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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RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 297: Boeing 787 Dreamliner: “Hundreds of Defective Parts”
November 16, 2019
TRANSCRIPT
Ralph hears from courageous former Boeing Quality Control Manager, John M. Barnett, who blew the whistle on shoddy production of the 787 Dreamliner, how the FAA has backed off on oversight, and how Boeing “bean counters” have put profits over safety.
John M. Barnett was a Quality Control Manager for Boeing Company for 25 years in its Seattle facility. He transferred in 2011 to manage Boeing’s new plant in South Carolina to build the 787 Dreamliner where he revealed shoddy production as reported on the front-page of the April 20, 2019, New York Times. He retired under pressure in 2017 and assumed the challenge to inform the flying public. His whistleblower complaint to OSHA is pending.
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 297 TRANSCRIPT
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: Excited about today's show, of course.
Steve Skrovan: And we also have the man of the hour Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello everybody.
Steve Skrovan: And I'm excited about today's show, too. Last week we had Dr. George Luber
on the show. He was being honored with the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage for
blowing the whistle at the Centers for Disease Control when he was ordered to tamp down his
efforts to deal with the climate crisis. Well on the show today, we're going to feature another
courageous Joe A. Callaway Award winner. His name is John M. Barnett. Regular listeners to
this show know the many different ways we have covered the Boeing MAX 8 story. We've
talked about how mergers and management decisions have turned a once great engineering
company into more of a financial company, intent on jacking up its stock price not through
innovation, but through buying back its own stock. We've talked about how the Federal Aviation
Commission dropped the ball and allowed Boeing to essentially regulate itself. And we've talked
about how the marketeers at Boeing have continually overruled the engineers.
Mr. Barnett was a quality control expert at Boeing working not on the MAX 8, but on the 787
Dreamliner at their big production facility in South Carolina. There he blew the whistle on
shoddy engineering and a corporate culture where profits trumped safety. He's got an eye-
opening story to tell and we look forward to hearing that. As always, we will take a moment after
that to find out what's happening in the other dark recesses of the corporate underworld with our
corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber and Ralph will also answer some listener questions.
But first, let's meet yet another courageous whistleblower, David.
David Feldman: John M. Barnett was a quality control manager at Boeing for 25 years in its
Seattle facility. He transferred in 2011 to manage Boeing's new plant in South Carolina to build
the 787 Dreamliner where he revealed shoddy production as reported on the front page of the
April 20th 2019 New York Times. He retired under pressure in 2017 and assumed the challenge to
inform the flying public. His whistleblower complaint to OSHA is now pending. Welcome to the
Ralph Nader Radio Hour, John Barnett.
John M. Barnett: Thank you, pleasure to be here.
Ralph Nader: Indeed welcome, John Barnett. Describe the plane that you have been very
concerned about, the Dreamliner and how many of them are up in the air; when was the first one
launched?
John M. Barnett: Okay, it's a 787 and the biggest concern came when they opened the
Charleston plant. That's when the issues and shoddy production work really started. And I
believe our first delivery out of there was 2012.
Ralph Nader: And why did they open a plant in North Charleston, South Carolina where there
was a dearth of skilled workers instead of expanding their facility in Seattle where, I understand
the Dreamliner is also produced, in your judgment, at a much higher standard than at South
Carolina. What brought them to South Carolina?
John M. Barnett: Well, I can tell you, Ralph, what the information they shared with us from
Boeing was as they were trying to expand the production facilities and bring other areas into the
mix, but from an internal standpoint, it was more about the union activity that was up in
Washington State and there was the battles with them and the strikes that they were causing, so
they really wanting to get to a non-unionized Right-to-Work State.
Ralph Nader: Did the Governor of South Carolina help them do that? Nikki Haley is now on
the board of the Boeing corporation for a few meetings earning as other board members are, over
$300,000 a year. What was, besides being a nonunion state, did they give them all kinds of
subsidies?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir. The information we were provided inside of Boeing as employees
were that there were hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks and that type of
thing that Boeing was offered to go to South Carolina. And part of that deal was that we hired
most of the employees locally, so we were not allowed to go to areas that had high experience in
aerospace and airplane building; we had to hire the local people fresh out of college.
Ralph Nader: And I remember Boeing was saying that they were going to have training
facilities so to upgrade untrained workers to the very demanding tasks of assembling an aircraft.
This was really not a manufacturing facility as it was an assembling one; isn't that right bringing
various parts from around the country in the world?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, that's correct. The 787 is fabricated from various parts of the world
and they all come together in the final assembly is performed in Charleston and Everett, yes, sir.
Ralph Nader: You were a quality control inspector who received high commendations when
you worked at the Seattle plant.
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir.
Ralph Nader: You volunteered to go to South Carolina. You've once said that the quality
control inspectors at Boeing are the last check, the last safety check before the plane takes off
with passengers.
John M. Barnett: That's correct. The quality control or quality personnel are the last line of
defense. That's correct.
Ralph Nader: Given the importance of this skill, why is it that Boeing is laying off literally
hundreds of quality control people in both their Seattle plant and South Carolina? What's their
reason for that?
John M. Barnett: Well, so they've been preaching for years that quality is non-value added,
doesn't bring any value to the product, so they’ve been trying real hard to eliminate quality. And
in the process of eliminating quality, what they're doing internally is they're telling inspectors not
to document defects, they're telling quality folks to do a visual buy off and not document things
and just way outside the realms of how they should be building airplanes.
Ralph Nader: John, when you use the word quality, I think it's almost a term of art; you don't
mean metallurgical quality or something; you're talking about quality control inspectors, aren’t
you?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, that's correct. Yeah, so within Boeing, you have what you call the
quality department and you have manufacturing. And within the quality department, that's where
your inspectors are, your quality managers, your quality assurance investigators, anything having
to do with quality of the product, is under the quality organization.
Ralph Nader: So why they want to eliminate that critical role? Because they know if a plane
goes down because of Boeing's neglect or negligence, it can be all hell for Boeing to pay. Look
what happened after the two MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia and on other crashes in the
past. I mean, how can they dare take a risk like that? Who's going to replace several hundred
Boeing quality control inspectors in Seattle and in South Carolina?
John M. Barnett: So what their plan is--what they call MFPP--it's a multifunction process or
production process. And basically what it allows it to do is the mechanic to buy off his buddies'
work; so mechanics are buying off each other's work saying that it's good to go.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with John Barnett, former quality control inspector for the Boeing
corporation on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. John, aren't they also arguing that automation is
better, more reliable than human quality control inspectors? I heard that reported in the press.
John M. Barnett: Yes, that is correct. However, there's very limited on what can actually be
implemented within the aircraft program. We've had several what I'd call false starts with the
technology where they're promising that it's bigger, better and badder than any inspector when
they go to implement it and it isn’t. So there's a lot of trial and error and there's a lot of
discussion before they've actually implemented things and proven them out.
Ralph Nader: Well your experience, which we'll get to in a moment, the shoddy situation going
on in the North Charleston plant in South Carolina, was so detailed that you were the main
source for the New York Times Sunday page 1 expose of what was going on down there with the
Dreamliner and the sloppiness, carelessness in the Charleston, North Carolina plant. So would
you run us through how it all started? I mean you were one of numerous quality control
inspectors and some of them have followed your courage after you took the first step. But what is
it about the other quality control inspectors, when they see the same things you see, but they
don't protest; they don't write it up?
John M. Barnett: Well and that goes back to the inexperience of the workforce, the people
that's been hired in Charleston are brand new to Boeing, so they're basically doing what they're
told. They're not experienced and knowledgeable enough to know when to push back when it's
not right. They're just doing what's told and following direction. And the management there is
just laying pressure on them big time to get the planes out the door regardless of the condition
just to get them delivered and make the cash register ring.
Ralph Nader: What fascinated me when I read the New York Times article is the sloppiness on
a plane that sells for how much? How much is one Dreamliner sell for?
John M. Barnett: Well they're advertised, they’re listed for 150 million; and they actually sell
for about 150 million.
Ralph Nader: 150 million?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir.
Ralph Nader: And they're leaving all kinds of junk on the plane after they’ve finished
assembling it. Why don’t you describe how you started seeing things you couldn't believe
compared to the higher standards you left in the Seattle Dreamliner plant?
John M. Barnett: Oh, absolutely, yes.
Ralph Nader: Why don’t you give us that narrative?
John M. Barnett: Okay, so just a real quick background, it's been 25 years in Everett,
Washington building/working on 747, 777, 787 when it first started up there. And the culture in
Everett and actually Washington State, you know, you got to think back, there are several
generations of employees that have been building airplanes, so you have the generational
knowledge transfer of how to build airplanes. And the culture up there and the general
population understands the criticality of following processes and procedures and making sure the
airplane is built correctly whereas you do not have that in Charleston. They don’t understand the
ramifications of what a defect can cause, because they don't have that experience. And what we
found in Charleston or what I've noticed in Charleston is there's a lot more pressure on
mechanics to just buy off their jobs and get them sold. I mean they're measured almost by the
hour and are measured by how many, like we call them "beans" you know, a job when they go to
complete the job and get them inspected by an inspector and bought off. We call it a bean. So
they're all about "bean counts" you know, how many jobs they can get done in a day not
necessarily if it's done correctly. And the pressure from management is just get the airplanes out.
And another part of the Charleston culture that I've noticed is that the leadership here seems to be
more interested in self promotions instead of making sure the product is built correctly, if that
makes sense. So it's more focused on themselves, on how a decision might affect their career,
versus how it's going to affect the airplane, you know what I'm saying?
Ralph Nader: Right, but what did you start to discover?
John M. Barnett: So I think they're really making some poor decisions. And when I first
moved down to Charleston, I was the first quality manager hired to set up Charleston plant and
we had developed training plans from the quality perspective of how to look up procedures, how
to follow drawings, you know--how to do your job. And we were pretty much shut down. None
of the mechanics went through our training. Very few of our inspectors had to go through it.
Manufacturing had set up a training program for their mechanics and it was mandatory for our
inspectors to go through their training, so I sent my inspectors to it and they came back and said
the only thing they're teaching them is how to roller stamp paperwork. They're not teaching them
how to build an airplane. They're not teaching them how to follow processes, just how to roll out
jobs. So that's kind of where it started was right when Charleston first opened up. And just over
the years, it just got worse and worse as far as bypassing procedures, not documenting defects,
not maintaining configuration control of the airplane. And towards the end of my time at Boeing,
the issues that I discovered was we had hundreds of defective parts and what a defective part is is
something that does not meet engineering or quality requirements and should not be used on an
airplane. So we had hundreds upon hundreds of missing nonconforming parts that they didn't
know where they went. So I wanted to make sure that we tracked these parts down, traced them
down [to] figure out where they went; if they'd been installed on airplanes, we needed to get
them corrected. My management shut me down. They basically what we call "pencil-whip" so
when you have a job that you have to perform at Boeing, it's a work order and it's got steps and
each step has the specific instruction of what you need to do or how you need to install a part in
the airplane. Well rather than mechanics actually installing the parts and inspectors verifying it,
they just sit at their desks and roller stamp things. And we find parts all over the place that the
paperwork says it's been installed, but parts are sitting over on a shelf.
Ralph Nader: Good heavens, I could see passengers listening to this and saying, yuck, what is
going on here? This is $150 billion plane and they're engaged in sloppy pencil-whipping as you
say. We're talking with John M. Barnett who is described by the Callaway Award for Civic
Courage as "A defiant trustee for airline passenger and crew safety as veteran quality control
manager for the Boeing corporation on the Boeing 747-767-777, and 787 programs." And you
have been quoted as saying "I haven't seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on
saying it's safe and air worthy." Well, have any of these planes crashed due to the sloppiness and
the misplaced parts at the Charleston plant?
John M. Barnett: No sir, they have not as of yet, but let me throw in a caveat that in
production, in aircraft production and working with Boeing all these years; we have a rule of
thumb--that it takes eight to 10 years for a defect to become an issue on an airplane. So, you
know, if you look at the eight- to 10-year timeframe before a defect becomes an issue and our
first plane which was delivered in 2012, you know, we're starting to get into that eight- to 10-
year window. So you're correct, we have not lost any 787s to date and thank God and I hope that
continues; I'm just really concerned that the way they were produced and delivered that is not
going to be the case in the future.
Ralph Nader: Well when Boeing's managers and higher ups saw your write-ups, your
documented write-ups on misplaced parts, missing parts, parts in the wrong place, shavings here
and there, did they move to correct it? And what are they doing if these planes are already up in
the air? Are they thinking about sending bulletins to the airlines? Apart from what they did to
you, which we'll get to, what are they doing for that? I mean who's in charge here? Doesn't all
this come down from top management?
John M. Barnett: Yes sir, it does. It comes from top down. But in Charleston, you're right, you
know that it's more about profits over safety and quality. And like I say they're really putting the
pressure on the mechanics just to close things down and quality, not document defects, and it's an
ongoing thing, and you hear about the titanium slivers that's all in the flight control wires and the
electronic equipment and that type of thing, you know, that's a major issue. And when I brought
it up, I insisted that the airplanes be cleaned and I told my boss right out I refuse to buy off on
this airplane as is. I was transferred to a different location. He brought in another way less in
experience quality manager than myself and leadership there decided that they weren't going to
take the time to clean the airplanes; they're going to deliver them! And they delivered. I filed my
complaint in January of 2017 with the FAA. And since then the FAA has gone in and did a spot
check. And they inspected ten airplanes in Charleston and they found these metal shavings on all
ten airplanes both locations. And what they did was they issued a DAI, a designated airways
inspection requirement to Boeing and what that DAI does is within the internal workings of
Boeing, it tells them that they have to clean these planes before they can deliver them. But where
they came up short, and I don't know if you caught it on the response that they did to the New
York Times story, that the FAA came back and said Boeing decided that those slivers weren’t a
safety flight issue. And I don't understand how electronic equipment full of slivers, metal
titanium slivers, all over the flight control wires, the electronic equipment, the power panels that
actually run the full-powered airplane; I don't see how that cannot be a safety flight issue with
metal shavings in there.
Ralph Nader: Well, tell us how many of these Dreamliners are up and what routes do they
usually fly?
John M. Barnett: So I'm not sure what the count is up to now. I know when I left, we were up
over 800 airplanes that had already been delivered. And they typically fly overseas, so they fly
over the oceans and the long routes to other countries.
Ralph Nader: And how many pilots?
John M. Barnett: Two, I believe. I believe it takes two to fly the 787.
Ralph Nader: And were there any counterfeit parts, which are not Boeing's fault, they don't
counterfeit parts, but there are reports over the years of counterfeit parts, for example, coming
from East Asia, very, very facsimile similar. Were there any counterfeit parts that you
discovered?
John M. Barnett: So actually, I was part of that back before when all this came up. I was
actually working on receiving inspection at the time when all the counterfeit parts issue came up.
And we put very specific safety catches in place to make sure that incoming parts were not
counterfeit. Again in Charleston, they’ve eliminated those. So we don't know for sure if there's
counterfeit parts coming or not to be honest with you. They bypassed those safety or those
quality check points.
Ralph Nader: Why weren't there FAA inspectors at the scene? This plant has 7,000 employees
in North Charleston, South Carolina? Why was it just left up to you and others to make these
discoveries? I think people think the FAA is the watchdog here.
John M. Barnett: Well, and that's another issue that really needs to be addressed, Ralph,
because like I say, I've been working for Boeing for 32 years. And over the years, I've seen the
FAA backing off on their oversight and they’ve become more of a partnership than an oversight.
And the FAA representatives there at Charleston, I actually worked real close with them; they
were afraid of Boeing to find too many issues because they would be transferred or kicked out of
the Charleston plant. So there was a very intimidation factor from Boeing to the FAA
representatives at Charleston. They were afraid to make too many waves.
Ralph Nader: Like federal poultry and meat inspectors, that's the same problem they've had
when they tried to be conscientious and do their job for the consumer. I want to ask you, when
these charges come out from you and after you set the standard of speaking out, I understand that
there were other whistleblowing safety complaints filed with federal regulators by Boeing
workers, does Boeing ever feel obliged to respond to these publicly?
John M. Barnett: So Ralph, their response is spun, you know; I mean they have what they call
spin doctors. They'll spin it to; we call it the Boeing switch. So if an employee raises a concern
saying as an example, if I raised a concern saying that people aren't buying off their job or are
not documenting defects, well then Boeing turns it around and accuses me of not documenting
defects. So the person that's complaining, they turn it around and point at them and say they're
the ones doing it wrong. So that's a big problem. So no, they're not willing to have a face-to-face
discussion and discuss it. It's just try to cover up, make it go away, and make the whistleblowers
look bad.
Ralph Nader: John, do you ever find engineering professors who don't have to worry about
Boeing paying them a salary supporting you? Do you ever find anybody outside Boeing in the
engineering and inspection profession taking the stand on your behalf?
John M. Barnett: Not personally other than my legal counsel, which is excellent, but not really.
I know that after the New York Times came out, I think it was CNN had some specialist on there
and they supported what I was saying that, you know, the metal slivers could be catastrophic and
we haven't gotten into the oxygen systems where the emergency oxygen for passengers on a
decompression event, I discovered that 25% of them do not work on the 787s.
Ralph Nader: Why don’t you repeat that because people are told all the time when the oxygen
drops, you know, put in on, every time you take a flight.
John M. Barnett: Put it on, right? And pull the cord.
Ralph Nader: So what you're saying is a quarter of them didn't work?
John M. Barnett: That's correct, yes, sir. A team and myself put together a control sample of
over 300 of them and out of those, 75 of them did not operate as required. They did not release
the oxygen. I elevated this to my management. Again I was removed from the investigation.
They turned it over to . . . I think it was a two-year employee within Boeing and they didn't do
anything with it.
Ralph Nader: What did they do with the 800 Dreamliners that have these oxygen units?
John M. Barnett: They have done nothing to correct it; they've done nothing to identify root
cause. They have done nothing to correct the issue, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: And no airworthiness directive from the FAA and no Boeing warning bulletin to
their customers, the airlines?
John M. Barnett: That's correct, yes.
Ralph Nader: Now tell us if you think there's an increasing danger in air safety from over
automation--from automating your type of job all the way to the kind of automation that
increased the likelihood that those Boeing MAXs would crash the so-called "software fix" that
took control of the plane away from the pilots. Some specialist I talked to called it the "silent
hijacker" and pushed the planes down with 340 human beings into the Java Sea and Ethiopian
farm area. Give us your take on this drive for automation which is, of course, to cut costs and
increase Boeing's bottom line even though, and this was not brought out by the congressional
hearing, John, Boeing has spent over 40 billion with a B dollars on stock buybacks to raise its
stock to increase the stock options of the compensation of Boeing's bosses. And as people are
getting to know, stock buybacks don't create a single job; they don't build a single product.
They're just there to increase the metrics for executive compensation. So here's Boeing cutting
corners that affect the lives of people in the future in these planes and they are, in effect, burning
tens of billions of dollars of stock buybacks.
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, that's inconceivable to me. I just . . . I can't wrap my head around it
because Boeing's number one priority should be the safety of the flying public. And the last six
years that I worked with them, that is the last thing on their mind is the safety of flying public,
because it's just about checking airplanes out and make the cash register ring.
Ralph Nader: Well, they claimed they've had a great safety record and automation will make it
safety plus. Your response.
John M. Barnett: So going back to my comment earlier, the rule of thumb in aircraft
production is it takes 8 to 10 years for a defect to manifest into an issue. So if you look at the last
20 years, that safety record that Boeing is touting right now is built on the past quality of 747s,
767s, 777s. So the 787 has not been in service long enough to meet the quality level or to prove
that they're at the quality level that the other programs are at, so that's what Boeing is saying that
they're at the highest quality level or they’ve had an excellent safety record. But again, we're just
now getting into that 8-10-year window, so.
Ralph Nader: You're pointing out something that needs elaboration. A lot of people have said
that after the McDonnell-Douglas merger with Boeing where the McDonnell-Douglas culture
took over Boeing, Boeing moved from a prime engineering, high-reputation firm to a financial
get-the- stock-up, stock-option-bonus firm and degraded its engineering priorities. In fact
someone said about the MAX that the Boeing marketeers overruled the Boeing engineers. In
your career, did you see that change firsthand?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, I did, unfortunately. It was probably about six months or nine
months after the merger between Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas and we . . . within Boeing on a
production floor had a little . . . and I guess you'd call a little funnier, a little joke to say, you
know, Boeing didn't buy McDonnell-Douglas. McDonnell-Douglas bought Boeing with its own
money. And what I saw was when the merger happened, they brought in the McDonnell-Douglas
leadership to take over the Boeing company and it was like a light switch. It went from quality to
all about shareholder value. It was just amazing. Looking back, it just is so clear that the
direction of the company made a 180 turn at that point in time.
Ralph Nader: Well, how, as we conclude, and I want to get Steve and David in on this, but how
are you holding up professionally and personally? I mean they forced you into retirement.
John M. Barnett: Yes sir, they did. I'm not going to lie; it's been rough on me. It's been rough
on my family. I'm still dealing with issues. I'm still having anxiety attacks, PTSD, but it's been
very rough. It's taken a serious mental and emotional toll on me. But, you know, I want to try
very hard to keep the focus on the safety of the airplane. I mean that's what my story is about is
telling my story enough to where the right people get involved to make sure that these airplanes
are made correctly. Because the 787 carries 288 passengers plus crew. So the last thing I want to
do is wake up in the morning and see a 787 that's going down because titanium slivers caught
fire at 40,000 feet or a defective part broke loose because it wasn’t built correctly or they had a
decompression event and people weren't able to get emergency oxygen. I mean it's just, it keeps
me up at night, Ralph. I just, I can't sleep. It's taken a heck of a toll on me.
Ralph Nader: And for this level of professional concern, you got Boeing is trying to break you,
discredit you, defame you, and probably blackball you from any future employment
opportunities should you seek them.
John M. Barnett: Yes sir, actually that's already happened. I've been blocked; I was
blacklisted; I was blocked from two different positions that I'm aware of that I can prove. There
was probably others that I can't prove. And that's another thing, you know, when you're dealing
with Boeing, you have to have it in documentation because otherwise it's your word against
theirs and they're going to win every time. But I was able to keep my documentation.
Ralph Nader: You know I noticed that at the congressional hearings in the past few days, the
Boeing CEO Muilenburg was very contrite and humble and he paid compassionate attention to
the families holding up the pictures of their deceased relatives, but he knew and the Boeing
lobbyists behind him and the chairs knew that they own the Congress. They give money to over
300 members of Congress. They're saying to Congress, where else is anybody going to go? You
know, we're Boeing and Airbus and you're not going to go after the only domestic manufacturer
of big-body passenger jets. And it's really sickening to watch because the questions coming in
are tough within a narrow framework. They don't go into the fundamental design although
Congressman Steve Cohen from Tennessee laid out how much Muilenburg was being paid. And
asked him why he didn't get a pay cut. He's been paid 30 million bucks even after the crashes and
he didn't ask for a pay cut. And he replied to Congressman Cohen, "Well, it's up to the board of
directors." Well he's the chairman of the board of directors. I calculated in the three hours I was
sitting there listening to him, he made 45,000 bucks.
John M. Barnett: Wow. Unbelievable.
Ralph Nader: So we're dealing with corporate emperors who put on a show for the members of
Congress and they're humble, and they're always address them as congressmen and
congresswomen, but they know who's in charge. And by trying to break you, they're trying to
make you an example to anyone else at the Charleston plant. Well, look what happened to John
Barnett, you better shut up. But I'll tell you, if Boeing has to experience one or two more crashes
due to Boeing faulty inspection or Boeing negligent design, it's going to break Boeing because
it's no longer just two major companies, Airbus and Boeing dominating the world. You've got
now the Chinese, Brazilian, Japanese about ready to offer competitive large-size passenger
planes, number one. And number two, you may not know this, John, but in the 1950s, the British
aerospace industry was one of the leaders in the world and they produced a plane called the
Comet Jet, and three of them crashed and that was the end of the British aerospace industry
leadership in the world. So beware, Boeing, the board of directors of Boeing and the CEO,
digging in their heels on this Dreamliner mess and the disasters with the MAX have now a career
conflict of interest with the future wellbeing of Boeing and its workers, which is why the
families have demanded that there be a mass resignation as would have happened by the way in
Japan right away.
John M. Barnett: Right, absolutely.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, they would have bowed and resigned. David, Steve, any final comments or
questions?
John M. Barnett: If I could just touch on one thing . . .
Ralph Nader: Go ahead.
John M. Barnett: . . . you talked about the congressional hearing and unfortunately I'm in the
process of moving and I was able to get bits and pieces of it. And I guess my point is, you know,
I'd love to sit down with the CEO and the decision makers of Boeing and let them take my
concerns seriously and let's have a one-on-one discussion. I don't have a problem talking to any
of them.
Ralph Nader: John, we're demanding at the committees that a technical specialist testify after
Boeing and not let Boeing get away with it stonewalling.
John M. Barnett: That's excellent, that's an excellent plan. Yes, sir.
Ralph Nader: And you will testify I assume.
John M. Barnett: Absolutely. But one of the things I've noticed Dennis Muilenburg keeps
saying over and over is safety and quality is top priority. Well as the quality manager, I have a
perform ...or I don't know if you're familiar with performance management reviews, but it's a
yearly review where you sit down with your boss and they review your work over the year and
they grade you on how well you did. And based on those reviews, it defines your future raises,
your bonuses, your ability to participate in special leadership programs, that type of thing.
During my performance review as a quality manager, I was penalized and basically received no
raises. And he actually put this in writing that I needed to learn to work in the gray areas of the
procedures, that I was knowledgeable almost to a fault, that I needed to stop documenting quality
issues and defects in email, you know, so I guess my question to Dennis is you're sitting up here
saying that safety and quality is top priority, but yet you have quality managers within your
organization that are being penalized for following processes. So how does that make it top
priority?
Ralph Nader: Which is exactly why you should testify before Congress.
John M. Barnett: I'm willing anytime, Ralph. I mean like I say, they've done their damage to
me. You know, I was forced to retire and I will deal with what's ahead of me, but it really needs
to be brought to light before we start losing the airplanes. And that's my top concern is the safety
of the flying public. As a quality manager, that's what I swore to protect and I'm going to do
everything I can to.
Ralph Nader: And you put your entire career on the line.
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, I did. I was put in a position to where I had to choose between the
company I love and the job I love and my career versus the safety of the flying public. And I had
to sacrifice those to protect the flying public or at least try to.
Ralph Nader: Beautifully said. Steve and David?
David Feldman: Well, I certainly don't know how to top that. I'm kind of speechless, sir, at
your courage and completely appalled at the arrogance of Boeing. And boy, it just makes you
want to have that whole company just crash.
John M. Barnett: There's some serious reckoning that needs to happen in there, you know, as
far as following procedures and building the airplane correctly is for sure needs to . . . something
needs to change before it's too late.
Ralph Nader: You know that Boeing is in trouble with their defense contracts, with NASA
contracts. The contractors in NASA and Boeing in the Pentagon are fed up. They’ve often
suspended the contracts that berated Boeing, so Boeing has a multi-faceted management
problem, of great serious proportion.
John M. Barnett: Yes sir, you're correct. And I'm sure you all heard about the KC-46 the Air
Force refused to take because they were finding so much FOD [Foreign Object Debris] You
know, that was just recently.
Ralph Nader: That's right.
David Feldman: Where are the pilots association, the stewardesses in all this?
John M. Barnett: Well, see, that's the thing is all of this is internal to Boeing. So as an
example, the slivers that I found and the 25% failure rate of the emergency oxygen system,
Boeing does not notify the customers that that's an issue. So they keep it under wraps internal to
Boeing and try to cover it up or make it go away so the pilots, the stewardesses, customers don't
know any of that.
Ralph Nader: Well, we're out of time, John M. Barnett, and congratulations on your Joe A.
Callaway Award for Civic Courage. I'm sure you get other awards, too. We hope to see you
before Congress to react to Boeings testimony and full speed ahead for you in the coming
months and years. Thank you.
John M. Barnett: Thank you, Mr. Nader. It's a pleasure talking to you. And I look forward to
meeting you very soon.
Ralph Nader: Certainly.
Steve Skrovan: We have been speaking with John M. Barnett, whistleblower and winner of the
Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage. For more about his story, go to
Ralphnaderradiohour.com. Right now, we're going to take a short break and check in with our
relentless corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber. When we come back, Ralph has his own
update about Boeing and will answer more of your questions. 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, November 15, 2019. I'm Russell
Mokhiber.
A Massachusetts Buffalo Wild Wings is under investigation after a chemical mixture inside the
kitchen killed one employee and left at least 10 staff members and customers hospitalized.
According to Boston’s WHDH-TV, the fire department responded to the restaurant chain, in the
town of Burlington, Massachusetts, just after 5:30 p.m. A team of firefighters wearing hazmat
suits found a male worker suffering from nausea. The fire chief said in a news conference that
the man had been exposed to the chemical, which was being used to clean the floor, after another
individual mixed it and became ill. The man was rushed to a hospital where he later died.
Authorities said that at the time he inhaled the fumes, he was trying to save others from the
chemical.
For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. We're going to take your listener questions, but first,
Ralph, you have some update on the Boeing MAX 8 situation. Why don't you tell our listeners
what's going on there?
Ralph Nader: Well Boeing, the FAA, and their friends in Congress are racing to unground
these 737-800 MAX by January or February. Now there aren't that many of them. They'll be in
the US about 70/80 of them immediately and you should not fly them. And when you make a
reservation, just ask the operator what's the equipment. That's the technical term. And if they say
it's the 737-800 MAX, say I'd like to fly on another airline. And the airlines are willing to go
along with this for the time being without charging you a reservation fee change like Delta does,
$200. The second point I want to make is that it's really pretty insidious what's going on. Boeing
has known from the beginning it has the country by the throat. It's the only domestic
manufacturer of all these big passenger jets. It gives money to over 300 members of Congress,
campaign cash, and it knows how to throw its influence around and to turn the FAA into putty
instead of a regulator. And so when David Calhoun, who is the Chairman of the Board of
Boeing; he's been on the board since 2009; he has a full-time job with the Blackstone Financial
giant, says on CNBC a few days ago "From the vantage point of our board, Dennis Muilenburg
has done everything right. Remember, Dennis didn't create this problem.” From the beginning,
he knew that MCAS," that's the software fix, so-called, that boomeranged and led to two
disasters, Boeing 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia with 346 fatalities. He says "From
the beginning, he knew that MCAS could and should have been done better and he's led a
program to rewrite MCAS to alleviate all these conditions that ultimately beset two unfortunate
crews and the families and the victims." That's completely false. Dennis Muilenburg was in on
this problem from the beginning. He represented the Boeing marketeers overruling the Boeing
engineers to get the MAX up as fast as possible to compete with Airbus's 320neo.
He's been CEO well before the Boeing MAX took off. He was in at the founding. And for his
rubber stamp, David Calhoun, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, to say he didn't create the
problem, is totally false. But you see, that's what's going on; the fix is in. The Congress is not
going to do much; they have resisted our demands that they have a panel for the consumer
groups like FlyersRights.org. You should go to it for updates and Consumer's Union and people
like myself who's written on aviation safety. They haven’t announced the hearing on that. They
haven't announced the hearing for the second round for the labor unions who have to deal with
these planes every day. They haven't announced, most crucially, a hearing for the technical
critics--the aerospace experts, the avionics, the aerodynamic experts who are beseeching to
testify and take apart Boeing's nonsense before the congressional committees. And they haven't
allowed the families who are now very, very knowledgeable about what's going on. They’ve met
with all kinds of technicians, the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board. They haven’t
been scheduled for hearing either in the House under Congressman DeFazio from Oregon or in
the Senate, Senator Wicker from Mississippi. So folks, it's going to be a very touch-and-go
situation in the next few weeks until the early part of 2020. Weigh in on your member of
Congress. They can say slow down Boeing, don't you dare certify FAA and we'll have more time
to get this thing in better shape. FlyersRights.org is your update for any questions you may have.
David Feldman: Well I have a question, Ralph, were you at the hearing where Muilenburg
apologized to the families a few weeks ago?
Ralph Nader: Yes, I was at the hearing. Muilenburg apologized more than once. He was told
by my niece, Nadia Millerron, after the hearing that when he apologizes, he should look the
families in the eye and not do it when he's looking straight ahead at the members of the House
committee at which point he did that. He did that again, but he was raked over the coals because
he was slated for a bonus of 15 million bucks, can you imagine? And he's dropped that. He's no
longer taking that. And he's now making 23 million a year and he was taken to task by some
members of the House committee on that. But what they didn't do is break it down. At the end of
the hearing they said, Mr. Muilenburg, you have now made $75,000 since you walked in this
room at 9:30 and left at 3:30.
David Feldman: So in spite of all of that, you're feeling is that Congress will ultimately not call
them to task in a serious way?
Ralph Nader: Unless there's a new surge of air traveler demands, because they are afraid that
the air travelers will start gumming up the works by saying we're not going to fly the MAX. The
airlines will be perplexed on how to handle this. The Boeing MAX brand will be seriously
tarnished. And so what they're worried about, the air travelers and the labor unions, and above
all, the families of the bereaved who are really, really organized and are getting all kinds of
access to the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], to the Department of Transportation to the
House to the Senate, and even spent a couple of hours with Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of
Boeing. So if all these things come together, what will we get? We will get the publicity of the
way Boeing is supposedly going to fix this plane that they have sent in secret to the FAA. We'll
get that out in the open; we'll let the technical critics go over it, have a 60-day comment period,
and then we'll see where we're at. And at the same time, Congress should have the hearings I just
mentioned with the labor unions, the families, the consumer groups, and the aerospace experts,
some of whom work for Boeing, others are subject matter specialists and do they have a story to
tell.
David Feldman: So Ralph, in one kind of simple sentence, what is your demand? What are the
demands of the family here that they want from Boeing? Do they want it completely grounded,
build a new plane, what or some other solution?
Ralph Nader: They say the Boeing 737-800 MAX is a new plane. It should have been subject
to a full certification; that's what they're demanding. That would include analyzing the
aerodynamic instability problem as well as the faulty, complicated software fix they call the
MCAS [Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System], full certification, and if the plane is
ever slated to be ungrounded, full simulator training, as Sully, Captain Sullenberger testified for
the House in June, should be required of the pilots by the airlines, and Boeing’s full certification
[and] full simulator training, before that plane is up.
David Feldman: In your opinion, knowing a lot about avionics, do you think this plane would
pass the certification?
Ralph Nader: Well it depends on how stringent the FAA is. They can pass anything. They've
been pretty permissive with Boeing...
David Feldman: Right, because they allowed Boeing to basically certify it themselves.
Ralph Nader: That's right. And they weren’t up to date on the software fix. They weren't even
informed by Boeing that the software strength was increased fourfold. And Boeing didn't even
notify the airlines or the pilots that this stealth hijacker, this software, could take the control of
the plane away from the pilots and nosedive it into the Java Sea or into a farmer's area in
Ethiopia at 550 miles per hour, killing 346 people.
David Feldman: Now, does the FAA have the expertise and the staff to be able to do this?
Because I thought that was the excuse before and that's why they allowed Boeing to do it.
Ralph Nader: Yes, they didn't have adequate staff, but they have adequate resources to hire
consultants and people who can immediately come to grips with this even more profoundly than
what FAA staff can do.
Steve Skrovan: You would think they could have maybe an independent blue-ribbon panel like
what happened after the Challenger disaster, in the space shuttle disaster.
Ralph Nader: Well, they've had these panels, Steve, but the problem is they're all looking
backward properly as to what happened, who knew what-when, who covered up, who didn't
inform, who didn't respond. Now the panels have to address the question, should this plane ever
fly again? And if it does, under what conditions? And that looking-forward panels have not been
brought together, because they don't want to experience the conclusion of some of the findings,
which is that unless that airframe and the injured overload problem that leads to the prone-to-
stall inclination by the 737 MAX is addressed, the plane should never fly. And they're not
willing to burden Boeing with that kind of economic price. So it all comes down to Boeing cash,
Boeing profits.
David Feldman: And for the victims to be satisfied, it's going to take a movement and publicity
and flyers knowing about these problems and potentially not flying on this plane for them to get
their attention.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, and the coordinator is Flyers Rights run by Paul Hudson who lost his
daughter at 16 years old in the Lockerbie collision over Scotland 30 years ago. Go to
FlyersRights.org; he'll say exactly what he thinks you can do vis-a-vis Congress and elsewhere.
We are passing out buttons "Axe the Max" for people to wear; take a picture, put it up on the
internet. What Boeing can't control is a growing consumer boycott. Calls to airlines, even if
you're not flying, just say we don't want you to use this plane. Boeing cannot control that. They
can control the political situation in Washington. They can hammer the airlines and say you’ve
got no choice, but they can't control resistance by the bread and butter of the airlines, the air
traveler.
Steve Skrovan: All right, well you heard it, listeners, Flyers Rights is your source of updates
and information and it really could be a consumer movement that decides the fate of the Boeing
MAX 8. So let's move to some listener questions now, David.
David Feldman: This is from Paul G. Warrick, Ralph. He says, "I live in a Trump-supporter
region. If you talk to one Trump supporter, you talked to them all. The problem as I see it, they
are fed daily propaganda mostly by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etcetera. I would like to know
who are the big money players supporting this subverted often toxic media? If you control the
people, you control the politicians, right? Shouldn't journalists seek out these big money players
and interview them on their positions on policies and issues? Politicians are puppets. Why waste
time on them when there are deeper sources we should focus on; make them answer for their
manipulations of our government and media out them."
Ralph Nader: All right, the big money players, first of all, are the advertisers on Fox and Rush
Limbaugh. You can just get their name by listening to their ads. They're usually the big
companies [like] General Motors and the Merck drug companies, Bank of America, you name it.
So they're the ones. Without advertising, no Fox News, no Rush Limbaugh, and no Facebook,
and no Google. Though there are consumer groups who focus on the advertisers--they threaten
boycotts, they announce boycotts, they go after the brand, and they're making some progress in
that way. You'll notice that when there is misbehavior by a certain talk show on television and
they start losing ads, that person has either lost his or her job or they tend to reconsider how far
they're going to go with their blathering.
Steve Skrovan: All right. This next question comes from a long-time listener and frequent
questioner, usually asks very good questions, Earl Ammerman IV. And he says, "Why is Joe
Biden ignoring the fact that in order to accomplish his Moonshot to Cure Cancer, there needs to
be healthcare infrastructure such as paid sick leave. In order to make the Moonshot to [Cure]
Cancer work for actual cancer patients who can't afford to miss work, because they lack paid sick
leave, and might lose their house and job if they're hospitalized. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the
Moonshot to Cure Cancer seems to be an Orwellian policy that seems to benefit drug companies
by subsidizing their research and development while cancer patients get the short end of the stick
because they won't benefit because the $100,000 chemo pills would be too expensive and cancer
is not like the common cold. You don't just kick it after a couple of days. Cancer patients miss
work to seek treatment. If they don't have paid sick leave, they won't be able to keep a roof over
their head due to how expensive cancer treatment is."
Ralph Nader: Well, a lot of what you say, Earl, is correct. If the moonshot actually produces
policies to prevent cancer, then I think part of your legitimate complaints are avoided because
people will not get cancer. They won't have to deal with unpaid sick leave, etcetera, etcetera. But
these big moonshot programs do increase the profits enormously of the companies that are in the
arena to make money from cancer treatment or all the other aspects that cancer patients need.
And that's where the profiteering comes in and you know as well as others that these companies
are going to try to get the lion's share of that taxpayer bonanza as they see it. And by the way,
we're one of the few countries in the world that call themselves democracies that don't have paid
sick leave.
Steve Skrovan: This last question is not really a question. I just wanted to share it with our
listeners and with you on the air, Ralph. It comes from a Manal Hamzeh and I don't know if
that's a he or she actually, but it says, "Dear Ralph, I wanted you to know that my father, Dr.
Zaid Hamzeh, has been listening to your radio hour podcasts lately. Today, his weekly column in
the daily Al-Rai, Amman, Jordan, starts with you and the interview you had with Steven
Greenhouse when we talked about unions.” And it says “your impact and reach are critical
locally and globally. Thank you, Manal." I just wanted to share that with you and get a reaction.
Ralph Nader: Well, Thank you very much, Manal. It's really good we've had feedback from
places all over the world and that's one of the benefits of the new technology; it can carry your
program everywhere. And I'm glad that some of the interviews we’ve had have relevance to
conditions and issues of justice in these lands around the world.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you for your questions. Keep them coming on the Ralph Nader Radio
Hour website. Now Ralph and David, before we go, I just want to take a few moments to alert
our listeners that we're going to be releasing a special Ralph Nader Radio Hour on the
impeachment of Donald J. Trump. It's going to be in the form of a series of podcasts and will
feature Ralph and our Resident Constitutional Scholar Bruce Fein. As regular listeners know,
Bruce Fein is no radical lefty. He is a Republican who has worked in the Reagan Administration
as well as for conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise
Institute. As a young lawyer, he was even in the Justice Department during the impeachment
inquiry over Richard Nixon. He also worked with the Republican Floor Manager Bob Barr, not
Bill Barr, Bob Barr, different guy. He worked with Congressman Bob Barr from Georgia on the
impeachment of Bill Clinton about 20 years ago. Bruce is a real stickler for the Constitution and
he's written extensively about that founding document and how we as a country have strayed
from many of its core articles. So this series of podcasts is an effort to take you beyond the
politics of the moment, as perilous as these times are, and offer to our listeners as well as those in
Congress, a constitutional reset of sorts. Bruce has outlined 14, that's 14 impeachable offenses
that could be leveled at this president. Most are exclusively particular to Donald Trump, but
there are others, which could be leveled at the past half dozen presidents as well. Each episode
will dive into each count in the indictment, so to speak. So look for this series of podcasts on our
website, our YouTube channel, Instagram, Twitter, and any other platform from which you
download the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. So look for our special report on the impeachment of
Donald J. Trump. I want to thank our guest again, John M. Barnett. 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 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 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 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: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour when we speak to
legendary FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody. Stay alert.
November 16, 2019
TRANSCRIPT
Ralph hears from courageous former Boeing Quality Control Manager, John M. Barnett, who blew the whistle on shoddy production of the 787 Dreamliner, how the FAA has backed off on oversight, and how Boeing “bean counters” have put profits over safety.
John M. Barnett was a Quality Control Manager for Boeing Company for 25 years in its Seattle facility. He transferred in 2011 to manage Boeing’s new plant in South Carolina to build the 787 Dreamliner where he revealed shoddy production as reported on the front-page of the April 20, 2019, New York Times. He retired under pressure in 2017 and assumed the challenge to inform the flying public. His whistleblower complaint to OSHA is pending.
“I haven’t seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I would put my name on saying that it’s safe and air-worthy.”
-- John M. Barnett, former Quality Control Manager on the 787 Dreamliner
“In aircraft production, and working with Boeing all these years, we have a rule of thumb: that it takes eight to ten years for a defect to become an issue on an airplane. So, if you look at the eight to ten-year time frame before a defect becomes an issue and our first plane was delivered in 2012, we’re starting to get into that eight to ten-year window.”
-- John M. Barnett, former Quality Control Manager on the 787 Dreamliner
“Boeing’s number one priority should be the safety of the flying public. And the last six years that I worked with them, that is the last thing on their mind… Because it’s just about kicking airplanes out and making the cash register ring.”
-- John M. Barnett, former Quality Control Manager on the 787 Dreamliner
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 297 TRANSCRIPT
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: Excited about today's show, of course.
Steve Skrovan: And we also have the man of the hour Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello everybody.
Steve Skrovan: And I'm excited about today's show, too. Last week we had Dr. George Luber
on the show. He was being honored with the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage for
blowing the whistle at the Centers for Disease Control when he was ordered to tamp down his
efforts to deal with the climate crisis. Well on the show today, we're going to feature another
courageous Joe A. Callaway Award winner. His name is John M. Barnett. Regular listeners to
this show know the many different ways we have covered the Boeing MAX 8 story. We've
talked about how mergers and management decisions have turned a once great engineering
company into more of a financial company, intent on jacking up its stock price not through
innovation, but through buying back its own stock. We've talked about how the Federal Aviation
Commission dropped the ball and allowed Boeing to essentially regulate itself. And we've talked
about how the marketeers at Boeing have continually overruled the engineers.
Mr. Barnett was a quality control expert at Boeing working not on the MAX 8, but on the 787
Dreamliner at their big production facility in South Carolina. There he blew the whistle on
shoddy engineering and a corporate culture where profits trumped safety. He's got an eye-
opening story to tell and we look forward to hearing that. As always, we will take a moment after
that to find out what's happening in the other dark recesses of the corporate underworld with our
corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber and Ralph will also answer some listener questions.
But first, let's meet yet another courageous whistleblower, David.
David Feldman: John M. Barnett was a quality control manager at Boeing for 25 years in its
Seattle facility. He transferred in 2011 to manage Boeing's new plant in South Carolina to build
the 787 Dreamliner where he revealed shoddy production as reported on the front page of the
April 20th 2019 New York Times. He retired under pressure in 2017 and assumed the challenge to
inform the flying public. His whistleblower complaint to OSHA is now pending. Welcome to the
Ralph Nader Radio Hour, John Barnett.
John M. Barnett: Thank you, pleasure to be here.
Ralph Nader: Indeed welcome, John Barnett. Describe the plane that you have been very
concerned about, the Dreamliner and how many of them are up in the air; when was the first one
launched?
John M. Barnett: Okay, it's a 787 and the biggest concern came when they opened the
Charleston plant. That's when the issues and shoddy production work really started. And I
believe our first delivery out of there was 2012.
Ralph Nader: And why did they open a plant in North Charleston, South Carolina where there
was a dearth of skilled workers instead of expanding their facility in Seattle where, I understand
the Dreamliner is also produced, in your judgment, at a much higher standard than at South
Carolina. What brought them to South Carolina?
John M. Barnett: Well, I can tell you, Ralph, what the information they shared with us from
Boeing was as they were trying to expand the production facilities and bring other areas into the
mix, but from an internal standpoint, it was more about the union activity that was up in
Washington State and there was the battles with them and the strikes that they were causing, so
they really wanting to get to a non-unionized Right-to-Work State.
Ralph Nader: Did the Governor of South Carolina help them do that? Nikki Haley is now on
the board of the Boeing corporation for a few meetings earning as other board members are, over
$300,000 a year. What was, besides being a nonunion state, did they give them all kinds of
subsidies?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir. The information we were provided inside of Boeing as employees
were that there were hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks and that type of
thing that Boeing was offered to go to South Carolina. And part of that deal was that we hired
most of the employees locally, so we were not allowed to go to areas that had high experience in
aerospace and airplane building; we had to hire the local people fresh out of college.
Ralph Nader: And I remember Boeing was saying that they were going to have training
facilities so to upgrade untrained workers to the very demanding tasks of assembling an aircraft.
This was really not a manufacturing facility as it was an assembling one; isn't that right bringing
various parts from around the country in the world?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, that's correct. The 787 is fabricated from various parts of the world
and they all come together in the final assembly is performed in Charleston and Everett, yes, sir.
Ralph Nader: You were a quality control inspector who received high commendations when
you worked at the Seattle plant.
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir.
Ralph Nader: You volunteered to go to South Carolina. You've once said that the quality
control inspectors at Boeing are the last check, the last safety check before the plane takes off
with passengers.
John M. Barnett: That's correct. The quality control or quality personnel are the last line of
defense. That's correct.
Ralph Nader: Given the importance of this skill, why is it that Boeing is laying off literally
hundreds of quality control people in both their Seattle plant and South Carolina? What's their
reason for that?
John M. Barnett: Well, so they've been preaching for years that quality is non-value added,
doesn't bring any value to the product, so they’ve been trying real hard to eliminate quality. And
in the process of eliminating quality, what they're doing internally is they're telling inspectors not
to document defects, they're telling quality folks to do a visual buy off and not document things
and just way outside the realms of how they should be building airplanes.
Ralph Nader: John, when you use the word quality, I think it's almost a term of art; you don't
mean metallurgical quality or something; you're talking about quality control inspectors, aren’t
you?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, that's correct. Yeah, so within Boeing, you have what you call the
quality department and you have manufacturing. And within the quality department, that's where
your inspectors are, your quality managers, your quality assurance investigators, anything having
to do with quality of the product, is under the quality organization.
Ralph Nader: So why they want to eliminate that critical role? Because they know if a plane
goes down because of Boeing's neglect or negligence, it can be all hell for Boeing to pay. Look
what happened after the two MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia and on other crashes in the
past. I mean, how can they dare take a risk like that? Who's going to replace several hundred
Boeing quality control inspectors in Seattle and in South Carolina?
John M. Barnett: So what their plan is--what they call MFPP--it's a multifunction process or
production process. And basically what it allows it to do is the mechanic to buy off his buddies'
work; so mechanics are buying off each other's work saying that it's good to go.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with John Barnett, former quality control inspector for the Boeing
corporation on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. John, aren't they also arguing that automation is
better, more reliable than human quality control inspectors? I heard that reported in the press.
John M. Barnett: Yes, that is correct. However, there's very limited on what can actually be
implemented within the aircraft program. We've had several what I'd call false starts with the
technology where they're promising that it's bigger, better and badder than any inspector when
they go to implement it and it isn’t. So there's a lot of trial and error and there's a lot of
discussion before they've actually implemented things and proven them out.
Ralph Nader: Well your experience, which we'll get to in a moment, the shoddy situation going
on in the North Charleston plant in South Carolina, was so detailed that you were the main
source for the New York Times Sunday page 1 expose of what was going on down there with the
Dreamliner and the sloppiness, carelessness in the Charleston, North Carolina plant. So would
you run us through how it all started? I mean you were one of numerous quality control
inspectors and some of them have followed your courage after you took the first step. But what is
it about the other quality control inspectors, when they see the same things you see, but they
don't protest; they don't write it up?
John M. Barnett: Well and that goes back to the inexperience of the workforce, the people
that's been hired in Charleston are brand new to Boeing, so they're basically doing what they're
told. They're not experienced and knowledgeable enough to know when to push back when it's
not right. They're just doing what's told and following direction. And the management there is
just laying pressure on them big time to get the planes out the door regardless of the condition
just to get them delivered and make the cash register ring.
Ralph Nader: What fascinated me when I read the New York Times article is the sloppiness on
a plane that sells for how much? How much is one Dreamliner sell for?
John M. Barnett: Well they're advertised, they’re listed for 150 million; and they actually sell
for about 150 million.
Ralph Nader: 150 million?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir.
Ralph Nader: And they're leaving all kinds of junk on the plane after they’ve finished
assembling it. Why don’t you describe how you started seeing things you couldn't believe
compared to the higher standards you left in the Seattle Dreamliner plant?
John M. Barnett: Oh, absolutely, yes.
Ralph Nader: Why don’t you give us that narrative?
John M. Barnett: Okay, so just a real quick background, it's been 25 years in Everett,
Washington building/working on 747, 777, 787 when it first started up there. And the culture in
Everett and actually Washington State, you know, you got to think back, there are several
generations of employees that have been building airplanes, so you have the generational
knowledge transfer of how to build airplanes. And the culture up there and the general
population understands the criticality of following processes and procedures and making sure the
airplane is built correctly whereas you do not have that in Charleston. They don’t understand the
ramifications of what a defect can cause, because they don't have that experience. And what we
found in Charleston or what I've noticed in Charleston is there's a lot more pressure on
mechanics to just buy off their jobs and get them sold. I mean they're measured almost by the
hour and are measured by how many, like we call them "beans" you know, a job when they go to
complete the job and get them inspected by an inspector and bought off. We call it a bean. So
they're all about "bean counts" you know, how many jobs they can get done in a day not
necessarily if it's done correctly. And the pressure from management is just get the airplanes out.
And another part of the Charleston culture that I've noticed is that the leadership here seems to be
more interested in self promotions instead of making sure the product is built correctly, if that
makes sense. So it's more focused on themselves, on how a decision might affect their career,
versus how it's going to affect the airplane, you know what I'm saying?
Ralph Nader: Right, but what did you start to discover?
John M. Barnett: So I think they're really making some poor decisions. And when I first
moved down to Charleston, I was the first quality manager hired to set up Charleston plant and
we had developed training plans from the quality perspective of how to look up procedures, how
to follow drawings, you know--how to do your job. And we were pretty much shut down. None
of the mechanics went through our training. Very few of our inspectors had to go through it.
Manufacturing had set up a training program for their mechanics and it was mandatory for our
inspectors to go through their training, so I sent my inspectors to it and they came back and said
the only thing they're teaching them is how to roller stamp paperwork. They're not teaching them
how to build an airplane. They're not teaching them how to follow processes, just how to roll out
jobs. So that's kind of where it started was right when Charleston first opened up. And just over
the years, it just got worse and worse as far as bypassing procedures, not documenting defects,
not maintaining configuration control of the airplane. And towards the end of my time at Boeing,
the issues that I discovered was we had hundreds of defective parts and what a defective part is is
something that does not meet engineering or quality requirements and should not be used on an
airplane. So we had hundreds upon hundreds of missing nonconforming parts that they didn't
know where they went. So I wanted to make sure that we tracked these parts down, traced them
down [to] figure out where they went; if they'd been installed on airplanes, we needed to get
them corrected. My management shut me down. They basically what we call "pencil-whip" so
when you have a job that you have to perform at Boeing, it's a work order and it's got steps and
each step has the specific instruction of what you need to do or how you need to install a part in
the airplane. Well rather than mechanics actually installing the parts and inspectors verifying it,
they just sit at their desks and roller stamp things. And we find parts all over the place that the
paperwork says it's been installed, but parts are sitting over on a shelf.
Ralph Nader: Good heavens, I could see passengers listening to this and saying, yuck, what is
going on here? This is $150 billion plane and they're engaged in sloppy pencil-whipping as you
say. We're talking with John M. Barnett who is described by the Callaway Award for Civic
Courage as "A defiant trustee for airline passenger and crew safety as veteran quality control
manager for the Boeing corporation on the Boeing 747-767-777, and 787 programs." And you
have been quoted as saying "I haven't seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on
saying it's safe and air worthy." Well, have any of these planes crashed due to the sloppiness and
the misplaced parts at the Charleston plant?
John M. Barnett: No sir, they have not as of yet, but let me throw in a caveat that in
production, in aircraft production and working with Boeing all these years; we have a rule of
thumb--that it takes eight to 10 years for a defect to become an issue on an airplane. So, you
know, if you look at the eight- to 10-year timeframe before a defect becomes an issue and our
first plane which was delivered in 2012, you know, we're starting to get into that eight- to 10-
year window. So you're correct, we have not lost any 787s to date and thank God and I hope that
continues; I'm just really concerned that the way they were produced and delivered that is not
going to be the case in the future.
Ralph Nader: Well when Boeing's managers and higher ups saw your write-ups, your
documented write-ups on misplaced parts, missing parts, parts in the wrong place, shavings here
and there, did they move to correct it? And what are they doing if these planes are already up in
the air? Are they thinking about sending bulletins to the airlines? Apart from what they did to
you, which we'll get to, what are they doing for that? I mean who's in charge here? Doesn't all
this come down from top management?
John M. Barnett: Yes sir, it does. It comes from top down. But in Charleston, you're right, you
know that it's more about profits over safety and quality. And like I say they're really putting the
pressure on the mechanics just to close things down and quality, not document defects, and it's an
ongoing thing, and you hear about the titanium slivers that's all in the flight control wires and the
electronic equipment and that type of thing, you know, that's a major issue. And when I brought
it up, I insisted that the airplanes be cleaned and I told my boss right out I refuse to buy off on
this airplane as is. I was transferred to a different location. He brought in another way less in
experience quality manager than myself and leadership there decided that they weren't going to
take the time to clean the airplanes; they're going to deliver them! And they delivered. I filed my
complaint in January of 2017 with the FAA. And since then the FAA has gone in and did a spot
check. And they inspected ten airplanes in Charleston and they found these metal shavings on all
ten airplanes both locations. And what they did was they issued a DAI, a designated airways
inspection requirement to Boeing and what that DAI does is within the internal workings of
Boeing, it tells them that they have to clean these planes before they can deliver them. But where
they came up short, and I don't know if you caught it on the response that they did to the New
York Times story, that the FAA came back and said Boeing decided that those slivers weren’t a
safety flight issue. And I don't understand how electronic equipment full of slivers, metal
titanium slivers, all over the flight control wires, the electronic equipment, the power panels that
actually run the full-powered airplane; I don't see how that cannot be a safety flight issue with
metal shavings in there.
Ralph Nader: Well, tell us how many of these Dreamliners are up and what routes do they
usually fly?
John M. Barnett: So I'm not sure what the count is up to now. I know when I left, we were up
over 800 airplanes that had already been delivered. And they typically fly overseas, so they fly
over the oceans and the long routes to other countries.
Ralph Nader: And how many pilots?
John M. Barnett: Two, I believe. I believe it takes two to fly the 787.
Ralph Nader: And were there any counterfeit parts, which are not Boeing's fault, they don't
counterfeit parts, but there are reports over the years of counterfeit parts, for example, coming
from East Asia, very, very facsimile similar. Were there any counterfeit parts that you
discovered?
John M. Barnett: So actually, I was part of that back before when all this came up. I was
actually working on receiving inspection at the time when all the counterfeit parts issue came up.
And we put very specific safety catches in place to make sure that incoming parts were not
counterfeit. Again in Charleston, they’ve eliminated those. So we don't know for sure if there's
counterfeit parts coming or not to be honest with you. They bypassed those safety or those
quality check points.
Ralph Nader: Why weren't there FAA inspectors at the scene? This plant has 7,000 employees
in North Charleston, South Carolina? Why was it just left up to you and others to make these
discoveries? I think people think the FAA is the watchdog here.
John M. Barnett: Well, and that's another issue that really needs to be addressed, Ralph,
because like I say, I've been working for Boeing for 32 years. And over the years, I've seen the
FAA backing off on their oversight and they’ve become more of a partnership than an oversight.
And the FAA representatives there at Charleston, I actually worked real close with them; they
were afraid of Boeing to find too many issues because they would be transferred or kicked out of
the Charleston plant. So there was a very intimidation factor from Boeing to the FAA
representatives at Charleston. They were afraid to make too many waves.
Ralph Nader: Like federal poultry and meat inspectors, that's the same problem they've had
when they tried to be conscientious and do their job for the consumer. I want to ask you, when
these charges come out from you and after you set the standard of speaking out, I understand that
there were other whistleblowing safety complaints filed with federal regulators by Boeing
workers, does Boeing ever feel obliged to respond to these publicly?
John M. Barnett: So Ralph, their response is spun, you know; I mean they have what they call
spin doctors. They'll spin it to; we call it the Boeing switch. So if an employee raises a concern
saying as an example, if I raised a concern saying that people aren't buying off their job or are
not documenting defects, well then Boeing turns it around and accuses me of not documenting
defects. So the person that's complaining, they turn it around and point at them and say they're
the ones doing it wrong. So that's a big problem. So no, they're not willing to have a face-to-face
discussion and discuss it. It's just try to cover up, make it go away, and make the whistleblowers
look bad.
Ralph Nader: John, do you ever find engineering professors who don't have to worry about
Boeing paying them a salary supporting you? Do you ever find anybody outside Boeing in the
engineering and inspection profession taking the stand on your behalf?
John M. Barnett: Not personally other than my legal counsel, which is excellent, but not really.
I know that after the New York Times came out, I think it was CNN had some specialist on there
and they supported what I was saying that, you know, the metal slivers could be catastrophic and
we haven't gotten into the oxygen systems where the emergency oxygen for passengers on a
decompression event, I discovered that 25% of them do not work on the 787s.
