman has been for years a major opponent of nuclear power and a major proponent of solar energy. Thank you very much, Harvey. To be continued.

Harvey Wasserman: Thank you, Ralph and thank you, guys. We’ll be back.

Steve Skrovan: We’ve been speaking with Harvey Wasserman, co-author with Bob Fitrakis of the upcoming book, The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft.
Go to freepress.org for more information. We’re going to take a short break and come back and answer some listener questions. You're listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Back after this.
Russell Mohkiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, DC. This is your Corporate Crime Reporter Morning Minute for Wednesday, March 2, 2016. I’m Russell Mohkiber. Aubrey McClendon, the former CEO of Chesapeake Energy has been charged by a Federal grand jury with conspiring to rig bids for the purchase of oil and natural gas leases in Northwest Oklahoma. The indictment alleges that McClendon orchestrated a conspiracy between two large oil and gas companies to not bid against each other for the purchase of certain oil and natural gas leases in Northwest Oklahoma. During this conspiracy, the conspirators would decide ahead of time of who would win the leases. The winning bidder would then allocate an interest in the leases to the other company. Federal prosecutors said that McClendon formed and led a conspiracy to suppress prices paid to leaseholders in Northwest Oklahoma. His actions put company profits ahead of the interest of leaseholders entitled to competitive bids for oil and gas rights. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I’m Russell Mohkiber.

David Feldman: Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Don’t forget to go to nader.org and subscribe to Ralph’s weekly column. Ralph, we got a lot of positive feedback last week from your obvious question. Do you have an obvious question for this week?

Ralph Nader: Yes. These are obvious questions that are almost never asked. And that doesn’t mean there are no answers, it’s just that our culture doesn’t go to that level. And to ask the obvious question that’s never asked, you have to ask some preliminary questions that are often asked. So I’m going to direct this obvious question that’s never asked to Steve Skrovan, because last week, we asked you about music, David. And this week, I want to ask Steve the following preliminary questions.

Steve Skrovan: All right.

Ralph Nader: So Steve, you are a comedian.

Steve Skrovan: Some say, yes.

Ralph Nader: Yes. Yeah. When you go to Yale for the alumni reunions, you’re the star. You’re on the stage, you’re making them laugh. Do you like comedy?

Steve Skrovan: Yes, I do.

Ralph Nader: And do you like humor?

Steve Skrovan: Yes, of course.

Ralph Nader: Do you see any difference between the two?

Steve Skrovan: Between comedy and humor?

Ralph Nader: Yeah.

Steve Skrovan: Well, usually – and David should probably back me up on this - in our circles within the fraternity, if you call somebody ‘comedian’ that means they’re funny. If you call them a humorist, that means they’re not that funny.

Ralph Nader: And, you know, what kind of comedy do you like? There are all kinds of different categories.

Steve Skrovan: I’m partial to the kind that makes you laugh.

Ralph Nader: But you wouldn’t say that you prefer satire to standup fluff?

Steve Skrovan: Well, whatever makes me laugh is going to probably have a certain characteristic. If it’s too fluffy or something what we call in the business ‘hacky’, I’m not likely to laugh. And again, David will back me up. It’s tough to make comedians laugh. We generally – if we hear something funny, we don’t even laugh. We just say to the fellow comedian, “That’s funny.”

Ralph Nader: And did you think Bob Hope was funny? He was the famous comedian on radio years ago and his jokes were never more than two or three lines long.

Steve Skrovan: Right. Well, I mean he was probably funny in the context of his times and the context of his generation. I know he was very funny and still is in his movies playing sort of this pre-Woody Allen type character in his movies. I mean Woody Allen actually said that he was a big influence, Bob Hope was a big influence on his own movies. But just like in athletics, there is a – there’s a context of time and space.

Ralph Nader: So they wouldn’t be as funny today for example. What do you think of George Carlin’s type of comedy?

Steve Skrovan: George Carlin, I grew up on George Carlin. If you really listen closely to his comedy, especially the early years and even into the later years too that still was a theme for his, it was a lot about language, lot about word play. He had been compared to H.L. Mencken a lot.

Ralph Nader: Yeah.

Steve Skrovan: In his later years, he got very political, very bitter actually, too. So he always had – he was always interesting in the later years. He wasn’t always laugh-out-loud funny.

Ralph Nader: Would you agree, Steve Skrovan, that comedy is big business in America?

Steve Skrovan: Sure.

Ralph Nader: And would you agree that at least 10 times more television time is devoted to comedic shows and comedy, and comedic talks interviews then is devoted to serious important talk that affects the wellbeing of the American people.

Steve Skrovan: You know, I don’t know what the statistics would be on that.

David Feldman: Yes.

Steve Skrovan: David wants me to say, “yes.” I would say the more effective shows that deal with the political situation are comedic shows. I mean, there’s - listen of CNN, MSNBC, Fox, everything in between. They devote a lot of hours to supposedly serious talk. But for me, it’s the comedic shows, the Daily Show, John Oliver, the Colbert rapport, and this new show of Samantha Bee ‘Full Frontal’, I think they deal with it much more effectively, and they ask questions that the others don’t.
Ralph Nader: By the way, listeners, we’re talking with Steve Skrovan who was a prime scriptwriter for the successful TV show ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’. All right. So you like to make people laugh, right?

Steve Skrovan: I do.

Ralph Nader: Okay. Here’s the obvious unanswered question. Steve Skrovan, comedy is big business in America. Humor fills all kinds of books and tapes. You are a comedian.

Steve Skrovan: Uh-hmm.

Ralph Nader: And you say it only works when you make people laugh.

Steve Skrovan: Uh-hmm.

Ralph Nader: Here’s my question.

Steve Skrovan: Yes.

Ralph Nader: Why do you want to make people laugh?

Steve Skrovan: I think I want to make people because when they laugh, that’s kind of a mating call. People can’t laugh when they’re confused or bewildered or don’t understand something. So when you hit a joke right and they laugh, that is a point of clarity. Every laugh is a point of clarity, so you know that you have gotten through to somebody. I find that just a very powerful thing to be able to express yourself that way. And it's been proven over my career and lifetime, everybody wants to be funny and I think they want to be funny because that’s a very powerful thing to be.

Ralph Nader: Well, you mean in humor, there is truth to take the old adage?

Steve Skrovan: Of course.

Ralph Nader: Are you going that – are you going that far functionally?

Steve Skrovan: I would – of course. I think yeah, there’s got to be some truth to that and there’s a lot of power in truth.

Ralph Nader: Well, and what do you think of people who say, “I want to make people nervously laugh”? Like you have a lot of adolescents who constantly “heh, heh, heh, heh,” you know, doesn’t react to any joke or anything. It’s just nervous laughter. Do you think that that’s good thing?

Steve Skrovan: Well, nervous laughter can be a product of touching on a subject that is taboo. And there can be a lot of value in that, sure.

Ralph Nader: Good. Well, I think this is an interesting exchange. I think people ought to ask one another why are they paying so much money to make people laugh. Because laughter is big business and it’s a profitable business and they automatically say it’s a good thing and they ought to ask themselves, “Why do they think it’s a good think?” And if it’s too much of a good thing, Steve Skrovan…

Steve Skrovan: Uh-hmm.

Ralph Nader: It can drive out more serious exchanges and more serious time and more serious attitudes. In other words, a society can be inebriated with manufactured laughter.

David Feldman: Uh-hmm.

Ralph Nader: One last question.

Steve Skrovan: Yes.

Ralph Nader: And that is this, in what context is laughter the most intense and draining of a person? When they are laughing with their own friends or when they watch a TV comedic show? What’s the most intense laughter? And there have been studies showing that real intense, prolonged laughter is like physical exercise, literally.

Steve Skrovan: Well, the intenseist is when you're seeing it live and you’ll know – and David will back me up there again, you know, the people in front are laughing harder than the people in the back. And that’s not because the joke got less funny as it traveled back to the room. It’s because it’s really predicated on intimacy. So it’s very hard to make people laugh on television because they are way – that television is essentially - you’re way in the balcony there.

Ralph Nader: Is what you’re saying is that when you’re with friends, you have reached higher gales of laughter by far than you ever have watching a comedic show?

Steve Skrovan: Probably yes. Yeah, sure.

Ralph Nader: Yeah. That’s my experience too. Yup.

Steve Skrovan: Sure. Because there’s intimacy and there’s also shared knowledge and culture you have between you that is easily shorthanded.

Steve Skrovan: So I’m all for amateur laughing, more amateur laughing in communities, neighborhoods, homes. And stop funding all these fantastically expensive shows, which you fund through the advertising that they sell you.

David Feldman: Amen. Well, hang on.

Steve Skrovan: Wait a minute. Wait a minute, you. That’s our business!

David Feldman: Ralph, I’m trying to keep my mouth shut here but I didn’t call him this term “cheap grace.” I know Adam Clayton Powell’s father had written about cheap grace and I’ve told audiences, “You don’t deserve to laugh.” You know, when you talk about a wavy issue and then they laugh, it’s cheap grace. It’s like you’ve laughed it off and now you can forget about it. That’s the danger I think of political satire is that, “All right, I brought up something. We all laughed about it. Now, let’s get back to our lives.”

Ralph Nader: And, you know, Jon Stewart who was under no illusion that he said, “If you think watching my seven-minute segment is going to inform you about today’s news, then you're not thinking right.” So he had no illusions. But you’re right. You know, the millions of young people watch these political satire shows and it’s like, “Hey, look at that.” They make fun of the big boys and – in Wall Street and nothing happens after that. They don’t move from satire to any kind of
engagement politically in their own right. Anyway, this is a conversation that can be extended in future hours, but so we do want to get to some of our listener questions.

Steve Skrovan: Yes. We promised listeners questions. I'll take the first one since…

David Feldman: That was fun.

Steve Skrovan: Yes. And I don’t feel like I’m being…

David Feldman: We don’t – America – we don’t deserve fun, Ralph.

Steve Skrovan: Yes.

David Feldman: This was cheap grace.

Ralph Nader: We’ll see what the listeners reaction is to this one.

Steve Skrovan: All right. This first question is from Michael Pappas. And he was listening to last week’s show and he said, “I’m a second year student at Georgetown Medical School and was listening to your most recent radio hour.” He listens every week. Thank you. And he thought the coverage in the beef products was a good and crucial topic. But what he thought what was left out was that the huge environment impact of beef consumption and animal consumption in general, meaning in relation to water usage and global warming. And he brought up the documentary ‘Cowspiracy,’ which has been going around that talks about how animal agriculture causes more greenhouse gases than transportation. So he says, you know, “How come we eat meet knowing all of that?” And that’s kind of a question I tried to ask Denis Hayes things last week.

Ralph Nader: Well, on behalf of Denis in his book that he does talk about the global warming effect, the enormous amount of methane that comes from cow waste and the enormous consumption of water. I don’t have the right figure, but next time you eat a hamburger folks, it’s tons of water are required to take that hamburger to your dinner table from the corn that's grown and the drinking of the cattle, et cetera. Denis did cover it, and we didn’t spend too much time on that unfortunately in the program. So I’m glad that the student from Georgetown Medical School raised it.

Steve Skrovan: Take the next one, David.

David Feldman: This next question comes from Gerald Johnson. He writes, “Mr. Nader, you warned listeners against using credit cards. I use a credit card to pay for almost everything I buy. My card charges no annual fee and pays me at least 1% cash back every month on all purchases. I pay my monthly balance in full every month and never pay a penny in interest. I don’t have to carry cash, and the credit card is paying me several hundred dollars each year to use their card. Why won’t you endorse the use of credit cards for intelligent users?”

Ralph Nader: Because you’re exposing your privacy to a worldwide intrusion, misuse, including formal ways like credit scores and credit rating. And if you’re complaining off into an auto dealer for example or some other business and you press your complaints, then their last resort is to say, “You know, if you keep going this way, you’re going to damage your credit score. You’re going to damage your credit ratings.” So I don’t like that. The second is, the credit economy is inflationary. It induces impulsive buying, maybe not with our caller. But generally speaking, it does. And also, there’s always a percentage that’s added on to the retail price that your vendor has to transfer eventually to you, of course. And finally, I think we’re only seeing the beginning of the chattels around consumers from a total immersion in the credit and debit economy. And not only going into deeper and deeper debt, but also being flimflammed like, you know, I get 1% cash back. Yeah, but how much do they take from you before they give you a fraction of it back? It’s like the old Green Stamps. So we have to judge all this and the caller may like it this way. The caller may not worry about privacy, worry – not worry about credit rating, not make complaints that would generate lower credit score behind his back with unknown criteria. He may not object to all that. But I think a lot of people do. And that’s why favor as much as possible paying cash. And I think if cash payers organize, they can get discounts at Main Street all over America. I mean, you could do this and Consumers Union wanted to do this years ago. It didn’t get that far. But you’d have label on the window of a retailer saying, “We discount cash purchases.” I just read a story where people are getting significant discounts, if they pay cash for healthcare. And I mean, you know, 70, 80% in some cases. So it’s up to you how you want to interact with the modern economy.

David Feldman: Okay. I think we have time for one more question. This comes to us from Tim Harjo and he says, “It’s my understanding that there are several food processing plants in Clinton, Michigan, some include Vlasic and Frito Lay Incorporated. These products are sold nationwide. Have they used Flint water in their products? If so, have these products been tested? If these companies knew about the water, why didn’t they raise the alarm?

Ralph Nader: Excellent question. That’s another source of public alert that didn’t materialize. General Motors knew about the corrosion of their engine parts from the Flint River water and they switched sources and they did an osmosis test, and they didn’t alert the public. And by the way, my letter challenging GM about that was answered just recently by a GM official, who said that they didn’t test for lead. Well, if you do an osmosis test, it’s hard not to test for lead. They said they just test for a certain corrosive ingredient that affected their engine parts. My best answer to this caller is that these food companies usually have their own water decontamination processes. Like if you buy Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola claims that the water that they use for the drink goes through activated carbon systems and that if anything, they’re cleaner than your regular drinking water which has to go through pipes. So the question about Frito Lay and others is why didn’t you alert the people of Flint, because you automatically have to test your water when you're engaged in food processing just to cover your own risk pattern and liability?

Steve Skrovan: And that’s our show. Thank you for your questions. Keep them coming either on Ralph’s Facebook page or on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website. I want to thank our guest today, Harvey Wasserman whose upcoming book in electronic voter fraud is The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft.

David Feldman: A transcript of this episode will be posted on ralphnaderradiohour.com.

Steve Skrovan: For Ralph’s weekly blog, go to nader.org. For more from Russell Mohkiber, go to corporatecrimereporter.com.

David Feldman: Remember to visit the country’s only law museum, The American Museum of Tort Law in Winsted, Connecticut. Go to tortmeseum.org. I think I’m going to go visit there April 2nd, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: You’re welcome.

Steve Skrovan: The Producers of The Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt, Matthew Marran. Our executive Producer is Alan Minsky. Our theme music, “Stand up, Rise up” was written and performed by Kemp Harris. Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. This was a lot of fun. Talk to you then, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you very much, Steve and David and listeners. This is your chance to help make this electronic voting machine scandal a major news item before the election. It goes to my point about this program. We can make it happen, but only you can make it effective.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Postby admin » Sat May 19, 2018 4:45 am

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 195: The Difference Between Liberal and Progressive
December 9, 2017



Ralph and Washington Post columnist, E.J. Dionne debate the distinction between “Progressive” and “Liberal,” and Original Nader’s Raider, Robert Fellmeth tells us why he thinks speech on the Internet should not be anonymous.

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E. J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column in the Washington Post and on the Post Partisan blog. He is also a senior fellow in governance Studies at the Brookings Institution (https://www.brookings.edu/), a government professor at Georgetown University and a frequent guest on NPR, ABC’s This Week and MSNBC. He is the author of seven books, the latest of which is “One Nation Under Trump: A Guide For the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not Yet Deported.”

“I don’t see the same sharp distinctions between the center/left and the left right now in the U.S. or – as you put it – between liberals and progressives. For example, take the issue of universal healthcare. Some of my progressive friends say that only single-payer is the way to go. I have nothing against single-payer. It’s a system that works in many countries. I also think that universal coverage that would essentially treat the health system as a public utility, which is kind of what you do in Germany or the Netherlands – that that would work as well. I think we should have a healthy argument about what’s going to work better, not some argument that says only single-payer is the way to achieve universal coverage.” E.J. Dionne

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After helping Ralph investigate the Federal Trade Commission as one of those original “Nader’s Raiders,” Robert Fellmeth became an attorney for the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, Ralph’s office in DC. In 1980, as a University of San Diego Law School faculty member, he founded that school’s Center for Public Interest Law. He is also the founder of the Children’s Advocacy Institute, one of the nation’s premiere academic, research, and advocacy organizations working to improve the lives of all children and youth, with special emphasis on reforming the child protection and foster care systems and improving outcomes for youth aging out of foster care.

“People talk about the right to speak and free speech on the utterance side. But that’s only one part of it. The other part of it is the right of the audience to weigh the credibility of the speaker. Who is that? What are their biases? What’s their expertise? The first amendment is not just defending the right of people to bleat, to make noise. It has a purpose in terms of ascertaining the truth, and developing the points of view, and educating people. And the identity of the speaker is critical to that function.” Robert Fellmeth

Love Me, I'm a Liberal
by Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs Jukebox

(In every American community, you have varying shades of political opinion, and one of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, 10 degrees to the left of center in good times, 10 degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally, so here then is a lesson in safe logic:)

I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
And I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine

But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a liberal
(Get it?)

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
(D.A.R., that's the dykes of the American Revolution)
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star

But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
And I'm glad that the commies were thrown out
From the A.F.L. C.I.O. board

And I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
As long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a liberal

Ah, the people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
Now I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter, don't they watch Les Crain?

But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a liberal

Yes, I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew

But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I attend all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs

And I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a liberal

Sure once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns

Ah, but I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a liberal
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Postby admin » Wed Sep 04, 2019 8:04 am

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 283: Mike Gravel
August 10, 2019

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Jimmy Lee Wirt: This is Jimmy Lee Wirt producer of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour with a note for our listeners. Our interview with Senator Mike Gravel was recorded before he dropped out of the Democratic primary to endorse Bernie Sanders.

Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my co-host David Feldman. How are you today, David?

David Feldman: Fantastic.

Steve Skrovan: And the man of the hour Ralph Nader. Same to you Ralph. How are you?

Ralph Nader: Good. Ready for a great show.

Steve Skrovan: We do have a great show today. We welcome former Senator and 2020 Presidential Candidate, Mike Gravel. Senator Gravel has a long history as an anti-war voice during the Vietnam War era. He's also noted for reading The Pentagon Papers into The Congressional Record at a time when the Nixon Administration's FBI was putting enormous pressure on the press to quash them. And as a candidate running today, Senator Gravel has been excluded from the [2020] Democratic Debates on CNN because he only met one of the qualifying criteria laid out by the Democratic National Committee. He met the donor qualification but did not meet the polling threshold. You have to be receiving 1% in three separate national polls. Apparently other candidates who have been allowed on the debate stage have also only met one criterion. According to Truthout that would be Bill de Blasio, Tim Ryan and Michael Bennet, but only Gravel has been excluded. What is the DNC afraid of? Maybe it's his platform, which includes abolishing the Electoral College, 12-year terms [limits] for all federal judges, statehood for Puerto Rico and DC, housing as a human right, requiring corporations to be chartered at the national level, not just Delaware and at not at the state level. We're going to dig into all that with him. And as always, at some point, we'll head over to the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., to get The Corporate Crime Report from our trusted Corporate Crime Reporter, Russell Mohkiber, but first let's hear from Mike Gravel. David?

David Feldman: Mike Gravel represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate from 1969 to 1981. During the Vietnam War, he made forceful attempts to end the draft. He is probably most well-known for reading The Pentagon Papers into The Congressional Record, thereby lending them official legitimacy. A staunch advocate of direct democracy, he left the Democratic Party in 2008 to run on the Libertarian Party ticket in order to introduce these ideas into the national debate. And he’s running again in 2020 in the Democratic Party but has been shut out of the debates. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Senator Mike Gravel.

Mike Gravel: Thank you for having me.

Ralph Nader: Mike you qualified by getting over 65,000 donors--the rule of the Democratic
National Committee gets you on the presidential primary debate. But the other criterion was you had that, have 1% or more support in three national polls, and the first one you did and the last two you didn't, because they didn't put your name on the poll! So here again, another shenanigan by the Democratic National Committee. Are you going to be able to make it to the next debate?

Mike Gravel: No, no, because what they've done, they've now doubled the amount of donors and I'm sure that they'll put some kind of barrier with respect to the polling. But no, they are not playing with a full deck and I well knew that they didn't want me on the debate, but we won anyway because of the amount of attention that my candidacy had under the leadership of two teenagers in Westchester who’ve been running the whole show.

Ralph Nader: That's right. It was a featured article in The New York Times Magazine on June 6, 2019 how these two teenagers said, "Hey, you know, Mike Gravel. He has the most fundamental pro-democracy reform platform of anybody in the country; he’s thought about it--direct democracy, all kinds of reforms, getting rid of the Electoral College, having elections fairer, ranked voting” I'm reading from the list here. And then you go into “ending the nuclear arms threat, pushing non-aggression or peace abroad, developing a Department of Peace, not a Department of War and opposing all kinds of corporate-power shenanigans.” And these two teenagers, two teenagers…

Mike Gravel: Ralph, Ralph, that's the shortlist.

Ralph Nader: Yeah, that's the shortlist. One [of the teens] is 18 and one is 19. I guess one is going into the second year at Columbia University and the other one is taking a year off before he goes to Oxford. And they’re out of Westchester County in New York. And they've been doing this whole thing. Right?

Mike Gravel: Totally, totally I've done nothing, but just travel. I'd respond to interview requests, which were quite a large number; I was averaging about two or three a week.

Ralph Nader: And that's really something for someone who's into fundamental reform. Why don't you explain your idea of fourth legislature and you've consulted with prominent constitutional law professors here; you've done a lot of your homework. This isn't just something you dreamt up. But explain to our listeners, what you feel the problem is today with American so-called democracy and what your fourth legislature is all about?

Mike Gravel: Well, I've been at it for the last 25 years, and now have got it down into a very, very precise form. What it is, I've landed on a process to create and operate a Legislature of the People where all people would be able to participate in a deliberative process to be able to make laws directly. The first problem is, of course, to get this enacted into law. And so, what I lay out is a process based upon Article VII of the Constitution, wherein people vote directly to empower themselves to make laws. This election is conducted by a group of volunteers who just happen to call themselves “Philadelphia Two”. The reason why it has to be volunteers because you can't involve the government in any way because the government would sabotage the process. So, it's very simple. We had a technology to ask people today: Do you want to become a lawmaker? And if a sufficient number of people say, yes then it becomes a law of the land. The standard for this is the number of people who voted in the last presidential election, the popular vote. And so, if we meet that standard or above then we declare the law of the land and people are then able to submit proposals to make laws. They submit the proposal by making a request. Now here, let me back up. Once this is created it is created by a constitutional amendment and the amendment follows the precedent of Article VII. So, when the people vote for the amendment, Section 2 of the amendment states, that the fact that people vote for this, they sanction the legality of the vote straightaway. In addition to sanctioning, the first item is of course, approving the powers of the people to make laws. The second is sanctioning the election. The third one is creating a “Citizens' Trust” that will then implement the procedures that are enacted into law parallel with the amendment; you have a law that lays out very detailed deliberative procedures to bring about the lawmaking. The next item is the fact that we appropriate the money to do this, in the constitutional amendment, mind you. And that money is an amount equal to what's appropriated to the Congress every year. And so that would be appropriated to the Legislature of The People. And then the next thing, the people able to introduce legislation would have to be an actual person. So, we do away in one backhanded stroke, with the corporate personhood and everything that that represents. So that's the amendment to the Constitution and the parallel legislation is the procedures that I copied from the Congress from my own experiences as Speaker in Alaska. And it's just a detailed process of the hearing, the drafting, the markups, the election. Now, the voting for laws, would take place over one week's time, 24 hours a day and you could vote from anyplace in the world and it would be with the newest technology. At the time that the legislation is qualified, what happens is you open up a website and all of the activity surrounding the individual website for each law that is proposed is continuous and is totally transparent. It's a process so far superior to any lawmaking done in Congress or any legislature of the country.

Ralph Nader: What if Congress tried to stop this before….?

Mike Gravel: They can't because it's an amendment to the Constitution. Here Congress could say well, they can't make laws. Well, if you've already got the people in the country voting for this 80 million, a 100 million people voting, you just declare it the law of the land, which is exactly what happened under Article VII of the Constitution, declaring that the people who voted for the amendment or ratification, it became the law in those 9 states. So that's all we're doing is just copying the precedent set by the creation of our own government.

Ralph Nader: Who would launch this? Give us a concrete? Would it be 10, 15 people?

Mike Gravel: No, what we did in the concrete is, suppose you and your friends joined with me, say 20, 30 people and then we go out and have to raise the money. Now this election I'm talking about would cost several hundred million dollars, just like a presidential election. And so, we would have to raise that money. But let's say some 1 person, who happens to be a zillionaire with a good heart and wants to see something change, well, s/he could turn around and fund this whole operation. And you see there's no limitation; the election being conducted has to be totally transparent. If it's not, it won't have any credibility with the people and the people will just not vote. But once the people realize that you have a transparent election being conducted outside of a government; now this group of people wouldn’t even organize as a nonprofit because using a nonprofit we might be sabotaged by the corporation or rather the state that grants the nonprofit license. So, they would just come together and operate under Roberts Rules of Order and then proceed to raise the money and conduct this national election, which will permit the people… see what you're doing is you're giving the people the opportunity to vote to enact this amendment.

Ralph Nader: By the way listeners, back in 1787, when a hundred of those men--they were all white males--assembled in Philadelphia in that hot, big room to draft the Constitution, nobody elected them really, other than themselves and their people. Many of them were rich. And then the Constitution, as it was proposed, out of that big, hot room of 1787, went back to the states for ratification; Connecticut being the first, it was the state legislature and there was a vote to ratify it. And what you're saying, Mike that same process can occur today?

Mike Gravel: Yes, it can. Yes, it can. And here, there’s nothing in the Constitution that says the people can do this. There's nothing in the Constitution where the elites have equipped the people to be able to make laws. They purposely left the people out of the equation because they knew the people would not accept slavery. And the whole issue at the foundation of our country is slavery and then the genocide that took place of the indigenous people. So, this process is all resting on the fact that you're asking the people and if the people respond to this transparent process--when I say transparent--everything, all the money that’s raised, who's running it, who are employed and all of that is known and visible. Because the key to the success of this is the acceptance by the people and thereby voting for this; this is the same thing. The key to the acceptance of the creation of our country took place by the conventions, not the state legislatures, not the federal government, but conventions of state legislatures that voted for the ratification of the Constitution. And by that vote, they created our country today. And the same process would exist, that the people who vote for this, by that vote, will create a Legislature of The People, and the legislature will be totally independent of government. The legislature will be able to make laws; the government would be able… See the government has monopoly on lawmaking today. And so, this would break up that monopoly. Now, supposing you had a conflict, that the people voted for one law and the legislature changed the law? Well, they would only do that once, because you see, when the people come into the operation of government as lawmakers, they become the senior partners, and if any facet of government were to not behave, they could be destroyed.

Ralph Nader: By the way, for listeners east of the Mississippi, there are 23 states, most of them west of the Mississippi, that have the direct-democracy right in their state constitution, to initiate referendum recall; people can put laws on the ballot and propose laws on the ballot and pass them or they can repeal existing laws or they can recall incumbent state legislators. So, there's that tradition to work off. Let's follow it up. Let's say this people's legislature passes something and senators sue and take it to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Supreme Court says what you're doing, people's legislature, is unconstitutional. Then what happens?

Mike Gravel: Well, first off, there's nothing in the Constitution that limits it. Now, you're right, they probably would sue and they would go to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court has no power to negate this process. The Supreme Court can turn around and interpret the law; they can't change the law. They can interpret the law and by their interpretation is how they effectively change the law. So, the Supreme Court is out of the picture. The Congress is out of the picture. Here we are appropriating money by constitutional means; now that's never been done. And so, in the Constitution when you have an amendment to the Constitution appropriating the money to fund the Legislature of The People… You see, what happens is that it becomes a constitutional moment. That is, will the will of the people, expressed in a totally transparent election, be overridden by the Congress? Well, the same thing existed in 1788. And that's when the conventions of nine states ratified the Constitution. It became the Constitution of those nine states, and then it just propagated itself forward. Well, the same thing would happen here. Once you have, let's say, the majority of the people who voted in the last election plus maybe another 10, 20 million people in addition that voted for this and the organizers declare it the law of the land, now you have a constitutional moment. Will the Congress supersede the will of the people, as stated is this constitutional amendment or will they not? And in 1788, what they did is they caved in; the opposition, caved in because the confederation was falling apart. They agreed because it was literally the only way to save their interest. Now, will that give us same thing in this regard? I think it's possible, whereas the numbers of people voting is so overwhelming, that the body politic won't have any credibility in order to try and stop it. What we are doing is taking Article I--the First Amendment says that the people have a right to assemble. Well, an election is the assembly of people. That's what it is; you come together and you express a view on something that's under the Constitution. The rest of it is all done voluntarily without the government being involved.

Ralph Nader: Well, the concentration of power in this country in a few hands, has gotten so extreme--economically, politically, culturally, media--that something fundamental has to rise up from the wellsprings of the people of this country. Do you think people are up for this? I mean, you know, half the people don't even vote in presidential elections; it's even worse in congressional elections off year. It's hard to get people to show up at town meetings. You think people are up for this Mike?

Mike Gravel: Well, we don't know. I think that they are. But the reason why we have people not getting involved [is] what's the point of getting involved? Here, you get involved and you vote for some people to change and nothing happens, then you get another vote… here, just listen to the gaggle of comments made by the presidential candidates and harken back to the gaggle four years ago and eight years ago and 12 years ago--nothing changed. It's that old French saying, “plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” [The more things change, the more they stay the same,] That's what's going on.

Ralph Nader: Well, you know, it is amazing on the presidential debate, Democratic primary, the other day, some of the people who call themselves moderates were taking on Bernie Sanders [and] Elizabeth Warren, for the presumption of assuming that we can have full Medicare for All, everybody in and nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospitals like they have in Canada, at half the per capita price. I mean, that's how low the expectation level is for the protection of the American people with full Medicare that exists in over 40 countries in the world, including Canada. So, I don't know whether people are up to it. How do they even find out about it? In a moment, we're going to tell you listeners, how you can get the Gravel 2020 platform--domestic and foreign policy. It runs over 20 pages, very clearly written. But how do people even find out about it when you have the corporate media in charge?

Mike Gravel: Well, but that's the point I made Ralph, that when you get this group of people, your friends and my friends that are about to begin conducting this election, you have to raise some serious money. Now the founders, they were able to do this because they were the elites. But they badgered the state legislatures of the Confederation to set up these conventions so they could ratify. What we need is to raise the money to go out and conduct this election. Now, the election is totally transparent; I mean, this is not rocket science. We have the technology to record everybody. And once this election is done, and you have the Trust in position, then of course, all of the elections conducting the enactment of laws in every jurisdiction of the United States are done by one organization, the “Citizens' Trust”. And of course, we would get the money from the federal treasury to do this. The faith I have is that at some point, this will go viral; this will hit enough people that people will be voting for this, not necessarily because they know in detail, because the people don't know in detail the operation of lawmaking, but now they won't have to know the operation. How many people in the United States know the intricacies of lawmaking in the Congress? Really, it's a very small number of people, the same thing would occur with the Legislature of The People. The process would be such that the people could vote. Now, once the people can vote and make a change themselves, you'll see a change in the participation. People may not vote in the election, but if the law changes and it hurts them, I got to tell you they will show up the next time. The process of voting is so widespread; here you're talking about voting over a one-week period, 24 hours a day. Now, that means that the number of federal laws, state laws and local laws is going to be limited to 52 times a year. And I've put forth a number of examples in the book that I've got coming out, that show that you'd be hard- pressed to get 52 state, federal and local laws designed that really are legitimate. Now, there's a limitation on the people in lawmaking. Once you ask the [“Citizens'] Trust” to draft the law for you based on the concept that you have, the next thing that occurs is that the sponsors--that's us sponsoring the law--have to conduct a poll and the poll has to be approved by the [“Citizens'] “Trust”. And the poll has to have 40% of the people within the relative constituency agreeing to go forward in processing the proposal. That means you're limited by… and the reason why this is very, very important, is that if you're going to have lawmaking it has to have, the individual proposals have to have, sufficient support to be able to qualify it. And then you have another limitation there's only 52 a year at various levels. So, the process, it took me 25 years to figure out how to do this in a most exemplary fashion. Now, Ralph, you mentioned that we have 23 states. Well, that's true. That's the most fundamental change in our structure of government, but it's not enough; we copied Switzerland. And Switzerland makes no distinction between the people and the representative government--it's all one institution. And so, what happens in the states, it’s corrupted by the people with money, the one-percenters. Like in California, you want to do an initiative, you've literally got to come up with a million dollars to just get it qualified. So, we can improve upon that and that's what this legislation is--a citizens' amendment. And a Citizens' Legislative Procedures Act, when enacted into law by the people outside of a government, becomes the law of the land.

Ralph Nader: Well, we're talking with former Senator Mike Gravel a two-term Senator from the State of Alaska. And Mike, why don't you tell people how they can get your 2020 platform and the description of The People's Legislature.