Ralph Nader: Why don’t you repeat that because people are told all the time when the oxygen
drops, you know, put in on, every time you take a flight.
John M. Barnett: Put it on, right? And pull the cord.
Ralph Nader: So what you're saying is a quarter of them didn't work?
John M. Barnett: That's correct, yes, sir. A team and myself put together a control sample of
over 300 of them and out of those, 75 of them did not operate as required. They did not release
the oxygen. I elevated this to my management. Again I was removed from the investigation.
They turned it over to . . . I think it was a two-year employee within Boeing and they didn't do
anything with it.
Ralph Nader: What did they do with the 800 Dreamliners that have these oxygen units?
John M. Barnett: They have done nothing to correct it; they've done nothing to identify root
cause. They have done nothing to correct the issue, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: And no airworthiness directive from the FAA and no Boeing warning bulletin to
their customers, the airlines?
John M. Barnett: That's correct, yes.
Ralph Nader: Now tell us if you think there's an increasing danger in air safety from over
automation--from automating your type of job all the way to the kind of automation that
increased the likelihood that those Boeing MAXs would crash the so-called "software fix" that
took control of the plane away from the pilots. Some specialist I talked to called it the "silent
hijacker" and pushed the planes down with 340 human beings into the Java Sea and Ethiopian
farm area. Give us your take on this drive for automation which is, of course, to cut costs and
increase Boeing's bottom line even though, and this was not brought out by the congressional
hearing, John, Boeing has spent over 40 billion with a B dollars on stock buybacks to raise its
stock to increase the stock options of the compensation of Boeing's bosses. And as people are
getting to know, stock buybacks don't create a single job; they don't build a single product.
They're just there to increase the metrics for executive compensation. So here's Boeing cutting
corners that affect the lives of people in the future in these planes and they are, in effect, burning
tens of billions of dollars of stock buybacks.
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, that's inconceivable to me. I just . . . I can't wrap my head around it
because Boeing's number one priority should be the safety of the flying public. And the last six
years that I worked with them, that is the last thing on their mind is the safety of flying public,
because it's just about checking airplanes out and make the cash register ring.
Ralph Nader: Well, they claimed they've had a great safety record and automation will make it
safety plus. Your response.
John M. Barnett: So going back to my comment earlier, the rule of thumb in aircraft
production is it takes 8 to 10 years for a defect to manifest into an issue. So if you look at the last
20 years, that safety record that Boeing is touting right now is built on the past quality of 747s,
767s, 777s. So the 787 has not been in service long enough to meet the quality level or to prove
that they're at the quality level that the other programs are at, so that's what Boeing is saying that
they're at the highest quality level or they’ve had an excellent safety record. But again, we're just
now getting into that 8-10-year window, so.
Ralph Nader: You're pointing out something that needs elaboration. A lot of people have said
that after the McDonnell-Douglas merger with Boeing where the McDonnell-Douglas culture
took over Boeing, Boeing moved from a prime engineering, high-reputation firm to a financial
get-the- stock-up, stock-option-bonus firm and degraded its engineering priorities. In fact
someone said about the MAX that the Boeing marketeers overruled the Boeing engineers. In
your career, did you see that change firsthand?
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, I did, unfortunately. It was probably about six months or nine
months after the merger between Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas and we . . . within Boeing on a
production floor had a little . . . and I guess you'd call a little funnier, a little joke to say, you
know, Boeing didn't buy McDonnell-Douglas. McDonnell-Douglas bought Boeing with its own
money. And what I saw was when the merger happened, they brought in the McDonnell-Douglas
leadership to take over the Boeing company and it was like a light switch. It went from quality to
all about shareholder value. It was just amazing. Looking back, it just is so clear that the
direction of the company made a 180 turn at that point in time.
Ralph Nader: Well, how, as we conclude, and I want to get Steve and David in on this, but how
are you holding up professionally and personally? I mean they forced you into retirement.
John M. Barnett: Yes sir, they did. I'm not going to lie; it's been rough on me. It's been rough
on my family. I'm still dealing with issues. I'm still having anxiety attacks, PTSD, but it's been
very rough. It's taken a serious mental and emotional toll on me. But, you know, I want to try
very hard to keep the focus on the safety of the airplane. I mean that's what my story is about is
telling my story enough to where the right people get involved to make sure that these airplanes
are made correctly. Because the 787 carries 288 passengers plus crew. So the last thing I want to
do is wake up in the morning and see a 787 that's going down because titanium slivers caught
fire at 40,000 feet or a defective part broke loose because it wasn’t built correctly or they had a
decompression event and people weren't able to get emergency oxygen. I mean it's just, it keeps
me up at night, Ralph. I just, I can't sleep. It's taken a heck of a toll on me.
Ralph Nader: And for this level of professional concern, you got Boeing is trying to break you,
discredit you, defame you, and probably blackball you from any future employment
opportunities should you seek them.
John M. Barnett: Yes sir, actually that's already happened. I've been blocked; I was
blacklisted; I was blocked from two different positions that I'm aware of that I can prove. There
was probably others that I can't prove. And that's another thing, you know, when you're dealing
with Boeing, you have to have it in documentation because otherwise it's your word against
theirs and they're going to win every time. But I was able to keep my documentation.
Ralph Nader: You know I noticed that at the congressional hearings in the past few days, the
Boeing CEO Muilenburg was very contrite and humble and he paid compassionate attention to
the families holding up the pictures of their deceased relatives, but he knew and the Boeing
lobbyists behind him and the chairs knew that they own the Congress. They give money to over
300 members of Congress. They're saying to Congress, where else is anybody going to go? You
know, we're Boeing and Airbus and you're not going to go after the only domestic manufacturer
of big-body passenger jets. And it's really sickening to watch because the questions coming in
are tough within a narrow framework. They don't go into the fundamental design although
Congressman Steve Cohen from Tennessee laid out how much Muilenburg was being paid. And
asked him why he didn't get a pay cut. He's been paid 30 million bucks even after the crashes and
he didn't ask for a pay cut. And he replied to Congressman Cohen, "Well, it's up to the board of
directors." Well he's the chairman of the board of directors. I calculated in the three hours I was
sitting there listening to him, he made 45,000 bucks.
John M. Barnett: Wow. Unbelievable.
Ralph Nader: So we're dealing with corporate emperors who put on a show for the members of
Congress and they're humble, and they're always address them as congressmen and
congresswomen, but they know who's in charge. And by trying to break you, they're trying to
make you an example to anyone else at the Charleston plant. Well, look what happened to John
Barnett, you better shut up. But I'll tell you, if Boeing has to experience one or two more crashes
due to Boeing faulty inspection or Boeing negligent design, it's going to break Boeing because
it's no longer just two major companies, Airbus and Boeing dominating the world. You've got
now the Chinese, Brazilian, Japanese about ready to offer competitive large-size passenger
planes, number one. And number two, you may not know this, John, but in the 1950s, the British
aerospace industry was one of the leaders in the world and they produced a plane called the
Comet Jet, and three of them crashed and that was the end of the British aerospace industry
leadership in the world. So beware, Boeing, the board of directors of Boeing and the CEO,
digging in their heels on this Dreamliner mess and the disasters with the MAX have now a career
conflict of interest with the future wellbeing of Boeing and its workers, which is why the
families have demanded that there be a mass resignation as would have happened by the way in
Japan right away.
John M. Barnett: Right, absolutely.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, they would have bowed and resigned. David, Steve, any final comments or
questions?
John M. Barnett: If I could just touch on one thing . . .
Ralph Nader: Go ahead.
John M. Barnett: . . . you talked about the congressional hearing and unfortunately I'm in the
process of moving and I was able to get bits and pieces of it. And I guess my point is, you know,
I'd love to sit down with the CEO and the decision makers of Boeing and let them take my
concerns seriously and let's have a one-on-one discussion. I don't have a problem talking to any
of them.
Ralph Nader: John, we're demanding at the committees that a technical specialist testify after
Boeing and not let Boeing get away with it stonewalling.
John M. Barnett: That's excellent, that's an excellent plan. Yes, sir.
Ralph Nader: And you will testify I assume.
John M. Barnett: Absolutely. But one of the things I've noticed Dennis Muilenburg keeps
saying over and over is safety and quality is top priority. Well as the quality manager, I have a
perform ...or I don't know if you're familiar with performance management reviews, but it's a
yearly review where you sit down with your boss and they review your work over the year and
they grade you on how well you did. And based on those reviews, it defines your future raises,
your bonuses, your ability to participate in special leadership programs, that type of thing.
During my performance review as a quality manager, I was penalized and basically received no
raises. And he actually put this in writing that I needed to learn to work in the gray areas of the
procedures, that I was knowledgeable almost to a fault, that I needed to stop documenting quality
issues and defects in email, you know, so I guess my question to Dennis is you're sitting up here
saying that safety and quality is top priority, but yet you have quality managers within your
organization that are being penalized for following processes. So how does that make it top
priority?
Ralph Nader: Which is exactly why you should testify before Congress.
John M. Barnett: I'm willing anytime, Ralph. I mean like I say, they've done their damage to
me. You know, I was forced to retire and I will deal with what's ahead of me, but it really needs
to be brought to light before we start losing the airplanes. And that's my top concern is the safety
of the flying public. As a quality manager, that's what I swore to protect and I'm going to do
everything I can to.
Ralph Nader: And you put your entire career on the line.
John M. Barnett: Yes, sir, I did. I was put in a position to where I had to choose between the
company I love and the job I love and my career versus the safety of the flying public. And I had
to sacrifice those to protect the flying public or at least try to.
Ralph Nader: Beautifully said. Steve and David?
David Feldman: Well, I certainly don't know how to top that. I'm kind of speechless, sir, at
your courage and completely appalled at the arrogance of Boeing. And boy, it just makes you
want to have that whole company just crash.
John M. Barnett: There's some serious reckoning that needs to happen in there, you know, as
far as following procedures and building the airplane correctly is for sure needs to . . . something
needs to change before it's too late.
Ralph Nader: You know that Boeing is in trouble with their defense contracts, with NASA
contracts. The contractors in NASA and Boeing in the Pentagon are fed up. They’ve often
suspended the contracts that berated Boeing, so Boeing has a multi-faceted management
problem, of great serious proportion.
John M. Barnett: Yes sir, you're correct. And I'm sure you all heard about the KC-46 the Air
Force refused to take because they were finding so much FOD [Foreign Object Debris] You
know, that was just recently.
Ralph Nader: That's right.
David Feldman: Where are the pilots association, the stewardesses in all this?
John M. Barnett: Well, see, that's the thing is all of this is internal to Boeing. So as an
example, the slivers that I found and the 25% failure rate of the emergency oxygen system,
Boeing does not notify the customers that that's an issue. So they keep it under wraps internal to
Boeing and try to cover it up or make it go away so the pilots, the stewardesses, customers don't
know any of that.
Ralph Nader: Well, we're out of time, John M. Barnett, and congratulations on your Joe A.
Callaway Award for Civic Courage. I'm sure you get other awards, too. We hope to see you
before Congress to react to Boeings testimony and full speed ahead for you in the coming
months and years. Thank you.
John M. Barnett: Thank you, Mr. Nader. It's a pleasure talking to you. And I look forward to
meeting you very soon.
Ralph Nader: Certainly.
Steve Skrovan: We have been speaking with John M. Barnett, whistleblower and winner of the
Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage. For more about his story, go to
Ralphnaderradiohour.com. Right now, we're going to take a short break and check in with our
relentless corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber. When we come back, Ralph has his own
update about Boeing and will answer more of your questions. 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, November 15, 2019. I'm Russell
Mokhiber.
A Massachusetts Buffalo Wild Wings is under investigation after a chemical mixture inside the
kitchen killed one employee and left at least 10 staff members and customers hospitalized.
According to Boston’s WHDH-TV, the fire department responded to the restaurant chain, in the
town of Burlington, Massachusetts, just after 5:30 p.m. A team of firefighters wearing hazmat
suits found a male worker suffering from nausea. The fire chief said in a news conference that
the man had been exposed to the chemical, which was being used to clean the floor, after another
individual mixed it and became ill. The man was rushed to a hospital where he later died.
Authorities said that at the time he inhaled the fumes, he was trying to save others from the
chemical.
For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. We're going to take your listener questions, but first,
Ralph, you have some update on the Boeing MAX 8 situation. Why don't you tell our listeners
what's going on there?
Ralph Nader: Well Boeing, the FAA, and their friends in Congress are racing to unground
these 737-800 MAX by January or February. Now there aren't that many of them. They'll be in
the US about 70/80 of them immediately and you should not fly them. And when you make a
reservation, just ask the operator what's the equipment. That's the technical term. And if they say
it's the 737-800 MAX, say I'd like to fly on another airline. And the airlines are willing to go
along with this for the time being without charging you a reservation fee change like Delta does,
$200. The second point I want to make is that it's really pretty insidious what's going on. Boeing
has known from the beginning it has the country by the throat. It's the only domestic
manufacturer of all these big passenger jets. It gives money to over 300 members of Congress,
campaign cash, and it knows how to throw its influence around and to turn the FAA into putty
instead of a regulator. And so when David Calhoun, who is the Chairman of the Board of
Boeing; he's been on the board since 2009; he has a full-time job with the Blackstone Financial
giant, says on CNBC a few days ago "From the vantage point of our board, Dennis Muilenburg
has done everything right. Remember, Dennis didn't create this problem.” From the beginning,
he knew that MCAS," that's the software fix, so-called, that boomeranged and led to two
disasters, Boeing 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia with 346 fatalities. He says "From
the beginning, he knew that MCAS could and should have been done better and he's led a
program to rewrite MCAS to alleviate all these conditions that ultimately beset two unfortunate
crews and the families and the victims." That's completely false. Dennis Muilenburg was in on
this problem from the beginning. He represented the Boeing marketeers overruling the Boeing
engineers to get the MAX up as fast as possible to compete with Airbus's 320neo.
He's been CEO well before the Boeing MAX took off. He was in at the founding. And for his
rubber stamp, David Calhoun, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, to say he didn't create the
problem, is totally false. But you see, that's what's going on; the fix is in. The Congress is not
going to do much; they have resisted our demands that they have a panel for the consumer
groups like FlyersRights.org. You should go to it for updates and Consumer's Union and people
like myself who's written on aviation safety. They haven’t announced the hearing on that. They
haven't announced the hearing for the second round for the labor unions who have to deal with
these planes every day. They haven't announced, most crucially, a hearing for the technical
critics--the aerospace experts, the avionics, the aerodynamic experts who are beseeching to
testify and take apart Boeing's nonsense before the congressional committees. And they haven't
allowed the families who are now very, very knowledgeable about what's going on. They’ve met
with all kinds of technicians, the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board. They haven’t
been scheduled for hearing either in the House under Congressman DeFazio from Oregon or in
the Senate, Senator Wicker from Mississippi. So folks, it's going to be a very touch-and-go
situation in the next few weeks until the early part of 2020. Weigh in on your member of
Congress. They can say slow down Boeing, don't you dare certify FAA and we'll have more time
to get this thing in better shape. FlyersRights.org is your update for any questions you may have.
David Feldman: Well I have a question, Ralph, were you at the hearing where Muilenburg
apologized to the families a few weeks ago?
Ralph Nader: Yes, I was at the hearing. Muilenburg apologized more than once. He was told
by my niece, Nadia Millerron, after the hearing that when he apologizes, he should look the
families in the eye and not do it when he's looking straight ahead at the members of the House
committee at which point he did that. He did that again, but he was raked over the coals because
he was slated for a bonus of 15 million bucks, can you imagine? And he's dropped that. He's no
longer taking that. And he's now making 23 million a year and he was taken to task by some
members of the House committee on that. But what they didn't do is break it down. At the end of
the hearing they said, Mr. Muilenburg, you have now made $75,000 since you walked in this
room at 9:30 and left at 3:30.
David Feldman: So in spite of all of that, you're feeling is that Congress will ultimately not call
them to task in a serious way?
Ralph Nader: Unless there's a new surge of air traveler demands, because they are afraid that
the air travelers will start gumming up the works by saying we're not going to fly the MAX. The
airlines will be perplexed on how to handle this. The Boeing MAX brand will be seriously
tarnished. And so what they're worried about, the air travelers and the labor unions, and above
all, the families of the bereaved who are really, really organized and are getting all kinds of
access to the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], to the Department of Transportation to the
House to the Senate, and even spent a couple of hours with Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of
Boeing. So if all these things come together, what will we get? We will get the publicity of the
way Boeing is supposedly going to fix this plane that they have sent in secret to the FAA. We'll
get that out in the open; we'll let the technical critics go over it, have a 60-day comment period,
and then we'll see where we're at. And at the same time, Congress should have the hearings I just
mentioned with the labor unions, the families, the consumer groups, and the aerospace experts,
some of whom work for Boeing, others are subject matter specialists and do they have a story to
tell.
David Feldman: So Ralph, in one kind of simple sentence, what is your demand? What are the
demands of the family here that they want from Boeing? Do they want it completely grounded,
build a new plane, what or some other solution?
Ralph Nader: They say the Boeing 737-800 MAX is a new plane. It should have been subject
to a full certification; that's what they're demanding. That would include analyzing the
aerodynamic instability problem as well as the faulty, complicated software fix they call the
MCAS [Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System], full certification, and if the plane is
ever slated to be ungrounded, full simulator training, as Sully, Captain Sullenberger testified for
the House in June, should be required of the pilots by the airlines, and Boeing’s full certification
[and] full simulator training, before that plane is up.
David Feldman: In your opinion, knowing a lot about avionics, do you think this plane would
pass the certification?
Ralph Nader: Well it depends on how stringent the FAA is. They can pass anything. They've
been pretty permissive with Boeing...
David Feldman: Right, because they allowed Boeing to basically certify it themselves.
Ralph Nader: That's right. And they weren’t up to date on the software fix. They weren't even
informed by Boeing that the software strength was increased fourfold. And Boeing didn't even
notify the airlines or the pilots that this stealth hijacker, this software, could take the control of
the plane away from the pilots and nosedive it into the Java Sea or into a farmer's area in
Ethiopia at 550 miles per hour, killing 346 people.
David Feldman: Now, does the FAA have the expertise and the staff to be able to do this?
Because I thought that was the excuse before and that's why they allowed Boeing to do it.
Ralph Nader: Yes, they didn't have adequate staff, but they have adequate resources to hire
consultants and people who can immediately come to grips with this even more profoundly than
what FAA staff can do.
Steve Skrovan: You would think they could have maybe an independent blue-ribbon panel like
what happened after the Challenger disaster, in the space shuttle disaster.
Ralph Nader: Well, they've had these panels, Steve, but the problem is they're all looking
backward properly as to what happened, who knew what-when, who covered up, who didn't
inform, who didn't respond. Now the panels have to address the question, should this plane ever
fly again? And if it does, under what conditions? And that looking-forward panels have not been
brought together, because they don't want to experience the conclusion of some of the findings,
which is that unless that airframe and the injured overload problem that leads to the prone-to-
stall inclination by the 737 MAX is addressed, the plane should never fly. And they're not
willing to burden Boeing with that kind of economic price. So it all comes down to Boeing cash,
Boeing profits.
David Feldman: And for the victims to be satisfied, it's going to take a movement and publicity
and flyers knowing about these problems and potentially not flying on this plane for them to get
their attention.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, and the coordinator is Flyers Rights run by Paul Hudson who lost his
daughter at 16 years old in the Lockerbie collision over Scotland 30 years ago. Go to
FlyersRights.org; he'll say exactly what he thinks you can do vis-a-vis Congress and elsewhere.
We are passing out buttons "Axe the Max" for people to wear; take a picture, put it up on the
internet. What Boeing can't control is a growing consumer boycott. Calls to airlines, even if
you're not flying, just say we don't want you to use this plane. Boeing cannot control that. They
can control the political situation in Washington. They can hammer the airlines and say you’ve
got no choice, but they can't control resistance by the bread and butter of the airlines, the air
traveler.
Steve Skrovan: All right, well you heard it, listeners, Flyers Rights is your source of updates
and information and it really could be a consumer movement that decides the fate of the Boeing
MAX 8. So let's move to some listener questions now, David.
David Feldman: This is from Paul G. Warrick, Ralph. He says, "I live in a Trump-supporter
region. If you talk to one Trump supporter, you talked to them all. The problem as I see it, they
are fed daily propaganda mostly by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etcetera. I would like to know
who are the big money players supporting this subverted often toxic media? If you control the
people, you control the politicians, right? Shouldn't journalists seek out these big money players
and interview them on their positions on policies and issues? Politicians are puppets. Why waste
time on them when there are deeper sources we should focus on; make them answer for their
manipulations of our government and media out them."
Ralph Nader: All right, the big money players, first of all, are the advertisers on Fox and Rush
Limbaugh. You can just get their name by listening to their ads. They're usually the big
companies [like] General Motors and the Merck drug companies, Bank of America, you name it.
So they're the ones. Without advertising, no Fox News, no Rush Limbaugh, and no Facebook,
and no Google. Though there are consumer groups who focus on the advertisers--they threaten
boycotts, they announce boycotts, they go after the brand, and they're making some progress in
that way. You'll notice that when there is misbehavior by a certain talk show on television and
they start losing ads, that person has either lost his or her job or they tend to reconsider how far
they're going to go with their blathering.
Steve Skrovan: All right. This next question comes from a long-time listener and frequent
questioner, usually asks very good questions, Earl Ammerman IV. And he says, "Why is Joe
Biden ignoring the fact that in order to accomplish his Moonshot to Cure Cancer, there needs to
be healthcare infrastructure such as paid sick leave. In order to make the Moonshot to [Cure]
Cancer work for actual cancer patients who can't afford to miss work, because they lack paid sick
leave, and might lose their house and job if they're hospitalized. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the
Moonshot to Cure Cancer seems to be an Orwellian policy that seems to benefit drug companies
by subsidizing their research and development while cancer patients get the short end of the stick
because they won't benefit because the $100,000 chemo pills would be too expensive and cancer
is not like the common cold. You don't just kick it after a couple of days. Cancer patients miss
work to seek treatment. If they don't have paid sick leave, they won't be able to keep a roof over
their head due to how expensive cancer treatment is."
Ralph Nader: Well, a lot of what you say, Earl, is correct. If the moonshot actually produces
policies to prevent cancer, then I think part of your legitimate complaints are avoided because
people will not get cancer. They won't have to deal with unpaid sick leave, etcetera, etcetera. But
these big moonshot programs do increase the profits enormously of the companies that are in the
arena to make money from cancer treatment or all the other aspects that cancer patients need.
And that's where the profiteering comes in and you know as well as others that these companies
are going to try to get the lion's share of that taxpayer bonanza as they see it. And by the way,
we're one of the few countries in the world that call themselves democracies that don't have paid
sick leave.
Steve Skrovan: This last question is not really a question. I just wanted to share it with our
listeners and with you on the air, Ralph. It comes from a Manal Hamzeh and I don't know if
that's a he or she actually, but it says, "Dear Ralph, I wanted you to know that my father, Dr.
Zaid Hamzeh, has been listening to your radio hour podcasts lately. Today, his weekly column in
the daily Al-Rai, Amman, Jordan, starts with you and the interview you had with Steven
Greenhouse when we talked about unions.” And it says “your impact and reach are critical
locally and globally. Thank you, Manal." I just wanted to share that with you and get a reaction.
Ralph Nader: Well, Thank you very much, Manal. It's really good we've had feedback from
places all over the world and that's one of the benefits of the new technology; it can carry your
program everywhere. And I'm glad that some of the interviews we’ve had have relevance to
conditions and issues of justice in these lands around the world.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you for your questions. Keep them coming on the Ralph Nader Radio
Hour website. Now Ralph and David, before we go, I just want to take a few moments to alert
our listeners that we're going to be releasing a special Ralph Nader Radio Hour on the
impeachment of Donald J. Trump. It's going to be in the form of a series of podcasts and will
feature Ralph and our Resident Constitutional Scholar Bruce Fein. As regular listeners know,
Bruce Fein is no radical lefty. He is a Republican who has worked in the Reagan Administration
as well as for conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise
Institute. As a young lawyer, he was even in the Justice Department during the impeachment
inquiry over Richard Nixon. He also worked with the Republican Floor Manager Bob Barr, not
Bill Barr, Bob Barr, different guy. He worked with Congressman Bob Barr from Georgia on the
impeachment of Bill Clinton about 20 years ago. Bruce is a real stickler for the Constitution and
he's written extensively about that founding document and how we as a country have strayed
from many of its core articles. So this series of podcasts is an effort to take you beyond the
politics of the moment, as perilous as these times are, and offer to our listeners as well as those in
Congress, a constitutional reset of sorts. Bruce has outlined 14, that's 14 impeachable offenses
that could be leveled at this president. Most are exclusively particular to Donald Trump, but
there are others, which could be leveled at the past half dozen presidents as well. Each episode
will dive into each count in the indictment, so to speak. So look for this series of podcasts on our
website, our YouTube channel, Instagram, Twitter, and any other platform from which you
download the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. So look for our special report on the impeachment of
Donald J. Trump. I want to thank our guest again, John M. Barnett. 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 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 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 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: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour when we speak to
legendary FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody. Stay alert.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour
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RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 296: The CDC’s Culture of Fear
November 9, 2019
In our continuing series honoring whistleblowers, Ralph welcomes winner of the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage, Dr. George Luber, former head of the Centers for Disease Control’s Climate Health program, who despite pressure from the newly-minted Trump Administration, blew the whistle after refusing to cancel a convention on how the climate crisis was affecting public health.
George Luber is an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His research interests include the health impacts of environmental change and biodiversity loss, harmful algal blooms, and the health effects of climate change. Dr. Luber headed the CDC’s climate health program until it was eliminated in 2018 by the Trump White House. The nation’s premier health protection agency continues to retaliate against him for speaking out on the climate crisis and its public health effects. He has since filed for whistleblower status with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and has just received the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage.
“The most frightening thing, actually, is that somebody would make a decision like this in anticipating the potential blowback from the [Trump] Administration. That to me is frightening, because it’s the most insidious form of power. And when you can get people to do things for you without even asking them, that I think is the most frightening thing. To get people to act on your behalf in ways that they normally wouldn’t merely out of fear of what you might do.”
Dr. George Luber, winner of the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage
“I was escorted by armed guards when I needed to get some books out of my office [at the CDC]. I had an armed escort and they asked me to come at 11:00am – the height of the day when everybody is around intending to humiliate me – and marched me through our large ten story office building with a large armed guard behind me that even followed me to the bathroom.”
Dr. George Luber, winner of the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 296 TRANSCRIPT
Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my co-host David Feldman. Hello there, David.
David Feldman: Hello everybody. Another important show this morning.
Steve Skrovan: Yes, indeed. And to help us through that is the man of the hour Ralph Nader. Hello there, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello everybody. We're going to show what heroism is really about.
Steve Skrovan: That's correct. Today we continue our series on whistleblowing. On the show, we're going to feature a winner of the Joe A. Callaway Civic Courage Awards. Ralph, why don’t you tell us what the Joe A. Callaway Awards are and how they came about.
Ralph Nader: It's quite a story Joe A. Callaway was an empresario on Broadway and he wanted to leave some of his estate to good works. And he figured out that one would be an annual award for people demonstrating civic courage, not political, not business, not military, [but] civic courage in our country who are unsung, often shoved aside from their employment and mistreated. And so he contacted us by letter and my sister, Claire Nader, has been administering these awards for the last 30 years. This is the 30th anniversary. And Joe Callaway stipulated that he wanted the award to go, not only to people who demonstrated civic courage, but did so at some personal risk like they risked their job; they risked their career; they risked their sustenance, whatever. And that stipulation has brought forth some of the finest people one could ever meet all over the country, taking their conscience to work, blowing the whistle, risking their careers, and trying to save lives, prevent injuries, prevent disease, save taxpayer money, and generally try to keep the country on straight and narrow path of moral probity.
Steve Skrovan: Our guest is George Luber who was in charge of the climate change program at the Centers for Disease Control. In other words, he was studying how a hotter planet will affect human health. But at the dawn of the Trump Administration, not only was the term "climate change" removed from the CDC website, but Dr. Luber was directed to cancel a conference on climate change. He objected and the CDC first attempted to fire him then decided just to send him home on administrative leave and banned him from the building. Eventually he went public with his story and groups from across the world, have begun campaigns to restore the climate change and health program. And as always, we will take a moment to find out what's happening in the dark recesses of the corporate underworld with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber. And if we have time at the end, Ralph will answer some of your listener questions. But first, let's meet our Callaway Award Winner. David?
David Feldman: Dr. George Luber is an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His research interests include the health impacts of environmental change and biodiversity loss, harmful algal blooms, and the health effects of climate change. Dr. Luber headed the CDC's Climate Health Program until it was downgraded and diluted by the Trump White House in 2018. The nation's premier health protection agency continues to retaliate against him for speaking out on the climate crisis and its public health effects. He has since filed for whistleblower status with the Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel and has just received the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Dr. George Luber.
George Luber: Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
Ralph Nader: Welcome, yes, Dr. Luber and congratulations on your Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, supremely deserved. I think before started, please explain what does an epidemiologist do? I don't think there's enough of them in this country and they're desperately needed. What does an epidemiologist do and what different areas of health and safety have they been working on--before we get into your situation?
George Luber: Sure. Well an epidemiologist is somebody that studies the patterns of diseases and the causes of diseases covering almost an infinite amount of exposures and health outcomes. We look for a statistical association between a particular exposure, so bad air quality. And look for what that might do to certain parts of the population or to the population as a whole. We essentially dive through data looking for causes of illness and death. And my expertise covers a wide range of environmental exposures, which include bad water quality, air quality, extreme weather events and the like, and try to build a case for why certain exposures are harmful to people's health.
Ralph Nader: Just to give a specific example from your own experience, epidemiologists such as yourself, make connections. They make causal connections; they make all kinds of relationships that make us understand what's going on. And for example, if a new disease comes up and it's infectious, epidemiologists will try to find where it came from, the causes. They're try to find who's most vulnerable, where the vulnerability is, and maybe find situations where people are not as vulnerable. It's so absolutely critical in a highly technological society and there are just only a few thousand epidemiologists operating in the United States. So let's get to your area, the Centers for Disease Control arguably is the single most important agency in the federal government, because if you're dealing with global pandemics, viral pandemics, bacterial pandemics and the such, you're dealing with potentially tens of millions of fatalities and hundreds of millions of sicknesses. And yet its budget is about seven and a half billion dollars, which is half of what the Pentagon spends on the ballistic missile defense program that has never worked since Reagan opened it with great fanfare. They're now spending about $14 billion a year, that's the kind of priorities. Now, you had an 18-person staff inside the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. I believe the budget was about $10 million and you were supposed to be looking into the connection between global public health and climate disruptions--tornadoes, destruction of habitats, droughts, widespread fires, hurricanes and, for example, if you change the habitats, the malarial carrying mosquitoes will spread malaria beyond its present regions now. That's an example of how epidemiology works. You're working away at this and then the Trump regime opens its doors in January 2017. So explain to our listeners what happened.
George Luber: Well, I'd be happy to. Before I begin though, it's important that I make it clear that what I'm presenting to you today is my own statement. It doesn't represent the federal government or the agency in which I work. These are my own opinions and my own statements and that I'm sitting here talking with you while I am on vacation leave, so I'm not using government time or resources to do so just to make clear to everybody that this is on my own. So, yeah, the election happened in the fall of 2016 and a few weeks later, I got called into the director's office, the director for the center, the National Center for Environmental Health that I work in. And he told me that we've got a problem. I had been working on a large scientific meeting, a 3-day meeting that was going to be held in the CDC headquarters in Atlanta called The Climate & Health Summit. It was a science meeting for three days and it was intended to raise awareness both within CDC and the broader public health community that hey, there are folks working on climate change and health; we're actually kind of an obscure part of public health, but because of recent statements by the World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan, stating that climate change is the single greatest threat to public health in the 21st century, since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] released its 2014 report stating unequivocally that humans are changing the earth climate system and so on, that we wanted to get public health who have their traditional bunkers that they work in that there is groundbreaking work going on in climate change and health. We had organized this meeting, again with a blind eye to politics, which was rather naive considering what had been going on in the country. And in my infinite wisdom, I wanted to get high-level speakers for our meeting and called on Al Gore [to see] if he would like to be our keynote speaker. I thought he's a great advocate for climate change. And apparently that was a mistake because the director said, you know you have this meeting planned for February--this was three weeks after the inauguration. And he said, “You're going to have to cancel meeting.” And I was blown away! We've spent this past six, seven months working on this thing. We got a full agenda. We've got invitees; it’s all paid for. Money's out the door; why are we cancelling this meeting? He said, “the optics aren’t good.” And I said, “Do you think the optics would be good if you cancel the meeting and the news press got ahold of this?” This kind of sounds like scientific censorship and we have a scientific integrity policy that prohibits us from doing this. And they said, “The optics aren’t good. I want you to send out a letter of cancellation.” And I said, “I'm not going to do that. I'm not sending out a letter with my name on it belying my scientific belief that this is an important topic.” And they were surprised that I would be so obstinate, but I said, “No, this is my professional credibility here. If you want to cancel the meeting, well, you're my boss; you can cancel the meeting, but I'm not doing it.” And so they sent out a press release shortly after that meeting was canceled. And I just steeled myself for some difficult times.
Ralph Nader: And this was a very technical agenda here. It wasn't just a celebrity speaker. We have books on the subject. These are really people who've sunk their teeth into the nuances of this whole problem.
George Luber: We had the best scientists . . . what we did was we solicited abstracts or short blurbs on the research they’d like to speak on. We had a panel select the appropriate speakers. We had numerous sessions on very specific topics--changes in hydro-geology and waterborne diseases, and very specific technical topics for public health that we'd organized into sessions of several speakers, and we were aiming to have the biggest and best meeting of this type today. And I think we had it. We had pulled together a fantastic meeting with all kinds of partners, congressional organizations.
Ralph Nader: And it was open to the press, right?
George Luber: Yes.
Ralph Nader: Okay. So I always thought the CDC was about as impervious to partisan political intrusion as a federal agency. I mean in the past, Republican and Democrat administrations would not compete to manipulate politically what the CDC does. They didn't fund it adequately, but it was considered an agency of professional independence. And so I was pretty astonished, even with my minimal regard for the Trump people, that they began moving in. Now how did they move in? Did they appoint a new director who was taking orders? Did they put people at secondary levels under the new director? I mean it's astonishing that an agency that is full of PhDs and MDs, etcetera, suddenly became a political football for Donald Trump who has called climate disruption "a Chinese hoax." So how did this happen and it came down on you like a hammer, we'll talk about that in a moment.
George Luber: Yeah, in my 17 years of the agency, I held the exact same view, that this was a science-driven agency done so for the protection of people's health and that politics had nothing to do with it. And I had operated my program and strategies that we’d employ, including unfortunately inviting Al Gore in a political environment. You know, it's a wonderful organization with incredibly passionate and driven scientists that are so hungry for their mission that we spend inordinate amount of hours working on work that we just have enormous pride in. And I have no direct knowledge of how this happened. The individual that . . . Pat Breysse, the center director that asked me to cancel the meeting was put in place during the Obama Administration. I think at that time we had a director that was on his way out; we knew that. But I don't know who made the decision . . . or the most frightening thing actually, is that somebody would make a decision like this and anticipating the potential blowback for the administration. And that to me is frightening, because it's the most insidious form of power. And when you can get people to do things for you without even asking them, that, I think, is the most frightening thing that people will act on your behalf in ways that they normally wouldn't, merely out of fear of what you might do. So, I suspect that's the case. And it frightens me that we would go down that path.
Ralph Nader: Well one of the ways they kept you down was to reorganize, which is a typical bureaucratic technique. So what they took your 18-person climate and health program and subsumed it under a larger program dedicated to the problems of asthma, and so it was fair to say that your program, while technically not abolished, it was degraded and diluted, and then they pushed you out, forbade you to even talk to your 18-member staff. And I understand that if you wanted to come back to where you worked for a visit, you had to get permission and you were in a state of limbo, suspended but not fired. Could you describe that?
George Luber: In addition, I was escorted by armed guards. When I needed to get some books out of my office and I had an armed escort, they asked me to come at 11:00 a.m., which is the height of the day when everybody's around intending to humiliate me and marched me through our large 10-story office building with a large armed guard behind me that even followed me to the bathroom.
Ralph Nader: Everything but shackles and irons?
George Luber: Correct. And Ralph, in my 17 years at the CDC, I have never been spoken to sideways. I'd never been reprimanded in any way; I'd received outstanding performance reviews and promotions that belie any attempt at making my character unsavory. So they did a number of things to the climate health program, which is appropriated in a discreet line item in the budget, which means Congress appropriated $10 million for climate and health programs at CDC. Since it's a direct line, it cannot be, by law, used in any other way. And I as a manager in charge of that appropriation, am responsible for making sure that the public's money is managed in an appropriate way and that that I'm a good steward of the public's money. And if Congress says work on climate and health, I cannot decide that this needs to be worked on for asthma prevention and management. So what they did was they took the climate health program that was standalone and the asthma program that was standalone, along with a number of other programs, and they blended them together and my program got merged with asthma. And I was made the acting branch chief of the program and immediately my superiors had asked me to dismantle the team that I had built in climate change, which is a highly unique team with unique set of expertise from climatology to geographic information systems. And the team that I’d built, whose sole purpose was to work on this unique set of challenges, they wanted me to move those individuals to other teams in the asthma program. And I said, “Well, you can't do that because they're going to be supervising your supervisors; people are working on different lines, and how are we going to get around that fact that you can't merge the personnel . . . the expenditure of their time between different programs?” And there was a woman, one of my managers above me, refused to answer that question, but she had --her name is Laurie Johnson-- she had two contractors from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which I found highly unusual and odd and I'd never seen this before, work with me on an organizational plan for this new branch, and encouraged me to accept this new organizational plan that would essentially blend the money. And I kept telling the contractors, "You can't do this." They're like, "Well, Laurie says you can." And I said, "Well, you can't. I've taken appropriations classes, I have to, and why isn’t Laurie in this meeting?" "Oh, well, she couldn't come." And this went on for several weeks and I refused. I said, "Listen, unless we can address this topic of the appropriations, which I am responsible for, so I could get in trouble if I allow this to happen because I know that it's illegal." And I said, "Laurie, tell me what the workaround is for this mixing of the money, because I don't see how it could happen and I'm not happy with this." And as we went back and forth, back and forth, never with a response from Laurie about the appropriateness of this, I was called into a meeting with the senior managers in the center. And it was quite odd because I'd gotten a call up to the director's office one day and I sat down and one of the deputy directors for the center, Donna Knutson, said "We have some troubling allegations against you." And I was like, "What? What are you talking about?" And she said, "Did you author a book in 2015?" And I said, "Well, yeah, I authored a textbook on climate change and health." And she said, "Well, we have no records in the ethics approval office." Because this was an activity I did on my own and I got the approval to do it. And since I had to let CDC ethics approval office know, that's what I was working on. She said, "We have no evidence that you actually received ethics approval for it." I said, "Well, I did. I have the form in my office. Let me go get it." She's like, "No, you need to hand me your phone, your badge, and your keys, and we're going to . . . you need to leave campus now."
Ralph Nader: Let me interrupt here. This is, listeners, the kind of top-down inquisition that they impose on people of conscience and competence in the state bureaucracies, federal, state, local and corporate bureaucracies. The larger point that Dr. Luber is making is that he refused to spend money contrary to what was authorized for his program by the US Congress. He refused to spend money. Because if you spend money in an unauthorized way, that is a violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prescribes a felony as a punishment. Now to take an even bigger arc, what Donald Trump was doing was doing this throughout federal regulatory agencies, moving money around for purposes that wasn't authorized such as moving money from the Defense Department for schools and other social services for the children of military families to build his so-called Wall on the Mexican Border; that's a crime! That's not just an impeachable offense; it's a crime under the Antideficiency Law. And the other web you were caught up with--we're talking with Dr. Georgie E. Luber, who was the head of the Climate and Health program at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta; the other aspect of this is that he is aiding and abetting a tremendous threat to our national security, which is climate disruption. It's already blowing apart communities and you see it on TV news. And so it's not just that he's stopping you from trying to head it off in your particular way and stopping others from trying to minimize or mitigate these huge storms and tornadoes and droughts, etcetera, short-term and long-term, he's actually making it worse by unleashing coal-burning pollution and scrapping control standards on greenhouse gases--go oil gas--go coal. He calls coal clean, beautiful coal. So he's aiding and abetting a massive assault from an abused nature against the health and safety and property values of our country and actually making it worse. That should be an impeachable offense that Congress should pay attention to. Anyway, where are you now? I mean you're sitting outside your workplace, outside the Centers for Disease Control, you've given the media interviews; you're very good about communicating with the media. Are they trying to stop you from doing that? Have they suspended your pay?
George Luber: No. Fortunately they had served me charges in October of last year, in '18. And with the help of lawyers from an organization called PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, we were able to have those charges completely removed. They had accused me of all kinds of fabricated and just . . . I mean so poorly done. I mean they . . . I'm also a professor at Emory University, and I teach a class their regularly on climate and health. And they had accused me of having my subordinates teach classes for me and, --which I didn't-- and they said I was having them teach classes that I never even taught. They never bothered to check the class schedule to see if that course even existed. And they said you had somebody teach this class. I'm like, "I never taught that class; that's somebody else." And numbers of just anonymous accusations of something that I was able to concretely show evidence that it wasn’t even true. And it was just remarkably poorly done, which maybe, I think I'm grateful for, the incompetence of the staff at the center. They were not able to put together a credible set of charges. Maybe it was done in order to help me. I'm hoping that some folks on the inside felt some solidarity in this.
Ralph Nader: Talk about trumped-up charges, eh?
George Luber: Yes, um-hum, it was. And they removed all of them.
Ralph Nader: So they suspended you for 120 days to prevent you from speaking to the media?
George Luber: They prevented me from speaking to the media going back before they removed me from my position. This goes back right after the Al Gore debacle they cut off all my media access and travel access. And that dragged on for about a year plus. And then after my absence with not doing their dirty work with the appropriations money, that's when I was removed from campus. And since then, that was March of '18, I have been moved to different assignments around CDC in assignments that are unrelated to frankly anything that I have expertise in and I've been bounced around to . . . I'm on my fourth assignment and I'm still working and I'm prohibited from coming to the campus in which I'm assigned to. I work from home 100% of the time, isolated. And I review now scientific manuscripts on laboratory analysis of environmental exposure, something which I am profoundly unqualified to do. So I'm part of the clearance chain for laboratory manuscripts.
Ralph Nader: Listeners should know that one of the first things Donald Trump did was ordered the banning of the use of the term "climate change" not only to Centers for Disease Control, but at the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies. This is like right out of the Kremlin and Stalinist Russia. And the second thing, they didn't like you appearing with Matt Damon in a show called Years of Living Dangerously.
George Luber: Well that was during the Obama years and actually we got a good bit of support for that. I think perhaps with the current crop of managers at the center don't like the attention the topic is getting, and you know, it is . . . our little unit was one of the most productive in the center and was also the one that they felt gave them the most vulnerability politically. And so anything they could do to . . . and they said to me, we . . . you need to lay low, take a low profile. And I saw this as a tremendous opportunity to raise our profile and I refused to do so. We were in discussions with the National Geographic channel on "Mars" series, which is a very successful show there, for me to be a regular contributor to and I received an email saying "George Luber will never be on that show" (capitals, bolded, underlined). And they did not want me to seek media attention and part of my job is to raise awareness on this issue. It is critically important that we take every opportunity we can to let the public know that this is a real and credible threat to you now in your communities and you should be worried.
Ralph Nader: Well fortunately you're being represented pro bono by this wonderful nonprofit group in Washington and Eugene, Oregon called PEER, which started out to protect the scientific integrity of foresters in US Forest Service who opposed clear cutting on behalf of companies like Weyerhaeuser and were retaliated against. So you're in good hands. You have filed through them a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, which is in the Justice Department, seeking an investigation and defense of your rights. What are you seeing in terms of your 18 colleagues--are they distancing themselves; are the silently supporting you? How's the personal impact on you?
George Luber: Well, the personal impact was tremendous, but it'd be much worse without the folks up here especially Kevin Bell, one of the most competent and dedicated lawyers that I've ever encountered. And they work tirelessly on this issue. And they remind me of my staff who took this issue of climate change to heart and made it their life's mission, their life's work. These people are driven to work on this topic because they want to contribute. And of the 18 staff, several have left. You know, we're a group that has different skillsets, project managers, etcetera, communicators, and so on and so forth, but the heart of the scientific knowledge base at that group is all gone. Myself, I've been the lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I've written the textbook on this issue. I've been a convening lead author for the Third and Fourth US National Climate Assessment, on and on. And what's left in the program unfortunately is not much expertise. And that is really what loss is--the core knowledge base that we need in order to move this forward. We're left with individuals with not much experience or credentials on this.
And yes, I do keep in contact with some of them, but frankly, it is a culture of fear right now. And many are so . . . they have told me, "George, I support you, I can provide evidence that would exonerate you on this charge undoubtedly. But I cannot do so because I fear that I will be retaliated against." They have been told directly by the new person who took over from me, Josephine Malilay, that if they speak to the press . . . and which is a . . . we have a First Amendment right to be able to do so on our own time and I've been advised of that by CDC general counsel on numerous occasions, that you will get in trouble if you speak to the press. And if you do get contacted by the press, you need to report it to me immediately. That's the typical type of intimidation factors that go along with this. And so we have a group of young, smart, and scared individuals.
Ralph Nader: Well, George, some listeners may be wondering, how can these federal employees over you, do such things to you? What recourse you have against them personally? What lawsuits can be filed against them personally all the way up to the White House level? Are they all immune?
George Luber: I wish I had Kevin here to help me with that question, because I really don't know the answer to that. You know, we're focused on CDC restoring the program as it was intended by Congress to do, having it in hands of managers that are good stewards of the public’s money in order to run this program and care about this topic. There are parts of the CDC that would love to have this program and see it flourish.
Ralph Nader: Well, do you have a patron or two in Congress? When there was a whistleblower, Ernie Fitzgerald in the Pentagon on the C-5A air cargo plane and he showed that the plane had a tendency to lose a wing now and then, he was really pounced on in the Pentagon and he went to Senator Proxmire, William Proxmire from Wisconsin, who became one of his defenders and had hearings on the subject. Do you have any backers by name in the House and Senate, and if not, why not?
George Luber: Well, we do. Actually just about a half an hour ago I recorded a video for social media for Senator Bernie Sanders. And you of course know, that his stance on this topic is very strong and they've been supportive. On the House side, there’ve been a number of efforts to support this. Congresswoman Lauren Underwood from Michigan has proposed legislation to have the climate program restored as an individual unit. And Congressman Shalala as well has expressed tremendous support for this issue and is working, I believe with Appropriations on what can be done about this.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, I may add, Congressman Shalala was a Former Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton Administration and she ran for Congress after being president of a major university in Florida. Why don't you try Senator Edward Markey to back you, too?
George Luber: Again, yes, I believe the legislative affairs folks at PEER and another whistleblower group called the Government Accountability Project are working with Markey as well as a few others, Senator Whitehouse, I believe.
Ralph Nader: Well listen, listeners, this is not just about Dr. George Luber. Let me read you a passage in the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage about Dr. Luber. "His unremitting position on behalf of scientific method, integrity and expertise, presently under attack as never before in history is an unwavering beacon for other federal government climate scientists suffering similar retaliation. Using his many splendored approach in communication skills through academic publications and in popular media, Dr. Luber pledged he will “not go away" tenaciously responding to intensifying climate chaos." I have a little point to make to any Trump voters who are listening to this program. I know that you love Donald Trump. In fact, you may be part of many Trump voters who say when they're asked the following: "People say Trump is crazy, but what he's saying is what I'm thinking. Does that mean I'm crazy?" Well let me tell you, we'll leave that judgment to yourself Trump voters, but what Dr. Luber wants to make sure is that you don't get an infectious disease and infect others because you're under health and safety protection. That's what he's looking for. It doesn't matter whether you're a Republican, Democrat, Conservative, or Liberal, you better pay attention. There's the smasharoos who are breaking up the Centers for Disease Control, politicizing them, favoring the big corporations who don't want certain things done and stifling people like George Luber, who relentlessly were determined to take their conscience to work so they can help save your lives or anticipate and prevent global pandemics and epidemics. David and Steve, jump in here.
David Feldman: I'm confused about the hierarchy over at the CDC. Who are you taking orders from in terms of their education? What kind of degrees do these people have who are giving you these orders? Are these doctors, are these PhDs?
George Luber: Yeah, well the center directors are PhDs and industrial hygienists. But the . . . I believe the real direction of whether the meeting should be canceled was not . . . this is a director that is frequently on travel, unlike, I think this is my fifth center director; this center director spends a tremendous amount of time out of town and is remarkably absent for much of his tenure here and therefore the shop is run by folks without PhDs. These are policy people and that's the trend that I've noticed at CDC over my 17 years and we've always, you know, impressed the fact that science directs policy, right, at this agency. However that's changed, now policy directs science in very prescriptive ways. And so the policy people stepped in and have their wisdom about how to manage the Trump Administration and this is where we're at. I think that a lot of these efforts are just done without care, you know, managing the public's money or being good stewards or being conscious as to our scientific integrity policy, which should drive all of our efforts. The folks that were trying to directly get me to move the money around don't have advanced degrees that I'm aware of. They're budget people and managers of non-science; we have two tracks--a science management and a management side. Irregardless, I would maintain that we should play by the rules and do it the way it was intended and let the science lead the way.
David Feldman: Yeah, I don’t understand why doctors allow themselves to be ordered around by their inferiors. And it seems to happen in the healthcare debate.
George Luber: It's just abdicating the responsibility for that, frankly.
David Feldman: So just to be clear, you said the person who told you the optics would be bad was not a Trump political appointee, just someone feeling the pressure either directly or indirectly that this would be a bad idea to do with the new regime, is that correct?
George Luber: That's my understanding. So he had started during the Obama years. And I don't have any knowledge . . . this was . . . could have been right around the time that the transition teams, Beachhead Crew or something they call it, where the people come to the agency immediately. And I had heard from another source through a Union of Concerned Scientists’ anonymous survey that a senior manager at CDC had said there were five key areas that the Trump Administration wanted to be targeted during this administration. It would be anything under the Affordable Care Act, birth control, gun violence, abortion rights, and climate change. These are the topics that they're interested in. Now I don't know if this advance team had already made these wishes known to my leadership, but it was odd for me to get called in and said going to have to cancel this meeting that we spent a good bit of time. We had already spent the money and a good bit of personnel time to get this going. And it was a solid conference. And plus, I said the optics are terrible on cancelling the meeting and certainly, of course, The Washington Post ran a story critical of CDC on cancelling the meeting. Is this censorship? And it was very odd that they would make that, because their argument for laying low certainly didn't work. Because who would really honestly write a story about a science meeting at CDC about climate change? No one would write a national level media story about a climate meeting at CDC. But now they did write about it because it was canceled.
Ralph Nader: Let me ask you this, would you return to your position with a change of administrations that wanted to reinstate your program?
George Luber: Absolutely. I decided . . . I got my PhD right at 9/11. And sitting there watching those images, I actually turned down an offer at Stanford and decided to pursue a life of public service. I made it my goal to provide a service to this country, and I felt obliged to do it. And sitting there watching those towers come down and two weeks later, I applied to CDC and got a post doc and have dedicated my life to doing that. And I'm not giving up now. And I don't . . . these people come and go. I mean I've watched senior directors come and go, CDC directors and my managers come and go. But the people who do the science, who do the work on the ground, they stay and they're dedicated. And we've gotten used to seeing these people come and go. And I've maintained my . . . I also teach where I mentioned [Emory University], and they have been wanting me to come over there. And I said, "I'm in this fight and I am going to make sure that this comes out well, because if people like me walk away, who's left to care?
Ralph Nader: How has the pressure been on you professionally and personally?
George Luber: Incredible sense of isolation. Many of my colleagues throughout the government have essentially ghosted me. Now that's counterbalanced by a tremendous amount of support from the folks at the Callaway Awards, The Hugh Hefner Foundation [and] from news reporting and colleagues around the world. I received a stack the other day of around 20 postcards that was part of a letter-writing campaign encouraging me to keep on my fight and that really helps keep me going. But my colleagues at CDC are afraid and many of them have disappeared. And I think . . .you know, I tell myself that it's a measure of somebody's character in how they respond in moments like this. And that folks would slink away and ignore it, well that's the measure of their character. And for those who stand up and fight and support me, well then I know a little bit more about.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with Dr. George E. Luber who was formerly the head of the critically important, Climate and Health Program as an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia and a professor adjunct at Emory University. If you were in charge of climate disruption policy, what would you do in terms of the federal government? What kind of resources, what priorities beyond your own program at the CDC?
George Luber: Well, it’s funny you asked that because . . . and that was a question the Hillary campaign asked me four months before the election. And they reached out to me, again my personal email and all that, and we spent the time coming up with the . . . because we've got $10 million. It might sound like a lot of money, but in a federal program, it's really kind of a pilot-type program. You mentioned the difference between the DoD budget and CDC, but ten million for the CDC program is quite small. But what we had developed with the program was directed right at the on-the-ground public health; this is local, city, and state public health. And to deliver to them all the tools and intelligence that they needed in order to identify which threats should be relevant in the area because frankly the threats in climate change in Florida are going to be dramatically different from those in Maine or in Oregon and a whole different set of issues, wildfires versus mosquitos, etcetera. So we had a tailor-made program called the BRACE program, Building Resilience Against Climate Effects, that would work with these high-resolution-type efforts at getting help to the most vulnerable in our state, in our community, and in our country. And our plan with the . . . what I described to the Hillary campaign was that we would scale-up this program and bring it to all . . . we currently work with 16 states and two cities, and we’d bring it to all 50 states, the territories, to tribal governments, and to large cities around the country. And that we would also, along with CDC, that we would need to bring money to NIH [National Institutes of Health] to fund Regional Centers of Excellence. The EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] would need some funding to help support the environmental monitoring aspect of our program that was so critical. The NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] would be required to dedicate some resources to giving us the high-resolution climate models that we would need to project what these risks are. So we detailed the intergovernmental program that had been in the works because I had spent time working with my colleagues around the government in order to kind of make those connections; where is this information; how can we get the resources that we need to attack this on a grand scale? But we had done it in a way that would be scalable, and so for the last seven years had been testing the proof of concept and we're confident that we could scale it up. The first thing in the world actually, national level adaptation program from climate and health, was so successful that the government of England, Public Health England, the governments of Austria, Peru, and Chile and Canada as well, had adopted our framework as the gold standard for preparing public health for climate change.
Ralph Nader: And what would you have Congress do in terms of informing the public? What kind of hearings do you think they're not having they should have? And in that context, how do you expand the number of epidemiologists?
George Luber: Well you have to train the epidemiologists and that was what the shame was, was that I trained a cadre of young professionals that were highly skilled in order to have the skillset and they're very, very unique. It's not like you just hire somebody [or] you go to a job site and you find the skills. You have to train them; you have to nurture them. They’ve all disappeared so we have to start it all over again--the momentum that we've lost. I'm a bit naïve as to the workings of Congress, but the fact that our nation's or the world's leading public health agency is stepping away from its principle of scientific integrity, it's not just troubling for climate change, but if you think about it, the integrity, the respect or the honesty of an agency like CDC is all that it has. If the public can't trust that this is the best science of an agency like that, and we always learned at the CDC . . . that what you do reflects upon the integrity of this agency and that's essentially all we have, so protect it with your life.
Ralph Nader: And you know, listeners should realize that with climatologists and epidemiologists making the connection between the burning of oil, gas and coal and all kinds of diseases and property damage, and affecting flora and fauna, points the way to shifting our economy toward renewable energy like solar energy, wind energy, passive solar, solar voltaic, maybe even geothermal, and in that sense reducing the greenhouse gases and reducing the causal effects of increasing climate disruption. So you see, that's the importance of the kind of work that Dr. Luber and his colleagues are doing. And to literally try to destroy it is a crime against humanity! When you try to destroy someone, let's say who's trying to find the cure for malaria, that would be considered a crime against humanity. So whenever you evaluate what we should expect of presidents of the United States, it's important to crank in these kinds of functions that are not going to be advanced by Exxon/Mobil or Peabody Coal. They're going to be advanced by public servants such as Dr. George Luber. Before we end, any more comments or questions from Steve and David?
Steve Skrovan: Dr. Luber, this is a scientific question. What do you think the biggest threat is as a result of this climate crisis?
George Luber: Well, you know we've always said at the Climate Health program that the effects of climate change are place-specific and past-dependent. And that's kind of a scientific way of saying, “Gosh, it all depends.” The biggest threat in my opinion, ironically, this is the biggest threat overall long-term, is the threat that increased carbon dioxide has on the acidity of the oceans and the impact that that CO2 has on plants. What we are learning is that CO2 in elevated levels, six, seven . . . we're at 415/418 parts-per-million right now. But if we have the atmospheric concentration of around 600 parts-per-million, which we expect by the latter part of the century, what we're realizing is that plants are negatively affected by this elevated CO2, especially C3, C4 photosynthetic plants, which form the kind of core of our food crop--rice, wheat, barley, sorghum, millet. All of the starches that we feed the planet on, show that under elevated CO2 levels that we would expect by the end of this latter part of this century, that the protein levels are reduced by 15 to 20 percent, the crude protein. The plants are actually stressed under these elevated CO2 levels. And they're rising so fast that plants cannot adapt. It’s the rate of change is so fast that the plants cannot adapt to these elevated CO2 and they are stressed, and as a result, not only the crude protein reduces by 15 to 20 percent, the micro-nutrients, vitamins are also reduced as well, so we have a nutritional crisis. Imagine a planet of seven billion people now and crop production stays the same but we're at nine billion people, and we have crops that are 15 to 20 percent less nutritious. That is an impending nutritional crisis! And everybody in public health knows that at the cornerstone of any healthy population is a healthy immune system and undernourished people don't have healthy immune systems.
Ralph Nader: Doctor, expand that to the impact on the ocean and how the boomerang comes back on land.
George Luber: So the ocean also experiences stress at high CO2 levels; it actually absorbs CO2 and becomes more acidic. What we learned is that under high-acidity conditions, which are already occurring now, that the organisms that form the basis of food web of the ocean, the calcareous organisms--these are the phytoplankton and the zooplankton that form hard exoskeleton shells under those elevated acidity levels--cannot form their shells that their shells are weak and dissolved. And under higher CO2 levels, the potential for the collapse of the food base of the oceans is apparent and that we lose the food base to smaller units, that again, feed the rest the food web up. We could have a crash in marine ecosystems, which are tremendously important for human nutrition.
Ralph Nader: And then much more intense hurricanes coming out of warming patterns that are changing in the oceans, can you say a few words about that?
George Luber: Well we do know that most weather events, extreme weather events, are intensifying under climate change; heat waves are of longer duration and more intense, hotter. Hurricanes appear to show a signal of getting more intense; we're not sure if they're getting more frequent. Precipitation is increasingly coming down in heavy short bursts rather than gentle rain. All of those things affect public health. Now those things are things that, given the appropriate attention, we can adapt to. What I was describing earlier with the CO2 problem is intractable. This is a problem that we don't have solutions for. And what's ironic about it is that they are a major problem that have nothing to do with weather or climate. They have to do with a carbon pollution problem. It's related to climate changes that an excess carbon changes weather, but it also changes fundamental parts of our ecosystem that we rely on.
Ralph Nader: But one of the more fearful results are the melting of the glaciers and the building up of sea levels inundating cities with hundreds of millions of people around the globe from India to the United States. Explain that a bit.
George Luber: Well, 80% of the world's population lives near oceans, so there's going to be a major retreat from the coastlines with sea levels depending on the climate model or what we're learning--how quickly that might happen, but it's certainly happening and will happen. Those are our problems that, again, given the amount of resources enough that we can retreat from the oceans. We're going to have to. But there will be a tremendous amount of suffering associated with that. And while we're waiting to retreat or waiting to come to terms with this problem, we will certainly have coastal inundation events that will kill many thousands of people and the time to act on that is now.
Ralph Nader: We learned from an earlier program, Dr. Luber, that Miami Beach in Florida has a plan to evacuate, not just people close to the ocean, but to evacuate Miami Beach. George Luber: Yes. They are already experiencing regular inundation events with high tides. I mean this is a regular occurrence right now. And places that experience these types of events, they get it. They understand the threat in the disruption to life and economy and community that this happens. When people get displaced, they don't just lose their home, they lose their community, they lose their livelihoods and those have consequences as well.
Steve Skrovan: Well I'm sitting here in Southern California right now in Los Angeles area where wild fires are raging and at any moment they're telling me I'm getting notices from Southern California Edison that they're going to turn off the power. Fortunately, they didn't do it during the show, because their fear the high winds will knock down power lines and start another wild fire, so I can personally attest to the effects of what you're talking about. And exactly what you're talking about is exactly what the Trump Administration and his backers don't want anybody to hear and why you were in the situation.
George Luber: One of my colleagues and one of the top people on climate and health, Kirk R. Smith out of U.C. Berkeley, had once said . . . and this is a very important quote, I guess, that you know “in a world of climate change, the rich will find the world to be more polluted, more uncomfortable, colorless, and a bleaker world. The poor will die”.
Ralph Nader: As the poor pay more in our economy as well. You're quite right there. The most vulnerable areas are populated by low-income people. Well, one last thing, I hope we don't hear the word climate change anymore, not because of Trump's censorship, but because it's too benign a phrase created by Frank Luntz, the right-wing Republican wordsmith in 2002 to replace the more alarming global warming phrase. So I hope we all use words like climate crisis, climate disruption, climate catastrophe, global warming, and deprive Frank Luntz of his semantic colonialism. Well, we're out of time. Thank you very much, Dr. George Luber. Congratulations on your Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage. Congratulations to PEER for holding up its defense of your rights as a civil servant. And congratulations to all of you listening who are alert and come to the rescue of courageous people like Dr. George Luber.
George Luber: Thank you so much.
Steve Skrovan: We have been speaking with Dr. George Luber. We will link to more of his story and the Callaway Awards at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Right now we're going to take a short break. When we come back, Ralph is going to answer some of your questions, but first, let's check in with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber. You're 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, November 8, 2019. I'm Russell Mokhiber. Oregon worker safety inspectors found serious workplace safety violations at a Dollar Tree in Portland, Oregon after a rodent infestation. That's according to a report from television station KGW in Portland. Oregon OSHA fined the company $1900. In August, the Dollar Tree store in Portland’s Lloyd District temporarily shut down after a KGW investigation found ripped food packaging, chewed food labels, rodent feces on shelves and a dead mouse in an air vent. The store had since re-opened. Employees complained of nausea, light-headedness and headaches after being exposed to dead mice, rodent urine and droppings. Oregon OSHA records indicate Dollar Tree didn’t do enough to keep rodents out of the store and failed to provide proper safety equipment for employees who were asked to clean up. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. Now before we do listener questions, Ralph, John Conyers died recently and I know you had worked closely with him over the years. He was in Congress for almost 60 years, I believe, or more than 60 years. Tell us a little about your relationship . . . about John Conyers and your relationship with him.
Ralph Nader: Well Congressman Conyers was the Dean of the African-American delegation in the House as they called it. And he helped start the Black Caucus. He was extremely responsive. You could get him on the phone. He would return calls. That's a very rare trait today for members of Congress, because if you can't get through to people, you can't get anything underway to begin with; that's how critical it is. And he'd invite you down to his office, a group of civic advocates and leaders and obviously he was great on civil rights. But he also tried to jumpstart a federal intense program on cracking down on corporate crime. It never got anywhere, but at least he introduced the legislation and he proposed it when he was a senior figure on the House Judiciary. He was also a champion of ballot access for third parties even though he was a longstanding member of the Democratic Party and he introduced legislation to that effect. And he's clearly one of the most progressive members of the House of Representatives on numerous fronts including being anti-war in our modern times. He left Congress a couple of years ago under a cloud of personal matters, but that doesn't really take away from what he did over about a half a century of representing portions of Detroit, Michigan in the House of Representatives and taking seriously his title of US Representative, not just Representative from Detroit.
Steve Skrovan: Well, thank you for that, Ralph. Let's do some listener questions now. This next one comes from Jay Goldberg who is a regular listener. I think we did one of his questions a couple of weeks ago and he said, "In the Wrap Up to this week's show, Ralph offered a couple of reasons why Medicare for some is a bad idea. But I think he overlooked the most obvious one, people would have to buy into it, so instead of being funded through progressive taxation, it would be an option only for those who could afford it or whose employers provide it as private insurance is now. I suppose there could be a government subsidy for low-income groups similar to what Obamacare provides, but they would never be as progressive as the taxes Bernie and Liz are proposing and it would never be provided to the majority of working people. Also Medicare for some would have to call for deductibles and co-pays, or no one would opt for private insurance." Is Jay correct there, Ralph?
Ralph Nader: Yeah, he makes a good point and he provokes even further good points. Number one, it's a setup to be taken over the way Medicare Advantage corporate-run is now taken over one out of every three elderly people's Medicare insurance. People don't realize it [that] all these ads they hear about Medicare Advantage is just a euphemism for takeover by companies like United Healthcare and Aetna of Medicare under contract. And as Dr. Fred Hyde said, "It's not what you pay; it's what you get." And there are a lot of trap doors in Medicare Advantage and elderly people should be aware of it and so should people be if there was a Medicare for some or public option. The other thing Medicare for some does not control costs. When you have full Medicare for All, the corollary is restraint on skyrocketing drug prices, restraint on skyrocketing hospital prices, minimizing fraud in the healthcare area. That's the experience in Canada.
Steve Skrovan: It's funny Ralph, I had this discussion after we did that show with a college classmate of mine who I happened to run into. And one of my college classmates is Tom Steyer who's running for president. And this woman, who I also know, said "Hey, you're supporting Tom?" And I said, “Well I like a lot of what Tom says about corporate power, and obviously he's been a leader on the climate crisis, but I'm not sure about his healthcare policy. She says, "But he's talking about choice." And so I ran down basically what we talked about last week, and she kept a smile on her face, but her eyes just went completely dead.
Ralph Nader: [laughter] It's amazing. People make up their minds; permanently they close off the kind of information that I think otherwise they would be more receptive of. Steve Skrovan: Thank you for your questions. Keep them coming on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website. I want to thank our guest again, George Luber from the CDC. 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 the 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 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 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 when we speak to another whistleblower who won his Callaway Prize by taking on Boeing, John Barnett. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody. More stations, more podcast listeners.
November 9, 2019
In our continuing series honoring whistleblowers, Ralph welcomes winner of the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage, Dr. George Luber, former head of the Centers for Disease Control’s Climate Health program, who despite pressure from the newly-minted Trump Administration, blew the whistle after refusing to cancel a convention on how the climate crisis was affecting public health.
George Luber is an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His research interests include the health impacts of environmental change and biodiversity loss, harmful algal blooms, and the health effects of climate change. Dr. Luber headed the CDC’s climate health program until it was eliminated in 2018 by the Trump White House. The nation’s premier health protection agency continues to retaliate against him for speaking out on the climate crisis and its public health effects. He has since filed for whistleblower status with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and has just received the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage.
“The most frightening thing, actually, is that somebody would make a decision like this in anticipating the potential blowback from the [Trump] Administration. That to me is frightening, because it’s the most insidious form of power. And when you can get people to do things for you without even asking them, that I think is the most frightening thing. To get people to act on your behalf in ways that they normally wouldn’t merely out of fear of what you might do.”
Dr. George Luber, winner of the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage
“I was escorted by armed guards when I needed to get some books out of my office [at the CDC]. I had an armed escort and they asked me to come at 11:00am – the height of the day when everybody is around intending to humiliate me – and marched me through our large ten story office building with a large armed guard behind me that even followed me to the bathroom.”
Dr. George Luber, winner of the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 296 TRANSCRIPT
Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my co-host David Feldman. Hello there, David.
David Feldman: Hello everybody. Another important show this morning.
Steve Skrovan: Yes, indeed. And to help us through that is the man of the hour Ralph Nader. Hello there, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello everybody. We're going to show what heroism is really about.
Steve Skrovan: That's correct. Today we continue our series on whistleblowing. On the show, we're going to feature a winner of the Joe A. Callaway Civic Courage Awards. Ralph, why don’t you tell us what the Joe A. Callaway Awards are and how they came about.
Ralph Nader: It's quite a story Joe A. Callaway was an empresario on Broadway and he wanted to leave some of his estate to good works. And he figured out that one would be an annual award for people demonstrating civic courage, not political, not business, not military, [but] civic courage in our country who are unsung, often shoved aside from their employment and mistreated. And so he contacted us by letter and my sister, Claire Nader, has been administering these awards for the last 30 years. This is the 30th anniversary. And Joe Callaway stipulated that he wanted the award to go, not only to people who demonstrated civic courage, but did so at some personal risk like they risked their job; they risked their career; they risked their sustenance, whatever. And that stipulation has brought forth some of the finest people one could ever meet all over the country, taking their conscience to work, blowing the whistle, risking their careers, and trying to save lives, prevent injuries, prevent disease, save taxpayer money, and generally try to keep the country on straight and narrow path of moral probity.
Steve Skrovan: Our guest is George Luber who was in charge of the climate change program at the Centers for Disease Control. In other words, he was studying how a hotter planet will affect human health. But at the dawn of the Trump Administration, not only was the term "climate change" removed from the CDC website, but Dr. Luber was directed to cancel a conference on climate change. He objected and the CDC first attempted to fire him then decided just to send him home on administrative leave and banned him from the building. Eventually he went public with his story and groups from across the world, have begun campaigns to restore the climate change and health program. And as always, we will take a moment to find out what's happening in the dark recesses of the corporate underworld with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber. And if we have time at the end, Ralph will answer some of your listener questions. But first, let's meet our Callaway Award Winner. David?
David Feldman: Dr. George Luber is an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His research interests include the health impacts of environmental change and biodiversity loss, harmful algal blooms, and the health effects of climate change. Dr. Luber headed the CDC's Climate Health Program until it was downgraded and diluted by the Trump White House in 2018. The nation's premier health protection agency continues to retaliate against him for speaking out on the climate crisis and its public health effects. He has since filed for whistleblower status with the Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel and has just received the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Dr. George Luber.
George Luber: Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
Ralph Nader: Welcome, yes, Dr. Luber and congratulations on your Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, supremely deserved. I think before started, please explain what does an epidemiologist do? I don't think there's enough of them in this country and they're desperately needed. What does an epidemiologist do and what different areas of health and safety have they been working on--before we get into your situation?
George Luber: Sure. Well an epidemiologist is somebody that studies the patterns of diseases and the causes of diseases covering almost an infinite amount of exposures and health outcomes. We look for a statistical association between a particular exposure, so bad air quality. And look for what that might do to certain parts of the population or to the population as a whole. We essentially dive through data looking for causes of illness and death. And my expertise covers a wide range of environmental exposures, which include bad water quality, air quality, extreme weather events and the like, and try to build a case for why certain exposures are harmful to people's health.
Ralph Nader: Just to give a specific example from your own experience, epidemiologists such as yourself, make connections. They make causal connections; they make all kinds of relationships that make us understand what's going on. And for example, if a new disease comes up and it's infectious, epidemiologists will try to find where it came from, the causes. They're try to find who's most vulnerable, where the vulnerability is, and maybe find situations where people are not as vulnerable. It's so absolutely critical in a highly technological society and there are just only a few thousand epidemiologists operating in the United States. So let's get to your area, the Centers for Disease Control arguably is the single most important agency in the federal government, because if you're dealing with global pandemics, viral pandemics, bacterial pandemics and the such, you're dealing with potentially tens of millions of fatalities and hundreds of millions of sicknesses. And yet its budget is about seven and a half billion dollars, which is half of what the Pentagon spends on the ballistic missile defense program that has never worked since Reagan opened it with great fanfare. They're now spending about $14 billion a year, that's the kind of priorities. Now, you had an 18-person staff inside the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. I believe the budget was about $10 million and you were supposed to be looking into the connection between global public health and climate disruptions--tornadoes, destruction of habitats, droughts, widespread fires, hurricanes and, for example, if you change the habitats, the malarial carrying mosquitoes will spread malaria beyond its present regions now. That's an example of how epidemiology works. You're working away at this and then the Trump regime opens its doors in January 2017. So explain to our listeners what happened.
George Luber: Well, I'd be happy to. Before I begin though, it's important that I make it clear that what I'm presenting to you today is my own statement. It doesn't represent the federal government or the agency in which I work. These are my own opinions and my own statements and that I'm sitting here talking with you while I am on vacation leave, so I'm not using government time or resources to do so just to make clear to everybody that this is on my own. So, yeah, the election happened in the fall of 2016 and a few weeks later, I got called into the director's office, the director for the center, the National Center for Environmental Health that I work in. And he told me that we've got a problem. I had been working on a large scientific meeting, a 3-day meeting that was going to be held in the CDC headquarters in Atlanta called The Climate & Health Summit. It was a science meeting for three days and it was intended to raise awareness both within CDC and the broader public health community that hey, there are folks working on climate change and health; we're actually kind of an obscure part of public health, but because of recent statements by the World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan, stating that climate change is the single greatest threat to public health in the 21st century, since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] released its 2014 report stating unequivocally that humans are changing the earth climate system and so on, that we wanted to get public health who have their traditional bunkers that they work in that there is groundbreaking work going on in climate change and health. We had organized this meeting, again with a blind eye to politics, which was rather naive considering what had been going on in the country. And in my infinite wisdom, I wanted to get high-level speakers for our meeting and called on Al Gore [to see] if he would like to be our keynote speaker. I thought he's a great advocate for climate change. And apparently that was a mistake because the director said, you know you have this meeting planned for February--this was three weeks after the inauguration. And he said, “You're going to have to cancel meeting.” And I was blown away! We've spent this past six, seven months working on this thing. We got a full agenda. We've got invitees; it’s all paid for. Money's out the door; why are we cancelling this meeting? He said, “the optics aren’t good.” And I said, “Do you think the optics would be good if you cancel the meeting and the news press got ahold of this?” This kind of sounds like scientific censorship and we have a scientific integrity policy that prohibits us from doing this. And they said, “The optics aren’t good. I want you to send out a letter of cancellation.” And I said, “I'm not going to do that. I'm not sending out a letter with my name on it belying my scientific belief that this is an important topic.” And they were surprised that I would be so obstinate, but I said, “No, this is my professional credibility here. If you want to cancel the meeting, well, you're my boss; you can cancel the meeting, but I'm not doing it.” And so they sent out a press release shortly after that meeting was canceled. And I just steeled myself for some difficult times.
Ralph Nader: And this was a very technical agenda here. It wasn't just a celebrity speaker. We have books on the subject. These are really people who've sunk their teeth into the nuances of this whole problem.
George Luber: We had the best scientists . . . what we did was we solicited abstracts or short blurbs on the research they’d like to speak on. We had a panel select the appropriate speakers. We had numerous sessions on very specific topics--changes in hydro-geology and waterborne diseases, and very specific technical topics for public health that we'd organized into sessions of several speakers, and we were aiming to have the biggest and best meeting of this type today. And I think we had it. We had pulled together a fantastic meeting with all kinds of partners, congressional organizations.
Ralph Nader: And it was open to the press, right?
George Luber: Yes.
Ralph Nader: Okay. So I always thought the CDC was about as impervious to partisan political intrusion as a federal agency. I mean in the past, Republican and Democrat administrations would not compete to manipulate politically what the CDC does. They didn't fund it adequately, but it was considered an agency of professional independence. And so I was pretty astonished, even with my minimal regard for the Trump people, that they began moving in. Now how did they move in? Did they appoint a new director who was taking orders? Did they put people at secondary levels under the new director? I mean it's astonishing that an agency that is full of PhDs and MDs, etcetera, suddenly became a political football for Donald Trump who has called climate disruption "a Chinese hoax." So how did this happen and it came down on you like a hammer, we'll talk about that in a moment.
George Luber: Yeah, in my 17 years of the agency, I held the exact same view, that this was a science-driven agency done so for the protection of people's health and that politics had nothing to do with it. And I had operated my program and strategies that we’d employ, including unfortunately inviting Al Gore in a political environment. You know, it's a wonderful organization with incredibly passionate and driven scientists that are so hungry for their mission that we spend inordinate amount of hours working on work that we just have enormous pride in. And I have no direct knowledge of how this happened. The individual that . . . Pat Breysse, the center director that asked me to cancel the meeting was put in place during the Obama Administration. I think at that time we had a director that was on his way out; we knew that. But I don't know who made the decision . . . or the most frightening thing actually, is that somebody would make a decision like this and anticipating the potential blowback for the administration. And that to me is frightening, because it's the most insidious form of power. And when you can get people to do things for you without even asking them, that, I think, is the most frightening thing that people will act on your behalf in ways that they normally wouldn't, merely out of fear of what you might do. So, I suspect that's the case. And it frightens me that we would go down that path.
Ralph Nader: Well one of the ways they kept you down was to reorganize, which is a typical bureaucratic technique. So what they took your 18-person climate and health program and subsumed it under a larger program dedicated to the problems of asthma, and so it was fair to say that your program, while technically not abolished, it was degraded and diluted, and then they pushed you out, forbade you to even talk to your 18-member staff. And I understand that if you wanted to come back to where you worked for a visit, you had to get permission and you were in a state of limbo, suspended but not fired. Could you describe that?
George Luber: In addition, I was escorted by armed guards. When I needed to get some books out of my office and I had an armed escort, they asked me to come at 11:00 a.m., which is the height of the day when everybody's around intending to humiliate me and marched me through our large 10-story office building with a large armed guard behind me that even followed me to the bathroom.
Ralph Nader: Everything but shackles and irons?
George Luber: Correct. And Ralph, in my 17 years at the CDC, I have never been spoken to sideways. I'd never been reprimanded in any way; I'd received outstanding performance reviews and promotions that belie any attempt at making my character unsavory. So they did a number of things to the climate health program, which is appropriated in a discreet line item in the budget, which means Congress appropriated $10 million for climate and health programs at CDC. Since it's a direct line, it cannot be, by law, used in any other way. And I as a manager in charge of that appropriation, am responsible for making sure that the public's money is managed in an appropriate way and that that I'm a good steward of the public's money. And if Congress says work on climate and health, I cannot decide that this needs to be worked on for asthma prevention and management. So what they did was they took the climate health program that was standalone and the asthma program that was standalone, along with a number of other programs, and they blended them together and my program got merged with asthma. And I was made the acting branch chief of the program and immediately my superiors had asked me to dismantle the team that I had built in climate change, which is a highly unique team with unique set of expertise from climatology to geographic information systems. And the team that I’d built, whose sole purpose was to work on this unique set of challenges, they wanted me to move those individuals to other teams in the asthma program. And I said, “Well, you can't do that because they're going to be supervising your supervisors; people are working on different lines, and how are we going to get around that fact that you can't merge the personnel . . . the expenditure of their time between different programs?” And there was a woman, one of my managers above me, refused to answer that question, but she had --her name is Laurie Johnson-- she had two contractors from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which I found highly unusual and odd and I'd never seen this before, work with me on an organizational plan for this new branch, and encouraged me to accept this new organizational plan that would essentially blend the money. And I kept telling the contractors, "You can't do this." They're like, "Well, Laurie says you can." And I said, "Well, you can't. I've taken appropriations classes, I have to, and why isn’t Laurie in this meeting?" "Oh, well, she couldn't come." And this went on for several weeks and I refused. I said, "Listen, unless we can address this topic of the appropriations, which I am responsible for, so I could get in trouble if I allow this to happen because I know that it's illegal." And I said, "Laurie, tell me what the workaround is for this mixing of the money, because I don't see how it could happen and I'm not happy with this." And as we went back and forth, back and forth, never with a response from Laurie about the appropriateness of this, I was called into a meeting with the senior managers in the center. And it was quite odd because I'd gotten a call up to the director's office one day and I sat down and one of the deputy directors for the center, Donna Knutson, said "We have some troubling allegations against you." And I was like, "What? What are you talking about?" And she said, "Did you author a book in 2015?" And I said, "Well, yeah, I authored a textbook on climate change and health." And she said, "Well, we have no records in the ethics approval office." Because this was an activity I did on my own and I got the approval to do it. And since I had to let CDC ethics approval office know, that's what I was working on. She said, "We have no evidence that you actually received ethics approval for it." I said, "Well, I did. I have the form in my office. Let me go get it." She's like, "No, you need to hand me your phone, your badge, and your keys, and we're going to . . . you need to leave campus now."
Ralph Nader: Let me interrupt here. This is, listeners, the kind of top-down inquisition that they impose on people of conscience and competence in the state bureaucracies, federal, state, local and corporate bureaucracies. The larger point that Dr. Luber is making is that he refused to spend money contrary to what was authorized for his program by the US Congress. He refused to spend money. Because if you spend money in an unauthorized way, that is a violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prescribes a felony as a punishment. Now to take an even bigger arc, what Donald Trump was doing was doing this throughout federal regulatory agencies, moving money around for purposes that wasn't authorized such as moving money from the Defense Department for schools and other social services for the children of military families to build his so-called Wall on the Mexican Border; that's a crime! That's not just an impeachable offense; it's a crime under the Antideficiency Law. And the other web you were caught up with--we're talking with Dr. Georgie E. Luber, who was the head of the Climate and Health program at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta; the other aspect of this is that he is aiding and abetting a tremendous threat to our national security, which is climate disruption. It's already blowing apart communities and you see it on TV news. And so it's not just that he's stopping you from trying to head it off in your particular way and stopping others from trying to minimize or mitigate these huge storms and tornadoes and droughts, etcetera, short-term and long-term, he's actually making it worse by unleashing coal-burning pollution and scrapping control standards on greenhouse gases--go oil gas--go coal. He calls coal clean, beautiful coal. So he's aiding and abetting a massive assault from an abused nature against the health and safety and property values of our country and actually making it worse. That should be an impeachable offense that Congress should pay attention to. Anyway, where are you now? I mean you're sitting outside your workplace, outside the Centers for Disease Control, you've given the media interviews; you're very good about communicating with the media. Are they trying to stop you from doing that? Have they suspended your pay?
George Luber: No. Fortunately they had served me charges in October of last year, in '18. And with the help of lawyers from an organization called PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, we were able to have those charges completely removed. They had accused me of all kinds of fabricated and just . . . I mean so poorly done. I mean they . . . I'm also a professor at Emory University, and I teach a class their regularly on climate and health. And they had accused me of having my subordinates teach classes for me and, --which I didn't-- and they said I was having them teach classes that I never even taught. They never bothered to check the class schedule to see if that course even existed. And they said you had somebody teach this class. I'm like, "I never taught that class; that's somebody else." And numbers of just anonymous accusations of something that I was able to concretely show evidence that it wasn’t even true. And it was just remarkably poorly done, which maybe, I think I'm grateful for, the incompetence of the staff at the center. They were not able to put together a credible set of charges. Maybe it was done in order to help me. I'm hoping that some folks on the inside felt some solidarity in this.
Ralph Nader: Talk about trumped-up charges, eh?
George Luber: Yes, um-hum, it was. And they removed all of them.
Ralph Nader: So they suspended you for 120 days to prevent you from speaking to the media?
George Luber: They prevented me from speaking to the media going back before they removed me from my position. This goes back right after the Al Gore debacle they cut off all my media access and travel access. And that dragged on for about a year plus. And then after my absence with not doing their dirty work with the appropriations money, that's when I was removed from campus. And since then, that was March of '18, I have been moved to different assignments around CDC in assignments that are unrelated to frankly anything that I have expertise in and I've been bounced around to . . . I'm on my fourth assignment and I'm still working and I'm prohibited from coming to the campus in which I'm assigned to. I work from home 100% of the time, isolated. And I review now scientific manuscripts on laboratory analysis of environmental exposure, something which I am profoundly unqualified to do. So I'm part of the clearance chain for laboratory manuscripts.
Ralph Nader: Listeners should know that one of the first things Donald Trump did was ordered the banning of the use of the term "climate change" not only to Centers for Disease Control, but at the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies. This is like right out of the Kremlin and Stalinist Russia. And the second thing, they didn't like you appearing with Matt Damon in a show called Years of Living Dangerously.
George Luber: Well that was during the Obama years and actually we got a good bit of support for that. I think perhaps with the current crop of managers at the center don't like the attention the topic is getting, and you know, it is . . . our little unit was one of the most productive in the center and was also the one that they felt gave them the most vulnerability politically. And so anything they could do to . . . and they said to me, we . . . you need to lay low, take a low profile. And I saw this as a tremendous opportunity to raise our profile and I refused to do so. We were in discussions with the National Geographic channel on "Mars" series, which is a very successful show there, for me to be a regular contributor to and I received an email saying "George Luber will never be on that show" (capitals, bolded, underlined). And they did not want me to seek media attention and part of my job is to raise awareness on this issue. It is critically important that we take every opportunity we can to let the public know that this is a real and credible threat to you now in your communities and you should be worried.
Ralph Nader: Well fortunately you're being represented pro bono by this wonderful nonprofit group in Washington and Eugene, Oregon called PEER, which started out to protect the scientific integrity of foresters in US Forest Service who opposed clear cutting on behalf of companies like Weyerhaeuser and were retaliated against. So you're in good hands. You have filed through them a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, which is in the Justice Department, seeking an investigation and defense of your rights. What are you seeing in terms of your 18 colleagues--are they distancing themselves; are the silently supporting you? How's the personal impact on you?
George Luber: Well, the personal impact was tremendous, but it'd be much worse without the folks up here especially Kevin Bell, one of the most competent and dedicated lawyers that I've ever encountered. And they work tirelessly on this issue. And they remind me of my staff who took this issue of climate change to heart and made it their life's mission, their life's work. These people are driven to work on this topic because they want to contribute. And of the 18 staff, several have left. You know, we're a group that has different skillsets, project managers, etcetera, communicators, and so on and so forth, but the heart of the scientific knowledge base at that group is all gone. Myself, I've been the lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I've written the textbook on this issue. I've been a convening lead author for the Third and Fourth US National Climate Assessment, on and on. And what's left in the program unfortunately is not much expertise. And that is really what loss is--the core knowledge base that we need in order to move this forward. We're left with individuals with not much experience or credentials on this.
And yes, I do keep in contact with some of them, but frankly, it is a culture of fear right now. And many are so . . . they have told me, "George, I support you, I can provide evidence that would exonerate you on this charge undoubtedly. But I cannot do so because I fear that I will be retaliated against." They have been told directly by the new person who took over from me, Josephine Malilay, that if they speak to the press . . . and which is a . . . we have a First Amendment right to be able to do so on our own time and I've been advised of that by CDC general counsel on numerous occasions, that you will get in trouble if you speak to the press. And if you do get contacted by the press, you need to report it to me immediately. That's the typical type of intimidation factors that go along with this. And so we have a group of young, smart, and scared individuals.
Ralph Nader: Well, George, some listeners may be wondering, how can these federal employees over you, do such things to you? What recourse you have against them personally? What lawsuits can be filed against them personally all the way up to the White House level? Are they all immune?
George Luber: I wish I had Kevin here to help me with that question, because I really don't know the answer to that. You know, we're focused on CDC restoring the program as it was intended by Congress to do, having it in hands of managers that are good stewards of the public’s money in order to run this program and care about this topic. There are parts of the CDC that would love to have this program and see it flourish.
Ralph Nader: Well, do you have a patron or two in Congress? When there was a whistleblower, Ernie Fitzgerald in the Pentagon on the C-5A air cargo plane and he showed that the plane had a tendency to lose a wing now and then, he was really pounced on in the Pentagon and he went to Senator Proxmire, William Proxmire from Wisconsin, who became one of his defenders and had hearings on the subject. Do you have any backers by name in the House and Senate, and if not, why not?
George Luber: Well, we do. Actually just about a half an hour ago I recorded a video for social media for Senator Bernie Sanders. And you of course know, that his stance on this topic is very strong and they've been supportive. On the House side, there’ve been a number of efforts to support this. Congresswoman Lauren Underwood from Michigan has proposed legislation to have the climate program restored as an individual unit. And Congressman Shalala as well has expressed tremendous support for this issue and is working, I believe with Appropriations on what can be done about this.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, I may add, Congressman Shalala was a Former Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton Administration and she ran for Congress after being president of a major university in Florida. Why don't you try Senator Edward Markey to back you, too?
George Luber: Again, yes, I believe the legislative affairs folks at PEER and another whistleblower group called the Government Accountability Project are working with Markey as well as a few others, Senator Whitehouse, I believe.
Ralph Nader: Well listen, listeners, this is not just about Dr. George Luber. Let me read you a passage in the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage about Dr. Luber. "His unremitting position on behalf of scientific method, integrity and expertise, presently under attack as never before in history is an unwavering beacon for other federal government climate scientists suffering similar retaliation. Using his many splendored approach in communication skills through academic publications and in popular media, Dr. Luber pledged he will “not go away" tenaciously responding to intensifying climate chaos." I have a little point to make to any Trump voters who are listening to this program. I know that you love Donald Trump. In fact, you may be part of many Trump voters who say when they're asked the following: "People say Trump is crazy, but what he's saying is what I'm thinking. Does that mean I'm crazy?" Well let me tell you, we'll leave that judgment to yourself Trump voters, but what Dr. Luber wants to make sure is that you don't get an infectious disease and infect others because you're under health and safety protection. That's what he's looking for. It doesn't matter whether you're a Republican, Democrat, Conservative, or Liberal, you better pay attention. There's the smasharoos who are breaking up the Centers for Disease Control, politicizing them, favoring the big corporations who don't want certain things done and stifling people like George Luber, who relentlessly were determined to take their conscience to work so they can help save your lives or anticipate and prevent global pandemics and epidemics. David and Steve, jump in here.
David Feldman: I'm confused about the hierarchy over at the CDC. Who are you taking orders from in terms of their education? What kind of degrees do these people have who are giving you these orders? Are these doctors, are these PhDs?
George Luber: Yeah, well the center directors are PhDs and industrial hygienists. But the . . . I believe the real direction of whether the meeting should be canceled was not . . . this is a director that is frequently on travel, unlike, I think this is my fifth center director; this center director spends a tremendous amount of time out of town and is remarkably absent for much of his tenure here and therefore the shop is run by folks without PhDs. These are policy people and that's the trend that I've noticed at CDC over my 17 years and we've always, you know, impressed the fact that science directs policy, right, at this agency. However that's changed, now policy directs science in very prescriptive ways. And so the policy people stepped in and have their wisdom about how to manage the Trump Administration and this is where we're at. I think that a lot of these efforts are just done without care, you know, managing the public's money or being good stewards or being conscious as to our scientific integrity policy, which should drive all of our efforts. The folks that were trying to directly get me to move the money around don't have advanced degrees that I'm aware of. They're budget people and managers of non-science; we have two tracks--a science management and a management side. Irregardless, I would maintain that we should play by the rules and do it the way it was intended and let the science lead the way.
David Feldman: Yeah, I don’t understand why doctors allow themselves to be ordered around by their inferiors. And it seems to happen in the healthcare debate.
George Luber: It's just abdicating the responsibility for that, frankly.
David Feldman: So just to be clear, you said the person who told you the optics would be bad was not a Trump political appointee, just someone feeling the pressure either directly or indirectly that this would be a bad idea to do with the new regime, is that correct?
George Luber: That's my understanding. So he had started during the Obama years. And I don't have any knowledge . . . this was . . . could have been right around the time that the transition teams, Beachhead Crew or something they call it, where the people come to the agency immediately. And I had heard from another source through a Union of Concerned Scientists’ anonymous survey that a senior manager at CDC had said there were five key areas that the Trump Administration wanted to be targeted during this administration. It would be anything under the Affordable Care Act, birth control, gun violence, abortion rights, and climate change. These are the topics that they're interested in. Now I don't know if this advance team had already made these wishes known to my leadership, but it was odd for me to get called in and said going to have to cancel this meeting that we spent a good bit of time. We had already spent the money and a good bit of personnel time to get this going. And it was a solid conference. And plus, I said the optics are terrible on cancelling the meeting and certainly, of course, The Washington Post ran a story critical of CDC on cancelling the meeting. Is this censorship? And it was very odd that they would make that, because their argument for laying low certainly didn't work. Because who would really honestly write a story about a science meeting at CDC about climate change? No one would write a national level media story about a climate meeting at CDC. But now they did write about it because it was canceled.
Ralph Nader: Let me ask you this, would you return to your position with a change of administrations that wanted to reinstate your program?
George Luber: Absolutely. I decided . . . I got my PhD right at 9/11. And sitting there watching those images, I actually turned down an offer at Stanford and decided to pursue a life of public service. I made it my goal to provide a service to this country, and I felt obliged to do it. And sitting there watching those towers come down and two weeks later, I applied to CDC and got a post doc and have dedicated my life to doing that. And I'm not giving up now. And I don't . . . these people come and go. I mean I've watched senior directors come and go, CDC directors and my managers come and go. But the people who do the science, who do the work on the ground, they stay and they're dedicated. And we've gotten used to seeing these people come and go. And I've maintained my . . . I also teach where I mentioned [Emory University], and they have been wanting me to come over there. And I said, "I'm in this fight and I am going to make sure that this comes out well, because if people like me walk away, who's left to care?
Ralph Nader: How has the pressure been on you professionally and personally?
George Luber: Incredible sense of isolation. Many of my colleagues throughout the government have essentially ghosted me. Now that's counterbalanced by a tremendous amount of support from the folks at the Callaway Awards, The Hugh Hefner Foundation [and] from news reporting and colleagues around the world. I received a stack the other day of around 20 postcards that was part of a letter-writing campaign encouraging me to keep on my fight and that really helps keep me going. But my colleagues at CDC are afraid and many of them have disappeared. And I think . . .you know, I tell myself that it's a measure of somebody's character in how they respond in moments like this. And that folks would slink away and ignore it, well that's the measure of their character. And for those who stand up and fight and support me, well then I know a little bit more about.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with Dr. George E. Luber who was formerly the head of the critically important, Climate and Health Program as an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia and a professor adjunct at Emory University. If you were in charge of climate disruption policy, what would you do in terms of the federal government? What kind of resources, what priorities beyond your own program at the CDC?
George Luber: Well, it’s funny you asked that because . . . and that was a question the Hillary campaign asked me four months before the election. And they reached out to me, again my personal email and all that, and we spent the time coming up with the . . . because we've got $10 million. It might sound like a lot of money, but in a federal program, it's really kind of a pilot-type program. You mentioned the difference between the DoD budget and CDC, but ten million for the CDC program is quite small. But what we had developed with the program was directed right at the on-the-ground public health; this is local, city, and state public health. And to deliver to them all the tools and intelligence that they needed in order to identify which threats should be relevant in the area because frankly the threats in climate change in Florida are going to be dramatically different from those in Maine or in Oregon and a whole different set of issues, wildfires versus mosquitos, etcetera. So we had a tailor-made program called the BRACE program, Building Resilience Against Climate Effects, that would work with these high-resolution-type efforts at getting help to the most vulnerable in our state, in our community, and in our country. And our plan with the . . . what I described to the Hillary campaign was that we would scale-up this program and bring it to all . . . we currently work with 16 states and two cities, and we’d bring it to all 50 states, the territories, to tribal governments, and to large cities around the country. And that we would also, along with CDC, that we would need to bring money to NIH [National Institutes of Health] to fund Regional Centers of Excellence. The EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] would need some funding to help support the environmental monitoring aspect of our program that was so critical. The NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] would be required to dedicate some resources to giving us the high-resolution climate models that we would need to project what these risks are. So we detailed the intergovernmental program that had been in the works because I had spent time working with my colleagues around the government in order to kind of make those connections; where is this information; how can we get the resources that we need to attack this on a grand scale? But we had done it in a way that would be scalable, and so for the last seven years had been testing the proof of concept and we're confident that we could scale it up. The first thing in the world actually, national level adaptation program from climate and health, was so successful that the government of England, Public Health England, the governments of Austria, Peru, and Chile and Canada as well, had adopted our framework as the gold standard for preparing public health for climate change.
Ralph Nader: And what would you have Congress do in terms of informing the public? What kind of hearings do you think they're not having they should have? And in that context, how do you expand the number of epidemiologists?
George Luber: Well you have to train the epidemiologists and that was what the shame was, was that I trained a cadre of young professionals that were highly skilled in order to have the skillset and they're very, very unique. It's not like you just hire somebody [or] you go to a job site and you find the skills. You have to train them; you have to nurture them. They’ve all disappeared so we have to start it all over again--the momentum that we've lost. I'm a bit naïve as to the workings of Congress, but the fact that our nation's or the world's leading public health agency is stepping away from its principle of scientific integrity, it's not just troubling for climate change, but if you think about it, the integrity, the respect or the honesty of an agency like CDC is all that it has. If the public can't trust that this is the best science of an agency like that, and we always learned at the CDC . . . that what you do reflects upon the integrity of this agency and that's essentially all we have, so protect it with your life.
Ralph Nader: And you know, listeners should realize that with climatologists and epidemiologists making the connection between the burning of oil, gas and coal and all kinds of diseases and property damage, and affecting flora and fauna, points the way to shifting our economy toward renewable energy like solar energy, wind energy, passive solar, solar voltaic, maybe even geothermal, and in that sense reducing the greenhouse gases and reducing the causal effects of increasing climate disruption. So you see, that's the importance of the kind of work that Dr. Luber and his colleagues are doing. And to literally try to destroy it is a crime against humanity! When you try to destroy someone, let's say who's trying to find the cure for malaria, that would be considered a crime against humanity. So whenever you evaluate what we should expect of presidents of the United States, it's important to crank in these kinds of functions that are not going to be advanced by Exxon/Mobil or Peabody Coal. They're going to be advanced by public servants such as Dr. George Luber. Before we end, any more comments or questions from Steve and David?
Steve Skrovan: Dr. Luber, this is a scientific question. What do you think the biggest threat is as a result of this climate crisis?
George Luber: Well, you know we've always said at the Climate Health program that the effects of climate change are place-specific and past-dependent. And that's kind of a scientific way of saying, “Gosh, it all depends.” The biggest threat in my opinion, ironically, this is the biggest threat overall long-term, is the threat that increased carbon dioxide has on the acidity of the oceans and the impact that that CO2 has on plants. What we are learning is that CO2 in elevated levels, six, seven . . . we're at 415/418 parts-per-million right now. But if we have the atmospheric concentration of around 600 parts-per-million, which we expect by the latter part of the century, what we're realizing is that plants are negatively affected by this elevated CO2, especially C3, C4 photosynthetic plants, which form the kind of core of our food crop--rice, wheat, barley, sorghum, millet. All of the starches that we feed the planet on, show that under elevated CO2 levels that we would expect by the end of this latter part of this century, that the protein levels are reduced by 15 to 20 percent, the crude protein. The plants are actually stressed under these elevated CO2 levels. And they're rising so fast that plants cannot adapt. It’s the rate of change is so fast that the plants cannot adapt to these elevated CO2 and they are stressed, and as a result, not only the crude protein reduces by 15 to 20 percent, the micro-nutrients, vitamins are also reduced as well, so we have a nutritional crisis. Imagine a planet of seven billion people now and crop production stays the same but we're at nine billion people, and we have crops that are 15 to 20 percent less nutritious. That is an impending nutritional crisis! And everybody in public health knows that at the cornerstone of any healthy population is a healthy immune system and undernourished people don't have healthy immune systems.
Ralph Nader: Doctor, expand that to the impact on the ocean and how the boomerang comes back on land.
George Luber: So the ocean also experiences stress at high CO2 levels; it actually absorbs CO2 and becomes more acidic. What we learned is that under high-acidity conditions, which are already occurring now, that the organisms that form the basis of food web of the ocean, the calcareous organisms--these are the phytoplankton and the zooplankton that form hard exoskeleton shells under those elevated acidity levels--cannot form their shells that their shells are weak and dissolved. And under higher CO2 levels, the potential for the collapse of the food base of the oceans is apparent and that we lose the food base to smaller units, that again, feed the rest the food web up. We could have a crash in marine ecosystems, which are tremendously important for human nutrition.
Ralph Nader: And then much more intense hurricanes coming out of warming patterns that are changing in the oceans, can you say a few words about that?
George Luber: Well we do know that most weather events, extreme weather events, are intensifying under climate change; heat waves are of longer duration and more intense, hotter. Hurricanes appear to show a signal of getting more intense; we're not sure if they're getting more frequent. Precipitation is increasingly coming down in heavy short bursts rather than gentle rain. All of those things affect public health. Now those things are things that, given the appropriate attention, we can adapt to. What I was describing earlier with the CO2 problem is intractable. This is a problem that we don't have solutions for. And what's ironic about it is that they are a major problem that have nothing to do with weather or climate. They have to do with a carbon pollution problem. It's related to climate changes that an excess carbon changes weather, but it also changes fundamental parts of our ecosystem that we rely on.
Ralph Nader: But one of the more fearful results are the melting of the glaciers and the building up of sea levels inundating cities with hundreds of millions of people around the globe from India to the United States. Explain that a bit.
George Luber: Well, 80% of the world's population lives near oceans, so there's going to be a major retreat from the coastlines with sea levels depending on the climate model or what we're learning--how quickly that might happen, but it's certainly happening and will happen. Those are our problems that, again, given the amount of resources enough that we can retreat from the oceans. We're going to have to. But there will be a tremendous amount of suffering associated with that. And while we're waiting to retreat or waiting to come to terms with this problem, we will certainly have coastal inundation events that will kill many thousands of people and the time to act on that is now.
Ralph Nader: We learned from an earlier program, Dr. Luber, that Miami Beach in Florida has a plan to evacuate, not just people close to the ocean, but to evacuate Miami Beach. George Luber: Yes. They are already experiencing regular inundation events with high tides. I mean this is a regular occurrence right now. And places that experience these types of events, they get it. They understand the threat in the disruption to life and economy and community that this happens. When people get displaced, they don't just lose their home, they lose their community, they lose their livelihoods and those have consequences as well.
Steve Skrovan: Well I'm sitting here in Southern California right now in Los Angeles area where wild fires are raging and at any moment they're telling me I'm getting notices from Southern California Edison that they're going to turn off the power. Fortunately, they didn't do it during the show, because their fear the high winds will knock down power lines and start another wild fire, so I can personally attest to the effects of what you're talking about. And exactly what you're talking about is exactly what the Trump Administration and his backers don't want anybody to hear and why you were in the situation.
George Luber: One of my colleagues and one of the top people on climate and health, Kirk R. Smith out of U.C. Berkeley, had once said . . . and this is a very important quote, I guess, that you know “in a world of climate change, the rich will find the world to be more polluted, more uncomfortable, colorless, and a bleaker world. The poor will die”.
Ralph Nader: As the poor pay more in our economy as well. You're quite right there. The most vulnerable areas are populated by low-income people. Well, one last thing, I hope we don't hear the word climate change anymore, not because of Trump's censorship, but because it's too benign a phrase created by Frank Luntz, the right-wing Republican wordsmith in 2002 to replace the more alarming global warming phrase. So I hope we all use words like climate crisis, climate disruption, climate catastrophe, global warming, and deprive Frank Luntz of his semantic colonialism. Well, we're out of time. Thank you very much, Dr. George Luber. Congratulations on your Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage. Congratulations to PEER for holding up its defense of your rights as a civil servant. And congratulations to all of you listening who are alert and come to the rescue of courageous people like Dr. George Luber.
George Luber: Thank you so much.
Steve Skrovan: We have been speaking with Dr. George Luber. We will link to more of his story and the Callaway Awards at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Right now we're going to take a short break. When we come back, Ralph is going to answer some of your questions, but first, let's check in with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber. You're 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, November 8, 2019. I'm Russell Mokhiber. Oregon worker safety inspectors found serious workplace safety violations at a Dollar Tree in Portland, Oregon after a rodent infestation. That's according to a report from television station KGW in Portland. Oregon OSHA fined the company $1900. In August, the Dollar Tree store in Portland’s Lloyd District temporarily shut down after a KGW investigation found ripped food packaging, chewed food labels, rodent feces on shelves and a dead mouse in an air vent. The store had since re-opened. Employees complained of nausea, light-headedness and headaches after being exposed to dead mice, rodent urine and droppings. Oregon OSHA records indicate Dollar Tree didn’t do enough to keep rodents out of the store and failed to provide proper safety equipment for employees who were asked to clean up. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. Now before we do listener questions, Ralph, John Conyers died recently and I know you had worked closely with him over the years. He was in Congress for almost 60 years, I believe, or more than 60 years. Tell us a little about your relationship . . . about John Conyers and your relationship with him.
Ralph Nader: Well Congressman Conyers was the Dean of the African-American delegation in the House as they called it. And he helped start the Black Caucus. He was extremely responsive. You could get him on the phone. He would return calls. That's a very rare trait today for members of Congress, because if you can't get through to people, you can't get anything underway to begin with; that's how critical it is. And he'd invite you down to his office, a group of civic advocates and leaders and obviously he was great on civil rights. But he also tried to jumpstart a federal intense program on cracking down on corporate crime. It never got anywhere, but at least he introduced the legislation and he proposed it when he was a senior figure on the House Judiciary. He was also a champion of ballot access for third parties even though he was a longstanding member of the Democratic Party and he introduced legislation to that effect. And he's clearly one of the most progressive members of the House of Representatives on numerous fronts including being anti-war in our modern times. He left Congress a couple of years ago under a cloud of personal matters, but that doesn't really take away from what he did over about a half a century of representing portions of Detroit, Michigan in the House of Representatives and taking seriously his title of US Representative, not just Representative from Detroit.
Steve Skrovan: Well, thank you for that, Ralph. Let's do some listener questions now. This next one comes from Jay Goldberg who is a regular listener. I think we did one of his questions a couple of weeks ago and he said, "In the Wrap Up to this week's show, Ralph offered a couple of reasons why Medicare for some is a bad idea. But I think he overlooked the most obvious one, people would have to buy into it, so instead of being funded through progressive taxation, it would be an option only for those who could afford it or whose employers provide it as private insurance is now. I suppose there could be a government subsidy for low-income groups similar to what Obamacare provides, but they would never be as progressive as the taxes Bernie and Liz are proposing and it would never be provided to the majority of working people. Also Medicare for some would have to call for deductibles and co-pays, or no one would opt for private insurance." Is Jay correct there, Ralph?
Ralph Nader: Yeah, he makes a good point and he provokes even further good points. Number one, it's a setup to be taken over the way Medicare Advantage corporate-run is now taken over one out of every three elderly people's Medicare insurance. People don't realize it [that] all these ads they hear about Medicare Advantage is just a euphemism for takeover by companies like United Healthcare and Aetna of Medicare under contract. And as Dr. Fred Hyde said, "It's not what you pay; it's what you get." And there are a lot of trap doors in Medicare Advantage and elderly people should be aware of it and so should people be if there was a Medicare for some or public option. The other thing Medicare for some does not control costs. When you have full Medicare for All, the corollary is restraint on skyrocketing drug prices, restraint on skyrocketing hospital prices, minimizing fraud in the healthcare area. That's the experience in Canada.
Steve Skrovan: It's funny Ralph, I had this discussion after we did that show with a college classmate of mine who I happened to run into. And one of my college classmates is Tom Steyer who's running for president. And this woman, who I also know, said "Hey, you're supporting Tom?" And I said, “Well I like a lot of what Tom says about corporate power, and obviously he's been a leader on the climate crisis, but I'm not sure about his healthcare policy. She says, "But he's talking about choice." And so I ran down basically what we talked about last week, and she kept a smile on her face, but her eyes just went completely dead.
Ralph Nader: [laughter] It's amazing. People make up their minds; permanently they close off the kind of information that I think otherwise they would be more receptive of. Steve Skrovan: Thank you for your questions. Keep them coming on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website. I want to thank our guest again, George Luber from the CDC. 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 the 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 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 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 when we speak to another whistleblower who won his Callaway Prize by taking on Boeing, John Barnett. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody. More stations, more podcast listeners.
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RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 322: Crooked Prosecutors/AWOL Congress
Interview of Don Siegelman by Ralph Nader
May 9, 2020
Former Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, who was convicted on dubious corruption charges and spent five years in prison joins us to talk about his chronicle of those events in his book “Stealing Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation.” And old friend and constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, makes the case that Congress has once again abdicated its responsibility during the Covid-19 crisis.
Don Siegelman was the 51st Governor of Alabama, serving from 1999 to 2003. He is the only politician in Alabama history to hold all of the state’s top constitutional offices: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. He was the longest-running Democrat in the Southeast. He was convicted in 2006 of federal bribery charges, in what many think was a wrongful conviction brought about by Republican politicians. Mr. Siegelman wrote about this in his soon to be released book “Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation”.
Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar, who was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan. Mr. Fein has been a visiting Fellow for Constitutional Studies at the Heritage Foundation and an adjunct scholar at American Enterprise Institute. He has advised numerous countries on constitutional reform, including South Africa, Hungary and Russia. He is the author of “Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy,” and “American Empire: Before the Fall”. Mr. Fein did a special edition show with Ralph where they lay out the articles of impeachment of President Donald Trump.
TRANSCRIPT
Steve Skrovan: It's the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my cohost, David Feldman. Hello, David.
David Feldman: Hello. Good morning.
Steve Skrovan: And we also have the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello everybody. Fasten your seatbelts. This is going to be quite a show.
Steve Skrovan: Yeah, the gang's all here and today, we're going to talk with former governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, whose three-decade career in public service ran afoul of Republican opponents who used the Federal judicial system to take him out of contention in Alabama and nationally. This involved Karl Rove, as I understand. Mr. Siegelman spent five years in Alabama prison after being convicted on dubious corruption charges. We will talk about how all of that happened and also how Mr. Siegelman has been drawing attention to poor conditions in prisons, especially in the age of coronavirus where these facilities are becoming the true hotspots. Rikers Island, for instance, in New York City, has a coronavirus infection rate nearly eight times higher than the rest of the city. Mr. Siegelman has been drawing attention to those poor conditions and advocating for inmates to be released.
Our second guest is one of the Ralph's favorite Republicans. He has been on the show nine times. Regular listeners know Bruce Fein is a constitutional scholar; he is here to talk to us about how Congress has gone AWOL during this pandemic. Despite Congress putting its nose to the grindstone for its usual two and a half days a week under normal conditions, during this pandemic, most have not been showing up to work while health care workers, grocery store employees and delivery truck drivers have been endangering their own lives to keep society functioning. Congress has deemed themselves non-essential workers, as true as that may sound, and as tempting a joke as that is. We'll hear from Mr. Fein about how Congress should be conducting themselves during this crisis. And as always, somewhere in between, we'll take a short break and check in with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber. And if we have some time left over, we'll try to answer some listener questions. But first, let's talk to our first guest about his own imprisonment and the state of our prisons. David?
David Feldman: Don Siegelman was the 51st Governor of Alabama; serving from 1999 to 2003, he is the only politician in Alabama history to hold all of the state's top constitutional offices-- governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. He was the longest running Democrat in the Southeast. He was convicted in 2006 of federal bribery charges in what many think was a wrongful conviction brought about by Republican politicians. Governor Siegelman wrote about this in his soon to be released book, Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Governor Don Siegelman.
Don Siegelman: Hey David. Thank you. And Ralph, I'm pleased to be with you. I want to say something about your next guest, Bruce. I think I could make an argument that members of Congress are performing a nonessential function and it may be better for our democracy if at least a good part of the US Senate stayed at home.
Ralph Nader: Well, you wait, stick around and listen to what he says. He's testified over 200 times before Congress and he knows what he's talking about. Anyway, welcome. I'm going to call you Don. You were considered one of the most progressive governors in the South. They made comparisons of you with Jimmy Carter in Georgia. You got all kinds of things started, heavy emphasis on education, but I want to tell our listeners what some people think of what happened to you and why. We start with John Lewis, the famous Congressman and he says, “Don Siegelman, Alabama's first progressive governor was elected with a majority of black and white voters. He advanced the cause of justice for African Americans and women appointing more African Americans as judges than had been elected or appointed in Alabama's history. This drove Republicans crazy. The coup de gras was that governor Siegelman was going to give free college education and free early learning to all Alabama children.” And as far as the prosecutorial misconduct, to put it mildly, that they hurled against you because you were thinking of running against George W. Bush in 2004, here is what the premier researcher, Professor Bennett Gershman of Pace University School of Law, said about you; he's the author of Prosecutorial Misconduct: Trial Error and Misconduct in Prosecution Stories. “Of the thousands of prosecutorial misconduct cases I have written about, the government's bad faith described in Stealing Our Democracy,” that’s your new book, “stands out and maybe without parallel. The governor's story,” that’s you, “reveals a continuum of government misconduct, which leaves the reader shaking in disbelief.” And listeners should know that prosecutorial misconduct is almost as American as apple pie. All over the country they have been documented as going after people who are vulnerable, who can't really defend themselves, who don't have the best lawyers and using manufactured evidence, perjured testimony. And the honest prosecutors have been unable to get that message across as it should be. Governor Cuomo said a while back that 70% of the people in New York City prisons didn't even have charges filed against them. They were waiting in prison without any charges being filed against them for what they supposedly did wrong. So you're coming out with a new book, Stealing Our Democracy. You're using your experience only as a forward, I might add, to your broader critique of our criminal injustice system, which seems to be invulnerable to all exposes, whether in the New York Times or Washington Post or Los Angeles Times. But you're going to make another effort to mobilize people. So can you just tell our listeners what was the political motive after you finished your first term as governor of Alabama? What did you do that got them so angry and even involved Karl Rove to getting the [US] Justice Department to be part of this prosecutorial misconduct?
Don Siegelman: Well, Ralph, your introduction evokes several thoughts and I want to start with answering your question. Most people know I brought five automobile plants to Alabama in three and a half years. I started over a thousand new school construction projects; got a lot of people working, building roads and bridges. But I also filed, over the course of my career, more environmental lawsuits than any public official in Alabama's history. I stopped the Army's attempt to dispose of all their nerve gas in Alabama, stopped herbicide spraying, deep-well injections, disposing of hazardous waste in Mobile Bay; stopped Chemical Waste Management's attempt to incinerate hazardous waste in the Gulf of Mexico, and the list goes on. One of the proudest moments was when I was crossing a bridge going over the Mobile Delta and I saw International Paper clearcutting part of our natural forest and I picked up the phone and called my conservation officer and I said, “We've got to put together a group to buy the entire Mobile Delta.” And we raised enough money to buy 150,000 acres and put International Paper company out of business and we stopped the clearcutting of this beautiful, sacred, pristine Delta. I sued Exxon and Shell. I challenged corporations that they could not contribute to campaigns without a vote of their stockholders because it was an ultra-vires activity and they had to go back and amend their articles of incorporation in their purposes.
Ralph Nader: So that one is something for everybody to try to do in state after state. They always want to make workers and labor unions able to step out and step away from having any of their dues being used. But it's okay for corporations to get into politics without getting any affirmation of their shareholders. But you really had a very progressive record. There's no doubt. There was a 60 Minutes program on you in 2018. There's a new documentary on you, and what intrigues me is what went on in the court and who got away with what. Now, the judge in your court was Mark Everett Fuller; remember that name. Judge Mark Everett Fuller, a George W. Bush appointee, is the one who sentenced you to seven years in prison and a $50,000 fine. The main witness against you was someone named Nick Bailey who provided the cornerstone testimony upon which the conviction was based, and he was subsequently convicted of extortion and facing 10 years in prison; Bailey had cooperated with prosecutors to lighten his own sentence. That's another aspect of widespread prosecutorial discretion. So where is the judge right now? Is he still presiding over a court?
Don Siegelman: He was able--after the United States Judicial Conference recommended to John Boehner, Speaker of the House, that Bailey be impeached for perjury and for habitually beating his wife violently--to walk away from the bench with his retirement and he's probably drinking scotch and playing golf with some of his, you know, Southern white buddies down in Montgomery. But the story behind Fuller goes much deeper. He was the owner of a company called DOSS Aviation. It's a military supply company and defense contractor and he was up for a $175 million contract per year renewable for 10 years. After my conviction, he was awarded that contract. He sold the company [now called L3 Doss Aviation] for $2 billion. But I wanted to go back to something you were talking about because the heart of my story is not about me; it's about saving our democracy and exposing what has been going on in our court system. There's a reason why the majority of people behind bars are young men and women of color, but the government gets 99% of the indictments they seek. Roughly 97% plead guilty, many of them, most of them actually, before they even get a lawyer. But there's a reason for this. You know, getting 99% of anything is a pretty high probability. I'd like to have those odds during March Madness or during football season or something. But the reason they get 99% of the indictments they seek is because of the secrecy of a grand jury, where there's no judge and there is no lawyer for the defense or the target or the witness. In 2010, January the 4th, 2010, according to the Los Angeles Times, David Savage, the legal correspondent, reported that President Obama's lawyer argued to the United States Supreme Court and I quote, “US citizens, United States citizens do not have a constitutional right not to be framed.” This is Elena Kagan, her deputy, argues to the US Supreme Court that US citizens can be framed and there's nothing you can do about it.
Ralph Nader: Let me interject here. She is now a justice of the Supreme Court, of course, Elena Kagan.
Don Siegelman: Yes, yes.
Ralph Nader: She was referring to the sanctity of the grand jury system, which under US law, it has been said, prosecutors could indict a ham sandwich and what they mean by that joke is that when a prosecutor impanels a grand jury: A, it's all secret, B, all the witnesses are for the prosecution. The target doesn't get any witnesses in return; it doesn't get any chance to cross examine, doesn't get any chance to have a lawyer. That's why 99% of grand juries end up in indictment, not conviction then it goes to the courts. And Sol Price, who started The Price Club, you might be interested to know, was strongly opposed. He put ads in newspapers to reform the grand jury because he just thinks it's a recipe for prosecutorial abuse and denial of due process of law. Now I know some listeners are saying, but what was Governor Siegelman charged with and convicted? Can you just briefly discuss that and then we can go on to the broader issues here?