Mike Gravel: There are two sites, the one site is mikegravel.org which is run by these kids in Westchester. And there you can get the platform and a lot more. The other is my personal site, which is mikegravel.us. and there you can get a copy of the proposed legislation [and] a host of other articles and comments on the subject. Now I do have a book out and you can get it at mikegravel.us. It's called Citizen Power: [A People’s Platform]

Ralph Nader: And Gravel spelled G R A V E L. Now you've come up with a wonderful way to thwart Donald J. Trump's accusing the democrats of being socialist and you do it in your typical, fundamental, deliberative manner. And on July 27th, you put out a press release called "What About Republican Socialism?" And you're basically saying, look, if socialism is going to be a topic in the coming-up presidential election, let's not just talk about Democratic Socialism. Let's talk about Republican Socialism. Republican Socialism, as some of our listeners know from our prior programs, is the corporate state crony capitalism. It’s Wall Street bailouts. It's the military industrial complex. It's to control the tax system to benefit the few. It's all kinds of subsidies, handouts, giveaways to corporations. It's the control of Washington, D.C. by Wall Street and other giant corporations. It’s the control of the electoral process through money and limiting alternative candidates and parties. When you say Democratic Socialism that’s full Medicare for All; that's a living wage, education for all, building our public works and repairing them, getting the corruption of money out of politics and

Mike Gravel: Cutting the defense budget in half.

Ralph Nader: That's right, which should be called the war budget, if we used our language properly--the combating climate disruption and so on. That would be a great thing. And you know, Bernie Sanders tiptoed into that area when he once at least said, “Well, Democratic Socialism is better than corporate welfare or corporate socialism”. But I like the way you set it up. “Okay, Donald Trump, you're the Trumpeter of Republican Socialism and we're going to hold you accountable and then you can talk all you want about Democratic Socialism, and see how it polls against you overwhelmingly like living wage, cracking down on corporate crime and having universal health care.”

What do you think of that idea, Steve and David, as a political strategy?

Steve Skrovan: I think it's great. I mean, I am surprised nobody has taken it up. Somebody who can get on the debate stage should steal it from you, Senator Gravel, because we've talked on this show about corporate socialism, but just calling it Republican Socialism, puts that label on it, that it's going to be hard for them to escape, especially as the way you defined it, Ralph,

Ralph Nader: What do you think, David?

David Feldman: Absolutely. I was reading about JP Morgan and how he saved the economy in the late 19th century, and it was corporate socialism.

Ralph Nader: Senator Gravel are you getting any coverage of this wonderful way to frame the dialogue in the coming months for the presidential election?

Mike Gravel: Well, I get the attention from you and also Consortium News. And I sent it to my two campaign managers and asked them to go to Kinko's and get several hundred copies on one-sheeters, and to go around the debate and pass it out to the people who are at the debate or people that are interested in governance. Now I got it off to Bernie Sanders himself, but I got it off yesterday afternoon, and so I don't know if he's had a chance to absorb it. But you put your finger… the key element is to use the nomenclature of the party, which is the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and of course, tack on socialism, which is something that Bernie Sanders single-handedly has brought into a positive trend. But in the United States, people are just disparaging of socialism. And there's no reason for it, because socialism in the Scandinavian countries, has been eminently successful. And socialism should not be a negative. All socialism means is we're going to use the tool of government to act in a collective manner on various things that either hurt the people, which of course, is Republican Socialism, or benefit the people, which is Democratic Socialism. And so, there's no reason why we shouldn't concentrate on that. Now, we already have Trump concentrating on that, he’s told everybody that anything Democrats are doing is socialist. Well fine, we can accept that, but what we want to do is add the fact that Republicans are equally socialist. The only difference between the two, comparing Democratic Socialism to Republican Socialism is that with Democratic Socialism, the people benefit, and with Republican Socialism, the people get screwed.

Ralph Nader: Well Democratic Socialism historically has been Social Security, Medicare, public libraries, public drinking-water systems, the U.S. Postal Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority, almost a thousand municipally owned public utilities. Let Trump campaign against those and see how far he gets. Mike, I think the fundamental problem with everything you're proposing is whether people have sufficient civic self-respect; whether they've given up on themselves too prematurely and massively in terms of running a democratic society. The founders gave us the sovereignty. It starts with "We The People" as you said many times, in the Preamble of the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't say we the corporations or we the Congress, or we the state legislature, it says we the people and never mentions the word company, corporation or political parties.

Mike Gravel: And it says “We The People Do Ordain”.

Ralph Nader: That's right.

Mike Gravel: do ordain, "We The People" do ordain. If you take that literally that means that we are the creators of government because we do ordain its existence. Since that's the case, we have the right to change the government to improve it to better satisfy the needs of the present generation.

Ralph Nader: It's the corporate interests that have seized our power. It's the political cronies who have seized our power that comes in the Constitution. Who's the radical here? Who's the extremist here? Who's the revolutionary here? Who's the usurper?

Mike Gravel: The people who deny it, but Ralph, keep in mind that this stealing of the government from the people did not happen today. It happened in the Constitutional Convention, because the convention did not permit the people to participate. The reason why they didn’t want the people to participate, is the people would not buy into the concept of slavery. That's the reason. And so, the founders, essentially most of them were slavers, and they did not want the people to get involved. Now we have every right as “We The People Who Do Ordain” to establish our right to make laws. Law is the central core of civilization, the central core of government. And so, if we’re ever going to bring about any fundamental change, we have to be able to break the monopoly of representative government and bring the people into the only area of government that they can come into and that's the constituency of a governing body, a Legislature of The People.

Ralph Nader: Mike, for people listening, some of them are probably saying, why do you trust the people so much? Well, first of all, you have a choice. You want to trust big business that has no allegiance to our community and our country as they traverse the world for the cheapest labor and the most bribable dictatorial regimes? Do you want to trust the indentured politicians who have turned our government against their own people as to further their careers in Congress and state legislatures? Or do you trust the people? And if people are still skeptical of that, I say look, we trust civil and criminal juries to make the most fundamental decisions. A criminal jury decides life or death. And we trust ordinary people to be in grand juries and to be in criminal-case juries in court. So, we've already manifested our trust in the overall jury system. And we should study that and see how well it's worked compared to the alternatives; everything is compared to the alternatives.

Mike Gravel: Let me enlarge upon that.

Ralph Nader: Okay, go ahead.

Mike Gravel: That could be stated more succinctly. We are ruled by a minority, a minority of 1%, believe it. So, you have your choice; you can continue to be ruled by the 1% or you can be ruled by the majority of the people on Earth. So, you make a comparison, we're either ruled by majority or ruled by minority. So, if you want to continue your rule by the minority and be oppressed or turn around and set out the procedures whereby the people can rule themselves. And this would be the first time in history where we would have a government where the people are ruled by the people.

Ralph Nader: And what do you do about dissenting minorities? How do you protect dissenting minorities?

Mike Gravel: You protect the minority by law and majority can protect itself by its very numbers. But if you are a society of laws that is the tool by which you provide the necessary protection to all minorities. Now, we have a rule by the minority right now. And of course, the people aren't protected. All you got to do is look at your streets see who's sleeping out there tonight.

Ralph Nader: Steve and David, any comments or questions?

Steve Skrovan: Senator Gravel my son is a fan of yours. He was very excited that you were going to be on the show today. And I asked him if he had any questions. And he said, he'd be interested in how you and the young people, the teens, decided which issues to focus on, what that discussion was like, and how much of it was them and how much was you? And how did you all build upon the policy direction for the campaign?

Mike Gravel: Well, first off when David called me and asked if I would run for president, I retorted by saying, "Do you have any idea how old I am?" He says, "Well, that doesn't count. What counts is your views on the issues?" What they did is they had done research on me; they had not heard of me and all of a sudden, I came up in a chat group, and this rang a bell with them. So, they did research on me on when I ran for office, The Pentagon Papers, all of that, and developed a list of what they were for. Now, how they really captured me was by putting at the top of the list, creating a Legislature of The People. Well that of course, is what "floats my boat". And this is just a segway, you've heard the cliché “give a person a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for the rest of his life”. The same thing is with lawmaking, help somebody get one amendment or get one law enacted fine, but teach them how to make laws and s/he can be a lawmaker for the rest of his or her life. That's essential. Now the development of the platform was interesting. They took all of the issues that they were able to get in the public domain that I have supported, then they would call me on the phone [and] ask me about this. And it was a bunch of kids, they were calling and contacting them and how does Gravel stand on this, stand on that? And so, like they call, how do I stand on the freedom for sex workers? I said, fine. I'm for their freedom. They can make a living like anybody else. And so, it went on from there about literally a month calling me almost every day asking me about this, asking me about that. And as a result of that, put together this whole litany of issues that I subscribe to and that they subscribe to. They were very interesting; they knew that I had a larger body of knowledge than they had. They would make the inquiry as a question and I would respond in a positive way. They didn't come up with any bad legislation; just came up with good legislation, and I would say, "Oh, yeah, I'm for that. I'm for that". And that's how I created the platform that you see at mikegravel.org.

Ralph Nader: They're 18 and 19 year olds, right?

Mike Gravel: Yes. That's exactly right.

Ralph Nader: And what are their names again?

Mike Gravel: David Oks. O K S, and he is 17 years old, going on 18 and Henry Williams; he is 18 and a freshman [who] just finished his freshman year at Columbia.

Ralph Nader: Tell David he drinks too much Coca Cola. Yes, he’s got to get on a good diet.

David Feldman: I drink Diet Coke because it has embalming fluid in it; it turns into embalming fluid.

Mike Gravel: That’s right. I used to drink Diet Coke till I found out it was just as bad as un-diet Coke.

Ralph Nader: It's quite a remarkable example of a young duo doing this; took a lot of work. And you resisted it and said, “No, no, I'm too old. You know where I am” and this and that, and they kept saying, "No, no, you can do it, you can do it". And you said, "Okay".

Mike Gravel: Well, they could do it; they could do it. All I did was… they were just using what was out there about me. And they did it. They're the ones who did it! They would call me every day [and] give me a report. The only thing that I got involved [with], because they said I had veto power, so the only time I got in and said something was that they were excessively using the F-word on our site. And so, I felt that we should be a little more dignified. I use the F-word privately, but not publicly.

Ralph Nader: They're learning from the wisdom of their elders, I guess

Mike Gravel: The phenomena is that because of them, I am the oldest person running for president in the history of the United States; now that's some kind of a distinction.

Ralph Nader: And the Democratic Party once again, excluded your voice as they excluded eventually, the voice of Congressman Dennis Kucinich and many others that would have invigorated the party and prevented it from losing election after election to the worst Republican Party in history.

David Feldman: I wanted to ask a slightly more global question about your own evolution of thinking, because you've been, obviously we’ve established, around a long time and in public life for a long time. Can you take us through some of the milestones or some of the breakthrough moments you have had throughout your career that have led you to this incredibly progressive platform? I am imagining, you didn't start here.

Mike Gravel: I got into politics 15 years old, working on people's campaigns. But the most significant point was I was 17 years old and I read a book called The Anatomy of Peace by Emory Reves and as a result of reading that book, I then defined myself as a globalist. And even when I was a senator, I would end some of my speeches saying that, first and foremost, I'm a citizen of the world. Secondly, I'm a citizen of the United States, and third, a citizen of Alaska. And my priorities are in that direction. So, how being a citizen, a human being of the planet, has informed me to overcome the nativism that exists in all of us--that has overcome the sense of injustice, of immorality. Now, I am essentially a secular atheist and as a result of that, I don't need the definition of religion to inform my sense of morality. The sense of morality that I hold is based on common sense and all legislation, if it doesn't make common sense, it should not be enacted into law. And so, the thing that set me on the course of looking differently, at issues--domestically, internationally and locally--was this book by Emory Reves where he makes a [point], very simply and fundamentally, that we are first and foremost citizens of the planet and we should make every effort to conduct ourselves in that regard.

Ralph Nader: You grew up in New England and then you finally went to Alaska. Why don't you tour us there?

Mike Gravel: Well, I'd been in the service, did four years, and I had not completed college. So, when I came back, I worked my way through Columbia--the last two years as a cab driver working on Wall Street. And then, since I had been involved in politics and other people's campaigns since I was a kid, what I did is I had to figure out where to go. My parents were modest and trying to cut your way in politics in Massachusetts as a French, first-generation French-Canadian was somewhat hopeless. You know, the state was ruled by Italians, and the Irish. And so, I did a little research towards the end of my year at Columbia, as to where would be an ideal place to go where I'd have a shot at running for public office. And so, I focused on two States--New Mexico and Alaska. Alaska wasn't even a state, a territory at the time, but you could appreciate that it was going to become a state shortly. So, what I did is I drove a cab in New York, saved enough money to get going; went up to Alaska, got there dead broke, I mean [so] broke I couldn't buy a meal. And so, I got down on a Sunday afternoon and on Monday morning, I was selling real estate in a local office. And 12 years later, I was sitting in the United States Senate. The message from that is, work hard and be lucky; you have to be lucky. And of course, many times by working hard you make a lot of your luck.

David Feldman: Tell us the story about The Pentagon Papers and your involvement in that.

Mike Gravel: [laughter] Well, that's a long story, but I'll try to make it as brief as possible. I was with Mark Hatfield [Republican Senator: Oregon] and we were going to wage a filibuster to force the end of the draft which was going to expire at the end of June, and unbeknownst to us Mike Mansfield [Democratic Senator: Montana], set it up that our filibuster was operating on a two-track system, where

David Feldman: He was the Senate Majority Leader at the time?

Mike Gravel: Yeah, the majority leader at that time.

Ralph Nader: What year was this?

Mike Gravel: This was 1971. And so, he set it up on a two-track system where all we had to do was show up during consideration of the Military Authorization Act. And of course, Mark didn't have to get involved because it wasn't all that difficult a task. That, started in May. In June, The New York Times came out with The Pentagon Papers, and that was a total consternation. And so, what happened is Ellsberg, who is the one that did this, lost faith in The New York Times because of the delays involved, so he contacted my office and asked me if I would release The Pentagon Papers as part of my filibuster against the draft. And I said yes, and waited for another call. And eventually, Ben Bagdikian who was editor at The [Washington] Post, got me a copy of The Pentagon Papers. But unfortunately, through a device of my own making, we failed, and so the young attorneys that I had in my office at the time, came up with plan B, and plan B was to use my position, as Chairman of the Building and Grounds, to call an emergency meeting, and within that meeting, to go ahead and release The Pentagon Papers, and of course, we did that, and as a result, they became in the public record of the subcommittee, which is the record of the Senate, and which means that it made moot the decision of the court same day. The court ruled that you could not continue with prior restraint. But they said that if you did publish, you would be subject to the Espionage Act. Well, lo and behold, they stopped publishing, and I went around trying to get somebody to publish the papers and was not able to get anybody except Beacon Press, that had a donation anonymously from somebody on Long Island, to go ahead and print the papers, and so the papers became known/were printed as the Gravel edition of The Pentagon Papers. Then Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn contacted me and asked if they could add an additional small volume, which would explain The Pentagon Papers. And of course, I said, yes, and so the official record of The Pentagon Papers is five volumes and the last volume was put together by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.

Ralph Nader: Listen Mike, just tell our listeners what The Pentagon Papers were, in case they're not familiar.

Mike Gravel: Oh, the fact that they were secret is terrible. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, who was getting religion a little bit at the end of his tenure, commissioned a study to find out how the hell we got into this mess in Vietnam. So, the study was done. Ellsberg was part of this study. So was Dr. Rothberg - who was my editor - was part of the study. And so, he did this study, read it, so arrogantly as a bureaucrat, then classified it and put it on the shelf. Well, hell, if it was important for McNamara to know how we got into this mess, it was doubly important for the American people to know that. And that's what eventually Ellsberg came to realize. And then when Ellsberg released it--I had been in the Army and went to OCS [Officer Candidate School], at [Fort] Benning, Georgia as a Combat Infantry Platoon Leader. Well, on the patch of their shirt was the slogan "Follow Me". Well, I envisioned when Ellsberg released this with great courage, I said, “Well, God, he’s going up the hill, and I should follow him.” And so, when he called it didn’t take me a second, not a second to decide that I should release because it is very simple. When I was 23 years old, I was the adjutant of the communications intelligence service, where we wiretapped and opened people's mail wantonly in Europe. And so, I had a knowledge of how the deep state operated. And so when he asked me if I would release The Pentagon Papers, I said in a heartbeat, I would and that's how it proceeded to release the papers. And the papers were not secret. They were just a history of how four presidential administrations lied to the American people - wantonly lied to the people - as to what was going on in Southeast Asia, where we killed 58,000 Americans and 3 million Southeast Asians.

David Feldman: Can you explain to me the rights that a senator has entering documents into The Congressional Record? Were The Pentagon Papers printed in The Congressional Record or not?

Mike Gravel: No, no, they were not. Here's the process: I put them into the record of the subcommittee; however, they were now essentially de facto in the Senate record. But the Senate's not going to print my version of The Pentagon Papers. That's the reason why I had to go to the private sector to get them printed.

David Feldman: Why wouldn't they print your version?

Mike Gravel: Well, because they thought that this was secret. Most people think that well, it's all the president's fault of all this crazy secrecy. Hell, no. It's as crazy in the Congress, as it is in the presidency. Here, the sanctions done in other countries, well, they're put in place by the Congress as they are by the presidency. The same thing with the secrecy. And that is, when you can classify, when you could hold secrets, you feel superior to the people who don't know what the secret is. And that's the mental attitude that exists in many members of Congress. You just had that recently, with all this element with the Mueller Report. The Mueller Report should have been totally, totally released to the public. Of course, it was not; it was redacted wantonly and the Congress does this all the time; they go into special session. I would say, based upon my experience as a Top Secret Control Officer - when I was twenty-four years old, mind you - that 80% of what's held secret in the United States should not be held secret. The only benefit of that is to be able to keep the American people uninformed as to what their government is doing. And if a democracy is to succeed, it has to inform the people so that the people can have their views felt on public policy. And that's not what goes on today. And so that's the reason why we don't have a democracy under our present structure. We have a system of representative government; we have a monopoly on lawmaking, and have a monopoly on setting up as much secrecy as they choose.

Ralph Nader: David, just another dimension of what Senator Gravel did: he actually read for three hours as the Chair of the Committee; he read the contents of The Pentagon Papers with the press all over it. Is that correct?

Mike Gravel: Yes, it is. And, and of course, at one point, I started sobbing, because I was so ashamed of what our country was doing. And then my staff person, Joe Rothstein, who you couldn’t see from the video, who was kneeling down next me says, “Well, Senator, why don't you just dump it in the record?” And then I woke up immediately and said, "Oh, yeah, I could do that". I asked unanimous consent to place these papers into the record of the Committee, and I slammed the gavel down so ordered. There was nobody to object. And so now, you’ll laugh; Jennings Randolph, [West VA Democrat] who was Chairman of the full Committee--we had a “come to Jesus” meeting where I had to show up at the Committee meeting, and he harangued me as to how dare I do what I did. And Lowell Weicker, who was the ranking Republican on my Committee, said, “Well, you know, I wasn't there. I wasn't party to it, but I'm going to pay half the cost of printing.” And so, they did, since it was recorded. So, we each had to pony up $200, and Lowell insisted that he would pay his share. So we put up each $200. And then it was printed in the subcommittee record, the committee record. Well, that was automatic. Now, if you wanted to make it available to the public, which we did, the night that we released it, we released the papers to a pool of reporters, who then copied it, and then released it to the various institutions. Well, this very act made moot by the Supreme Court decision, and the decision of the Congress not to print the papers. Now, the Defense Department two weeks before our papers were published, they did release the Papers, which will give you an idea how ridiculous it was to classify them in the first place. But that didn't go anywhere. It was our Papers that were official, and the rest is history. But what it really showed--and this is no different today, whether it's Obama, whether it's Bush, whether it's Trump-- that the government lies to people just as a matter of course, and that Congress joins in that lying process so that they can maintain their power.

Ralph Nader: In closing, tell our listeners, again, how they can get your 2020 platform and your estimable work on fundamental democracy.

Mike Gravel: Well, the first one is for the platform is the platform that is controlled by the kids—that's what I call these fellows. And that is mikegravel.org. They have my Twitter account; I don't tweet and they have my Twitter account. That's how they hand out the basic communications. The other is my personal site, which is mikegravel.us and that's a site where you can order the book Citizen Power. And also, you can see the text of the legislation I'm talking about. But I'm coming out with a new book, which essentially, is a detailed manual on how to bring about a Legislature of The People, and the title of the book says it all, Human Governance: The Failure of Representative Government and a Solution – The People. And the choice is simple; you either can be ruled by a minority or you can be ruled by a majority. Presently we were ruled by a minority and that is the reason why everything is so dysfunctional.

Ralph Nader: The 1% of Republican Socialism ruling instead of the vast majority behind Democratic Socialism. And that doesn't mean you don't have private enterprise. It doesn't mean you have government ownership of all means of production. It's much more sophisticated, much more rooted in our history. Thank you very much for proposing a future of engagement by all people, Mike Gravel, two-term Senator from Alaska, and a leading advocate on fundamental reform of our society. Thank you, Mike.

Mike Gravel: Thank you Ralph for having me on. And thank you for your continuous support.

Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska who was running for President in 2020. We will link to his campaign at ralphnaderadiohour.com. Now we're going to take a short break and check in with our Corporate Crime Reporter, Russell Mohkiber. You are listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, back after this.

Russell Mohkiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, August 9, 2019. I'm Russell Mohkiber. A Pennsylvania woman said she will never be the same after walking her dog four years ago, and being partially blinded by a defective collar she purchased on Amazon. Her case against the online shopping giant could eventually lead to big changes to a crucial 1996 law that protects the tech industry from liability claims. That's according to a report from Market Watch. A Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel voted two-to-one to reinstate Heather Oberdorf’s products liability lawsuit against Amazon for a dog collar that suddenly snapped apart. The $18.48 collar’s ring broke and the retractable leash sprang back into Heather Oberdorf’s left eye while she was walking her 70-pound dog, Sadie, in January 2015. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mohkiber.

Steve Skrovan: For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you podcast listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call the Wrap Up. A transcript of this show will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted.

David Feldman: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody. You want power over your two senators and representatives go to ratsreformcongress.org and see how to build it.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

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RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 282: War With China, Russia, Iran?
August 3, 2019

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Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my co-host David Feldman. How are you doing in this hot sweltering day, David?

David Feldman: Good morning. I'm looking forward to this.

Steve Skrovan: Yeah. And we also have the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Hello. Plenty of evidence about global warming today in Washington, D.C.

Steve Skrovan: Yeah. Well we've got a great show again today. I know I say that every week, but we keep topping ourselves. A few weeks ago, we welcomed investigative journalist Andrew Cockburn who made a counterintuitive case that the more we spend on the military, the weaker we actually get. Well on the show today, we're going to expand our discussion of the military budget and spend most of the hour with Professor Michael Klare who has written extensively on foreign affairs and how the pursuit of natural resources fuels most wars. We're also going to talk to Professor Klare about current US military policy as it relates to Iran. Are we in danger of stumbling into a war with Iran? And is that about oil? And as the fruitless so-called War on Terror loses steam, are we turning our war machine toward more conventional targets like China and Russia? These are the topics on the table with Professor Klare for the main part of the show.

In the second part of the show, we're going to dig into the mailbag and answer the questions that have been piling up in there. And as always, we will also cut away for a minute somewhere in between to find out what is happening in the ever-expanding world of corporate crime with our Corporate Crime Reporter Russell Mokhiber. But first, let's talk military budget and foreign policy with our featured guest. David?

David Feldman: Professor Michael Klare is the author of 14 books including Resource Wars: Blood and Oil, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, and The Race for What’s Left. He is the Five College Professor [Emeritus] of Peace and World Security and director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College. Professor Klare is also the defense correspondent for The Nation magazine. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Michael Klare.

Michael Klare: It's a pleasure to be with you today.

Ralph Nader: Yes, welcome indeed, Michael. You know, the congressional oversight of the Department of Defense must be an all-time low. Not only haven't they been able to get the Department of Defense to obey a federal law that went into effect in 1992 requiring all departments and agencies to submit auditable data to the Government Accountability Office of the Congress, the accounting arm of the Congress, but just recently, when they had in the Senate, the confirmation hearing for the new Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who has been a Raytheon lobbyist for a good period of time, nobody, neither Republican or Democrat even asked him about the two wars we're in in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reporter appeared dumbfounded in the New York Times. How could you have a confirmation hearing for the Secretary of Defense and not ask one question? Give us your view of why Congress, both parties, pushing up huge budgets, demanded by Trump for the military, now about 750 billion [dollars], in the coming year with a B, why they are so lackadaisical. They don't do what Senator Proxmire did in the old days and others--have rigorous hearings on the Pentagon waste, fraud, abuse, mis-policies and so forth. How do you explain that?

Michael Klare: Well, Ralph, I think two things are going on simultaneously. One is the deep institutionalization of the military-industrial complex, which, you know, we first heard about that from President Eisenhower when he retired decades ago; he warned us about that. And one of my mentors, Seymour Melman of Columbia University who, some of your listeners may recall wrote about Pentagon capitalism; we've known about this for a while. But this system of collaboration between Congress and industry in the Defense Department, has been around for a while and they’ve become much more sophisticated over time. They have distributed major defense contracts into virtually every congressional district in the United States. So, if somebody says let's cut back defense spending on a major defense contract, a major weapons contract, that means that jobs will be lost theoretically in every single congressional district. They do this by design, so it's very hard for a member of Congress, whatever their political views, to vote against the major defense bill.

Ralph Nader: Yeah, you know what's amazing, Michael, is they can vote some of that money to rebuild the public works in America. Every community is looking at crumbling roads, highways, bridges, drinking water, sewage systems, schools. You know, that creates more jobs as you know per billion dollars spent than a billion dollars given to Lockheed-Martin for the boondoggle F-35 program. I mean, the Congress is moving from anemic oversight of the Pentagon budget, which is over half of what the entire federal government's operating budget is--over half, listeners--into a total rubberstamp, just a rubberstamp.

Michael Klare: Well like I say, they know what you just said, Ralph, that they get more jobs if they were infrastructure project, but that's theoretical jobs. Right now, they have a thousand jobs or two thousand jobs or whatever at some defense contractor in their district. And the union leaders are tied into the military-industrial complex, and the lobbyists are tied into the military-industrial complex, so if you threaten to close that plant, they're going to have their constituents screaming at them, so it's a very well-oiled machine; that's on one hand. But there's a second part of this, I said, and that is that Congress has bought into the fact that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are over now; they're in the rearview mirror. And we're taking on new enemies--Russia and China and maybe North Korea, and there's near universal enthusiasm for this in Washington, D.C. People are ready to fight Russia and to take on China and there's just infinite amounts of money they're willing to spend on this. There is absolutely no resistance whatsoever in Congress.

Ralph Nader: Tell our listeners, how much is involved in one aspect--that's the upgrade of our nuclear bombs and the B52s and the nuclear submarines, which now have enough firepower as Seymour Melman once calculated, to "blow up the world three hundred times and make the rubble bounce." How much do they want to spend of our tax dollars now--taking away from schools, drinking water systems, public transit, bridges, roads, airports and ports?

Michael Klare: Yes. My colleagues here at the Arms Control Association where I'm speaking to you from, have published a report called US Nuclear Excess: Understanding the Costs, Risks and Alternatives and they’ve added it up and it comes out to $1.7 trillion when you account for inflation. And that really is just an underestimate if the Pentagon gets everything they want and you build in cost overruns, which you have to assume [is] the case, so we're speaking of a minimum of $2 trillion dollars over a 30-year period to replace all existing nuclear weapons in the stockpile, which is what the Department of Defense wants.

Ralph Nader: Why do they have to upgrade them? They don't deteriorate like vegetables.

Michael Klare: There are two things going on. I think it's a combination of there is, you know, a degree of just wanting new and better, so they want new and better systems; they always want new and better systems, and the defense contractors want new and better systems. But there's something more sinister at work, Ralph, and that's what troubles me. The existing nuclear architecture is based on the notion of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), as your listeners will be aware. The notion is that it makes no sense to start a nuclear war because the other side will have an invulnerable second-strike capacity. Even if we attack them, they will still have some reservoir of nuclear weapons, maybe on submarines or mobile missiles, that could strike back and still destroy us. So, there's no incentive whatsoever to start a nuclear war. But I get the sense, my colleagues get the sense that there are people within the military establishment who think that we should abandon MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction, and think again about, as was the case in the 1950s, thinking about winning a nuclear war. And they have John Bolton at the National Security Council and others who are egging them on—“let's abandon, let's tear up all arms control treaties; let's go hell-bent to acquire more nuclear weapons, more technology, defense systems, ballistic missile interceptors; let's think about launching a nuclear war. So, what if a few cities in the US get destroyed by accident and a few tens of millions of people purchase, well, we'll wipe them out.” That's the thinking behind this.

Ralph Nader: Well, do you think that John Bolton, who never was confirmed by the Senate--he wouldn't have been confirmed; the Republicans hate him personally, and he got away with being appointed by Trump his national security adviser; he's sitting there right now in the White House. I consider him clinically insane. He's a Yale Law grad. He has no respect for international law, international treaties. He says we should bomb North Korea, overthrow the regime in Tehran, let Israel annex the West Bank; never talks about law. Here is a lawyer; he's a draft dodger. He liked the Vietnam War; but he wanted his friends to go fight and die there. He's a despicable human being, and he's pulling Trump closer and closer into confrontational war in Iran or around Iran, and he hates what Trump is doing with Kim, hobnobbing with Kim in North Korea. I think it's time to call these people clinically insane, Michael.

Michael Klare: Clinically insane or some other words, psychopathic, maybe, you know, I don't . . . I'm not a psychologist; I don't know what to call them except extremely dangerous and unsafe to living creatures.

Ralph Nader: It's out of that movie, Dr. Strangelove. Here's a question I want to ask you. We would never allow China to have a fleet of warships in the Caribbean. Why are we so hung up on our controlling the South China Sea? Whatever happened to spheres of influence where major powers recognize that they're going to have control around their borders? What's going on here with China? I think part of it started with Hillary Clinton's address at the Naval Academy where she outlined what she called "force projection" against China, moving a lot of our military from the Middle East to the South China Sea and surrounding China with aircraft carriers that she used the word "force projection." Remember that address?

Michael Klare: Yes, certainly. But, Ralph, this has been US policy since 1898 when the US conquered the Spanish fleet in Manila Harbor and took possession of the Philippines and has been US policy ever since. That was the basis of US intervention in World War II in the Pacific is that America's sphere of influence extends to the coastal waters of China. And no member of the American foreign policy elite, Democrat or Republican, has ever challenged that notion in over a century. This is deeply ingrained in the strategic thinking of American policymakers. You don't hear any candidate running for president, any member of Congress, saying that's a cuckoo idea, which it certainly is.

Ralph Nader: Well, lay out what you think the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, Raytheon, Boeing, Grumman, Lockheed-Martin—you know, enough is never enough for their weapons. They can never tell you--General Dynamics can never say when is there enough nuclear submarines. Outline for our listeners what's called the "triad of defense" that we're projecting all over the globe with the American empire before we get into the latest strategy, which is to push Russia and China into an arms race with us.

Michael Klare: Yes, I'm happy to speak to these issues. We distinguish here between so-called conventional weapons. Of course, no killing instrument should be called conventional, but that's the term, and nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction. So, the nuclear triad consists of land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles or ICBMs, plus Submarine Ballistic Missiles. They are called SLBMs, Submarine-launched Ballistic Missiles, and we have a third leg of the triad, which are bombs dropped or cruise missiles launched from long-range bombers like the B-2 and the B-52 bomber, which are intended to penetrate Russian or Chinese air space to deliver their weapons. So, there are three legs, each one of which is designed to fully destroy, eliminate, abolish, incinerate Russia and China even if the other two were completely obliterated. So, we have three separate systems for conducting a global nuclear war, thermonuclear war independently of the others. So that's why the price is so high. When you have three separate nuclear-war fighting machines operating independently of each other, that's the nuclear triad.

Ralph Nader: Well on that point, don’t you think we could have citizen town meetings around the country where they summon the people who make all this weaponry possible--the senators and representatives--and get something going? Because let me ask you a question maybe most people don't ask you. We're talking to Professor Michael Klare who has written for decades accurate information, studies, books, testimony, articles. He's a military correspondent for The Nation magazine on the military strategy, so-called. Where is this going if we don't stop it, if we don't re- direct it, if we don't wage peace, if we don't have treaties, if we stop thinking that we can't generate our economy unless it's a war economy. Where do you think [in]10, 20, 30 years this is going to end up, the worst case scenario, short of war, the economic worst case scenario?

Michael Klare: Yeah. The other side of this, Ralph, is that this has to be put in context is what the Pentagon now calls preparing for "great power conflict" in quotation marks, a "great power competition." It's not enough that they are building up the technology of war, they are also creating the, let's call it the political, the strategic context for war with Russia or China. Now this was not the case two or three years ago. From 9/11 on until a year or so ago, they would say that their primary concern was fighting terrorist organizations, militant organizations in the Middle East, so that was a completely different priority. Now they're saying that's in the past; now our focus is on preparing for war with Russia or China. And this is a very different proposition and exceedingly far more dangerous because war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria against militant organizations has terrible consequences. And I'm sure your listeners are well aware of that--drone strikes that killed civilians and so on. But Russia and China are not terrorist organizations in the same sense. They possess modern militaries as well. They possess nuclear weapons. They possess advanced warships and planes. So, any encounter with Russia or China in the years ahead is going to result in major war with a very high likelihood of escalation across the nuclear threshold to a full-blown thermonuclear conflict. And it is this drive to prepare for great power war that worries me more than anything else because there is nobody challenging this notion or whether this is a reasonable strategy to pursue at this time given the dangerous consequences it holds. So, this is what we have to ask our senators, representatives in Congress about why are we hell-bent on preparing for a thermonuclear conflagration that'll destroy us all? Is it so absolutely necessary to assume that war with Russia and China is nearly inevitable when there's the possibility of negotiating with them to resolve our differences in the South China Sea?

Ralph Nader: And by the way, they're not by our shores. They're not in Canada or in Mexico. We're in the Baltic area; we're in the South China Sea. We've got them half surrounded. I mean, the provocations are really striking, but the military-industrial complex, they're trying to reassure the American people that we can have a ballistic defense system so that we can actually win a nuclear war because we can shoot down the incoming ballistic systems. We had Professor Ted Postal from MIT debunking that. Do you agree that $14 billion program on ballistic-missile defense is technically unworkable.