Don Siegelman: Well, I'd like to put in for a repeat performance so we can get into a little more depth. But yes, I was charged with bribery for soliciting a campaign contribution to a ballot referendum designed to benefit public education. There was no allegation of any self-enrichment scheme, nor was I accused of benefiting personally by a single penny. The money went to the Alabama Education Lottery Foundation, which was an organization put together to promote a ballot initiative to establish a lottery so that we could give every child in Alabama--regardless of where they're born or the color of their skin, whether they're immigrants or citizens--a chance to get early learning and an opportunity for higher education. So I was indicted for a bribery of receiving a campaign contribution from a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who had actually supported my opponent. But he had been on a state health board for 12 years, appointed by three previous governors and had resigned from the board. I asked him if he would serve again and I've got my right hand raised and I’m asking God to strike me dead if I'm lying. But when I asked him, he said, Oh, governor, do I have to? I just resigned from that board. Can I just give you the name of somebody that—and I said, no. If you leave the board now, it's going to look like you're running away from me as a Democrat. I was interested in building bridges, trying to build political bridges to the other side, to Republicans, to try to get ready for a rerun in 2002. And you know, it would have been a compliment to me to have this CEOs continue to serve on this board. [He] finally agreed to serve for one year, but there was no evidence of a quid pro quo unlike the president's impeachment trial where there was an expressed quid pro quo, as you stated earlier on one of the radio hours. Yet there was no evidence of a quid pro quo, much less an express one or an explicit one. But the judge, Mark Everett Fuller, with whom I had a political conflict back in 2002, when I caught him trying to bilk the state retirement system out of $300,000. So I was prosecuted on the basis of an implied or an inferred quid pro quo. The judge told the jury that they could consider the campaign contribution to the ballot initiative a thing of value to me, because I had supported the ballot initiative. So the judge ordered the jury to bring him a verdict or a partial verdict after we had two hung juries and they brought a partial verdict on a bribery charge. But my purpose in writing this book is not to tell my story, but to tell the story of how our criminal justice system is weighted in favor of prosecutorial power, and it needs to be balanced. You can't allow prosecutors to willfully and intentionally present false evidence as they did in this case that I've mentioned and that was argued before the Supreme Court in 2010. President Obama's lawyer was arguing in favor of protecting the government and the government prosecutors and investigators in a case where two men had served 25 years in prison for a crime they did not commit. The witness against them was promised a light sentence if he would point the finger toward these two black men instead of a white suspect who was a friend of the investigators.
Ralph Nader: That's a pattern of course, that has been repeated throughout American history and continues to this day. When police want to get somebody and prosecutors don't want to prosecute somebody, they go to work to the same office and they just are very, very worried about contradicting the police recommended charges because they have to work with them day after day; there's a great need for criminal justice reform. We're not getting much support, with few exceptions, from law professors and deans of law schools. The law schools should be alive with this travesty of justice that has been institutionalized, especially against minorities and vulnerable people. But the other side is that corporate criminals get away with it! The political criminals like Bush and Cheney, the criminal, unconstitutional invasion of Iraq, which has slaughtered over a million Iraqis and blown apart the country. And here they are getting big speech fees and getting awards and living the life of royalty. And the same time, the heads of Wells Fargo bank that created millions of false accounts, credit card accounts, auto insurance purchases without even getting the consent of the customers; they put their employees under quotas to do that. That's a clear premeditated, planed corporate crime [yet] not one prosecution.
They have to leave their jobs, with all their nice severance pay and golden handshakes, but they got away with it. So this whole mythology that nobody is above the law, I mean, Trump is above the law every day. He's violating laws, statutes, not responding to congressional subpoenas, violating the Constitution, most impeachable president [in history] and there he is, you know, just doubling down and doing more of the same, lying his way until November. When are we going to face up to the fact that injustice/violations of law by the powerful are the norm? They're not the exception; they are the norm. They've institutionalized their immunities and their privileges. And when they do, once in a while get caught by a good prosecutor, and you know, they hire these big law firms and they say to the prosecutor, how many staff do you have? You got other things you got to enforce. Do you want to assign your whole office to this? And so they get out with copping a plea and pretty soon, they're in wealthy retirement. So I think what you need to do, connecting with other people, I know you dealt with good Southern public interest lawyers like Stevenson, Morris Dees, who founded the Southern Poverty Law Center. I think it's a mission that has to become a prime political campaign issue by local, state and national candidates; it's got to be dealt with systemically. Otherwise, you know, you go into one bad case after another and it’s like being on a treadmill; the faster that you run, the more you slip behind. Are you looking at it from that point of view? And listeners should know that Don Siegelman has two stalwart children who are now lawyers and they're on the same wavelength here. Is that correct?
Don Siegelman: Well, one is a lawyer; one is a public advocate. My son is a lawyer; my daughter is the advocate. I wanted to go back to something that shattered my faith in the Obama administration was when he said he was going to look forward not backward, and I thought, so that means we're not going to investigate being led into war under false pretenses; we're not going to hold those people accountable for torture. That means we're not going to repeal the Patriot Act. We're going to give up our rights under the Fourth Amendment. You know, people in America don't want to believe that elections are stolen or that presidents can abuse their power. But if I were asked to prove that presidents can abuse their power, the first person I would call would be Donald J. Trump. He fired James Comey because he wanted to end the Russian investigation. He fired Sally Yates. He fired Andrew McCabe [and] hired is Southern white-boy buddy, Beauregard Sessions, and then fired him when of course Sessions was in a conflict because he had lied before the Senate committee about not meeting with Russians. And then he hired Bill Barr who does everything he can every day to protect the president or to advance his political causes. You know, so it goes on and on.
Ralph Nader: Yeah. Well, let's focus on how they stole your election. This is an amazing story. You were running for re-election, second term, governor of Alabama, and you were declared on election night the winner by all the national networks, by the Associated Press. “The results were in; the votes were counted; the media and poll workers were sent home.” Those are your words. And to continue, you said, “And then in one Southern Republican-controlled county, 6,000 of my votes simply disappeared. I requested a hand count of the precinct, which was in question. The probate judge granted me that. I was headed to that county in South Alabama when I was told that the state attorney general, Bill Pryor, who is now in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, had seized the ballots and had taken everything to Montgomery, the capital, where they certified my opponent, Republican Congressman Bob Riley, as the winner.” You can't challenge the outcome of an election unless you can prove to the judge that there were enough illegal votes cast or enough legal votes not countered to make a difference in the outcome. You couldn't do that because the attorney general had the ballots.
Don Siegelman: The attorney general was Karl Rove’s client, and it was the attorney general that started my investigation. It was kicked into high gear by the US attorney who was married to Karl Rove’s business partner in Alabama, Billy Canary, who used to be president of the American Trucking Association and also part of the Bush machine and was working with Rove in the ‘92 campaign. When they lost that campaign, by the way, they came, both Rove and Canary, to Alabama, married Alabama ladies and Rove moved to Rosemary Beach, on the Gulf Coast and Billy Canary moved to Montgomery where they continued their political operation in Alabama. I ran afoul of them many, many times during the course of the next 10 years. But the investigation was started by Karl Rove’s client. It was kicked into high gear in the federal courts by the US attorney. I was brought to trial one month before my re-election and while the US attorney's husband was running my opponent's campaign. You were talking about the election being stolen in 2002; it was Karl Rove’s client, the attorney general, as you mentioned, who seized the ballots and refused to let anybody see them much less have a recount.
Ralph Nader: There was a House Democratic committee hearing, was there not? Can you tell us briefly about that?
Don Siegelman: Well, the United States House Judiciary Committee, under the leadership of John Conyers and strong Democratic committed members of that committee, held two hearings, one on selective prosecution and one on prosecutorial misconduct. The committee was torpedoed by the Department of Justice that refused to turn over information about my case. Later, the Department of Justice revealed—well, actually, it was revealed by an unknown, anonymous whistleblower from the House Judiciary Committee staff who leaked a letter, which had been sent to John Conyers by the Department of Justice, in which the Department of Justice admitted that the lead prosecutor in my case, who worked for Karl Rove’s client and was also cross designated to work with the Bush-appointed US attorney, was emailing my Republican opponent's campaign manager, giving him updates on the investigation and explaining why both he and a group of likeminded conservative prosecutors were so frustrated they couldn't move my investigation forward fast enough.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with former Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama. This is clearly a political prosecution and it's so well documented and yet you were put in prison. You spent five years there, sometimes solitary confinement; you were in solitary confinement, and you have no remedy. You have no remedy against Karl Rove, no remedy against the people who violated laws in order to get this prosecution. Have you thought of any remedy at all in court?
Don Siegelman: Ralph, if you should find a purpose in every situation in which you find yourself, then I found a purpose here. My purpose is to fight for criminal justice reform. I can't dwell on what happened to me. It's over, but—
Ralph Nader: No, I understand that. But for all the other people who are “railroaded”, as they used to you say into court, people serving time for crimes they didn't commit with subsequent DNA evidence, for example. People in jail for 25 years because they were caught in possession of marijuana. It's not just you in terms of a remedy, as there should be as part of criminal justice reform, remedies against this. I know some of the people who've been in prison and released after decades for crimes they didn't commit, managed to get compensation, so much per year in prison, so that in their post-prison life, they could maintain some kind of livelihood. But I think there needs to be a broader reform here, so that the prosecutors, the political railroaders, the people who get away with it are subjected to justice here. I mean, otherwise there's no deterrence. Like you steal an election and you'll get away with it. And even if you're caught, nobody goes to jail. I mean, this happens again and again in this country. Oh well, you know, it's just politics as usual.
Don Siegelman: Well, Ralph, that's why I was hoping that during the Obama administration, they would hold Karl Rove accountable for the abuse of power, subverting the Department of Justice and subverting our democracy and weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after Democrats and protect Republicans. They didn't hold him accountable for the abuse of power. And now we see it going on again today in this current White House. But there are three practical reforms that I want to mention while I've still got a few minutes.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, go ahead.
Don Siegelman: First of all, Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit, retired now, said that the withholding of exculpatory evidence by prosecutors is epidemic in America. Well, and it is epidemic because you have this shield or umbrella of protection over prosecutors. You have the pronouncement by President Obama that US citizens do not have a constitutional right not to be framed. But then you have the Federal Torts Claims Act, which gives immunity from prosecutors for being sued for willfully and intentionally presenting false evidence or eliciting false testimony or withholding exculpatory evidence so that they are free, with legal impunity. to frame people and it takes place first in a grand jury. So what do we do? First, we repeal the immunity clause in the Federal Torts Claims Act. So prosecutors can be held civilly liable for willfully and intentionally putting somebody in prison for 25 years when they know they didn't commit the crime. Secondly, we need to record every interview with every witness and target so that there is a record of if someone's testimony is morphing over time and changing over time as it did in this case that I referred to in 2010, or in my case where the witness was interviewed 70 times, not seven but 70 times, over a period of four years and made to write and rewrite his answers over and over until he got his testimonies straight, according to Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes [so] that the record would reveal how a person's testimony changed over time. And it would also serve as a deterrent from prosecutors for pressuring, cajoling, and coaching witnesses to lie. In my case, we had a DOJ employee who filed a formal whistleblower complaint saying she was present when this witness against me was pressured and cajoled into remembering things he clearly did not recall.
Ralph Nader: That was devastating testimony to be sure. There's another aspect you might want to add to your list of reforms.
Don Siegelman: I’ve got one.
Ralph Nader: Years ago, a famous professor of administrative law, Kenneth Culp Davis, took note of how prosecutors failed to prosecute the big boys, the corporate criminals, that people have influence in politics. And he thought that prosecutors should always be under a duty to explain why they didn't prosecute, why they didn't further the prosecution. They couldn't just drop it and it's all secret; they’d have to explain to the public. You might want to get that in Lexis [2003].
Don Siegelman: Well, I kind of have that included, because the third element of my package to reform and to balance the scales of justice is to allow the target or the witness to have a lawyer present in the grand jury to object to testimony or evidence. Look, we do this in a civil deposition. You've been in hundreds, probably thousands of them. And you can object to proposed testimony or evidence and a magistrate/a judge decides whether it's admissible or not.
Ralph Nader: Yes, indeed.
Don Siegelman: Surely where monetary damages are at stake, if it's okay there, it ought to be okay when somebody's liberty is at stake. And so when you have cases, for example, when police officers shoot and kill an unarmed black man and it goes to a grand jury and the grand jury “no bills” [when a grand jury does not find probable cause for an arrest], you want an explanation. And if that defendant, in this case, the victim had the right to have a lawyer present, it would help bring some measure of accountability to the grand jury process. And in a way, you know, if there is a charge against a corporate wrongdoer and if it's taken to a grand jury, then there should be some public-interest entity that has the right to have a lawyer present, maybe an inspector general or someone, to be there to report back to the public why this corporate executive was not indicted.
Ralph Nader: For sure. That's exactly what Kenneth Culp Davis meant in this book, Discretionary Justice, which I'm sure you would benefit from if you read it. We're running out of time. We're talking with Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama [with a] very progressive record whose career was cut short by a political prosecution that we've been talking about as well documented on 60 Minutes program and also in his forthcoming book. We just have just a few seconds left. How about a question from Dave or Steve?
Steve Skrovan: Yeah, Mr. Siegelman, I have a question. And I just want to move it off to prison conditions. What kind of prison were you in? What was the population, the conditions? And talk a little bit about your advocacy in the age of this pandemic.
Don Siegelman: Well, as everyone probably knows at this point, it is virtually impossible for inmates to socially distance. You can't get away from inmates. We were over double capacity and when you're in a room where beds are stacked three high, not just two high and the aisles are so close, you can reach out and touch one bunk and the other when you're lying down in your bunk. When there's only one door in, one door out, no windows, it's impossible for infections or viruses not to spread rapidly. When you're sharing showers or soap or urinals are only inches apart with no separation, you know, it is going to spread. What I find amazing, the pronouncement by Bill Barr on April 3rd was, that he said, okay, you know, “We've got to release these nonviolent inmates who are not a threat to public safety.” Well now they're releasing thousands of inmates who are not a threat to public safety, which raises the question, why in the world are they in there in the first place? Ralph mentioned a man sentenced to 25 years for marijuana; he was my bunkmate, Juan Garcia. I've got a section in my book about him. A half ounce of marijuana--felony, probation; half a pound s of marijuana--felony, probation. Another conviction, felony for no amount of marijuana charge, no amount charge. And he was careered out, given 25 years. He serves 19. I wrote a petition for commutation for him and he gets out after 19 years, but it's insane. So we've got a lot of work to do in changing our criminal justice system. It is my hope that out of this Covid-19 crisis that has brought attention to the conditions of prisons and also has resulted in innovative ways to make goods and sell goods and provide things and services to the public, that out of this creativity that we're seeing bubble up, I hope we also are willing to accept changes in our criminal justice system that can radically change the way we deal with violations of the law. And we could go on talking about it, but I thank you for the opportunity to be with you today, Ralph. It's a pleasure to meet you.
Ralph Nader: I might add, and those changes have to be made by state legislators and members of Congress. So, any movement that expands its influence for criminal justice reform has got a zero in again on those handful of lawmakers who can turn this around. We've been talking with Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama and his forthcoming memoir out next month is called Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation. And it's not just about him, but it's about him speaking from his experience--not a theoretical memoir--from his experience in detail and then telescoping it to the whole criminal injustice system that afflicts so many people unfairly and allows so many other powerful people to escape the rule of law and the embrace of remedial justice. Thank you very much, Don.
Don Siegelman: Thank you Ralph. I appreciate it very much. Thank you, guys.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with former Alabama governor, Don Siegelman. We will link to his book, Stealing Democracy at ralphnaderradiohour.com .Now we're going to take a short break. When we return, we will try to figure out where 535 indispensable lawmakers have been hiding. But first, let's check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mohkiber.
Russell Mohkiber: From the National Press building in Washington, DC, this is your corporate crime report, Morning Minute for Friday, May 8, 2020. I'm Russell Mohkiber. Texas-based ice cream manufacturer Blue Bell Creameries will plead guilty to charges it shipped contaminated products linked to a 2015 listeriosis outbreak, and the company’s former president was charged in connection with a scheme to cover up the incident. Blue Bell will also pay $2.1 million to resolve civil False Claims Act allegations regarding ice cream products manufactured under unsanitary conditions and sold to federal facilities. Blue Bell’s former president, Paul Kruse, also was charged with seven felony counts related to his alleged efforts to conceal from customers what the company knew about the listeria contamination. 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 along with David Feldman and Ralph. We have been doing this program remotely for over six years. It works pretty well, but can Congress function as effectively remotely or should they physically be in the capital to do the people's business? I think I know how our next guest would answer that question. David?
David Feldman: Bruce Fein is a constitutional scholar who was associate deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan. Mr. Fein has been a visiting fellow for constitutional studies at the Heritage Foundation and an adjunct scholar at American Enterprise Institute. He's advised numerous countries on constitutional reform, including South Africa, Hungary, and Russia. He is the author Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Bruce Fein.
Bruce Fein: Thank you for that effusion. I always remind listeners that nothing is said in introducing a guest that's under oath so it’s fine to exaggerate.
Ralph Nader: [Ralph chuckles] Before we talk about the AWOL Congress that must view itself as not essential service like delivery-truck drivers, grocery clerks, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, police and others who are exposing themselves daily to the risk of coronavirus because they're doing their duty, why don't you explain why historically, Congress has held itself in such low regard in so many ways vis-a-vis the Executive Branch under the Constitution and why you call Congress an ongoing inkblot?
Bruce Fein: Yeah. Well, really, Ralph, it goes back almost more than a century and it's been a steady erosion or a disappearance of Congress until it's like the Cheshire cat; it doesn't even have a smile when it's disappeared. And I think in part, it comes from twofold influences, but there are others as well. First, as the partisanship has become greater and greater, and as the government has grown in size, the members view the presidency as everything for their party, and so all they want to do is trust all the power—when their man is in the White House—to the Executive Branch. They escape accountability. They figure that with that person in the White House, they'll get bridges built or hospitals or roads; they’ll get some special grant in their district. And by not making any decisions, they make it more difficult for a challenger to come oust them because they haven't done anything to criticize other than giving away their power.
Ralph Nader: Let's start with war and then we'll go to define subpoenas.
Bruce Fein: All right. The war power. The fact is that every single member of the constitutional convention, every participant in the ratification debate, every president [from] the first--all understood that only Congress could declare war; only with Congress could take us from a state of peace to war. Now I need to underscore this because it's often misunderstood. That doesn't mean, and the ir founders said, if we're in fact subject to a sudden attack or an imminent sudden attack, the president can respond because the aggressor has already broken the peace. But the framers were unanimous. We can never trust the war power to the president who will concoct excuses to go to war to aggrandize power. That's been the history of every republic since the beginning of time. And the Congress did exercise that power up until, you know, after World War I. It was the Treaty of Versailles was defeated in part [by] the League of Nations, because that would have entrusted to the president alone, the authority to go to war without any congressional declaration. But since that time, presidents have run virtually hundreds of wars without congressional declarations. The only one that really wasn't needed [was] after Pearl Harbor; there was a declaration that recognized that we were at a state of war because Japan had attacked. Same thing after Hitler declared war on the United States. But certainly beginning with Korea and for the ensuing 70 some years, presidents have just gone to war on their own and Congress has simply sat there. Occasionally, they've delegated the power to go to war, like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution even though President Johnson lied about the so-called second torpedo attack on the USS Maddox and Turner Joy. Presidents have repeatedly lied in times of war, even when they've gotten declarations. President Wilson lied about the Lusitania, which was carrying munitions for the allied powers and said it wasn't justified; they sunk because there were only passengers on it, no ammunition. President Polk lied about Mexican forces killing American soldiers on American soil. And we know with Korea, President Truman lied that this was just a police action that he was engaged in; it wasn't really a war even though it involved, you know, millions of soldiers and the threat of nuclear war against China.
Ralph Nader: Well, let's move to defined congressional subpoenas and obstruction of justice. Nixon was about to be impeached and removed for defying one subpoena and one obstruction of justice in the Watergate. Here we have dozen or more obstructions of justice documented by investigators and Mueller Report by Trump, and all kinds of subpoenas he just laughs at and doesn't abide by, coming from Congress.
Bruce Fein: That's correct. And we need to underscore for the listeners, Ralph, the power of subpoena, the power of oversight, is perhaps the most important power that Congress possesses; sunshine is the best disinfectant. The power of information in Washington is enormous, and the only way you can check an executive out of control is by knowing what the executive can do. That's why the framers wrote in the Declaration of Independence; we need to have government by the consent of the governed. You can't consent to something [when] you don't know what's going on. And it has become really epidemic, if you will, maybe pandemic is the word, that the Executive Branch at present simply doesn't show up to testimony or it shows and doesn't ever answer questions. It wouldn't even answer questions as to what the so-called peace accord with Taliban is, to try to remove ourselves from Afghanistan even though Taliban knew what the terms of the peace accord was. I mean that is utterly ridiculous.
Ralph Nader: But of course, I know Trump has said, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as president.” And he proceeds to do that every day larded with lies. He's breaking the checks and balances like other presidents did, but more forcefully and boastfully. He's breaking the checks and balances in our Constitution and he's breaking the separation of powers. Now why is Congress letting him and prior presidents get away with it and then we'll get to the AWOL Congress in the pandemic.
Bruce Fein: Okay, well, you know we're trying to get a psychology here, Ralph. And you know we both probably have a combined more than a hundred years dealing with Congress and I think there are several factors that are at work. One that the members of Congress now, I say, their loyalty and their oath that they take psychologically is to their party, and so they don't really care if the Constitution assigns them responsibility. If they can get reelected by assigning it to the president, they will sit and give away their power. Secondly, I know the Congress is hyper, hyper risk averse. They really don't want to do anything. And they fear, you know, an adverse tweet by President Trump. It's truly amazing how frightened they are. And also, they're totally unschooled, Ralph, in what their real powers are under the Constitution. I almost—
Ralph Nader: Let’s pause on that. This is the most amazing observation Bruce has. You know, his office is one block from the Congress; he’s in and out of the House and Senate all the time. And you conclude they don't even understand what their duties are under the Constitution, including the staff.
Bruce Fein: Including the staff. The staff after Gingrich, you know, downgraded the pay scale. The staff, don't even remember what the Vietnam War was or what Watergate was or Nixon's Enemies List. I once was asking, why don't you demand that Congress enact statutes that determines what gets classified and not, and don't have to encounter this spurious claims of the Executive Branch that we've called to declassify. And the staff said, “Oh, we don't have any power to decide what's classified or not”. And it's ridiculous. In fact, there are House Resolutions that are currently in place that authorize both the House and Senate to declassify any document they want. It was done a couple of times during the Church Committee hearings in 1975-76. Most of the staff members in Congress wouldn't even know who Senator Frank Church was. And so they're so clueless about how real power is allocated under the Constitution, they feel they're helpless and can't defend themselves, because they're completely ignorant. How you overcome that, I don't know. I've been up there so many times and said, “I'll do seminars for you. We can do staff sessions, whatever.” They just want to raise money and just be lazy is what they want to do. They are not serious people who devote serious time to understanding how the Constitution is supposed to work with checks and balances!
Ralph Nader: Well, you know, as you pointed out, they work two and a half days a week when they're in session before the Covid virus, and part of that time is they leave their office, which they have to under law and go to the nearby office space to raise money, dialing for dollars in little cubicles, both the Democrats and the Republicans. So now we have the trillions of dollars of relief and bailout and they come in and they vote and then they go back home. There are no public hearings on trillions of dollars, no detailed debate on the floor, no requests for information. In fact, you say that the drafts of these bills are actually written by who?
Bruce Fein: They're written either by the Executive Branch or the intelligence community or their subcontractors. The members, to be candid, the staff isn't even competent to write these bills; they don't even know enough. It's like you or I trying to jump into a first-year physics program and understand what equals MC squared is. It is so above their intellectual universe; they don't know what to do. So they get bamboozled and they accept the things that are utterly outrageous. As you pointed out in one of our recent discussions, Ralph, they wrote into these coronavirus relief and aid acts waiver authority for the [US] secretary of treasury. He can just waive all the limitations on declaring dividends and executive compensation wherever he feels it would help to open up the economy. There are no standards. He can do it for his friends and not do it for his enemies. This is utterly, completely unacceptable and ridiculous. This is 2 to 3 trillion dollars; you know, that's a huge amount of money.
Ralph Nader: And that's why so much of it is going into the wrong pockets and the press is saying there's chaos, because they're not drafting these bills tight enough. The corporate lawyers are all over getting exemptions for this and tax breaks for that. The New York Times reported in the 2.2 trillion bill, they got something in there that’s going to let the corporations escape, listen to this, $178 billion over time.
Bruce Fein: That’s right.
Ralph Nader: Now most of the members don't even glance at these bills. They just vote up or down depending on...
Bruce Fein: [Depending on] what the leadership tells them. Yeah, exactly right, and this is... there's a huge, what you would call intellectual imbalance here. The corporate lobbyists and the Executive Branch people who consult with them, you know, they're the Harvard/Yale; they're the Mandarin class. They get paid huge amounts of money. They know this stuff; they're smart. The members of Congress with Newt Gingrich, they pay their staff like $60,0000 to $70,000 a year. These people are 25-26 years old. They're not bad people; they don't have a clue of what's going on. You know, this is like having the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin playing an amateur basketball team. They don't know, and Congress refuses to increase the salary level. They say, “Well, we don't want to spend any of the money; we just care about who is in the White House; they'll help us out. And it's their own character that's so deficient that makes it almost impossible to get them to do anything constructive. And this is Republicans and Democrats; it's not a party issue. It's an institutional failing that...
Ralph Nader: There are necessary federal workers going to work every day. They don't do it by remote or virtual reality. What's the case for telling the members of Congress they should come back to work? They can take all the personal protections and more, advised by Centers for Disease Control. Some of the staff can work at home, so it isn't as much congestion. What is your argument against Congress working remotely from back home, voting from back home?
Bruce Fein: Well, first of all, there's the Constitution itself. In order to establish a quorum, you actually have to have a majority of members of Congress present and voting. So they have to be here under the Constitution. But putting that aside, Ralph, it's simply the nature of the species that you are able to debate and able to assess truth and falsehood in face-to-face encounters; you can, even if it's less or more than six feet away. That's how the mind works. Well, what do you think about X? What do you think about Y? It develops into esprit; it develops a team complex. No, you really think you would be able to develop esprit for a football team that had discussions by email or by Zoom or something like that? You have to see these people face to face in order to give them an emotional content to this. You have to inspire them with enthusiasm that they're willing to sacrifice; this really is important, and of course they are. I mean, they're superintending a $5 trillion corporation called the Executive Branch. Millions of employees, tens of millions of contractors, trillions of dollars at stake in debt that could destroy the whole country that's now storing past 25 trillion. Going to war that could destroy, create more enemies in another attack like 9/11 by stupidly getting into other people's business. All these are huge things and you have to have people who are there, motivated and who are willing to sacrifice. And to that requires face-to-face meetings in intensity. You can't duplicate the intensity of seeing somebody in the eye over an email or over some kind of remote system. It's like trying to court a woman. You really think you're going to do that successfully, you know, on the telephone or on the email as opposed to in person? Because that's what’s ultimately going to be the salvation of the country. We need people where we are who will fight the Executive Branch overreach, take risks and make it their life's ambition and endeavor. And you're not going to get that inspiration by 50 people or hundreds of people all scattered around, you know, in their home districts.
Ralph Nader: There's a certain lack of courage involved here. I must say. We're running out of time, but there's a certain lack of courage by members of Congress here, given all the people who are putting themselves on the line day after day, providing necessities for the American people in this Covid-19 crisis. We're running out of time, but any comment by Steve or Dave?
Steve Skrovan: Yeah Bruce, Anthony Fauci, who is the head of the CDC taskforce on this, their branch of it. He was asked to testify before the House and the White House said, “No, he can't testify before the House. We'll let him testify before the Senate,” which presumably in Trump world, is a more amenable place. Is that really legal? Is that within their power?
Bruce Fein: No. I mean if I were a member of Congress I’d say to Mr. Fauci, you show up to our subpoena, or we'll impeach and remove you from office. We'll have somebody else who will actually show up. No, you do not have the authority just to decide, oh, I don't want to show up for a hearing, and especially because you think you'll get questions you don't like to hear. Really? Can you imagine you're a witness in a lawsuit and say, Mr. Judge, I don't want to show up and answer questions I don't like, you know, you have to give me somebody who will ask me friendlier question. It is utterly and completely ridiculous. When I came to Washington, you know, years ago, John Dingell was Chairman of the House of Foreign Commerce Committee. If somebody said that his salary would be eliminated the next day and don't worry, there'll be an article of impeachment over his head like a sword of Damocles and then they would respond, and the fact that the House lets this go without any pushback is truly stunning.
Ralph Nader: All right, well, we're out of time. We've been talking with Bruce Fein, author of books on constitutional law, on empire, on the importance of checks and balances and reforms. Thank you very much, Bruce. To be continued as always.
Bruce Fein: Thanks so much, Ralph. I'm always eager to appear on your program.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein. We will link to his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com including the 12-part series he did with Ralph about the impeachable offenses of Donald Trump. Now we have some time for some listener questions. David, why don’t you do the honors?
David Feldman: This comes to us from Juan Gerardo. He says, “Ralph, I'm a ravenous listener to your podcast and I don't think Ralph Nader has responded to Mitch McConnell's attempt at tort reform. 45 already in his executive order to maintain the meat packing industry. Include this in it, to not hold them accountable for Covid-19 related injuries or death. We must keep informing the public about this denial of employees’ right for their day in court.”
Ralph Nader: Fully agree, Juan, and for listeners, his mention of 45 was referring to the 45th president who is Donald Trump. Well, we have responded, if you go to tortmuseum.org, you will see the letter signed by some prominent lawyers and law professors to Trump and the leaders in Congress saying this is not the time to allow recklessness in delivery of healthcare or defective products being sold as nostrums and phony remedies to be escaping from the accountability of tort law or the law of wrong wrongful injuries. The constitutional right of people to file a case in court, and the judges know how to throw out frivolous cases, is in the Seventh Amendment right of trial by jury. And McConnell is trying to take that away during the period of the Covid-19 and perhaps longer and give these corporations immunity from any kind of accountability. And you know what's going on in the marketplace; there's a lot of shoddiness, a lot of untested nostrums and the profiteering is at an epidemic level. So we're doing that. Go to tortmuseum.org and you can see the whole letter.
Steve Skrovan: Very good. Thank you for your question. Keep all of your questions coming on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website. I want to thank our guests again, Don Siegelman and Bruce Fein. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you podcasts 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 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: The producers or the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and Matthew Marran. Our executive producer is Alan Minsky.
David Feldman: Our theme music, “Stand Up, Rise Up” was written and performed by Kemp Harris. Our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon; our intern is Michaela Squier. Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody. And like so many of our shows, the solution is to focus on Congress and state legislatures. That means all of you.
Interview of Don Siegelman by Ralph Nader
May 9, 2020
-- “Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation”.
Former Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, who was convicted on dubious corruption charges and spent five years in prison joins us to talk about his chronicle of those events in his book “Stealing Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation.” And old friend and constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, makes the case that Congress has once again abdicated its responsibility during the Covid-19 crisis.
Don Siegelman was the 51st Governor of Alabama, serving from 1999 to 2003. He is the only politician in Alabama history to hold all of the state’s top constitutional offices: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. He was the longest-running Democrat in the Southeast. He was convicted in 2006 of federal bribery charges, in what many think was a wrongful conviction brought about by Republican politicians. Mr. Siegelman wrote about this in his soon to be released book “Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation”.
“The heart of my story: It’s not about me. It’s about saving our democracy. And exposing what has been going on in our court system. There’s a reason why the majority of people behind bars are young men and women of color.”
-- Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama
“Bill Barr on April third said, ok we got to release these non-violent inmates, who are not a threat to public safety. Well now they’re releasing thousands of inmates, who are not a threat to public safety, which raises the question why in the world are they in there in the first place?”
-- Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama
“There’s no deterrent. You steal an election and you get away with it. And even if you’re caught, nobody goes to jail. I mean this happens again and again in this country. It’s like, ‘Oh you know, it’s just politics as usual.’”
-- Ralph Nader
Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar, who was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan. Mr. Fein has been a visiting Fellow for Constitutional Studies at the Heritage Foundation and an adjunct scholar at American Enterprise Institute. He has advised numerous countries on constitutional reform, including South Africa, Hungary and Russia. He is the author of “Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy,” and “American Empire: Before the Fall”. Mr. Fein did a special edition show with Ralph where they lay out the articles of impeachment of President Donald Trump.
“Presidents have run virtually hundreds of wars without congressional declarations. Certainly, beginning with Korea and for the ensuing seventy some years, Presidents have just gone to war on their own, and Congress has simply sat there.”
-- Bruce Fein, author of “Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy”
TRANSCRIPT
Steve Skrovan: It's the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my cohost, David Feldman. Hello, David.
David Feldman: Hello. Good morning.
Steve Skrovan: And we also have the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello everybody. Fasten your seatbelts. This is going to be quite a show.
Steve Skrovan: Yeah, the gang's all here and today, we're going to talk with former governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, whose three-decade career in public service ran afoul of Republican opponents who used the Federal judicial system to take him out of contention in Alabama and nationally. This involved Karl Rove, as I understand. Mr. Siegelman spent five years in Alabama prison after being convicted on dubious corruption charges. We will talk about how all of that happened and also how Mr. Siegelman has been drawing attention to poor conditions in prisons, especially in the age of coronavirus where these facilities are becoming the true hotspots. Rikers Island, for instance, in New York City, has a coronavirus infection rate nearly eight times higher than the rest of the city. Mr. Siegelman has been drawing attention to those poor conditions and advocating for inmates to be released.
Our second guest is one of the Ralph's favorite Republicans. He has been on the show nine times. Regular listeners know Bruce Fein is a constitutional scholar; he is here to talk to us about how Congress has gone AWOL during this pandemic. Despite Congress putting its nose to the grindstone for its usual two and a half days a week under normal conditions, during this pandemic, most have not been showing up to work while health care workers, grocery store employees and delivery truck drivers have been endangering their own lives to keep society functioning. Congress has deemed themselves non-essential workers, as true as that may sound, and as tempting a joke as that is. We'll hear from Mr. Fein about how Congress should be conducting themselves during this crisis. And as always, somewhere in between, we'll take a short break and check in with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber. And if we have some time left over, we'll try to answer some listener questions. But first, let's talk to our first guest about his own imprisonment and the state of our prisons. David?
David Feldman: Don Siegelman was the 51st Governor of Alabama; serving from 1999 to 2003, he is the only politician in Alabama history to hold all of the state's top constitutional offices-- governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. He was the longest running Democrat in the Southeast. He was convicted in 2006 of federal bribery charges in what many think was a wrongful conviction brought about by Republican politicians. Governor Siegelman wrote about this in his soon to be released book, Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Governor Don Siegelman.
Don Siegelman: Hey David. Thank you. And Ralph, I'm pleased to be with you. I want to say something about your next guest, Bruce. I think I could make an argument that members of Congress are performing a nonessential function and it may be better for our democracy if at least a good part of the US Senate stayed at home.
Ralph Nader: Well, you wait, stick around and listen to what he says. He's testified over 200 times before Congress and he knows what he's talking about. Anyway, welcome. I'm going to call you Don. You were considered one of the most progressive governors in the South. They made comparisons of you with Jimmy Carter in Georgia. You got all kinds of things started, heavy emphasis on education, but I want to tell our listeners what some people think of what happened to you and why. We start with John Lewis, the famous Congressman and he says, “Don Siegelman, Alabama's first progressive governor was elected with a majority of black and white voters. He advanced the cause of justice for African Americans and women appointing more African Americans as judges than had been elected or appointed in Alabama's history. This drove Republicans crazy. The coup de gras was that governor Siegelman was going to give free college education and free early learning to all Alabama children.” And as far as the prosecutorial misconduct, to put it mildly, that they hurled against you because you were thinking of running against George W. Bush in 2004, here is what the premier researcher, Professor Bennett Gershman of Pace University School of Law, said about you; he's the author of Prosecutorial Misconduct: Trial Error and Misconduct in Prosecution Stories. “Of the thousands of prosecutorial misconduct cases I have written about, the government's bad faith described in Stealing Our Democracy,” that’s your new book, “stands out and maybe without parallel. The governor's story,” that’s you, “reveals a continuum of government misconduct, which leaves the reader shaking in disbelief.” And listeners should know that prosecutorial misconduct is almost as American as apple pie. All over the country they have been documented as going after people who are vulnerable, who can't really defend themselves, who don't have the best lawyers and using manufactured evidence, perjured testimony. And the honest prosecutors have been unable to get that message across as it should be. Governor Cuomo said a while back that 70% of the people in New York City prisons didn't even have charges filed against them. They were waiting in prison without any charges being filed against them for what they supposedly did wrong. So you're coming out with a new book, Stealing Our Democracy. You're using your experience only as a forward, I might add, to your broader critique of our criminal injustice system, which seems to be invulnerable to all exposes, whether in the New York Times or Washington Post or Los Angeles Times. But you're going to make another effort to mobilize people. So can you just tell our listeners what was the political motive after you finished your first term as governor of Alabama? What did you do that got them so angry and even involved Karl Rove to getting the [US] Justice Department to be part of this prosecutorial misconduct?
Don Siegelman: Well, Ralph, your introduction evokes several thoughts and I want to start with answering your question. Most people know I brought five automobile plants to Alabama in three and a half years. I started over a thousand new school construction projects; got a lot of people working, building roads and bridges. But I also filed, over the course of my career, more environmental lawsuits than any public official in Alabama's history. I stopped the Army's attempt to dispose of all their nerve gas in Alabama, stopped herbicide spraying, deep-well injections, disposing of hazardous waste in Mobile Bay; stopped Chemical Waste Management's attempt to incinerate hazardous waste in the Gulf of Mexico, and the list goes on. One of the proudest moments was when I was crossing a bridge going over the Mobile Delta and I saw International Paper clearcutting part of our natural forest and I picked up the phone and called my conservation officer and I said, “We've got to put together a group to buy the entire Mobile Delta.” And we raised enough money to buy 150,000 acres and put International Paper company out of business and we stopped the clearcutting of this beautiful, sacred, pristine Delta. I sued Exxon and Shell. I challenged corporations that they could not contribute to campaigns without a vote of their stockholders because it was an ultra-vires activity and they had to go back and amend their articles of incorporation in their purposes.
Ralph Nader: So that one is something for everybody to try to do in state after state. They always want to make workers and labor unions able to step out and step away from having any of their dues being used. But it's okay for corporations to get into politics without getting any affirmation of their shareholders. But you really had a very progressive record. There's no doubt. There was a 60 Minutes program on you in 2018. There's a new documentary on you, and what intrigues me is what went on in the court and who got away with what. Now, the judge in your court was Mark Everett Fuller; remember that name. Judge Mark Everett Fuller, a George W. Bush appointee, is the one who sentenced you to seven years in prison and a $50,000 fine. The main witness against you was someone named Nick Bailey who provided the cornerstone testimony upon which the conviction was based, and he was subsequently convicted of extortion and facing 10 years in prison; Bailey had cooperated with prosecutors to lighten his own sentence. That's another aspect of widespread prosecutorial discretion. So where is the judge right now? Is he still presiding over a court?
Don Siegelman: He was able--after the United States Judicial Conference recommended to John Boehner, Speaker of the House, that Bailey be impeached for perjury and for habitually beating his wife violently--to walk away from the bench with his retirement and he's probably drinking scotch and playing golf with some of his, you know, Southern white buddies down in Montgomery. But the story behind Fuller goes much deeper. He was the owner of a company called DOSS Aviation. It's a military supply company and defense contractor and he was up for a $175 million contract per year renewable for 10 years. After my conviction, he was awarded that contract. He sold the company [now called L3 Doss Aviation] for $2 billion. But I wanted to go back to something you were talking about because the heart of my story is not about me; it's about saving our democracy and exposing what has been going on in our court system. There's a reason why the majority of people behind bars are young men and women of color, but the government gets 99% of the indictments they seek. Roughly 97% plead guilty, many of them, most of them actually, before they even get a lawyer. But there's a reason for this. You know, getting 99% of anything is a pretty high probability. I'd like to have those odds during March Madness or during football season or something. But the reason they get 99% of the indictments they seek is because of the secrecy of a grand jury, where there's no judge and there is no lawyer for the defense or the target or the witness. In 2010, January the 4th, 2010, according to the Los Angeles Times, David Savage, the legal correspondent, reported that President Obama's lawyer argued to the United States Supreme Court and I quote, “US citizens, United States citizens do not have a constitutional right not to be framed.” This is Elena Kagan, her deputy, argues to the US Supreme Court that US citizens can be framed and there's nothing you can do about it.
Ralph Nader: Let me interject here. She is now a justice of the Supreme Court, of course, Elena Kagan.
Don Siegelman: Yes, yes.
Ralph Nader: She was referring to the sanctity of the grand jury system, which under US law, it has been said, prosecutors could indict a ham sandwich and what they mean by that joke is that when a prosecutor impanels a grand jury: A, it's all secret, B, all the witnesses are for the prosecution. The target doesn't get any witnesses in return; it doesn't get any chance to cross examine, doesn't get any chance to have a lawyer. That's why 99% of grand juries end up in indictment, not conviction then it goes to the courts. And Sol Price, who started The Price Club, you might be interested to know, was strongly opposed. He put ads in newspapers to reform the grand jury because he just thinks it's a recipe for prosecutorial abuse and denial of due process of law. Now I know some listeners are saying, but what was Governor Siegelman charged with and convicted? Can you just briefly discuss that and then we can go on to the broader issues here?
Don Siegelman: Well, I'd like to put in for a repeat performance so we can get into a little more depth. But yes, I was charged with bribery for soliciting a campaign contribution to a ballot referendum designed to benefit public education. There was no allegation of any self-enrichment scheme, nor was I accused of benefiting personally by a single penny. The money went to the Alabama Education Lottery Foundation, which was an organization put together to promote a ballot initiative to establish a lottery so that we could give every child in Alabama--regardless of where they're born or the color of their skin, whether they're immigrants or citizens--a chance to get early learning and an opportunity for higher education. So I was indicted for a bribery of receiving a campaign contribution from a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who had actually supported my opponent. But he had been on a state health board for 12 years, appointed by three previous governors and had resigned from the board. I asked him if he would serve again and I've got my right hand raised and I’m asking God to strike me dead if I'm lying. But when I asked him, he said, Oh, governor, do I have to? I just resigned from that board. Can I just give you the name of somebody that—and I said, no. If you leave the board now, it's going to look like you're running away from me as a Democrat. I was interested in building bridges, trying to build political bridges to the other side, to Republicans, to try to get ready for a rerun in 2002. And you know, it would have been a compliment to me to have this CEOs continue to serve on this board. [He] finally agreed to serve for one year, but there was no evidence of a quid pro quo unlike the president's impeachment trial where there was an expressed quid pro quo, as you stated earlier on one of the radio hours. Yet there was no evidence of a quid pro quo, much less an express one or an explicit one. But the judge, Mark Everett Fuller, with whom I had a political conflict back in 2002, when I caught him trying to bilk the state retirement system out of $300,000. So I was prosecuted on the basis of an implied or an inferred quid pro quo. The judge told the jury that they could consider the campaign contribution to the ballot initiative a thing of value to me, because I had supported the ballot initiative. So the judge ordered the jury to bring him a verdict or a partial verdict after we had two hung juries and they brought a partial verdict on a bribery charge. But my purpose in writing this book is not to tell my story, but to tell the story of how our criminal justice system is weighted in favor of prosecutorial power, and it needs to be balanced. You can't allow prosecutors to willfully and intentionally present false evidence as they did in this case that I've mentioned and that was argued before the Supreme Court in 2010. President Obama's lawyer was arguing in favor of protecting the government and the government prosecutors and investigators in a case where two men had served 25 years in prison for a crime they did not commit. The witness against them was promised a light sentence if he would point the finger toward these two black men instead of a white suspect who was a friend of the investigators.
Ralph Nader: That's a pattern of course, that has been repeated throughout American history and continues to this day. When police want to get somebody and prosecutors don't want to prosecute somebody, they go to work to the same office and they just are very, very worried about contradicting the police recommended charges because they have to work with them day after day; there's a great need for criminal justice reform. We're not getting much support, with few exceptions, from law professors and deans of law schools. The law schools should be alive with this travesty of justice that has been institutionalized, especially against minorities and vulnerable people. But the other side is that corporate criminals get away with it! The political criminals like Bush and Cheney, the criminal, unconstitutional invasion of Iraq, which has slaughtered over a million Iraqis and blown apart the country. And here they are getting big speech fees and getting awards and living the life of royalty. And the same time, the heads of Wells Fargo bank that created millions of false accounts, credit card accounts, auto insurance purchases without even getting the consent of the customers; they put their employees under quotas to do that. That's a clear premeditated, planed corporate crime [yet] not one prosecution.
They have to leave their jobs, with all their nice severance pay and golden handshakes, but they got away with it. So this whole mythology that nobody is above the law, I mean, Trump is above the law every day. He's violating laws, statutes, not responding to congressional subpoenas, violating the Constitution, most impeachable president [in history] and there he is, you know, just doubling down and doing more of the same, lying his way until November. When are we going to face up to the fact that injustice/violations of law by the powerful are the norm? They're not the exception; they are the norm. They've institutionalized their immunities and their privileges. And when they do, once in a while get caught by a good prosecutor, and you know, they hire these big law firms and they say to the prosecutor, how many staff do you have? You got other things you got to enforce. Do you want to assign your whole office to this? And so they get out with copping a plea and pretty soon, they're in wealthy retirement. So I think what you need to do, connecting with other people, I know you dealt with good Southern public interest lawyers like Stevenson, Morris Dees, who founded the Southern Poverty Law Center. I think it's a mission that has to become a prime political campaign issue by local, state and national candidates; it's got to be dealt with systemically. Otherwise, you know, you go into one bad case after another and it’s like being on a treadmill; the faster that you run, the more you slip behind. Are you looking at it from that point of view? And listeners should know that Don Siegelman has two stalwart children who are now lawyers and they're on the same wavelength here. Is that correct?
Don Siegelman: Well, one is a lawyer; one is a public advocate. My son is a lawyer; my daughter is the advocate. I wanted to go back to something that shattered my faith in the Obama administration was when he said he was going to look forward not backward, and I thought, so that means we're not going to investigate being led into war under false pretenses; we're not going to hold those people accountable for torture. That means we're not going to repeal the Patriot Act. We're going to give up our rights under the Fourth Amendment. You know, people in America don't want to believe that elections are stolen or that presidents can abuse their power. But if I were asked to prove that presidents can abuse their power, the first person I would call would be Donald J. Trump. He fired James Comey because he wanted to end the Russian investigation. He fired Sally Yates. He fired Andrew McCabe [and] hired is Southern white-boy buddy, Beauregard Sessions, and then fired him when of course Sessions was in a conflict because he had lied before the Senate committee about not meeting with Russians. And then he hired Bill Barr who does everything he can every day to protect the president or to advance his political causes. You know, so it goes on and on.
Ralph Nader: Yeah. Well, let's focus on how they stole your election. This is an amazing story. You were running for re-election, second term, governor of Alabama, and you were declared on election night the winner by all the national networks, by the Associated Press. “The results were in; the votes were counted; the media and poll workers were sent home.” Those are your words. And to continue, you said, “And then in one Southern Republican-controlled county, 6,000 of my votes simply disappeared. I requested a hand count of the precinct, which was in question. The probate judge granted me that. I was headed to that county in South Alabama when I was told that the state attorney general, Bill Pryor, who is now in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, had seized the ballots and had taken everything to Montgomery, the capital, where they certified my opponent, Republican Congressman Bob Riley, as the winner.” You can't challenge the outcome of an election unless you can prove to the judge that there were enough illegal votes cast or enough legal votes not countered to make a difference in the outcome. You couldn't do that because the attorney general had the ballots.
Don Siegelman: The attorney general was Karl Rove’s client, and it was the attorney general that started my investigation. It was kicked into high gear by the US attorney who was married to Karl Rove’s business partner in Alabama, Billy Canary, who used to be president of the American Trucking Association and also part of the Bush machine and was working with Rove in the ‘92 campaign. When they lost that campaign, by the way, they came, both Rove and Canary, to Alabama, married Alabama ladies and Rove moved to Rosemary Beach, on the Gulf Coast and Billy Canary moved to Montgomery where they continued their political operation in Alabama. I ran afoul of them many, many times during the course of the next 10 years. But the investigation was started by Karl Rove’s client. It was kicked into high gear in the federal courts by the US attorney. I was brought to trial one month before my re-election and while the US attorney's husband was running my opponent's campaign. You were talking about the election being stolen in 2002; it was Karl Rove’s client, the attorney general, as you mentioned, who seized the ballots and refused to let anybody see them much less have a recount.
Ralph Nader: There was a House Democratic committee hearing, was there not? Can you tell us briefly about that?
Don Siegelman: Well, the United States House Judiciary Committee, under the leadership of John Conyers and strong Democratic committed members of that committee, held two hearings, one on selective prosecution and one on prosecutorial misconduct. The committee was torpedoed by the Department of Justice that refused to turn over information about my case. Later, the Department of Justice revealed—well, actually, it was revealed by an unknown, anonymous whistleblower from the House Judiciary Committee staff who leaked a letter, which had been sent to John Conyers by the Department of Justice, in which the Department of Justice admitted that the lead prosecutor in my case, who worked for Karl Rove’s client and was also cross designated to work with the Bush-appointed US attorney, was emailing my Republican opponent's campaign manager, giving him updates on the investigation and explaining why both he and a group of likeminded conservative prosecutors were so frustrated they couldn't move my investigation forward fast enough.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with former Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama. This is clearly a political prosecution and it's so well documented and yet you were put in prison. You spent five years there, sometimes solitary confinement; you were in solitary confinement, and you have no remedy. You have no remedy against Karl Rove, no remedy against the people who violated laws in order to get this prosecution. Have you thought of any remedy at all in court?
Don Siegelman: Ralph, if you should find a purpose in every situation in which you find yourself, then I found a purpose here. My purpose is to fight for criminal justice reform. I can't dwell on what happened to me. It's over, but—
Ralph Nader: No, I understand that. But for all the other people who are “railroaded”, as they used to you say into court, people serving time for crimes they didn't commit with subsequent DNA evidence, for example. People in jail for 25 years because they were caught in possession of marijuana. It's not just you in terms of a remedy, as there should be as part of criminal justice reform, remedies against this. I know some of the people who've been in prison and released after decades for crimes they didn't commit, managed to get compensation, so much per year in prison, so that in their post-prison life, they could maintain some kind of livelihood. But I think there needs to be a broader reform here, so that the prosecutors, the political railroaders, the people who get away with it are subjected to justice here. I mean, otherwise there's no deterrence. Like you steal an election and you'll get away with it. And even if you're caught, nobody goes to jail. I mean, this happens again and again in this country. Oh well, you know, it's just politics as usual.
Don Siegelman: Well, Ralph, that's why I was hoping that during the Obama administration, they would hold Karl Rove accountable for the abuse of power, subverting the Department of Justice and subverting our democracy and weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after Democrats and protect Republicans. They didn't hold him accountable for the abuse of power. And now we see it going on again today in this current White House. But there are three practical reforms that I want to mention while I've still got a few minutes.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, go ahead.
Don Siegelman: First of all, Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit, retired now, said that the withholding of exculpatory evidence by prosecutors is epidemic in America. Well, and it is epidemic because you have this shield or umbrella of protection over prosecutors. You have the pronouncement by President Obama that US citizens do not have a constitutional right not to be framed. But then you have the Federal Torts Claims Act, which gives immunity from prosecutors for being sued for willfully and intentionally presenting false evidence or eliciting false testimony or withholding exculpatory evidence so that they are free, with legal impunity. to frame people and it takes place first in a grand jury. So what do we do? First, we repeal the immunity clause in the Federal Torts Claims Act. So prosecutors can be held civilly liable for willfully and intentionally putting somebody in prison for 25 years when they know they didn't commit the crime. Secondly, we need to record every interview with every witness and target so that there is a record of if someone's testimony is morphing over time and changing over time as it did in this case that I referred to in 2010, or in my case where the witness was interviewed 70 times, not seven but 70 times, over a period of four years and made to write and rewrite his answers over and over until he got his testimonies straight, according to Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes [so] that the record would reveal how a person's testimony changed over time. And it would also serve as a deterrent from prosecutors for pressuring, cajoling, and coaching witnesses to lie. In my case, we had a DOJ employee who filed a formal whistleblower complaint saying she was present when this witness against me was pressured and cajoled into remembering things he clearly did not recall.
Ralph Nader: That was devastating testimony to be sure. There's another aspect you might want to add to your list of reforms.
Don Siegelman: I’ve got one.
Ralph Nader: Years ago, a famous professor of administrative law, Kenneth Culp Davis, took note of how prosecutors failed to prosecute the big boys, the corporate criminals, that people have influence in politics. And he thought that prosecutors should always be under a duty to explain why they didn't prosecute, why they didn't further the prosecution. They couldn't just drop it and it's all secret; they’d have to explain to the public. You might want to get that in Lexis [2003].
Don Siegelman: Well, I kind of have that included, because the third element of my package to reform and to balance the scales of justice is to allow the target or the witness to have a lawyer present in the grand jury to object to testimony or evidence. Look, we do this in a civil deposition. You've been in hundreds, probably thousands of them. And you can object to proposed testimony or evidence and a magistrate/a judge decides whether it's admissible or not.
Ralph Nader: Yes, indeed.
Don Siegelman: Surely where monetary damages are at stake, if it's okay there, it ought to be okay when somebody's liberty is at stake. And so when you have cases, for example, when police officers shoot and kill an unarmed black man and it goes to a grand jury and the grand jury “no bills” [when a grand jury does not find probable cause for an arrest], you want an explanation. And if that defendant, in this case, the victim had the right to have a lawyer present, it would help bring some measure of accountability to the grand jury process. And in a way, you know, if there is a charge against a corporate wrongdoer and if it's taken to a grand jury, then there should be some public-interest entity that has the right to have a lawyer present, maybe an inspector general or someone, to be there to report back to the public why this corporate executive was not indicted.
Ralph Nader: For sure. That's exactly what Kenneth Culp Davis meant in this book, Discretionary Justice, which I'm sure you would benefit from if you read it. We're running out of time. We're talking with Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama [with a] very progressive record whose career was cut short by a political prosecution that we've been talking about as well documented on 60 Minutes program and also in his forthcoming book. We just have just a few seconds left. How about a question from Dave or Steve?
Steve Skrovan: Yeah, Mr. Siegelman, I have a question. And I just want to move it off to prison conditions. What kind of prison were you in? What was the population, the conditions? And talk a little bit about your advocacy in the age of this pandemic.
Don Siegelman: Well, as everyone probably knows at this point, it is virtually impossible for inmates to socially distance. You can't get away from inmates. We were over double capacity and when you're in a room where beds are stacked three high, not just two high and the aisles are so close, you can reach out and touch one bunk and the other when you're lying down in your bunk. When there's only one door in, one door out, no windows, it's impossible for infections or viruses not to spread rapidly. When you're sharing showers or soap or urinals are only inches apart with no separation, you know, it is going to spread. What I find amazing, the pronouncement by Bill Barr on April 3rd was, that he said, okay, you know, “We've got to release these nonviolent inmates who are not a threat to public safety.” Well now they're releasing thousands of inmates who are not a threat to public safety, which raises the question, why in the world are they in there in the first place? Ralph mentioned a man sentenced to 25 years for marijuana; he was my bunkmate, Juan Garcia. I've got a section in my book about him. A half ounce of marijuana--felony, probation; half a pound s of marijuana--felony, probation. Another conviction, felony for no amount of marijuana charge, no amount charge. And he was careered out, given 25 years. He serves 19. I wrote a petition for commutation for him and he gets out after 19 years, but it's insane. So we've got a lot of work to do in changing our criminal justice system. It is my hope that out of this Covid-19 crisis that has brought attention to the conditions of prisons and also has resulted in innovative ways to make goods and sell goods and provide things and services to the public, that out of this creativity that we're seeing bubble up, I hope we also are willing to accept changes in our criminal justice system that can radically change the way we deal with violations of the law. And we could go on talking about it, but I thank you for the opportunity to be with you today, Ralph. It's a pleasure to meet you.
Ralph Nader: I might add, and those changes have to be made by state legislators and members of Congress. So, any movement that expands its influence for criminal justice reform has got a zero in again on those handful of lawmakers who can turn this around. We've been talking with Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama and his forthcoming memoir out next month is called Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation. And it's not just about him, but it's about him speaking from his experience--not a theoretical memoir--from his experience in detail and then telescoping it to the whole criminal injustice system that afflicts so many people unfairly and allows so many other powerful people to escape the rule of law and the embrace of remedial justice. Thank you very much, Don.
Don Siegelman: Thank you Ralph. I appreciate it very much. Thank you, guys.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with former Alabama governor, Don Siegelman. We will link to his book, Stealing Democracy at ralphnaderradiohour.com .Now we're going to take a short break. When we return, we will try to figure out where 535 indispensable lawmakers have been hiding. But first, let's check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mohkiber.
Russell Mohkiber: From the National Press building in Washington, DC, this is your corporate crime report, Morning Minute for Friday, May 8, 2020. I'm Russell Mohkiber. Texas-based ice cream manufacturer Blue Bell Creameries will plead guilty to charges it shipped contaminated products linked to a 2015 listeriosis outbreak, and the company’s former president was charged in connection with a scheme to cover up the incident. Blue Bell will also pay $2.1 million to resolve civil False Claims Act allegations regarding ice cream products manufactured under unsanitary conditions and sold to federal facilities. Blue Bell’s former president, Paul Kruse, also was charged with seven felony counts related to his alleged efforts to conceal from customers what the company knew about the listeria contamination. 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 along with David Feldman and Ralph. We have been doing this program remotely for over six years. It works pretty well, but can Congress function as effectively remotely or should they physically be in the capital to do the people's business? I think I know how our next guest would answer that question. David?
David Feldman: Bruce Fein is a constitutional scholar who was associate deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan. Mr. Fein has been a visiting fellow for constitutional studies at the Heritage Foundation and an adjunct scholar at American Enterprise Institute. He's advised numerous countries on constitutional reform, including South Africa, Hungary, and Russia. He is the author Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Bruce Fein.
Bruce Fein: Thank you for that effusion. I always remind listeners that nothing is said in introducing a guest that's under oath so it’s fine to exaggerate.
Ralph Nader: [Ralph chuckles] Before we talk about the AWOL Congress that must view itself as not essential service like delivery-truck drivers, grocery clerks, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, police and others who are exposing themselves daily to the risk of coronavirus because they're doing their duty, why don't you explain why historically, Congress has held itself in such low regard in so many ways vis-a-vis the Executive Branch under the Constitution and why you call Congress an ongoing inkblot?
Bruce Fein: Yeah. Well, really, Ralph, it goes back almost more than a century and it's been a steady erosion or a disappearance of Congress until it's like the Cheshire cat; it doesn't even have a smile when it's disappeared. And I think in part, it comes from twofold influences, but there are others as well. First, as the partisanship has become greater and greater, and as the government has grown in size, the members view the presidency as everything for their party, and so all they want to do is trust all the power—when their man is in the White House—to the Executive Branch. They escape accountability. They figure that with that person in the White House, they'll get bridges built or hospitals or roads; they’ll get some special grant in their district. And by not making any decisions, they make it more difficult for a challenger to come oust them because they haven't done anything to criticize other than giving away their power.
Ralph Nader: Let's start with war and then we'll go to define subpoenas.
Bruce Fein: All right. The war power. The fact is that every single member of the constitutional convention, every participant in the ratification debate, every president [from] the first--all understood that only Congress could declare war; only with Congress could take us from a state of peace to war. Now I need to underscore this because it's often misunderstood. That doesn't mean, and the ir founders said, if we're in fact subject to a sudden attack or an imminent sudden attack, the president can respond because the aggressor has already broken the peace. But the framers were unanimous. We can never trust the war power to the president who will concoct excuses to go to war to aggrandize power. That's been the history of every republic since the beginning of time. And the Congress did exercise that power up until, you know, after World War I. It was the Treaty of Versailles was defeated in part [by] the League of Nations, because that would have entrusted to the president alone, the authority to go to war without any congressional declaration. But since that time, presidents have run virtually hundreds of wars without congressional declarations. The only one that really wasn't needed [was] after Pearl Harbor; there was a declaration that recognized that we were at a state of war because Japan had attacked. Same thing after Hitler declared war on the United States. But certainly beginning with Korea and for the ensuing 70 some years, presidents have just gone to war on their own and Congress has simply sat there. Occasionally, they've delegated the power to go to war, like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution even though President Johnson lied about the so-called second torpedo attack on the USS Maddox and Turner Joy. Presidents have repeatedly lied in times of war, even when they've gotten declarations. President Wilson lied about the Lusitania, which was carrying munitions for the allied powers and said it wasn't justified; they sunk because there were only passengers on it, no ammunition. President Polk lied about Mexican forces killing American soldiers on American soil. And we know with Korea, President Truman lied that this was just a police action that he was engaged in; it wasn't really a war even though it involved, you know, millions of soldiers and the threat of nuclear war against China.