Michael Klare: Totally, totally unworkable. But that's only one small part of this fighting-a- nuclear-war scheme. You also have to include the tens, soon to be hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on exotic new weapons, artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons, autonomous weapons systems that could be used to attack Russian and Chinese second-strike weapons capabilities and to destroy their early warning systems and presumably their satellite systems. That's another key part of this war-fighting mentality that's taking over at the Pentagon.

Ralph Nader: Where does cyber warfare fit in here?

Michael Klare: Yes. Cyber is critical because all of the defensive systems on both sides are highly reliant on electronics, on the internet, on cyber, on cyber space to function. So, yup, China, for example, is highly dependent for its early warning systems, for its radars, command and control of its nuclear weapons on cyber space. If you can immobilize their command and control networks, then you can theoretically disarm them and make it possible to attack their nuclear weapons without any warning. Now this is the theory. The problem is that at the very instance that it appears that their cyber systems are under control and it's easy to fake that or for hackers to do that. They may say we're under attack, better launch our nuclear weapons now, immediately--don't wait for confirmation. So, we're moving to a world in which what's called "launch on warning" will become the norm.

Ralph Nader: The whole thing seems so preposterous, Michael. In other words, look, we're not interested in grabbing land from China and Russia. Russia and China are interested in grabbing land from us or from South American countries. It's like these guys are playing around with multi- trillion dollar Armageddon toys trying to provoke through “forced projection” the Chinese and Russians into putting their scientists and engineers to work and reassuring their own people. After all, it's China that was invaded by the west. It's China that was occupied in the 19th-century, gunboat diplomacy, the British, the French, the US. It's Russia or the Soviet Union that was invaded twice with tens of millions of Russian casualties by western powers, Germany, for example. So, you can understand why they're concerned about the US. In terms of the imbalance of conventional force, tell our listeners the following. How many aircraft carriers do we have compared to China and Russia?

Michael Klare: See, now this is a conversation I happily can talk about the balance of forces on each side, which heavily favors the United States. But I want to give you my own thoughts about why we're in such a dangerous world. It's a combination of the military-industrial complex in these institutional forces that we've been talking about, which favor more and more spending on increasingly exotic and dangerous weapons. On one hand . . .

Ralph Nader: In other words, profits, corporate profits.

Michael Klare: Yes. And on the other hand, you have the three countries we're talking about, Russia, China and the United States, led by, I believe, insecure and the egomaniacal leaders, Donald Trump in the United States, Xi Jinping in China, and of course Vladimir Putin in Russia. Each of these egotistical and insecure leaders, if they, you know, could not win the majority election in their own countries, I suspect, and so are relying on flag-waving in ultra-nationalism and militarism to secure their position in their respective countries. We saw that Donald Trump with his July 4th, you know, fiasco of a parade in Washington. You see that with Vladimir Putin in the seizure of Crimea, which was really to boost his status in Russia amongst his public. And Xi Jinping who's losing support in China, but is increasingly tough on the South China Sea. So, you have a marriage of these political leaders seeking stature through militaristic behavior, which is, you know, if we think back to how World War I began, that's exactly how World War I began was this kind of posturing, and that's what scares the crap out of me.

Ralph Nader: I was going to mention World War I because it is a very good comparison. It all started with the shootout in Sarajevo, the Archduke, and then the Kings and the Kaisers and Czars who knew each other. Actually, they were socializing; they got their egos up and the result was 15 million dead innocents and getting us into World War I, which set the stage, by the way, historians remind us, for World War II. So, to show people what the imbalance of conventional forces are, how many aircraft carriers, which is the main instrument of “force projection” against China, for example, how many aircraft carriers do we have compared to China and Russia?

Michael Klare: You know China has one and it's not fully operational yet. They're building their second. The US has 12. I think one of them is down for repair. And Russia has, you know, at last count, I think it only has one. But Russia's strength is not at sea. Russia's strength is on land, but still even in terms of their land capacity, the Russian military is a mere shadow of what the Soviets had at their maximum strength. China is also a land power. I can't imagine the US ever contesting China on the Asian mainland. We simply lack the number of troops. But I can't imagine that occurring either, so in terms of modern air power and sea power, the US has an enormous advantage against either of those countries.

Ralph Nader: Well let's talk about Iran. You're very worried about Iran. You’ve written that it's all about oil, which is never mentioned, the three-letter word, O-I-L. And the Saudis would like to see the regime in Iran toppled. The Israelis, of course, are always goading the US to topple the Iranian ruling powers. Give us your take on what's going on now. By the way, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and an Air Force B-52 Stratofortress conducted joint exercises in the Arabian Sea on June 1 of 2019. We're over there, the Sixth Fleet. We've always been over there. We got around surrounded by our military in Iraq, our military in Afghanistan, our sea and air power in the Persian Gulf, and of course the Israelis always available to provide intelligence or cyberattacks on the Iranian centrifuges with the US. What do you think is our take here? We got John Bolton and Mike "Pompous" Pompeo, Secretary of State, going around the world basically saying that Iran is going to be the target. And they pulled out of the nuclear accord, Trump did; all the other allies stayed in and we are imposing enormous sanctions on innocent civilians, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals [and] all kinds of civilian equipment is now sanctioned in terms of imports. Well how do you see this, first of all, in terms of international law? International law says sanctions from one country against another has a disproportionate adverse effect on civilians isn't a violation of international law. Let's start with international law, the nuclear accord treaty first.

Michael Klare: Yeah. Well you said a lot of the things I would have mentioned already, Ralph. So the center piece here is what's called the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, takes a little while to get those initials down, that's the agreement that the US, Britain, France, Germany, the EU, China, and Russia signs with Iran in 2015 during Obama's watch, which said that the Iranians would dismantle their nuclear enrichment capability in return for relief from sanctions. And even before the Trump Administration came into power, there was no real relief from sanctions even though the Iranians did absolutely everything that they promised to do in the accord. So, they were already feeling frustrated because the US did not relieve them of the sanctions pressures, the economic sanctions on their oil exports, in particular, which is their main source of currency. Then along comes Trump and he withdraws from the treaty altogether and stiffens sanctions on Iran, so the country is suffering terribly. The Europeans, who believe in the treaty, who want to keep the treaty afloat, have promised the Iranians that they would find workarounds; they'd find some way to maintain economic ties with the Iranians even despite sanctions by the US on their international companies that do business with Iran. And so far, that has failed to materialize, so the Iranians are saying to the Europeans you promised us that you were going to... we continue to abide by the treaty. The US isn't. We continued to abide by the treaty, the agreement. And you promised us you would find some way to work around US pressure. Well, the Europeans haven't done that. So now the Iranians are beginning to take small baby steps outside of their agreement by stepping up their enrichment of uranium. Now they are, under the agreement itself, entirely allowed to do that because the agreement only holds if all parties abide by it and the US is not abiding by the agreement anymore. So, in fact, the Iranians are within their rights to step out of the agreement and to proceed with enrichment. Nonetheless, this puts the Europeans in a hard place because the US is putting pressure on them now to punish the Iranians as well for those little steps that they're taking. So, we're moving closer and closer to a crisis where, if the Iranians say they're going to increase their enrichment of uranium in the months ahead, and unless the Europeans are able to find some resolution, my guess is that Bolton will push Trump to a step where, you know, he said . . . Trump has said Iran will not get nuclear weapons. So, we could be at a point where Trump will be coerced by Bolton and Pompeo and Netanyahu into taking military action against Iran. When that happens, we don't know what will happen next, but it's likely to create a metastasizing series of crises throughout the Middle East.

Ralph Nader: Yeah, and not only that, it's like we have such a huge military budget, we got to have an enemy out there. And we're now working to make sure that Russia and China are the big adversaries, but in previous years, they're looking around and they say, oh, it's Iran. Iran has a GDP the size of Connecticut. It has 80 million people. Many of them are very poor. The main currency and exports is oil. Trump's sanctions pushed by Bolton and Pompeo have cut oil exports more than half so it’s like strangling the economy. It has effects on food--effects on all kinds of essentials for the civilian economy in Iran. When do you think the American people are going to wake up here and ask other countries that have been hijacked by these arms corporations, these munitions corporations? I don't think they should be called defense companies, and their Toadies in Washington that go in and out from jobs in Raytheon to the Department of Defense or Lockheed-Martin to the Department of Defense. What's the light at the end of the tunnel? We're going to get some enlightenment from Steven and David on this, I hope, but we always like to end interviews, Michael, by saying this is what needs to be done. And I always focus on the great fulcrum of change which happens to be the smallest branch of government, but the most powerful, the US Congress. Now you're working with the Quakers and other peace groups who get almost no national media; they're only waging peace and they're last in the media. The warmongers who want war, get all kinds of mass media. So, with that background, what do you recommend out there where the listeners are, and where members of Congress are about to go on a six-week vacation called the autumn August recess, listeners, and they're going to have meetings with you all. What do you say?

Michael Klare: Yes, that's a good way to end. So now fortunately with the new Congress that was elected in 2018, there are some very thoughtful progressive democratic members of Congress who have weighed in on this issue. And the House of Representatives just voted for their version of what's called the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA. And it does include an amendment, this is the House version; it includes an amendment that says that the president cannot go to war with Iran without authorization from Congress. They have to come back to Congress for approval before attacking Iran, so this would be some degree of restraint. Now to be clear, this is the House version. The Senate version of the bill does not contain this amendment and the Republicans control the Senate and they're going to do everything they can to prevent that measure from making it to the final version of the bill in the conference committee. So whatever listeners can do to persuade their members of the Senate and their House representatives to maintain that measure in the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act, that would be very useful. The law, by the way, also contains amendments and here, there is support in the Senate to ban arms sales to Saudi Arabia as a result of its continued genocidal war in Yemen, which is resulting in the lives of enormous numbers of civilians and a vast humanitarian emergency there. So that's another area where listeners could weigh in with their House and Senate representatives to maintain that measure in the final bill.

Ralph Nader: Tell us about Congressman Adam Smith from Washington State.

Michael Klare: Adam Smith is Chair of the House Armed Services Committee and he's been doing a masterful job of trying to use that position to insert into the bill and into defense spending some restraints on the things we've been talking about. For example, trying to reduce spending for the nuclear weapons modernization we've been speaking about, to slow down the acquisition of weapons that would make nuclear war more likely, so I think he's been doing a fabulous job.

Ralph Nader: How can people get information in their hands, you know, it doesn’t have to be a ton of stuff, so they can intelligently demand the presence of senators and representatives around key issues this August when they go back home?

Michael Klare: Well that's a good question, so you mentioned the Quakers and their lobbying arm is the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the FCNL, and you can go to their website fcnl.org and sign up for alerts on these issues. They are the best, the most knowledgeable about these votes in Congress and on nuclear weapons issues. And for spending on the nuclear triad, go to the organization I collaborate with, the Arms Control Association at armscontrol.org.

Ralph Nader: It's A-R-M-S, right?

Michael Klare: Yes, armscontrol, one word, armscontrol.org.

Ralph Nader: And where are the democratic presidential candidates on any of this? Are any of them taking this on or are they dodging over half of the federal operating budget and the military- industrial complex and forever wars abroad? Are the ducking it?

Michael Klare: I won't say they're ducking it. You know they're all leading with other issues that they consider more important like economic inequality, racism, immigration rights; I could understand that. But some of them are speaking out on these issues. Elizabeth Warren has spoken out and Bernie Sanders, of course, as have others. I don't mean to just single out those two, but I know they have, in particular, spoken out about the risks of excessive military spending.

Ralph Nader: Let's get some enlightenment from Steve and David.

David Feldman: Yeah, I have a question. There are people who believe that war is a constant in nature and those people are in America--Dick Cheney (former Vice President), [John] Bolton (Trump’s National Security Advisor), but they also exist in other countries. So what kind of military do we need and who is a legitimate threat to the United States? Is there somebody out there we should be afraid of?

Michael Klare: Well as I said earlier, I do think that Russia and China, like the United States, are led by leaders with authoritarian tendencies who are also insecure and see militarism as a tool for their political legitimacy. I do not think that they want to go to war, any of them, I believe that.

David Feldman: Because of our strengths or just because they don't want to go to war?

Michael Klare: No, I don't think that they want to go to war per se. It's not like Hitler and others who thought war was a good thing. They're aware of the dangers, but they want to engage in risk-taking behavior, and this is a long . . . there's a long history of this that by showing the flag, muscle flexing, acting tough, there's a lot of sports, masculine sports behavior that this comes from. You have to show the other guy that you're tougher than him.

David Feldman: So, is there a boogeyman out there? Is there somebody who we really have to fear?

Michael Klare: Do we have to fear somebody? We have to fear hackers who might trigger a war. I think we have to fear young men in planes and ships who have command of systems that could ignite a war unintentionally, but it's the whole system that we have to fear. I don't think there's a boogeyman. I think there's a system.

David Feldman: Right, right.

Ralph Nader: By the way, Michael, give that website for the Friends Committee slowly because listeners, they do have very accurate and clear information for voters back home. I mean I'm very impressed with the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Michael Klare: Yeah, the Friends Committee on National Legislation [FCNL]. The Friends are the name that Quakers use to describe themselves and its "F" as in friends, F-C-N-L, Friends Committee on National Legislation. fcnl.org.

Ralph Nader: Well thank you very much, Michael. Thank you for years and years of enlightenment and standing up to the conventional warfare state and documenting it in great detail. You have to go through enormous esoteric materials that very few have the patience or knowledge or interest to access and then translate it into clear articles in The Nation and various books that you've written. Thank you very much, Michael Klare. To be continued.

Michael Klare: Well, thank you for your good work.

Ralph Nader: You're welcome, Michael.

Steve Skrovan: We have been speaking with Michael Klare, author of numerous books and articles about war resources and foreign affairs. We will link to his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to dive into the mailbag and Ralph will give long-awaited answers to your listener questions. But before we do that, let's hear from our Corporate Crime Reporter Russell Mokhiber. You are listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, back after this.

Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, August 2, 2019. I'm Russell Mokhiber.

Textured breast implants made by Allergan had been linked to an unusual cancer and are being recalled in the United States at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, and will also be recalled globally; that's according to a report in the New York Times. The FDA decision, based on an increasing number of cases and deaths from the implant-associated cancer, lags far behind action in Europe, where the Allergan devices were effectively banned late last year. Worldwide, 573 cases and 33 deaths from the cancer have been reported, with 481 of the cases clearly attributed to Allergan Biocell implants, the FDA said. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.

Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. Well let's open up the mailbag and take a listener question. David, why don’t you take the one from Dale West?

David Feldman: This comes from Dale West. "Ralph, do any of the trade agreements like NAFTA protect Boeing from prosecution? Do these trade agreements restrict US regulators from banning the defective 737 MAX? Can Boeing or the airline sue the US government for grounding these unsafe planes under these treaties?"

Ralph Nader: Dale, the answer to all three questions is no. There's exclusion for this kind of safety situation that the Boeing 737 MAX reflects.

David Feldman: Okay. Well, that was short and sweet. So, Ralph, a lot of our inbox is filled with, actually most of it, is filled with listeners suggesting guests and topics for us. You wanted to address a few of those.

Ralph Nader: Yeah, we can't put everybody's suggestions on the air. There just isn't enough time. But that doesn't excuse us from giving voice to our listeners and their suggestions. And here are a few. Karen Stansbery suggests Philip Ackerman-Leist, author of A Precautionary Tale; she bought her copy from Acres Press. It's about a small community fighting to keep their valley free from pesticide drift from huge apple companies. Another listener, David Mazurek writes, "Dear Ralph, I really think you would appreciate the climate activist group, Citizens' Climate Lobby in their grassroots effort to pass fee-and-dividend legislation to curb greenhouse gases. James Hansen would be a great guest to speak about Citizens' Climate Lobby's efforts."

Well we had David Freeman on who, I think, doesn't think the Citizens' Climate Lobby goes fast and far enough. He wants a graded prohibition of fossil-fuel consumption year after year to eliminate them. And he doesn't think that a carbon tax is a tough enough measure and can be easily gamed by the fossil fuel companies. Cher Gilmore says, "I heard your recent interview with Paul Hawken on our local public radio station, KPFK in Los Angeles, where you were discussing his book Drawdown and climate change in general; you touched briefly on the carbon-fee plan proposed by Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and Paul opined that if a carbon tax could be made to happen, it would be fantastic. He was doubtful though about national solutions because government at the national level is so corrupt." Well once again, there are real supporters of a carbon tax; you're not going to get one that's going to pinch enough through the US Congress. ExxonMobil has been for a carbon tax and you can imagine what suspicions that raises in the minds of people like Dave Freeman who want to go much more rigorously with the prohibition approach on fossil fuels. Michael Romano says, "Would you please consider having as a guest the great underappreciated British filmmaker Peter Watkins? If unfamiliar, please see The Journey, a deeply moving 14-hour antinuclear documentary war game. Punishment Park and Privilege are other films by Peter Watkins [The War Game]--don't miss any of them. A true original, he is Peter Watkins. Most of his films are made in true democratic fashion with nonprofessional actors, spontaneous dialogue and full participation from everybody involved. Thank you for all you do. Your podcast supplies endless inspiration for me." I hope we produce a civic perspiration, Michael, and Peter Watkins sounds like a very good candidate to come on our show. Thank you very much for suggesting it. Jeff Kunz says, "Please consider having a spokesperson from PEER on to discuss mercury-laced propellant for satellites. Thank you." We love PEER. This is a group started by foresters working for the National Forest Services spread to environmental specialists working for the federal government. And they're pushing for all kinds of important changes and protections on the public lands. And they have two or three offices with full-time staff, so thank you very much for that recommendation. Deirdre Gilbert suggests herself as a guest. I am the National Director of National Medical Malpractice Advocates Association and I'm interested in being on your show. Please let me know if that is possible." Well, you're working on one of the greatest sources of preventable violence in America. Johns Hopkins University study shows a minimum estimate of 5,000 people a week on average die from preventable problems while they're in hospitals. So, keep up the work, Deirdre, and we'll see if you can be on the show someday. Here's one from Marc Abizeid, "You should have an Economist, Michael Hudson, on the show. I just watched him on the Keiser Report. He's absolutely brilliant. I suggest you consider having him on as a guest." I've heard of him. We'll look him up. Thank you very much, Marc. Okay this is Peter Catul. His subject, "Rise of the German Green Party." He just saw this headline, grabbed his attention. “I think this would make for a great show topic, he said, especially if you'd be able to compare and contrast with the Green Party of America. Perhaps you could find the guest to interview on the topic. Thank you for all the great work you do. A faithful listener, Peter Catul." Well, the big difference is proportional representation. When the Green Party in Germany got 5% of the vote, it got 5 % of the members of parliament. If we got 10%, 10%. If it got 4%, it got nothing. Here, the Green Party would have to get a majority of the votes or a plurality of the votes to get any member of Congress, which explains why the Green Party is now one of the most dominant parties in Germany. And the Green Party in America has been marginalized and kept off the debates. But Howie Hawkins is going to be the new candidate for president and he's a very seasoned person, a former marine. He's run for local office in Syracuse. He's a grassroots organizer, and I think he's going to give more visibility to the Green Party in 2020.

David Feldman: Do they still consult with you, Ralph?

Ralph Nader: Yeah.

David Feldman: Because I haven't heard of him and this is kind of breaking news.

Ralph Nader: Yeah, it is. He's going to run and he'll get the nomination, yeah.

David Feldman: Um-hum. How old is he? Is he a young guy or . . . ?

Ralph Nader: He's about 65. He's is a Dartmouth grad. He was a marine during the Vietnam War. And he's extremely well-read and very articulate in a very low-key way. I've never seen him raise his voice. He's a Teamster. He makes his living by lifting packages for the post office. He makes his livelihood unloading trucks and lifting packages and delivering them.

David Feldman: Imagine if we had one person in Congress who left that kind of job to go to Congress, one.

Ralph Nader: Yeah, isn’t that amazing? Yeah.

David Feldman: Or a farm or something, yeah, just like it was intended.

Ralph Nader: It just shows you the exclusionary nature of the political system, right, because you're excluding tens of millions of people.

David Feldman: Yeah, yeah. Anything else you want to cover there?

Ralph Nader: Yeah, this is interesting. This is from the University of North Carolina Press and she's suggesting that we invite Dr. Norton Hadler to be a guest. "And Dr. Norton Hadler has a pamphlet called Promoting Worker Health: A New Approach to Employee Benefits for the 21st Century. Well this is basically a suggestion to provide an alternative to the frozen workers' compensation model which involves, you know, hundreds of thousands of worker injuries a year and this sounds very interesting. The promoter from University of North Carolina Press says, “It's both appealing and potentially revolutionary if successfully adopted. I believe it's altruistic, ethical, and logical premise is what is needed”. And this is apparently an endorsement by Ron Goetzel, PhD, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Thank you very much, Regina Mahalek, Director of Publicity UNC Press.

David Feldman: Then we'll probably make that happen.

Ralph Nader: Yes, we're going to consider these. Thank you very much, listeners. Still keep going. This is Dale West and he suggests the following guests. "Dr. Jay Friedman, author of “The Complete Guide to Dental Health”, with 55 years in dental public health, an advocate for dental care and dental insurance standards, would be most enlightening. His efforts to create dental therapists in the US to engage the underserved and public schools is worth exploring. His critique of the private dental system and Medicaid dental fraud is noteworthy as well." You know, David and Steve, I once went to a dentist for a root canal and it cost like 1,600 bucks at the time. Then I said to the dentist, how can normal working folk people afford this? And he said, "They can't. Their only alternative is to have the tooth pulled." Isn't that an amazing concession?

David Feldman: Well, yes and no. There's an article that came out two months ago in The Atlantic or Harpers about dentistry. It was an exposé. And I reached out to the author. He didn't get back to me. But he would definitely do this show. Most dental work is unnecessary like a root canal. They’ve done studies . . . you must have done studies on this, where you go from dentist to dentist and you get a whole range of diagnoses depending on what they think you can afford, including root canals.

Ralph Nader: That's right. There's overdiagnosis in dentistry, the way there is in [the] physician world. And of course, diet has a great deal to do with prevention of caries. The whole point is that dentistry has become so expensive, that is complex dentistry, that basically there's no dental insurance that even comes close to covering it.

David Feldman: Right. The name of the story is “The Truth About Dentistry: it’s much less scientific and more prone to gratuitous procedures - than you may think.” That's written by Feriss Jabr in the May issue of The Atlantic. I'm going to send it to you.

Ralph Nader: I've read about dentists that go too quick to recommending crowns, recommending pulling teeth, recommending artificial tooth, and the difference between these dentists and the really confident and honest dentists is really extraordinary. That's why you got to learn how to pick a dentist.

David Feldman: I once talked to my dentist about, I assumed that dental health was not good in ancient times because they didn't have modern dentistry. And he says, "Well, it's actually quite the opposite. The anthropological studies and the paleontological studies, when they dig up these skulls, their teeth are pretty much intact." And I said why is that? He says it's probably because they were chewing on roots and branches and not eating processed food that deteriorates the teeth.

Ralph Nader: And sugar.

David Feldman: And sugar. And so actually, dentistry is probably much less needed back in ancient times than it is now.

Ralph Nader: They found the same thing with indigenous tribes in our contemporary world. There's a dentist actually who went to study the teeth of indigenous tribal people who do not eat processed foods ever. And the minute they start eating packaged processed foods in stores, their teeth's health deteriorates and they get all kinds of cavities.

Steve Skrovan: Well, thank you everybody for your questions and your suggestions. Keep them coming on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website. I want to thank our guest again, Michael Klare. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you podcast listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call the Wrap-Up. A transcript of this show will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted.

David Feldman: Subscribe to us our Ralph Nader Radio Hour YouTube channel, and for Ralph Nader's weekly column, it's free, go to nader.org and get it delivered directly into your inbox. For more from Russell Mokhiber, go to corporatecrimereporter.com.

Steve Skrovan: And Ralph has got two new books out, the fable, How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress. To acquire a copy of that, go to ratsreformedcongress.org, and To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn't Too Late to Reverse Course. We will link to that also.

David Feldman: The producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and Matthew Marran. Our executive producer is Alan Minsky.

Steve Skrovan: Our theme music "Stand up, Rise Up" was written and performed by Kemp Harris. Our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon.

David Feldman: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you, everybody. If you want to give the book, How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress, to a friend, I'd be happy to autograph it and inscribe it in that fashion.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

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RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 195: The Difference Between Liberal and Progressive
December 9, 2017

Ralph and Washington Post columnist, E.J. Dionne debate the distinction between “Progressive” and “Liberal,” and Original Nader’s Raider, Robert Fellmeth tells us why he thinks speech on the Internet should not be anonymous.

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E. J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column in the Washington Post and on the Post Partisan blog. He is also a senior fellow in governance Studies at the Brookings Institution (https://www.brookings.edu/), a government professor at Georgetown University and a frequent guest on NPR, ABC’s This Week and MSNBC. He is the author of seven books, the latest of which is “One Nation Under Trump: A Guide For the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not Yet Deported.”

“I don’t see the same sharp distinctions between the center/left and the left right now in the U.S. or – as you put it – between liberals and progressives. For example, take the issue of universal healthcare. Some of my progressive friends say that only single-payer is the way to go. I have nothing against single-payer. It’s a system that works in many countries. I also think that universal coverage that would essentially treat the health system as a public utility, which is kind of what you do in Germany or the Netherlands – that that would work as well. I think we should have a healthy argument about what’s going to work better, not some argument that says only single-payer is the way to achieve universal coverage.” E.J. Dionne

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Transcript
[Transcribed by Tara Carreon]

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] Let me ask you this question: When you look at the Washington media these days, they often like on the Sunday talk shows, and Judy Woodruff, they often want to have both sides represented, so they have a conservative and they have a liberal. And I’ve often wondered why they don’t have progressives. And let’s see if you share my distinctions. What do you see as the distinctive characteristics between people who call themselves “liberals,” “Clinton liberals,” for example, and people who call themselves “progressives,” who might have voted for Bernie Sanders or like former Congressman Dennis Kucinich [Note: or third party green candidate?]. What do you think the distinction is? And I think this is important, because I think the progressive side is getting bigger and bigger in polls and numbers on many issues, but they are not getting access to the media.

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] Well, first of all, I just want to shout out Judy Woodruff as a journalist, she’s actually one of the best. I’m a big fan of hers. So much of this depends on how you define a liberal and how do you define a progressive. There was a while where “liberal” had become such a demonized word that a lot of liberals just took the label “progressive”. I used to say that a “progressive” was a “liberal” who has looked at the polls. And historically, I don’t see as big a distinction as you do between the words “liberal” and “progressive.” If you look at our history, people broadly on the left and center-left called themselves “progressive” until the New Deal Roosevelt really grabbed the title of “liberal” which used to be a kind of pro-market conservative word. And Roosevelt transformed its meaning.

Here, we may have some disagreements because I don’t see the same sharp distinctions between the center-left and the left right now in the U.S., or as you would put it, between liberals and progressives.

For example, take the issue of universal health care. Some of my progressive friends say that only single payer is the way to go. I have nothing against single-payer. It’s a system that works in many countries. I also think that universal coverage that would essentially treat the health system as a public utility, which is kind of what you do in Germany or the Netherlands, that that would work as well. I think that we should have a healthy argument about what’s going to work better, not some argument that says “only single-payer is a way to achieve universal coverage.”

In terms of the media, I’d like to see more voices across the spectrum. I think for a long time the conservatives complained so much and so often about the supposedly “liberal media,” that some of those discussions really did get tilted to the right in the kind of balance, or false balance that they had. So I’m sympathetic and happy that you complain, because I do think we need a broader sense of the discussion. What I wrote at the time was that Bernie Sanders’ campaign did give us a much clearer sense of where the left side of the political spectrum actually was. I used to joke when President Obama was called a “socialist,” by conservatives that I actually knew some socialists and they were insulted when President Obama was called a “socialist,” because he was no socialist. So I am with you with wanting to expand the number of voices in the public media, but as I say, I think the left and center-left have more in common than perhaps you do.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] I think, in a sense, as the word “liberal” becomes tarnished, a lot of liberals are now calling themselves “progressive,” including, by the way, Hillary Clinton when she was nominated on the Democratic ticket, she called herself “progressive.” Here’s what I think the distinctions are, E.J.: I think progressives are more worried about the military-industrial complex, the militarization of foreign policy, the spread of empire, the constant violation of international laws through armed intrusions into international sovereignties, drones, special forces, bases all over, whereas I think liberals tend to support the Pentagon budget, and don’t challenge it very much. Indeed, it’s not even auditable. The General Accounting Office, now called Government Accountability Office in Congress, every year says that the Pentagon has not provided auditable information to be audited, which means the Pentagon is violating a 1992 federal law requiring auditable data. And all other government agencies, too. And that’s not even an issue for liberals.

Domestically, E.J., I think progressives are much more concerned about corporate crime: Wall Street Crime, Oil Company crime, commercial crime, Wells-Fargo-type crime, credit-type-pay-day-loan-rackets than liberals are. And I think, also, they want more coverage of things like this: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine had a report over a year ago that at least 250,000 Americans die every year from preventable problems in hospitals: malpractice, hospital –induced infections, etc. That’s 5,000 a week, and that was a one-day story in the so-called “liberal” New York Times and Washington Post.

I think they are also concerned about the media black-out. We had the greatest conference with more civic leaders and more civic thinkers on progressive issues and more redirections and reforms, 8 days at Constitutional Hall last year, a “Breaking Through Power” conference, and it was completely blacked-out. There were 162 speakers, many of them you know, real leaders, real accomplished people, and they were blacked out by NPR, PBS, I had a long talk with Judy Woodruff, she wouldn’t have any of them on, great human interest stories, great historic achievements and they were blacked-out by the mass media, of course. So they are very much concerned about the corporate domination and the concentration of the media. And above all, they are concerned about our commercial culture eroding our civic culture, and subordinating our civic culture and civic activity, and civic remedies to the supremacy of the corporatists. Do you find that a useful series of distinctions?

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] [Laughs] HOW TO RESPOND TO ALL OF THAT!? Let me just pick a couple of points out that you mention. I think there has been a long argument again, across the left and center-left, over what their attitude is toward America’s role in the world, toward American intervention, toward what the size of the Pentagon budget should be. Again, I just want to challenge this premise of “Progressive vs. Liberal.” I think there are people who are legitimately called “progressive,” who were in favor of the war, and a substantial American role, and people who called themselves “liberals” who were more skeptical. So I’m not sure I buy the distinction on that issue. But yeah, there’s a real argument over what America’s role in the world should be. I think on the issue of corporate power, who passed all of the kinds of bills that you were for back in the 1960s to create the various agencies that protect consumers and regulate business? Most of those people called themselves “liberals.” But they were very much concerned with the power in the American economy, and they were concerned with putting limits on what corporations could do, and saying that there were limits on how much they could pollute; there were limits on how they could treat or mis-treat workers; there were limits on what they could get away with selling in the marketplace that was defective. I think that’s something that unites “liberals” and “progressives,” or “liberals” and “social democrats.” AND I THINK THAT SINCE THE GREAT RECESSION IN 2007 AND 2008, I THINK THERE’S BEEN A LOT MORE ATTENTION AMONG LIBERALS, AND THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN EARLIER, TO THE WAYS IN WHICH OUR ECONOMY WAS NOT ONLY TILTED MORE AND MORE TOWARD THE VERY PRIVILEGED BUT ALSO HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO RUN FREE IN A WAY THAT PROVED VERY DESTRUCTIVE TO THE ECONOMY AS A WHOLE, AND PARTICULARLY TO THE LEAST WELL-OFF PEOPLE IN IT.

And in terms of the media black-out, I think you are complaining about the coverage of a particular conference – I get lots of complaints about coverage of all sorts of things, and so I don’t really know enough about all of that to comment. But I can see that you were very upset about the lack of attention your conference got.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] Yeah, since it was the biggest one ever in American history on more redirections and reforms. We tried to not be a single-issue gathering. But I’ve also found progressive are more likely to speak out on behalf of unions; they’re more likely to look at structural changes that will change the level of systemic poverty in the country. You’re right that in the 1960s they all called themselves “liberals,” and we got all of these bills through. BUT SINCE THEN WE’VE SEEN THE EMERGENCE OF THE CORPORATE DEMOCRAT. WE’VE SEEN THE EMERGENCE OF CORPORATE LIBERALS. And the reason that I’m dwelling on this, E.J., and the listeners might be wondering, is because I want to segue into a book that you wrote in 1996 which is titled provocatively, “They only look dead. Why progressives will dominate the next political era.” And in a review of your book by Michael Lind, he said that you argue quite plausibly “that the new conservatism will fail because it seeks to define away the problems we face. Yet, E.J. Dionne’s vision of a new progressivism ignores some practical steps such as a move away from identity politics that must presage such change.” Well, I think you’ll agree that you were excessively optimistic here, E.J., that if anything, the right-wing now controls the Congress, the White House, a majority of governors, a majority of state legislators, and the question emerges, “What’s left of the left?” What happened to your progressive prediction that they are going to rise and be the prevailing theme of American politics after 1996?

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] I always like to say that progressives will have won when people stop chuckling over the title of my book. I actually think that if you look at the trajectory of politics from 1996 to now, we have actually had ups and downs in that period, and we are definitely at a down point. AND JUST PARENTHETICALLY, ONE OF THE REASONS I AM NOT SYMPATHETIC TO DRIVING THIS HARD WEDGE BETWEEN LIBERALS AND PROGRESSIVES, OR CENTER-LEFT AND LEFT, IS BECAUSE I THINK THERE ARE THREATS, BOTH TO DEMOCRACY ITSELF, TO BASIC EQUALITY IN THE COUNTRY, TO SOCIAL JUSTICE, THAT THE LEFT AND CENTER-LEFT NEED TO UNITE TO TAKE ON RIGHT NOW. But the theory of the book I still will stand by, and I suspect it’s a theory that you will actually agree with, which is I compared our time then to the time that led to the rise of the progressive era. And what they have in common is a sharp change in the way the nation organized itself. Back then people were moving from farm to factory. We had high levels of immigration. The rules of the old economy were changing, but the rules of government had not responded to those changes. And the people who were dislocated by those changes, people who felt their power had been reduced in the new factory-oriented economy, organized in a variety of ways, and you got not only the progressive era, but also the New Deal, which really did try to reorder American democracy to deal with a very different economic circumstance. I think we are in a very similar period now where you have a shift from a manufacturing that employs a lot of American workers to something more of a service economy. And you have the rise of the same inequalities. It’s probably a statistic you’ve quoted often that WE HAVE A DEGREE OF INEQUALITY NOW THAT WE HAVEN’T SEEN SINCE RIGHT BEFORE THE GREAT DEPRESSION. AND SO I STILL THINK THE LOGIC OF THE SITUATION LEADS TO A NEW ENGAGEMENT WITH PROGRESSIVISM IN THE UNITED STATES.