Ralph Nader: Well, let's move to defined congressional subpoenas and obstruction of justice. Nixon was about to be impeached and removed for defying one subpoena and one obstruction of justice in the Watergate. Here we have dozen or more obstructions of justice documented by investigators and Mueller Report by Trump, and all kinds of subpoenas he just laughs at and doesn't abide by, coming from Congress.
Bruce Fein: That's correct. And we need to underscore for the listeners, Ralph, the power of subpoena, the power of oversight, is perhaps the most important power that Congress possesses; sunshine is the best disinfectant. The power of information in Washington is enormous, and the only way you can check an executive out of control is by knowing what the executive can do. That's why the framers wrote in the Declaration of Independence; we need to have government by the consent of the governed. You can't consent to something [when] you don't know what's going on. And it has become really epidemic, if you will, maybe pandemic is the word, that the Executive Branch at present simply doesn't show up to testimony or it shows and doesn't ever answer questions. It wouldn't even answer questions as to what the so-called peace accord with Taliban is, to try to remove ourselves from Afghanistan even though Taliban knew what the terms of the peace accord was. I mean that is utterly ridiculous.
Ralph Nader: But of course, I know Trump has said, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as president.” And he proceeds to do that every day larded with lies. He's breaking the checks and balances like other presidents did, but more forcefully and boastfully. He's breaking the checks and balances in our Constitution and he's breaking the separation of powers. Now why is Congress letting him and prior presidents get away with it and then we'll get to the AWOL Congress in the pandemic.
Bruce Fein: Okay, well, you know we're trying to get a psychology here, Ralph. And you know we both probably have a combined more than a hundred years dealing with Congress and I think there are several factors that are at work. One that the members of Congress now, I say, their loyalty and their oath that they take psychologically is to their party, and so they don't really care if the Constitution assigns them responsibility. If they can get reelected by assigning it to the president, they will sit and give away their power. Secondly, I know the Congress is hyper, hyper risk averse. They really don't want to do anything. And they fear, you know, an adverse tweet by President Trump. It's truly amazing how frightened they are. And also, they're totally unschooled, Ralph, in what their real powers are under the Constitution. I almost—
Ralph Nader: Let’s pause on that. This is the most amazing observation Bruce has. You know, his office is one block from the Congress; he’s in and out of the House and Senate all the time. And you conclude they don't even understand what their duties are under the Constitution, including the staff.
Bruce Fein: Including the staff. The staff after Gingrich, you know, downgraded the pay scale. The staff, don't even remember what the Vietnam War was or what Watergate was or Nixon's Enemies List. I once was asking, why don't you demand that Congress enact statutes that determines what gets classified and not, and don't have to encounter this spurious claims of the Executive Branch that we've called to declassify. And the staff said, “Oh, we don't have any power to decide what's classified or not”. And it's ridiculous. In fact, there are House Resolutions that are currently in place that authorize both the House and Senate to declassify any document they want. It was done a couple of times during the Church Committee hearings in 1975-76. Most of the staff members in Congress wouldn't even know who Senator Frank Church was. And so they're so clueless about how real power is allocated under the Constitution, they feel they're helpless and can't defend themselves, because they're completely ignorant. How you overcome that, I don't know. I've been up there so many times and said, “I'll do seminars for you. We can do staff sessions, whatever.” They just want to raise money and just be lazy is what they want to do. They are not serious people who devote serious time to understanding how the Constitution is supposed to work with checks and balances!
Ralph Nader: Well, you know, as you pointed out, they work two and a half days a week when they're in session before the Covid virus, and part of that time is they leave their office, which they have to under law and go to the nearby office space to raise money, dialing for dollars in little cubicles, both the Democrats and the Republicans. So now we have the trillions of dollars of relief and bailout and they come in and they vote and then they go back home. There are no public hearings on trillions of dollars, no detailed debate on the floor, no requests for information. In fact, you say that the drafts of these bills are actually written by who?
Bruce Fein: They're written either by the Executive Branch or the intelligence community or their subcontractors. The members, to be candid, the staff isn't even competent to write these bills; they don't even know enough. It's like you or I trying to jump into a first-year physics program and understand what equals MC squared is. It is so above their intellectual universe; they don't know what to do. So they get bamboozled and they accept the things that are utterly outrageous. As you pointed out in one of our recent discussions, Ralph, they wrote into these coronavirus relief and aid acts waiver authority for the [US] secretary of treasury. He can just waive all the limitations on declaring dividends and executive compensation wherever he feels it would help to open up the economy. There are no standards. He can do it for his friends and not do it for his enemies. This is utterly, completely unacceptable and ridiculous. This is 2 to 3 trillion dollars; you know, that's a huge amount of money.
Ralph Nader: And that's why so much of it is going into the wrong pockets and the press is saying there's chaos, because they're not drafting these bills tight enough. The corporate lawyers are all over getting exemptions for this and tax breaks for that. The New York Times reported in the 2.2 trillion bill, they got something in there that’s going to let the corporations escape, listen to this, $178 billion over time.
Bruce Fein: That’s right.
Ralph Nader: Now most of the members don't even glance at these bills. They just vote up or down depending on...
Bruce Fein: [Depending on] what the leadership tells them. Yeah, exactly right, and this is... there's a huge, what you would call intellectual imbalance here. The corporate lobbyists and the Executive Branch people who consult with them, you know, they're the Harvard/Yale; they're the Mandarin class. They get paid huge amounts of money. They know this stuff; they're smart. The members of Congress with Newt Gingrich, they pay their staff like $60,0000 to $70,000 a year. These people are 25-26 years old. They're not bad people; they don't have a clue of what's going on. You know, this is like having the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin playing an amateur basketball team. They don't know, and Congress refuses to increase the salary level. They say, “Well, we don't want to spend any of the money; we just care about who is in the White House; they'll help us out. And it's their own character that's so deficient that makes it almost impossible to get them to do anything constructive. And this is Republicans and Democrats; it's not a party issue. It's an institutional failing that...
Ralph Nader: There are necessary federal workers going to work every day. They don't do it by remote or virtual reality. What's the case for telling the members of Congress they should come back to work? They can take all the personal protections and more, advised by Centers for Disease Control. Some of the staff can work at home, so it isn't as much congestion. What is your argument against Congress working remotely from back home, voting from back home?
Bruce Fein: Well, first of all, there's the Constitution itself. In order to establish a quorum, you actually have to have a majority of members of Congress present and voting. So they have to be here under the Constitution. But putting that aside, Ralph, it's simply the nature of the species that you are able to debate and able to assess truth and falsehood in face-to-face encounters; you can, even if it's less or more than six feet away. That's how the mind works. Well, what do you think about X? What do you think about Y? It develops into esprit; it develops a team complex. No, you really think you would be able to develop esprit for a football team that had discussions by email or by Zoom or something like that? You have to see these people face to face in order to give them an emotional content to this. You have to inspire them with enthusiasm that they're willing to sacrifice; this really is important, and of course they are. I mean, they're superintending a $5 trillion corporation called the Executive Branch. Millions of employees, tens of millions of contractors, trillions of dollars at stake in debt that could destroy the whole country that's now storing past 25 trillion. Going to war that could destroy, create more enemies in another attack like 9/11 by stupidly getting into other people's business. All these are huge things and you have to have people who are there, motivated and who are willing to sacrifice. And to that requires face-to-face meetings in intensity. You can't duplicate the intensity of seeing somebody in the eye over an email or over some kind of remote system. It's like trying to court a woman. You really think you're going to do that successfully, you know, on the telephone or on the email as opposed to in person? Because that's what’s ultimately going to be the salvation of the country. We need people where we are who will fight the Executive Branch overreach, take risks and make it their life's ambition and endeavor. And you're not going to get that inspiration by 50 people or hundreds of people all scattered around, you know, in their home districts.
Ralph Nader: There's a certain lack of courage involved here. I must say. We're running out of time, but there's a certain lack of courage by members of Congress here, given all the people who are putting themselves on the line day after day, providing necessities for the American people in this Covid-19 crisis. We're running out of time, but any comment by Steve or Dave?
Steve Skrovan: Yeah Bruce, Anthony Fauci, who is the head of the CDC taskforce on this, their branch of it. He was asked to testify before the House and the White House said, “No, he can't testify before the House. We'll let him testify before the Senate,” which presumably in Trump world, is a more amenable place. Is that really legal? Is that within their power?
Bruce Fein: No. I mean if I were a member of Congress I’d say to Mr. Fauci, you show up to our subpoena, or we'll impeach and remove you from office. We'll have somebody else who will actually show up. No, you do not have the authority just to decide, oh, I don't want to show up for a hearing, and especially because you think you'll get questions you don't like to hear. Really? Can you imagine you're a witness in a lawsuit and say, Mr. Judge, I don't want to show up and answer questions I don't like, you know, you have to give me somebody who will ask me friendlier question. It is utterly and completely ridiculous. When I came to Washington, you know, years ago, John Dingell was Chairman of the House of Foreign Commerce Committee. If somebody said that his salary would be eliminated the next day and don't worry, there'll be an article of impeachment over his head like a sword of Damocles and then they would respond, and the fact that the House lets this go without any pushback is truly stunning.
Ralph Nader: All right, well, we're out of time. We've been talking with Bruce Fein, author of books on constitutional law, on empire, on the importance of checks and balances and reforms. Thank you very much, Bruce. To be continued as always.
Bruce Fein: Thanks so much, Ralph. I'm always eager to appear on your program.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein. We will link to his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com including the 12-part series he did with Ralph about the impeachable offenses of Donald Trump. Now we have some time for some listener questions. David, why don’t you do the honors?
David Feldman: This comes to us from Juan Gerardo. He says, “Ralph, I'm a ravenous listener to your podcast and I don't think Ralph Nader has responded to Mitch McConnell's attempt at tort reform. 45 already in his executive order to maintain the meat packing industry. Include this in it, to not hold them accountable for Covid-19 related injuries or death. We must keep informing the public about this denial of employees’ right for their day in court.”
Ralph Nader: Fully agree, Juan, and for listeners, his mention of 45 was referring to the 45th president who is Donald Trump. Well, we have responded, if you go to tortmuseum.org, you will see the letter signed by some prominent lawyers and law professors to Trump and the leaders in Congress saying this is not the time to allow recklessness in delivery of healthcare or defective products being sold as nostrums and phony remedies to be escaping from the accountability of tort law or the law of wrong wrongful injuries. The constitutional right of people to file a case in court, and the judges know how to throw out frivolous cases, is in the Seventh Amendment right of trial by jury. And McConnell is trying to take that away during the period of the Covid-19 and perhaps longer and give these corporations immunity from any kind of accountability. And you know what's going on in the marketplace; there's a lot of shoddiness, a lot of untested nostrums and the profiteering is at an epidemic level. So we're doing that. Go to tortmuseum.org and you can see the whole letter.
Steve Skrovan: Very good. Thank you for your question. Keep all of your questions coming on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website. I want to thank our guests again, Don Siegelman and Bruce Fein. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you podcasts 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 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: The producers or the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and Matthew Marran. Our executive producer is Alan Minsky.
David Feldman: Our theme music, “Stand Up, Rise Up” was written and performed by Kemp Harris. Our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon; our intern is Michaela Squier. Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody. And like so many of our shows, the solution is to focus on Congress and state legislatures. That means all of you.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour
by admin » Sun Dec 19, 2021 4:33 am
Noam Chomsky
by Ralph Nader
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 402 TRANSCRIPT
November 20, 2021
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/noam-chomsky-2/
Ralph Nader: Hello, everybody. It's the Noam Chomsky hour.
Steve Skrovan: Yes, we have an exciting show for you today. We'll spend the full hour with Professor Noam Chomsky. Ralph will ask Professor Chomsky what his vision for America would be if we actually had a progressive people's Congress. We'll cover the climate crisis, the military budget, healthcare, challenging the corporate structure, reforming both the tax system and our elections, and how the Democrats have essentially abandoned the working class. It's always a personal thrill for me when these two incredibly influential intellectuals of the 20th and 21st century have a chance to talk to each other. Then after that, as always, we'll check in with our tireless corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, we've only got an hour. So, let's get the conversation started, David?
David Feldman: Noam Chomsky is a linguist, political philosopher, and one of the world's foremost public intellectuals. His latest book interviews by CJ Polychroniou is entitled The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Social Change. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Professor Noam Chomsky.
Noam Chomsky: Thank you very much.
Ralph Nader: Yeah. Welcome back, Noam. I wanna try something new on this program because it's quite clear that exposés, disclosures, historical analysis are not prodding people to action on the ground. And we're seeing the trends going in the wrong direction [with] American fascism on the rise and Trumpism. He has escaped from all the laws that should have prosecuted him, subjected him to civil remedies, violated the Constitution repeatedly, violated congressional subpoenas, obstructed justice. He's got away with it all. So let me pose this hypothetical for you. Let's say that Congress reflected your sense of justice in the world as spelled out in all kinds of policies – global, national, local, political, electoral, and environmental; views on empire and military budget. Let's say you had the Congress you dreamt of and it was ready to open its session. What would you have the Congress do?
Noam Chomsky: Well, first of all, if under those rather ideal situations, we wouldn't have to be worried about [Donald] Trump. He owns the Republican Party. But under the assumptions you outlined, there wouldn't be any Republican Party. So that would be gone. The first thing that the Congress would do is pass legislation that is actually on the books. There's a resolution introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey in 2019. And they just reintroduced it, which is a detailed proposal of feasible steps that can be taken to address the most severe crisis that has arisen in human history. The fact is that we are heating the globe to the point where human survival and survival of millions of other organisms will become impossible in the not very distant future. Unless that problem is solved, nothing else matters. And there is a resolution sitting there which does detail carefully and responsibly how this can be addressed within current means.
Ralph Nader: That's one. What would be the next on the list? Congress, with all its enormous authority under the Constitution, by the way, listeners.
Noam Chomsky: Oh, it has that capacity; easily can do it. There’s a resolution sitting right there, which nobody will look at, but they could. Second thing they would do is cut back the military budget radically, so that it becomes literally a defense budget, which is a very skimpy budget because the US faces almost no threats. So a skimpy military budget would free up enormous… first, it would cut back pollution enormously. The military alone produces as much greenhouse gas as about 140 medium sized countries. It would also free up badly needed resources to take the next step. The next step is to try to raise the United States to the level of the civilized world. So, take what's in the bill that is now sitting in Congress and probably won't be passed, the Build Back Better bill. Take a look at its provisions. One of them, for example, is to provide maternal leave. In most of the world they wouldn't even know what we're talking about. Take the second largest country in the hemisphere, hardly an ideal social democracy, Brazil. Women have a four-month guaranteed maternal leave [with an] optional two months longer, taken care of by Social Security. Here we have nothing. The United States is not alone in the world. There are a couple of Pacific islands, which also don't have maternal care, paid maternal care of course. Other than that, it's just us.
And it goes down the line; take a look at healthcare. It's the worst system imaginable. Roughly twice the cost of comparable countries, worse outcomes. We’re the only country which has an increasing mortality, which is unheard of in the developed world; certainly, astonishing in the richest, most powerful country in world history, with enormous advantages. We could go on: free higher education, free medical care like almost every other country has, workers’ rights. Change the Congress would rescind the laws that passed under the reactionary Supreme Court to undermine workers’ rights and to ensure that elections can be bought by the highest bidder. Citizens United [ v. Federal Election Commission]. Whole raft of return. Restore the Voting Rights Act [of 1965], which was eliminated by the Roberts Court with consequences we see all over the former Confederacy. There's a whole raft of proposals.
Ralph Nader: Let's go to the next one, Noam. How would you structure or restructure giant corporations, which have created this corporate state? Wall Street merging with big government, turning against the people and its impact on the world. Now, we have the metaverse, and we have just runaway corporate power strategically planning almost everything in our political economy, including commercializing childhood. How would you deal with this structure, which starts with the chartering of corporations by states and the board of directors, shareholders? What would you do with the giant corporate structure, which has a great resiliency to fight back even after it loses?
Noam Chomsky: Well, this has to be done in steps. I mean, the farthest step, the one that should be reached is just to eliminate them., Okay, but go back to what classical liberals like John Stuart Mill [and] Abraham Lincoln envisioned, namely working people owning and running their own enterprises. That's the long-term goal. You have to go step by step. First step would be to rescind the measures taken since [Ronald] Reagan, the neoliberal measures. These were following rules laid down by their economic guru, Milton Friedman. His dictum was that corporations have no responsibility to the public. As you said, they are chartered. The chartering of a corporation is a gift from the public. You don't want the gift - it gives all sorts of advantages - you don't want the gift just stay a partnership. But according to Milton Friedman, corporations take the gift, but offer nothing in return. They have no responsibility other than to enrich themselves and of course enrich the boards of directors and the CEO. Reagan also introduced other measures to ensure that corporations and the wealthy would be able to rob the general public. So he changed the rules of corporate governance so that CEOs can in effect pick their own board that sets their remuneration. As a big surprise, CEO salaries skyrocketed way beyond anything else in the world or what they had ever been, bringing management up with them. It goes on. Under Reagan tax havens were legitimized. They weren’t before. More robbery. There have been attempts to estimate the robbery of the public during the 40 years of neoliberalism--Reaganite/Friedmanite neoliberalism. Incidentally, another one was to deregulate. Deregulation sounds nice on paper, but it has the obvious consequences of leading to increasing monopolization. Big fish eat the little fish. So, now, sector after sector of the economy is virtually monopolized. More was done. Now, we're going to [Bill] Clinton who joined in the trade agreements, the so-called free trade agreements, which certainly are not free and have little do with trade. These agreements provide extraordinary protection for essentially monopoly pricing rights for corporate structures even when, as is often the case, their inventions and creations are largely subsidized by the public. They're given unprecedented patent rights for much longer than ever in the past and also process as well as product patents. We're seeing that right now with COVID[-19] when, say, Moderna[, Inc.], which has created a number of billionaires in the last year or two thanks to products that were largely created in the public domain and then they marketed. But they can maintain control over the process of production, which they're insisting on, and over the product, so that poor countries around the world can't get access to it. Things like that are happening all the time. Well, one step would be to dismantle all of this and to go back to what was true during the preneoliberal period; not a wonderful period by any means. You had a lot to say about what was wrong with it and changing it. But nevertheless, as compared with the neoliberal period, it would be quite a step forward.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with Professor Noam Chomsky. What would you do, Noam, with the corporate charter? They are now largely state charters [in] Delaware and Nevada [that] make it easy for corporate executives to control shareholders and board of directors as you point out. There 's had been a proposal by William Howard Taft and Teddy Roosevelt to federally charter giant corporations, rewrite the constitution of the corporation, the birth certificate. And most recently, Senator [Elizabeth] Warren has picked that up. What do you think of – you might call it an intermediate step – rewriting the whole compact between the society that gifts these immunities and privileges to artificial entities we call corporations? What interest would you have if you had Congress standing for, by, and all the people? What interest would you have in rewriting that at the federal level?
Noam Chomsky: Well, first of all, it depends on how it's rewritten. As you know better than I do, there was a period, early American history, going back to British law, when corporations were chartered for a particular purpose. So, if a town in Connecticut wants to build a bridge over a river, they could incorporate, get a state charter to build that bridge – period. That's what corporations were. This began to change in the late 19th century with court cases, which broadened the rights of corporations in many ways; finally, by early 19th century, granting them the rights of persons, which has had an enormous impact.
So, if the federal charters went back to what corporations once were, namely a device to accumulate capital for a particular purpose, often via community purposes, accomplished corporation goes out of existence. It is a useful device to accumulate, bring capital together. Maybe there's even some justification for the limited liability for some period. But all of this can be sharply cut back, and should be moved in the direction of having people in the enterprise control it, own it, and run it. That's the classical liberal ideal.
Ralph Nader: What would you do for a progressive Congress, total veto proof majority on the tax system? What kind of tax system--corporate tax, individual tax, income, sales [tax], valueadded [tax]? What would you propose?
Noam Chomsky: Well, our tax system is called progressive. It's actually very regressive. Turns out over a long period, taxes, actual taxes, including state taxes [and] consumer taxes, taken all into account, it's pretty level across income scales. Now, the neoliberal period has changed that. Recently, for the first time in over a century, the tax system has been structured so that billionaires pay lower taxes than a steel worker or the janitor who cleans their floor. That's the restructuring of taxes that has taken place under the massive highway robbery called neoliberalism. I should mention, which I didn't do before, that there is a kind of a measure of the scale of the highway robbery. The RAND Corporation, which is as respectable as you can get, tried to do an estimate of what they politely call “transfer of wealth” from the lower 90% of the population to the top 1%, actually fraction of 1%, during the 40 neoliberal years. Their rough estimate is on the order of $50 trillion. That's not small change. And it leaves out a lot of the things we were just talking about.
Going back to the tax system, first step would be to return it to something like the pre-neoliberal period, which incidentally was the highest growth period in American history – rather egalitarian growth. The lower quintile, did about as well as the upper quintile. As I said before, plenty of things are wrong with it. Your work is prominent in exposing and overcoming much of that back in the 60s and 70s. But compared with today, the tax system was moderately progressive. We could go back to that. We could then move on to a much more progressive tax system. Our system now is very harmful to the poor and the working class. Take the rise in gas prices. Who pays that? Working people, poor people, not rich people. They don't care. For them, it's nothing. For others, it's a serious burden. It doesn't have to be that way, and that is true across the whole tax system. There’s a very good study of this called Justice Denied, which goes into the revisions of the tax system that were undertaken during the neoliberal period with the design of ensuring that the rich and the corporate system would be protected with their lavish wealth and that the poor and working people would pay for it. The final blow in this, the Trump tax cut, what Joseph Stiglitz called the Donor Relief bill of 2017, was a massive gift to the very rich in the corporate sector [and] a stab in the back to working people and the poor. And for the current Republican Party, a red line that can't be crossed. Yeah, of course it punched a hole in the deficit, but nobody cared about that when it's for the benefit of the rich. So, all of this stuff can be revised. We can return to a much better system and we can move on to something far better.
Ralph Nader: Noam, how would you deal with elections with a people's Congress, the electoral system funding all the rest? What would be the reforms?
Noam Chomsky: Well, first of all, this is extremely hard to change because it would require a constitutional amendment. And the way the Constitution was set up, the small states basically have a veto power, and they're not gonna say take away our privileges. But there are changes that can be made. First of all, the funding of elections goes way back to elections are basically bought. Tom Ferguson’s work is the gold standard on this. He studied carefully how, for over a century, electability can be pretty well predicted--for Congress, almost perfectly--by simply looking at campaigns, the strategic campaign. It goes right up to the president. He just did a study recently on the 2020 election [The 2020 U.S. Elections: A First Analysis]. But that became far worse in recent years with two Supreme Court decisions. One of them, Buckley [v. Valeo], which determined that money is speech. The second, the Citizens United decision of the Roberts Court, which said spend as much as you like and don't bother telling us about it and keep it dark. That was combined with the rescinding of the Voting Rights Act, which told the states, basically the old Confederacy and a few other Republican-run states, you can do whatever you like to kick out voters you don't want to vote. All of this stuff can be rescinded. These are decisions of reactionary courts, meaning that neutral courts, which are concerned with the rights of people as well as constitutional law could change this.
Ralph Nader: How would you fund the elections? Have abolished private funding, public funding? How would you structure that?
Noam Chomsky: First thing to do is to cut down the electoral process to a few months like every civilized country does. They don't have elections running for years. Then there should be a certain amount of public funding, which is available. There should be restrictions on how much concentrations of private power or the super rich can pour into elections in one or another way, often dark money. You can have other measures like providing each person with a fixed amount and saying, spend it the way you like on the election. There are a lot of technical devices that can be used.
Another thing that we really ought do, I think, is move towards a parliamentary system. We have a monopoly on the election by two organizations, which call themselves political parties that are described as voter mobilization organizations, which then do pretty much what they want independent of the voters. We should add that one part of our system is that most of the population has essentially no representation, meaning their own representatives pay almost no attention to their opinions. That's been studied very well in mainstream academic political science – Martin Gilens, Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels’ careful work. Roughly maybe 70% of the population of voters are literally unrepresented. Their representatives are listening to other voices, the ones who are gonna fund the next election. All of that can be changed. We can have people actually be represented by the people they vote for. We can move towards a system in which smaller parties have a chance – a parliamentary system. That's the way major parties develop and grow. The Labour Party in England became a major party from a very small beginning. In a parliamentary system, it could have a voice. In other countries Greens can have a voice and grow into serious parties in a parliamentary system. I think there are many advantages to that, but it really all comes down to something much more fundamental--high concentration of capital and protection of high concentration of capital from public accountability. As long as that exists, all the technical manipulations in the world aren’t gonna change much.
Ralph Nader: Well, as we know, we're stuck with this federal system and Congress is all we have right now to match up against these giant global corporations, which have no allegiance to community or nations other than to abandon them or exploit them, pit them [against] one another. How would progressive or people's Congress deal with workers, unions, existing union laws, anti-union laws, to vastly expand membership in unions and make them democratic? Love to hear your views on that.
Noam Chomsky: Well, again, many steps. First of all, undo what has been done for the last 40 plus years. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher across the Atlantic, who instituted these neoliberal programs; they and their advisors understood very well that when you're going to launch bitter class war, attacking working people and the general public, you better eliminate their means of defense. And the major means of defense are labor unions. So, the first acts of Reagan and Thatcher were to move to smash the unions. Reagan resorted to means that were at the time illegal all over the world, except in apartheid South Africa, at bringing in scabs permanent replacement workers to replace working people on strike, and other means to destroy the unions. All sorts of complex measures were devised to undermine and prevent union organization. One of them was called NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement]. Now, we're up to Clinton. NAFTA, was strongly opposed by the labor movement for good reasons. One of its consequences was that organization efforts for unionization could be killed by warnings from management, big signs on the door saying, ‘transfer operation Mexico’. Lots of ways to say, if you vote for the union, we're just gonna close you down and go to Mexico. Well, that happens to be illegal. But when you have a criminal state, you can be as illegal as you want. Nothing happens. This was no small matter. There was research taken under NAFTA laws, in fact, by Kate Bronfenbrenner, labor historian at Cornell [University], which found that about 50% of organizing efforts were undermined by these illegal tactics, which the government just winked at. Criminal state says, fine, if you wanna destroy unions, the so-called right to work laws, which are basically right to scrounge laws, means if you want, you can have the union represented, but you don't have to pay for it. [That] got passed by the courts. These are bitter attacks on unions. Lack of taking away card check. All sorts of devices were used to undermine labor law. Also, the right-wing administrations, which includes the Democrats, took measures to weaken the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board, the system that offers workers some protection.
So, there's been a major, we can only call it class war, going on for 45 years, which began in the late Carter years, took off with Reagan [that] has led to a situation where workers are finding it extremely hard to organize. Many barriers. There always was difficulty, but now it's much more difficult. We might try to remember what things were like in the 1950s when there was a president named Dwight Eisenhower, whose position loudly spoken was that anyone who interferes with the right of American workers to organize doesn't belong within our political system; anyone who opposes New Deal measures doesn't belong in our political system. That was called conservatism in the 1950s.
Ralph Nader: That's true. And that goes back to my earlier comment that we now live in a world of muckraking books, exposing all kinds of corporate and government crimes and malfeasance; muckraking documentaries have never been more numerous. And all of them have far less effect than a fraction of these documentaries and books in the 1950s and 1960s. You point out, President Eisenhower’s positions now would be considered left of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party allowed the Taft–Hartley law to be passed. [Harry] Truman vetoed it in 1947. That's the worst anti-labor law in the Western world. And the Democrats never made it a political issue to repeal it subsequent many, many decades. And they've now passed something partially reformist in the House but not in the Senate. What do you think of this idea that there's just one omnibus union organization law? You don't have to go through anything but a vote of the workers to get a union, above a certain small business size to get a union. It's all these obstacles in the NLRB that you alluded to. What do you think of just a right to unionize with, say, a majority vote at Amazon[, Inc.] warehouse or Walmart [Inc.] supermarket?
Noam Chomsky: Well, it's a good thing to do. But as long as there exists high concentration of unaccountable capital, it's not gonna work. Businesses can hire masses of corporate lawyers from the fancy law firms who will work out devious ways in which this can be undermined. Sometimes it can be as simple as what Clinton did – pass international so-called trade agreement and then don't impose labor law, so that corporations/businesses can break strikes simply by threatening to leave. Illegal, and they were never gonna do it, but as I said, if you have a criminal state owned by private power, you can do what you like. There are now--I hate to tell you this; you know all this better than I do. But there are now union busting companies which have highly skilled ways of intimidating workers so that they won't take the measures that they want in their own interest. It's very similar to other moderately progressive legislation.
So take, for example, universal healthcare. It's been supported over and over for a long period by the general public. I lived in Massachusetts most of my life. It's a liberal state. And year after year, there was a charade that was carried on. There would be a referendum calling for universal healthcare [with] overwhelming support. Then starts the lobbying, the corporate lobbying, scare, warning “You're not gonna be able to see your own doctor; the government is gonna tell you what medicine you're allowed to take”--this and that. You could see the support for universal healthcare declining as the propaganda mounted. Finally, when the vote came, it didn't pass. Same with something as simple as maternal leave. What could be simpler? Everybody has it, and the public is strongly in favor of it. Can't make it.
Ralph Nader: Well, that gets to how to take control of Congress. And if you have a people's Congress, how would they break up these concentrations of capital wedded to technology operating internationally? We just saw what happened in Glasgow. They're talking to about an agreement. They don't even talk about international treaties anymore, which are supposedly a little more enforceable than generalized agreements between nations to control greenhouse gases. How would you break up these concentrations? Because let's face it, a lot of the capital is in the form of mutual funds and pension funds, which are theoretically owned by people and controlled by corporations. If you put them all together, they control over two thirds of the stock of the New York Stock Exchange companies--mutual funds, giant mutual funds and pension funds. How would a progressive Congress take that apart?
Noam Chomsky: Well, it would begin by things we discussed before--changing the rules of governance, changing the character of charters, taking away the extraordinary privileges that were given and imposing responsibilities. There are steps to do that. One step, which you can find elsewhere in the world--Germany, for example--is simply having worker representatives on management. That's one step. The next step is having the corporations, if they exist probably for particular purposes as they used to, governed by the people in the enterprise. The people who work there would pick their own directors under recall as in any democratic system; work together with community, democratic community associations, to work out what kinds of actions should be taken for the common good. There's plenty of ways to do that. Actually, you talked about taxes before. There's an interesting fact about taxes, which we might wanna think about. One of the standard scare phrases in the United States is nothing is inevitable about death and taxes. Taxes are something to be feared and hated. That's a very interesting attitude. Just think about the spectrum of possible societies. Extreme totalitarian society at one end and a functioning democracy at the other end. In these systems, how would people react to taxes? Well, in the pure totalitarian system, they'd say nothing's inevitable but death and taxes. Somebody's stealing our money from us, an alien force. The government is stealing our money. We can't do anything about it. That's the way it would be in a pure totalitarian system. What about a functioning democracy? Tax day would be a day of celebration. We've gotten together, worked out what we think should be done in our community. Maybe new roads, maybe schools, maybe healthcare, maybe cutting back poisons in the atmosphere, working with other countries to achieve the common good. We've decided what we wanted. We decided on an equitable way to fund it. Now comes the day in which we fund it the way we decided. It's a day of celebration. So, kind of a rough measure of the extent to which democracy functions simply by looking at attitudes toward taxes. That's not a joke!
Ralph Nader: I want to ask you a very simple question. [George W.] Bush and [Dick] Cheney are certified war criminals. I mean, let's take the easy monstrous war crime of invading Iraq. There is no declaration of war, no serious authorization, and appropriation of funds under rigorous congressional scrutiny. Ron Paul, the great Libertarian congressman said that Bush and Cheney “lied us” into the war in Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The conservative commentator for Fox News until recently, Andrew Napolitano, former judge on a program, said that [Barack] Obama’s Justice Department should criminally prosecute Bush and Cheney.
Two questions. Should Bush and Cheney be prosecuted? There's no statute of limitations here. And second, why do you think the most ardent Democrats in Congress, the most progressive, are not calling for that prosecution, including the prosecution of Donald Trump for violating all kinds of federal criminal statutes openly, repeatedly, quite apart from his incitement of the insurrection to Congress and defying 120 congressional subpoenas? Do you believe that the criminal law should be used in that way? And why do you think the most ardent, progressive Democrats who would adhere to a lot of what your proposals outline are not even mentioning it? Noam Chomsky: I don't think anyone in Congress wants to open that door. Because once you open that door, it opens quite far. Fact of the matter is that every president violates the Constitution constantly. Simply take a look at the Constitution. Article Six of the [US] Constitution says that international treaties entered by the United States government are the supreme law of the land and elected officials have to obey them. Well, the main treaty that has been entered into by the United States government in the postwar period, which the US in fact initiated and sponsored, is the UN Charter. That's the basis of modern law, international law, but that makes it the supreme law of the land. Well, take a look at the UN Charter, say at Article Two, Section Four, which bans the threat or use of force in international affairs. There are some exceptions, but they happen to be irrelevant. So, I'll put them aside. Can you think of a president who hasn't used the threat or use of force in international affairs? Obama?
Ralph Nader: What does that mean? It means clearly that the presidents are above the law. They can start wars unconstitutionally. They can violate statutes. And they’re above the law. But there is a matter of degree. Some presidents do far less violating [chuckle] than others. And I think what I hear you say is if the Democrats try going down that path, it'll be turned against their own presidents. And so, they're all complicit. So why don't we just start with process of public discussion that right now presidents are above the law – period. And then go from there instead of the myth that is perpetuated in law schools and editorial boards that no one is above the law.
Noam Chomsky: I agree. In fact, what I just said, I've talked about very often, including in law schools, and the reaction is kind of a polite shrug of the shoulders, kind of intriguing, you know; let's go on to the next topic. We should mention something else that you know again better than I do. There is a profession called lawyers who are trained to develop intricate arguments to show that the law doesn't mean what it says. That's one of the skills that a trained lawyer has to develop, for international lawyers too. So, you can read the international law journals or the law journals and you find intricate arguments saying the Constitution doesn't mean what it says. The UN Charter doesn't mean what it says. Other laws don't mean what they say. Because we can find this and that way of providing a complex argument to delude people into thinking. So, that's called the legal profession.
There's a lot of work to be done at every level. First of all, just to get the population to even know what is in the laws. This is an incredible task. Take the current law in Congress, reconciliation bill that's being debated right now. There have been some very interesting recent polls about that. Turns out when you ask people, what do you think about this measure that's in the law? Strong support case after case. When you ask people, what do you think about the law? We don't like it because the law is gonna attack us. And then you ask people about particular provisions [and] they don't know that they're in the law. We have a system of population control, indoctrination, propaganda, whatever you wanna call it, which is so effective that people simply do not know what is in the prime legislation that is being debated right now in Congress.
Ralph Nader: That was shown by the recent Virginia gubernatorial and legislative elections. Not more than 10% knew that the law had a provision to expand Medicare, for example. Yeah, well, this is part of the corporate supremacist strategy. It's to divert attention to focus on racial divisions without focusing on class. And we don't even have these words in our political campaign lexicon: corporate crime, corporate welfare, corporatism, corporate control. And the pollsters don't poll on that, so they don't replay what people really think. BusinessWeek, 20 years ago, had a poll on corporate control. Do corporations have too much control over your lives? Over 70% said yes. I haven't seen a poll since on that. That could be a very troublesome focus of public opinion. But let's see if this troubles you, Noam. You're one of the world's most famous linguists. And certainly, in academic arenas, the words outrage students and a lot of faculty more than the deeds behind them. So, at law schools, for example, they go crazy if you are heard to utter an ethnic, racial or gender slur. But when you get down to the discrimination conditions on the ground, they're otherwise predisposed to prepare themselves for corporate or commercial law practice. What do you make of this politically correct tyranny that's going on now, where the left so-called cannibalizes its own sense of free speech; the right has always been censorious. But it just seems to be a huge distraction when the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer has to resign because there was an article titled Public Buildings Matter Too in citizen demonstrations. And you know all the other type things we read about every day. People don't lose their jobs for committing corporate crimes or government crimes. They lose their job for saying the wrong thing. As a linguist, how do you deal with that? It's extremely debilitating and distracting and almost immolating in terms of the young generation.
Noam Chomsky: Well, as a linguist, I have nothing to say about it. It's not a linguistic problem. It's a human problem. We all understand it. What's happened is there's a constant record of what's now called “cancel culture”; since it's always been directed against the left, nobody cared about it. I could give you a case after case just from my own experience over the years. So, take one example of my late friend and colleague Edward Herman and I. Incidentally he was a specialist in corporate power and corporate control. That's his major at Wharton School [of Business of the University of Pennsylvania]. He and I wrote a book 40 years ago called Counter-Revolutionary Violence[: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda]. It was about how contrary to the constant talk about the violence of people who rise up against oppressors, the major violence is suppressing them bitterly and brutally with the United States well in the lead.
That was what the book was about. It was published by a small, quite profitable publisher. Information about the book got to the corporate headquarters of the major corporation, [which] was Warner [Media], now Time Warner. One of the executives saw the advertising, didn't like it, and wanted to look at the book. He looked at the book and was horrified; ordered the publisher to withdraw it. When they refused to withdraw it, he closed down the entire publisher, not only banning our book but destroying all its stock. [That] was not considered a civil liberties or human rights issue. Corporations are allowed to do whatever they like. If they wanna kill a publisher because it publishes a book they don't like, fine. [That’s] cancel culture.
I used to have to have police protection at universities if I was giving talks on topics that were critical of what the common support for state policy was. It was plenty of talks withdrawn. Others had much worse experiences because I'm protected in many ways. My mail at the university was vandalized. Plenty of things happened. Nobody cared. The reason is it's against the left. Now, what's happening is that segments of the left are foolishly taking up some of the tactics that have been used constantly against the left and employing them themselves. I don't want this person to speak at my college. So, let's ban him. It's, first of all wrong in principle as it's has always been. And it's a wonderful gift to the far right. They love it; it's a magnificent gift to them. They can exploit it and say, “Look, we're just defenders of the highest principles and the fascist leftists are stopping us.” The Republican Party, in fact, has picked this up as one of its main organizing techniques. So, first of all, it's wrong. Secondly, it's suicidal. It's just absolutely the wrong kind of tactic. Well, going back to the words you use, what happens repeatedly is that popular movements trying to bring issues of social justice into the public domain, bring up topics that make many people uncomfortable. A lot of people don't want to hear what was in the [New York] Times 1619 Project. They don't want to hear about American history. A lot of people would like to believe the myths that they are taught in school for years. And if somebody comes out and says, Look, there's 400 years of vicious repression of African Americans, which has left a legacy that exists today and is still being amplified today; they don't want to hear it. So, what they do is pick up--same with women's rights, any other topic. So, what they do is search assiduously for a couple of cases where people went overboard and went beyond what they should have, and say they're instituting fascism all over the country; they want to teach children in schools that every white child is a bitter oppressor and a Nazi. Look what they're doing to our schools. That's the Virginia election.
So yes, when there are efforts to bring in issues of social justice, truth of history, the legacy of the left, there are going to be cases where someone went overboard and that's a gift to the far right. They can pick that up, amplify it, and proclaim that's what's being done everywhere. Republicans are no longer a political party in any meaningful sense. I've been picking this up ever since [Richard] Nixon who was in many ways, the last liberal president, if you look at his actions. But he also recognized that the Republicans could become a dominant party if they turned themselves into a strictly racist party. Now, he didn't use the word racist. That's the Southern strategy. He understood that with Southern Democrats, opposing civil rights at law, you could bring Southern Democrats into the Republican Party by various events that would make it clear to Southern Democrats that we're gonna support your racist white supremacist policies. Ralph Nader: Steve, David, I'm sure you want to ask Professor Chomsky some questions or comments. He's the co-author of his latest book, The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change, by Noam Chomsky and CJ Polychroniou. Haymarket Books, just came out [with it].
Steve Skrovan: Yes. Professor Chomsky, this is fantastic having you on as always. And I'm wondering about your hope for the future. You've been fighting the good fights as has Ralph for a very long time. And you're old enough to know the rise of fascism in Europe. It seems like we have that rearing its ugly head in America. Are we headed to fascism? And if so, how do we fend that off?
Noam Chomsky: Well, it's kind of ironic for someone of my age, old enough to remember the rise of fascism in Europe. But notice what happened in the 30s. There was a major crisis. The depression was a huge crisis, much worse than what happens now. I knew it personally and most of my extended family, all of my extended family, were first generation immigrants, working class unemployed, suffered hard from the depression. There were two ways out of the depression. One way was followed in Europe – fascism. The other way was followed in the United States – social democracy, the New Deal. What happened is it was the workers movements, the unions had been bitter crushed mostly by Woodrow Wilson. The US has a very violent labor history; it’s much worse than Europe. And in the 1920s, it was even worse than now. Labor movements had been crushed. They began to revive. The CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations] organizing began. The unions began to take much more active militant roles. In fact, it moved up to the level of sit-down strikes, which is a great threat to management. Sit-down strikes mean we can go one step further and take this place over. We don't need you; we can run it ourselves. Well, there was a sympathetic administration. By the time CIO organizing, worker militancy, and political activism increased sufficiently, mid-30s, at that point, the courts, which had been knocking down every New Deal measure, shifted. They saw what was happening. They began to accept some New Deal measures. The business world began to see we're in trouble; we have to accommodate to the rising popular forces and let some of these things go on. A lot of them remained bitterly hostile to the New Deal, but they sort of backed off and let it continue. And some of the major corporations, in fact, even supported it; that’s another topic that Tom Ferguson has written about in detail.
Well, what happened is the United States led the world towards social democracy. Europe led the world towards fascism. Take a look today; it's almost reversed. Europe has got plenty of problems, but it still has functioning social democracies. The United States is leading the way towards a kind of fascism, protofascism. As I said, pretty ironic. Now, that's not necessary. The same forces that blocked fascist tendencies in the US in the 1930s can block them today. Take a look back at Glasgow, which Ralph mentioned. They were are two major events at Glasgow. One was inside the conference proceedings where the suits were working on ways to perpetuate global warming, telling us it can all be solved by just turning to the market, letting the wonderful corporations, what used to be called ‘soulful corporations’ use their 130 trillion dollars to deal appropriately within market structures in order to overcome global heating, which is a death sentence. That was inside the chambers. Outside the chambers, they were a hundred thousand people, mostly young, organizing, demonstrating, acting, saying, “We're not gonna tolerate this. We want a world in which people can not only survive but have a decent life.” Well, those are the conflicting forces. They were also there in the 1930s. Which one is going to win? You really never know. It depends on the energy and commitment that can be exerted to lead to the kind of outcome we want. It was true 90 years ago; it's true today.
Ralph Nader: Well, you know, we're out time, Noam. I really wanted to ask you about the latest arenas of concentrated power – cryptocurrency, [Mark] Zuckerberg's metaverse--all of them developing further and further from the reaches of the law and any kind of ethical evaluation. But maybe next time we can get your thoughts on those and many other things like regional conflicts in the Middle East, China, and involve our listeners. I'm sure we're going to get a terrific reaction to the program and we'll send you some of that reaction. Thank you very much. We've been talking with Professor Noam Chomsky, author of many books including the latest called The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Social Change. I might add that neoliberalism was a word concocted by Milton Friedman, I understand, in the 1930s. So maybe we should call it by another name [chuckle]. Thank you, Noam.
Noam Chomsky: Okay. Good to talk to you as always.
Ralph Nader: As always, as always. Thank you.
by Ralph Nader
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 402 TRANSCRIPT
November 20, 2021
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/noam-chomsky-2/
Ralph Nader: Hello, everybody. It's the Noam Chomsky hour.
Steve Skrovan: Yes, we have an exciting show for you today. We'll spend the full hour with Professor Noam Chomsky. Ralph will ask Professor Chomsky what his vision for America would be if we actually had a progressive people's Congress. We'll cover the climate crisis, the military budget, healthcare, challenging the corporate structure, reforming both the tax system and our elections, and how the Democrats have essentially abandoned the working class. It's always a personal thrill for me when these two incredibly influential intellectuals of the 20th and 21st century have a chance to talk to each other. Then after that, as always, we'll check in with our tireless corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, we've only got an hour. So, let's get the conversation started, David?
David Feldman: Noam Chomsky is a linguist, political philosopher, and one of the world's foremost public intellectuals. His latest book interviews by CJ Polychroniou is entitled The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Social Change. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Professor Noam Chomsky.
Noam Chomsky: Thank you very much.
Ralph Nader: Yeah. Welcome back, Noam. I wanna try something new on this program because it's quite clear that exposés, disclosures, historical analysis are not prodding people to action on the ground. And we're seeing the trends going in the wrong direction [with] American fascism on the rise and Trumpism. He has escaped from all the laws that should have prosecuted him, subjected him to civil remedies, violated the Constitution repeatedly, violated congressional subpoenas, obstructed justice. He's got away with it all. So let me pose this hypothetical for you. Let's say that Congress reflected your sense of justice in the world as spelled out in all kinds of policies – global, national, local, political, electoral, and environmental; views on empire and military budget. Let's say you had the Congress you dreamt of and it was ready to open its session. What would you have the Congress do?
Noam Chomsky: Well, first of all, if under those rather ideal situations, we wouldn't have to be worried about [Donald] Trump. He owns the Republican Party. But under the assumptions you outlined, there wouldn't be any Republican Party. So that would be gone. The first thing that the Congress would do is pass legislation that is actually on the books. There's a resolution introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey in 2019. And they just reintroduced it, which is a detailed proposal of feasible steps that can be taken to address the most severe crisis that has arisen in human history. The fact is that we are heating the globe to the point where human survival and survival of millions of other organisms will become impossible in the not very distant future. Unless that problem is solved, nothing else matters. And there is a resolution sitting there which does detail carefully and responsibly how this can be addressed within current means.
Ralph Nader: That's one. What would be the next on the list? Congress, with all its enormous authority under the Constitution, by the way, listeners.
Noam Chomsky: Oh, it has that capacity; easily can do it. There’s a resolution sitting right there, which nobody will look at, but they could. Second thing they would do is cut back the military budget radically, so that it becomes literally a defense budget, which is a very skimpy budget because the US faces almost no threats. So a skimpy military budget would free up enormous… first, it would cut back pollution enormously. The military alone produces as much greenhouse gas as about 140 medium sized countries. It would also free up badly needed resources to take the next step. The next step is to try to raise the United States to the level of the civilized world. So, take what's in the bill that is now sitting in Congress and probably won't be passed, the Build Back Better bill. Take a look at its provisions. One of them, for example, is to provide maternal leave. In most of the world they wouldn't even know what we're talking about. Take the second largest country in the hemisphere, hardly an ideal social democracy, Brazil. Women have a four-month guaranteed maternal leave [with an] optional two months longer, taken care of by Social Security. Here we have nothing. The United States is not alone in the world. There are a couple of Pacific islands, which also don't have maternal care, paid maternal care of course. Other than that, it's just us.
And it goes down the line; take a look at healthcare. It's the worst system imaginable. Roughly twice the cost of comparable countries, worse outcomes. We’re the only country which has an increasing mortality, which is unheard of in the developed world; certainly, astonishing in the richest, most powerful country in world history, with enormous advantages. We could go on: free higher education, free medical care like almost every other country has, workers’ rights. Change the Congress would rescind the laws that passed under the reactionary Supreme Court to undermine workers’ rights and to ensure that elections can be bought by the highest bidder. Citizens United [ v. Federal Election Commission]. Whole raft of return. Restore the Voting Rights Act [of 1965], which was eliminated by the Roberts Court with consequences we see all over the former Confederacy. There's a whole raft of proposals.
Ralph Nader: Let's go to the next one, Noam. How would you structure or restructure giant corporations, which have created this corporate state? Wall Street merging with big government, turning against the people and its impact on the world. Now, we have the metaverse, and we have just runaway corporate power strategically planning almost everything in our political economy, including commercializing childhood. How would you deal with this structure, which starts with the chartering of corporations by states and the board of directors, shareholders? What would you do with the giant corporate structure, which has a great resiliency to fight back even after it loses?
Noam Chomsky: Well, this has to be done in steps. I mean, the farthest step, the one that should be reached is just to eliminate them., Okay, but go back to what classical liberals like John Stuart Mill [and] Abraham Lincoln envisioned, namely working people owning and running their own enterprises. That's the long-term goal. You have to go step by step. First step would be to rescind the measures taken since [Ronald] Reagan, the neoliberal measures. These were following rules laid down by their economic guru, Milton Friedman. His dictum was that corporations have no responsibility to the public. As you said, they are chartered. The chartering of a corporation is a gift from the public. You don't want the gift - it gives all sorts of advantages - you don't want the gift just stay a partnership. But according to Milton Friedman, corporations take the gift, but offer nothing in return. They have no responsibility other than to enrich themselves and of course enrich the boards of directors and the CEO. Reagan also introduced other measures to ensure that corporations and the wealthy would be able to rob the general public. So he changed the rules of corporate governance so that CEOs can in effect pick their own board that sets their remuneration. As a big surprise, CEO salaries skyrocketed way beyond anything else in the world or what they had ever been, bringing management up with them. It goes on. Under Reagan tax havens were legitimized. They weren’t before. More robbery. There have been attempts to estimate the robbery of the public during the 40 years of neoliberalism--Reaganite/Friedmanite neoliberalism. Incidentally, another one was to deregulate. Deregulation sounds nice on paper, but it has the obvious consequences of leading to increasing monopolization. Big fish eat the little fish. So, now, sector after sector of the economy is virtually monopolized. More was done. Now, we're going to [Bill] Clinton who joined in the trade agreements, the so-called free trade agreements, which certainly are not free and have little do with trade. These agreements provide extraordinary protection for essentially monopoly pricing rights for corporate structures even when, as is often the case, their inventions and creations are largely subsidized by the public. They're given unprecedented patent rights for much longer than ever in the past and also process as well as product patents. We're seeing that right now with COVID[-19] when, say, Moderna[, Inc.], which has created a number of billionaires in the last year or two thanks to products that were largely created in the public domain and then they marketed. But they can maintain control over the process of production, which they're insisting on, and over the product, so that poor countries around the world can't get access to it. Things like that are happening all the time. Well, one step would be to dismantle all of this and to go back to what was true during the preneoliberal period; not a wonderful period by any means. You had a lot to say about what was wrong with it and changing it. But nevertheless, as compared with the neoliberal period, it would be quite a step forward.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with Professor Noam Chomsky. What would you do, Noam, with the corporate charter? They are now largely state charters [in] Delaware and Nevada [that] make it easy for corporate executives to control shareholders and board of directors as you point out. There 's had been a proposal by William Howard Taft and Teddy Roosevelt to federally charter giant corporations, rewrite the constitution of the corporation, the birth certificate. And most recently, Senator [Elizabeth] Warren has picked that up. What do you think of – you might call it an intermediate step – rewriting the whole compact between the society that gifts these immunities and privileges to artificial entities we call corporations? What interest would you have if you had Congress standing for, by, and all the people? What interest would you have in rewriting that at the federal level?
Noam Chomsky: Well, first of all, it depends on how it's rewritten. As you know better than I do, there was a period, early American history, going back to British law, when corporations were chartered for a particular purpose. So, if a town in Connecticut wants to build a bridge over a river, they could incorporate, get a state charter to build that bridge – period. That's what corporations were. This began to change in the late 19th century with court cases, which broadened the rights of corporations in many ways; finally, by early 19th century, granting them the rights of persons, which has had an enormous impact.
So, if the federal charters went back to what corporations once were, namely a device to accumulate capital for a particular purpose, often via community purposes, accomplished corporation goes out of existence. It is a useful device to accumulate, bring capital together. Maybe there's even some justification for the limited liability for some period. But all of this can be sharply cut back, and should be moved in the direction of having people in the enterprise control it, own it, and run it. That's the classical liberal ideal.
Ralph Nader: What would you do for a progressive Congress, total veto proof majority on the tax system? What kind of tax system--corporate tax, individual tax, income, sales [tax], valueadded [tax]? What would you propose?
Noam Chomsky: Well, our tax system is called progressive. It's actually very regressive. Turns out over a long period, taxes, actual taxes, including state taxes [and] consumer taxes, taken all into account, it's pretty level across income scales. Now, the neoliberal period has changed that. Recently, for the first time in over a century, the tax system has been structured so that billionaires pay lower taxes than a steel worker or the janitor who cleans their floor. That's the restructuring of taxes that has taken place under the massive highway robbery called neoliberalism. I should mention, which I didn't do before, that there is a kind of a measure of the scale of the highway robbery. The RAND Corporation, which is as respectable as you can get, tried to do an estimate of what they politely call “transfer of wealth” from the lower 90% of the population to the top 1%, actually fraction of 1%, during the 40 neoliberal years. Their rough estimate is on the order of $50 trillion. That's not small change. And it leaves out a lot of the things we were just talking about.
Going back to the tax system, first step would be to return it to something like the pre-neoliberal period, which incidentally was the highest growth period in American history – rather egalitarian growth. The lower quintile, did about as well as the upper quintile. As I said before, plenty of things are wrong with it. Your work is prominent in exposing and overcoming much of that back in the 60s and 70s. But compared with today, the tax system was moderately progressive. We could go back to that. We could then move on to a much more progressive tax system. Our system now is very harmful to the poor and the working class. Take the rise in gas prices. Who pays that? Working people, poor people, not rich people. They don't care. For them, it's nothing. For others, it's a serious burden. It doesn't have to be that way, and that is true across the whole tax system. There’s a very good study of this called Justice Denied, which goes into the revisions of the tax system that were undertaken during the neoliberal period with the design of ensuring that the rich and the corporate system would be protected with their lavish wealth and that the poor and working people would pay for it. The final blow in this, the Trump tax cut, what Joseph Stiglitz called the Donor Relief bill of 2017, was a massive gift to the very rich in the corporate sector [and] a stab in the back to working people and the poor. And for the current Republican Party, a red line that can't be crossed. Yeah, of course it punched a hole in the deficit, but nobody cared about that when it's for the benefit of the rich. So, all of this stuff can be revised. We can return to a much better system and we can move on to something far better.
Ralph Nader: Noam, how would you deal with elections with a people's Congress, the electoral system funding all the rest? What would be the reforms?
Noam Chomsky: Well, first of all, this is extremely hard to change because it would require a constitutional amendment. And the way the Constitution was set up, the small states basically have a veto power, and they're not gonna say take away our privileges. But there are changes that can be made. First of all, the funding of elections goes way back to elections are basically bought. Tom Ferguson’s work is the gold standard on this. He studied carefully how, for over a century, electability can be pretty well predicted--for Congress, almost perfectly--by simply looking at campaigns, the strategic campaign. It goes right up to the president. He just did a study recently on the 2020 election [The 2020 U.S. Elections: A First Analysis]. But that became far worse in recent years with two Supreme Court decisions. One of them, Buckley [v. Valeo], which determined that money is speech. The second, the Citizens United decision of the Roberts Court, which said spend as much as you like and don't bother telling us about it and keep it dark. That was combined with the rescinding of the Voting Rights Act, which told the states, basically the old Confederacy and a few other Republican-run states, you can do whatever you like to kick out voters you don't want to vote. All of this stuff can be rescinded. These are decisions of reactionary courts, meaning that neutral courts, which are concerned with the rights of people as well as constitutional law could change this.
Ralph Nader: How would you fund the elections? Have abolished private funding, public funding? How would you structure that?
Noam Chomsky: First thing to do is to cut down the electoral process to a few months like every civilized country does. They don't have elections running for years. Then there should be a certain amount of public funding, which is available. There should be restrictions on how much concentrations of private power or the super rich can pour into elections in one or another way, often dark money. You can have other measures like providing each person with a fixed amount and saying, spend it the way you like on the election. There are a lot of technical devices that can be used.
Another thing that we really ought do, I think, is move towards a parliamentary system. We have a monopoly on the election by two organizations, which call themselves political parties that are described as voter mobilization organizations, which then do pretty much what they want independent of the voters. We should add that one part of our system is that most of the population has essentially no representation, meaning their own representatives pay almost no attention to their opinions. That's been studied very well in mainstream academic political science – Martin Gilens, Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels’ careful work. Roughly maybe 70% of the population of voters are literally unrepresented. Their representatives are listening to other voices, the ones who are gonna fund the next election. All of that can be changed. We can have people actually be represented by the people they vote for. We can move towards a system in which smaller parties have a chance – a parliamentary system. That's the way major parties develop and grow. The Labour Party in England became a major party from a very small beginning. In a parliamentary system, it could have a voice. In other countries Greens can have a voice and grow into serious parties in a parliamentary system. I think there are many advantages to that, but it really all comes down to something much more fundamental--high concentration of capital and protection of high concentration of capital from public accountability. As long as that exists, all the technical manipulations in the world aren’t gonna change much.
Ralph Nader: Well, as we know, we're stuck with this federal system and Congress is all we have right now to match up against these giant global corporations, which have no allegiance to community or nations other than to abandon them or exploit them, pit them [against] one another. How would progressive or people's Congress deal with workers, unions, existing union laws, anti-union laws, to vastly expand membership in unions and make them democratic? Love to hear your views on that.
Noam Chomsky: Well, again, many steps. First of all, undo what has been done for the last 40 plus years. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher across the Atlantic, who instituted these neoliberal programs; they and their advisors understood very well that when you're going to launch bitter class war, attacking working people and the general public, you better eliminate their means of defense. And the major means of defense are labor unions. So, the first acts of Reagan and Thatcher were to move to smash the unions. Reagan resorted to means that were at the time illegal all over the world, except in apartheid South Africa, at bringing in scabs permanent replacement workers to replace working people on strike, and other means to destroy the unions. All sorts of complex measures were devised to undermine and prevent union organization. One of them was called NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement]. Now, we're up to Clinton. NAFTA, was strongly opposed by the labor movement for good reasons. One of its consequences was that organization efforts for unionization could be killed by warnings from management, big signs on the door saying, ‘transfer operation Mexico’. Lots of ways to say, if you vote for the union, we're just gonna close you down and go to Mexico. Well, that happens to be illegal. But when you have a criminal state, you can be as illegal as you want. Nothing happens. This was no small matter. There was research taken under NAFTA laws, in fact, by Kate Bronfenbrenner, labor historian at Cornell [University], which found that about 50% of organizing efforts were undermined by these illegal tactics, which the government just winked at. Criminal state says, fine, if you wanna destroy unions, the so-called right to work laws, which are basically right to scrounge laws, means if you want, you can have the union represented, but you don't have to pay for it. [That] got passed by the courts. These are bitter attacks on unions. Lack of taking away card check. All sorts of devices were used to undermine labor law. Also, the right-wing administrations, which includes the Democrats, took measures to weaken the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board, the system that offers workers some protection.
So, there's been a major, we can only call it class war, going on for 45 years, which began in the late Carter years, took off with Reagan [that] has led to a situation where workers are finding it extremely hard to organize. Many barriers. There always was difficulty, but now it's much more difficult. We might try to remember what things were like in the 1950s when there was a president named Dwight Eisenhower, whose position loudly spoken was that anyone who interferes with the right of American workers to organize doesn't belong within our political system; anyone who opposes New Deal measures doesn't belong in our political system. That was called conservatism in the 1950s.