Now there have been severe setback. I think cultural issues have divided us, and that’s part of it. And here again I think that we are in a similar if not identical place: I think a lot of working people looked at those moments of progressive government that we had over the last 20 years and said, “Even though those guys – democrats, liberals, and I would say progressives, too – were in power, these inequalities were not really arrested.” And one of the points we make in our new book in response to Trump is that we’re in the soup because there are so many parts of the country, both in the inner city and in old working class towns like you and I grew up in, where people sense this economy is not working for them. They have traded $20 and $30 per hour jobs for $10 an hour jobs. And so there is something for progressives to respond to. So there is a critique for the side I tend to support, which is that we haven’t delivered enough to the constituencies we claim to represent. And I think that’s the challenge of the next decade.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

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Part 2 of 3

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] Well, in Michael Lind’s review of your book, he says, referring to you, E.J., “he does warn if they falter” – meaning, the democrats – “if they falter and do not usher in a new progressive period, the call for third and fourth parties will grow as the country seeks alternatives to republican policies premised on the idea that governments can almost never do good.” So what do you think happened to these third and fourth parties on both sides, third party conservative, libertarian, green, etc. Do you think the two party duopoly and the rigged ballot access rules and the winner-take-all, and the Gerry-mandering, and the electoral college, what do you think that’s done? And do you still favor a broader array of voices and choices on the ballot for the voter, with third and fourth party agendas?

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] THIRD AND FOURTH PARTIES DON’T WORK IN A SYSTEM LIKE OURS BECAUSE OF FIRST-PAST-THE-POST, SO THAT IF PEOPLE VOTE FOR THEIR FIRST CHOICE, THEY OFTEN TAKE VOTES AWAY FROM THEIR SECOND CHOICE, AND THEY GET THEIR LAST CHOICE. And I think that happened to a lot of people in the last election. I am for a system of single transferable vote where you can vote your first choice, but if your first choice doesn’t get enough votes to be able to form a majority, your ballot transfers to your second choice. And I think that is a political reform that answers this problem. And in the meantime, and you and I have been through this a lot about your candidacy back in 2000, where you were very kind and gave me an interview for a piece in which I was arguing that you shouldn’t be running for president. And I thought it was very good of you to give me an interview knowing that I was writing such a piece. And I felt that way because given the configuration of the system, AND WE DON’T HAVE TO GO THROUGH WHETHER YOUR ELECTION DID OR DID NOT HELP ELECT GEORGE BUSH, BUT UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, A LOT OF YOUR VOTES CAME OUT OF AL GORE’S HIDE, AND IT CREATED A PROBLEM. A Single-transferable vote or some other system of that sort gets around that problem, and so your own supporters could have redistributed their ballots as they saw fit.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] Well, I don’t want to go through that again, except that Al Gore thinks he lost because, No. 1, he won the popular vote and lost the electoral college which threw it into Florida where all the shenanigans took it away from him, from Tallahassee all the way to the political decision at the Supreme Court. And the Green Party should not be blamed for all of that. You give them delusions of grandeur, E.J.

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] I think there is a mathematical case to be made that, take New Hampshire. If New Hampshire had gone the other way, we wouldn’t have got to Florida. So I really do think there is a problem with third party voting as long as it’s a first-past-the-post election. There are multiple systems. The point is a system that allows people to express second and third preferences, they use it in Australia and it works just fine.

Bush Stole the 2000 Election -- and Is Ready to Do It Again

While Democratic partisans argue that Nader cost Gore the election, this is untrue for a variety of reasons, as most campaign experts know.

One, most progressives know that the election was stolen by Bush. Gore won the nationwide popular vote; he also won the Florida and electoral college vote. The U.S. Supreme Court gave away the election. The Democratic Party and the Gore campaign did little to prevent the theft of the election, starting with their failure to aggressively challenge the illegal disenfranchisement of African-American voters in Florida or even to demand that every vote be counted.

Nor have the Democrats made it a major priority to demand election reform since the election, starting with the failure to adopt fairer electoral systems such as preferential voting, or to address the problems with the electoral college. The proposals that have been adopted through the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) have increased the likelihood that the election will be stolen again through manipulation of computerized voting results and disenfranchisement of many new voters through improper enforcement of ID requirements, but the national Democratic Party has been largely silent on these issues.

Second, the Nader and Green electoral efforts in 2000 helped the Democrats more than it hurt them. Polls show that more than a million people voted just because Nader was on the ballot. Many of these voters also cast votes for Democratic candidates for other offices, and helped provide the margin of victory in at least two U.S. Senate races, allowing the Democrats to reclaim control of the U.S. Senate. Without Nader on the ballot in 2002, the Democrats promptly lost control. In addition, whenever Gore responded to the Nader candidacy by articulating a more progressive, grassroots agenda, his standing in the polls went up. Whenever he tried to sound more like a Republican to attract the center-right votes, his standing went down.

For the record, polls showed that if Nader had not been in the race, of the three million Americans who cast votes for him, 25 percent would have voted for Bush, 38 percent for Gore, and 37 percent would not have voted. The net gain from Nader voters for Gore would have been 13 percent (38 percent minus 25 percent), not 100 percent. However, the Democrats have decided to throw away this 13 percent net gain by failing to embrace preferential or IRV voting.

***

The lesser-evil strategy of Anybody But Bush rendered progressive movements demoralized after the election. Not only did they fail to beat Bush, but the self-censorship involved in supporting the pro-war corporate Kerry campaign silenced the voice of the peace and other progressive movements. The professional liberals are blaming the supposedly conservative values of Americans, the tactical mistakes of the Kerry campaign, the sycophancy of the corporate media, everything but their own surrender to the politics of the lesser evil. The more upbeat post-election assessments try to highlight a new progressive institutional infrastructure to support the Democrats, including America Votes, Progressive Majority, Camp Wellstone, Democracy for America, Center for American Progress, Air America Radio, Media Matters, MoveOn.org, and Progressive Democrats of America, groups that are bankrolled in large part by liberal capitalists like currency speculator George Soros, insurance magnate Peter Lewis, and bankers Herb and Marian Sandler, who collectively have pledged to put $100 million into this infrastructure over the next 15 years. [60] But these assessments probably say more about career opportunities for professional liberals than the real prospects for any antiwar, anti-corporate insurgency inside the Democratic Party.

In their rank-and-file majority, Democratic voters were against the war in Iraq and for domestic policies that would benefit working people. But in a case of lesser evilism run amok, Democratic progressives defeated themselves by voting for pro-war corporate Kerry as the "electable" candidate in the primaries, leaving the antiwar candidacies of Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton with a combined total of barely 1 percent of the Democratic National Convention's delegates. Kucinich kept his campaign going up until the convention on the promise that he would fight there for antiwar and other progressive platform planks. But then, finding that he could not even muster the 20 percent support required for a platform committee minority report to force a vote of the whole convention on his alternative planks, Kucinich withdrew those proposals at the Democratic Platform Committee meeting. He could have at least made the committee members go on record as to where they stood on his progressive planks by calling for a vote on his proposals. But he instructed his people on the committee to drop his platform amendments without calling for a vote. That was how the progressive remnant of the Democratic Party went down to a crushing defeat and gave up without a fight in 2004. [61]

Not only were the movements dispirited, they were also confused by the defensive campaign around Kerry as the lesser evil. They were unable to recognize serious harms when advanced by the "lesser evil" and consequently they were inert as the congressional Democrats' pushed through the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 in December. Seeking to bolster their credentials as "National Security Democrats" and one-up the Republicans' anti-terrorism warriors, the Democrats goaded a bloc of reluctant moderate Republicans into passing the bill despite their concerns about its further erosion of civil liberties and its concentration of the intelligence apparatus in the hands of the Pentagon. While the creation of the intelligence czar captured the headlines, the small print in the bill enacted key elements of Bush's proposed Patriot Act II, including steps toward a national ID card with federal standardization of state drivers' licenses and ID cards, expanded FBI powers to conduct secret searches and surveillance, detention without bail for accused terrorists indicted by grand juries, and sharing secret grand-jury information with foreign and domestic law enforcement agencies.

When the new session of Congress convened in 2005, Democrats provided comfortable margins of victory for a string of Republican initiatives: a bankruptcy bill that virtually restores debt peonage; a tort reform bill that closes the state courts to many class-action suits against corporate crimes; and an anti-conservation, pronuclear energy bill. When Bush asked in March for authorization to spend $82 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Senate approved it 99-0, and only thirty-four Democrats in the House, less than 20 percent of the Democratic caucus, voted against further funding of the occupations.

***

That a Green campaign might "spoil" the Democrats' chances is exactly what compels attention to the Green alternative. ... Spoiling the Democrats is not our goal. Our goal is to advance our program.

***

Blaming Nader absolved the Republicans of their suppression of the Black vote in Florida, the Democrats of their refusal to challenge it, and the U.S. Supreme Court of their selection of Bush, where the majority opinion stated that "the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote" in presidential elections. [30] Blaming Nader excused the electoral college system that denied victory to Gore, who won the national popular vote. Blaming Nader perpetuated the corporate media's suppression of their own comprehensive ballot recount finding that Gore actually won the Florida vote. [31] If one accepts that Nader cost Gore two states (New Hampshire and Florida), then one must also acknowledge that Buchanan cost Bush in four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico) and that Buchanan cost Gore Florida due to the deceptive butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County. One can cite dozens of conditions necessary for Bush to prevail over Gore. Singling out Nader was more about stopping Nader and the Greens than explaining what really happened in 2000. [32]

***

A June 2004 Gallup poll found that "With Nader thrown in, Kerry's percentage among Black voters declined from 81 percent to 73 percent. Nader drew 10 percent of Black voters, dropping Bush to only 9 percent. Among Latino voters in a three-way race, Kerry's support fell from 57 percent to 52 percent, while Bush's fell from 38 percent to 35 percent. Nader was the choice of 8 percent of Latino voters." "Poll: Kerry Leads Among Minority Voters," CNN.com July 7, 2004, http://edition.cnn.com/ 2004/ALLPOLlTICS/07/06/gallup.poll/. After Nader did not receive the Green Party's support at the end of June, his numbers among all groups fell considerably. But election day exit polls showed that the proportion of Nader's voters that were non-white was 48 percent (5 percent Black, 36 percent Latino, and 7 percent other non-white), far higher than for Kerry (34 percent) and Bush (12 percent). Exit polls also showed more union households in Nader's base (33 percent) compared to Kerry's (30 percent) and Bush's (18 percent). Considering all the liberal hand-wringing over what the "moral issues" vote meant in 2004, it is worth noting that more voters who identified moral issues as why they voted for their candidate were in Nader's voter base (57 percent) than Kerry's (8 percent) or Bush's (35 percent). See the exit poll conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool (ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC), http://election.cbsnews.com/election2004/poll/poll_p __ u_s_aII_us0.shtml.

***

Ralph Nader, the iconic progressive who had been prominent on the national stage for forty years, had a resume with accomplishments and qualifications that dwarfed those of Kerry and Bush. Nader had been instrumental in the passage of more significant legislation than Kerry and Bush combined, perhaps more progressive federal legislation than all the current members of Congress combined, including the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, the Wholesome Meat Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the acts creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the National Cooperative Bank. To help advance the progressive reform agenda, Nader pioneered the concept of citizen action groups with lobbying and litigation capacities. He instigated scores of such groups to deal with consumer rights, energy and environmental issues, union democracy, investigative reporting, corporate crime, women's rights, racial discrimination, poverty, fair trade and corporate welfare, and to monitor the legislatures and government agencies. He had been arguably the most preferred candidate in the 2000 presidential election and might have won the election had it been conducted under a majority preference system instead of the electoral college plurality system. [3]

Camejo had just come off of two runs for California governor -- in 2002 and 2003 -- in which he received by far the most votes any Green gubernatorial candidate had received to date: nearly 400,000 votes, or 5.3 percent, in 2002, and nearly 250,000 votes, or 3 percent, in the 2003 recall election. Exit polls showed that his base of voters was disproportionately Black, Latino, and Asian-Pacific, as well as voters who had previously voted for Greens in lower proportions than other voters. People of color voted for Camejo at twice the rate white people did. Voters who earned less than $15,000 a year voted for Camejo at three times the rate voters making over $75,000 a year did. [4]

Nader and Camejo offered policies -- from ending the U.S. war in Iraq to creating a national health insurance program to spearheading public works projects to create millions of new jobs -- that had broad support among the people. Nader's 2000 campaign had demonstrated his capacity to raise funds and command media attention at the level needed to run a national presidential campaign with a significant impact on U.S. politics.

Since 2000, the Democrats had kept Nader in the national spotlight, keeping his media profile high with their constant whining about Nader's "spoiling" the 2000 election. Nader took most of the heat for the Green Party on this issue. His unbending defense of the Greens' right to run candidates should have earned him the Greens' lasting respect and laid the foundation for another united Nader/Green assault on the corporate-sponsored two-party system. But when delegates at the Green convention chose a "safe states" candidate over Nader, they implicitly affirmed the Democratic hacks' smear campaign against him. For the hacks, this was merely a convenient proxy for Greens or any other independent challenge to the Democrats from their left.

By the time Nader formally declared his candidacy on February 23, 2004, nearly every section of institutionalized progressivism had joined in the Democrats' vitriolic attacks against him. They said his campaign was driven by his ego, as if issues like ending the war and reversing the spread of economic insecurity were irrelevant. They said Nader was throwing away his progressive legacy by increasing Bush's chances for reelection. History may conclude in the end, however, that Nader's insistence on building an independent political alternative to the bipartisan consensus around militarism and corporate domination was a principled and logical extension of his career as a progressive reformer.

***

The spoiler argument against a Green run for president is garbage. The Democrats spoiled the election by, first of all, offering a phony alternative to the Republicans. And then the Democrats spoiled their own election by not fighting for what they had won in Florida. Contrary to the "Nader elected Bush" refrain of the Anybody- But-Bush Democrats, Nader probably helped Gore beat Bush in the popular vote. Analysts as different as Alexander Cockburn on the left and Al From, chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, on the Democratic right, note that exit polling data show that Gore did better with Nader in the race than he would have without Nader. While From uses this data to preposterously counsel Democrats to ignore their left and run to the right, Cockburn's explanation is obviously more persuasive: Nader's campaign forced Gore to articulate some populist, anti-corporate themes that brought many disillusioned Democrats back into the fold. Without Nader in the race, these Democrats would not have voted, and many of Nader's voters would not have voted either.

***

Corporate Rule through the Two-Party System

Since the Civil War, the moneyed class in the United States has organized its wealth into large corporations and controlled the government through its sponsorship of the two-party system. The corporate rulers finance two parties -- the Democrats and the Republicans -- to represent them. That way the corporate ruling class always has its people in power on both sides of the aisle in the legislatures and in the executive branch.

By financing two parties, the corporate powers give the illusion of democracy in a choice between two alternatives. But there is no alternative to the economic and foreign policies that are of primary concern to their wealthy sponsors. On economic and foreign policy matters, a pro-corporate "bipartisan consensus" prevails in both corporate-sponsored parties.

The two corporate parties always have some differences on social issues, such as civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, and the controversies over gun control, gay marriage, and school prayer of recent elections. These issues are certainly important and progressives can always use them to determine that one of the corporate-sponsored candidates is the lesser evil compared to the other. The problem is that with election contests between the two big parties focused on social issues, the bipartisan consensus on economic and foreign policy goes uncontested. Between elections, both corporate parties work together to execute the economic and foreign policies favored by their corporate sponsors.

Only an independent political insurgency can break us out of this box to challenge pro-corporate economic and foreign policies as well as reactionary social policies.

***

Democrat Harry Truman's first presidential act was to order two atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic Party's "peace candidate" in 1964, had by 1965 massively escalated the Vietnam War -- a war that killed 1.3 million Vietnamese and 58,000 U.S. soldiers....Democrat Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act of 1917, banning protest against U.S. participation in the First World War, and his administration detained and deported thousands of immigrants. In 1942, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt forcibly "relocated" the entire Japanese-American population on the West Coast into concentration camps for the rest of the Second World War.

The Democratic Party's reputation as a liberal alternative to the Republicans is greatly exaggerated -- mainly by its liberal supporters. One need look no further back than the Clinton administration. As a candidate in 1992, Clinton promised to "put people first," but instead of advancing liberal principles, Clinton stole the Republican's agenda on key issues. The hallmark of Clinton's presidency was ending "welfare as we know it" in 1996 -- dismantling sixty-one-year-old New Deal legislation obliging the government to provide income support to the poor. Clinton also helped to pave the way for Bush's USA PATRIOT Act when he signed the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Also in 1996, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act banning gay marriage, and under his tenure the U.S. prison population nearly doubled in size....Clinton oversaw UN-sponsored sanctions against Iraq that led to the deaths of more than one million Iraqis, and U.S. warplanes dropped bombs on Iraq almost daily during his time in office. And Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, calling for the U.S. "to seek to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein." Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, admits in a recent Foreign Affairs article, "I personally felt [Bush's new Iraq] war was justified on the basis of Saddam's decade-long refusal to comply with UN Security Council resolutions on weapons of mass destruction."

***

Could Nader Win?

Furthermore, Nader's impact could be far greater than that of a potential spoiler for Kerry. The 2000 National Election Survey data show that only 9 percent of voters who preferred Nader actually voted for him. Fifty percent of Nader supporters didn't vote at all. Twenty-six percent of Nader supporters voted for Gore as the lesser evil to Bush. And 19 percent of Nader supporters voted for Bush as the lesser evil to Gore.

If all the voters who preferred Nader had voted for him in 2000, he would have won the election, receiving 54 million votes to Bush's 43 million and Gore's 38 million (if we add the Nader supporters who voted for their lesser evil to Nader's total and subtract them from Bush and Gore's totals). (These numbers are derived from Harvard political scientist Barry Burden's 2001 study of the National Election Survey data: "Minor Parties in the 2000 Presidential Election," see http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edulfaculty ... ce/burdosu. pdf.)

In 2004, with antiwar sentiment rising and Nader the only antiwar candidate, Nader could well rise into serious contention. It would be a tragedy if the Greens were on the sidelines in such a race supporting another candidate. But whether or not that scenario unfolds, the role of the Green Party should be mobilizing that latent majority who prefer Nader/Green policies, not running an unknown candidate because we fear spoiling the election for Kerry and the Democrats who oppose almost everything the Greens stand for. A strong vote for Nader will be a victory because it will help set the national political agenda just as Perot's 19 percent showing in 1992 compelled both major parties to rush to balance the federal budget.

***

There are differences between the policies of the Democratic and Republican parties. Just as there are differences between GM and Ford, General Electric and Westinghouse, the American and National League in baseball. But the similarity between the two parties is much greater than the differences. Both parties increasingly are financed by many of the same corporate and special interests and act accordingly after the election, rewarding their supporters. The Democratic track record on issues they cite to attract progressive voters -- the environment, women's rights, labor, the federal bench -- is much worse than their rhetoric at campaign time.

The list of the failures of the Democratic Party at the national, state, and local levels is dismal, and is far too long to be chronicled here. Their recent shortcomings include welfare, criminal justice, universal health care, campaign finance reform, global warming, childhood poverty, the ERA, hunger, homelessness, pesticides, genetic engineering, progressive taxes, corporate welfare, nuclear power, the Middle East, nuclear weapons, the military budget, child care, consumer rights, banking, insurance, the war on drugs, foreign policy, corporate crime, etc.

The Democratic Party seldom if ever takes principled stands. Instead, Democrats make decisions based on how it will help them with voters and reward their campaign contributors. At best, the Democratic Party believes for some strange reason that most voters are more conservative than they are, and pander to "them" by moving to the right, while telling progressives not to worry, it will work out in the end, just vote them into power. It didn't work with Clinton in 1992; why would anyone expect it will work with Dean in 2004?

***

Parties to Injustice: Democrats Will Do Anything to Keep Me Off the Ballot
By Ralph Nader
Washington Post
September 5, 2004

This summer, swarms of Democratic Party lawyers, propagandists, harassers, and assorted operatives have been conducting an unsavory war against my campaign's effort to secure a spot on the presidential ballots in various states. It is not enough that both major parties, in state after state, have used the legislatures to erect huge barriers, unique among Western democracies, to third-party and independent candidacies. Now they are engaging in what can only be called dirty tricks and frivolous lawsuits to keep me and my running mate, Peter Miguel Camejo, off the ballot while draining precious dollars from our campaign chest.

This contemptuous drive is fueled with large amounts of unregulated money, much of it funneled through the National Progress Fund, an ostensibly independent group led by Toby Moffett, a former Democratic congressman who is currently a partner in a largely Republican lobbying firm called the Livingston Group. By contrast, to defend ourselves from the assault, we have to draw on funds that are limited and regulated by the Federal Election Commission.

News reports show that the National Progress Fund and other so-called independent 527 organizations (named for the section of the tax code under which they incorporate) were operating openly at the Democratic National Convention. They held meetings to discuss the best strategies and tactics to push the Nader/Camejo ticket off the ballot and they raised money from Democratic fat cats to accomplish their goals. It is evident that these "independent" groups are actually not independent but working closely with the Democratic Party.

In addition, chair of the Democratic Party of Maine, Dorothy Melanson, testified under oath in a public hearing before Maine's secretary of state last Monday that the national Democratic Party is funding efforts throughout the country to stop Nader/Camejo from appearing on ballots.

These ties with Democrats don't prevent the 527s from accepting help from entrenched corporate interests, or even Republican quarters, to finance challenges of the signatures we have collected to meet the requirements of ballot access. According to reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service, Robert Savoie, president of Louisiana-based Science & Engineering Associates, donated $25,000 to the National Progress Fund in June. A month before, Savoie gave $25,000 to the Republican National Committee.

In Pennsylvania, where a court last Monday barred us from appearing on the ballot, signature challenges have been mounted by Reed Smith, a law firm whose political action committee primarily gives to Republicans. A lawyer from the firm boasted to the New York Times that "8 to 10 lawyers in his firm were working pro bono on the case, 80 hours each a week for two weeks, and could end up working six more weeks." The firm is counsel to twenty-nine of the top thirty U.S. banks, twenty-six of the Fortune 50 companies, nine of the top ten pharmaceutical companies, and fifty of the world's leading drug and medical device manufacturers.

The melding of these interests demonstrates that it is the corporate-political duopoly that is working to limit voters' choices for this November. For all their talk about free markets, the major parties do not tolerate competition very well. They don't want voters to be able to consider a candidate who advocates health care for all; a crackdown on corporate crime, fraud, and abuse; a shrinking of the military-industrial complex and corporate welfare; a living wage for all full-time workers; and a responsible withdrawal from Iraq.

The zeal of these ballot access sentries comes from a refusal to respect the rights of millions of voters to have the opportunity to vote for candidates of their choice. With their organized obstruction of our campaign's efforts just to get a place on the ballots, these authoritarians want to deny Americans more voices, choices, and agendas. The voters are the losers.

Watching their bullying maneuvers and harassing lawsuits around the country, I marvel at the absence of condemnation by Senator John F. Kerry or Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic National Committee chairman.

Senator Kerry told us that he would look into this situation seven weeks ago but we have not heard back from him yet. Around the same time, McAuliffe told me in a phone conversation that he actively approved of these organized efforts, one of which is ironically called the Ballot Project. He urged me to run only in the thirty-one states considered to be locked up by one of the two candidates.

Challenging the signatures of your rivals is an old political tactic, and when you're collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures, there are bound to be some that don't withstand scrutiny. But the Democrats are not just seeking compliance with harsh election laws. They are using dirty tricks to intimidate citizens.

That's the way it seemed to a fifty-eight-year-old supporter of ours in Oregon. On August 12, 2004, she was at home with her two grandchildren when she answered a knock on her door and found a man and woman who she said began threatening her with jail if there was any false information on the petitions she was collecting for our ballot access. These people, who called themselves "investigators," were dispatched by a law firm that has worked extensively with Oregon trade unions that have supported Democratic candidates. In many states our signature gatherers have been subjected to similar treatment in what is clearly an orchestrated campaign.

And some people who merely signed Nader/Camejo petitions have also been pressured. One person in Nevada got a call from someone who urged him to admit that he was tricked into signing our petition. When the petition signer said he had signed voluntarily, the caller continued to try to persuade him to claim that he had not signed the petition. After numerous requests, the caller identified himself and admitted he was from the Democratic National Committee in Las Vegas. A call to the number on the caller ID was answered, "Hello, DNC." We have similar reports from around the country.

Ballot access laws are so arbitrary and complex that they leave small parties open to legal pestering. In Arizona, large Democratic donors hired three corporate law firms to file frivolous challenges to our clearly ample number of signatures. For example, 1,349 signatures of registered voters were invalidated because the person who collected them had given his or her correct full address but had neglected to include the correct name of the county. The purpose of these exercises are, in lobbyist Moffett's words, "to neutralize [Nader's] campaign by forcing him to spend money and resources defending these things."

A covey of Democratic operatives in Illinois convinced the election board to disqualify signatures because the registered voters had moved since registering to vote even though they still lived in Illinois. The Democratic Speaker of the state House of Representatives sent state employees, contractors, and interns to review and challenge our ballot access petitions. The speaker wouldn't say -- when asked either by reporters or in a Freedom of Information Act request my campaign filed in July -- whether these state employees took leave from their taxpayer-paid jobs.

In other states, Democratic operatives are using a grace period after the filing date and directly calling voters who signed, pressing them to withdraw their signatures or say that they were misled so that the Democrats could allege fraud later in court.

The Democratic Party's machine is operating in many other ways, too. Its apparatchiks were waiting at the Virginia secretary of state's office on August 20 to say that our signature gatherers did not arrive in time, when in fact they arrived with twenty-five minutes to spare. The head of the state Elections Division, who happens to be the former executive director of the Virginia Democratic Party, refused even to accept our petitions until she was ordered to do so by the state attorney general.

To excuse and distract from this accumulation of organized misdeeds, the Democrats are feeding the press the Big Lie that the Republicans are bankrolling and supporting us. If the Republicans were to spend one-quarter as much to support us as the Democrats are spending to obstruct our access to ballots and our supporters' civil liberties, we would be on all fifty state ballots by now.

We have not been accepting signatures obtained through organized Republican Party efforts in the three or four states where we have learned of such activity.

We are trying, of course, to win over some Republican and independent voters who voted for George Bush in 2000 but are furious with him over endless deficits, federal regulation of local education, corporate subsidies and handouts, the sovereignty-shredding World Trade Organization and North American Free Trade Agreement, the big-government-snooping Patriot Act and, lately, the Iraq quagmire.

In 2000 about 25 percent of our vote came from people who told exit pollsters they otherwise would have voted for Bush. Yet the most recent independent review of our current campaign found that only 4 percent of our donations came from people who have also given to the Republican Party. The Center for Responsive Politics found that this group of fifty-one people gave $406,000 to the Republicans and $53,000 to Nader/Camejo. Amusingly, however, the center found that our Republican backers gave even more, $63,000, to the Democrats.

When I talked to Kerry, I cautioned him that if he did not order a stop to the dirty tricks of his Democratic underlings and allies, he may face a mini-Watergate type of scandal. For Democrats and Republicans who care about civil liberties, free speech, and an equal right to run for elective office, this festering situation should invite their very focused demands to cease and desist.

Hand it to the Democrats to keep some costs down, though. A contractor they hired in Michigan to make phone calls to check the validity of our tens of thousands of signatures outsourced the work to India.


***

Money vs. People: The Mystery of the 2004 Elections
By Peter Miguel Camejo
Published on http://www.greensfornader.net.
July 29, 2004

There is a mystery to the 2004 presidential election; a silence has fallen on America regarding a glaring contradiction. As we enter the second half of 2004, there is massive popular opposition to the war in Iraq and to the USA PATRIOT Act -- possibly a majority of Americans. Yet these same people are about to vote in overwhelming numbers for John Kerry for President.

But John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, gave President Bush eighteen standing ovations in January, voted for the war, say the war was right, insist on continuing the occupation of Iraq against its peoples' desires, want to increase the number of troops and nations occupying Iraq, voted for "unconditional support to Bush" for his conduct of the war, and backed Bush by voting against the U.S. Constitution for the Patriot Act.

The only explanation for tens of millions voting against their heartfelt opinions is the lack of free elections in America. There are no runoff elections. Without runoffs people are trapped. They fear expressing their true opinions. If they vote for what they are for, they are told, they will only elect Bush. They must learn to vote against themselves, to accept the con game of a two-party system. People are taught not to vote for what they believe but against an individual.

An unpopular policy once identified with an individual can be continued by replacing the individual, keeping the policy with modifications. In replacing Bush, Kerry pledges to more effectively forward the same policy of imperial domination.

If runoff elections existed tens of millions would vote against both Bush and Kerry and for peace. Once the myth of invulnerability of the two-party system is broken the dam against democracy and free elections will break. Already 25 percent of Americans are no longer registered Democratic or Republican; they seek alternatives.

The Democrats' fear of Ralph Nader is rooted in the programmatic conflict between their Party's stance and their supporters. This is the real story of the 2004 elections.

This mystery is never written about in the media -- it is America's dark secret.

The 2000 presidential election was stolen when some sixty thousand people, primarily African Americans, had their right to vote illegally revoked in Florida. The film, Fahrenheit 9/11, opens showing one African-American congressperson after another asking for an investigation. But their cry for justice was squashed because not one Senator, not one Democrat, not Paul Wellstone, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, or John Edwards would defend democracy, and stand up for free elections.

Three and a half years later the Democratic Party has not lifted a finger to establish free elections in America. Not in a single state have they called for runoffs so Florida could never happen again. They could not make it clearer: the Democratic Party prefers that Republicans win elections, even without majority support, rather than allow free elections where a third party or an independent candidate could attract tens of millions from their base. Their answer is simple: Ralph Nader must not run, must not be an alternative.

If free elections were held with a runoff system like in most civilized nations, if proportional representation existed where if a point of view receives 20 percent of the vote its supporters would receive 20 percent representation, then every vote would count, and the Democratic Party as we know it today would no longer exist. The one hundred million people who never vote would have a reason to vote. New parties would appear and a representative democracy would begin to blossom in America.

Ralph Nader has created a small hole in the dam. The danger is real. The Democrats are on an all-out effort to attack the Nader/Camejo campaign because if voters begin to vote for what they want the entire electoral system would begin to unravel. If twenty million citizens voted for Nader it would be the beginning of the end of the two-party system. The Democrats would enter into a crisis, the ability of money to control people would begin to crack and the possibility of a democracy where citizens could vote for what they believe would be born. The Democrats are determined, not to beat Bush but to stop Nader, to protect the two-party, pro-corporate rule that America lives under.


***

When Martin Luther King Jr. came out against the war in Vietnam in 1967, he was also accused of throwing away his legacy. He was the target of withering attacks from the leadership of the Democratic Party, organized liberalism, and the civil rights movement. He suffered a drastic loss of funding from unions, churches, foundations, and wealthy liberals and was completely cut off from former allies in the government by the Johnson administration. King's response was to hold his ground and link his civil rights and antiwar demands. Pushing ahead despite resistance from most of his colleagues in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and another round of attacks by Democratic liberals, King began organizing the Poor People's Campaign, a radical plan to expand the scope of the civil rights movement into a multiracial, class-based economic justice movement that would channel the discontent expressed in the ghetto riots into a massive nonviolent disruption of the government until it came through with jobs or income for all to end poverty. At the time, King appeared isolated. Within a few years, public opinion had joined him in opposition to the war. Today, his courage in standing against the war and attacking systemic poverty and exploitation are seen as integral to his whole legacy.

Like King, Nader defied the Democratic Party leadership by campaigning independently against a war and a system of economic injustice in which the Democrats were fully complicit. Nader also suffered a loss of liberal allies, funding, and access to government officials for doing so. But as important as his antiwar and pro-justice demands were, Nader's greatest legacy may be his insistence on the right of the people to have alternatives to the two corporate-sponsored parties.

***

Progressives are running scared today. They are scared of Bush and are demanding that the Greens not run a candidate and back a Democrat, or that the Greens backhandedly support the Democrat by not campaigning in the swing states.

To be sure, Bush is scary. Constitutional rights restricted. Unilateral presidential war powers. War budget hiked. International treaties abrogated. Tax cuts for the rich. Worker safety and environmental regulations gutted. Pandering to corporate interests in the midst of a corporate crime wave. An anti-consumer bankruptcy bill. Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, with threats of future invasions or proxy wars for regime change in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and who knows where else.

But the Democrats are scary, too. The majority of congressional Democrats have let Bush have his way on every one of these issues.

If the Democratic Party won't resist Bush's policies in Congress, why should progressives support them for the presidency?

The Democrats didn't even resist Bush when he stole the Florida vote in 2000. We now know that Gore won Florida handily from the recount done by the media consortium that included the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times. But the Democrats, far more interested in preserving the system's legitimacy than fighting its racism, refused to make an issue of how the Republicans cut Blacks from the voter rolls through computerized racial profiling.

The Congressional Black Caucus gave the Democrats a second chance after the Supreme Court selection of Bush, when it appealed to Senate Democrats to object to accepting the Florida electors. The objection of just one Democratic senator would have forced an investigation of the racial voter profiling and a recount of the Florida vote. But not one of them -- not Wellstone, not Kennedy, not Feingold, not Boxer, not Clinton, not Kerry -- not one of the Democratic liberals objected.

And the Greens are supposed to stand down and leave it to the Democrats to fight Bush?

Yes, a Democrat might beat Bush. But no Democrat is going to beat Bushism.

Just as electing Clinton did not beat Reaganism, but took Reaganism far beyond what Reagan and Bush Sr. could accomplish, so electing a Democrat will not defeat Bushism to change the basic foreign and domestic policies of the U.S.