Ralph Nader: That's true. And that goes back to my earlier comment that we now live in a world of muckraking books, exposing all kinds of corporate and government crimes and malfeasance; muckraking documentaries have never been more numerous. And all of them have far less effect than a fraction of these documentaries and books in the 1950s and 1960s. You point out, President Eisenhower’s positions now would be considered left of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party allowed the Taft–Hartley law to be passed. [Harry] Truman vetoed it in 1947. That's the worst anti-labor law in the Western world. And the Democrats never made it a political issue to repeal it subsequent many, many decades. And they've now passed something partially reformist in the House but not in the Senate. What do you think of this idea that there's just one omnibus union organization law? You don't have to go through anything but a vote of the workers to get a union, above a certain small business size to get a union. It's all these obstacles in the NLRB that you alluded to. What do you think of just a right to unionize with, say, a majority vote at Amazon[, Inc.] warehouse or Walmart [Inc.] supermarket?
Noam Chomsky: Well, it's a good thing to do. But as long as there exists high concentration of unaccountable capital, it's not gonna work. Businesses can hire masses of corporate lawyers from the fancy law firms who will work out devious ways in which this can be undermined. Sometimes it can be as simple as what Clinton did – pass international so-called trade agreement and then don't impose labor law, so that corporations/businesses can break strikes simply by threatening to leave. Illegal, and they were never gonna do it, but as I said, if you have a criminal state owned by private power, you can do what you like. There are now--I hate to tell you this; you know all this better than I do. But there are now union busting companies which have highly skilled ways of intimidating workers so that they won't take the measures that they want in their own interest. It's very similar to other moderately progressive legislation.
So take, for example, universal healthcare. It's been supported over and over for a long period by the general public. I lived in Massachusetts most of my life. It's a liberal state. And year after year, there was a charade that was carried on. There would be a referendum calling for universal healthcare [with] overwhelming support. Then starts the lobbying, the corporate lobbying, scare, warning “You're not gonna be able to see your own doctor; the government is gonna tell you what medicine you're allowed to take”--this and that. You could see the support for universal healthcare declining as the propaganda mounted. Finally, when the vote came, it didn't pass. Same with something as simple as maternal leave. What could be simpler? Everybody has it, and the public is strongly in favor of it. Can't make it.
Ralph Nader: Well, that gets to how to take control of Congress. And if you have a people's Congress, how would they break up these concentrations of capital wedded to technology operating internationally? We just saw what happened in Glasgow. They're talking to about an agreement. They don't even talk about international treaties anymore, which are supposedly a little more enforceable than generalized agreements between nations to control greenhouse gases. How would you break up these concentrations? Because let's face it, a lot of the capital is in the form of mutual funds and pension funds, which are theoretically owned by people and controlled by corporations. If you put them all together, they control over two thirds of the stock of the New York Stock Exchange companies--mutual funds, giant mutual funds and pension funds. How would a progressive Congress take that apart?
Noam Chomsky: Well, it would begin by things we discussed before--changing the rules of governance, changing the character of charters, taking away the extraordinary privileges that were given and imposing responsibilities. There are steps to do that. One step, which you can find elsewhere in the world--Germany, for example--is simply having worker representatives on management. That's one step. The next step is having the corporations, if they exist probably for particular purposes as they used to, governed by the people in the enterprise. The people who work there would pick their own directors under recall as in any democratic system; work together with community, democratic community associations, to work out what kinds of actions should be taken for the common good. There's plenty of ways to do that. Actually, you talked about taxes before. There's an interesting fact about taxes, which we might wanna think about. One of the standard scare phrases in the United States is nothing is inevitable about death and taxes. Taxes are something to be feared and hated. That's a very interesting attitude. Just think about the spectrum of possible societies. Extreme totalitarian society at one end and a functioning democracy at the other end. In these systems, how would people react to taxes? Well, in the pure totalitarian system, they'd say nothing's inevitable but death and taxes. Somebody's stealing our money from us, an alien force. The government is stealing our money. We can't do anything about it. That's the way it would be in a pure totalitarian system. What about a functioning democracy? Tax day would be a day of celebration. We've gotten together, worked out what we think should be done in our community. Maybe new roads, maybe schools, maybe healthcare, maybe cutting back poisons in the atmosphere, working with other countries to achieve the common good. We've decided what we wanted. We decided on an equitable way to fund it. Now comes the day in which we fund it the way we decided. It's a day of celebration. So, kind of a rough measure of the extent to which democracy functions simply by looking at attitudes toward taxes. That's not a joke!
Ralph Nader: I want to ask you a very simple question. [George W.] Bush and [Dick] Cheney are certified war criminals. I mean, let's take the easy monstrous war crime of invading Iraq. There is no declaration of war, no serious authorization, and appropriation of funds under rigorous congressional scrutiny. Ron Paul, the great Libertarian congressman said that Bush and Cheney “lied us” into the war in Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The conservative commentator for Fox News until recently, Andrew Napolitano, former judge on a program, said that [Barack] Obama’s Justice Department should criminally prosecute Bush and Cheney.
Two questions. Should Bush and Cheney be prosecuted? There's no statute of limitations here. And second, why do you think the most ardent Democrats in Congress, the most progressive, are not calling for that prosecution, including the prosecution of Donald Trump for violating all kinds of federal criminal statutes openly, repeatedly, quite apart from his incitement of the insurrection to Congress and defying 120 congressional subpoenas? Do you believe that the criminal law should be used in that way? And why do you think the most ardent, progressive Democrats who would adhere to a lot of what your proposals outline are not even mentioning it? Noam Chomsky: I don't think anyone in Congress wants to open that door. Because once you open that door, it opens quite far. Fact of the matter is that every president violates the Constitution constantly. Simply take a look at the Constitution. Article Six of the [US] Constitution says that international treaties entered by the United States government are the supreme law of the land and elected officials have to obey them. Well, the main treaty that has been entered into by the United States government in the postwar period, which the US in fact initiated and sponsored, is the UN Charter. That's the basis of modern law, international law, but that makes it the supreme law of the land. Well, take a look at the UN Charter, say at Article Two, Section Four, which bans the threat or use of force in international affairs. There are some exceptions, but they happen to be irrelevant. So, I'll put them aside. Can you think of a president who hasn't used the threat or use of force in international affairs? Obama?
Ralph Nader: What does that mean? It means clearly that the presidents are above the law. They can start wars unconstitutionally. They can violate statutes. And they’re above the law. But there is a matter of degree. Some presidents do far less violating [chuckle] than others. And I think what I hear you say is if the Democrats try going down that path, it'll be turned against their own presidents. And so, they're all complicit. So why don't we just start with process of public discussion that right now presidents are above the law – period. And then go from there instead of the myth that is perpetuated in law schools and editorial boards that no one is above the law.
Noam Chomsky: I agree. In fact, what I just said, I've talked about very often, including in law schools, and the reaction is kind of a polite shrug of the shoulders, kind of intriguing, you know; let's go on to the next topic. We should mention something else that you know again better than I do. There is a profession called lawyers who are trained to develop intricate arguments to show that the law doesn't mean what it says. That's one of the skills that a trained lawyer has to develop, for international lawyers too. So, you can read the international law journals or the law journals and you find intricate arguments saying the Constitution doesn't mean what it says. The UN Charter doesn't mean what it says. Other laws don't mean what they say. Because we can find this and that way of providing a complex argument to delude people into thinking. So, that's called the legal profession.
There's a lot of work to be done at every level. First of all, just to get the population to even know what is in the laws. This is an incredible task. Take the current law in Congress, reconciliation bill that's being debated right now. There have been some very interesting recent polls about that. Turns out when you ask people, what do you think about this measure that's in the law? Strong support case after case. When you ask people, what do you think about the law? We don't like it because the law is gonna attack us. And then you ask people about particular provisions [and] they don't know that they're in the law. We have a system of population control, indoctrination, propaganda, whatever you wanna call it, which is so effective that people simply do not know what is in the prime legislation that is being debated right now in Congress.
Ralph Nader: That was shown by the recent Virginia gubernatorial and legislative elections. Not more than 10% knew that the law had a provision to expand Medicare, for example. Yeah, well, this is part of the corporate supremacist strategy. It's to divert attention to focus on racial divisions without focusing on class. And we don't even have these words in our political campaign lexicon: corporate crime, corporate welfare, corporatism, corporate control. And the pollsters don't poll on that, so they don't replay what people really think. BusinessWeek, 20 years ago, had a poll on corporate control. Do corporations have too much control over your lives? Over 70% said yes. I haven't seen a poll since on that. That could be a very troublesome focus of public opinion. But let's see if this troubles you, Noam. You're one of the world's most famous linguists. And certainly, in academic arenas, the words outrage students and a lot of faculty more than the deeds behind them. So, at law schools, for example, they go crazy if you are heard to utter an ethnic, racial or gender slur. But when you get down to the discrimination conditions on the ground, they're otherwise predisposed to prepare themselves for corporate or commercial law practice. What do you make of this politically correct tyranny that's going on now, where the left so-called cannibalizes its own sense of free speech; the right has always been censorious. But it just seems to be a huge distraction when the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer has to resign because there was an article titled Public Buildings Matter Too in citizen demonstrations. And you know all the other type things we read about every day. People don't lose their jobs for committing corporate crimes or government crimes. They lose their job for saying the wrong thing. As a linguist, how do you deal with that? It's extremely debilitating and distracting and almost immolating in terms of the young generation.
Noam Chomsky: Well, as a linguist, I have nothing to say about it. It's not a linguistic problem. It's a human problem. We all understand it. What's happened is there's a constant record of what's now called “cancel culture”; since it's always been directed against the left, nobody cared about it. I could give you a case after case just from my own experience over the years. So, take one example of my late friend and colleague Edward Herman and I. Incidentally he was a specialist in corporate power and corporate control. That's his major at Wharton School [of Business of the University of Pennsylvania]. He and I wrote a book 40 years ago called Counter-Revolutionary Violence[: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda]. It was about how contrary to the constant talk about the violence of people who rise up against oppressors, the major violence is suppressing them bitterly and brutally with the United States well in the lead.
That was what the book was about. It was published by a small, quite profitable publisher. Information about the book got to the corporate headquarters of the major corporation, [which] was Warner [Media], now Time Warner. One of the executives saw the advertising, didn't like it, and wanted to look at the book. He looked at the book and was horrified; ordered the publisher to withdraw it. When they refused to withdraw it, he closed down the entire publisher, not only banning our book but destroying all its stock. [That] was not considered a civil liberties or human rights issue. Corporations are allowed to do whatever they like. If they wanna kill a publisher because it publishes a book they don't like, fine. [That’s] cancel culture.
I used to have to have police protection at universities if I was giving talks on topics that were critical of what the common support for state policy was. It was plenty of talks withdrawn. Others had much worse experiences because I'm protected in many ways. My mail at the university was vandalized. Plenty of things happened. Nobody cared. The reason is it's against the left. Now, what's happening is that segments of the left are foolishly taking up some of the tactics that have been used constantly against the left and employing them themselves. I don't want this person to speak at my college. So, let's ban him. It's, first of all wrong in principle as it's has always been. And it's a wonderful gift to the far right. They love it; it's a magnificent gift to them. They can exploit it and say, “Look, we're just defenders of the highest principles and the fascist leftists are stopping us.” The Republican Party, in fact, has picked this up as one of its main organizing techniques. So, first of all, it's wrong. Secondly, it's suicidal. It's just absolutely the wrong kind of tactic. Well, going back to the words you use, what happens repeatedly is that popular movements trying to bring issues of social justice into the public domain, bring up topics that make many people uncomfortable. A lot of people don't want to hear what was in the [New York] Times 1619 Project. They don't want to hear about American history. A lot of people would like to believe the myths that they are taught in school for years. And if somebody comes out and says, Look, there's 400 years of vicious repression of African Americans, which has left a legacy that exists today and is still being amplified today; they don't want to hear it. So, what they do is pick up--same with women's rights, any other topic. So, what they do is search assiduously for a couple of cases where people went overboard and went beyond what they should have, and say they're instituting fascism all over the country; they want to teach children in schools that every white child is a bitter oppressor and a Nazi. Look what they're doing to our schools. That's the Virginia election.
So yes, when there are efforts to bring in issues of social justice, truth of history, the legacy of the left, there are going to be cases where someone went overboard and that's a gift to the far right. They can pick that up, amplify it, and proclaim that's what's being done everywhere. Republicans are no longer a political party in any meaningful sense. I've been picking this up ever since [Richard] Nixon who was in many ways, the last liberal president, if you look at his actions. But he also recognized that the Republicans could become a dominant party if they turned themselves into a strictly racist party. Now, he didn't use the word racist. That's the Southern strategy. He understood that with Southern Democrats, opposing civil rights at law, you could bring Southern Democrats into the Republican Party by various events that would make it clear to Southern Democrats that we're gonna support your racist white supremacist policies. Ralph Nader: Steve, David, I'm sure you want to ask Professor Chomsky some questions or comments. He's the co-author of his latest book, The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change, by Noam Chomsky and CJ Polychroniou. Haymarket Books, just came out [with it].
Steve Skrovan: Yes. Professor Chomsky, this is fantastic having you on as always. And I'm wondering about your hope for the future. You've been fighting the good fights as has Ralph for a very long time. And you're old enough to know the rise of fascism in Europe. It seems like we have that rearing its ugly head in America. Are we headed to fascism? And if so, how do we fend that off?
Noam Chomsky: Well, it's kind of ironic for someone of my age, old enough to remember the rise of fascism in Europe. But notice what happened in the 30s. There was a major crisis. The depression was a huge crisis, much worse than what happens now. I knew it personally and most of my extended family, all of my extended family, were first generation immigrants, working class unemployed, suffered hard from the depression. There were two ways out of the depression. One way was followed in Europe – fascism. The other way was followed in the United States – social democracy, the New Deal. What happened is it was the workers movements, the unions had been bitter crushed mostly by Woodrow Wilson. The US has a very violent labor history; it’s much worse than Europe. And in the 1920s, it was even worse than now. Labor movements had been crushed. They began to revive. The CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations] organizing began. The unions began to take much more active militant roles. In fact, it moved up to the level of sit-down strikes, which is a great threat to management. Sit-down strikes mean we can go one step further and take this place over. We don't need you; we can run it ourselves. Well, there was a sympathetic administration. By the time CIO organizing, worker militancy, and political activism increased sufficiently, mid-30s, at that point, the courts, which had been knocking down every New Deal measure, shifted. They saw what was happening. They began to accept some New Deal measures. The business world began to see we're in trouble; we have to accommodate to the rising popular forces and let some of these things go on. A lot of them remained bitterly hostile to the New Deal, but they sort of backed off and let it continue. And some of the major corporations, in fact, even supported it; that’s another topic that Tom Ferguson has written about in detail.
Well, what happened is the United States led the world towards social democracy. Europe led the world towards fascism. Take a look today; it's almost reversed. Europe has got plenty of problems, but it still has functioning social democracies. The United States is leading the way towards a kind of fascism, protofascism. As I said, pretty ironic. Now, that's not necessary. The same forces that blocked fascist tendencies in the US in the 1930s can block them today. Take a look back at Glasgow, which Ralph mentioned. They were are two major events at Glasgow. One was inside the conference proceedings where the suits were working on ways to perpetuate global warming, telling us it can all be solved by just turning to the market, letting the wonderful corporations, what used to be called ‘soulful corporations’ use their 130 trillion dollars to deal appropriately within market structures in order to overcome global heating, which is a death sentence. That was inside the chambers. Outside the chambers, they were a hundred thousand people, mostly young, organizing, demonstrating, acting, saying, “We're not gonna tolerate this. We want a world in which people can not only survive but have a decent life.” Well, those are the conflicting forces. They were also there in the 1930s. Which one is going to win? You really never know. It depends on the energy and commitment that can be exerted to lead to the kind of outcome we want. It was true 90 years ago; it's true today.
Ralph Nader: Well, you know, we're out time, Noam. I really wanted to ask you about the latest arenas of concentrated power – cryptocurrency, [Mark] Zuckerberg's metaverse--all of them developing further and further from the reaches of the law and any kind of ethical evaluation. But maybe next time we can get your thoughts on those and many other things like regional conflicts in the Middle East, China, and involve our listeners. I'm sure we're going to get a terrific reaction to the program and we'll send you some of that reaction. Thank you very much. We've been talking with Professor Noam Chomsky, author of many books including the latest called The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Social Change. I might add that neoliberalism was a word concocted by Milton Friedman, I understand, in the 1930s. So maybe we should call it by another name [chuckle]. Thank you, Noam.
Noam Chomsky: Okay. Good to talk to you as always.
Ralph Nader: As always, as always. Thank you.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour
by admin » Sun Dec 19, 2021 4:43 am
Boeing: Murder Incorporated
by Ralph Nader
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 405 TRANSCRIPT
December 11, 2021
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/boe ... orporated/
Ralph Nader: Hello, everybody. I just wrote a column that reflected some of the frustrations of our listeners that they hear week after week exposes and nothing seems to happen. And so, I wrote an unusual column. You can go see it at nader.org and it basically lists 65 expose books on almost every industry from Wall Street and the coal industry to the military defense industry, and compared it to 1960s. And these books are terrific.
It's like the golden age of muckraking books and they've produced very little change as our democracy decays perilously, while three books in the 1960s, Michael Harrington's book on poverty in America called The Other America, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and my book, Unsafe at Any Speed, really put forces in motion – public education, major TV outlets, talk shows like Phil Donahue, congressional hearings, legislation, prosecutions. So, we have an opportunity with Peter Robison on his book on Boeing to ask that tough question. Where does it go from here? Because the documentation of criminal negligence is overwhelming.
Steve Skrovan: Well, that's a very good segue, Ralph, to this show because last week we saw what happens when drug companies get to write their own rules with government regulators. The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] let Purdue Pharma literally write their own drug approval for OxyContin and things are fine. Of course not. The opioid epidemic devastated countless lives and rages on to this day and the corporate criminals right off into the sunset with a slap on the wrist and billions of dollars in blood money.
Well, today we're gonna look at another corporate nightmare that's shaping up to be a carbon copy of that narrative – Boeing and the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. Our guest will be Peter Robison. In his new book, Flying Blind[: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing], he chronicles the rise and decay of Boeing and the development of their death trap, 737 Max. We've covered Boeing's malpractice and the resulting tragedies in Indonesia and Ethiopia often on this show.
On today's program, we'll talk to Mr. Robison about his book, what went wrong at Boeing, and how they ended up in charge of their own safety compliance. If we have time, Ralph answer some of your listener questions. As always, somewhere in the middle, we'll check in with our relentless corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, why aren't government overseers doing more to keep a dangerously flawed plane out of the sky, David?
David Feldman: Peter Robison is an investigative journalist for Bloomberg and Bloomberg Businessweek and the author of Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Peter Robison.
Peter Robison: Thanks very much for having me.
Ralph Nader: Yes. Welcome, Peter. This book is in a way a history of Boeing's commercial aircraft business. You wanted to put the 737 Max disaster in broader context as to what led to it. And the first question is, has Boeing responded at all to this book? You're in Seattle. I think you did Seattle Town Hall. You have the Seattle Times that has done good work exposing Boeing 737 Max disaster. Has Boeing replied in any way?
Peter Robison: I've had no official comment from Boeing and I had no official comment from any of the questions I submitted. I had a single official comment and it was defending Boeing. It made one statement defending its accounting practices on a different plane, the [Boeing] 787. Ralph Nader: But not directly to your book.
Peter Robison: No, no.
Ralph Nader: This is typical practice, listeners. They feel so secure that they don't have to respond at all. This is a heavily documented book, heavily footnoted. Peter has been covering Boeing for many years and no response. It shows you the security of very powerful corporations. How about the FAA? Any response from the FAA?
Peter Robison: None. Either before or after.
Ralph Nader: Another example. Government agencies have now adopted the practice over the last few decades of just no comment. Justice Department has no comment when nonenforcement of its statutory duties is called in question reliably and accurately. The FAA is notorious for no comment. And of course, in Peter's book, he shows how close the FEA is to Boeing in terms of delegating the certification of its parts and its planes to Boeing representatives on the factory floor. How about Congress? Did anybody in Congress, any House Transportation [Committee], Senate Transportation Committee?
Peter Robison: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has been active on this issue. They published a report, which I relied on heavily in the book. And they've since issued more requests to the FAA for further information about what it's doing to monitor Boeing.
Ralph Nader: So you think the book helped prod that? They didn't actually react to the book directly?
Peter Robison: I think that committee in particular has been very active and they may have felt that the book was another opportunity to look again.
Ralph Nader: Okay. Just to give you an idea of the decay. When Wesley Smith and I produced this book in 1993 called Collision Course: The Truth about Airline Safety, Peter DeFazio gave a terrific blurb saying this book should require you to call every member of Congress and he gave the numbers of the switchboard and Congress. You see the difference? No. Tell us how Boeing turned from a proud engineering corporation into a financial institution, which led to all kinds of cost-cutting, outsourcing, degradation of their engineering staff and a high focus on stock buybacks, the stock price bonuses – as if they were just a financial company. Trace it back. Because, listeners, this is extremely important to see how corporations are deteriorated by placing commercial interests over the quality of its own product.
Peter Robison: That's a great question. And I wrote a book about it. It's got parts and subparts but one thing that that surprised me in researching the book was a moment that I covered, which was in 1985, on Boeing’s 747 crash. And you know, the company had really created the jet age with its innovative products, but it wasn't flawless. It made mistakes. And this 747 crash and it was a terrible accident and 520 people died. The Japanese authorities were settling in for what they expected would be a long investigation, tough negotiations, to determine the cause. But within a month, Boeing issued a statement and had said, “It was our fault. We had done a bad repair job in our own factory and it's our fault.”
That's ‘85. Now moving forward, I started covering Boeing in the late 1990s and that was a period when the idea of shareholder capitalism was really ascendant. You had the Business Roundtable, the lobbyists for the biggest US companies, put out a statement saying that in terms of the corporate governance, the shareholders are the primary responsibility of any company. And as long as the shareholders are taken care of, employees, customers, communities would also be taken care of.
So, that was a surprising sentiment to many of the engineers that I talked to at Boeing because in the late 90s, a CEO named Phil Condit took charge of the company and he really idolized and feared in some ways Jack Welch, who was the CEO of General Electric [GE], which was considered the prime example, the model of what an American CEO of a publicly traded company should be. And from that point, Phil Condit pursued basically a copycat strategy of GE; Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago with the idea being that it would be just like GE, which had its headquarters in Fairfield [IL]. It could run these vast businesses by playing off communities [and] playing off workers in different parts of the country.
And the prime thing it started doing was to start buying back its own stock, which seems like an arcane thing, but it diverts a huge portion of the company's cash directly to shareholders. When in the 80s Professor William Lazonick at UMass [University of Massachusetts] traced this. In the 80s companies were only diverting about 4% of their profits to shareholders through buybacks. And more recently, it's been about half. And that's exactly… but Boeing actually took it farther. In the period they were developing the Max, they were sending 80% of their free cash to shareholders.
Ralph Nader: Let's elaborate that. It's a very important point for our listeners. When companies like Boeing spend over 50% of their profits on stock buybacks, they're disinvesting in engineering, research, and development in their own company, because the stock buybacks have a different ratio to help the price of the stock although it dissipates after a while and doesn't have the touted benefits that corporate executives claim for it.
But after the Lion [Aircraft] crash in Indonesia, Peter, as you know, [Dennis] Muilenburg, the CEO, went to the board of directors and got approval for $20 billion stock buyback, which was suspended after the Ethiopian crash in March of 2019. And that money was enough to have built a new plane in 2011 instead of just providing another version of the ancient 737 with its outsized engines in a plane called the 737 Max.
So, listeners, when you hear about all these stock buybacks, that's just not something that the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] may be interested in or permitting. It's not something that some financial people on Wall Street…. It's burning money. It's not creating jobs. It's not expanding pensions. It's not developing research and development. I've had people in the know about corporate management say whenever they hear about a stock buyback, they say the management isn't competent because they don't have any more productive or compassionate uses for the money. Like Apple [Inc.] just announced earlier this year a $90 billion stock buyback and the toxic results of its spent computers that have to be dismantled by poor people in third [world] countries. That doesn't get any investment in terms of recycling safety. So, that's a very important part of what you wrote about.
One thing about this book, listeners, it's very personal. He talks about CEOs and rising engineers and advisors and lawyers like [Albert] Ludwig, CEOs like [Harry] Stonecipher and Muilenburg in very personal terms. And I admire the range here [chuckle] and I want to give you an idea of the range. When Boeing moved to Chicago, they said it was an efficiency move. And on page 47, Peter describes the offices in Chicago “19th century rugs, an antique French barometer topped with a curved Eagle, a glass scepter, an English Regency gilt mirror among the objects of art dotting its leather and wood executive suites. The white column hallway and wooden floors inlaid with oak and mahogany and the office of chairman evoked the colonial gentleman's estate.”
The move from Seattle of its headquarters shocked a lot of Boeing employees. But as you point out, it foreshadowed a move of some productive facilities to low-wage labor, not very skilled in South Carolina. Tell us the significance of this whole strategy by Boeing. What's it driving for in the coming years in terms of where it's gonna produce and how it's gonna break the union. Peter Robison: Right. Those are all fascinating points just to the idea of buybacks relating directly to the product lines. Dennis Muilenburg's predecessor as CEO directly addressed this point in 2013, when he laid out this plan that it had to return a larger portion of cash to shareholders. And he said that Boeing had the flexibility to do that because it had the best products, which was a recognition that he was taking money from products. But to his mind, it didn't need to invest in them. And we saw what happened with the Max. And I should add in that I'm very sorry for your loss of [your niece] Samya [Stumo]. I know in researching the book what a special person she was as were all of the victims.
So, what I found [was] that over time, Boeing moved from a company that was an association of engineers to a company that was ultimately financially oriented; that was the same orientation that that GE had. And part of that strategy involved moving to lower cost labor sources. And so, Boeing moved a huge – at first about half the production of the 787 and eventually all of the production of the 787 to South Carolina. It has since had multiple problems with costs. It's taken billions of dollars in charges. It's had manufacturing defects that arose in part because of problems with the South Carolina workforce, but also because of problems with the vastly outsourced engineering and manufacturing on that plane. And it directly relates to this decision to change the way Boeing had always done it.
I was fascinated to learn that on the 747, in the 60s, Boeing faced almost exactly the same choice. There were executives who were pushing for Boeing to build this new factory for the plane in Walnut Creek, California because they thought that would help it be in a larger state, maybe win more military contracts in the long run. But Joe Stutter, who was the chief of engineering on that plane, said no, that he thought it would add costs and it would add complexity, and you needed to have people closely located for a product as complicated as a commercial airplane with hundreds of thousands of parts.
Ralph Nader: Well, one of the examples you give in your book is that when they moved to South Carolina, I guess for its [Boeing 787] Dreamliner production, they sent one of their top quality control inspectors there, actually who got a prize for moral courage by my sister's Callaway Award [for Civic Courage] a couple years ago. He found terrible conditions. I mean, all kinds of implements left inside parts of the plane after it was completed and he didn't blame the workers. The workers just were not adequately trained and supervised. And in your book, you say they were being paid $14 an hour. And the same workers in Seattle who lost their jobs were being paid $28 an hour. That's the main incentive?
Peter Robison: It's a large incentive but also for control of the workforce that the unions in the Seattle area had developed a power base of their own. And the company, they said in their own documents, which were later revealed in an NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] case, the company felt that it would reset the relationship if they had another workforce in South Carolina, which also happened to be a lower paid workforce, to leverage against the union workforce in Seattle.
Ralph Nader: Another point you make is quite compelling. We're talking with Peter Robison, author of Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing, is the outsourcing. Now, outsourcing has run amok. The US government outsources hundreds of billions of dollars of governmental functions. We read about obviously outsourcing of the military to contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. I mean, they're doing almost everything but piloting the helicopter gunships. And corporations – large ones – have begun doing this under the argument that it's gonna save money. And so I wanna read, with your indulgence, Peter, on page 85, a report that a Boeing person produced in February 2001. His name was John Hart-Smith and he called the paper “Our Out-sourced Profits – The Cornerstone of Successful Subcontracting”. And he laid out his own experience at Douglas Aircraft, how parceling the construction of the [McDonnell Douglas] DC-10 had impoverished the company while enriching its suppliers.
And here's the quote from your book. “The basic point was that outsourcing is never simple. Design specifications actually had to be more precise because any omissions would lead to costly disputes involving lawyers. Making sure the work got done right led to additional overhead costs that no one had counted on. Finally, all those extra costs had the perverse effect of making the company doing the outsourcing look less efficient than the ones it awarded business to--a vicious cycle that only encouraged more of the same destructive behavior.” Isn't it true that Boeing’s giant planes have outsourcing contracts to literally hundreds of companies around the world? Peter Robison: They do. And the number of them has accelerated in recent decades.
Ralph Nader: And the recent problem [that] the FAA uncovered, the lamination problem with the Boeing 787, traced to an Italian company that provided less than an adequate subcontracting performance. And now we have Boeing in trouble with this because this could lead in a couple years or three years and a plane is up on the air to rather serious safety problems. What did Boeing say to you when you raised these outsourcing issues in your reporting career? Not just in this book.
Peter Robison: They have, for the most part, said that it's necessary, that in some cases it may help win business. You know, an airline in another country may want some portion of the work in exchange for that. Boeing has acknowledged some problems with it too. In the early 2000s, Boeing took a plant in Wichita that makes the fuselage for the 737 and sold it. And so, that's now owned by another company and these precise issues that I described in that section you read cropped up. The supplier ended up taking more of the profits; there was more overhead involved in dealing with them. And Boeing finally did admit that it made a mistake in selling off that plant.
Ralph Nader: Is there something to suspicion that their contracts outsourcing to Japan and China have something to do with a quid pro quo, trying to get Japan and China to buy its finished plane in competition with Airbus?
Peter Robison: Yeah, I think that's something that happens both on the military and the civil side of the business. You know, Japan is a large supplier to Boeing and it's also been a large buyer of Boeing airplanes.
Ralph Nader: Now, just to go back to how they treat conscientious engineers and quality control inspectors, the gentleman I mentioned who was sent by Boeing to oversee quality control in the South Carolina new plant, where the workers were being paid $14 an hour, his name is John M. Barnett. And he was the quality control manager for Boeing for 25 years in its Seattle facility. And in 2011, he was transferred to the Boeing new plant in South Carolina, right outside Charleston, to build the 787 Dreamliner. And he revealed shotty production. And that was reported on page 1 of the New York Times in April 2019.
Then he retired under pressure and assumed the challenge to inform the flying public. He went public. And he filed the formal whistleblowing complaint to OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], which is still pending. Describe the climate for these engineers in Boeing. They used to have great stature, great respect. Boeing was founded by an engineer. Describe the situation now – the morale, the stature, the extent to which they have access to top management, the board of directors, or lack of access.
Peter Robison: Repeatedly, there are cases where engineers either feel that they can't raise issues, that that would be negative for their careers, or when they do have the courage to raise an issue, it's shot down. There was a case where one young engineer named Curtis Ewbank asked repeatedly for a more sophisticated type of flight control on the Max. And ultimately, after the third time, he was told no. And one of his managers told him that people will have to die before Boeing will change things.
It's been a company that's had employees running scared because it's had layoffs even in years when its profits and revenue were relatively good. It had layoffs and forced buyouts through the engineering staff. So, I talked to many engineers who said they were told to lay low. In terms of whistleblowers, there's a case that I described in the book where an employee at a military plant in Texas points out to his bosses that Boeing has been overcharging for years and he had the time sheets and the documentation to prove it. And he was greeted with hostile questions from a Boeing lawyer and ultimately fired though the he later joined a whistleblower suit and Boeing did pay a fine in that case. So, that's the climate.
Ralph Nader: And the union is getting weaker?
Peter Robison : As with all unions around the country. The moves that Boeing has done both in engineering and in manufacturing to other states has dramatically weakened the leverage of the unions.
Ralph Nader: Well, let's question your subtitle. You say “The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing”. You don't really believe that Boeing is falling. They're too big to fail with NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] contracts, defense contracts, huge tax breaks, quasi-monopoly with Airbus on big passenger aircraft. What did you mean the fall of Boeing? Was it just a trip? And now they're recovering with big subsidies and indirect subsidies to the airline customers after the pandemic started. How do you define the fall of Boeing?
Peter Robison: That's a really good question. Initially, the working title was “The Lost Soul of An American Icon”, which was meant to represent its lost engineering soul. The fall represents the fall in its reputation, the fall and public confidence, all those issues. But as you point out, it is a duopoly. Customers are returning to the Max. They don't have any other choices. The Airbus assembly lines are sold out. And in multiple ways, both private investors and the government have found ways to support Boeing.
Ralph Nader: Well, one thing about this book, listeners, is it actually puts you in the cockpit of the Indonesian and Ethiopian planes. I don't know where you got so many of your sources. Really quite impressive, Peter. But for those listeners who are asking, Well, what was wrong with the 737 Max other than its aerodynamic instability issue and the race to counteract the competition from the Airbus 320neo? Tell us in as simple language as you can what was this software that took control of the plane from the pilot. And did the pilots know anything about it? Peter Robison: That was the key problem. The pilots were not told about it. MCAS [Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System] was a piece of software that was designed to move the horizontal stabilizer at the back of the plane if the plane was pitching up and what were thought to be a rare situation that might have been caused by these bigger engines that you mentioned. The issue was that Boeing wanted to have the newest version of the 737 as exactly alike to the previous version as it could. And definitely what it wanted was to not have pilots need to have simulator training to fly this new plane. Because if they did, that would be costly for the airlines. They had promised Southwest [Airlines], for instance, $1 million a plane if it did have to do simulator training.
So, Boeing feared that if it told pilots about this piece of software, that would jeopardize its need to minimize training. So, Boeing didn't tell pilots this software existed. It didn't put a button in the cockpit that would've said “this new software is moving the tail of the plane”. It just trusted pilots to react. And that was the fundamental failure. And the other failure was that this piece of software was tied to a single sensor, the AoA [Angle of Attack] sensor, which in cases where it transmitted faulty data would activate the software and the software would repeatedly fire based on this faulty data, which was what happened in both crashes.
Ralph Nader: And the Airbus had three sensors, correct?
Peter Robison: Correct. The Airbus plane was developed in the 1980s. The Boeing 737 dates to the 60s.
Ralph Nader: And describe the horror in the cockpit. I mean, you had these pilots who were wondering what is going on here. The nose of the plane is being pushed down by some mysterious software. They were trying to look through the manuals. The software was not described in the manuals. They weren't trained with the MCAS. The FAA was hardly informed about the gravity of the software and so they didn't take any action. Put yourself in the pilots' position as you did in the book.
Peter Robison : Well, from the pilots' position, they're sitting next to each other and it's shortly after takeoff. This is almost routinely a smooth, unchanging part of the flight. Instead, what happens is they immediately get indicators showing faulty air speed, faulty altitude, hydraulic pressure problem. And so, they're looking at multiple problems and they don't know which it is. Boeing thought in its design assumptions that the pilots would also notice another thing, which is a wheel sitting between the two of them that moves when the stabilizer is moving. However, that wheel can also move in cases where the automatic trim is keeping the plane in tune with the airflow. So, in those cases, the pilots did not immediately recognize that the trim wheel is the thing they should have been focusing on.
And the many engineers and pilots I talked to said that the basic problem is really the flight deck. One longtime flight deck engineer described the flight deck as a clutch. It's a mix of philosophies over the four generations of the 737. So, you have some modern software elements. You have mechanical elements--cables and pulleys tying the stabilizer wheel to the tail at the back of the plane. So, what resulted was confusion. And I think it stems from the confusion of Boeing's design philosophy.
Ralph Nader: Well, the Indonesian plane was over the Java Sea. The Ethiopian plane was 32 miles outside of Addis Ababa Airport. They both crashed at 500 miles per hour or more. 346 people died, all the passengers and the crew. In the cockpit, in those terrifying six and a half minutes for the Ethiopian and [it] was a little longer for the Indonesian pilots, they were overpowered physically, weren't they? They were trying to overpower the stealth software that kept pushing the nose down. And how many times did the Indonesian pilot try to do that before he was overpowered by the stealth software?
Peter Robison: The Indonesian pilot used a switch on the wheel 21 times to push the nose back up. And then ultimately, the co-pilot took over. The chief pilot was trying to troubleshoot. And finally, they lost control of the plane and it crashed into the sea.
Ralph Nader: Well, there are well over 250 of the 737 Maxes up now flying daily around the world. There have been at least 11 incidents filed by pilots regarding flight control problems. What do you know about that?
Peter Robison: And it continues to be a plane that does not have the modern safety elements that other planes do. The Airbus competitor, as you mentioned, has three sensors on the AoA. It was designed from the start as a fly-by-wire electronic aircraft, so it has more integrated technology. I liken it to a car that lacks some of the modern blind spot technology. It may be safe, but a newer model would perhaps be safer.
Ralph Nader: And do you think that the FAA is getting tougher finally?
Peter Robison: The FAA was told to get tougher by Congress in the bipartisan Aviation Reform Bill [Aircraft Certification Reform and Accountability Act] that passed last year and the FAA was told to retake the authority in appointing the deputies at Boeing who oversee the certification of aircraft designs on behalf of the government. I know that some engineers at the FAA are skeptical that that message has gotten through to their managers over the last two decades, that the managers have been rewarded – according to people I talked to – for handing over more work, because that makes the FAA cheaper to run and that's been a goal of Congress. So, there was at least one FAA engineer who said that he's heard his managers referring to televised hearings, say, “Don't worry about what you're hearing.” This is going back a couple years, but you know, “Don't worry about that. This is posing for the cameras. Nothing will change.”
Ralph Nader: Well, in the last few months, the FAA has sent two tough letters, accusing Boeing of harassing their own appointed deputy inspectors in the factories who raise questions. They're being pressured--speed up the assembly line; we got to get these planes out. The second letter criticized Boeing for hiring less than technically qualified people to do the inspection as deputies under the arrangement between the FAA and Boeing. And the third is this lamination problem I mentioned earlier. So, it looks like the FAA is a little concerned about internal whistleblowing expanding. Some of the people in the FAA are getting bolder. They have a few better people in the FAA with the new [Joe] Biden administration although the administrator is still a [Donald] Trump holdover, Steve Dickson from Delta [Air Lines]. Do you see anything on the horizon to reassure air travelers that the pace of automation taking the controls increasingly away from pilots is going to be addressed?
Peter Robison: I think the FAA… as you mentioned, there are people within the FAA who are trying to take a tougher line, that perhaps the reason that Boeing 777X, the next new airplane, has been pushed at least two years past its initial deadlines is that the FAA is asking tough questions that it hadn't been asking before; the Aviation Reform Bill is also supposed to require that any new design looks carefully at human factors because the human factors were clearly not considered on the Max. So, we'll have to make sure that the human factors are truly getting a complete review, and also that they’re funded. There was some additional funding provided to hire additional experts at the FAA. But many people I talked to said it's not nearly enough to reverse the decline in funding over the last few decades.
Ralph Nader: Well, people, including reporters you know, are coming to the conclusion that Boeing is getting away with everything. The criminal complaint was settled for $2.5 billion by the Justice Department. They in effect cleared the top management [and] focused on two technical pilots. One of them, they're prosecuting is Mark Forkner whose lawyer is being paid by Boeing, even though Forkner is no longer working for Boeing. The shareholder suits have been settled. Boeing buys its way out. They spent $225 million to get out of a serious shareholder suit in Delaware. And they're about to do the same in a suit in Texas. All that remains now is the civil tort litigation by the families. And they're moving to buy their way out of that with a so-called stipulation that is gonna minimize the number of cases that are ever gonna see trial in the District Court in Chicago.
Am I correct in saying that that's sort of the way you ended your book? Your last paragraph is “After seeing the Justice Department’s settlement of ‘the 737 Max Fraud Conspiracy,’” as the press release put it, a pilot who worked with Forkner and [Patrik] Gustavsson,” those are the two Boeing technical pilots, “suggested a different headline.” A different headline than the 737 Max Fraud Conspiracy, I interject. And your last sentence is “It would say that Boeing got away with murder.” You wanna elaborate that?
Peter Robison: Yeah, I mean, that reflects the infuriation that many people I talked to felt-- people who worked at Boeing, the family members, pilots at airlines--felt that the managers at Boeing were the ones who had heaped on the pressure; they had reaped the rewards. Dennis Muilenburg left with a $60 million golden parachute and they were not being held to account. Dennis Muilenburg had to suffer through what I'm sure was a difficult day or two days of testimony, but he has started his own SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) and he is investing in electric tractor companies. And meanwhile, this relatively low ranking pilot is the sole person taking the heat. And as you say and as I reported in the book, he's being paid by Boeing. So, he's essentially the appointed fall guy. So, it is infuriating. And it gets back to the impunity that you raised at the beginning of the show.
Ralph Nader: Well, there's really a massive matrix of immunity. In Japan, if this happened, the board of directors and the executives would've met the press, bowed, and resigned. What happened in Boeing? Well, Muilenburg, as you say, was asked to resign, but he was given $66 million to go back to Iowa. The new CEO, [Dave] Calhoun, was under board of directors and he knew what was going on. Or if he didn't, he was culpable. The board of directors has changed a little bit, but until recently didn't have anybody with aerospace engineering expertise. It had the former governor of South Carolina that gave a big tax break to Boeing, Nikki Haley and the daughter of President John F Kennedy, former ambassador of Japan, Calhoun was on. But the board of directors really hasn't been replaced and the new CEO is Calhoun! So, that's part of getting away with it. It seems like every decade, Peter, these giant corporations get away in new ways, easier ways, more comprehensive ways. They are indeed in many ways above the law like Donald Trump. And I've read a lot of exposés of corporations and good reporters who are the authors just throw their hands up at the end on the last page. They just end with, “You know, here's a story,” and readers might have greater demands and ask, “What do we do for corporate reform here? What do we do about corporate crime, fraud, immunity, impunity, corporate welfare, too big to fail, too big to prosecute? Where is Congress here? Where is the Justice Department?”
So, I think if you're gonna continue your investigation of this, you might focus on the parameters of immunity, including the tort system. I always thought that's the one place they can't get away because trial by jury, court of law, press there, no secrecy. Well, they've managed to game that as well – Boeing and a lot of other companies like the Purdue Pharma and Sackler. No criminal prosecutions at the top. And it reveals, I think, a great frontier for reporters such as yourself to pursue. Obviously, you have to deal with inaction. Inaction isn't usually considered news. If the FAA over the years didn't act, it wasn't that newsworthy, even though it was lethal. What are your thoughts on that overall?
Peter Robison: Yeah. You raised a lot of interesting points. One thing that was pointed out to me about the Justice Department's deferred prosecution of Boeing was that the statement – explicitly made an exculpating statement. There was an exculpating statement about Boeing senior management in the deferred agreement, which surprised at least one source I talked to, who used to work with the DOJ [Department of Justice], and said that the Justice Department in the last days of the Trump administration had essentially granted Boeing a thing of value, that that was something that would help it in the litigation with shareholders you mentioned, and it closed off further avenues of investigation.
Ralph Nader: That's a very important point. Usually these things end with protective orders, gag orders. In other words, they put secrecy on the documents and the grand jury proceedings, etcetera, and the civil litigation. They call it a protective order where the plaintiff lawyers and defense lawyers agree when they settle for a dollar figure, that all the depositions and all the documents are secret forever; press can't get ahold of it. It's not a pretty picture. Even Senator Richard Blumenthal, who is probably the most articulate senator trying to do something about corporate crime, did not introduce the bill he introduced under the Trump administration to require criminal penalties for all these regulatory agencies.
People are surprised that the FAA doesn't have a criminal penalty. If there's woeful violation by the aircraft manufacturer of the airlines and people die, no criminal penalty! The auto safety agency, GM [General Motors] and others carved out, no criminal penalty. Well, as more than a few retired corporate executives have told me, Peter, without a criminal penalty, these guys don't pay attention. The only thing they fear is jail. And they're far from ever going to jail.
We've been talking with Peter Robison, author of Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing, published by Doubleday. [It has] all kinds of wonderful praise on the back by other investigative reporters; it’s very personal, very institutional. The whole range is covered in this book, historical, contemporary, the various personages, their personality quirks, their temperaments, their rage, their competence. Before we close, Peter, I want to have Steve and David pitch in here with whatever questions or comments. David?
David Feldman: Thank you, Peter. If the Justice Department broke up Boeing into three separate corporations, one division would be defense, space, and security. The other division would be commercial airlines and the third division would be Boeing capital. Which one of those three would have the biggest revenues? Would Boeing capital be the growth business? You know, Boeing lending out money the same way General Electric became more of a bank and GM became more of a bank. Are we finding that Boeing is getting more of its profits from lending money than making things?
Peter Robison: Well, the idea is that run well, they all benefit each other – that the military side provides stable revenues and government contracts; the commercial side requires deeper investments, longer term investments, but can be greater reward, and then the capital s side, as you say, becoming a bank. The thing I would fear if Boeing were broken up would be that the military side would get, you know, that would be sort of like the clean co and it would get the stable revenues and commercial side would be saddled with the debts and the pension obligations.
David Feldman: The fact that they get defense space and security contracts from the government, is that what makes them so lazy on the commercial airline side?
Peter Robison: They're just different businesses. The military and space side is more predictable, can be, and they can have a cost plus contract, where you get paid even if there's an overrun. And one issue that people pointed out to me was that Dennis Muilenburg spent a lot of his career in that military and space side and wasn't exposed as much to the commercial side and didn't have the same management skills when things went wrong there.
Ralph Nader: Well, that's putting it mildly. In your book, you say he was in charge of the contract with the [U S] Army to elaborate new military motor vehicles and their weaponry. And Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was so disgusted with Boeing's performance under Muilenburg’s supervision that he shut down the whole program. And it was a $20 billion loss to the taxpayer. Isn't that right?
Peter Robison: Yeah. Dennis Muilenburg 's career is sort of – I traced it in the background through the book and one interpretation is that he failed up. He also ran an air traffic control unit that Boeing ended up closing before he ran that Army contract.
Ralph Nader: And for all this, he gets promoted to CEO when the 737 Max has crashed under his watch. That's not a healthy sign for rewarding performance like Muilenburg.
Steve Skrovan: Peter, you write that in 2018, there were 40 total accidents, some nonfatal, with airplanes, and that 18 of them involved the 737. Knowing what you know, would you fly on a 737 Max or otherwise?
Peter Robison: I have not been. And that's just based on my own analysis of it. And in 2020, there was one fatal crash in every 3.7 million flights. And the Max, since it returned to service, has flown about 200,000 times. For me, I would like to give it more time.
Steve Skrovan: So, if we're giving practical advice to our listeners, would you advise them to find out what plane you're flying on when you make a reservation? If it's 737, say, “Put me on another plane.” Is that what you would do?
Peter Robison: I've talked to engineers at Boeing and the FAA--engineers who are making that choice as well for the time being.
Ralph Nader: I think there are two reasons, Steve. One is to punish Boeing by not giving it its business to fly on a 737 Max. That's one. Keep it alert. If there are a lot of boycotts of it, as we've been sponsoring, and people ask for another flight, they get feedback at Boeing from their airlines. And the second is Boeing doesn't get another free crash. So, it may fly a million, 2 million times, that 737, but if it crashes and kills its passengers and crew due to the same defect that led to the Indonesian/Ethiopian crashes, that's all people need to know. They don't get another free crash. They don't get another get-out-of-jail card. So, it's just a matter of consumers thinking this way and punishing Boeing to the extent that they can by their own rejection of flying on the plane.
Peter Robison: Right.
Ralph Nader: Anyhow, just one last question. You mentioned in your book that the state of Washington gave the biggest ever tax break, $6 billion plus, to Boeing for staying in Seattle. And then they moved part of the production to South Carolina. Was there a claw back where they had to pay back the state of Washington's tax break?
Peter Robison: No. And the legislature greatly regretted not having gotten that claw back.
Ralph Nader: Well, it's another example. See, they do these tax breaks on the condition that companies will maintain a certain level of jobs in the state and they don't. And the contracts often are not written with the claw back saying, “Hey, you only had half the number of jobs but we want 50% of our tax break returned to the state treasury.” Just another example of what corporations that size get away with.
Is there anything else you'd like to say to our listeners, Peter, before we close?
Peter Robison: Well, I really appreciate you having me, and, that's raised lots of new issues in my mind. So, I appreciate that. And I just wanna say that Boeing is – I wrote the book from the point of view of Boeing -- epitomizing what's happened across Corporate America. And you look at Purdue Pharma, you look at the performance of GE during this time period, and it's meant to be a cautionary tale that relates not just to Boeing, but to all of Corporate America.
Ralph Nader: Yeah. You point out how GE under Jack Welch had all these cost cutting, all the tough management, firing people who weren't in the top performance category, making huge money, increasing their stock, terrific dividends. And now, the result, GE has collapsed. It's not even on the New York Stock Exchange Dow [Jones Industrial Average]. It's broken up into three companies. Its stock has collapsed. So, that's the inheritance of Jack Welch and his chosen successor, Jeff Immelt. And I think you point out all of this very well, that these short-term tough guys who slash and burn and fire and outsource are laying the seeds for their own company’s demise.
Peter Robison: And Dave Calhoun is running Boeing now. He was a protege of Jack Welch and Welch’s former speechwriter called him “the guy most like Jack” in his mind.
Ralph Nader: Yep. Well, it's very good. Thank you very much, Peter. We'll be in touch very soon on these other stories. Listeners might wanna know that CBS in late January will have at least one-hour documentary on the 737 Max and Rory Kennedy is doing a historical documentary including the 737 Max that's coming out next year on Boeing. And I'm sure there are gonna be more books on Boeing, but yours was the first out of the box, an excellent body of reporting, Peter. Thank you very much.
Peter Robison: Thank you.
Steve Skrovan: We have been speaking with Peter Robison. We will link to his work at ralphnaradiohour.com. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, Ralph is gonna answer some of your questions. But first, let's check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, December 10, 2021; I'm Russell Mokhiber. If you want to spend a few minutes to understand how corporate power works to undermine justice in America, watch the New York Times online documentary, A Secret [Opioid] Memo that Could Have Slowed an Epidemic.
The memo in question is a more than 100-page prosecution memo written by federal prosecutors in Virginia in 2006. The epidemic was the opioid epidemic that has now killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The company in the crosshairs of the prosecutors – Purdue Pharma. Had the prosecutors been allowed to move on their memo and bring felony charges against key Purdue Pharma executives and proceeded in a full out prosecution of the company and its high ranking executives, the epidemic could have been limited, saving tens of thousands of American lives. But high-powered corporate criminal defense attorneys went over the heads of line prosecutors and limited the range and scope of the prosecution. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
by Ralph Nader
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 405 TRANSCRIPT
December 11, 2021
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/boe ... orporated/
Ralph Nader: Hello, everybody. I just wrote a column that reflected some of the frustrations of our listeners that they hear week after week exposes and nothing seems to happen. And so, I wrote an unusual column. You can go see it at nader.org and it basically lists 65 expose books on almost every industry from Wall Street and the coal industry to the military defense industry, and compared it to 1960s. And these books are terrific.
It's like the golden age of muckraking books and they've produced very little change as our democracy decays perilously, while three books in the 1960s, Michael Harrington's book on poverty in America called The Other America, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and my book, Unsafe at Any Speed, really put forces in motion – public education, major TV outlets, talk shows like Phil Donahue, congressional hearings, legislation, prosecutions. So, we have an opportunity with Peter Robison on his book on Boeing to ask that tough question. Where does it go from here? Because the documentation of criminal negligence is overwhelming.
Steve Skrovan: Well, that's a very good segue, Ralph, to this show because last week we saw what happens when drug companies get to write their own rules with government regulators. The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] let Purdue Pharma literally write their own drug approval for OxyContin and things are fine. Of course not. The opioid epidemic devastated countless lives and rages on to this day and the corporate criminals right off into the sunset with a slap on the wrist and billions of dollars in blood money.
Well, today we're gonna look at another corporate nightmare that's shaping up to be a carbon copy of that narrative – Boeing and the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. Our guest will be Peter Robison. In his new book, Flying Blind[: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing], he chronicles the rise and decay of Boeing and the development of their death trap, 737 Max. We've covered Boeing's malpractice and the resulting tragedies in Indonesia and Ethiopia often on this show.
On today's program, we'll talk to Mr. Robison about his book, what went wrong at Boeing, and how they ended up in charge of their own safety compliance. If we have time, Ralph answer some of your listener questions. As always, somewhere in the middle, we'll check in with our relentless corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, why aren't government overseers doing more to keep a dangerously flawed plane out of the sky, David?
David Feldman: Peter Robison is an investigative journalist for Bloomberg and Bloomberg Businessweek and the author of Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Peter Robison.
Peter Robison: Thanks very much for having me.
Ralph Nader: Yes. Welcome, Peter. This book is in a way a history of Boeing's commercial aircraft business. You wanted to put the 737 Max disaster in broader context as to what led to it. And the first question is, has Boeing responded at all to this book? You're in Seattle. I think you did Seattle Town Hall. You have the Seattle Times that has done good work exposing Boeing 737 Max disaster. Has Boeing replied in any way?
Peter Robison: I've had no official comment from Boeing and I had no official comment from any of the questions I submitted. I had a single official comment and it was defending Boeing. It made one statement defending its accounting practices on a different plane, the [Boeing] 787. Ralph Nader: But not directly to your book.
Peter Robison: No, no.
Ralph Nader: This is typical practice, listeners. They feel so secure that they don't have to respond at all. This is a heavily documented book, heavily footnoted. Peter has been covering Boeing for many years and no response. It shows you the security of very powerful corporations. How about the FAA? Any response from the FAA?
Peter Robison: None. Either before or after.
Ralph Nader: Another example. Government agencies have now adopted the practice over the last few decades of just no comment. Justice Department has no comment when nonenforcement of its statutory duties is called in question reliably and accurately. The FAA is notorious for no comment. And of course, in Peter's book, he shows how close the FEA is to Boeing in terms of delegating the certification of its parts and its planes to Boeing representatives on the factory floor. How about Congress? Did anybody in Congress, any House Transportation [Committee], Senate Transportation Committee?
Peter Robison: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has been active on this issue. They published a report, which I relied on heavily in the book. And they've since issued more requests to the FAA for further information about what it's doing to monitor Boeing.
Ralph Nader: So you think the book helped prod that? They didn't actually react to the book directly?
Peter Robison: I think that committee in particular has been very active and they may have felt that the book was another opportunity to look again.
Ralph Nader: Okay. Just to give you an idea of the decay. When Wesley Smith and I produced this book in 1993 called Collision Course: The Truth about Airline Safety, Peter DeFazio gave a terrific blurb saying this book should require you to call every member of Congress and he gave the numbers of the switchboard and Congress. You see the difference? No. Tell us how Boeing turned from a proud engineering corporation into a financial institution, which led to all kinds of cost-cutting, outsourcing, degradation of their engineering staff and a high focus on stock buybacks, the stock price bonuses – as if they were just a financial company. Trace it back. Because, listeners, this is extremely important to see how corporations are deteriorated by placing commercial interests over the quality of its own product.
Peter Robison: That's a great question. And I wrote a book about it. It's got parts and subparts but one thing that that surprised me in researching the book was a moment that I covered, which was in 1985, on Boeing’s 747 crash. And you know, the company had really created the jet age with its innovative products, but it wasn't flawless. It made mistakes. And this 747 crash and it was a terrible accident and 520 people died. The Japanese authorities were settling in for what they expected would be a long investigation, tough negotiations, to determine the cause. But within a month, Boeing issued a statement and had said, “It was our fault. We had done a bad repair job in our own factory and it's our fault.”
That's ‘85. Now moving forward, I started covering Boeing in the late 1990s and that was a period when the idea of shareholder capitalism was really ascendant. You had the Business Roundtable, the lobbyists for the biggest US companies, put out a statement saying that in terms of the corporate governance, the shareholders are the primary responsibility of any company. And as long as the shareholders are taken care of, employees, customers, communities would also be taken care of.
So, that was a surprising sentiment to many of the engineers that I talked to at Boeing because in the late 90s, a CEO named Phil Condit took charge of the company and he really idolized and feared in some ways Jack Welch, who was the CEO of General Electric [GE], which was considered the prime example, the model of what an American CEO of a publicly traded company should be. And from that point, Phil Condit pursued basically a copycat strategy of GE; Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago with the idea being that it would be just like GE, which had its headquarters in Fairfield [IL]. It could run these vast businesses by playing off communities [and] playing off workers in different parts of the country.
And the prime thing it started doing was to start buying back its own stock, which seems like an arcane thing, but it diverts a huge portion of the company's cash directly to shareholders. When in the 80s Professor William Lazonick at UMass [University of Massachusetts] traced this. In the 80s companies were only diverting about 4% of their profits to shareholders through buybacks. And more recently, it's been about half. And that's exactly… but Boeing actually took it farther. In the period they were developing the Max, they were sending 80% of their free cash to shareholders.
Ralph Nader: Let's elaborate that. It's a very important point for our listeners. When companies like Boeing spend over 50% of their profits on stock buybacks, they're disinvesting in engineering, research, and development in their own company, because the stock buybacks have a different ratio to help the price of the stock although it dissipates after a while and doesn't have the touted benefits that corporate executives claim for it.
But after the Lion [Aircraft] crash in Indonesia, Peter, as you know, [Dennis] Muilenburg, the CEO, went to the board of directors and got approval for $20 billion stock buyback, which was suspended after the Ethiopian crash in March of 2019. And that money was enough to have built a new plane in 2011 instead of just providing another version of the ancient 737 with its outsized engines in a plane called the 737 Max.
So, listeners, when you hear about all these stock buybacks, that's just not something that the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] may be interested in or permitting. It's not something that some financial people on Wall Street…. It's burning money. It's not creating jobs. It's not expanding pensions. It's not developing research and development. I've had people in the know about corporate management say whenever they hear about a stock buyback, they say the management isn't competent because they don't have any more productive or compassionate uses for the money. Like Apple [Inc.] just announced earlier this year a $90 billion stock buyback and the toxic results of its spent computers that have to be dismantled by poor people in third [world] countries. That doesn't get any investment in terms of recycling safety. So, that's a very important part of what you wrote about.
One thing about this book, listeners, it's very personal. He talks about CEOs and rising engineers and advisors and lawyers like [Albert] Ludwig, CEOs like [Harry] Stonecipher and Muilenburg in very personal terms. And I admire the range here [chuckle] and I want to give you an idea of the range. When Boeing moved to Chicago, they said it was an efficiency move. And on page 47, Peter describes the offices in Chicago “19th century rugs, an antique French barometer topped with a curved Eagle, a glass scepter, an English Regency gilt mirror among the objects of art dotting its leather and wood executive suites. The white column hallway and wooden floors inlaid with oak and mahogany and the office of chairman evoked the colonial gentleman's estate.”
The move from Seattle of its headquarters shocked a lot of Boeing employees. But as you point out, it foreshadowed a move of some productive facilities to low-wage labor, not very skilled in South Carolina. Tell us the significance of this whole strategy by Boeing. What's it driving for in the coming years in terms of where it's gonna produce and how it's gonna break the union. Peter Robison: Right. Those are all fascinating points just to the idea of buybacks relating directly to the product lines. Dennis Muilenburg's predecessor as CEO directly addressed this point in 2013, when he laid out this plan that it had to return a larger portion of cash to shareholders. And he said that Boeing had the flexibility to do that because it had the best products, which was a recognition that he was taking money from products. But to his mind, it didn't need to invest in them. And we saw what happened with the Max. And I should add in that I'm very sorry for your loss of [your niece] Samya [Stumo]. I know in researching the book what a special person she was as were all of the victims.