What was called Reaganism (to scare us into voting Democratic) was really a bipartisan consensus around neoconservative militarism and neoliberal economics. That bipartisan consensus was initiated under Carter, supported by the majority of congressional Democrats during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, carried far beyond what Reagan and Bush Sr. could do by Clinton, and is now being taken even further by Bush, again with the support of the majority of congressional Democrats.

These policies were initiated under Carter, who increased the military budget beyond Ford's projections and got the U.S. into covert military operations in Afghanistan with the hope, successful as it turned out, that it would provoke the Soviets to invade. The U.S. began in 1978 training the Islamic fundamentalists who we now know as Al Qaeda. Bush's military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is the Carter Doctrine in practice, which stated in essence that the U.S. would go to war for oil in the Middle East.

Neoconservative militarism is the post-Vietnam foreign policy of the corporate rulers as they reasserted their post-World War II policy of dominating the capitalist world. With the fall of the Soviet bloc, Bush Sr. declared a New World Order in which the U.S. would dominate the whole world and make it safe for capitalist exploitation. The Clinton administration continued this policy through NATO expansion and its intervention in the Balkans without UN authorization, as well as the complex of trade and credit policies administered by the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and numerous corporate-managed trade agreements on the model of NAFTA.

Both parties are just as committed to economic policies of neoliberal austerity. Again, these polices were initiated under Carter, who slashed social programs to increase the military budget and reassert U.S. interventionism with the development of the Rapid Deployment Force, adopted monetarism as fiscal policy with the appointment of Volker to the Fed, and began the attack on organized labor by refusing to support the common situs picketing law he had pledged the AFL-CIO he would support.

Neoliberal austerity became the post-Keynesian economic policy of the corporate rulers as they ran into the internal limits to profits and growth under the Keynesian welfare/warfare state.

The new ruling-class consensus is the austerity/warfare state of neoliberal economics and neoconservative empire.

And that ruling-class consensus is the pro-war, pro-corporate bipartisan consensus.

What is now called Bushism is not a radical departure but a continuation of this bipartisan consensus, with the majority of Democrats in Congress voting for Bush's key programs: the tax cuts, war budgets, war powers, and USA PATRIOT Act.

Worried about Bush's global empire building? Empire building is a bipartisan geopolitical strategy of using military basing and control of oil in the Middle East and Central Eurasia to keep Western Europe, Russia, China, and Japan from challenging U.S. hegemony. This geopolitical strategy is as prevalent in the pronouncements of Democratic national security advisers like Zbigniew Brzezinski as in those of their Republican counterparts like Henry Kissinger. The Bush administration's particular intellectual framework for empire coming out of the Project for a New American Century is authored by Democrats as well as Republicans, such as Clinton's CIA director, James Woolsey, and Paul Wolfowitz, the former aide to the late senator Scoop Jackson (D-WA). The Clinton administration's imperialist motives for supporting Star Wars were stated quite openly in the Air Force's "Vision for 2020": "dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment."

Indeed, the Democrats' unadulterated support for empire goes back before Carter, before Kennedy and Johnson's Vietnam War, to another Democratic administration, that of Truman, with Dean Acheson's Cold War strategy of building alliances of U.S. satellites to contain the Soviet bloc and make the "free" world safe for corporate exploitation. With the demise of the USSR's own empire, the U.S. geopolitical strategy switched "from containment to enlargement," as Clinton's first national security adviser, Anthony Lake, declared in a 1993 speech of that title, adding in words that sound like Wolfowitz's that U.S.-led alliances would accomplish this by "diplomacy where we can; force where we must."

Worried about Bush's militarism? Remember that the post-Vietnam hikes in military spending were initiated by Carter, taking them above the levels Ford had projected, and that the post-Cold War military spending hikes were initiated by Clinton, taking them well above Bush Sr.'s projections. Bush Jr.'s further hikes have been supported by the majority of congressional Democrats. The current mantra among the Democratic Party political consultants and pollsters is that the Democratic presidential candidate must be as "strong on national security" as Bush to be competitive in the 2004 election.

The Clinton foreign policy team was frustrated by the military's cautious Powell Doctrine. As Clinton's secretary of state and then UN ambassador, Madeline Albright, angrily told Colin Powell, now Bush's secretary of state and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "What's the point of having this superb military that you've always been talking about if we can't use it?"

What about Bush's unilateralism? Wouldn't Democratic imperialism be a little softer, more "globalist"? Not hardly. It was Clinton's secretary of state and Brzezinski protege, Madeleine Albright, who told the UN Security Council in 1994 regarding Iraq: "We will act multilaterally when we can, unilaterally when we must." And thus under Clinton the U.S. bypassed the Security Council to impose regime change by military force on Iraqi Kurdistan, Kosovo, and Serbia.

How about Bush's domestic repression? The Clinton/Reno anticrime and antiterrorism bills instituted more than fifty new death penalties, emaciated habeus corpus, militarized domestic policing, gutted Posse Comitatus, legalized FBI and CIA domestic political spying, expanded the drug war, and subsidized expansion of the prison-industrial complex. The Clintonites sent in Delta Force to make sure the heads of anti-WTO demonstrators were cracked in Seattle. The post-September 11 detention of thousands without trial, any kind of hearing, or access to lawyers was done under the statutory authority of Clinton's Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The USA PATRIOT Act just expanded this repressive authority further, again with the votes of the majority of congressional Democrats.

Well, maybe the Democrats aren't as extreme as Bush on domestic economic policy? Here again there is a basic bipartisan consensus. Carter initiated the neoliberal turn as the bipartisan consensus switched from military Keynesianism to military neoliberalism. Though neoliberalism is cloaked in the egalitarian-sounding rhetoric of free markets, the reality is state enforcement of greater inequality: welfare for the corporate rich (investment incentives in theory) and hardship for workers (to motivate higher productivity in theory).

Today's corporate scandals are a legacy of Clinton's financial deregulation, media monopolization a legacy of his deregulatory Telecommunications Act, the loss of two million jobs a legacy of NAFTA and the other trade deals Clinton made that are sending U.S. manufacturing and backroom service jobs to cheap labor markets overseas. Bush's biggest contribution to the neoliberal agenda has been his tax cuts for the rich, which the Democrats enabled by declaring it a "victory" to pare down their size somewhat.

This bipartisan consensus is forged by the corporate ruling class through its media ownership and financing of publications, broadcasts, think tanks, and its two political parties, Democratic and Republican. To be sure, there are tactical differences within this consensus. No doubt the ruling class is split about Bush. Many of them are worried about the economic irrationality of the latest tax cuts, the destabilizing consequences throughout the Middle East and Europe of the military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Bush's pandering to the domestically destabilizing social agenda of the Christian fundamentalists. And this faction of the corporate rich will support a Democratic version of the bipartisan consensus, the Slick Soft-Right of a Clinton rather than the Crude Hard-Right of a Bush Jr.

-- Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate, edited by Howie Hawkins


[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] It’s called rank voting. Aside from the First Amendment Rights of candidates to run, it’s the consummate use of the First Amendment is to petition assembly, freedom of speech, which is encompassed in running for elective office, you’ve come out, if I’m not mistaken, for universal voting as a legal duty along with your co-author, Norman Ornstein. Can you explain that?

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] Yes, we’ve been for universal voting for a long time….
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

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Part 3 of 3

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] As a reader of your column, I often wondered why you don’t have a little bit more attention to the corporate crime wave and what’s going on in Wall Street, and why you don’t have more attention on the state of labor laws which from occupational safety and health, lack of enforcement by OSHA under both Republican and Democratic parties, and the notorious Taft-Hartley act that’s the most anti-union organizing law in the western world. Why don’t you cover a little bit more on those, E.J.?

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] I think on labor, I’ve written probably more about labor than your average columnist over the time I’ve been doing the column. I care a lot about labor, a lot about unions. I’ve written some about Wall Street, but you’re right, I have not written as much about that as I could. I’ve got to say that in the last year the threat I see President Trump posing in so many areas, has occupied an awful lot of my attention. And what I will say, joining your critique of me and everybody else is that one of the under-covered areas of what Trump has done has been all of these executive orders gutting regulation across a very, very broad sphere. I have written some over the years about the need to regulate Wall Street, and I will take this as a friendly nudge to pay more attention to some of that aspect of the Trump legacy because that’s where he’s actually succeeding, not for the country but for a very conservative and essentially corporate agenda. That, plus his awful tax cut which is not even a tax cut, because a lot of Americans get an increase out of this tax bill, which I have written a lot about. I’ve been probably obsessed by this bill.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] On this, do you favor asking Trump to either resign to support a growing number of democrats – I think there are 6 or 7 who are filing impeachment resolutions in the House?

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] The problem with impeachment right now is it’s mostly a gesture because it’s not going to go through. And I want to see where Muller’s investigation goes. If you put me on the floor of Congress and I had to vote on this, I suspect I would vote to get rid of him, to move him out of office, because I think there’s a lot of evidence for that now. We also have to ponder what it would mean to have a President Pence in office. But I think we are getting to the point where evidence is mounting. And I think something like impeachment needs to have a broader degree of public support than we have right now. There’s a survey that came out yesterday that was very anti-Trump in terms of popular opinion, but the country isn’t quite ready for impeachment yet. So I think we should oppose just about everything he’s trying to do, and in the meantime gather the evidence to make the case.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] Let’s take another approach. Nancy Pelosi is coming down hard on any democrats who have been accused credibly of sexual harassment and assault. She demanded the resignation of Congressman John Conyers, who is the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus in terms of the years he spent in Congress. And he has now resigned. But she has not asked for the resignation of Donald Trump who is the Harasser-In-Chief, and boasts about it, brags about it. He has been accused by over 20 women of outrageous sexual assault and harassment, pressuring. And she doesn’t ask for his resignation. Do you see a double standard there?

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] It’s funny you mention that. You must have read my tweet yesterday when Conyers resigned, I raised very much the double standard issue of if Conyers goes but Roy Moore is endorsable by Trump, and Trump himself is still there. I think what you’ve got going on now is people trying to decide how they can be consistent on this issue, and what you have control over. But I do think that the Roy Moore story, and then all of these stories about sexual harassment are leading the media to revisit Trump’s story. There was a wonderful interview on NPR yesterday with one of the first women who came out and publicly accused Trump before the election, I think it is time to revisit all of those charges and say, “Wait a minute. If all of these folks have to resign from various positions in the private sector and the media, and now John Conyers, what about Trump?” I think that’s a perfectly fair question to ask.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] On the democratic party, E.J., I think you’ll agree that it was a big mistake for the democratic party to abandon half of the country in presidential races and activity of so-called “red” states, because as Ben Barnes, the politician of many years in Texas once told me, “When the democrats abandoned competing in Texas at the presidential level, it shredded the whole democratic party right down to local offices.” And this is now the price they make them pay in Alabama, where you have virtually no democratic party activity. A former head of the Alabama Democratic party just said recently that “if Doug Jones, the democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, defeats Roy Moore, he’ll have to do it by himself.” Those are his exact words. In other words, no help from the National Democratic Party in the virtually non-existent local democratic party. And this has had devastating consequences. This abandonment of half the party for who’s in the Congress, and who runs the governors and state legislatures. So what is your advice in these remaining days before the December 12th election in Alabama? If you were advising the Democratic National Committee and other democratic leaders, what would you advise them to do in order to defeat Roy Moore, which I assume you want done?

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] Yeah, I do. Two things on that. One is that the National Democratic party has stayed out of this in significant part because they didn’t want to saddle Doug Jones with the charge that he is being supported by the National Democratic party. The fact is that Doug Jones has raised I think it might get up to $50 million. He is vastly outspending Roy Moore at this point. So while the formal party has not done much for him, all kinds of democrats around the country have supported him. Second, of the remaining structures of the Democratic party, there are still some very strong African Americans and groups, very distinguished old Alabama Congress, for example. And if Doug Jones wins it will be in part because those groups still have a lot of energy on the ground. But on your broader point: there’s no question that abandoning whole states is a terrible mistake. Howard Zine? had his 50 state strategy, and you saw something very interesting during the fight to save Obama care, which is that people in very republican districts went to these meetings to tell their republican congress people not to repeal this law, and they looked around the room and discovered that there were hundreds of people in this district that is very, very republican who actually agree with me. And I think that the other place that the party cannot abandon, that has to come back, is that at the local level, they’ve got to start organizing to win at the local level. Since Trump you’re seeing this happening. There are a lot of young people now, women, all kinds of progressive elements if we can share that word for a moment, who are running for local offices. You saw it in the legislature in Virginia. So I am very much against abandoning whole parts of the country. A it’s not right, and B it comes back to haunt you.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] And the lesson from what you just said is obviously when you get down as a political party to where the American people live, work and raise their families, a lot of so-called “red,” “blue” partisan polarization disappears. “Conservative”, “liberal”, whatever they call themselves back home, they want their kids to go to good schools; they want to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and have safe medicines, have good job opportunities, and be treated fairly. And I always thought that when you go down the abstraction ladder to where people work, live, raise their families, you’ll get a left-right-conservative-liberal coalition of immense political importance and repercussions. I wrote a book on this a few years ago called, “Unstoppable: the emerging left-right alliance to dismantle the corporate state.” And I gave 24 areas where the public opinion polls and sometimes action, including minimum wage increase and cracking down on corporate crime, and corporate tax reform, and living wage are supported by 70-80% of the American people, which is liberal and conservative voters, and a pretty unstoppable force. But the democratic party has got to get down to where people live, work and raise their family, and stop constantly saying, “Well, we’re not connecting; we need a message; and our new slogan is going to be ‘a better deal,’” suggested by expensive political consultants. So there’s a lot of opportunity here, but nothing is going to happen unless we the people make it happen.

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] And as you said in the beginning, “politics” has to be a good word again for people, but we’ve got a long way to go before we get there.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] I just wanted to end. You know Mike Perchuk, who is the key strategist in the Congress in the sixties for all the consumer and environmental, so many bills that we got through. He was the chief of staff for Senator Warren Magnuson, the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. He came to town a few weeks ago, because he’s written a book entitled “When the Senate Worked for Us.” And I thought it was a very important historical contribution for the young generation today who doesn’t think the Congress can work at all. And he spent a week trying to get attention, and he got no attention whatsoever. He did have a luncheon with Congressman David Price. But this separation of the present from history is partly due, E.J., because columnists are forced by editors to write columns that reverberate off today’s headlines. Flash news. Otherwise, they’re not “viewed as contemporary,” as one editor told me. I hope that you’ll pay some attention to that book, because it gives us a real optimistic lift that we don’t always have to have a congress like this, and we did have a Congress, without being too idealistic about it in the sixties and early seventies, that worked a lot more for the American people, and a lot less for the corporate lobbyist.

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] Well, I’m a fan and admirer of Mike Perchuk, so I will definitely pay attention to that. I just want to say that I think that it would be irresponsible of those of us who write columns to blame it on editors. We make a lot of these choices ourselves. And so I’ll take the rap for what I write. There is a lot of pressure to be on the news right now because particularly the way the Web works. But we have freedom to go elsewhere, and so we should use it ourselves and take it wherever we can.

[PROGRESSIVE, Ralph Nader] On that promising note, thank you very much E.J. Dionne, and I hope that you’ll find the kind of emphasis that we talked about helpful in your future columns.

[LIBERAL, E.J. Dionne] Great to talk to you and thank you.

Extract from Ralph Nader Radio Hour Episode 272: Trumpcare Fiasco/Logic For The Left
June 1, 2019

Q. There is a difference between "progressives" and "leftists". Why do you cling to "Progressive," and not go all the way to calling yourself a "Leftist"?

[Ralph Nader] Because the "left" gets pigeonholed just the way as the "right" does, and they are not always right, and they're not always "left." So, a "progressive" argues on the facts, wherever they may fall. So it's not a pigeon-holed ideology. There's a lot of baggage to the words "left" and "right." A lot of baggage. It's too categorical for an evidence-based mind.

Q. You were never tempted by Marxism when you were young?

[Ralph Nader] No, because there's too many premeditated decisions. That's why people say "neo-Marxist," or "I'm a modern Marxist." When somebody says, "I'm a Marxist," all I think is they are people who pay a great deal of weight to economic aspects shaping political and economic reality, and concentrated power. The point is, power can be corrupted regardless of whether it's public or private, and there's plenty of history to demonstrate this. So once you pigeon-hole yourself, you don't want to admit one or the other. When you say you're a "capitalist," Wall Street is always right. When you say you're a "socialist," you're often pigeon-holed into saying whatever government does is always right. And that's not true. Concentrated power, wherever it is, produces abuses, no matter what it's configuration. And that doesn't mean they are all on the same plane of abuse in any given time in history. They're not. Like right now, corporate capitalism is producing the most horrendous prices to the accumulation of profit in the history of capitalism: empire, domination, destruction of freedom of contract, perpetuation of poverty. Those are the prices of profit. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, are unregulated. Artificial intelligence is unregulated. The price of corporate profit is staggering, and that's not true of socialism any more, because they aren't in charge.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

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RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 272: Trumpcare Fiasco/Logic For The Left
June 1, 2019

Medicare For All advocate, Dr. John Geyman, rejoins us to discuss his latest book “Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco.” And philosophy professor Ben Burgis explains how to “Give Them an Argument: Logic For The Left.” Plus, David Helvarg comes on in the Wrap Up to explain how he’s “Putting The Blue in the Green New Deal.”

John Geyman is an M.D. and professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. As a family physician with 21 years in academic medicine, he has also practiced in rural communities for 13 years. Dr. Geyman has served as president of Physicians for a National Health Program and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. His new book is entitled; Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco.

“In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt ran as a progressive for national health insurance. And it’s been shut down politically all these years since then. But, it’s not a fringe idea.” Dr. John Geyman, author of Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco

Ben Burgis teaches philosophy at Rutgers. He is the author of a new book entitled Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left. It’s published by Zero Books, which produces a YouTube channel that also features Professor Burgis. You can also see him every Tuesday evening on the Michael Brooks Show.

“I would make a distinction between liberals and leftists. I think that in the kind of MSNBC liberal like Rachel Maddow you get this technocratic centrism: that political problems come from people being too ideological, not thinking hard enough about the sort of technocratic wonky solutions to them. That’s why Obama spent his whole first term trying to pursue a Grand Bargain with Republicans, because he thought that if everybody could just get over all this ideology then they could just reason together and figure out how to slash entitlements and allegedly save Social Security… And that’s very different than the left wing values I care about.” Professor Ben Burgis, author of Give Them an Argument: Logic For The Left

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 273 TRANSCRIPT

Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, my name is Steve Skrovan, along
with my returning co-host David Feldman, welcome back, David.

David Feldman: It is an honor to be back.

Steve Skrovan: It's good to have you back. And we have the man of the hour too, of course, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Hey, how are you? This is going to be a titanic issue to 2020 elections.

Steve Skrovan: Yes, we hope it is. And what Ralph is referring to is we've got a couple of
doctors on the program today. One is an MD, the other is Ph.D. And first up is Dr. John
Geyman. He is back with us to discuss healthcare. Regular listeners remember Dr. Geyman as
an advocate for Medicare for All; he has done a deep analysis of Obamacare vs. Medicare for All
as well as the Republican alternative, whatever that turns out to be, and I'm going to give him
credit for coining the term Trumpcare. Trump, I think owns the healthcare system now and he
likes to talk about how people don't want to give up their “beloved private health insurance.”
And I believe it’s the first time the word beloved, has ever been used to describe private health
insurance. And of course, this is the same guy who said, you know, who said, “who knew
healthcare was so complicated”. He said that after taking office by the way, so Dr. Geyman’s
new book is entitled, Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco,
that's the first half of the show and the second half of the show we turn our attention to the art of
persuasion. We welcome Dr. Ben Burgis, who is the author of a book entitled, Give Them An
Argument: Logic For The Left. It's sort of a handbook on how we take apart the logic of the right
and David you've actually read this and talked to Dr. Burgis, right?

David Feldman: Yes, it’s really interesting because a lot of people on our side don't know how
to fight back. We kind of just listen and then walk away so it's very valuable information.

Steve Skrovan: And in between, we're going to break up our two doctors with a man who should
get own doctorate in exposing corporate crime, our Corporate Crime Reporter, Russell
Mokhiber. And you podcast listeners won't want to miss this week's Wrap Up; we're going to talk
to David Helvarg, the head of Blue Frontier, the advocacy group for ocean conservation. He has
a new proposal called “Putting the Blue in the Green New Deal.” So, we'll get to that in the
Wrap Up, but first, let's talk about how we can fix the fiasco of Trumpcare, David.

David Feldman: John Geyman is an MD and Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine at the
University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. As a family physician with 21 years in
academic medicine, he has also practiced in rural communities for 13 years. Dr. Geyman has
served as president of Physicians for a National Health Program and as a member of the National
Academy of Medicine. His new book is entitled Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How
We Can Fix This Fiasco. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Dr. John Geyman.

John Geyman: Well thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Ralph Nader: Welcome again, John. Seems like we're old friends now with so many interviews
and my promotion of your various books, which are very-very clearly written listeners, and
you're well advised to read these books because this is going to be the big issue in the 2020
presidential and congressional campaigns. Are we going to continue the present corrupt,
constant denying, profiteering, cruel, inefficient healthcare industry system? Or are we going to
have a simpler, more efficient single-payer system with free choice of doctor and hospital, no
networks, and of course, better outcomes as a result? So let me start with the big deception here,
because there are some people who don't like to use the phrase Medicare for All, because of the
sabotage of Medicare by the Republicans and Democrats in allowing more and more of Medicare
recipients to be seduced and deceived into what's called Medicare Advantage Programs--what I
call Medicare disadvantage. We now have one out of three elderly people under Medicare drawn
in by these deceptive promotional lunches, that the health insurance companies have all over the
country, where they have presentations that should be prosecuted by the Federal Trade
Commission, they are so deceptive. In your book on page 21, you have a pretty devastating
summary of why people over 65 should stay clear and just go into traditional Medicare, not go
into Medicare so-called Advantage. Can you tell our listeners why they should avoid Medicare
“Disadvantage,” as I call it?

John Geyman: Well, I agree it is a Medicare “Disadvantage.” And they have all kinds of
deceptive marketing approaches, as you mentioned Ralph, including one that isn't talked about
much, but they have these marketing pitches on second and third floors of places without
elevators, so they can pick out people that can handle stairs; they're always trying to get healthier
people and make as much money from them as possible, meanwhile limiting; they have
restrictive networks that change all the time. Even docs can't keep up with the latest changes.
Sometimes a doc doesn't even know if he's in or out of network; they can change so rapidly and
all these pre-authorizations and now it's just a total rip. It's an example of why we don't need the
private, multi-payer insurance industry anymore. It's ripped us off for a huge number of years,
not just privatized Medicare, but privatized Medicaid. And then overhead of these private
insurers runs about six times what traditional Original Medicare is of about 2.5%. So, this huge
overhead and right now what we're seeing is the private insurers, more and more fighting back
for their expanded place in healthcare, including buying up more and more physician groups so
they can run them, etc.

Ralph Nader: It's a corporate takeover. I don't use the word privatized, John; I use the word
corporatized. So basically, Medicare, so-called Advantage is a corporate takeover and all the
abuses that people who are under 65 are exposed to it by health insurance companies operated
here. They deny benefits, they're wasteful. They require you to go only to a certain network of
doctors and hospitals, even though they may not be proper for your ailment. It's what Dr. Fred
Hyde in Connecticut once told me about Medicare Disadvantage. He said, “it's not what you pay,
it's what you get, or what you don't get. It’s what you don't get. Stay with traditional Medicare,
even though they require the traditional Medicare patients to subsidize the Medicaid and Medicare
health insurance companies. And just to give you an idea, Centene Corporation--this is
in Dr. John Geyman’s book, Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This
Fiasco, just out and it's also online--the largest private Medicaid insurer in the country, took in
1.1 billion in profits between 2014 and 2016 just in California, “even as its plans were among the
worst performing in this state.” That's another way of saying they’re expert at denying benefits
and underpaying what's required, often turning patients away in desperation, and even making
more money. Now, you're enthralled by one bill in the House of Representatives and explain
that; give the bill number. I think it's fair to say it's the best single-payer bill--better even than
John Conyers’s bill and Bernie Sanders’s bill. And it's supported by a lot of Democrats. So,
give the vital statistics about that bill, starting with its number.

John Geyman: This is H.R. 1384. It's in the House. It's expanded and improved Medicare for
All [Act of 2019]. It's a great bill, the best we've ever seen. Its two leading co-sponsors are
Pramila Jayapal from Seattle [WA] actually and Debbie Dingell from [Dearborn] Michigan. This
will bring us a new system of national health insurance for all US residents, based on medical
need, not ability to pay, and on a principle that healthcare is not a privilege but a human right.
It'll bring right away universal access to healthcare for US residents, full choice of providers and
hospitals anywhere in the country, no restrictive networks, covers everything: outpatient-
inpatient care, laboratory diagnostic services, dental, hearing and vision care, prescription drugs,
reproductive health, including banning the Hyde Amendment so that women can have full
reproductive healthcare, maternity, and newborn care; mental health services will be a lot better
covered, including substance abuse treatment, and long-term care and support. Some of this is
absent in Bernie's Bill in the Senate; quite a bit of what I just said is absent. There's no cost-
sharing, such as co-pays and deductibles in the House Bill. They'll negotiate drug prices, as the
VA does, and has for years, to get to get prices down to about 58% of what we pay. It'll be huge
administrative simplification with negotiated fee schedules for physicians and other health
professionals who will remain in private practice; global budgeting of individual hospitals and
other facilities, and bulk purchasing of drugs and medical devices too. That's a big deal, the
medical devices, if you had a hip replacement, you know that the cost, that can vary a lot
wherever you are in the country. The House Bill will eliminate the private health insurance
industry with its administrative overhead and profiteering, and no longer need for employer-
sponsored health insurance. Cost savings, we've got two great studies we can talk about later if
we need to, that enable universal coverage through a not-for-profit, single-payer financing
system. Two great studies, as I said, one just six months ago—two-year transition period
actually for the House Bill. One year after enactment, people over 55 will be so covered and
under 19; after two years, everyone's covered. Shared risk for the cost of illnesses and accidents
across the whole population of 326 million. So, it is really a good bill; 70% of Americans
support it, including 85% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans.

Ralph Nader: And I might add, when people have access to health insurance, they don't
postpone needed healthcare, which either ends up destroying their lives or disabling them, losing
their jobs, or they inflict even more costs on the healthcare system and Medicaid, etc., because
they didn't have the money to afford health insurance under the present system to get diagnosed
and treated in time. So, where the present system has this perverse incentive of feeding on its
own waste and rejection, this system goes in the opposite direction; it catches medical ailments
early before the cost becomes 10 or 100 times more, as the ailment becomes more and more
serious, whether it's respiratory disease, cancer, or what have you. You know, when I hear you
say all this John, my first reaction is why in the world, this is the USA, the last western country,
years and years, it doesn't have universal health insurance. All other countries--Iceland,
Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, France, England, Canada, Taiwan, Japan--you know, it’s not just
Western countries, and we know it's because when Lyndon Johnson had a chance to go for
Medicare for All, the country was spending huge amounts of money in the Vietnam War and
there were members of Congress who were saying, President Johnson, “you can't go cover
everybody; we can't afford it because the Vietnam War is draining us, and there's inflation. So
that's another cost of imperial wars by the way, because as you quote in your book, there was a
government study out in 2012, saying 45,000 Americans die every year because they can't afford
health insurance and therefore can't get diagnosed and treated in time. Well, that's almost 1,000
people a week and if you multiply that by 40 years, or more, since the end of the Vietnam War,
that's over 1.7 million people who could have been saved. So, and the second response I get to
this, when I hear you speak, is that the supporters of full Medicare for All--everybody in and
nobody out, free choice to doctor and hospital, better outcomes and half the cost per capita--
that’s the experience in Canada, and unless we think Canadians are a lot smarter than we are,
they have modern healthcare; they have the equipment. They come in at half the price per
average per capita, and they cover everybody in the country. As you point out in your book,
about 30 million people under Obamacare are not covered; it's getting worse and about 80
million people are under-insured and we still spend twice on the average per capita than Canada.
But the supporters of S1804, which is that great bill you describ in your book, I submit, don't
know how to argue very well for it. They're already put on the defensive by people. Republicans
mostly say, “how are you going to pay for it; it's going to be multi-trillion dollars a year”. Tell us
the many easy ways to pay for a system that once it's in place costs half as much as the system
costs today in dollars, and doesn't kill anyone because nobody dies in Canada or France because
they can't afford health insurance; they are insured from the moment they're born.

John Geyman: Yeah, that’s just one example of the Canadian advantage over us. If you're an
auto manufacturer in Toronto, they pay very little compared to what a US car manufacturer has
to pay for healthcare for their employees. But yeah, if we bring it down to people and budgets,
which we should have a system that cares about people instead of corporate profits and Wall
Street investors. But anyhow, the average family of four today with employer-sponsored health
insurance, pays $28,000 a year now.

Ralph Nader: Good heavens, $28,000 a year.

John Geyman: 28K, but then the median income in the country is something like 59K. So, this
is just absurd and if we compare that with national health insurance through Medicare for All,
95% of Americans will pay less in taxes than they do now for insurance and healthcare through a
progressive tax plan. I'm going to mention these; we've had two studies, both of which showed
huge savings. The Friedman Study of six years ago or so told us we could save $616 billion a
year by going to Medicare for All. That includes $220 billion through insurance overhead and
administration getting rid of that, etc., lots of administrative savings. Then the second study is
more recent, and is very well done, the Political Economy Research Institute [PERI] out of the
University of Massachusetts in Amherst, this reported out just six months ago, that total health
spending will increase from 3.2 trillion to 3.6 trillion due to many people getting care they
previously had to forego, but we'll save 5.1 trillion over 10 years through savings from getting
rid of the multi payer, profiteering, private insurance industry. So, we have solid numbers and
different ways of progressive taxation. The PERI Study out of Amherst would set business
premiums at 8% below what business now pays on healthcare; they would set a sales tax on non-
essential goods of 3.75%. They’d put a recurring tax of 0.36% on all wealth over a million, and
they would tax long-term capital gains as regular income. So, there's a lot of work that's been
done, but the opponents of this are gathering momentum again, like they always do, including
hospitals that are saying, “Oh, we might not get paid as much as we are”. Well, they'll get paid
better, actually. Insurers, of course, are complaining because they'll be going away.

Ralph Nader: They have to be replaced. You can't have a single-payer, government funding,
private delivery of healthcare, and still have private health insurers like Aetna, that in one year
recently paid its CEO over $55 million--one year!

John Geyman: Right. They'll have to be replaced. The way I’d like to think of it is, the winners
and losers under Medicare for All single-payer. The winners are all Americans, physicians and
other health professionals will win, because they'll have much less bureaucracy, they'll have
more time to take care of patients. That's why they became such. Hospitals will win; employers
will win big time; mental healthcare will win. Mental healthcare is very underfunded; it'll be
better reimbursed. Public health will win. Federal and state governments will win and taxpayers
will win. The losers are private health insurance, corporate middlemen, corporate stakeholders,
privatized Medicare and as you said Disadvantaged Medicare Ralph, privatized Medicaid,
displaced workers. Well, there's a plan in the House Bill that allocates 1% of its budget over the
first five years for assistance and retraining of workers displaced by the elimination of the private
health insurance industry. And that's probably 1.7 million people. So, there are big numbers
there.

Ralph Nader: You know, if people are still skeptical, take a look at some of the reports on the
pricing of healthcare services in this country--$3,000 in Berkeley to take someone a mile and a
half to a hospital, in an ambulance, 3 thousand bucks! Their operations in the US for $100,000
per operation that in Canada are done at $25,000. You have massive billing fraud, minimal
estimate this year, 350 billion dollars in the US. That's about what the whole healthcare system
in Canada for 33 million people costs; you have far less billing fraud. People don't even see a
bill in Canada for the most part, none of the anxiety, the dread, the fear, the insecurity that
pervades millions and millions of families in the United States. You can't put dollar figure on
that, can you and there are all kinds of ways. You tax corporations, the way they were taxed in
the 1960s, that produced hundreds of billions of dollars. They were making a lot of money in the
1960s; 1960s are one of the most prosperous decades, and they're grossly under taxed. A lot of
these corporations aren't taxed at all. Fifty-six major corporations in this country paid no federal
income tax whatsoever last year, and got rebates, they so gamed the system. For years, General
Electric would make billions of US dollar profits, pay no federal income tax. So, the ability to
pay is everywhere by just making a more just political economy, having the rich and the
multinationals not escape taxation by putting illegally their profits in some little island off the
Isle of England, or in Luxembourg or in Ireland. And just amazing that the supporters of this
Bill, don't know how to make all the arguments. While I've heard a dozen members of the House
support this Bill, they never mention that it would prevent 45,000 deaths a year, and of course,
many more injuries and illnesses, because people will be able to afford health care. And they
won't be denied because they couldn't afford health insurance to get diagnosed and treated in
time. They never mention it! I haven't yet heard anyone mention that it will save hundreds of
billions of dollars in fraud. I haven't heard anyone mention that no longer will the drug
companies be pursuing the sky is the limit and hit a patient for $100,000 or $150,000 for a year’s
treatment, when you can get it for 5% of that in Egypt, the exact same drug, because they control
prices in Egypt and other countries. What do you think is going on here? The Republicans
argue, without the facts forcefully, and they use all the non-factual arguments, the scare tactics,
the lies; the Democrats don't use their full panoply; they don't use their full menu of arguments.
Therefore, they're on a defensive in the House of Representatives. Why?

John Geyman: Yeah, I want the Dems to stand up. And we do have a progressive wing; there
are 107 co-sponsors in the House of Bill--that Jayapal/Dingell Bill. They're a major force; we
have to listen to them and some of our enemies are our own Democrats in the center who still
take credit for the Affordable Care Act, which has failed after nine years to control prices. It
helped for a while with getting people covered, but we still have 30 million uninsured and, 80
million or so underinsured, so it had no price controls, never intended. It pleased this coalition of
profiteers, corporate profiteers, but that's not good enough so.

Ralph Nader: I think you touched on the answer to my question.

John Geyman: Yeah.

Ralph Nader: If the Democrats in the House make the full arguments for single-payer full
Medicare for All, they are in effect, condemning all the holes and all the escape hatches, and all
the profiteering allowed under Obamacare, which is under attack by the Republicans who want
to repeal Obamacare. They can't have it both ways. We need a clean sheet here. Too many
people's lives, too many people's anxieties, too many people's livelihoods are at stake. Here's
another eye-opener, listeners in Dr. Geyman’s book. By the way, have you been invited to testify
in the House of Representatives? They now are controlled by the Democrats; they've had
hearings on single-payer, have they invited you?

John Geyman: No. I have had...

Ralph Nader: You have already written about eight books on the subject, a practicing physician,
an academic professor of medicine at a well-regarded medical school in Washington State--why
aren't they inviting you? How can they be authentic?

John Geyman: Well, I think we just touched on it, there's too much cowardice politically across
the Democratic spectrum. And the centrists are running things more than they should. And that's
bad; we've tried incremental little tweaks to the system for years and they don't work.

Ralph Nader: They don't work because the corporate lawyers for the health industry know how
to game it.

John Geyman: Right.

Ralph Nader: The corporate industry is ripping off Medicare 60 billion with a “b” a year,
listeners. That's your money; they are ripping off Medicaid in the tens of billions of dollars every
year; that's your money. Here's a quote from your book, that ought to open up the eyes of all our
listeners whose ears are already open, “the federal government now pays about 60% of total
healthcare costs in this country, a much higher figure than most people realize. Much of this has
been ongoing subsidies of the private health insurance industry, which receives $685 billion in
government subsidies each year and the Congressional Budget Office projects this number to
double in another 10 years.” So, they're already spending more of your money than would be
necessary to support a single-payer system, which comes in at half the price of what you're
paying now under the corporate system and the government subsidy system. So, I think we're
not going to get this bill through the House, much less the Senate unless there is a real informed
1% of the people out there, who summon their senators and representatives to town meetings,
thrash it all out and send them back with their instructions. Eighty years of dilly-dallying since
before Harry Truman was president are enough. Would you agree that we need town meetings
back where you are, where your two senators and representatives have to answer up and get
educated by you and others?

John Geyman: Absolutely. And it's interesting on let's say two other points right here. In 1912,
Teddy Roosevelt ran as a progressive for national health insurance. And it's been shut down
politically over all these years since then, but it's not a fringe idea. The other thing, we get all
kinds of reasons by the coalition and corporate coalitions against Medicare for All, one of which
is it'll be too disruptive. Well, I can tell you, I was in practice in a small town in Mount Shasta,
California in 1965 when Medicare came in; it wasn't disruptive at all.

Ralph Nader: One point you make in your book on page 177, is if you have full Medicare for
All, you're going to have more primary care doctors and there won't be this incentive to go
immediately into specialized medical practice and you point out that having more primary care
for patients is a great preventive approach--not just treatment approach and diagnostic approach.
You say access is more available and efficient, getting primary care. Receiving more preventive
services, costs are better contained with strong primary care; quality and outcomes of care
improved by primary care. Primary Care provides better coordination, integration of care, and
you spell it all out. You got to get this book listeners; how do they get the book? Because I want
to ask you one last question-- what's the difference between Obamacare and Trumpcare? Which
is the title of your book Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco
by Dr. John Geyman of Washington State. How can they get this book fast and have discussions
in their living rooms and town meetings back home and really start a rumble? So, when the
members come back for the Fourth of July recess from Congress, and they take off a month in
August, they get some real citizen heat and citizen light and they get back with their orders.

John Geyman: They can get it on Amazon right away. They can get it through bookstores; it's
out there.

Ralph Nader: Okay and also online probably, you don't want to give all the business to Amazon,
right John?

John Geyman: No, it's online. Sure.

Ralph Nader: Right. How do they get if they want to get it from you? What if they want you to
autograph a copy? Would you do that for them?

John Geyman: Well, of course, I would.

Ralph Nader: Because you are a great figure in American medicine and you get almost no press.

John Geyman: I have a website, johngeymanmd.org. So, they can find out more on all that.

Ralph Nader: That's G-E-Y-M-A-N, Geyman.

John Geyman: Dot.org, yeah. johngeymanmd.org, yeah.

Ralph Nader: Have you been on NPR or PBS in recent years?

John Geyman: No, no.

Ralph Nader: There you are. I'll bet you they've had 100 cosmetic surgeons dealing with
vanities of men and women on hundreds of times.

John Geyman: Yeah.

Ralph Nader: How do you contour the nose that's pointed, upward doctor? What an insane
system of media priorities, isn't it? I just finished an article that says “the worst is first and the
best is last” that I gave all kinds of examples, even in sports. The highest paid players are very
often nowhere near the best players but even in politics, and book writing, in movies, in the
professions, often the worst practitioners are the highest paid. And the loving, serving
practitioners, like serving needy, poor patients are going over to Africa and dealing with the
Ebola crisis, hardly get paid a living wage in the United States. So, what are you going to do
about that? We have to have millions of people listening to what you have to say in reading your
book. Maybe we can get some advice from Steve Skrovan and David Feldman; what about it?

David Feldman: Yes. Yes, I think Ralph; I think you let doctors off the hook. I can't get a
straight answer from doctors. There are only 152 some odd medical schools in this country. And
doctors have no right to play the victim in all this, why? You could solve this problem overnight.
Doctors have to stand up and say this is unacceptable. We have a disease in this country. It's
called our healthcare system. We're not going to practice medicine unless it's fixed. We're not
going to work for these health insurance companies. We're going to go on strike. Why aren't we
targeting the 150 some odd medical schools in this country who receive federal funding? There
are fewer medical schools than there are congressmen to target; I'm sorry, this is infuriating.

Ralph Nader: You think there should be more medical schools?

David Feldman: I think there should be more medical schools, but if you want to get universal
health insurance in this country, it's the doctors’ fault. It's their greed. They could stop it in a
second.

Ralph Nader: Is it the doctors or the American Medical Association, or both? What's the
answer, Dr. Geyman?

John Geyman: Well, the AMA has been against national health insurance forever. Actually, it’s
interesting, a little side story, in 1917 they had a social committee in the AMA, which came up
with “we need something like national health insurance”, and they sent that out to the state
chapters, which all came back, “no, no way ever”, so that's one little side thing, but yeah.

David Feldman: It’s like talking to an alcoholic and addressing all the issues other than the
drinking. If you can't get the doctors on board, it's not going to happen.

Ralph Nader: Well, majority of doctors already David, in poll after poll, are for single-payer
about 55%--higher percentage for nurses.

David Feldman: Yeah, I mean, so it's their fault.

Ralph Nader: What do you say?

John Geyman: It's our organizations that is the problem because they get bought off. But yeah,
exactly right, Ralph, most physicians are and other health professionals, especially leaderships
by nurses, is strongly for Medicare for All.

Ralph Nader: You have real touching examples in your book about how people, because they
couldn't afford a certain procedure, ended up worsening in their condition and dying. This is
America—land of the free and home of the brave. Before we conclude, what's the difference
between Trumpcare and Obamacare? Dr. John Geyman, author of the brand new book,
Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco.

John Geyman: Well, Trumpcare is much worse than Obamacare. The GOP and the Trump
administration has sabotaged Obamacare, but Obamacare wasn't fixing all of our problems
anyhow. And Republicans still haven't come up with a healthcare plan and they won't.

Ralph Nader: Actually, Trumpcare took millions of people off Medicaid. Can you explain that?

John Geyman: That's exactly what they've done and they want a handover, through state block
grants, the responsibility for Medicaid state by state. Well, a lot of the states cut it back to almost
nothing. In Alabama, I think if you have a family income much over $3,000 a year, you're not
eligible, stuff like that so.

Ralph Nader: It’s as if Trump is telling the poor, you know, let the poor die they don't vote for
him anyway?

John Geyman: That's what it is.

Ralph Nader: Well, Dr. John Geyman, the chief sponsor of your favorite bill in the House,
H.R.1384, is Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, and she comes right from the district near where
you live.

John Geyman: Right.
Ralph Nader: Are you going to ask her to invite you to testify in the next hearing?

John Geyman: Yes, I will and I have been in touch with her and sending her the book and the
pamphlet and of course, all that and thanking her for leadership; that doesn't mean I've been
invited.

Ralph Nader: Well, if you do testify all kinds of reporters crowding around, interviewing you
and you'll reach the national media.

John Geyman: Yes.

Ralph Nader: Thank you very much for all your good work Dr. John Geyman, the author of the
brand new book, which you can have, called Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We
Can Fix This Fiasco. And he doesn't let Obamacare off the hook one bit either. Thank you,
John.

John Geyman: Thank you for having me.

Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Dr. John Geyman. We will link to Struggling and
Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Now we're
going to take a short break and check in with our Corporate Crime Reporter Russell Mokhiber
and when we come back, we welcome first-time guest Ben Burgis, who is going to tell us how to
argue with right wingers; back after this.

Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your
Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, May 24, 2019. I'm Russell Mokhiber;
Health Canada, the governmental agency responsible for public health, is charting a new course
when it comes to dietary advice, particularly in the area of sugar substitutes. In a significant
departure from the past as well as from the U.S. approach, Canada's new food and dietary
guidelines released this year say zero calorie and low-calorie sugar substitutes are neither
necessary nor helpful. That's according to a report in The Washington Post. Sugar substitutes do
not need to be consumed to reduce the intake of free sugars, the guidelines say. The new
Canadian approach seems to be that if a food or beverage doesn't have a demonstrated health
benefit, it doesn't belong in your diet. New York University's Marion Nestle agrees. “Personally,
I follow a food rule not to eat anything artificial. So, these sweeteners are off my dietary radar.”
For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.

Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. You know, a lot of people on the right fancy themselves as
eminently logical. In fact, one of the most widely read libertarian magazines is called Reason.
Well, our next guest is going to tell us how those of us on the left can fight logic with logic.
David?

David Feldman: Ben Burgis teaches philosophy at Rutgers, is the author of a new book entitled
Give Them an Argument: Logic For The Left. It's published by Zero Books, which produces a
YouTube channel that also features Professor Burgis. You can also see him every Tuesday
evening on The Michael Brooks Show. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, professor Ben
Burgis.

Ben Burgis: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Ralph Nader:Welcome indeed. Now you're known in Rutgers circles, and around the country
as a hard-boiled logician, driven by cold reason and facts, and not deterred by emotion. So how
come you dedicated your book to, in your words, “my beautiful wife, Jennifer, among her many
virtues, she's the best logic instructor I know.”

Ben Burgis: Because it's true. I would also point out that one of the things I do try to argue in
the book is that Star Trek got it wrong; there really is no conflicts between logic and emotion.
You know, it's entirely possible to care deeply, for example, about pursuing political and
economic justice, and also think carefully about how to achieve those goals.

Ralph Nader: How do you like that, David?

Ben Burgis: I didn't hear your laugh, David.

David Feldman: No, I'm listening.

Ralph Nader: All right. Let me ask you some side questions before we get into a couple of
areas dealing with how you deal with Ben Shapiro and Nate Silver.

Ben Burgis: Yeah.

Ralph Nader: MSNBC fancies itself as a liberal network in contrast to the Fox cable outlet, and
yet they never invite, with very few exceptions, progressives like Jim Hightower, Bill Greider,
me, even Mark Green. Rachel Maddow doesn't want to be anywhere near a progressive. You
think there's a legitimate distinction to be made between liberals and progressives, given that you
described yourself as a thinking person’s Marxist?

Ben Burgis: Yeah, I would make a distinction between liberals and leftists that I think that that
kind of MSNBC liberal like Rachel Maddow, really what you get/the message you get from them
is this kind of technocratic centrism, that political problems come from people just not having,
you know, being too ideological, not thinking hard enough about the sort of technocratic wonky
solutions to them. That's why Obama spent his whole first term trying to pursue a grand bargain
with Republicans, because he thought if everybody could just get over all this ideology then they
could just, you know, reason together, then they could figure out how to slash entitlements and
allegedly save Social Security and all that stuff. That's very different than the kind of left-wing
values that I care about.

Ralph Nader: Okay, so let's segue right into one of your most powerful points. You quote Nate
Silver, who for years was the analytic pollster and analyst for the New York Times on national
politics. And I guess he was pretty much in favor of Hillary Clinton, because he said on more
than one occasion, and you quote this in your book, Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left,
Nate Silver says, “Clinton and Sanders voted together the same way 93% of the time” and you
know to someone who doesn't know much about the facts of the two politicians’ record, that's a
pretty impressive argument that Hillary Clinton's pretty left. And then on page 78, you say 93%
is misleading. Here's some of the votes on which Hillary Clinton differed from Bernie Sanders.
1) The war in Iraq: Sanders voted against the invasion; Clinton voted for it. 2) A long series of
votes to continue funding for the war, which Sanders opposed and Clinton favored. 3) A long
series of trade deals, which Sanders opposed and Clinton favored. 4) The Patriot Act: Sanders
voted against it; Clinton voted for it. 5) Reauthorizing the Patriot Act: Sanders voted against it;
Clinton voted for it. 6) Guantanamo Bay: Clinton voted for a bill to force President Obama to
keep the facility open by blocking funds to transfer detainees; Sanders voted against it. 7) The
bank bailout: Clinton supported the bank bailout; Sanders opposed it. Now, why doesn't Nate
Silver pay a penalty and reduced credibility for pulling off something like this?

Ben Burgis: Well, he certainly should. If pundits ever had to pay a penalty in reduced
credibility, he might. It's also worth noting that a lot of those votes, obviously the list you just
rattled off, shows that not every vote is equally important, right? Even if those had been the only
ones that voted differently on that would still establish some pretty profound ideological
differences, but a lot of those votes don't even make it into his factoid, because they happened
when Bernie was in the House while Hillary was in the Senate. So, his factoid only takes into
account the two years they overlapped in the Senate. And my favorite part of this is almost like
a textbook example of how to mislead people with statistics. During the two years that they
overlapped in the Senate, Hillary Clinton was running for president, so presumably, she wasn't
showing up to the Senate every single day to cast votes.

Ralph Nader: Well, as a logician, you are peculiarly sensitive to the misuse of language, are you
not?

Ben Burgis: Well, I think that's an important part of making good arguments, which is one
appreciate.

Ralph Nader: Okay. So why do you call long-time prisoners in Guantanamo detainees?

Ben Burgis: I am just using the standard words, but I do see your point about that.

Ralph Nader: And why do you call social welfare services for the poor entitlements?

Ben Burgis: Well, again, those are, those are the standard terms, I would point out that whereas
entitlement has been, the phrase, the word entitlement has been toxified by right-wing
propaganda. On this point, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea that people are in
fact, entitled to these things. They paid into them; they are entitled to benefit from them even if
they hadn't paid into them; they would just be entitled as human beings to have a decent
retirement and all that sort of thing.

Ralph Nader: Yeah, because Social Security and Medicare, people pay into them. And they're
called entitlements, yet hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare, bailouts, handouts,
giveaways, subsidies; the corporation didn't pay anything for them, and they get it all free and
that's called incentives. Why a Marxist like you uses capitalist words to shoot yourself in the
foot is beyond my comprehension. What's your response?

Ben Burgis: Well, I think that you need to pick your battles about whether to spend your time
arguing about words and every single paragraph, or whether to communicate to people the
language they already understand while trying to make what you see as the larger argument.

Ralph Nader: So, you don't believe in Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher, who says if
you don't have the right language, you can't get to second base? That's before baseball.

Ben Burgis: Yeah, I was gonna say, I'll be very surprised if Confucius used a baseball bat.

Ralph Nader: Well, let's get to something else that fascinated me in this book, which some
people may find a bit hard to read, but they can pick and choose. And it deals with 34-year-old
Harvard Law grad, fast-talking, right winger Ben Shapiro, who thinks he can argue everybody
into oblivion on a stage in front of an audience. Before you start dissecting his techniques briefly,
because we don't have that much time, would you debate Ben Shapiro? And would you predict
the outcome?

Ben Burgis: I would absolutely debate Ben Shapiro; Ben if you're listening, I'm down for that.
And I would predict that the outcome would be that he would do what he always does, which is
talk loud and talk fast and try to bulldoze through the substance of what's being said, but I hope
that somebody there would call him on it in real time--showing and explaining exactly where his
arguments go wrong--might make at least some of his more thoughtful followers think twice.

Ralph Nader: Is he afraid to debate people generally? He just likes to stand on the stage and
engage in soliloquy?

Ben Burgis: Yeah, he likes to debate 19-year-olds who don't really know what they're doing,
who ask him questions in Q&A on college campuses so they can use some progressive language
in a faltering way, and he could yell at them and again, kind of bulldoze through what they're
saying. And then somebody could make a little clip of it to put out on YouTube: “Ben Shapiro
destroys another snowflake liberal on campus.”

Ralph Nader: Tell us about his techniques briefly, what he gets away with, and how the New
York Times praised him in a glittering profile, quite apart from his vicious attacks on Palestinian
and Arabs, which is quoted in your book. It's a clear example of anti-Semitism against Arabs.
How does he get away with this in the New York Times and what's his technique? He's making
huge speech fees.

Ben Burgis: Yeah. So again, I think that a lot of Ben Shapiro’s shtick is just that he is very
loud, he sounds very confident, he talks very quickly, so you don't have time to stop and think
about what he's saying and in fact, if you look at his book--he wrote a little booklet about how to
argue with leftists and destroy them--which is, of course, a very overblown title, but if you read
the book, the vast majority of it isn't really about how to make good careful arguments, which is
what you care about, if you want to get to the truth; it's about how to rhetorically frame the
arguments. Despite this though, the New York Times had an article about him, which should
embarrass everybody involved with it called “the Cool Kids’ Philosopher”, where they refer to
him as the destroyer of weak arguments, which is really striking because if you read that article,
they only give one example of him allegedly destroying a weak argument, which is he's doing
one of his typical Q&A's on college campuses, a 22-year-old girl raises her hand and challenges
his position on transgender people's rights. And he says, “Oh, how old are you?” And she says,
“Twenty-two.” And he says, “Oh, can you just identify as sixty?” and she sputters for a second
because it takes her a moment to sort of think of what to say. And then he just starts ranting at
her, which, of course, if he actually cared about getting to the truth of the matter about carefully
thinking about it, then he'd pause and let her collect her thoughts. So, he could say, “Oh, is this
really a good analogy? Is being transgender really like being 22 and identifying as 60 or are
those two different things?” But he doesn't want to pause to give people time to think about stuff
like that. As to the Palestinian issue, where to be clear, he actually has a history of advocating
literal ethnic cleansing. He has an article that he wrote, where he says that all Palestinians, not
only in the occupied territories, but even in Israel proper, should be, he says, peacefully deported
from the country, and he's since then disowned that, but in a very half-hearted way, you know,
like he said, “Oh, that was dumb”, but he still opposes the existence of a Palestinian state. And
he still opposes, certainly giving Palestinians voting rights in Israel and if you oppose both of
those things, then you're saying that this is a group of people who should be kept as a permanent
underclass without basic legal or democratic rights.

Ralph Nader: And in fact, you quote, the title of his article is, “The Radical Evil of the
Palestinian Arab Population” and he says the Palestinian Arab population is rotten to the core, the
most evil population on the planet and he's still regaled in the New York Times. I mean, when is
this guy going to get his comeuppance by people like you, who could nail him to the wall, invite
him to Rutgers and dispatch him on the stage with your pure logic, reason, and ability to
demolish his hateful, racist, bigoted articles and views? Because he's had a history of
downplaying poverty and racial injustice; thinks the massive wealth gap between white and
black Americans doesn't have anything to do with racial injustice. A person on the left would
never get away with stuff like that. Can you have the student forum invite him to Rutgers? This
will be a showdown in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Ben Burgis: I think it's a fantastic idea. And yeah, clearly, this tells you something not only
about what's wrong with Ben Shapiro, but what's wrong with American media culture in general,
because what you can get away with saying about Palestinians and other Arabs, is clearly way
out of sync with what you can get away with saying about other groups; that level of open
racism, if directed towards almost anybody else, would certainly stop somebody from being
positively profiled in the New York Times and it's absurd that it doesn't stop somebody from
being positively profiled the New York Times when it’s directed against Palestinians.

Ralph Nader: He's been on a lot of media. Have you been on PBS and NPR for this book?

Ben Burgis: No, I’d like to be, but I have not.

Ralph Nader: David, you suggested that we have Ben Burgis on--author of the new book, Give
Them an Argument: Logic For The Left. You have any comments or questions?

David Feldman: Yeah. I was wondering if the fault is with the moderators of these shows
because in the adversarial nature of a trial, we can get to the truth and yet we don't see that in
debates where there are no moderators, enforcing penalties against logical fallacies. Why aren't
they improving debates, Ralph? You had the taboo debates and I noticed that even you didn't
have somebody throwing flags down on logical fallacies.

Ralph Nader: You're referring to the website debatingtaboos.org David, where we had four
subjects that really aren't debatable. They're sort of taboo, like anti-ballistic missile defense,
which is a phony unworkable, $14 billion a year project by the Pentagon and we did debate
whether anti-Semitism against Arabs is worse than anti-Semitism against Jews in the United
States and we had a very civil debate with two people on each side and you can decide for
yourself listeners. Go to debatingtaboos.org, but I think it's more than that David; it’s that
university and college campuses are often dead zones intellectually. There's no ferment; people
come and talk and most of the seats in the auditorium are empty. People who have serious
dramatic controversial issues that don't happen to be in the news, like the sexual harassment
issues are today, don't even get invited anymore. I remember speaking at Rutgers and they were
hanging from the rafters, at Princeton hanging from the rafters, at law school hanging from the
rafters. And the conditions then were nowhere near as bad as conditions are today for tens of
millions of people, and the expansion of empire, and the domination of global corporations over
almost every enclave of life in America. So, it goes right back; the students are not demanding
serious speakers. They like Seth Meyers, and other comedians, for whom they pay huge lecture
fees. What do you say about that Ben, what's the situation? What's the climate in the
universities these days--am I incorrect?

Ben Burgis: Well, I was gonna say if they want comedians and can pay huge fees, they should
invite David Feldman, but in any case, I think there is some truth to that. I think that probably
has a lot to do with the increasingly prevalent idea that the purpose of a college degree is just sort
of credentialing for the job market, to get skills that will please employers, which really de-
emphasizes the idea that it's a positive good in itself to spend a few years learning to read and
think and devoting yourself to ideas, which is something that both makes college campuses less
interested. And it's also important to talk about because I think one of the goals of the left that is
talked about now more in the last couple of years is everybody being able to go to college, right?
You know, that we want tuition-free public universities and I think that if we're going to do that,
we really have to think about how we're going to sell that, you know, to make a good honest
argument for it, because it can't be that Oh if everybody goes to college that everybody will get a
good middle-class job, but it will solve the economic inequality because the more people who
have that credential, the less it's worth in the job market; that's just how supply and demand
work. So, if we're going to make an argument for it, we really have to make an argument for the
positive good of going to college, the positive good of getting to have that enriching experience.
And you know, learning to read and think in that way and do things like go to see controversial
speakers and get excited about that.

Ralph Nader: Well, listen, we're out of time, Ben. We could go on and on. I hope you get other
media; I'll certainly recommend it. We've been talking with Ben Burgis, who is a professor of
philosophy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He's the author of the new
paperback, it's not that long to read, called Give Them an Argument: Logic For The Left. Thank
you very much. Ben Burgis.

Ben Burgis: Thanks, Ralph. It's an honor. I voted for you twice.

Ralph Nader: Thank you.

Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Ben Burgis. His book is Give Them an Argument:
Logic For The Left. We will link to that at ralphnaderradiohour.com. I want to thank our guests
again. Dr. John Geyman, Professor Ben Burgis; for those listening on the radio, that's our show;
podcast listeners, you're in for a treat. Stay tuned for the bonus material, we call the Wrap Up,
where we not only continue our conversation with Dr. Geyman and Professor Burgis, but we also
talk to, as a bonus, ocean conservationist David Helvarg, who you'll hear talking about putting
the blue in the Green New Deal. A transcript of this show will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio
Hour website soon after the episode is posted.

David Feldman: For Ralph’s weekly column, it's free to go to Nader.org; for more from Russell
Mokhiber go to corporatecrimereporter.com.

Steve Skrovan: And Ralph’s got two new books out, the fable, How the Rats Re-Formed the
Congress; to acquire a copy of that go to ratsreformcongress.org and TO THE RAMPARTS how
Bush and Obama paved the way for the Trump presidency, and why it isn't too late to reverse
course. We will link to that also.

David Feldman: The producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and
Matthew Marin; our executive producer is Alan Minsky.

Steve Skrovan: Our theme music, “Stand Up, Rise Up”, was written and performed by Kemp
Harris; our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon.

David Feldman: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour when we welcome back
Eric Steenstra of Vote Hemp and journalist Catherine Eban and her book Bottle of Lies, about the
generic drug boom. Thank you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you, David, Steve, Jimmy, and remember folks, if we want to get single-
payer, it's Congress. That's what John Geyman has been fighting for and has offered his new,
helpful book Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco... We the
people turning Congress around, unbeatable!

***

Q. There is a difference between "progressives" and "leftists". Why do you cling to "Progressive," and not go all the way to calling yourself a "Leftist"?

[Ralph Nader] Because the "left" gets pigeonholed just the way as the "right" does, and they are not always right, and they're not always "left." So, a "progressive" argues on the facts, wherever they may fall. So it's not a pigeon-holed ideology. There's a lot of baggage to the words "left" and "right." A lot of baggage. It's too categorical for an evidence-based mind.

Q. You were never tempted by Marxism when you were young?

[Ralph Nader] No, because there's too many premeditated decisions. That's why people say "neo-Marxist," or "I'm a modern Marxist." When somebody says, "I'm a Marxist," all I think is they are people who pay a great deal of weight to economic aspects shaping political and economic reality, and concentrated power. The point is, power can be corrupted regardless of whether it's public or private, and there's plenty of history to demonstrate this. So once you pigeon-hole yourself, you don't want to admit one or the other. When you say you're a "capitalist," Wall Street is always right. When you say you're a "socialist", you're often pigeon-holed into saying whatever government does is always right. And that's not true. Concentrated power, wherever it is, produces abuses, no matter what it's configuration. And that doesn't mean they are all on the same plane of abuse in any given time in history. They're not. Like right now, corporate capitalism is producing the most horrendous prices to the accumulation of profit in the history of capitalism: empire, domination, destruction of freedom of contract, perpetuation of poverty. Those are the prices of profit. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, are unregulated. Artificial intelligence is unregulated. The price of corporate profit is staggering, and that's not true of socialism any more, because they aren't in charge.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Postby admin » Fri Dec 20, 2019 12:19 am

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 300: The Trial of the Cuban Five
December 7, 2019

Ralph welcomes legendary trial lawyer, Martin Garbus, who discusses his book “North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five.” Plus Ralph answers your questions!

Martin Garbus is an attorney who is expert at every level of civil and criminal trial, and litigation. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court in leading First Amendment cases and is the author of Tough Talk: How I Fought for Writers, Comics, Bigots, and the American Way and the book that is the subject of this program: North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five.

“For one thing, it (this story) shows how our government can subvert the press and interfere with our jury system. It chronicles an unprecedented pollution of the American legal system in order to advance a political cause. For another – and this may be the real takeaway for us now – it reminds us that facts matter and truth matters and that when people who believe that get involved, there are no hopeless causes. In fact, sometimes the innocent guys, after paying an awful price, win.”
Martin Garbus, author of North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 300 TRANSCRIPT

Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with
the main of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Hello, everybody. Hello, Steve.

Steve Skrovan: David Feldman is actually traveling today so he won't be joining us, but we still
have a stellar show. Our guest today is attorney Martin Garbus. Now, Martin Garbus is one of
America's legendary trial lawyers. He specializes in First Amendment issues and fighting the
arbitrary, wrongful exercise of power, especially by governments. In the past, he's either
represented or been associated with historical figures such as Daniel Ellsberg, Cesar Chavez, and
Soviet dissident, Andre Sakharov. He's here today to tell us a story of a miscarriage of justice, who
for our regular listeners might contain echoes of the story told by Israeli dissident, Miko Peled,
who talked to us about the railroading of a group of Arab Americans known as the “Holy Land
Five”. Well, Mr. Garbus tells the story of another miscarriage of American justice that also
involves five victims. These five happen to be from Cuba. The book is entitled North of Havana:
The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five. One
reviewer called it “a revealing tale of politicized justice, inhuman prisons and backdoor
diplomacy.”

And as always, we will find time to squeeze in a corporate crime report from our fearless corporate
crime reporter, Russell Mohkiber, and then answer some listener questions. But first, let's hear the
untold story of dirty politics and secret diplomacy. Martin Garbus is an attorney who is expert at
every level of civil and criminal trial, and litigation. He has appeared before the United States
Supreme Court in leading First Amendment cases and is the author of Tough Talk: How I Fought
for Writers, Comics, Bigots, and the American Way and the book we're going to talk about today,
North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban
Five. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Martin Garbus.

Martin Garbus: Thank you very much.

Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed. You've been through a lot over your many decades as a lawyer
for often unpopular causes or powerless causes.

Martin Garbus: Yeah.

Ralph Nader:, I saw in your book, this really surprised me. I mean, it's not surprising that you
were roughed up in some of the cases where just going to court with crowd's screaming at you. As
you said, in the farmlands of Delano, California, while representing Cesar Chavez, the great leader
who organized farm workers, you've said you were “beaten, jailed, held, and threatened with
contempt.” Those are your words. So let's get to the Cuban Five. It's actually not that complicated
a struggle and I don't want our listeners think it’s too complicated for them to follow, but it was in
the context of years in the 1990s and before of efforts by people in this country to overthrow Fidel
Castro; to sabotage his regime. And then something happened in 1998. Do you want to start it
there? Or you can start anywhere you want. Just explain the parties here before we get into the
details.

Martin Garbus: Okay. Basically, Castro and Clinton agreed that they should not let the Cuban
right-wing create a provocation down in Miami that might lead to people getting hurt, planes or
soldiers, et cetera, et cetera. So, through Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Castro and Clinton exchanged
words where they indicated they would try and limit the activities of the Cuban right-wing as they
used Miami as a base to go to Cuba and kill people, blow up buildings, et cetera, et cetera. The
relationship worked for a while. Clinton said that he had the ability to stop the Cuban right-wing
from doing it, from taking off planes or going off in boats. As we all know, Miami is a separate
city-state and Clinton did not have the control that he thought. So, the anti-Cuban activities with
deaths and bombings continued. Ultimately, there was a group called Brothers to the Rescue who
flew planes over Cuba. They invaded Cuban airspace and they were not allowed to do that. Clinton
tried to stop it. Clinton revoked the licenses of the people who were flying. Nonetheless, they
continued to fly. Then what causes this case is three planes flew, Brothers to the Rescue, American
right-wing, Cuban right-wingers flew over Cuba. They indicated they would go to go to the Cuban
airspace. Both the Cuban and the American government told them not to do that. They did that.
Two MIGs shot down American planes. Four people were killed. There's then a murder case. I
was involved in that murder case. They alleged that some of the Cubans who were then working
with the FBI, to infiltrate the Cuban right-wing, were guilty of the crimes. And that was the trial.
Gerardo Hernandez was charged with conspiracy to murder. It's hard to imagine as you tell the
story, and I’ve told the story beyond the books, is the extent of cooperation that there was between
the Americans in Miami and the Cubans in an attempt to stop the Cuban right-wing. I think there
are, as you look at the case, it kind of moves it three levels. It moves at the level of the case itself.
Then it moves at the level of the politics of Florida. Ultimately, an indictment is bought against
these guys, my client, in May of 1999. That's the warm-up to Bush against Gore. Then you have
the Bush against Gore election. Florida, more or less, gives the election over to Bush. And what
the book also talks about is the years since then and the constant attempt by the Republicans to
whom Florida is essential if they're going to win a presidential election; to Trump, whom Florida
is essential if he's going to win an election. The attempt to cultivate the right-wing Cuban vote.

Ralph Nader: Let's back up. We're talking with Martin Garbus, author of the new book, North of
Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five.
Let's back up in just two ways, Martin. On October 6, 1976 as you relate on page 41 and I'm going
to read this. “On October 6th, 1976, a Cuban plane, Cubana Flight 455, took off from Barbados
and headed toward Havana carrying 73 people including 24 fencers from the Cuban youth team
that had just triumphed in the Central American Championships. Flight 455 blew up midair off the
coast of Barbados. Those arrested for the crime told the police it was Bosch and Luis Posada
Carilles, an exiled Cuban militant and former CIA operative, who had planned the destruction of
the aircraft.” Well, was that ever verified? Was there an official report on who sabotaged that plane
with the bomb in midair?

Martin Garbus: Yes, I think it's very clear that it was those two people, Bosch and Carilles. And
one of the things in the book is, although that was in ‘76 and the incident I'm talking about in the
book is 20 years later, Bosch is still a very, very powerful figure. And Bosch is one of the people
who is still operating 20 years later with all the...CIA knew who he was; the CIA worked with
him. And there was another man named Jorge Mas Canosa who was “the suit”, the money. And I
just came back from Miami a little while ago. There's Jorge Mas Canosa Boulevard there. So
Canosa, Bosch and Carilles were terrorists. And ultimately, Bosch was never convicted of this
crime; nor was Carilles. So that you had the same people functioning there for 20, 30 years and
you had the attempt of Clinton working with Castro to try and stop incidents like that October 6,
1976 bombing, which killed 73 people.

Ralph Nader: Well, what happened was Castro, after taking all these incidents--attempts to
sabotage his regime, et cetera--he finally created something he called a Wasp network and he sent
five spies, Cubans, to Florida to try to infiltrate the anti-Castro movement and report back to Cuban
intelligence, whether there was going to be another assault, another bomb, another attack or
whatever. And those are your clients. Those five men are your clients.

Martin Garbus: Yes.