So, what I found [was] that over time, Boeing moved from a company that was an association of engineers to a company that was ultimately financially oriented; that was the same orientation that that GE had. And part of that strategy involved moving to lower cost labor sources. And so, Boeing moved a huge – at first about half the production of the 787 and eventually all of the production of the 787 to South Carolina. It has since had multiple problems with costs. It's taken billions of dollars in charges. It's had manufacturing defects that arose in part because of problems with the South Carolina workforce, but also because of problems with the vastly outsourced engineering and manufacturing on that plane. And it directly relates to this decision to change the way Boeing had always done it.
I was fascinated to learn that on the 747, in the 60s, Boeing faced almost exactly the same choice. There were executives who were pushing for Boeing to build this new factory for the plane in Walnut Creek, California because they thought that would help it be in a larger state, maybe win more military contracts in the long run. But Joe Stutter, who was the chief of engineering on that plane, said no, that he thought it would add costs and it would add complexity, and you needed to have people closely located for a product as complicated as a commercial airplane with hundreds of thousands of parts.
Ralph Nader: Well, one of the examples you give in your book is that when they moved to South Carolina, I guess for its [Boeing 787] Dreamliner production, they sent one of their top quality control inspectors there, actually who got a prize for moral courage by my sister's Callaway Award [for Civic Courage] a couple years ago. He found terrible conditions. I mean, all kinds of implements left inside parts of the plane after it was completed and he didn't blame the workers. The workers just were not adequately trained and supervised. And in your book, you say they were being paid $14 an hour. And the same workers in Seattle who lost their jobs were being paid $28 an hour. That's the main incentive?
Peter Robison: It's a large incentive but also for control of the workforce that the unions in the Seattle area had developed a power base of their own. And the company, they said in their own documents, which were later revealed in an NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] case, the company felt that it would reset the relationship if they had another workforce in South Carolina, which also happened to be a lower paid workforce, to leverage against the union workforce in Seattle.
Ralph Nader: Another point you make is quite compelling. We're talking with Peter Robison, author of Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing, is the outsourcing. Now, outsourcing has run amok. The US government outsources hundreds of billions of dollars of governmental functions. We read about obviously outsourcing of the military to contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. I mean, they're doing almost everything but piloting the helicopter gunships. And corporations – large ones – have begun doing this under the argument that it's gonna save money. And so I wanna read, with your indulgence, Peter, on page 85, a report that a Boeing person produced in February 2001. His name was John Hart-Smith and he called the paper “Our Out-sourced Profits – The Cornerstone of Successful Subcontracting”. And he laid out his own experience at Douglas Aircraft, how parceling the construction of the [McDonnell Douglas] DC-10 had impoverished the company while enriching its suppliers.
And here's the quote from your book. “The basic point was that outsourcing is never simple. Design specifications actually had to be more precise because any omissions would lead to costly disputes involving lawyers. Making sure the work got done right led to additional overhead costs that no one had counted on. Finally, all those extra costs had the perverse effect of making the company doing the outsourcing look less efficient than the ones it awarded business to--a vicious cycle that only encouraged more of the same destructive behavior.” Isn't it true that Boeing’s giant planes have outsourcing contracts to literally hundreds of companies around the world? Peter Robison: They do. And the number of them has accelerated in recent decades.
Ralph Nader: And the recent problem [that] the FAA uncovered, the lamination problem with the Boeing 787, traced to an Italian company that provided less than an adequate subcontracting performance. And now we have Boeing in trouble with this because this could lead in a couple years or three years and a plane is up on the air to rather serious safety problems. What did Boeing say to you when you raised these outsourcing issues in your reporting career? Not just in this book.
Peter Robison: They have, for the most part, said that it's necessary, that in some cases it may help win business. You know, an airline in another country may want some portion of the work in exchange for that. Boeing has acknowledged some problems with it too. In the early 2000s, Boeing took a plant in Wichita that makes the fuselage for the 737 and sold it. And so, that's now owned by another company and these precise issues that I described in that section you read cropped up. The supplier ended up taking more of the profits; there was more overhead involved in dealing with them. And Boeing finally did admit that it made a mistake in selling off that plant.
Ralph Nader: Is there something to suspicion that their contracts outsourcing to Japan and China have something to do with a quid pro quo, trying to get Japan and China to buy its finished plane in competition with Airbus?
Peter Robison: Yeah, I think that's something that happens both on the military and the civil side of the business. You know, Japan is a large supplier to Boeing and it's also been a large buyer of Boeing airplanes.
Ralph Nader: Now, just to go back to how they treat conscientious engineers and quality control inspectors, the gentleman I mentioned who was sent by Boeing to oversee quality control in the South Carolina new plant, where the workers were being paid $14 an hour, his name is John M. Barnett. And he was the quality control manager for Boeing for 25 years in its Seattle facility. And in 2011, he was transferred to the Boeing new plant in South Carolina, right outside Charleston, to build the 787 Dreamliner. And he revealed shotty production. And that was reported on page 1 of the New York Times in April 2019.
Then he retired under pressure and assumed the challenge to inform the flying public. He went public. And he filed the formal whistleblowing complaint to OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], which is still pending. Describe the climate for these engineers in Boeing. They used to have great stature, great respect. Boeing was founded by an engineer. Describe the situation now – the morale, the stature, the extent to which they have access to top management, the board of directors, or lack of access.
Peter Robison: Repeatedly, there are cases where engineers either feel that they can't raise issues, that that would be negative for their careers, or when they do have the courage to raise an issue, it's shot down. There was a case where one young engineer named Curtis Ewbank asked repeatedly for a more sophisticated type of flight control on the Max. And ultimately, after the third time, he was told no. And one of his managers told him that people will have to die before Boeing will change things.
It's been a company that's had employees running scared because it's had layoffs even in years when its profits and revenue were relatively good. It had layoffs and forced buyouts through the engineering staff. So, I talked to many engineers who said they were told to lay low. In terms of whistleblowers, there's a case that I described in the book where an employee at a military plant in Texas points out to his bosses that Boeing has been overcharging for years and he had the time sheets and the documentation to prove it. And he was greeted with hostile questions from a Boeing lawyer and ultimately fired though the he later joined a whistleblower suit and Boeing did pay a fine in that case. So, that's the climate.
Ralph Nader: And the union is getting weaker?
Peter Robison : As with all unions around the country. The moves that Boeing has done both in engineering and in manufacturing to other states has dramatically weakened the leverage of the unions.
Ralph Nader: Well, let's question your subtitle. You say “The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing”. You don't really believe that Boeing is falling. They're too big to fail with NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] contracts, defense contracts, huge tax breaks, quasi-monopoly with Airbus on big passenger aircraft. What did you mean the fall of Boeing? Was it just a trip? And now they're recovering with big subsidies and indirect subsidies to the airline customers after the pandemic started. How do you define the fall of Boeing?
Peter Robison: That's a really good question. Initially, the working title was “The Lost Soul of An American Icon”, which was meant to represent its lost engineering soul. The fall represents the fall in its reputation, the fall and public confidence, all those issues. But as you point out, it is a duopoly. Customers are returning to the Max. They don't have any other choices. The Airbus assembly lines are sold out. And in multiple ways, both private investors and the government have found ways to support Boeing.
Ralph Nader: Well, one thing about this book, listeners, is it actually puts you in the cockpit of the Indonesian and Ethiopian planes. I don't know where you got so many of your sources. Really quite impressive, Peter. But for those listeners who are asking, Well, what was wrong with the 737 Max other than its aerodynamic instability issue and the race to counteract the competition from the Airbus 320neo? Tell us in as simple language as you can what was this software that took control of the plane from the pilot. And did the pilots know anything about it? Peter Robison: That was the key problem. The pilots were not told about it. MCAS [Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System] was a piece of software that was designed to move the horizontal stabilizer at the back of the plane if the plane was pitching up and what were thought to be a rare situation that might have been caused by these bigger engines that you mentioned. The issue was that Boeing wanted to have the newest version of the 737 as exactly alike to the previous version as it could. And definitely what it wanted was to not have pilots need to have simulator training to fly this new plane. Because if they did, that would be costly for the airlines. They had promised Southwest [Airlines], for instance, $1 million a plane if it did have to do simulator training.
So, Boeing feared that if it told pilots about this piece of software, that would jeopardize its need to minimize training. So, Boeing didn't tell pilots this software existed. It didn't put a button in the cockpit that would've said “this new software is moving the tail of the plane”. It just trusted pilots to react. And that was the fundamental failure. And the other failure was that this piece of software was tied to a single sensor, the AoA [Angle of Attack] sensor, which in cases where it transmitted faulty data would activate the software and the software would repeatedly fire based on this faulty data, which was what happened in both crashes.
Ralph Nader: And the Airbus had three sensors, correct?
Peter Robison: Correct. The Airbus plane was developed in the 1980s. The Boeing 737 dates to the 60s.
Ralph Nader: And describe the horror in the cockpit. I mean, you had these pilots who were wondering what is going on here. The nose of the plane is being pushed down by some mysterious software. They were trying to look through the manuals. The software was not described in the manuals. They weren't trained with the MCAS. The FAA was hardly informed about the gravity of the software and so they didn't take any action. Put yourself in the pilots' position as you did in the book.
Peter Robison : Well, from the pilots' position, they're sitting next to each other and it's shortly after takeoff. This is almost routinely a smooth, unchanging part of the flight. Instead, what happens is they immediately get indicators showing faulty air speed, faulty altitude, hydraulic pressure problem. And so, they're looking at multiple problems and they don't know which it is. Boeing thought in its design assumptions that the pilots would also notice another thing, which is a wheel sitting between the two of them that moves when the stabilizer is moving. However, that wheel can also move in cases where the automatic trim is keeping the plane in tune with the airflow. So, in those cases, the pilots did not immediately recognize that the trim wheel is the thing they should have been focusing on.
And the many engineers and pilots I talked to said that the basic problem is really the flight deck. One longtime flight deck engineer described the flight deck as a clutch. It's a mix of philosophies over the four generations of the 737. So, you have some modern software elements. You have mechanical elements--cables and pulleys tying the stabilizer wheel to the tail at the back of the plane. So, what resulted was confusion. And I think it stems from the confusion of Boeing's design philosophy.
Ralph Nader: Well, the Indonesian plane was over the Java Sea. The Ethiopian plane was 32 miles outside of Addis Ababa Airport. They both crashed at 500 miles per hour or more. 346 people died, all the passengers and the crew. In the cockpit, in those terrifying six and a half minutes for the Ethiopian and [it] was a little longer for the Indonesian pilots, they were overpowered physically, weren't they? They were trying to overpower the stealth software that kept pushing the nose down. And how many times did the Indonesian pilot try to do that before he was overpowered by the stealth software?
Peter Robison: The Indonesian pilot used a switch on the wheel 21 times to push the nose back up. And then ultimately, the co-pilot took over. The chief pilot was trying to troubleshoot. And finally, they lost control of the plane and it crashed into the sea.
Ralph Nader: Well, there are well over 250 of the 737 Maxes up now flying daily around the world. There have been at least 11 incidents filed by pilots regarding flight control problems. What do you know about that?
Peter Robison: And it continues to be a plane that does not have the modern safety elements that other planes do. The Airbus competitor, as you mentioned, has three sensors on the AoA. It was designed from the start as a fly-by-wire electronic aircraft, so it has more integrated technology. I liken it to a car that lacks some of the modern blind spot technology. It may be safe, but a newer model would perhaps be safer.
Ralph Nader: And do you think that the FAA is getting tougher finally?
Peter Robison: The FAA was told to get tougher by Congress in the bipartisan Aviation Reform Bill [Aircraft Certification Reform and Accountability Act] that passed last year and the FAA was told to retake the authority in appointing the deputies at Boeing who oversee the certification of aircraft designs on behalf of the government. I know that some engineers at the FAA are skeptical that that message has gotten through to their managers over the last two decades, that the managers have been rewarded – according to people I talked to – for handing over more work, because that makes the FAA cheaper to run and that's been a goal of Congress. So, there was at least one FAA engineer who said that he's heard his managers referring to televised hearings, say, “Don't worry about what you're hearing.” This is going back a couple years, but you know, “Don't worry about that. This is posing for the cameras. Nothing will change.”
Ralph Nader: Well, in the last few months, the FAA has sent two tough letters, accusing Boeing of harassing their own appointed deputy inspectors in the factories who raise questions. They're being pressured--speed up the assembly line; we got to get these planes out. The second letter criticized Boeing for hiring less than technically qualified people to do the inspection as deputies under the arrangement between the FAA and Boeing. And the third is this lamination problem I mentioned earlier. So, it looks like the FAA is a little concerned about internal whistleblowing expanding. Some of the people in the FAA are getting bolder. They have a few better people in the FAA with the new [Joe] Biden administration although the administrator is still a [Donald] Trump holdover, Steve Dickson from Delta [Air Lines]. Do you see anything on the horizon to reassure air travelers that the pace of automation taking the controls increasingly away from pilots is going to be addressed?
Peter Robison: I think the FAA… as you mentioned, there are people within the FAA who are trying to take a tougher line, that perhaps the reason that Boeing 777X, the next new airplane, has been pushed at least two years past its initial deadlines is that the FAA is asking tough questions that it hadn't been asking before; the Aviation Reform Bill is also supposed to require that any new design looks carefully at human factors because the human factors were clearly not considered on the Max. So, we'll have to make sure that the human factors are truly getting a complete review, and also that they’re funded. There was some additional funding provided to hire additional experts at the FAA. But many people I talked to said it's not nearly enough to reverse the decline in funding over the last few decades.
Ralph Nader: Well, people, including reporters you know, are coming to the conclusion that Boeing is getting away with everything. The criminal complaint was settled for $2.5 billion by the Justice Department. They in effect cleared the top management [and] focused on two technical pilots. One of them, they're prosecuting is Mark Forkner whose lawyer is being paid by Boeing, even though Forkner is no longer working for Boeing. The shareholder suits have been settled. Boeing buys its way out. They spent $225 million to get out of a serious shareholder suit in Delaware. And they're about to do the same in a suit in Texas. All that remains now is the civil tort litigation by the families. And they're moving to buy their way out of that with a so-called stipulation that is gonna minimize the number of cases that are ever gonna see trial in the District Court in Chicago.
Am I correct in saying that that's sort of the way you ended your book? Your last paragraph is “After seeing the Justice Department’s settlement of ‘the 737 Max Fraud Conspiracy,’” as the press release put it, a pilot who worked with Forkner and [Patrik] Gustavsson,” those are the two Boeing technical pilots, “suggested a different headline.” A different headline than the 737 Max Fraud Conspiracy, I interject. And your last sentence is “It would say that Boeing got away with murder.” You wanna elaborate that?
Peter Robison: Yeah, I mean, that reflects the infuriation that many people I talked to felt-- people who worked at Boeing, the family members, pilots at airlines--felt that the managers at Boeing were the ones who had heaped on the pressure; they had reaped the rewards. Dennis Muilenburg left with a $60 million golden parachute and they were not being held to account. Dennis Muilenburg had to suffer through what I'm sure was a difficult day or two days of testimony, but he has started his own SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) and he is investing in electric tractor companies. And meanwhile, this relatively low ranking pilot is the sole person taking the heat. And as you say and as I reported in the book, he's being paid by Boeing. So, he's essentially the appointed fall guy. So, it is infuriating. And it gets back to the impunity that you raised at the beginning of the show.
Ralph Nader: Well, there's really a massive matrix of immunity. In Japan, if this happened, the board of directors and the executives would've met the press, bowed, and resigned. What happened in Boeing? Well, Muilenburg, as you say, was asked to resign, but he was given $66 million to go back to Iowa. The new CEO, [Dave] Calhoun, was under board of directors and he knew what was going on. Or if he didn't, he was culpable. The board of directors has changed a little bit, but until recently didn't have anybody with aerospace engineering expertise. It had the former governor of South Carolina that gave a big tax break to Boeing, Nikki Haley and the daughter of President John F Kennedy, former ambassador of Japan, Calhoun was on. But the board of directors really hasn't been replaced and the new CEO is Calhoun! So, that's part of getting away with it. It seems like every decade, Peter, these giant corporations get away in new ways, easier ways, more comprehensive ways. They are indeed in many ways above the law like Donald Trump. And I've read a lot of exposés of corporations and good reporters who are the authors just throw their hands up at the end on the last page. They just end with, “You know, here's a story,” and readers might have greater demands and ask, “What do we do for corporate reform here? What do we do about corporate crime, fraud, immunity, impunity, corporate welfare, too big to fail, too big to prosecute? Where is Congress here? Where is the Justice Department?”
So, I think if you're gonna continue your investigation of this, you might focus on the parameters of immunity, including the tort system. I always thought that's the one place they can't get away because trial by jury, court of law, press there, no secrecy. Well, they've managed to game that as well – Boeing and a lot of other companies like the Purdue Pharma and Sackler. No criminal prosecutions at the top. And it reveals, I think, a great frontier for reporters such as yourself to pursue. Obviously, you have to deal with inaction. Inaction isn't usually considered news. If the FAA over the years didn't act, it wasn't that newsworthy, even though it was lethal. What are your thoughts on that overall?
Peter Robison: Yeah. You raised a lot of interesting points. One thing that was pointed out to me about the Justice Department's deferred prosecution of Boeing was that the statement – explicitly made an exculpating statement. There was an exculpating statement about Boeing senior management in the deferred agreement, which surprised at least one source I talked to, who used to work with the DOJ [Department of Justice], and said that the Justice Department in the last days of the Trump administration had essentially granted Boeing a thing of value, that that was something that would help it in the litigation with shareholders you mentioned, and it closed off further avenues of investigation.
Ralph Nader: That's a very important point. Usually these things end with protective orders, gag orders. In other words, they put secrecy on the documents and the grand jury proceedings, etcetera, and the civil litigation. They call it a protective order where the plaintiff lawyers and defense lawyers agree when they settle for a dollar figure, that all the depositions and all the documents are secret forever; press can't get ahold of it. It's not a pretty picture. Even Senator Richard Blumenthal, who is probably the most articulate senator trying to do something about corporate crime, did not introduce the bill he introduced under the Trump administration to require criminal penalties for all these regulatory agencies.
People are surprised that the FAA doesn't have a criminal penalty. If there's woeful violation by the aircraft manufacturer of the airlines and people die, no criminal penalty! The auto safety agency, GM [General Motors] and others carved out, no criminal penalty. Well, as more than a few retired corporate executives have told me, Peter, without a criminal penalty, these guys don't pay attention. The only thing they fear is jail. And they're far from ever going to jail.
We've been talking with Peter Robison, author of Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing, published by Doubleday. [It has] all kinds of wonderful praise on the back by other investigative reporters; it’s very personal, very institutional. The whole range is covered in this book, historical, contemporary, the various personages, their personality quirks, their temperaments, their rage, their competence. Before we close, Peter, I want to have Steve and David pitch in here with whatever questions or comments. David?
David Feldman: Thank you, Peter. If the Justice Department broke up Boeing into three separate corporations, one division would be defense, space, and security. The other division would be commercial airlines and the third division would be Boeing capital. Which one of those three would have the biggest revenues? Would Boeing capital be the growth business? You know, Boeing lending out money the same way General Electric became more of a bank and GM became more of a bank. Are we finding that Boeing is getting more of its profits from lending money than making things?
Peter Robison: Well, the idea is that run well, they all benefit each other – that the military side provides stable revenues and government contracts; the commercial side requires deeper investments, longer term investments, but can be greater reward, and then the capital s side, as you say, becoming a bank. The thing I would fear if Boeing were broken up would be that the military side would get, you know, that would be sort of like the clean co and it would get the stable revenues and commercial side would be saddled with the debts and the pension obligations.
David Feldman: The fact that they get defense space and security contracts from the government, is that what makes them so lazy on the commercial airline side?
Peter Robison: They're just different businesses. The military and space side is more predictable, can be, and they can have a cost plus contract, where you get paid even if there's an overrun. And one issue that people pointed out to me was that Dennis Muilenburg spent a lot of his career in that military and space side and wasn't exposed as much to the commercial side and didn't have the same management skills when things went wrong there.
Ralph Nader: Well, that's putting it mildly. In your book, you say he was in charge of the contract with the [U S] Army to elaborate new military motor vehicles and their weaponry. And Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was so disgusted with Boeing's performance under Muilenburg’s supervision that he shut down the whole program. And it was a $20 billion loss to the taxpayer. Isn't that right?
Peter Robison: Yeah. Dennis Muilenburg 's career is sort of – I traced it in the background through the book and one interpretation is that he failed up. He also ran an air traffic control unit that Boeing ended up closing before he ran that Army contract.
Ralph Nader: And for all this, he gets promoted to CEO when the 737 Max has crashed under his watch. That's not a healthy sign for rewarding performance like Muilenburg.
Steve Skrovan: Peter, you write that in 2018, there were 40 total accidents, some nonfatal, with airplanes, and that 18 of them involved the 737. Knowing what you know, would you fly on a 737 Max or otherwise?
Peter Robison: I have not been. And that's just based on my own analysis of it. And in 2020, there was one fatal crash in every 3.7 million flights. And the Max, since it returned to service, has flown about 200,000 times. For me, I would like to give it more time.
Steve Skrovan: So, if we're giving practical advice to our listeners, would you advise them to find out what plane you're flying on when you make a reservation? If it's 737, say, “Put me on another plane.” Is that what you would do?
Peter Robison: I've talked to engineers at Boeing and the FAA--engineers who are making that choice as well for the time being.
Ralph Nader: I think there are two reasons, Steve. One is to punish Boeing by not giving it its business to fly on a 737 Max. That's one. Keep it alert. If there are a lot of boycotts of it, as we've been sponsoring, and people ask for another flight, they get feedback at Boeing from their airlines. And the second is Boeing doesn't get another free crash. So, it may fly a million, 2 million times, that 737, but if it crashes and kills its passengers and crew due to the same defect that led to the Indonesian/Ethiopian crashes, that's all people need to know. They don't get another free crash. They don't get another get-out-of-jail card. So, it's just a matter of consumers thinking this way and punishing Boeing to the extent that they can by their own rejection of flying on the plane.
Peter Robison: Right.
Ralph Nader: Anyhow, just one last question. You mentioned in your book that the state of Washington gave the biggest ever tax break, $6 billion plus, to Boeing for staying in Seattle. And then they moved part of the production to South Carolina. Was there a claw back where they had to pay back the state of Washington's tax break?
Peter Robison: No. And the legislature greatly regretted not having gotten that claw back.
Ralph Nader: Well, it's another example. See, they do these tax breaks on the condition that companies will maintain a certain level of jobs in the state and they don't. And the contracts often are not written with the claw back saying, “Hey, you only had half the number of jobs but we want 50% of our tax break returned to the state treasury.” Just another example of what corporations that size get away with.
Is there anything else you'd like to say to our listeners, Peter, before we close?
Peter Robison: Well, I really appreciate you having me, and, that's raised lots of new issues in my mind. So, I appreciate that. And I just wanna say that Boeing is – I wrote the book from the point of view of Boeing -- epitomizing what's happened across Corporate America. And you look at Purdue Pharma, you look at the performance of GE during this time period, and it's meant to be a cautionary tale that relates not just to Boeing, but to all of Corporate America.
Ralph Nader: Yeah. You point out how GE under Jack Welch had all these cost cutting, all the tough management, firing people who weren't in the top performance category, making huge money, increasing their stock, terrific dividends. And now, the result, GE has collapsed. It's not even on the New York Stock Exchange Dow [Jones Industrial Average]. It's broken up into three companies. Its stock has collapsed. So, that's the inheritance of Jack Welch and his chosen successor, Jeff Immelt. And I think you point out all of this very well, that these short-term tough guys who slash and burn and fire and outsource are laying the seeds for their own company’s demise.
Peter Robison: And Dave Calhoun is running Boeing now. He was a protege of Jack Welch and Welch’s former speechwriter called him “the guy most like Jack” in his mind.
Ralph Nader: Yep. Well, it's very good. Thank you very much, Peter. We'll be in touch very soon on these other stories. Listeners might wanna know that CBS in late January will have at least one-hour documentary on the 737 Max and Rory Kennedy is doing a historical documentary including the 737 Max that's coming out next year on Boeing. And I'm sure there are gonna be more books on Boeing, but yours was the first out of the box, an excellent body of reporting, Peter. Thank you very much.
Peter Robison: Thank you.
Steve Skrovan: We have been speaking with Peter Robison. We will link to his work at ralphnaradiohour.com. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, Ralph is gonna answer some of your questions. But first, let's check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, December 10, 2021; I'm Russell Mokhiber. If you want to spend a few minutes to understand how corporate power works to undermine justice in America, watch the New York Times online documentary, A Secret [Opioid] Memo that Could Have Slowed an Epidemic.
The memo in question is a more than 100-page prosecution memo written by federal prosecutors in Virginia in 2006. The epidemic was the opioid epidemic that has now killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The company in the crosshairs of the prosecutors – Purdue Pharma. Had the prosecutors been allowed to move on their memo and bring felony charges against key Purdue Pharma executives and proceeded in a full out prosecution of the company and its high ranking executives, the epidemic could have been limited, saving tens of thousands of American lives. But high-powered corporate criminal defense attorneys went over the heads of line prosecutors and limited the range and scope of the prosecution. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour
by admin » Sun Dec 19, 2021 4:51 am
Corporate Crime Pays!
by Ralph Nader
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 400 TRANSCRIPT
November 6, 2021
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/cor ... rime-pays/
Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan. David Feldman is having technical issues so he won't be joining us today, but we do have the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. And Ralph, this is our 400th program.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, 400 programs, many of them not replicated by any radio, commercial or nonprofit or public press or NPR [National Public Radio], right.
Steve Skrovan: You are correct, sir. And they're all archived at ralphnaderradiohour.com if you want to catch up on the 400. But this is kind of a landmark episode for us. And today, appropriately enough, we're gonna talk about a subject that is most definitely in our wheelhouse, corporate crime. Our guest will be Mihailis Diamantis, law professor at the University of Iowa and the organizer of last month’s Imagining a World without Corporate Criminal Law symposium. The symposium brought together top corporate crime scholars to explore what corporate punishment would look like if criminal liability was off the table. How would regulatory agencies and our civil legal systems step in? What could replace criminal prosecution for punishing corporate offenders and pursuing justice for victims? Do we actually have a system of corporate criminal law in the US or have we been duped?
We'll ask Professor Diamantis about what he hopes to accomplish with the symposium and delve into his own contribution to the argument which he coauthored with W. Robert Thomas entitled But We Haven’t Got Corporate Criminal Law! Then we'll will revisit another favorite subject, the Post Office. The US Postal Service delivers almost half of the world's mail annually. They serve 160 million addresses. At nearly 250 years old, after a couple of facelifts, they're on time more than 90% of the time. Pretty good for a semiquintennarian. Don't worry, I did the math on that.
Our second guest, historian Christopher Shaw, has written extensively about the vital role of the Post Office as a democratic public service. We’ll ask him about his upcoming book, First Class: The US Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat. As always, we'll check in with our own resolute corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, if PG&E [Pacific Gas and Electric Company] can set fires, Takata [Corporation] can blow up people's cars, and Nestlé [S.A.] can use slave labor to harvest cocoa, does that mean arson, murder, and slavery aren't crimes anymore? Mihailis Diamantis is a professor of law at the University of Iowa, where he specializes in corporate crime and legal theory. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Professor Mihailis Diamantis.
Mihailis Diamantis: Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Ralph. I'm grateful to be here. Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed, Mihailis. We see you as a rising phoenix from the often moribund law schools when it comes to teaching corporate crime and researching it. We're in a corporate crime wave in this country and around the world. It's been that way for many years because the law has never caught up with corporate criminality. The recent exposures of financial crimes, the Panama Papers, the Pandora Papers, trillions of dollars being socked away, tax evasion around the world, major wealthy corporate interests involved. They set up hundreds of shell corporations. We have the Sackler opiate escape from corporate criminal law. Boeing [Company] has escaped for its killing 346 people with premeditated risky software trying to substitute for an aerodynamic problem with the 737 Maxes.
So here's my first question. Tesla[, Inc.] as the combined stock valuation of the top seven other auto companies, including GM [General Motors Company] and Volkswagen and Toyota [Motor Corporation]. Elon Musk runs Tesla. He has put on the road these autopilots and these autonomous car experiments. There are not that many of them, but they've already killed or injured 12 people. He has known about this. He keeps putting the same autopilot with a little software alteration. He refuses to recall the cars. He's being investigated by the Department of Transportation. Those cars are now a risk to life and limb on the roadways. He won't recall them as I noted. Is he a prospect for a manslaughter prosecution?
Mihailis Diamantis: I think Elon Musk might be. I would first, though, probably focus on Tesla itself as a corporation. Part of what you're getting at here is, as you mentioned in your opening remarks, that our law of corporate liability is ancient. It has not been updated [so] it is literally ancient. It's this old doctrine called respondeat superior, which literally dates back to Roman times. It governed the liability that slaveholders had for the torts and the misconduct of their slaves.
And one of the things which I find particularly concerning about the artificial intelligence driving systems and the Tesla automobiles that are causing these accidents is that they don't fit neatly into this framework that we have for corporate liability. Since it was designed in ancient times, it requires a human being to engage in the misconduct for it to be attributable to the principle – in this case, the corporation.
But what you see corporations doing a lot of times these days is when they have an algorithm, an d artificial intelligence that ends up causing some kind of harm, you see the corporation saying it wasn't us; it was the algorithm. And since you don't have a person there, you have an algorithm rather than a human employee, these doctrines we have for corporate liability turn up short. We've seen prosecutors decline to pull cases/to pursue cases in circumstances where self-driving cars have run over people because they literally can't find the driver through whom to channel liability to the corporation. So given my interest in corporate criminal, that'd be the first place that I would focus. I think it'd be a fact-intensive case to look at Elon Musk individually, but I could see a case developing in there, particularly under some version, maybe of responsible corporate officer doctrine, which allows in certain circumstances attribution of corporate misconduct, or misconduct by subordinates within a corporation, all the way up to hierarchy to the executive officers.
Ralph Nader: Well, let's turn to the Sackler family in the opiate epidemic. There's a huge public record on that. And the settlement allowed the Sackler family to avoid criminal prosecution. They had to pay $4 billion over time. They have $13 or so billion left. It raises the question: Can you really have corporate criminal law enforcement unless you also have corporate criminal executive enforcement? In other words, not just the artificial entity of the corporation chartered by the state. Financiers don't create corporations; the state provides charters for these corporations; their birth certificate financiers fund them. But can you really have one without the other?
Mihailis Diamantis: Well, as a matter of legal doctrine, you can't really have one without the other. In order to have a corporate prosecution, as I said, you gotta find some individual criminal within that corporation. But just as a matter of common sense and good enforcement policy, you can't have effective corporate criminal regulation without pulling the one-two punch of both pursuing the corporation and any responsible identifiable individuals within the corporation. It's individuals that run corporations [so] you got to get at them. It’s their interest. If you're gonna be able to move them to move the corporation, that's the first fulcrum of influence that you have.
Ralph Nader: How do you analyze the Sackler prosecution and their corporation? Give us your view on that.
Mihailis Diamantis: So I would say there's, again, probably a pretty good case against some individual Sacklers involved in the management of Purdue [Pharma L.P.] under the responsible corporate officer doctrine. Just one amendment to your opening about the description of the Purdue case. I don't believe as part of the bankruptcy settlement the Sacklers got immunity from criminal prosecution. I think it was just from civil suits related to opioid distribution. So there's still some remote possibility that DOJ [Department of Justice] or some attorney general somewhere is gonna pick up a case against individual Sacklers, so it's becoming an increasingly remote possibility.
One of the frustrating things about this case as well is that through the bankruptcy, as you know, the Purdue Pharma is now basically in public trust. Or if the bankruptcy proceeds, it’s gonna be in public trust operated for the benefit of the victims. And there's no way that we're gonna get a criminal case against Purdue Pharma either given that it's now being operated for the benefit of the victims themselves. So this, to my mind, is one of the most egregious corporate violations in American history. And we are unlikely to see criminal prosecution of either individuals within Purdue, within the Sackler family or of Purdue itself.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with Mihailis Diamantis, full professor of law at the University of Iowa. We're now in an era of no-fault corporate criminality. We're now in an era where corporate thieves almost never go to jail. The crooks in Wall Street in 2008 were given a pass by [Barack] Obama when he became president. Only a few years earlier, 800 executives in the savings and loan rackets were prosecuted and sent to jail. So the situation is getting worse and worse. I remember in 1970, I wrote a letter to President Richard Nixon urging him to have the Justice Department put out a report on corporate crime. In those days, the phrase ‘corporate crime’ was never used. It was all white-collar crime like a bank teller cheating the bank instead of the banks ripping off their customers Wells Fargo [& Company] style in the hundreds of thousands of fake accounts that they established. I got no answer. In the subsequent years, we have failed to get any comprehensive congressional hearings on corporate crime. Once in a while, there'd be a bill introduced by Congressman John Conyers on endangerment, but it wouldn't go anywhere. Both parties would never talk about corporate crime--how it affects consumers, workers, the environment, communities, patients, children, you name it, in their campaigns. It's a taboo. And as I noted, the immunity and impunity of corporate crime and corporate criminals running these corporations has only in increased as the brilliant strategies and tactics of their corporate law firms become more and more embedded in the reality of the enforcement system at the federal and state level.
So let me ask you this question. Before we get to the lack of any corporate criminal code to speak of, how many of these settlements, these non-prosecution agreements [NPA], deferred prosecution agreements [DPA] or not bringing any grand juries to the pursuit of these corporate crooks at all, are due to the total understaffing of the Justice Department – federal [District Attorney] DAs around the country, state DAs [District Attorneys] around the country and state attorney generals? One law firm, Baker Botts [LLP], for example, has more lawyers than the entire number of lawyers working environmental crimes and antitrust crimes in the Justice Department--just one Houston law firm of hundreds of that size. So how much of it is a deliberate budget squeezing by a corporate lobbyists at the state and federal legislative levels to make sure there are very few federal cops on the corporate crime beat?
Mihailis Diamantis: I wouldn't be able to put a number on the number of deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements that are attributable to lack of budget. And just for the listeners out there, a deferred prosecution or non-prosecution agreement is basically a kind of settlement that the DOJ/Department of Justice will cut with a suspected corporate criminal to basically keep the corporate criminal out of trial so they never have to plead guilty to a crime, and so they never have to face a jury or be convicted by a jury. They can negotiate particular terms, whatever the DOJ wants to extract, some combination of fines or suggestions of compliance reform. I don't think the absolute number of deferred prosecution/non-prosecution agreements is really the number that we should be focusing on. Rather, it's the number of DPAs and NPAs that go to the largest corporate criminals. We have a fair number, still a piddling amount, but a relatively large number of prosecutions against small and mid-sized corporations engaged in localized crime. But it's really these biggest corporate criminals – the ones we've been talking about on this show and that you talked about in previous interviews that are getting the deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements.
Now there's several reasons for that. One, as you certainly point out, is budgetary restrictions. It takes a lot of money to investigate a corporation and corporations are a lot of times willing to shell out money to outside law firms to conduct the investigation proactively themselves, rather than have the DOJ come in and do it. And the DOJ, because of budget restrictions, is happy to defer that responsibility to the corporations. But I think in addition to budget squeezing, what we also have is a lack of expertise within the DOJ, that I don't know if they’d know how to carry out an investigation like this; [or] if most of the prosecutors in the DOJ would even know what to look for. So there's also a lack of expertise within the DOJ in terms of conducting these investigations. So that's another reason that I think they're happy to defer to outside law firms paid for by the corporation suspected of crime to basically do the investigation themselves, and then put up in some polished memo to the DOJ [as] an explanation of the corporation's story about what happened to lay the groundwork for negotiating one of these prosecution agreements.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, that's one of the scandals of so-called corporate crime enforcement. They let the law firms report back. They might be considered a little biased. Let's look at the role of these corporate law firms. They're all officers of the court. They're supposed to adhere to professional codes of conduct. Do you think that they engage more often than is generally reported in criminal enterprises that they're actually in collusion [that] they actually devise the strategies, the arguments, the lobbying power for evasion of criminal laws, evasion of tax laws, evasion of environmental laws?
Mihailis Diamantis: If we are talking of about complicity of the law firms in their negotiation with the DOJ and the formulation of a responsive strategy on behalf of the corporation, I would be hesitant myself without strong data to impugn the professional integrity of the lawyers. I was one of them. I worked as corporate defense attorney. It’s how I got into this area of research in the first place. They have a professional responsibility and I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt that they take it seriously.
Now, as part of taking it seriously, there's obviously gonna be a lot of cognitive bias. There's gonna be a lot of sympathetic relationships that develop in the course of an investigation compounded by the fact that these attorneys are hired and they have a professional obligation to zealously represent their clients – in these cases, the corporations that they are investigating. So part of what they're supposed to do is to formulate a sympathetic story about the misconduct that the DOJ suspects might have taken place. I do think it's problematic to outsource so much of this investigative responsibility to private law firms hired by and paid for by the corporations who are suspected of engaging in misconduct in the first place. So that'd be one of the first places that I would look.
Ralph Nader: Well, you know at law school, we're all taught that attorneys should zealously advance the interests of their clients. But I'm not asking the question on when the companies get in trouble, how do these corporate law firms try to defend them? I'm asking a more basic question, which is almost all of these corporate crimes globally and nationally and locally involve schemes that are drafted, conceived, sometimes brilliantly, by corporate law firms. The financial schemes behind all these reports that we read about in the press [and] payday loan rackets. They’re schemes; they’re contractual impositions on their victims – small print contracts. There are finance schemes in terms of monopolizing markets. You have schemes behind Google [LLC] and Facebook and Pfizer [Inc] and ExxonMobil. So we're not talking about defending when they're caught or when they're under investigation. What kind of responsibility do they have for these schemes? Because these schemes not only deal with tax avoidance or law avoidance, they deal with evasion. Outright criminal behavior is enabled by these schemes including destroying documents. They have a fancy word for it in corporate law firms called document retention. Go ahead.
Mihailis Diamantis: Yeah, I suspect and I have a high level of confidence that there are some attorneys who are engaged and complicit in their corporate clients' criminal misconduct. Again, without a good amount of data, I'd be hesitant to impugn the profession more generally. This might be a little Pollyannaish of me, but my first place that I go to when I see a problem is not to blame individuals, but to look for perhaps systemic problems that are pushing individuals to behave in ways that are concerning to us.
So what we have in white-collar criminal law generally is a very ambiguous and poorly drafted code. You look at false claims; you look at mail and wire fraud; you look at insider trading; you look at many of the statutes that corporations are routinely suspected of violating. And what you see is a few words on a piece of paper, which courts then expanded into a very complicated doctrine that still has a lot of gaps in it. It's a fundamental problem of unclarity in our whitecollar criminal law. And so there is a fuzzy boundary between what counts as a sharp dealing and what counts as criminal misconduct. And it's a boundary that I think Congress needs to firm up. Now, as far as the attorneys are concerned, they have this ambiguous law that they're dealing with and trying to advise their clients about how to comply with it. And they themselves face a fuzzy boundary between zealous representation of their client in the face of an ambiguous law, giving them meaningful advice, and crossing over that line into something which borders on complicity in the corporation's misconduct. And it's hard to say – because the line hasn't been defined for us yet – what's on one side and what's on the other. So I think we need more clarity there as well.
Ralph Nader: Well, you know, we've just compiled 35 book titles documenting corporate criminality, very well footnoted. One just came out on the Sackler family, for example. There'll be ones on Boeing. There'll be ones on the oil industry, Wall Street. There already have been. I mean there's plenty of existing documentation and the manslaughter charges have been on the books for years. If you drive a car erratically because you're inebriated down a road and you kill a pedestrian, you can be prosecuted and go to jail. Corporations can refuse to recall cars with lethal defects, which result in death or injury, and they're almost never prosecuted. And I don't understand why some DAs do not use traditional manslaughter law. It's not first degree murder; it's not second degree. It's involuntary manslaughter against these corporations or corporate executives. What's the reluctance?
Mihailis Diamantis: I think the reluctance is that we're both against corporate executives and against the corporations themselves. I mean, you've pointed here to a clear law that we've had on the books. You kill someone with criminal negligence and you're on the hook for manslaughter. The problem here, I think, goes back to a) the antiquated doctrine we were talking about, and b) the standard of proof the prosecutors have to meet. So in order to prosecute an individual, the prosecutor has to be able to show or believe they'll be able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the elements of the crime were satisfied. And that turns out to be really difficult when you're engaging with a corporation, which is an information black box if the corporation decides not to cooperate; and an information black box where anytime you pull open the lid, all you see is people pointing fingers at each other. It's very hard to reconstruct where the lines of responsibility are. And oftentimes what you'll see is that maybe there's no single individual responsible. You have kind of a diffused responsibility, and so maybe there's not any individual that is solely responsible for the catastrophe that resulted. Now, this has important implications for whether prosecutors can pursue these kinds of cases against corporations themselves. Because under that antiquated rule, respondeat superior or let the master answer, the prosecutor has to be able to find some individual who satisfies the elements of the crime and then be able to, through them, attribute the crime to the corporation. But when you have these distributed types of crimes where each person is contributing maybe just a little bit to a catastrophic harm, you can't find that individual. It’s a real case.
Ralph Nader: How about a solution? What if we had a law that required large corporations to appoint a compliance officer, who is responsible for the conduct of the corporation? And so the prosecution can be focused on the compliance officer's negligence, indifference, corruption. So you pinpoint an office in a corporation and try to avoid the very real problem you pointed out, which is diffusion vertically and horizontally, of responsibility for any particular decision, like building a Corvair or the 737 Max. What's your view on the compliance officer approach?
Mihailis Diamantis: So, I think they have something similar to this, not necessarily a compliance officer, but in Japan, and I had a student once told me from Guatemala, so maybe in Guatemala as well, that there's the executive officer responsible for going to jail if the corporation commits a crime. And so you do have somebody, some token figurehead, who can take the fall if the corporation does something bad. So presumably they're gonna be incentivized to really investigate and find out any problems. I'm not aware of this being an effective system of prevention, in part because there's nothing that one individual can do to manage a corporation that has hundreds of thousands of employees. I think that a lot of these problems are systemic rather than necessarily the responsibility of individuals. And I'd be hesitant to throw someone in jail when maybe even despite their best efforts, there are malicious employees through the corporate hierarchy who perhaps even subvert the compliance mechanisms that the individual put in place. What I think we need is…
Ralph Nader: To be sure, yeah, you have to have evidence of culpability, indifference, collusion on the part of the compliance officer. Let's go to another approach here. Do you think that we should revive the pulling of the corporate charter, throwing the company into a kind of environmental bankruptcy, creating a trustee, removing the rulers of the corporation, the officers, the board of directors? And there's precedent for that. In the late 19th century the Standard Oil [Company] of Ohio got its charter pulled and they didn't think it was that big a deal. You don't shut down the corporation; you just reconstitute it with the new governance. You see any opportunities there to pick some corporations and file at the state level for revocation of the charter?
Mihailis Diamantis: Absolutely. Absolutely. I would hesitate to say revocation and threatened dissolution because I think that would exacerbate some of the problems we have already with prosecutors not wanting to bring cases against corporations for fear of driving them out of business. But in terms of perhaps even temporarily nationalizing certain egregious corporate criminals for the purposes of revising their governments and having some mandatory compliance review and reform directed by a government entity rather than by a law firm or private compliance company hired by the corporation itself; I do see a lot of promise there.
Ralph Nader: It's not putting them out of business, Mihailis.
Mihailis Diamantis: Yeah.
Ralph Nader: It's putting the corporate crooks at the top out of business and reconstituting/reforming the structure with a trusteeship and then putting it on the straight and narrow path.
Anyway, that's one approach. In one of your articles, you have a very seminal paragraph I wanna read to our listeners. It's very short but listen carefully and you'll see how important the insights are. This is a paragraph by Professor Mihailis Diamantis, full professor of law at the University of Iowa, College of Law in Iowa City.
“Criminal justice has four distinctive features. 1) utilizes uniquely demanding procedure, 2) to target the worst defenders with 3) the harshest penalties, and 4) society's deepest moral condemnation. The United States’s purported system of corporate criminal justice lacks all four features. The biggest corporate criminals routinely sidestep all criminal procedure and any possibility of conviction by cutting deals with prosecutors, trading paltry fines and empty promises of reform for government press releases praising their cooperation. The real question is not whether the United States should retain corporate criminal law, but what it would take for the United States to have a corporate criminal justice system in the first place.”
Now I remember the government took Pfizer to court for promoting off-label uses of its drugs. Now doctors can do it, but corporations who sell the drugs can't do it, and they settled for several hundred millions of dollars. And I remember people came to me and said, See, the system works. And I said to them, Well, Pfizer probably made far more than that. And the fines, given the size of Pfizer and the volume of sales, is nothing more than tollgate slap on the wrist.
So wouldn't you say now, even at the highest levels of crackdown on corporate crooks, that what it really boils down to [is] nobody goes to jail, except maybe the janitor, and there's a tollgate by the Justice Department under pressure of corporate law firms. And said, if you pay this much, you're clear. Isn't it really a tollgate system? A commercial dollar tollgate system, and in some instances, even deductible.
Mihailis Diamantis: I couldn't agree more, Ralph. The fact is that corporate crime pays in the United States. The average fine for corporate criminal resolution with the DOJ is just 0.04% of market capitalization. The DOJ gets to represent when it publishes the press release about these deferred prosecution agreements that, Hey, we have pulled/extracted $100 million, maybe a couple billion dollars from one of these corporations. And it impresses people like the listener who came and said to you, look it works. But the fact of the matter is that these numbers, which seem astronomical to us individuals, are drops in the bucket when we're talking about these massive corporate behemoths--the ones who are most likely to a) engage in this type of criminal conduct and b) the most likely to get some of these sweetheart deals from the DOJ.
And so, the conclusion that I take, if I was just a corporate exec without a moral compass, or if I could embody myself as a corporation without a moral compass, it is in my economic interest to engage in the type of conduct that Purdue engaged in [and] engage in the type of conduct that you described Pfizer engaging in.
Ralph Nader: By way of exemplifying what you just said, the Justice Department under [Donald] Trump actually convened a grand jury on the Boeing 737 Max crashes. And it went on for months. Nobody knew what was being heard or ordered in terms of documents; it was pretty secret. And then suddenly on January 5th, 2021, just before Trump left office, the Justice Department announced a deal where Boeing admitted criminal conduct on behalf of two of its test pilots, but not Boeing executives, got wording saying “Boeing executive culture is not attached to this criminal conduct.” And they had a $250 million fine, and about a $1.7 billion assignment of Boeing money to the airline, and $500 million for the families who lost their loved ones in the two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Now, that's two and a half billion for a really massive corporate crime that has not finished its story yet. And in December 2018, at a board of directors meeting of Boeing, CEO [Dennis] Muilenburg proposed a $20 billion stock buyback – one of many – and they approved it and later withdrew it after the Ethiopian crash. But here it is, just one year, [and the] pleased board of directors rubber stamped $20 billion in stock buybacks [that] doesn't create any jobs, [is] totally unproductive, and usually done to improve the metrics of executive compensation. So that's what you're talking about. I mean, even when they do have a grand jury and they do come to a settlement, it's utterly trivial in terms of monetary bite. And also a lot of what Boeing is paying for these disasters is insurable, deductible, and under the strange nature of corporate accounting, in some respects, depreciable.
So, we have to look at all the fundamentals, which is pulling the charter, establishing a real corporate criminal code that requires structural vulnerability inside the corporation so we don't get this diffused problem; gets rid of mens rea for corporations, and more basically establishes for large companies a new federal chartering so that state chartering out of Delaware or Reno is replaced for large companies by federal chartering. We can bring up the birth certificate and the accountability of the constitution of the corporations, which is the charter, up to date. This was proposed by William Howard Taft over a hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt over a hundred years ago, and most recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren. What do you think of that?
Mihailis Diamantis: Ralph, I think you're going in exactly the right direction. In fact, I would double down on the direction that you're going. I think that focusing on the fines in a settlement, like the one that Boeing reached, is in some sense a misdirection. The Boeing fine ended up being about 8% of its annual pre-crash revenues. If you were an average American with an average salary that equates about $4,100 for the 346 deaths that Boeing caused. It turns out that fines beyond the legitimate use that they have of making sure that victims of the corporate misconduct are adequately compensated, have very little impact on corporate behavior--not just because they're so small, but also because to have a fine big enough to move a corporation, you need a fine that will put the corporation out of business!
The thing that really ticks me off about the Boeing settlement is not the small value of the fine, which itself is just expressively egregious, but is instead the fact that Boeing, a repeat offender who had entered into a settlement with the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] just less than three years before its first 737 Max crash over similar safety issues, got away from the DOJ without any oversight of the reforms that it promised to implement – reforms to its culture, which whistleblowers and investigations have revealed, put profits over safety. Instead, all the Boeing got away with with the DOJ was a promise to reform its compliant systems on its own and then to submit annual reports to the Department of Justice drafted by Boeing and their inhouse attorneys that you were talking about earlier to the DOJ. That's just a promise to do better in the future. Boeing already violated the trust implicit in its charter to conduct business in a lawful manner. I think what we need to do in the criminal justice system, corporate criminal justice system, is exactly the direction that you're pushing. Perhaps deemphasize fines and emphasize instead mandatory government directed reform in the one mechanism of which might be the sorts of public trust that you were describing.
Ralph Nader: I mean, that's what federal chartering can do. It could embrace a lot of the kind of proposals that you and others are advancing just to come up to date. I mean, these state chartering laws are ancient. They cannot address global corporate power skipping out of different jurisdictions, pitting jurisdictions against each other. And by the way, the deal that the Justice Department met on January 5th with Boeing didn't even require a corporate monitor. Mihailis Diamantis: Exactly.
Ralph Nader: It usually requires corporate monitors to report from year to year to see whether the deferred prosecution agreement should be ended or no longer deferred with a renewed prosecution. Well, we're out of time, unfortunately. We've been speaking with Professor Mihailis Diamantis of University of Iowa College of Law and a leader in the deliberative process about what are we gonna do with these gigantic artificial entities called corporations, who have been given by judicial decisions, all the rights of human beings. But they have immunities, privileges, and sheer capital power that no human being could ever attain. And [that] raises the question as to whether there can ever be equal justice under the law with these giant corporations unmoored from constitutional, statutes, and international treaties. Thank you very much, Mihailis.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, Ralph. Thank you, Stephen. It was a pleasure.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Mihailis Diamantis. We will link to his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, why does Congress keep letting the dogs loose on the Post Office? But first, let’s check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, November 5th, 2021; I'm Russell Mokhiber. The Federal Trade Commission [FTC] is sending nearly $60 million to more than 140,000 Amazon[.com, Inc.] drivers. The funds will serve as reimbursement for tips that Amazon allegedly illegally withheld from drivers between 2016 and 2019.
In 2021, the FTC brought a lawsuit against Amazon and its subsidiary, Amazon Logistics, alleging that the company failed to fully pay tips that drivers in its Amazon Flex program had earned. Amazon Flex drivers deliver goods and groceries ordered through programs like Prime Now and Amazon Fresh. The complaint alleged that the company secretly kept drivers’ tips over a two-and-a-half year period and only stopped the practice after becoming aware of the FTC’s investigation. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russel. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. I’m Steve Skrovan along with Ralph. Why does the Postmaster General keep trying to slow down the mail? Well, we're gonna ask that question of our next guest. Christopher Shaw is an author, historian, and former project director at the Center for Study of Responsive Law. His latest book is First Class: The US Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Christopher Shaw.
Christopher Shaw: Oh, glad to be back.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, Chris. I think a lot of people who have been watching the Postal Service in recent months have been wondering why the Democrats, who now have a majority on the Board of Governors of the US Postal Service, have not tried to ease out Louis DeJoy, who is Trump's nominee and who had business dealings profiteering off the Postal Service and who was accused by the very Democrats that now are not easing him out of trying to disrupt the collection and transmission of absentee ballots.
Christopher Shaw: Well, first off, you raise a really good point, which is that the Postmaster General is no longer and hasn't been for 50 years directly appointed by the president. It is by the Board of Governors that as oversight of the US Postal Service. And the thing is, is that that body was the one that selected Louis DeJoy and it has affirmed its support of his policies and they still hold a majority. Those first Board of Governor members who picked this guy in the first place still have a majority on the board. So, practically speaking, he's there until they decide to get rid of him, until we have some more governors rotate off and some new people maybe come on, [and] we get a different mix, a different perspective on DeJoy’s tenure. But until that happens, he's still there. And DeJoy has been very combative in saying that he intends to remain in place and get used to him, and he'll be there for a long time. So he's not interested in leaving either.
Ralph Nader: Am I missing something? Clearly, DeJoy was Trump's nominee. He was a big supporter financially of Trump's campaign. And he was Trump's nominee. And it went over to the Board of Governors, which was controlled by Republicans. And they installed him as Postmaster General. But I thought there were three or four new nominees by [Joe] Biden who have been confirmed by the Senate and that was supposed to give the Board of Governors a majority in the hands of the Democrats.
Christopher Shaw: Well, so right now, there's four Republicans, there's one Independent, and there's four Democrats. But in total, there's still the six governors that picked DeJoy the first place; all six of them are still there. So even though you have the three new governors there, they still definitely hold a majority. Now, there are two spots opening up in December and there's a potential that Biden could pick two new members of the board. And they could come in and send the leadership in a different direction and pivot away from DeJoy. That could happen, but we'll have to wait and see what happens in December when those two spots open up. Otherwise, what could happen is the existing board would just go on and continue those expiring terms for an additional year.
Ralph Nader: Well, I stand corrected. How long is this term?
Christopher Shaw: DeJoy can be in there as long as the governors want him to be. There's no specific expiration date.
Ralph Nader: What do you think of his October 1st decision to slow down First-Class Mail? Why would he think that it's more expensive to send letters from California – airmail – to the East Coast than it is to put them in trucks taking three and a half days on the highway to get them to the East Coast?
Christopher Shaw: DeJoy comes out of the trucking business. I think he's a big believer in the trucking business and there have been issues with air transportation, especially in the last year or so with commercial flights being canceled and things like that. But what is happening here is this is a very short term calculus. And the thing is if you're a postal official, you have direct immediate control over the expenses. So you can always cut those. And then it looks like your financers are getting better. So they tend to look at that side of the ledger more than the revenue side of the ledger. And how do we generate new revenues, where you have to be innovative and creative to do that. And you don't necessarily have complete control over what happens.
So DeJoy has moved in the direction here of cost cutting like so many Postmaster Generals before him. But what it means is that, for instance, if you're in the Northeast there, you used to get First-Class Mail. It would be three days coast to coast, anywhere in the country. Now, if you're mailing a letter from the Northeast, once you get West of the Mississippi River, it's going to be four days also down in the Deep South in Florida. And then once you get to the Rocky Mountains and to the West Coast, it's five days. And it used to be that that mail that now takes five days to get down to the Rockies and out to the Pacific Coast. That used to be the time to get a letter out to Guam. So it's definitely a major slowdown and it's especially impacting certain areas of the country, particularly the extremities of the country. Anytime you start reducing service, that's gonna discourage people to use this agency. So I think there's definitely a potential for revenues actually to decrease because they're cutting service.
Ralph Nader: Well, the right-wing approach to destabilize and diminish the Postal Service and try to privatize more of it, or corporatize more of it, was you cut the service and you raise the postal rates, which is really not a very good business strategy if your interest is in expanding postal services, modernizing it, and doing what many of us, including you, Christopher Shaw, in supporting the reemergence of postal banking. Now, as a flicker of light here, on taking postal banking, which was operating for the first 60 some years of the 20th century, and then under commercial banking pressure, it was a ended around 1967. But now because there's over 30 million people who are unbanked or underbanked, because they just can't afford the fees of banks and banks don't think they're profitable enough to provide them with accounts, they would be natural customers of the reentry of the postal banking service at 33,000 post offices and branches all over the country. Tell us what's going on in that area.
Christopher Shaw: We've had a significant breakthrough. It's the first major step. Or really, at this point, it's actually just a minor step, but it looks major because it’s the first thing that has happened at all since the Post Office stopped accepting savings deposits back in 1966 when they got rid of the savings bank the Post Office used to operate. And so it's small. There's four post offices--one in the Bronx, one in Baltimore, one in Washington, D.C., and one in Falls Church, Virginia. And they are now open to cashing payroll checks and business checks. And so you can go into these post offices and you can cash those checks and you can get the money put on a debit card and it's a single-use debit card, and then you can use that debit card at any location that would accept it. So this move into accepting cashing checks is actually a major step. And there's definitely already resistance from existing check cashing outlets that charge very high fees and also the banking lobby has also voiced its complaints about this. And there's hope; the idea here is that going forward this will be expanded to new and greater things. So for one, the card could be made reloadable. It could be possible then if they put a no-fee ATM machine in the post office that you could use it to actually draw out cash using the card inside the post office and domestic money transfers from one post office to another and also potentially bill payment services. These would all be under the legal purview, a lot of experts think, of the Post Office-- offering these without having major legislative change. So these are definitely the first steps we've seen towards Post Office banking. And the interesting thing here is that it's happening under Louis DeJoy. Because if you look at his predecessor, Megan Brennan, the American Postal Workers Union, this has been age priority for them for years. And they actually had in their collective bargaining agreement that she should explore this. Well, she did not do that. If you look at her predecessor, Patrick Donahoe, he flatly rejected the idea. And, Ralph, if you remember, 15 years ago, when we spoke to John Potter, who was Postmaster General then, he never followed up on the idea either. So it's actually Louis DeJoy where we're seeing the first step towards anything like reviving the bank at the Post Office.
Ralph Nader: You know, I circle in Congress and a lot of people in Congress don't really use the Postal Service. You see in the garages trucks from UPS [United Parcel Service] [and] trucks from FedEx [Corporation]. They don't even prefer US Postal Service trucks! Tell our listeners why you think the Postal Service or the old US Post Office is so critical in the future. I mean in the past they bound the country together; they were known for reliability. You could send a letter 3,000 miles or 30 miles and it's the same postage stamp in terms of cost. They even delivered eggs overnight. People would put a letter in the morning in their town and the person received it in the afternoon. And now we have far fewer post boxes on city streets. You have far fewer postal workers. But tell us how relevant, especially in the era of emergency and rural areas, the Postal Service still is.
Christopher Shaw: Well, I think that history that you're describing, that history of being an agency that binds the nation together, that history of providing uniform universal service to everybody on a democratic basis, which is an affirmation of democratic ideals in this nation, I think that's still very relevant today and it can be something that we should see going forward that the Postal Service continues to promote. And specifically, if we look at democracy, the Post Office from the very beginning, the idea is it was going to transport communications, so we're going to have better educated citizens in this new experiment and republican government distributing newspapers at a lower cost. People are better informed. While they still do that today, there's no reason why we can't have…we're still doing this, but we should be looking towards perhaps having the Post Office offer email accounts, perhaps having a postal search engine. There's no reason that can't transition to electronic services--that same idea of a wellinformed citizenry and the Post Office as an agency of government that helps that to happen.