Ralph Nader: Now, before you became their lawyer, they were convicted in a Federal District
Court and the appeal in the Circuit Court on bank, that is it failed. The three Circuit Court judges
wanted to reverse the conviction because they thought it was not a fair trial. And so the government
took it up to the full Circuit Court of Appeals who said, yeah, it's okay. And they went to prison
and a number of lawyers represented them. And in 2002, was it? You took over as the advocate
and so what proceeded from there?

Martin Garbus: Well, ultimately in December of 2014--I'm really going over a lot of years--you
have the rapprochement with Raul Castro and Barack Obama. And one of the things that the
Cubans insisted on was the release of the jailed men. My clients had had a horrific time in jail, 16
years, a third of it in solitary. You and I both know that the image in solitary as just a room without
light is only one-tenth of the story. What they can do to people in solitary can be horrific. And
these guys, Cuban alleged killers of American heroes, got the worst of the American prison system.
And that is discussed. That's the period from let's say 2002 to 2014. So Cuba had always insisted
that these guys were innocent, and they wanted them returned. When I got into the case and it
continued, the possibility of them ever being returned was zero. Except what happened was Alan
Gross, an American CIA, USAID [United States Agency for International Development] spy
was
arrested in Nevada and another American spy had been arrested previously. So as the
rapprochement talk was going on and the publicity was going on, there were also these negotiations
that I was involved in to get my clients released from the American jail to go back to Cuba. And
America wanted to get Alan Gross back. On December 2014, when there's the rapprochement you
saw Raul was on TV; Barack was on TV. But rather more quietly, my guys got off in Nevada
having been released from jail and Alan Gross was returned to Washington. So the book deals with
the trial that deals with the legal stuff, and then it deals at the end with Trump's attempts to make
sure that the Cuban vote would always be his. At the time of the Bush against Gore election, the
right-wing in Miami posted big signs saying we have remembered. And they gave the names of
the four people here as well as the young man, Elian Gonzales, which is a related but different
story. So it's very clear that it played a very large role in Bush against Gore. The other thing I
should say is three prosecutors refused to indict these guys. Ultimately, a Reagan appointee comes
in; he indicts these guys in 1999 right before Bush against Gore. And what the book then details
also is the attempts of Trump over the years--the book ends a period of time ago, but certainly a
lot has happened--Trump's attempt to strangle Cuba and the vote-getting that helps him win.

Ralph Nader: Yes, and he did that by restricting Americans from traveling to Cuba, by restricting
trade with Cuba that American farmers wanted very strongly to have exporting food products, et
cetera. But you said you wrote this book for more than one reason, not only to defend your clients,
but you said, I'm going to quote you. “The best reason for telling a story about an event that
occurred two decades ago, and was after struggle and hardships successfully resolved, is the
important lessons that it offers to us. For one thing, it shows how our government can subvert the
press and interfere with our jury system. It chronicles a unprecedented pollution of the American
legal system in order to advance a political cause. For another--and this may be the real takeaway
for us now--it reminds us that facts matter, and truth matters and that when people believe, that get
involved, there are no hopeless causes. In fact, sometimes the innocent guys, after paying an awful
price, win.” And in the book, you mention that our government actually paid reporters to fabricate
op-ed pieces in Florida newspapers. Can you elaborate that?

Martin Garbus: I think that's one of the biggest takeaways in the book. We hear the word fake
news. It was fake news long before Donald Trump came around and in this particular case, the
federal government--in order to get the jury influence that was going to try the Cuban Five--sent
vast, vast sums of money. One of the things you had down there was Radio Marti. That was $15
million a year. That was under the control of this man, Canosa. There's never been a full accounting
about how much of that money was devoted to CBS, NBC and other newscasters. We do know
that the Miami Herald, a very fine newspaper, in 2006, long after the trial, long after the conviction,
learned that the people who were writing about the case itself received large sums of money from
the American government. One journalist in one year received $280,000. So what you had is
extraordinary sums of money being paid to the media so that the jury would be extraordinarily
influenced by all of these false stories. There were stories about Castro giving hallucinogenic to
people [and] false stories about what some of these defendants said. So the massive amount of
money, and it got beyond the Miami Herald. It got to the local news stations. For example, one of
the things that the judge tried to do was to make sure the jury would be protected from the
community. So what the media did is they would follow the jurors out during the day. They
photographed them getting into their cars and had their license plates. So within a very short time,
the judge, decent judge; it was her first criminal case. She could in no way cope with either the
legal issues or the politics of the case. Within a few days, everybody in the community knew who
these jurors were. And the motions for change of venue failed. Although certain judges, as you
kind of summarize, felt that the convictions should be reversed because of it. But the massive
amount of money used to influence the jury; it is unprecedented in America that that kind of money
was used. And we all know that that kind of money is available tomorrow to anybody who wants
to use it to also. In a way, this is a precursor; I mean this stuff has happened before, but never on
this enormous scale because there was so much at stake.

Ralph Nader: Let's ask a question that our more skeptical listeners might be asking right now.
Apart from three federal judges overruled by their colleagues saying that they did not get a fair
trial, that the atmosphere for any kind of fair jury trial in South Florida against anybody who was
working for the Castro regime was, to put a mildly, prejudicial. Now suppose our listeners are
asking you, Martin Garbus, two questions. These Cuban Five we're acknowledged spies. They
were sent on an espionage mission from Castro's Cuba to infiltrate what they saw as ongoing year
after year violent anti-Castro actions using bombs and other weapons. So two questions: one how
did they get into this country legally? This is the Cuban Five led by Gerardo Hernandez. And
second, why did you think they were innocent? They were on an espionage mission.

Martin Garbus: Well, two things. It's hard to understand—and I've spoken to experts and all that
stuff—exactly the whole question of the exchange of information of the FBI and Cuban spys; for
a lot of people, it's hard to accept. But the fact is that both Clinton and Castro wanted it to happen.
There were meetings where the FBI went to Havana and during the Clinton period where
information was exchanged between the Cuban Five, the Cuban intelligence information and the
FBI with respect to these Cuban spies. That is very difficult for many people to accept, but it
happened. It happened because Castro’s Cuba both did not want to see planes blown out of the air,
as you said before, and they wanted to tamp down the Cuban militancy. Now, the next question
you've asked is you have these Cuban spies; how can you be sure that they were not involved in
the shoot down? Or should not have been charged with conspiracy to murder? There are two things.
One is a story that I knew when I wrote the book and the other is something, I did not know at all,
which I'll now share for the first time. The Cubans spies were low-level people. These guys did
not have the authority to authorize MIGs over Havana to shoot down American planes and nor did
they know of the right-wing planes that were flying that day. So factually, there was no way that
these people were in any way responsible--they were low level troops--to blow three planes out of
the air and kill them. MIGs shoot down planes; it's beyond something they could do.

Ralph Nader: People should know that these were not passenger planes like American Airlines.
They were Cessna small planes hired by anti-Castro operatives to invade Cuban airspace and try
to get the US involved in another imbroglio with Cuba the way President Kennedy got involved,
to his later regret, in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Martin Garbus: Exactly. And what they would do when the planes were there, the Cessnas--you
know, two people in a plane, three Cessnas--they would radio down to Cuba, look, we can pierce
Castro's air defenses; you can arrive and you can overthrow the government. If we can do this, you
can do that. They dropped leaflets all over the place. They tried to drop bombs; the bombs never
got beyond the water. And in fact, one of the times one of the planes ran out of gas. They landed
in Havana. Castro gave them gas and they came back. So that's what they were doing. And these
were people who, as you say, not American Airlines. No, they were right-wing Cubans who were
trying to cause a provocation. Now there were three planes, Basulto [José] is the leader of the
operation. He takes the three planes over Cuba. He sees the MIGs coming. He turns around. He
leaves the other two guys there. They’re far deeper into Cuba. The other two guys get the other
two planes where four people get shot down and get killed. Basulto, and you can hear it on the
radio, is delirious in a way with happiness. He has done it. He has caused the provocation. And the
other story I wanted to tell you, which was told to me by Rose Styron and it's a very moving story.

Ralph Nader: The novelist William Styron.

Martin Garbus: Yes, the wife of the novelist. That they had been invited to Cuba after the Bush
against Gore election and Castro—and in the room was Arthur Schlesinger, Arthur Miller and
other people. It was a literary event in Havana and it would seem that the event was set up so that
Castro could then meet with these people and stories about that that easily are quite wonderful.
But one of the things that Castro said, is he says Herodotus, the great Greek historian said that
every great leader makes one foolish mistake and Castro said, I made a mistake. He said, I made a
mistake in ordering the shoot down. And that's because he had Clinton there. And there was a
possibility that under Clinton that things would have got remarkably different with Castro and that
event as a result of the shoot down, A) that possibility was lost forever. And secondly, whether
you say the shoot down or other events, irrevocably drove Florida into the Republican line for
presidential elections. And they're still trying to dig out from it. But every election, the killing of
those men comes up and it's an extraordinary rallying cry to the Cuban right-wing. So it's
something that we live with even today. You mentioned some of the things that Trump has done.
I met about 10 days ago with the representatives of the Cuban government, high levels without
giving names, of the Cuban government. And what they were saying was the extent to which
Trump, throughout the world and his party, has affected the Cubans’ ability to do business with
anybody anywhere--that their ability to go through banks has been limited. So it's not just, you
know, the flights aren't there or you know, they also created a series of lawsuits now whereby
under American law allegedly, if your property was taken away in ‘59 by Castro, you can now file
a lawsuit in Miami and you can try and get back the assets that you lost in ’59. This is an attempt
in a way to get the younger Cubans--who are not as militant against Castro, in fact, are more
conciliatory with Castro--to have a vested interest in winning these lawsuits so they get some
money for it. It's a brilliant thing on behalf of Trump to try to erode the younger Cuban support to
Castro.

Ralph Nader: When I had a long interview with Fidel Castro in Cuba in 2002, it was just a few
weeks after John Bolton in the state department, without the authorization of Secretary of State,
Colin Powell, who despises Bolton, emitted a bald lie. He said Castro's regime was developing
biological and chemical warfare. Well, you know, that like totally freaked out Castro because he
saw it coming. Oh, here we go again; a pretext for an attack on Cuba. So he was not paranoid at
all about decade after decade, the US government directly and indirectly, trying to overthrow him.
But on the back of your book, there's a statement by long-time Harvard law professor, Charles
Nesson, talking about your book and he says, “This haunting story of Cuba-US relationships takes
us into the deepest parts of today's American security system and exposes our pseudo-legal judicial
process. Today, more than ever, every American must hear what Martin Garbus says.” Well, this
is not an outlier case. All over the United States there is lawlessness among runaway prosecutors.
There is lawlessness among giant corporations engaging in a corporate crime, fraud and abuse.
And as I noted in an essay for Lapham’s Quarterly, lawlessness has become the norm by the rich
and powerful and the politically entrenched. What's your view, broader view on this, Martin? So
people don't think this is an exceptional situation.

Martin Garbus: At the end of my book, I say, talking about this case, that this is part of my life—
I hate to quote myself, “working in the lawless dark world of the law.” I think that what you were
aware of at the very beginning of your career, which we are all now much more aware of, is the
lawlessness of the legal system. One of the things that I fought for a great deal and lost; I tried in
the 80s and 90s, to get, let's say the left involved in the fight over judgeships. And by and large,
that was a total failure. Federalists won. The conservatives won. Liberals still held onto the view
of the legal system as one that administers a great deal of justice. The right wing was far, far
smarter, and they spent a good deal of time and money in making sure of the people who would
ultimately be sitting in judgments on these cases. The judge who ultimately was the definitive
judge in this case was a man named Pryor. And before he was appointed to the Circuit, he said
“the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law was Roe against Wade. I will never
forget January 22nd, 1973, the day seven members of our highest court ripped the constitution and
ripped the life out of millions of unborn children.” Second worst decision he said was Miranda.
This was the judge, ultimately appointed by Bush, who was the definitive judge in this particular
case. I mean, I think you and I would both agree that one of the great problems in the future is the
extent to which the federal judiciary today and tomorrow will be wholly owned by the Republican
Party.

Ralph Nader: In that note, just a contemporary issue here, Bruce Fein and I just sent a letter to
the American Bar Association. And we said, “where are you on the most impeachable president in
American history, Donald Trump?” In 2005, 2006, the American Bar Association, with a half a
million lawyers being members, was run by a corporate lawyer, Michael Greco. And look at the
courageous thing he did. He assembled three task forces to study three impeachable offenses by
George W. Bush. And he sent the reports to Bush and Cheney in the White House. Now we have
an even more impeachable president, except nothing can compare with the criminal war of
aggression against Iraq and Libya under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. You know,
undeclared wars, unappropriated, unauthorized funding for the Libyan overthrow and an
undeclared war that has killed over a million Iraqis, millions of refugees, and thousands of
American soldiers by Bush and Cheney starting in March 2003. But apart from that, the ABA has
been silent. The lawyers of America, with few exceptions, have been silent on contempt of
Congress by Trump--sexual predator Trump, serial fabricator and liar--about matters of state and
matters of grave importance by Trump. Appropriating funds without congressional authority by
Trump; illegal warring overseas by Trump. And taking from Alexander Hamilton's explanation of
high crimes and misdemeanors, being abuse to the public trust--huge abuse of the public trust.

Martin Garbus: Ralph, you failed to mention Mr. Barr.

Ralph Nader: And the same thing with his attorney general, who instead of being an attorney
general of the United States, he behaves like the lawless lawyer for Donald J. Trump. So I have
never seen a crisis of lawlessness so deep and so pervasive, from the corporate to the prosecutorial
criminal injustice system in our jails, prisons to the raw, consistent, institutionalized violation by
a runaway president under both parties; not to mention the abdication of constitutional duty by the
US Congress, who has in effect, made this American-style monarchical office in the White House
possible. Can we get your views on that?

Martin Garbus: Yeah. You said it far more eloquently than I could. I think that there may come
a time when America may get disabused of the idea that the legal system can protect against any
of these things. I think that horrendous activities, you know, and you and I both don't know yet,
the full extent of Trump's foreign policy and exactly what it's going to lead to in the various places
in the world. I mean, we got a little sense that we already knew at this latest meeting in London
when we hear all the remarks that he makes about this totally transactional president. I mean, I
agree totally with what you said, and I could not say it any better than you said it.

Ralph Nader: And I just realize I left out self-enrichment--violation of the Emoluments Clause.
No other president has done such egregious violations in so many of these areas. I mean, most
presidents put their assets in a blind trust and never talk about it and don't even know what's going
on. He owns these hotels. He has refused to sever his relationship of ownership even to give
ownership to his family because he's so greedy. And he promotes his properties in Florida to
foreign leaders for meetings and his golf course in Scotland and his Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania
Avenue here. So we have a problem with the impeachment proceedings in Congress not going
forward with a full, strong hand, if the Democrats just keep it to the Ukraine issue and a general
obstruction of justice. They have told the American people they're interested in impeachment, not
in removal in the Senate, because those two are not gonna move the Republicans in the Senate.

Martin Garbus: I totally agree with you. It seems to me that the cases that are now pending, both
in the Circuit Courts and on their way to the Supreme Court, which deal was money, money,
money. Whether it be Deutsche Bank or his accountants, it seems to me that that certainly should
be pursued. Because I think you and I both—well, certainly I see, that the impeachment proceeding
today as it's going ahead, is a loser in the Senate. And I think you and I both are--as
incomprehensible as Trump is--it's easy to see him as an aberration. But then you look at the rest
of the Republican Party--Senators[John Neeley] Kennedy in Louisiana, Lindsay Graham [of South
Carolina], [Kentucky Senator Mitch] McConnell. It's not just Trump as we both understand. It's
the entire corruption of the American political system!

Ralph Nader: And the press is playing along and they’re getting ratings because of Trump's out
rages and he knows it. He taunts them. He says you can't not cover me day after day because I'm
good for your business. The book is North of Havana by Martin Garbus who has represented so
many clients so courageously, testing the rule of law, testing due process of law in the United
States. And this book is [subtitled] The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the
Trial of the Cuban Five. The Cuban Five are now back in Cuba, living normal lives as the result
of an arrangement between Barack Obama and the Castro regime in 2014. Has Hollywood shown
any interest in this case of great intrigue?

Martin Garbus: There's a film called The Wasp Network, which was made by Oliver Assayas,
and I find it to be a wonderful film that opened in Cannes, and as a matter of fact, this coming
weekend, December 14, is the fifth anniversary of the Cuban Five being released. And this film is
being shown in Havana this Saturday night. It's a wonderful, wonderful movie. I think it's going
on Netflix. It doesn't have an American distributor. It's a very sympathetic portrayal. What it does
is shows the Cuban side landing here, doing what they're doing and then being arrested. It doesn't
deal with the trial. It deals with what these men sacrificed. It's got Penelope Cruz, other people in
it. It's a wonderful movie, I think. And I guess it will be shown in the United States next year.

Ralph Nader: Well. Steve, do you have any questions as we close?

Steve Skrovan: No, actually. My question that I was ready to ask was about where they are now,
and you've just answered that, so...

Martin Garbus: Cuban Five is all in Havana. Gerardo is the vice-rector of the school that he went
to school at. They all are significant. If you look in the book or elsewhere, to go to prison and not
get infractions is impossible. You can go to prison for 10 minutes and if you look the wrong way,
these guys, all of them, were imprisoned and never got an infraction. In other words, they were so
self-controlled, so disciplined that that story itself is a remarkable story of what these guys went
through in prison and how they kept their lives together.

Ralph Nader: One backup, I have to clarify. Didn't Alan Gross deny that he was a CIA operative
in Cuba?

Martin Garbus: Well, two things. First of all, he denied it. And then he tried to, through various
groups, put pressure on the American government to get him out. The American government failed
to do it. He then sued the American government and he claimed in that lawsuit that he had been
USAID, CIA; you left me here; you didn't tell me about all the dangers. You didn't tell me. So he
had a lawsuit against the United States government, which he got a substantial settlement for. So
yes, he had the original denial. He then said, “I was that person; you sent me down here and you
didn't protect me.” Something like that has never happened before.

Ralph Nader: You're saying in his legal complaint against the US government, he admitted [that]
he not only worked for USAID [US Agency for International Development], but he had worked
for the CIA?

Martin Garbus: Yes.

Ralph Nader: All right. Well, thank you very much, Martin. This is very good.

Martin Garbus: Thank you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: When the book came out, did you get an interview on NPR or PBS or any media?

Martin Garbus: No.

Ralph Nader: I always ask that question of our authors, so our listeners realize that they're not
getting the full story even on public broadcast media.

Martin Garbus: No, I think the interest in Cuba has been close to zero the last four months. It
doesn't exist.

Ralph Nader: Yeah. Well, there's another question of the international law violation of sanctions
whose brunt comes in on innocent civilians in the targeted country.

Martin Garbus: You know, Cuba, after Russia pulled out, was in desperate economic situation.
Right now, what America is doing is effectively strangling the Cuban people. They don't have fuel
for the winter coming up. They have cut off any banking resources. Other countries and
corporations, for example, something like Marriott, if they would continue to do the hotel business
there, they will face action by the United States. So the United States has created this extraordinary
web aimed at strangling the people of Cuba. It's a terrible story.

Ralph Nader: It's also a violation of international law.

Martin Garbus: Absolutely.

Ralph Nader: International law says you can apply sanctions, say to a military dictatorship. And
if it affects the civilians, it's got to do so with minimal effect as a side effect. But this is huge effect
on civilians in Cuba.

Martin Garbus: Yes. This is going at individual people who do business with Cuba, making it
impossible, because the American government will impose penalties on the Marriots or anybody
else who tries to keep Cuba alive. There has rarely been a strangulation like this, certainly never
by America. It’ wasn’t like this, even under Kennedy, et cetera, et cetera.

Ralph Nader: Including export of food, medicine, medical equipment, and other necessities of
life.

Martin Garbus: Yes.

Ralph Nader: Well, thank you very much, Martin.

Martin Garbus: Thank you, Ralph.

Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Martin Garbus. We will link to his work at
ralphnaderradiohour.com. When we come back, Ralph is going to answer some listener questions.
But first, let's find out what's going on in the shadowy world of corporate criminality with our
corporate crime reporter, Russell Mohkiber.

Russell Mohkiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate
Crime Reporter Morning Minute for Friday, December 6, 2019. I'm Russell Mohkiber. New Jersey
has demanded that Uber pay $649 million for years of unpaid employment taxes for its drivers,
arguing that the ride-hailing company has misclassified the workers as independent contractors
and not as employees. The state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development issued the
request this week to Uber and a subsidiary, Raiser, after an audit uncovered $530 million in back
taxes that had not been paid for unemployment and disability insurance from 2014 to 2018.
Because of the nonpayment, the state is seeking another $110 million in interest. That's according
to a report in the New York Times. The case represents the first time that a local government has
sought back taxes from Uber, which has hundreds of thousands of drivers in the United States. For
the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mohkiber.

Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. Let's do some listener questions. This first one comes from
Larry Kenemore, and he says he's referring to our show about the drinking water with Seth Siegel.
He says, “Great program you had on drinking water. However, you only touched on the problem.
We have researched drinking water for the last 10 years and tested drinking water ourselves in
numerous municipalities. There are more problems with pharmaceuticals, which are not regulated
at all,” he says, “in the drinking water than the subject you talked about. You are drinking a cocktail
pharmaceuticals with every glass of drinking water.” And there's some reference here to Stat-
Medicament Disposal Corporation. So what do you say to that?

Ralph Nader: Well, it's probably one of the private testing companies that people can go to supply
them with local drinking water. Well, that's a nightmare scenario. Hospitals are trying to do
something about a problem that they have been ignoring for years; it's flushing medicines down
the toilet or down the sink. And of course, a lot of people get rid of their pills that they're not using
and other medications down the sink. And if it goes into a river or a lake, that is the source of
drinking water for a municipality, the municipalities technology, by and large, is geared to dealing
with bacteria and dealing with heavy metals like cadmium, arsenic, and lead. And not really able
to deal with medication residues. So this is a problem that a lot of drinking water safety
administrators don't like to talk about just because it's so scary and so alarming. And it's something
we have to face up to. Now I think the questioner overgeneralized. Obviously, if you have drinking
water from deep wells, you're not likely to get pharmaceutical residue in these water systems, but
it is a really serious problem.

Steve Skrovan: Yeah, I have a bottle of blood pressure pills; I think Valsartan ones or Losartan
ones, which were taken off the market for being tainted and it's still sitting in my medicine cabinet
because I don't know where to take it and I don't want to just throw it in the garbage or flush it
down. What would you advise people who have pills themselves that are no longer useful or they're
no longer using? How did they get rid of those?

Ralph Nader: Well, there are municipalities who have periodic collections. Like on Saturday, you
can bring your medicines to X location and presumably, they know how to dispose of these
medicines in a safe manner. I don't have a website to give people, but I'm sure you can google the
right words and find out whether they have such a disposal program periodically for people to take
their haul of unused medicines to.

Steve Skrovan: Well, very good. Thank you for that, Larry. Our next question comes from Neil
Harris and the subject is progressives appearing on right-wing media. It says, “Dear Mr. Nader, I
would like to hear your thoughts on progressives and leftists appearing on right-wing media. Do
you think leftists lend legitimacy to the right by appearing on these shows, especially shows like
Tucker Carlson, which go beyond normal conservatism and into white nationalism? Carlson uses
very dangerous rhetoric against immigrants and the homeless.” For example, he says, “Glenn
Greenwald, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Tracy, and others appear on Carlson’s show fairly frequently.
Carlson does actually let his guest speak without interruption for the most part.” And he'd also like
to know your thoughts on progressives having articles posted on sites like Unz Review, which
carries literal neo-Nazis. “What are the ethics and morals of this?” he asks. He says, “I know this
is pretty complicated for a brief answer on your show, but I've always looked to Mr. Nader for
moral clarity.” And he's also, I'll just add this, he says, “Lastly, I'd just like to thank Mr. Nader for
his long-inspiring career of activism. I picked up his book, Crashing the Party after the 2000
election and it really changed the way I looked at the world!”

Ralph Nader: Well, first of all, Neil, I believe that the answer to bad speech is more free speech.
So I'm not a person who advocates censorship under the First Amendment. Second, I always like
to go on right-wing shows because I want to persuade some right-wing viewers or listeners of
proper policies. So obviously, if a leftist goes on Tucker Carlson’s show and doesn't know how to
argue very strongly on the person's behalf, that just strengthens Tucker Carlson's viewpoint. But if
you feel that you could make a strong argument for your case, why not go on all these shows? It
throws the host on the defensive if you have any kind of authenticity and conviction in what you're
saying, and that's a good thing. So I never say to myself, I'm not going to go on this show or that
show, with one exception. I will not go on shows where people overtalk, cut you off after 10
seconds and do not allow you to have your say, whether they're liberal shows or they're right-wing
shows.

Steve Skrovan: Who in the past has fit that category for you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: The overtalk?

Steve Skrovan: Yeah.

Ralph Nader: Well, it happens sometimes when you go on, for example, Neil Cavuto’s show on
Fox cable. It's such a short show. To begin with, they tell you, you got four minutes on the show,
the whole show, the whole segment. And he cuts in because it's not a 30-minute or 20-minute
program. I give them some leeway there and I often say, “Neil, let me finish, will you? I'm the
person being interviewed, not you.”

Steve Skrovan: Right. All right. Well, very good. Thank you for that. Our next question comes
from Tim Wolff. It says, “Dear, Mr. Nader, the main thing that triggered the Trump impeachment
is that he delayed aide to Ukraine until they provided negative feedback on Biden and his son. Is
that really more impeachable than Bush and Cheney war crimes or the impeachable offenses of
Obama, assassination of American citizens, drone strikes, invasion of Libya, et cetera. Or is it just
that Trump is indirectly attacking American citizens? Well, Bush and Obama were directly killing
non-American citizens. There is no reason why our American political preferences should be more
sacred than the lives of innocent civilians outside of our political sphere.”

Ralph Nader: You make a good point. I mean, the most impeachable offense is a criminal war of
aggression. Bush, Cheney: exhibit one. However, remember, Obama unleashed all kinds of
violence, nothing like Bush and Cheney--the drones here and there, killing civilians. And Trump
is doing the same thing. So what Trump is doing in terms of illegal, unconstitutional warfare, day
after day in 10 countries--Somalia and Syria and Afghanistan and Yemen and so forth--are in my
judgment, more impeachable offenses and what he did on the Ukraine situation.

Steve Skrovan: And you believe, as we've talked about before--and we did a whole special
impeachment podcast on this, that the listeners should take a look at--that all of these impeachable
offenses should be brought forward, but the conventional wisdom is saying that you've got to keep
it simple for people. And it looks like there may be no more than three at most articles of
impeachment--all dealing with the Ukraine situation--the bribery, the obstruction, and possibly
contempt of Congress. But isn't there some efficacy to that argument that you want to keep it
simple?

Ralph Nader: No, it's not a matter of simple or complex. It's a matter of unconstitutional behavior
and the duty of the House and Senate to abide by the Constitution in its impeachment provisions.
The most important thing is when you go after a president, you don't just go after impeaching him
and allow him to be acquitted and not removed in the Senate. If you're going to impeach him, you
should also declare that you want him removed and if you want him removed, you have to go with
the fullest, strongest hand of impeachable offenses. For people to find out what I mean by that, go
to nader.org; you will see 12 impeachable counts under one article of impeachment laid out, plus
a letter with Bruce Fein that I sent explaining it to House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

Steve Skrovan: All right, very good. Our next question comes from Karen Riley. She wants to
talk about the Boeing 787 discussion we had with whistleblower, John Barnett. She says, “Dear
Ralph, I listened in horror to your conversation with John Barnett. What a courageous guy, and
then this morning I saw the headline about the Philippine Air Boeing 777 in LA that had fire
coming out of its engine.” So, she wanted to reach out in the event you hadn't heard about it. Not
sure if it's related to what John was talking about, but she's gravely concerned and she's flown so
much in her life, especially overseas. She no longer thinks she's willing to fly and she wants to
thank you for your podcast and all that you do.

Ralph Nader: Well, thank you very much, Karen Riley. John Barnett is now a private citizen. He's
back in Louisiana. He's looking for a job. He's having a hard time because he was a courageous
whistleblower at the Boeing 777 plant in North Charleston, South Carolina, where after 30 some
years of much-heralded quality control work for Boeing, he saw things that endangered
passengers--things left in parts of the plane that might come back to produce an accident. So the
case that you pointed out has not been investigated to completion. I'm sure it will be. But that's the
kind of possibility that John Barnett pointed out could happen with the sloppy procedures and
situations at the Boeing plant in South Carolina.

Steve Skrovan: Yeah. And he said there's usually an 8 to 10-year window until something actually
flares up and causes a disaster and we're very close to that window; that was the scary part of that.
This next question, a comment, comes from Majid Safaie about Facebook. It says, “Dear Mr.
Nader, I listen to your radio program every Sunday, which is informative.” And he talks about the
one he listened to where we were discussing Facebook and whether there is a competition for it.
And he says, “the answer is yes” and he wants you to check out faciet.com, which is designed to
compete with Facebook, and he said it was recently launched and he needs to spread the word
around to get more members. He says, “the big difference with Facebook is that faciet.com protects
members’ privacy and will not share their private information with anyone without first obtaining
written consent of the member. So he's pitching this as an alternative to Facebook.

Ralph Nader: Well, I'm not qualified to comment on that. As our listeners know, I still use an
Underwood typewriter. I'm not online. But the intent behind what you're trying to do I think is
widely supported by people who think Facebook has gotten too much power and it's basically a
defacto monopoly and is telling people you have to take what we give you, because you got
nowhere to go. Well, it turns out that Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales has launched a rival to
Facebook and Twitter that he hopes will combat clickbait and misleading headlines. “WT: Social”
his new social networking site, allows users to share links to articles and discuss them in a
Facebook-style newsfeed. Topics range from politics and technology to heavy metal and
beekeeping. This company's completely separate from Wikipedia. So that's a partial attempt by
Mr. Wales to provide some competition to Facebook. Eventually, the US government is going to
have to face up to Facebook's monopoly, its effect on elections, its so-called contoured newsfeed
and its invasion of privacy right down to 10-year olds anywhere in the world. So thanks for opening
it up, Majid.

Steve Skrovan: Thank you for your questions. Keep them coming on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour
website. I want to thank our guest, again, Martin Garbus. A transcript of the show will appear on
the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted. Subscribe to us on our Ralph
Nader Radio Hour YouTube Channel. And for Ralph’s weekly column, it's free, go to nader.org.
For more from Russell Mohkiber, go to corporatecrimereporter.com and Ralph has got two new
books out, the fable. How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress; to acquire a copy of that, go to
ratsreformcongress.org. And To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the
Trump Presidency and Why It Isn’t Too Late to Reverse Course; We will link to that also. The
producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and Matthew Marran. Our
executive producer is Alan Minsky. Our theme music, “Stand Up, Rise Up”, was written and
performed by Kemp Harris. Our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon. So join us next week on the
Ralph Nader Radio Hour when we speak with Mark Green. Thank you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody and stay active. 2020 is a big year in American history.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Postby admin » Fri Dec 20, 2019 12:30 am

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 298: Catfish Solution
November 23, 2019

Ralph talks to maverick former FCC Commissioner, Nicholas Johnson, about his two new books, the memoir, “Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking” and “Columns of Democracy” and his views on social media and how to repair our democracy.

Nicholas Johnson is best known for his controversial term as a dissenting FCC commissioner in the Johnson/Nixon era. His most recent work is twofold: a memoir entitled Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking and Columns of Democracy an examination of the institutions needed to support democracy.

“In the last twenty years or so, [civics] has really kind of faded from the curriculum. Students need training in media literacy. They need training in what a democracy requires of them as a citizen. Until we start that with the young, it’s going to be hard to accomplish anything.”
Nicholas Johnson, Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 298 TRANSCRIPT

Steve Skrovan: It's the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. [Music] Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio
Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my co-host David Feldman. Hello, David.

David Feldman: I'm going to watch what we say today because we have an FCC Commissioner
on.

Steve Skrovan: That's right. You don't want to get busted.

David Feldman: No.

Steve Skrovan: And we also have the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Hello, everybody. This one is going to be really unique. Wait and see, listeners.

Steve Skrovan: That is right, Ralph. On the show today, we welcome back media expert and law
professor, Nicholas Johnson. In the late 60s, early 70s, Mr. Johnson was a commissioner at the
Federal Communications Commission. He also later served as an advisor to President Jimmy
Carter for the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services and for decades,
he taught law at the University of Iowa and has been recognized in The Yale Biographical
Dictionary of American Law as one of the 700 most influential lawyers, from get this, from the
colonial era to the present day.

David Feldman: When you say colonial era, you mean going back as far back as the 1970s?

Steve Skrovan: I'm talking about going back as far as the 1770s--only 700.

David Feldman: OK Boomer. [lots of laughter]

Steve Skrovan: His landmark book, How To Talk Back To Your Television Set was prescient in
its critique of media consolidation and the manufacturing of news. So we're going to talk to him
about his latest work, one, a memoir entitled Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking. I
have no idea what that means. Maybe we'll get some insight into that; and another book entitled
Columns of Democracy, which is both a book of columns but also refers to the pillars, the
institutions that hold up our democracy such as independent media, K-12 and higher education,
independent judges, accessible voting systems and public libraries. They are all under attack all
over the world, including America in the Age of Trump. That will be the bulk of the show. As
always, in between, we will take a minute to check in with our corporate crime reporter Russell
Mohkiber who will give us the latest on the corporate crime that never sleeps. But first, speaking
of columns, let's talk to a legendary pillar of the legal profession. David?

David Feldman: Nicholas Johnson is best known for his controversial term as a dissenting FCC
commissioner in the Johnson/Nixon era. His most recent work is twofold, a memoir entitled
Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking and Columns of Democracy, an examination of
the institutions needed to support democracy. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour,
Nicholas Johnson.

Nicholas Johnson: Thank you so much.

Ralph Nader: Thank you very much, Nick. I'll tell you, people don't have any idea what a
marathon runner is in quest for justice, but you're one. President Lyndon Johnson appointed you,
Nicholas Johnson, no relation, to head the Federal Maritime Administration at age 29. When was
that?

Nicholas Johnson: 1964. I was one of his first appointees, I believe, after he became president; I
mean, aside from the folks he asked to stay over from the Kennedy administration.

Ralph Nader: Right. And he expressed great confidence in you when people said, what? 29-
year-old lawyer heading this Maritime Administration, ships all over the country and world.
What's going on here? But, you spent couple of years or so there and then you got appointed to
the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio, television, so-called, and does
a lot of other things in terms of telecommunication. You became known as “the great dissenter”,
which meant that you represented the American people against opinions by some—not all—
commissioners who represented the big broadcast industry and the cable industry.
So you write this book, Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking. And I want you to talk
to us about the media then back in the late 60s and early 70s, and the media now. Before you do
that, and I hope you relate it to what I always harp on, is that the people own the public airways.
Repeat: the people own the public airways, but they don't control any of it. 24/7 it’s controlled by
radio and TV stations having a license from the FCC for which they pay nothing. You pay more
for your auto license than the biggest broadcast television station in New York pays for its
license to decide who says what and who doesn't, 24 hours a day. So I hope you'll key it into that.
But just first, how'd you get this name? Catfish Solution?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, as it explains on the back of the book, that is a mystery, which will
remain one, except for those who make their way through the entire book, who will somewhere
in there discover where that title came from. And so I've never revealed it publicly, but it's not
necessary in order to read the book.

Ralph Nader: You tantalizingly say, “How could a catfish strategy benefit you and your
country?”

Nicholas Johnson: Right.

Ralph Nader: Well, you know, we're asking you this question about the media then and the
media now at a time when the FCC, 3-2 vote has approved the merger between Sprint and T-
Mobile, leaving our country with just three giant telecommunication firms--Verizon, AT&T and
this merger, unless it's overturned in court. So take it away, Nick Johnson, the media then and the
media now.

Nicholas Johnson: Well, they say that there's a difference between the differences of degree and
differences of kind and I think that differences of degree in the media from sort of 1920 to 1980
were things like going from AM to FM radio and black and white television to color television.
Those were differences of degree, but what we've experienced since then is a difference in kind
because what we did have were three dominant networks and I spent a lot of my time on the
commission writing 400 dissenting opinions about how horrible things were back then, but it's a
time that we look back on now as the golden age of responsible FCC regulation. What we have
now is a real problem trying to figure out what to do about social media and the old concerns
about anti-trust are not really what the problem is about. Facebook has 2 billion users, all of
whom are capable of uploading their own material and the other social media as well. The
Twitter accounts and all like that. It's just totally out of control. We don't know what to do about
it. We like to admire the notion under the First Amendment that the remedy for speech you don't
like is more speech. And that worked fine when we had three dominant networks, but now that
we've got all these channels on cable and satellite and more than that, all this social media that is
addicting, particularly young people in the junior highs and high schools. Suicide rates are up
among young girls. This is a very serious problem of addiction and the business plan, which
involves making something available to you, but then collecting as much as 20,000 data points of
information about you, which combined with others is a very profitable product to be used and to
be sold. And we didn't have that business plan before and that has made all the difference.

Ralph Nader: Well, you know, things are just getting worse at a rapid pace in the sense that the
technology of communication is just exploding, and we don't have a legal ethical framework to
even discuss it, much less regulate it. And now we're seeing in the media the release of a new
technology by Zuckerberg and Facebook, which is called the Oculus Quest. And it comes in the
form of a goggle, 3-400 dollars, who knows how much in different versions, and a teenager or an
adult can wear and well, they can climb Mount Everest; they can smash adversaries. In other
words, they live in a make-believe world at their own initiative and it can become hugely
addictive. If parents now think the video games are addictive, wait until they see the Oculus
Quest. Now, has that been evaluated by anybody other than Facebook? Has there been discussion
on NPR or PBS? No, other than a gee whiz, look what's coming, folks. So Nick Johnson, what
do we do about a legal and ethical framework or let's start with an ethical and legal framework
because out of the ethics often come the laws. What would you do for this burgeoning
technology and you know, having personal information floated without your permission all over
the world and hacking? I hear they now can use a laser to hack into Alexa. You can't even trust
Alexa anymore, as if I ever would. Give us some guidance here.

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I think we've got a real problem. I wished I could provide some
guidance, but I don't think we have an intellectual structure right now to address this and there's
talk about using the anti-trust laws, but in my opinion, it's the algorithms. It's the playing upon
the amygdala in the brain instead of the cerebral cortex that is the problem. And if you broke up
the Facebook into ten different companies and you kept the business plan of gathering and
selling people's data and trying to addict them and try to increase what the industry calls TOD
(Time On Device), you would just have, every one of ten companies would have 200 million
people instead of the current Facebook's 2 billion. But that doesn't affect the business plan and
the invasions of privacy and the manipulation and the ability of politicians to use this to create
what was once a nation is now as tribal as Afghanistan ever was.

Ralph Nader: Let me ask you this, isn't there some little challenge to Facebook saying to people
who want to drop out of Facebook no more Facebook account? Sort of like a cooperative one. As
part of a larger question is, why is Facebook not facing any competition? It's not enough to say,
well, it's so hard to get off Facebook transaction cost. Isn't there some equivalent like crowd-
sourcing group that's starting up?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I would say anybody who can put together a customer base of 2 billion
people living on planet earth would be in a position to compete with them, but shy of that, I think
you've got a real problem.

Ralph Nader: There is no competitor on the horizon. Why not?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, because of their absolute total size and grip on 2 billion people.

Ralph Nader: All right, let's put it this way; let's say 100 million people were willing to start a
new competitor to Facebook, that is they’re willing to open up accounts; they'll leave Facebook
and open up accounts. How would this competitor look like in terms of behaving itself and doing
the right thing?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, for starters, it's gonna have to have its own business plan. Is it going to
charge for this service? People like things that they think are “free”, when in fact you are paying
in the form of giving away your personal data to be sold and to be used to manipulate you. So I
don't see how, you know, they've got to figure out a way to do it. There are people who've talked
about trying to strip the evil out of the business plans of Facebook and create a competing thing,
but there's gotta be some way for them to fund the operation. People don't want to pay for what
they're used to getting for free, they think. And so that's a real tough one.

Ralph Nader: Well here, actually, they're also paying for the advertising, indirectly, which is
passed on to them in terms of consumer prices. But let's look at it in another way. Facebook is
becoming like a private government. I mean, 40% of people get their news from Facebook.
Facebook now decides whether there are going to be political ads. They can be totally lying, total
defamatory against innocent people. And Facebook's supposed to decide and it's deciding by
saying, we're not going to decide. We're not going to be the arbitrators even though Twitter is
decided to ban all political advertising. At what point does Facebook become such an “essential
utility” that the government has to step in, in some way?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I think you could argue that's already the case.

Ralph Nader: In what way?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, in the sense that when we decided that television receiving sets were so
essential to life that someone in bankruptcy did not have to get rid of their television. I mean
that's now what we're doing with the social media and the internet. And think about this in terms
of an addiction. If somebody has a glass of wine once or twice during the week with dinner, they
can manage that, but if somebody wakes up in the morning, the first thing they do is reach for the
bottle of vodka, they got a problem. And that's the problem we have now with the amount of
time people spend looking at screens. I thought it was rather impressive back in the day of television
that the average American, when they died, would have spent 13 years of their life, 13 years in
24-hour days watching television. You put it on their tombstone. She watched TV. That's what
they did, but that was as nothing compared to what you see now. Students on a college campus,
kids in high school walking down the hallways, walking down the streets, looking down. Thank
goodness, there aren't any open manholes; they'd fall right in. They're not looking where they're
going. You look in a restaurant where people used to be sitting around a table talking to each
other, young people, old people; they're now sitting there and they're all looking down in their
laps at their smartphones. Nobody's talking to anybody.

Ralph Nader: What's the end game here?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I think we have to begin, frankly, with education. You'll recall that
when our first public schools were created, the idea was that we needed civic education, a variant
of what you have called throughout your professional life, “the public citizen”, and that the
schools were devoted to providing civic virtues and civic skills and civic understanding--
preparing people to function in a democracy in ways that would sustain that democracy. And we
did that more or less, sometimes better than others, but in the last 20 years or so, that has really
kind of faded from the curriculum. And I think that students need training in media literacy.
They need training in what a democracy requires of them as a citizen. And I think until we start
that with the young, it's going to be hard to accomplish anything.

Ralph Nader: Is there a possibility that the next generation of youngsters is going to get sick of
this? They're going to get sick of what some have told me is a trap--looking hours in a day, text
messaging endlessly at the screen. Is there a chance that it becomes a novelty that wears off or is
it so ingrained in the psyche of human beings all over the world, no matter what culture or
language, that it’s here for good?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I think some variation is. When you think about it, they started with
MySpace and email and then they went to Facebook and then they went to Instagram and now
they're doing Snapchat and I think they move from one app to another, but this really needs to be
studied, Ralph, as a matter of neurology and the functioning of the human brain. They are pulling
together, Facebook and the and the social media; they're pulling together what we know about
newspaper and television advertising, what we know about propaganda in authoritarian regimes,
what we know about gambling casinos. How do you keep a time on device and the gambling
casino? Every once in a while you drop a few coins in the tray, or you used to back in the days
before electronic machines, and that stimulated the dopamine and the serotonin and people were
excited and they were rewarded. And that's what text messaging provides or a post on Facebook.
People put something up on Facebook and then an hour or two later they come back and see how
many people gave it a like or a share or put in a comment. And every time they have, well then
that's a little boost to their self-esteem and, and they're feeling good about themselves.

Ralph Nader: Well, you know, I've called the modern corporation the most sensually
demanding institution in the history of the world. And you just pointed out one pervasive
example why I've said this, but does this mean that we can't look abroad? That in Ireland, in
Nepal, in Russia, in France, in Japan, in Brazil, no one has any solutions to this, that no matter
what language, what culture, no matter what they wear, they all have this dopamine situation?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, yeah, that's human biology.

Ralph Nader: But do they have any institutional changes? Anybody going after the way
Facebook is operating in these foreign countries. Like Europe, Western Europe especially, has
passed a privacy law, which is tougher than anything we have, and Facebook doesn't like that. Is
there anything on the horizon, Nick?

Nicholas Johnson: Not that I'm aware of, but I would not necessarily be. I mean, I'm no longer
an FCC Commissioner and as you know, I've been writing about a spectrum of subjects and
policies and whatever. So I'm not tracking all that the way I once was.

Ralph Nader: We're going to get that, the book that we're going to get to is Columns of
Democracy by Nicholas Johnson. It's a beautiful book. Catfish Solution, which we've been
talking about. Before we leave Catfish Solution, tell us what your view is of the current Federal
Communications Commission with the five commissioners, three Republicans, two Democrats.

Nicholas Johnson: Well, you know, I thought it was pretty bad when I was there. And as I said
earlier, we now look back on that as the golden age of responsible regulation. Starting in 1980, it
was not just broadcasting, it was across the economic spectrum, the drive to deregulation and
reregulation, less concern about conglomerate corporations and what would otherwise have been
considered anti-trust violations. The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, so that stations with licenses
who were licensed to serve the public interest can now put out one-sided propaganda all day
long, something that would have caused them to lose their license back in the 1920s and even in
the 1960s when I was on the commission. So no, I don't have a lot of respect. I think it's more
and more corporate driven than it was even when I was there and this whole business about well,
let's leave it to the marketplace; things will work their way out and the best speech for the speech
or hate is more speech.

Ralph Nader: What amazes me is that even after people learn that they own the public airways,
they're the landlords, the radio and TV stations are the tenants. They control 24 hours a day the
area on the spectrum that they're license pertains to--the radio and TV stations. They decide who
says what and who doesn't on our property. And because of Congress and the FCC, they don't
pay anything to the landlords, us. So you know, I've said this, you've said this; millions of people
have heard this message and they don't seem to have an ownership interest. Is this something that
can be cured by first grade, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade?

Nicholas Johnson: I think that's a good place to begin. But you know, the story I've always
hoped was apocryphal of the poll done in a community asking, what do you think is the worst
problem in our community, Ignorance or apathy? And the plurality response to the question was,
I don't know, and I don't care.

Ralph Nader: That's a realistic commentary, I'm afraid to say but if you were, let's say, president
of the United States, how would you change it? What would you do immediately to give people a
sense of proprietorship that they can have their own networks, their own programs; they don't
have to beg for corporate sponsors. They can take a piece of the day--two-hour, three-hour,
whatever. What would you do? Set aside political opposition by the corporations and their
toadies. What would you do if you had the power?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I think what I would do was what I assumed Barack Obama would do
when I had my first conversation with him back in 2007, I guess it was, and in Iowa, you get to
meet all these presidential candidates and I've been meeting them now since the time of Harry
Truman. And the question I was put to them is, let's assume that everybody in this living room
thinks that you are what we call right on the issues and let's assume that you are elected
president. Now tell me how is it going to come about that coal miners are going to be safer in the
mines than they are now, and I won't take up time telling you the responses of all of them, but
most of them are totally flummoxed by that. They'd never thought about it. But what Barack
Obama told me, he said, well, Nick, I'm a...been a community organizer, and we went on talking
about the Midwest Academy and all that. And I assumed that what he recognized was that the
only thing that has ever really brought about change is an organized millions in a march or a mob
demanding change. So that as president, what I would do is I would try to build something
similar to what Bernie did back in 2016, which is an organization of millions of Americans who
you email and text and so forth, and you get ‘em organized around individual issues and they go
to work on elected officials. I would also, as president, do some Roosevelt Fireside Chats on TV
and talk about this stuff with folks.

Ralph Nader: You know, I had the same experience with these presidential candidates over the
years. The question I say is, what's your program to shift power from the few to the many? And I
give examples. They don't have a clue, Nick. It's all, if you elect me, I will do this, I will do that.
And they know very well that they can't do anything. If they look back and there's no organized
citizenry and they look forward and you've got a swarm of giant corporations coming in at them
through Congress and the media and elsewhere.

Nicholas Johnson: Absolutely.

Ralph Nader: They don't have a clue. Have you met in the current presidential campaign, Nick
Johnson, in Iowa, any of the candidates that are coursing through your state for the Iowa
caucuses coming up in less than a hundred days? They're going all over, small towns, Storm
Lake, Iowa City where you are. What do they say? What do you say to them?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I put that same kind of question. But yeah, you really do see the
candidates....here in Johnson County, there are 99 counties in Iowa and Johnson County is
referred to by people in Western Iowa as the People's Republic of Johnson County. And the
candidates love to come to Johnson County because they're among friends, you see. But no, most
of what I hear, I'm just trying to think who beside me—Bernie is still talking about the need for a
revolution, which is kind of what you and I are talking about, but I have not heard either from
them in private conversation or in their speeches. They will attack Wall Street and corporate
interests and lobbyists and what, but I have not heard from them what they are going to do
besides making speeches about how awful it is.

Ralph Nader: Well, do you think the people in Iowa that go to these clam bakes and fairs and
living room sessions with people like Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris or Corey Booker or
Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, do you think they're sufficiently informed to really make an impact
on these candidates?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I think what they are able to communicate to the candidates, and as
I’ve said, Franklin Roosevelt handed the Democratic Party a coalition that if it had been serviced
and maintained and addressed and met with and talked to from time to time, we would today, the
Democrats would be electing every member of school boards all across America, mayors, state
legislatures, House and Senate in Washington and the president who occupies the White House.
But they've really turned their backs, thinking that all they need to do is get the money out on the
East Coast and the votes out of the West Coast, and they can ignore that 80%, and it is literally
80% of the counties in the United States; if you look at a county map and you paint the ones red
that Trump carried, 80% of them, the majority went for Trump. Now that's the state of the nation.
And that's no national party. That's not a national party. If you only can carry 20% of the
counties in the country and most of them are in urban areas and you never been on a farm or
ranch, you know, you never worked in a John Deere Foundry, it's very hard. And so what they
do get, what the candidates do get, I think, is they hear directly from, because Iowa has a
wonderfully diverse population of minorities and various religions and I think more private
colleges per square mile than any other state and young professionals and business people and
major industry and three state universities that are well ranked and so forth. So we've got a lot of
different kinds of people here, but it includes some homeless and working poor and working
class and tradespeople and farmers and whatever. And they're pretty darn articulate about what
their lives are like and what they need and so forth. So they are getting that input as a result of
this retail campaigning here.

Ralph Nader: Well, you know, you just mentioned public universities in Iowa. We're going to
shift now listeners to his other book, Columns of Democracy. You can get these books online,
Barnes & Noble and other places, but we're gonna tell you that you can get them from an
independent bookstore, right in Iowa City and Nick Johnson will autograph them for you. These
are extremely concise essays. They are in big print, dark print; you don't have to squint. They're
written in a very folksy and popular, understandable manner and you've been hearing Nick in the
last few minutes and if you go to prairielights.com, that's the Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa
City. Go to prairielights.com and you can get these two books. They're reasonably priced and
Nick will autograph them for you and if you want to personalize them to some student that needs
to read this kind of material, just indicate who you want to be personalized right next to Nick's
autograph. And Nick, this is an amazing column that you wrote, and it needs a lot of repetition.
It's on page 45 of your book, Columns of Democracy and it's titled “The Public Universities Not
Using Radio Well”. You've done a lot of work; you’re still doing a lot of work at the local level.
That's where it all starts, in Iowa City. Tell our listeners what you mean by that, “Public
Universities Not Using Radio Well.”

Nicholas Johnson: Well, as somebody pointed out, it took higher education 30 years to get the
overhead projector out of the bowling alley and into the classroom. They're not the swiftest in
this, but when Frieda Hennock at the FCC, back in the day, required that frequencies in the FM
band, down around the left end of the band, were to be set aside for educational, nonprofit,
noncommercial use. Many of the stations that had been experimenting with radio and the
University of Iowa was one of the first in the country to have its own radio station and then in the
30s, to have a classroom material delivered by television cameras. So these schools, these
colleges and universities then applied for these educational stations. But we have the same
problem, that then they didn't use them. I mean, here they have a problem. Legislatures all
around the country, and certainly in Iowa, are cutting back on their support of higher education,
one of the columns of a democracy. When I taught at the University of California Berkeley, with
your sister Laura, there was no tuition charged at the handful of universities of California, the
California state universities, the community colleges, was all tuition free, and I think a lot of the
credit for the fact that California is the fifth or the seventh largest economy in the world, goes to
that fact and now the legislatures are cutting back on that kind of support. The universities need
to be able to reach the legislatures. Now can you imagine being handed the multimillion dollar
asset of 29 radio stations covering the State of Iowa and you want to make a favorable
impression on the people of Iowa and for them in turn to make up demands on the legislature to
provide you more funding and more opportunity for students to get a college education and for
those students to contribute their skills to businesses in Iowa. The problem in Iowa’s is not in the
lack of jobs. The economic problem in Iowa is finding people with sufficient skills to take and
hold those jobs.

Ralph Nader: And you're saying they don't use these radio stations, Iowa’s universities?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, no, they created something called Iowa Public Radio and they turned
the whole thing over to Iowa Public Radio and I'm not putting down Iowa Public Radio. They're
full of commercials, which I find a little unsettling from time to time because they're not being
funded by the universities like they were supposed to be.

Ralph Nader: We were talking with Nicholas Johnson, author of the book Columns of
Democracy. Do universities like University of Iowa just gave these licenses, radio station
licenses to public radio free? No conditions?

Nicholas Johnson: I am not familiar with whatever documents may have passed at that time, but
the appearance is that no, there are no conditions; there are no requirements. But imagine what it
would mean if the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, University of Northern Iowa--if
they would band together their faculty resources and put some folks from one or two or three
towns out in Western Iowa and talk via radio on subjects of interest to every small town in this
state. Like how can we keep the young people in our communities? How can we build more
tourism? How can we do a better job of purifying the water? You know, there are all kinds of
shared problems and there are all kinds of, you know, you've had so many wonderful lines over
the course of your lifetime, but one I've always enjoyed is “We have more problems than we
deserve and more solutions than we've ever tried”.

Ralph Nader: Sure.

Nicholas Johnson: And a lot of those solutions are to be found in the academic community,
which I must say is not all that enthusiastic about getting involved in things that might someday
touch on something controversial.

Ralph Nader: Can they get these radio stations back or they gave it away permanently?

Nicholas Johnson: I don't know the answer to that. I would assume they could get them back.
They are still the licensees as I understand it.

Ralph Nader: I see. You know, a lot of our listeners, they've been hearing these programs over
the years on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour and they're on national issues, international issues,
which you've commented on, but you've also provided people with real nitty-gritty advice right
down to the school board. So one of the essays that you wrote in this book Columns of
Democracy just a few years ago, 2014, is called “Public Comments about Public Comments
Guidelines” and you start with the Iowa City Community School [District] Board. You want to
elaborate that for our listeners?

Nicholas Johnson: [laughter] Well, one of my goals and yours over the years has been to get
more public involvement in matters of importance to the public. And one of those is the school
system, which if people are only interested in economics, takes a big chunk of the property taxes
that they're paying. But what's much more important is you want to have people working in the
stores who can do basic math when the computer goes down. I was on the school board for a
term and said when I ran, I was only going to serve one term and I only did serve one term, but I
tried to bring some management practices to it that I think helped. But this particular thing was
that sometimes the school boards make the public comments be the last thing on the agenda. And
so somebody has to come and sit for two or three hours before they get to talk. Oftentimes,
school board members don't respond from the bench to what the person says. They just talk and
that's the end of it and they go to the next person. Then the problem arises that sometimes you do
get people who come and appear who use foul language and are attacking the school board in
ways that it’s not going to produce constructive conversation or the development of solutions. So
how can you handle that? Can you limit the amount of time anybody has and so forth? And so
that's what I meant by public comments about public comments--what are the comments? What's
the discussion we might have about how we're gonna handle that public comments portion of the
school board meetings?

Ralph Nader: Yeah, and it's a very useful one. And some other column you had called “Create a
Caring Community”. And you said there are 2.2 billion people try to subsist in the world on less
than $2 a day. How do you create a caring community?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I think you start with, and it's not a coincidence that both community
and communication begin with the same beginning. You need to build interaction between
people. You need to encourage people to stop looking down at their phones and look up. I tried
to do my Fitbit stepping in a park right across the street from my house and I make it a point that
every single person I pass, I give them a greeting--a good morning and a big smile, tip of my hat
if I got one on, or a wave. And not everybody responds positively, but I'd say that 98 or 99 out of
100 do. When I encounter somebody who's here from another country and we have, I know
there's one elementary school that has 34 different languages being spoken there. We have a lot
of people from around the world here. Incidentally, I should mention with regard to that Prairie
Lights bookstore, Iowa City was the third city in the world to be recognized by the United
Nations as a city of literature and that was partly because of the Iowa Writers’ Project, the
international writers project and so forth.

Ralph Nader: Right. That was very widely known, the Iowa Writers' Project.

Nicholas Johnson: And it’s work I did in other countries. We were doing the things that would
be equally applicable here, if anybody cared and wanted to do them and you need to build a civil
society; you need to have trade unions and organizations and neighborhood meetings and you
know, bring people together for everything from serious discussions to festivals and concerts in
the summertime and whatever.

Ralph Nader: Well, you know, we don't have all the time to go through this book. You have a
column “Six-step Program for Avoiding War” that you wrote. You have the question, is war the
best answer? I can’t imagine how you answered that. Spending on military always comes at a
cost back home. Why don’t you give us the nugget of that column, Nick Johnson?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, I think one of the examples I used in that column was a single shelling
exercise that the president engaged in and I figured up the price of all the missiles and weaponry
used during a very short period of time basically, and then I transposed that into how many new
teachers could we hire and put in Iowa schools with just that one brief military exercise. I mean,
the numbers are just beyond our comprehension. It's very hard for Americans to understand
millions and when you get into billions and trillions and the Defense Department is spending at
those multitrillion dollar levels and it's so complex, they can't even be audited. Nobody knows
what they're spending on and so forth.

Ralph Nader: That's a violation of federal law going back to 1992. They've never submitted a
comprehensive audit to the Government Accountability Office of Congress and is the only
department that doesn’t. They spend over $2 billion a day. You want to break that down listeners
per hour, staggering. It's what Eisenhower said and his Cross of Iron speech in 1953 as president
says is this the way we want to live, and he did what you did, Nick. He said, every tank, every
battleship; look, how many schools it can build. Look how many parks it can establish. Look
how many this, look how many clinics, community health clinics, no president has done that
since. I was really taken by one of your columns, Nick, it’s called “Syria's refugees job one and
job two” and we're deep in Syria, the US. Last year, Trump only took in 63 Syrian refugees.
What did you say in that column?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, that's just pitiful. I referred to what we did in Iowa. We had a
Republican president at the time, but that didn't mean that he wasn't civil and humanitarian
oriented, and we invited the Vietnamese boat people into Iowa. These immigrants are our
strengths. They're not our enemies. There's an authoritarian playbook. Most democracies are
destroyed from within, not from without. And if you want to destroy a democracy and become its
authoritarian leader, there are certain steps you go through and that's what we are now going
through in the United States. And I think there's something like 20% of the American people
who say they would prefer to have an authoritarian dictator rather than a democracy.

Ralph Nader: Yes.

Nicholas Johnson: So you know, we're not in the best of shape right now and it's a tossup
whether we're going to make it out of this and even if we do, whether we can ever come close to
recreating what we did in our post World War II days in the United States when the top tax rate
was 70 or even 90% at one time, I think, and the wealthy were doing just fine with that.

Ralph Nader: Now they don't want to pay 38% tax. They're making more money than ever
before. I really liked your column “Six-step Program for Avoiding War”. You can find these
columns, listeners, by getting in these books, Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking and
Columns of Democracy by Nicholas Johnson. You get them online. You'll see what I mean.
They’re really engrossing. They relate to you. Nick Johnson is all about people showing up at
meetings, eyeball to eyeball, you know the old grange tradition and that's what gets things done;
not just looking at screens. You can announce a meeting on the screen. You can get the
information, but it doesn't work in virtual reality the way it works in dozens of people getting
together in a town or at a town meeting or a rally or what have you.

You can go to prairielights.com to get that book autographed. If you don't care about the
autograph, you can get it online. I guarantee you you'll find these short essays, these short
observations and also, the great dissenting opinions on behalf of you, the television viewer and
the radio listener, when he was on the Federal Communications Commission known as the FCC.
Before we leave, Nick, I want to bring Steve and David. Any comment?

David Feldman: Yes. I have a couple of questions, but the first one, I want to ask you an FCC
question. As an FCC Commissioner, if you were to discover, hypothetically, I've heard this, and
I've read this, but let's just say hypothetically, that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity pay their
callers $50, they're actors, to phone in with opinions and the calls are set-up questions. As an
FCC Commissioner, what is your obligation when you learn about this?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, there’s not a prayer that anybody's gonna look into that now, but
forgetting about paying the caller's 50 bucks to call in, Rush Limbaugh would be off the air in
the New York minute back in the 1920s and 30s, the way that material is going out now with one
conservative commentator right after another throughout the day on many radio stations across
this country.

David Feldman: I don't mean to interrupt you but just, I'm sorry, but when you were an FCC
Commissioner and you discovered that there was a radio show where a man was espousing
political beliefs and then having callers talk to him and he didn't disclose that these were actors
being paid...

Nicholas Johnson: Yes, that would be a problem and I would want to have that investigated and
documented and do something about it at license renewal time.

David Feldman: Are there laws against that?

Nicholas Johnson: There were then regulations. I mean, that's fraud, basically.

David Feldman: Okay. And one other question is, if you were to discover, say hypothetically,
that Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity was integrating talking points from say, oh, I don't know
the Koch Brothers and being paid as kind of like an infomercial without telling the audience that
his opinions are bought and paid for. Because I have heard people say there are rumors that
people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are paid to deliver talking points, seamlessly
integrate them into their monologues. Are there regulations against that?

Nicholas Johnson: Well, again, there were back in my day; I think now there would be very
little concern about that.

David Feldman: Is an audience entitled to know when they're being advertised to...

Nicholas Johnson: Yeah, sure.

David Feldman: ...either for a soap product or a political opinion?

Nicholas Johnson: Yeah, commercials have to identify who paid for the commercial and we had
cases...

David Feldman: Even if it's a political commercial.

Nicholas Johnson: Yeah. And ABC/ITT merger dissent that contributed toward that merger
ultimately being called off by the parties, I dealt with some examples of the kind of thing you're
talking about.

David Feldman: So Americans who listen to talk radio are literally being brainwashed. If this is
true, if what I'm suggesting is true, there's a concerted effort to brainwash anybody who's
listening to AM talk radio to have a specific belief.

Ralph Nader: David, what Nick is saying also, there's no Fairness Doctrine if Limbaugh's on
touting one side of a controversial issue. In the old days, the station had to offer a challenging or
contrary view. They revoked the Fairness Doctrine in the Reagan years by the FCC, revoked it
and that's what unleashed all these people you don't seem to like, like Rush Limbaugh and Sean
Hannity, because they can engage in a soliloquy and because government doesn't advertise, they
can beat up on public policy in Washington, but the corporations who give them millions of
dollars each a year, they advertise and so they respond to the advertising and I think sometimes
they cross the line. I saw a situation like that where [a] General Motors ad was involved, and I
complained to the FCC a few years ago and they just brushed it off. They didn't do anything. I
think Nick is right. Today's FCC will not respond to any concerns like you’ve just articulated. It's
bought and sold. The head of the current FCC, he's looking for a big-paying job the way a lot of
his predecessors [have]. They go to law firms, they get appointed to the FCC, spend a few years
there and then they go to higher pay as corporate lawyers or in the broadcast industry itself.
Steve?

Steve Skrovan: I have a question, Mr. Johnson. David and I are both in the Writers Guild of
America and one of the Writers Guild’s big issues is net neutrality. What are your views on net
neutrality and whether it should be or not, or how we can change it or not?
Nicholas Johnson: Well, I will give you an analogy. I think we need net neutrality. Let me
answer your question at the top rather than make you wait. But if you think about the old AT&T,
which had its problems and I participated in creating the mess we have now, but ATT had no
interest in what you said over the phone. Now, you could be prosecuted for engaging in
fraudulent sales or running some stock operation or giving away national secrets or whatnot, but
not by AT&T. And once you got the phone you could say anything you wanted to say on the
phone and everybody's call went through at the same speed and everybody could call everybody
else and now around the world. So what the internet is today or should be in that respect, the
equivalent of what AT&T was back in the first part of the 20th century [chuckle] with regard to
that particular item. I have other problems with AT&T then. So I don't think that the people who
are providing the conduit ought to be permitted to be in the business of slowing up some people's
content and speeding up others, censoring entirely others. In fact, I was troubled with the cable
television at its origins for that reason, that somebody who owns a cable distribution system
should not also have a financial interest in the programming which is being carried. But needless
to say, that didn't go anywhere.

Ralph Nader: Now, Nick the FCC has abolished net neutrality, but have they implemented it
yet?

Nicholas Johnson: I don't know the answer to that, but I think so.

Ralph Nader: If you pay more, they speed you up and if you can't pay more, they slow you
down. Is that already begun?

Nicholas Johnson: Ralph, like I say, I'm not your best source on what the current status of it is.

Ralph Nader: Okay. Well, we're out of time. Nicholas Johnson, former FCC Commissioner,
“the great dissenter”, local activist in Iowa, tremendous writer of all kinds of columns, served on
school boards, interviews presidential candidates before the Iowa caucus and basically a
renaissance man. If you want his two books they’re just out, Catfish Solution and/or the Columns
of Democracy, you can get them online or you can get them autographed by Nick Johnson by
contacting prairielights.com. That's the Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City, prairielights.com.
Thank you very much, Nick.

Nicholas Johnson: Thank you, Ralph. I have a friend who when somebody had gone on like that
would say, I'm going to give you just 30 minutes to go on talking that way until you've got to
stop.

Ralph Nader: [laughter] We don't have sound bites on this radio program, that's for sure.

Nicholas Johnson: Give my best to good old Russ Mohkiber still going after the corporations.

Ralph Nader: We'll do that.

Nicholas Johnson: Thank you so much, all three of you. This has been really great.

David Feldman: We've been speaking with Nicholas Johnson. We will link to his two new
books at ralphnaderradiohour.com. We're going to take a short break now to check in with our
corporate crime reporter, Russell Mohkiber. You are listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour
back after this.

Russell Mohkiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your
Corporate Crime Reporter Morning Minute for Friday, November 22, 2019. I'm Russell
Mohkiber. Earlier this year, Justice Department prosecutors were on the verge of charging
biotech giant Monsanto with a felony for illegally spraying a banned, highly toxic pesticide and
nerve agent in Hawaii not far from beachside resorts on Maui. But then, according to an internal
April 2019 government document, that decision was overruled. That's according to a report from
the Project on Government Oversight. Monsanto had its Washington lawyers intervene at the
highest levels of the Department of Justice to stop the felony case. A key attorney handling the
matter for Monsanto was Latham and Watkins partner, Alice Fisher. The felony case against
Monsanto was halted after the company's lawyers launched a last-minute appeal to the office of
then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell
Mohkiber.

Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. I'm Steve
Skrovan and along with David Feldman and Ralph and you're back just in time for us to close the
show because that's our show. I want to thank our guest again, Nicholas Johnson. A transcript of
this show will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted.

David Feldman: Subscribe to us on our Ralph Nader Radio Hour YouTube Channel and for
Ralph's weekly column, it's free, go to nader.org. For more from Russell Mohkiber, go to
corporatecrimereporter.com.

Steve Skrovan: And Ralph has got two new books out, the fable, How the Rats Re-Formed the
Congress. To acquire a copy of that, go to ratsreformcongress.org., and To the Ramparts: How
Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency and Why It Isn't Too Late to Reverse
Course. We will link to that also.

David Feldman: The producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and
Matthew Marran. Our executive producer is Alan Minsky.

Steve Skrovan: Our theme music “Stand Up, Rise Up” was written and performed by Kemp
Harris. Our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon.

David Feldman: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you, everybody. And in a few weeks, we've got a new book coming out,
Mark Green and me, called Fake President, a book on Donald Trump like no other book on
Donald Trump. By that I mean, it's usable for you, the voters. [Music]
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