Also, the fact is that there are lots of people who are postal dependent. They do not have access to broadband internet, for instance. And the Postal Service is the one universal communications system that is accessible to everybody. And so the Postal Service provides service in rural areas where a for-profit business never would go, because the profit just wouldn't be there. And so if you took away the Postal Service, these places would be left out of communications; these individuals would not be able to participate and communicate with others. So these are things the Post Office is doing now. It needs to continue to do it. And also, the financial services we were just talking about--banking for all these people who are being left out. There are 8 million unbanked households without any bank account who have to pay very high fees just to do basic things like cash a check. These are people too that the Post Office can serve. So the Post Office has a great tradition of helping democracy, of serving everyone in an equal manner, of disseminating information and news. And these things are all just as important in the 21st century. So I think it's important to have a reimagining and an updating and an expansion of what the Post Service is.
Ralph Nader: And that's what your new book is all about. Your new book is First Class published by City Lights in San Francisco, a progressive publisher. We're very proud to be a part of your long-term effort, having worked with you on a prior report on the Postal Service. You have a PhD in history from University of California, Berkeley. And I think that more radio stations should interview you at the local level. And there is a group in Washington that is coordinating this. Just contact area code (202) 421-6858; that's (202) 421-6858. And they can arrange an interview with Christopher Shaw on all these matters. Just by way of proportion, Chris, the Democrats and Republicans in the House committee recently added $20 billion to the military budget [that’s] $20 billion more than President Biden asked the Congress to give. Give an example of the size of the Postal Service, what's its revenues, and what $20 billion would do to the Postal Service upgrade and expansion.
Christopher Shaw: The Postal Service’s annual revenues are around $70 billion/$80 billion. It's a lot of variance that’s been going on because of COVID[-19] and how that has changed everything in terms of how the society is operating. It's had a lot of financial problems that has everything to do with this mandate to pre-fund its retirees’ health benefits 75 years into the future at the tune of 5.5 billion over 10 years that no other government agency attempts to do; no other private corporation attempts to do. So, that's really responsible for maybe as much as 90% of the Postal Service’s financial losses.
But if you're constantly operating under financial pressure and under these thin margins, then you don't invest in your infrastructure, and it begins to deteriorate. And you especially see this with the postal trucks. So they're trying to replace those now, but you have trucks on the road that are 30 years old, still. You have a whole network of post offices. And then you have all these ideas that could be pursued that have not been pursued. 20 billion dollars could go a long way in all kinds of directions here. One thing just to point out is the Postal Service has never been able to have its own airline. It's dependent on commercial passenger airlines and actually on his competitors, FedEx and UPS, to move anything by air. There's no reason the Postal Service shouldn't have its own airline just like FedEx and UPS have. So $20 billion could go a long way, especially for an agency that's been starved for resources for a long time now.
Ralph Nader: And distribution of medical supplies in an emergency, for example. You got 33,000 outlets that far is greater than Walmart’s [Inc.] or McDonald's number of stores. These are gathering places in smaller towns in an impersonal internet age. You actually can mix it up with friends and neighbors you meet at the post office. There are intangibles here. Postal delivery people going through residential areas. They've often saved lives. They talk with people. And it's a different quality of life that we should not forsake to put it mildly. I would like to end with this, Chris. How do you describe the mainstream media's reporting and public radio and public broadcasting? Have you been interviewed by any national media? This is your second book on the Postal Service.
Christopher Shaw: I'll just say that I think that media coverage has gotten better since 2020. Because in 2020, you had a lot of people who never used the Postal Service very much. I mean, there are some people in this country who tend to be wealthier, tend to live in cities, and they are not nearly as dependent on it as people who are lower income, who are older, and who are more rural. But in 2020, all of a sudden, they see the fact that, hey, I have to vote during a pandemic. We have a national election happening during the pandemic. Well, thank goodness that we have a national infrastructure here that is prepared and ready to step into the breach and allow this national election to continue. I mean, the presidential election of 2020, just the fact it could even happen logistically was not guaranteed. But the Postal Service was there and it stepped in and it got the job done, and we should be very thankful for that. And so I do think that there is more interest in reporting now on the issue than there was. But at the same time, for an agency that touches all of our lives six days a week, that has post offices in over 30,000 different communities in this country, and is the third largest employer, there ought to be more interest you would think than there is.
Ralph Nader: Well, the people rallied to the Post Office last year surprising some of the Washington media, not to mention members of Congress. They were taken aback by sort of almost a patriotic rally of people all over the country regardless of their political backgrounds. What years ago we thought one solution to preserve, protect, and expand the Postal Service was something we called POCAG [Post Office Consumer Action Group]. Can you describe that briefly?
Christopher Shaw: POCAG is a great idea. The Post Office Consumer Action Group was your idea, Ralph. And we can all be thankful for that idea. But essentially, it's a voluntary nonprofit organization. The Post Office would deliver a letter or a postcard four times a year to all the residential addresses and it would give people the opportunity to pay a small membership due in order to join the organization. And then that money could be used to hire a staff that would be an advocate for the public/an advocate for the American people in ensuring that they receive adequate and frankly a first-class postal service like they deserve. So, instead of just having the lobbyists for UPS and FedEx and the major mailers and these other groups here that are oftentimes talking about cutting service, closing post offices, or not interested in certainly improving services, you would have an advocate in a lobbying group for the average American citizen. So POCAG would really do a lot and go a long way towards giving citizens a voice in the management of their postal service, which is our people's Post Office.
Ralph Nader: And less than 1% of the people who join POCAG around the country can make this a formidable force, both locally, regionally, and nationally. And to read more about it, you should get Christopher Shaw's new book, First Class, and talk it up; get it for your local library and give it to your local postmaster. We're ordering a lot of Chris's books to give to various postmasters so they can educate the community and assure them of the critical importance of the Postal Service even in this automated, computerized internet age. Is there any last thing you want to tell us, Chris?
Christopher Shaw: I just wanna say that the Postal Service is part of our commonwealth. We all own it. It's our agency and we can make it what we want it to be. At one time, it did not offer banking. Grassroots lobbying got it to offer banking. At one time, the Postal Service did not actually deliver packages, but there was a monopoly that was price gouging. People demanded and got it to do that. So it is there for our use and we can make it into a public service that we can all be proud of. And we can think well beyond letters and envelopes in terms of what this means to us as a nation.
Ralph Nader: And the we ends up on Capitol Hill Congress so they can stop succumbing to the commercial mailers and other corporations and free the Postal Service to meet its great potential in the coming decades. [Contact] your members of Congress, once again, listeners. Thank you very much, Chris.
Christopher Shaw: Thank you. Good talking to you.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Christopher Shaw. We will link to First Class: The US Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat at ralphnaderradiohour.com. I wanna thank our guests again, Mihailis Diamantis and Christopher Shaw. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you, podcasts listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call “The Wrap Up”. A transcript of this program will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted.
For more from Russell Mokhiber, go to corporatecrimereporter.com. For a copy of The Day the Rats Vetoed Congress, go to ratsreformcongress.org. And also check out The Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook: Classic Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond. We will link to both of those on ralphnaderradiohour.com. And join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour when we welcome musician and activist, Tom Morello. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, everybody. I hope this program will help some of our Congress Club members in sending the corporate crime letter to their senators and representatives and demanding specific replies. It was a good education, I think.
by Ralph Nader
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 400 TRANSCRIPT
November 6, 2021
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/cor ... rime-pays/
Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan. David Feldman is having technical issues so he won't be joining us today, but we do have the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. And Ralph, this is our 400th program.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, 400 programs, many of them not replicated by any radio, commercial or nonprofit or public press or NPR [National Public Radio], right.
Steve Skrovan: You are correct, sir. And they're all archived at ralphnaderradiohour.com if you want to catch up on the 400. But this is kind of a landmark episode for us. And today, appropriately enough, we're gonna talk about a subject that is most definitely in our wheelhouse, corporate crime. Our guest will be Mihailis Diamantis, law professor at the University of Iowa and the organizer of last month’s Imagining a World without Corporate Criminal Law symposium. The symposium brought together top corporate crime scholars to explore what corporate punishment would look like if criminal liability was off the table. How would regulatory agencies and our civil legal systems step in? What could replace criminal prosecution for punishing corporate offenders and pursuing justice for victims? Do we actually have a system of corporate criminal law in the US or have we been duped?
We'll ask Professor Diamantis about what he hopes to accomplish with the symposium and delve into his own contribution to the argument which he coauthored with W. Robert Thomas entitled But We Haven’t Got Corporate Criminal Law! Then we'll will revisit another favorite subject, the Post Office. The US Postal Service delivers almost half of the world's mail annually. They serve 160 million addresses. At nearly 250 years old, after a couple of facelifts, they're on time more than 90% of the time. Pretty good for a semiquintennarian. Don't worry, I did the math on that.
Our second guest, historian Christopher Shaw, has written extensively about the vital role of the Post Office as a democratic public service. We’ll ask him about his upcoming book, First Class: The US Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat. As always, we'll check in with our own resolute corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, if PG&E [Pacific Gas and Electric Company] can set fires, Takata [Corporation] can blow up people's cars, and Nestlé [S.A.] can use slave labor to harvest cocoa, does that mean arson, murder, and slavery aren't crimes anymore? Mihailis Diamantis is a professor of law at the University of Iowa, where he specializes in corporate crime and legal theory. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Professor Mihailis Diamantis.
Mihailis Diamantis: Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Ralph. I'm grateful to be here. Ralph Nader: Welcome indeed, Mihailis. We see you as a rising phoenix from the often moribund law schools when it comes to teaching corporate crime and researching it. We're in a corporate crime wave in this country and around the world. It's been that way for many years because the law has never caught up with corporate criminality. The recent exposures of financial crimes, the Panama Papers, the Pandora Papers, trillions of dollars being socked away, tax evasion around the world, major wealthy corporate interests involved. They set up hundreds of shell corporations. We have the Sackler opiate escape from corporate criminal law. Boeing [Company] has escaped for its killing 346 people with premeditated risky software trying to substitute for an aerodynamic problem with the 737 Maxes.
So here's my first question. Tesla[, Inc.] as the combined stock valuation of the top seven other auto companies, including GM [General Motors Company] and Volkswagen and Toyota [Motor Corporation]. Elon Musk runs Tesla. He has put on the road these autopilots and these autonomous car experiments. There are not that many of them, but they've already killed or injured 12 people. He has known about this. He keeps putting the same autopilot with a little software alteration. He refuses to recall the cars. He's being investigated by the Department of Transportation. Those cars are now a risk to life and limb on the roadways. He won't recall them as I noted. Is he a prospect for a manslaughter prosecution?
Mihailis Diamantis: I think Elon Musk might be. I would first, though, probably focus on Tesla itself as a corporation. Part of what you're getting at here is, as you mentioned in your opening remarks, that our law of corporate liability is ancient. It has not been updated [so] it is literally ancient. It's this old doctrine called respondeat superior, which literally dates back to Roman times. It governed the liability that slaveholders had for the torts and the misconduct of their slaves.
And one of the things which I find particularly concerning about the artificial intelligence driving systems and the Tesla automobiles that are causing these accidents is that they don't fit neatly into this framework that we have for corporate liability. Since it was designed in ancient times, it requires a human being to engage in the misconduct for it to be attributable to the principle – in this case, the corporation.
But what you see corporations doing a lot of times these days is when they have an algorithm, an d artificial intelligence that ends up causing some kind of harm, you see the corporation saying it wasn't us; it was the algorithm. And since you don't have a person there, you have an algorithm rather than a human employee, these doctrines we have for corporate liability turn up short. We've seen prosecutors decline to pull cases/to pursue cases in circumstances where self-driving cars have run over people because they literally can't find the driver through whom to channel liability to the corporation. So given my interest in corporate criminal, that'd be the first place that I would focus. I think it'd be a fact-intensive case to look at Elon Musk individually, but I could see a case developing in there, particularly under some version, maybe of responsible corporate officer doctrine, which allows in certain circumstances attribution of corporate misconduct, or misconduct by subordinates within a corporation, all the way up to hierarchy to the executive officers.
Ralph Nader: Well, let's turn to the Sackler family in the opiate epidemic. There's a huge public record on that. And the settlement allowed the Sackler family to avoid criminal prosecution. They had to pay $4 billion over time. They have $13 or so billion left. It raises the question: Can you really have corporate criminal law enforcement unless you also have corporate criminal executive enforcement? In other words, not just the artificial entity of the corporation chartered by the state. Financiers don't create corporations; the state provides charters for these corporations; their birth certificate financiers fund them. But can you really have one without the other?
Mihailis Diamantis: Well, as a matter of legal doctrine, you can't really have one without the other. In order to have a corporate prosecution, as I said, you gotta find some individual criminal within that corporation. But just as a matter of common sense and good enforcement policy, you can't have effective corporate criminal regulation without pulling the one-two punch of both pursuing the corporation and any responsible identifiable individuals within the corporation. It's individuals that run corporations [so] you got to get at them. It’s their interest. If you're gonna be able to move them to move the corporation, that's the first fulcrum of influence that you have.
Ralph Nader: How do you analyze the Sackler prosecution and their corporation? Give us your view on that.
Mihailis Diamantis: So I would say there's, again, probably a pretty good case against some individual Sacklers involved in the management of Purdue [Pharma L.P.] under the responsible corporate officer doctrine. Just one amendment to your opening about the description of the Purdue case. I don't believe as part of the bankruptcy settlement the Sacklers got immunity from criminal prosecution. I think it was just from civil suits related to opioid distribution. So there's still some remote possibility that DOJ [Department of Justice] or some attorney general somewhere is gonna pick up a case against individual Sacklers, so it's becoming an increasingly remote possibility.
One of the frustrating things about this case as well is that through the bankruptcy, as you know, the Purdue Pharma is now basically in public trust. Or if the bankruptcy proceeds, it’s gonna be in public trust operated for the benefit of the victims. And there's no way that we're gonna get a criminal case against Purdue Pharma either given that it's now being operated for the benefit of the victims themselves. So this, to my mind, is one of the most egregious corporate violations in American history. And we are unlikely to see criminal prosecution of either individuals within Purdue, within the Sackler family or of Purdue itself.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with Mihailis Diamantis, full professor of law at the University of Iowa. We're now in an era of no-fault corporate criminality. We're now in an era where corporate thieves almost never go to jail. The crooks in Wall Street in 2008 were given a pass by [Barack] Obama when he became president. Only a few years earlier, 800 executives in the savings and loan rackets were prosecuted and sent to jail. So the situation is getting worse and worse. I remember in 1970, I wrote a letter to President Richard Nixon urging him to have the Justice Department put out a report on corporate crime. In those days, the phrase ‘corporate crime’ was never used. It was all white-collar crime like a bank teller cheating the bank instead of the banks ripping off their customers Wells Fargo [& Company] style in the hundreds of thousands of fake accounts that they established. I got no answer. In the subsequent years, we have failed to get any comprehensive congressional hearings on corporate crime. Once in a while, there'd be a bill introduced by Congressman John Conyers on endangerment, but it wouldn't go anywhere. Both parties would never talk about corporate crime--how it affects consumers, workers, the environment, communities, patients, children, you name it, in their campaigns. It's a taboo. And as I noted, the immunity and impunity of corporate crime and corporate criminals running these corporations has only in increased as the brilliant strategies and tactics of their corporate law firms become more and more embedded in the reality of the enforcement system at the federal and state level.
So let me ask you this question. Before we get to the lack of any corporate criminal code to speak of, how many of these settlements, these non-prosecution agreements [NPA], deferred prosecution agreements [DPA] or not bringing any grand juries to the pursuit of these corporate crooks at all, are due to the total understaffing of the Justice Department – federal [District Attorney] DAs around the country, state DAs [District Attorneys] around the country and state attorney generals? One law firm, Baker Botts [LLP], for example, has more lawyers than the entire number of lawyers working environmental crimes and antitrust crimes in the Justice Department--just one Houston law firm of hundreds of that size. So how much of it is a deliberate budget squeezing by a corporate lobbyists at the state and federal legislative levels to make sure there are very few federal cops on the corporate crime beat?
Mihailis Diamantis: I wouldn't be able to put a number on the number of deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements that are attributable to lack of budget. And just for the listeners out there, a deferred prosecution or non-prosecution agreement is basically a kind of settlement that the DOJ/Department of Justice will cut with a suspected corporate criminal to basically keep the corporate criminal out of trial so they never have to plead guilty to a crime, and so they never have to face a jury or be convicted by a jury. They can negotiate particular terms, whatever the DOJ wants to extract, some combination of fines or suggestions of compliance reform. I don't think the absolute number of deferred prosecution/non-prosecution agreements is really the number that we should be focusing on. Rather, it's the number of DPAs and NPAs that go to the largest corporate criminals. We have a fair number, still a piddling amount, but a relatively large number of prosecutions against small and mid-sized corporations engaged in localized crime. But it's really these biggest corporate criminals – the ones we've been talking about on this show and that you talked about in previous interviews that are getting the deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements.
Now there's several reasons for that. One, as you certainly point out, is budgetary restrictions. It takes a lot of money to investigate a corporation and corporations are a lot of times willing to shell out money to outside law firms to conduct the investigation proactively themselves, rather than have the DOJ come in and do it. And the DOJ, because of budget restrictions, is happy to defer that responsibility to the corporations. But I think in addition to budget squeezing, what we also have is a lack of expertise within the DOJ, that I don't know if they’d know how to carry out an investigation like this; [or] if most of the prosecutors in the DOJ would even know what to look for. So there's also a lack of expertise within the DOJ in terms of conducting these investigations. So that's another reason that I think they're happy to defer to outside law firms paid for by the corporation suspected of crime to basically do the investigation themselves, and then put up in some polished memo to the DOJ [as] an explanation of the corporation's story about what happened to lay the groundwork for negotiating one of these prosecution agreements.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, that's one of the scandals of so-called corporate crime enforcement. They let the law firms report back. They might be considered a little biased. Let's look at the role of these corporate law firms. They're all officers of the court. They're supposed to adhere to professional codes of conduct. Do you think that they engage more often than is generally reported in criminal enterprises that they're actually in collusion [that] they actually devise the strategies, the arguments, the lobbying power for evasion of criminal laws, evasion of tax laws, evasion of environmental laws?
Mihailis Diamantis: If we are talking of about complicity of the law firms in their negotiation with the DOJ and the formulation of a responsive strategy on behalf of the corporation, I would be hesitant myself without strong data to impugn the professional integrity of the lawyers. I was one of them. I worked as corporate defense attorney. It’s how I got into this area of research in the first place. They have a professional responsibility and I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt that they take it seriously.
Now, as part of taking it seriously, there's obviously gonna be a lot of cognitive bias. There's gonna be a lot of sympathetic relationships that develop in the course of an investigation compounded by the fact that these attorneys are hired and they have a professional obligation to zealously represent their clients – in these cases, the corporations that they are investigating. So part of what they're supposed to do is to formulate a sympathetic story about the misconduct that the DOJ suspects might have taken place. I do think it's problematic to outsource so much of this investigative responsibility to private law firms hired by and paid for by the corporations who are suspected of engaging in misconduct in the first place. So that'd be one of the first places that I would look.
Ralph Nader: Well, you know at law school, we're all taught that attorneys should zealously advance the interests of their clients. But I'm not asking the question on when the companies get in trouble, how do these corporate law firms try to defend them? I'm asking a more basic question, which is almost all of these corporate crimes globally and nationally and locally involve schemes that are drafted, conceived, sometimes brilliantly, by corporate law firms. The financial schemes behind all these reports that we read about in the press [and] payday loan rackets. They’re schemes; they’re contractual impositions on their victims – small print contracts. There are finance schemes in terms of monopolizing markets. You have schemes behind Google [LLC] and Facebook and Pfizer [Inc] and ExxonMobil. So we're not talking about defending when they're caught or when they're under investigation. What kind of responsibility do they have for these schemes? Because these schemes not only deal with tax avoidance or law avoidance, they deal with evasion. Outright criminal behavior is enabled by these schemes including destroying documents. They have a fancy word for it in corporate law firms called document retention. Go ahead.
Mihailis Diamantis: Yeah, I suspect and I have a high level of confidence that there are some attorneys who are engaged and complicit in their corporate clients' criminal misconduct. Again, without a good amount of data, I'd be hesitant to impugn the profession more generally. This might be a little Pollyannaish of me, but my first place that I go to when I see a problem is not to blame individuals, but to look for perhaps systemic problems that are pushing individuals to behave in ways that are concerning to us.
So what we have in white-collar criminal law generally is a very ambiguous and poorly drafted code. You look at false claims; you look at mail and wire fraud; you look at insider trading; you look at many of the statutes that corporations are routinely suspected of violating. And what you see is a few words on a piece of paper, which courts then expanded into a very complicated doctrine that still has a lot of gaps in it. It's a fundamental problem of unclarity in our whitecollar criminal law. And so there is a fuzzy boundary between what counts as a sharp dealing and what counts as criminal misconduct. And it's a boundary that I think Congress needs to firm up. Now, as far as the attorneys are concerned, they have this ambiguous law that they're dealing with and trying to advise their clients about how to comply with it. And they themselves face a fuzzy boundary between zealous representation of their client in the face of an ambiguous law, giving them meaningful advice, and crossing over that line into something which borders on complicity in the corporation's misconduct. And it's hard to say – because the line hasn't been defined for us yet – what's on one side and what's on the other. So I think we need more clarity there as well.
Ralph Nader: Well, you know, we've just compiled 35 book titles documenting corporate criminality, very well footnoted. One just came out on the Sackler family, for example. There'll be ones on Boeing. There'll be ones on the oil industry, Wall Street. There already have been. I mean there's plenty of existing documentation and the manslaughter charges have been on the books for years. If you drive a car erratically because you're inebriated down a road and you kill a pedestrian, you can be prosecuted and go to jail. Corporations can refuse to recall cars with lethal defects, which result in death or injury, and they're almost never prosecuted. And I don't understand why some DAs do not use traditional manslaughter law. It's not first degree murder; it's not second degree. It's involuntary manslaughter against these corporations or corporate executives. What's the reluctance?
Mihailis Diamantis: I think the reluctance is that we're both against corporate executives and against the corporations themselves. I mean, you've pointed here to a clear law that we've had on the books. You kill someone with criminal negligence and you're on the hook for manslaughter. The problem here, I think, goes back to a) the antiquated doctrine we were talking about, and b) the standard of proof the prosecutors have to meet. So in order to prosecute an individual, the prosecutor has to be able to show or believe they'll be able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the elements of the crime were satisfied. And that turns out to be really difficult when you're engaging with a corporation, which is an information black box if the corporation decides not to cooperate; and an information black box where anytime you pull open the lid, all you see is people pointing fingers at each other. It's very hard to reconstruct where the lines of responsibility are. And oftentimes what you'll see is that maybe there's no single individual responsible. You have kind of a diffused responsibility, and so maybe there's not any individual that is solely responsible for the catastrophe that resulted. Now, this has important implications for whether prosecutors can pursue these kinds of cases against corporations themselves. Because under that antiquated rule, respondeat superior or let the master answer, the prosecutor has to be able to find some individual who satisfies the elements of the crime and then be able to, through them, attribute the crime to the corporation. But when you have these distributed types of crimes where each person is contributing maybe just a little bit to a catastrophic harm, you can't find that individual. It’s a real case.
Ralph Nader: How about a solution? What if we had a law that required large corporations to appoint a compliance officer, who is responsible for the conduct of the corporation? And so the prosecution can be focused on the compliance officer's negligence, indifference, corruption. So you pinpoint an office in a corporation and try to avoid the very real problem you pointed out, which is diffusion vertically and horizontally, of responsibility for any particular decision, like building a Corvair or the 737 Max. What's your view on the compliance officer approach?
Mihailis Diamantis: So, I think they have something similar to this, not necessarily a compliance officer, but in Japan, and I had a student once told me from Guatemala, so maybe in Guatemala as well, that there's the executive officer responsible for going to jail if the corporation commits a crime. And so you do have somebody, some token figurehead, who can take the fall if the corporation does something bad. So presumably they're gonna be incentivized to really investigate and find out any problems. I'm not aware of this being an effective system of prevention, in part because there's nothing that one individual can do to manage a corporation that has hundreds of thousands of employees. I think that a lot of these problems are systemic rather than necessarily the responsibility of individuals. And I'd be hesitant to throw someone in jail when maybe even despite their best efforts, there are malicious employees through the corporate hierarchy who perhaps even subvert the compliance mechanisms that the individual put in place. What I think we need is…
Ralph Nader: To be sure, yeah, you have to have evidence of culpability, indifference, collusion on the part of the compliance officer. Let's go to another approach here. Do you think that we should revive the pulling of the corporate charter, throwing the company into a kind of environmental bankruptcy, creating a trustee, removing the rulers of the corporation, the officers, the board of directors? And there's precedent for that. In the late 19th century the Standard Oil [Company] of Ohio got its charter pulled and they didn't think it was that big a deal. You don't shut down the corporation; you just reconstitute it with the new governance. You see any opportunities there to pick some corporations and file at the state level for revocation of the charter?
Mihailis Diamantis: Absolutely. Absolutely. I would hesitate to say revocation and threatened dissolution because I think that would exacerbate some of the problems we have already with prosecutors not wanting to bring cases against corporations for fear of driving them out of business. But in terms of perhaps even temporarily nationalizing certain egregious corporate criminals for the purposes of revising their governments and having some mandatory compliance review and reform directed by a government entity rather than by a law firm or private compliance company hired by the corporation itself; I do see a lot of promise there.
Ralph Nader: It's not putting them out of business, Mihailis.
Mihailis Diamantis: Yeah.
Ralph Nader: It's putting the corporate crooks at the top out of business and reconstituting/reforming the structure with a trusteeship and then putting it on the straight and narrow path.
Anyway, that's one approach. In one of your articles, you have a very seminal paragraph I wanna read to our listeners. It's very short but listen carefully and you'll see how important the insights are. This is a paragraph by Professor Mihailis Diamantis, full professor of law at the University of Iowa, College of Law in Iowa City.
“Criminal justice has four distinctive features. 1) utilizes uniquely demanding procedure, 2) to target the worst defenders with 3) the harshest penalties, and 4) society's deepest moral condemnation. The United States’s purported system of corporate criminal justice lacks all four features. The biggest corporate criminals routinely sidestep all criminal procedure and any possibility of conviction by cutting deals with prosecutors, trading paltry fines and empty promises of reform for government press releases praising their cooperation. The real question is not whether the United States should retain corporate criminal law, but what it would take for the United States to have a corporate criminal justice system in the first place.”
Now I remember the government took Pfizer to court for promoting off-label uses of its drugs. Now doctors can do it, but corporations who sell the drugs can't do it, and they settled for several hundred millions of dollars. And I remember people came to me and said, See, the system works. And I said to them, Well, Pfizer probably made far more than that. And the fines, given the size of Pfizer and the volume of sales, is nothing more than tollgate slap on the wrist.
So wouldn't you say now, even at the highest levels of crackdown on corporate crooks, that what it really boils down to [is] nobody goes to jail, except maybe the janitor, and there's a tollgate by the Justice Department under pressure of corporate law firms. And said, if you pay this much, you're clear. Isn't it really a tollgate system? A commercial dollar tollgate system, and in some instances, even deductible.
Mihailis Diamantis: I couldn't agree more, Ralph. The fact is that corporate crime pays in the United States. The average fine for corporate criminal resolution with the DOJ is just 0.04% of market capitalization. The DOJ gets to represent when it publishes the press release about these deferred prosecution agreements that, Hey, we have pulled/extracted $100 million, maybe a couple billion dollars from one of these corporations. And it impresses people like the listener who came and said to you, look it works. But the fact of the matter is that these numbers, which seem astronomical to us individuals, are drops in the bucket when we're talking about these massive corporate behemoths--the ones who are most likely to a) engage in this type of criminal conduct and b) the most likely to get some of these sweetheart deals from the DOJ.
And so, the conclusion that I take, if I was just a corporate exec without a moral compass, or if I could embody myself as a corporation without a moral compass, it is in my economic interest to engage in the type of conduct that Purdue engaged in [and] engage in the type of conduct that you described Pfizer engaging in.
Ralph Nader: By way of exemplifying what you just said, the Justice Department under [Donald] Trump actually convened a grand jury on the Boeing 737 Max crashes. And it went on for months. Nobody knew what was being heard or ordered in terms of documents; it was pretty secret. And then suddenly on January 5th, 2021, just before Trump left office, the Justice Department announced a deal where Boeing admitted criminal conduct on behalf of two of its test pilots, but not Boeing executives, got wording saying “Boeing executive culture is not attached to this criminal conduct.” And they had a $250 million fine, and about a $1.7 billion assignment of Boeing money to the airline, and $500 million for the families who lost their loved ones in the two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Now, that's two and a half billion for a really massive corporate crime that has not finished its story yet. And in December 2018, at a board of directors meeting of Boeing, CEO [Dennis] Muilenburg proposed a $20 billion stock buyback – one of many – and they approved it and later withdrew it after the Ethiopian crash. But here it is, just one year, [and the] pleased board of directors rubber stamped $20 billion in stock buybacks [that] doesn't create any jobs, [is] totally unproductive, and usually done to improve the metrics of executive compensation. So that's what you're talking about. I mean, even when they do have a grand jury and they do come to a settlement, it's utterly trivial in terms of monetary bite. And also a lot of what Boeing is paying for these disasters is insurable, deductible, and under the strange nature of corporate accounting, in some respects, depreciable.
So, we have to look at all the fundamentals, which is pulling the charter, establishing a real corporate criminal code that requires structural vulnerability inside the corporation so we don't get this diffused problem; gets rid of mens rea for corporations, and more basically establishes for large companies a new federal chartering so that state chartering out of Delaware or Reno is replaced for large companies by federal chartering. We can bring up the birth certificate and the accountability of the constitution of the corporations, which is the charter, up to date. This was proposed by William Howard Taft over a hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt over a hundred years ago, and most recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren. What do you think of that?
Mihailis Diamantis: Ralph, I think you're going in exactly the right direction. In fact, I would double down on the direction that you're going. I think that focusing on the fines in a settlement, like the one that Boeing reached, is in some sense a misdirection. The Boeing fine ended up being about 8% of its annual pre-crash revenues. If you were an average American with an average salary that equates about $4,100 for the 346 deaths that Boeing caused. It turns out that fines beyond the legitimate use that they have of making sure that victims of the corporate misconduct are adequately compensated, have very little impact on corporate behavior--not just because they're so small, but also because to have a fine big enough to move a corporation, you need a fine that will put the corporation out of business!
The thing that really ticks me off about the Boeing settlement is not the small value of the fine, which itself is just expressively egregious, but is instead the fact that Boeing, a repeat offender who had entered into a settlement with the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] just less than three years before its first 737 Max crash over similar safety issues, got away from the DOJ without any oversight of the reforms that it promised to implement – reforms to its culture, which whistleblowers and investigations have revealed, put profits over safety. Instead, all the Boeing got away with with the DOJ was a promise to reform its compliant systems on its own and then to submit annual reports to the Department of Justice drafted by Boeing and their inhouse attorneys that you were talking about earlier to the DOJ. That's just a promise to do better in the future. Boeing already violated the trust implicit in its charter to conduct business in a lawful manner. I think what we need to do in the criminal justice system, corporate criminal justice system, is exactly the direction that you're pushing. Perhaps deemphasize fines and emphasize instead mandatory government directed reform in the one mechanism of which might be the sorts of public trust that you were describing.
Ralph Nader: I mean, that's what federal chartering can do. It could embrace a lot of the kind of proposals that you and others are advancing just to come up to date. I mean, these state chartering laws are ancient. They cannot address global corporate power skipping out of different jurisdictions, pitting jurisdictions against each other. And by the way, the deal that the Justice Department met on January 5th with Boeing didn't even require a corporate monitor. Mihailis Diamantis: Exactly.
Ralph Nader: It usually requires corporate monitors to report from year to year to see whether the deferred prosecution agreement should be ended or no longer deferred with a renewed prosecution. Well, we're out of time, unfortunately. We've been speaking with Professor Mihailis Diamantis of University of Iowa College of Law and a leader in the deliberative process about what are we gonna do with these gigantic artificial entities called corporations, who have been given by judicial decisions, all the rights of human beings. But they have immunities, privileges, and sheer capital power that no human being could ever attain. And [that] raises the question as to whether there can ever be equal justice under the law with these giant corporations unmoored from constitutional, statutes, and international treaties. Thank you very much, Mihailis.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, Ralph. Thank you, Stephen. It was a pleasure.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Mihailis Diamantis. We will link to his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, why does Congress keep letting the dogs loose on the Post Office? But first, let’s check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, November 5th, 2021; I'm Russell Mokhiber. The Federal Trade Commission [FTC] is sending nearly $60 million to more than 140,000 Amazon[.com, Inc.] drivers. The funds will serve as reimbursement for tips that Amazon allegedly illegally withheld from drivers between 2016 and 2019.
In 2021, the FTC brought a lawsuit against Amazon and its subsidiary, Amazon Logistics, alleging that the company failed to fully pay tips that drivers in its Amazon Flex program had earned. Amazon Flex drivers deliver goods and groceries ordered through programs like Prime Now and Amazon Fresh. The complaint alleged that the company secretly kept drivers’ tips over a two-and-a-half year period and only stopped the practice after becoming aware of the FTC’s investigation. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russel. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. I’m Steve Skrovan along with Ralph. Why does the Postmaster General keep trying to slow down the mail? Well, we're gonna ask that question of our next guest. Christopher Shaw is an author, historian, and former project director at the Center for Study of Responsive Law. His latest book is First Class: The US Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Christopher Shaw.
Christopher Shaw: Oh, glad to be back.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, Chris. I think a lot of people who have been watching the Postal Service in recent months have been wondering why the Democrats, who now have a majority on the Board of Governors of the US Postal Service, have not tried to ease out Louis DeJoy, who is Trump's nominee and who had business dealings profiteering off the Postal Service and who was accused by the very Democrats that now are not easing him out of trying to disrupt the collection and transmission of absentee ballots.
Christopher Shaw: Well, first off, you raise a really good point, which is that the Postmaster General is no longer and hasn't been for 50 years directly appointed by the president. It is by the Board of Governors that as oversight of the US Postal Service. And the thing is, is that that body was the one that selected Louis DeJoy and it has affirmed its support of his policies and they still hold a majority. Those first Board of Governor members who picked this guy in the first place still have a majority on the board. So, practically speaking, he's there until they decide to get rid of him, until we have some more governors rotate off and some new people maybe come on, [and] we get a different mix, a different perspective on DeJoy’s tenure. But until that happens, he's still there. And DeJoy has been very combative in saying that he intends to remain in place and get used to him, and he'll be there for a long time. So he's not interested in leaving either.
Ralph Nader: Am I missing something? Clearly, DeJoy was Trump's nominee. He was a big supporter financially of Trump's campaign. And he was Trump's nominee. And it went over to the Board of Governors, which was controlled by Republicans. And they installed him as Postmaster General. But I thought there were three or four new nominees by [Joe] Biden who have been confirmed by the Senate and that was supposed to give the Board of Governors a majority in the hands of the Democrats.
Christopher Shaw: Well, so right now, there's four Republicans, there's one Independent, and there's four Democrats. But in total, there's still the six governors that picked DeJoy the first place; all six of them are still there. So even though you have the three new governors there, they still definitely hold a majority. Now, there are two spots opening up in December and there's a potential that Biden could pick two new members of the board. And they could come in and send the leadership in a different direction and pivot away from DeJoy. That could happen, but we'll have to wait and see what happens in December when those two spots open up. Otherwise, what could happen is the existing board would just go on and continue those expiring terms for an additional year.
Ralph Nader: Well, I stand corrected. How long is this term?
Christopher Shaw: DeJoy can be in there as long as the governors want him to be. There's no specific expiration date.
Ralph Nader: What do you think of his October 1st decision to slow down First-Class Mail? Why would he think that it's more expensive to send letters from California – airmail – to the East Coast than it is to put them in trucks taking three and a half days on the highway to get them to the East Coast?
Christopher Shaw: DeJoy comes out of the trucking business. I think he's a big believer in the trucking business and there have been issues with air transportation, especially in the last year or so with commercial flights being canceled and things like that. But what is happening here is this is a very short term calculus. And the thing is if you're a postal official, you have direct immediate control over the expenses. So you can always cut those. And then it looks like your financers are getting better. So they tend to look at that side of the ledger more than the revenue side of the ledger. And how do we generate new revenues, where you have to be innovative and creative to do that. And you don't necessarily have complete control over what happens.
So DeJoy has moved in the direction here of cost cutting like so many Postmaster Generals before him. But what it means is that, for instance, if you're in the Northeast there, you used to get First-Class Mail. It would be three days coast to coast, anywhere in the country. Now, if you're mailing a letter from the Northeast, once you get West of the Mississippi River, it's going to be four days also down in the Deep South in Florida. And then once you get to the Rocky Mountains and to the West Coast, it's five days. And it used to be that that mail that now takes five days to get down to the Rockies and out to the Pacific Coast. That used to be the time to get a letter out to Guam. So it's definitely a major slowdown and it's especially impacting certain areas of the country, particularly the extremities of the country. Anytime you start reducing service, that's gonna discourage people to use this agency. So I think there's definitely a potential for revenues actually to decrease because they're cutting service.
Ralph Nader: Well, the right-wing approach to destabilize and diminish the Postal Service and try to privatize more of it, or corporatize more of it, was you cut the service and you raise the postal rates, which is really not a very good business strategy if your interest is in expanding postal services, modernizing it, and doing what many of us, including you, Christopher Shaw, in supporting the reemergence of postal banking. Now, as a flicker of light here, on taking postal banking, which was operating for the first 60 some years of the 20th century, and then under commercial banking pressure, it was a ended around 1967. But now because there's over 30 million people who are unbanked or underbanked, because they just can't afford the fees of banks and banks don't think they're profitable enough to provide them with accounts, they would be natural customers of the reentry of the postal banking service at 33,000 post offices and branches all over the country. Tell us what's going on in that area.
Christopher Shaw: We've had a significant breakthrough. It's the first major step. Or really, at this point, it's actually just a minor step, but it looks major because it’s the first thing that has happened at all since the Post Office stopped accepting savings deposits back in 1966 when they got rid of the savings bank the Post Office used to operate. And so it's small. There's four post offices--one in the Bronx, one in Baltimore, one in Washington, D.C., and one in Falls Church, Virginia. And they are now open to cashing payroll checks and business checks. And so you can go into these post offices and you can cash those checks and you can get the money put on a debit card and it's a single-use debit card, and then you can use that debit card at any location that would accept it. So this move into accepting cashing checks is actually a major step. And there's definitely already resistance from existing check cashing outlets that charge very high fees and also the banking lobby has also voiced its complaints about this. And there's hope; the idea here is that going forward this will be expanded to new and greater things. So for one, the card could be made reloadable. It could be possible then if they put a no-fee ATM machine in the post office that you could use it to actually draw out cash using the card inside the post office and domestic money transfers from one post office to another and also potentially bill payment services. These would all be under the legal purview, a lot of experts think, of the Post Office-- offering these without having major legislative change. So these are definitely the first steps we've seen towards Post Office banking. And the interesting thing here is that it's happening under Louis DeJoy. Because if you look at his predecessor, Megan Brennan, the American Postal Workers Union, this has been age priority for them for years. And they actually had in their collective bargaining agreement that she should explore this. Well, she did not do that. If you look at her predecessor, Patrick Donahoe, he flatly rejected the idea. And, Ralph, if you remember, 15 years ago, when we spoke to John Potter, who was Postmaster General then, he never followed up on the idea either. So it's actually Louis DeJoy where we're seeing the first step towards anything like reviving the bank at the Post Office.
Ralph Nader: You know, I circle in Congress and a lot of people in Congress don't really use the Postal Service. You see in the garages trucks from UPS [United Parcel Service] [and] trucks from FedEx [Corporation]. They don't even prefer US Postal Service trucks! Tell our listeners why you think the Postal Service or the old US Post Office is so critical in the future. I mean in the past they bound the country together; they were known for reliability. You could send a letter 3,000 miles or 30 miles and it's the same postage stamp in terms of cost. They even delivered eggs overnight. People would put a letter in the morning in their town and the person received it in the afternoon. And now we have far fewer post boxes on city streets. You have far fewer postal workers. But tell us how relevant, especially in the era of emergency and rural areas, the Postal Service still is.
Christopher Shaw: Well, I think that history that you're describing, that history of being an agency that binds the nation together, that history of providing uniform universal service to everybody on a democratic basis, which is an affirmation of democratic ideals in this nation, I think that's still very relevant today and it can be something that we should see going forward that the Postal Service continues to promote. And specifically, if we look at democracy, the Post Office from the very beginning, the idea is it was going to transport communications, so we're going to have better educated citizens in this new experiment and republican government distributing newspapers at a lower cost. People are better informed. While they still do that today, there's no reason why we can't have…we're still doing this, but we should be looking towards perhaps having the Post Office offer email accounts, perhaps having a postal search engine. There's no reason that can't transition to electronic services--that same idea of a wellinformed citizenry and the Post Office as an agency of government that helps that to happen.
Also, the fact is that there are lots of people who are postal dependent. They do not have access to broadband internet, for instance. And the Postal Service is the one universal communications system that is accessible to everybody. And so the Postal Service provides service in rural areas where a for-profit business never would go, because the profit just wouldn't be there. And so if you took away the Postal Service, these places would be left out of communications; these individuals would not be able to participate and communicate with others. So these are things the Post Office is doing now. It needs to continue to do it. And also, the financial services we were just talking about--banking for all these people who are being left out. There are 8 million unbanked households without any bank account who have to pay very high fees just to do basic things like cash a check. These are people too that the Post Office can serve. So the Post Office has a great tradition of helping democracy, of serving everyone in an equal manner, of disseminating information and news. And these things are all just as important in the 21st century. So I think it's important to have a reimagining and an updating and an expansion of what the Post Service is.
Ralph Nader: And that's what your new book is all about. Your new book is First Class published by City Lights in San Francisco, a progressive publisher. We're very proud to be a part of your long-term effort, having worked with you on a prior report on the Postal Service. You have a PhD in history from University of California, Berkeley. And I think that more radio stations should interview you at the local level. And there is a group in Washington that is coordinating this. Just contact area code (202) 421-6858; that's (202) 421-6858. And they can arrange an interview with Christopher Shaw on all these matters. Just by way of proportion, Chris, the Democrats and Republicans in the House committee recently added $20 billion to the military budget [that’s] $20 billion more than President Biden asked the Congress to give. Give an example of the size of the Postal Service, what's its revenues, and what $20 billion would do to the Postal Service upgrade and expansion.
Christopher Shaw: The Postal Service’s annual revenues are around $70 billion/$80 billion. It's a lot of variance that’s been going on because of COVID[-19] and how that has changed everything in terms of how the society is operating. It's had a lot of financial problems that has everything to do with this mandate to pre-fund its retirees’ health benefits 75 years into the future at the tune of 5.5 billion over 10 years that no other government agency attempts to do; no other private corporation attempts to do. So, that's really responsible for maybe as much as 90% of the Postal Service’s financial losses.
But if you're constantly operating under financial pressure and under these thin margins, then you don't invest in your infrastructure, and it begins to deteriorate. And you especially see this with the postal trucks. So they're trying to replace those now, but you have trucks on the road that are 30 years old, still. You have a whole network of post offices. And then you have all these ideas that could be pursued that have not been pursued. 20 billion dollars could go a long way in all kinds of directions here. One thing just to point out is the Postal Service has never been able to have its own airline. It's dependent on commercial passenger airlines and actually on his competitors, FedEx and UPS, to move anything by air. There's no reason the Postal Service shouldn't have its own airline just like FedEx and UPS have. So $20 billion could go a long way, especially for an agency that's been starved for resources for a long time now.
Ralph Nader: And distribution of medical supplies in an emergency, for example. You got 33,000 outlets that far is greater than Walmart’s [Inc.] or McDonald's number of stores. These are gathering places in smaller towns in an impersonal internet age. You actually can mix it up with friends and neighbors you meet at the post office. There are intangibles here. Postal delivery people going through residential areas. They've often saved lives. They talk with people. And it's a different quality of life that we should not forsake to put it mildly. I would like to end with this, Chris. How do you describe the mainstream media's reporting and public radio and public broadcasting? Have you been interviewed by any national media? This is your second book on the Postal Service.
Christopher Shaw: I'll just say that I think that media coverage has gotten better since 2020. Because in 2020, you had a lot of people who never used the Postal Service very much. I mean, there are some people in this country who tend to be wealthier, tend to live in cities, and they are not nearly as dependent on it as people who are lower income, who are older, and who are more rural. But in 2020, all of a sudden, they see the fact that, hey, I have to vote during a pandemic. We have a national election happening during the pandemic. Well, thank goodness that we have a national infrastructure here that is prepared and ready to step into the breach and allow this national election to continue. I mean, the presidential election of 2020, just the fact it could even happen logistically was not guaranteed. But the Postal Service was there and it stepped in and it got the job done, and we should be very thankful for that. And so I do think that there is more interest in reporting now on the issue than there was. But at the same time, for an agency that touches all of our lives six days a week, that has post offices in over 30,000 different communities in this country, and is the third largest employer, there ought to be more interest you would think than there is.
Ralph Nader: Well, the people rallied to the Post Office last year surprising some of the Washington media, not to mention members of Congress. They were taken aback by sort of almost a patriotic rally of people all over the country regardless of their political backgrounds. What years ago we thought one solution to preserve, protect, and expand the Postal Service was something we called POCAG [Post Office Consumer Action Group]. Can you describe that briefly?
Christopher Shaw: POCAG is a great idea. The Post Office Consumer Action Group was your idea, Ralph. And we can all be thankful for that idea. But essentially, it's a voluntary nonprofit organization. The Post Office would deliver a letter or a postcard four times a year to all the residential addresses and it would give people the opportunity to pay a small membership due in order to join the organization. And then that money could be used to hire a staff that would be an advocate for the public/an advocate for the American people in ensuring that they receive adequate and frankly a first-class postal service like they deserve. So, instead of just having the lobbyists for UPS and FedEx and the major mailers and these other groups here that are oftentimes talking about cutting service, closing post offices, or not interested in certainly improving services, you would have an advocate in a lobbying group for the average American citizen. So POCAG would really do a lot and go a long way towards giving citizens a voice in the management of their postal service, which is our people's Post Office.
Ralph Nader: And less than 1% of the people who join POCAG around the country can make this a formidable force, both locally, regionally, and nationally. And to read more about it, you should get Christopher Shaw's new book, First Class, and talk it up; get it for your local library and give it to your local postmaster. We're ordering a lot of Chris's books to give to various postmasters so they can educate the community and assure them of the critical importance of the Postal Service even in this automated, computerized internet age. Is there any last thing you want to tell us, Chris?
Christopher Shaw: I just wanna say that the Postal Service is part of our commonwealth. We all own it. It's our agency and we can make it what we want it to be. At one time, it did not offer banking. Grassroots lobbying got it to offer banking. At one time, the Postal Service did not actually deliver packages, but there was a monopoly that was price gouging. People demanded and got it to do that. So it is there for our use and we can make it into a public service that we can all be proud of. And we can think well beyond letters and envelopes in terms of what this means to us as a nation.
Ralph Nader: And the we ends up on Capitol Hill Congress so they can stop succumbing to the commercial mailers and other corporations and free the Postal Service to meet its great potential in the coming decades. [Contact] your members of Congress, once again, listeners. Thank you very much, Chris.
Christopher Shaw: Thank you. Good talking to you.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Christopher Shaw. We will link to First Class: The US Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat at ralphnaderradiohour.com. I wanna thank our guests again, Mihailis Diamantis and Christopher Shaw. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you, podcasts listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call “The Wrap Up”. A transcript of this program will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted.
For more from Russell Mokhiber, go to corporatecrimereporter.com. For a copy of The Day the Rats Vetoed Congress, go to ratsreformcongress.org. And also check out The Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook: Classic Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond. We will link to both of those on ralphnaderradiohour.com. And join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour when we welcome musician and activist, Tom Morello. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, everybody. I hope this program will help some of our Congress Club members in sending the corporate crime letter to their senators and representatives and demanding specific replies. It was a good education, I think.
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Re: Ralph Nader Radio Hour
by admin » Sun Dec 19, 2021 5:00 am
Overcoming Corporate Rule: A Success Story
by Ralph Nader
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 403 TRANSCRIPT
November 27, 2021
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/ove ... ess-story/
Ralph Nader: Hello all the way from Maui on this program.
Steve Skrovan: Yes. While national elections get major PAC [political action committee] money and infinite coverage on mainstream media outlets, local elections can seem insignificant in comparison. But school boards, zoning commissions, city council, and other local authorities really go a long way to shape our daily lives. On this program, we push listeners to go out and do things. Your local government is a great place to start. Regular listeners may remember Paul Deslauriers, who was a guest on our show back in 2019. He, along with other dedicated activists, took on the entrenched interests in his home county of Maui, Hawai'i. And guess what? They won. Last time he explained how their movement got started. Today we're going to hear about how it's going. As always, it wouldn't be a Ralph Nader Radio Hour if we didn't check in with our intrepid corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, let's get an update on democracy in Maui, David?
Ralph Nader: Paul Deslauriers is a grassroots organizer and the author of Seven Steps to Reclaim Democracy: An Empowering Guide for Systemic Change. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Paul Deslauriers.
Paul Deslauriers: Well, thank you for having me and it's a great pleasure to be here and to have this conversation with Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Well, Paul, you're a success story in Maui. I want our listeners to read your book, Reclaim Paradise [: RESET for the Common Good] [about how] Maui County shifted from corporate rule over decades to home rule--from corporate rule to home rule and the template for global system change. And I've never seen an effort like this reach the level that you've reached. Let's just tell some of our listeners very briefly about Maui. Maui County in Hawai'i is considered one of the most popular vacation spots on earth, a physical form of paradise for a reason--its beauty and year-round pleasant temperatures, waterfalls, beaches, and aloha spirit. In 2018, the county of Maui’s budget was $800 million a year with a population of 166,000. Maui is considered a wealthy county per resident yet the corporate rule still generates hardships causing the struggle for residents to survive. And then you say, “Let's take a snapshot of some key residential needs--housing, water, food education, healthcare.”
In the book, you paint a history of staggering exploitation of the Hawaiian Islands after Western explorers landed on it, toppled the government, concentrated power in five big corporations, dispossessed the land of the natives, contaminated/poisoned the water. It's almost a laundry list of how corporations can control people in their own interest s. Now, Maui is a very high-priced place. The average home sale was $775,000, which requires an income of $198,000 to apply and to make mortgage payments to a bank.
So, just to paint this picture: you land at the airport in Maui and you go around the country and you're just staggered by the beauty, but behind the scenes, there's a lot of exploitation, a lot of poverty, a lot of labor manipulation, and it's dominated by a very few people. So, you decided you were going to live in Maui. You were a consultant to over a hundred businesses as to how they can function at their optimal potential. So, you know the inside of the way corporations behave and this book can only be described as amazing. Step-by-step clear, readable descriptions of what the challenge was, starting a few years ago, how the county government was really a pawn of commercial interests and how you and a small number of people had endless conversations, discussions, analysis, and then hit the ground running.
In 2018, you won 9 of 16 seats, a slim majority. The counterattack was overwhelming. The corporations flooded the island with money, propaganda, lies, deceptions, and you persevered. And the result, you won 14 out of 16 seats. And you did it door by door, person to person, as more and more people encouraged by what you and your small group was doing joined the movement.
Now this is only one island in the chain of Hawaiian Islands and you want people not to just look at it as a sort of quirky, lucky development. You say the template is global, that the same kind of corporate concentration is everywhere. They take over the local governments and the people have to pay the consequences. You have a pyramid in the book where you have at the top, the power structure, very tiny number. And as the pyramid broadens, at the bottom are the voters and their local government.
So, here you are. You’re in 2020. You've had all kinds of obstacles. You even had one of your elected people turncoat on you in 2018 and you show people all the obstacles. This is not a pollyannaish presentation, and you made sure you were not one of the elected. You stood outside so that they couldn't accuse you of anything personal [or] partisan. So, here you are, November election, you're 14 out of 16. You did some things in 2018, but it was a very slim majority. Tell us what you've accomplished.
Paul Deslauriers: Well Ralph, it's really been an amazing process of working with our community here in Maui County. And as you mentioned, this is something that is applicable globally. And I think that a lot of people have been so suppressed and feeling so filled with fear and uncertainty about the future because there's really no mechanism or way that they can see that, yes, this is what I could do to really make a shift and change. But what this does here and what we've done with this process is show, wait a minute, there is an uplifting way of creating systemic change; that we don't have to go along with the system that right now mainstream media is toting with this great reset. The reset doesn't have to be about this fascism and technocracy and taking away our liberties and freedoms. We can reverse that and it's not a difficult process. Once you start to understand that we are dealing with a system and take a system approach, that's where everything becomes visible. Because right now our society has our economic, education, military, medical, judicial, transportation--these are all systems that create a framework around our society and they're like circuit boards that are directing and applying social energy. But what overrides all of that is our governance, so, federal and state. But where we really do have that access point, as you mentioned, is on a local level. And this is where we can really make a difference on towns, cities, and counties.
And I think that all your listeners should realize that, wait a minute, we don't have to go along with what mainstream media is telling us, because they're not allowing us to look at this other avenue, this other track that we can take that can bring about systemic change that is incredibly wonderful in terms of how it supports the people, the community, and the environment; and we can very simply do this. And the engagement process can be uplifting and supportive.
So I think that first of all, realize that we have an entry to the system and that is through counties, cities and towns. And that is where we have a voice. That's where mainstream media doesn't have the level of control because we have this local network that we can co-create of communication. And that's what we did here in Maui County. We really supported it so that we created a way that our organization became an information hub of progressive issues, values, and candidates. And we became a way where people can look at what's really happening, what are the problems we're facing, and what are the solutions that work. And from that, people can start to participate and get involved because these are touching things that affect them on a daily basis.
Ralph Nader: You know, your group is called the Maui Pono Network for those who want to look it up. And what struck me was on page 208, you have this, “Within a short time, entrenched department heads were voted out by the new county council and replaced by bright, experienced and creative coordinators. The $90 million construction project that primarily enriched the good old boy network was canceled. Funds were being allocated for affordable housing. They settled the longstanding injection wells case.” That's contamination of water, serious problem in Maui. [County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund--US Supreme Court]
“They made it so the community associations must approve any development. They proposed seven charter amendments, which were passed in 2020, that would rewire the county system to serve the common good. It would increase transparency and cronyism and increase citizens participation. Big money out of county, corporate super PACs responded with a vengeance in the 2020 county elections, spending $430,000 in the last 40 days of the election. They endorsed and promoted the exact opposite of the Maui Pono Network, including its Ohana candidate slate. The Maui Pono Network helped stop this attempted coup of our local governance.”
So, unlike so many reform movements that temporarily succeed and then the counterattack throws them out of office, you just got stronger in 2020. So, what you did in in 2020 with 9 out of 16 seats; now you have 14 seats out of 16, diversified as can be in terms of members and focusing on class exploitation--a perfect combination! So, what do you expect to be done in the next year or two now that you have an overwhelming majority on the county government? Paul Deslauriers: Well, it's been incredible changes that have happened here in Maui County. Very positive and uplifting again, supporting the people and the environment in ways that it never had before. And you mentioned many of those things that have happened and there is a lot that continues to happen. One of the charter amendments that was passed was that instead of the mayor, who is typically part of the good old boy network, would – every 10 years, our charter is reviewed. That's our constitution. That's the way the county gets wired and how things get allocated and the power structure lines up. So, out of those, basically 11 charter commissioners, that for the first time, the county council now has an opportunity to select 9 of the 11 and the mayor selects 2. So, as a result of that, I'm one of the 11 commissioners on the charter. And right now, we're making so many changes to our whole structure and governance system so that we can eliminate that cronyism and the way things have been wired for so long.
The Hawaiian Islands were taken over in 1893 and five corporations ruled Maui County for all that time. And as you mentioned, it was horrific for many of the residents here and we're still dealing with some of those repercussions, obviously, in terms of developments and environmental standards not being kept. But we're moving forward at an incredible clip. Because again, once you get a majority of the county council and you get them elected, that serves the people and the environment, then things can move very rapidly in terms of how different types of things get changed. So, now I can list a bunch of things that will be coming up in the 2022 election that has to be approved by the voters or these charter amendments that we're proposing at that time.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, go ahead. You're trying to reset the constitution of the county in effect. It may sound dull, but you're trying to shift power from the way it was manipulated over a hundred years. So, tell us about that. I'm also interested, Paul, in the reaction of a million tourists who come to Maui every year [chuckle]. It's a very busy airport. How are they reacting to this new government of, by, and for the people and what are the newspaper and radio stations like? But go ahead, let's do the charter first.
Paul Deslauriers: Well, for example, one thing that just got passed was that the mayor would select the planning department and the people who would then be involved with the planning commission and looking at all of the development happening throughout the entire island. And obviously, it's been rigged for quite some time. And the mayor would select his group of people that was in alignment with him and what his buddies would basically want to see happen. What we've done now is we've disbanded the central planning department and now we're making planning happen through all the citizens. We'll have seven different planning districts where each of the different citizens groups then becomes the planning department for that region; so, they can really have a say in the development and evolution of their local area. And it was a very, very frustrating and obviously a huge problem here in terms of how things were evolving with the residents and the environment. That's one little shift that is going to affect all of the development throughout the entire island for generations to come.
Ralph Nader: You have a real water problem. Listeners should know there's water on one side of the island that is wet and the other side needs the water. And this whole distribution network for decades was controlled by just a handful of powerful people and companies, right?
Paul Deslauriers: Yes. And this is a battle that we're facing still, but we're making tremendous progress in terms of the county purchasing some of the water infrastructure, but also there are a lot of different issues that we're facing in terms of leases. So, the battle continues. Water is a big issue because, whoever controls the water controls Maui County's future, because they can then determine where the agriculture goes, what type of crops are grown and where the developments happen since we need water as a foundation for that. It’s the lifeblood of the island, and yet it's controlled by offshore corporations at this time. So, we're rapidly moving towards changing that.
Ralph Nader: Tell me, are the corporations going to the state government to try to preempt you the way they did in Texas when some cities increased the minimum wage. They went to the corrupt Republican dominated state legislature and preempted local authority. Are they going that way to try to block you?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, I think that we have a real challenge when we look at the Democrat run state government because they're corporate Democrats; [chuckle] they're there for corporate interests, not for the people. So, it's been a real challenge. That's why we're working with the other counties here in Maui, so that they can get and elect progressive state reps. We need that majority in order to really make that shift on a state level. We are working right now with the other counties so that they can form a standard pack like we did with the Maui Pono Network and organize in a way that is effective and efficient, that can influence the community narrative, which is essential in terms of the election process.
Ralph Nader: How is the corporate media treating you in Hawai'i, the newspapers, radio and TV in Maui and in the other islands?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, you'll get a certain twist, but again, we can utilize the existing system effectively and efficiently and also create new forms of communication, which we've been doing proactively here in Maui County. We have, let's say, our newspaper, the Maui News that has been corporate run since its existence, but they have this thing which is highly read in terms of letters to the editor. So, during election time our network of really good writers did a whole training so they would be sending - on a regular basis - letters to the editor; we always maintained a progressive stance in all of the papers through this process. There are ways to even work with some of the media to help make them a little bit more progressive. We have a new newspaper, the Maui Times, which is a really good way of communicating with our community. We also have local radio talk shows and a local television station Akakū [Maui Community Media] that are very open and supportive to informing our community so we've utilized them an awful lot to get the message out.
I would say that social media has been another avenue of communication that has been extremely important. We averaged in this last election about 30,000 hits on our Facebook social media site alone and then we had Twitter and all these other things we had on our website. Our website became an information hub of progressive issues and candidates. We received 128,000 hits on our website because people want to know; they want to be informed. We put together report cards on all the different candidates on how they voted. And there's nothing like [chuckle] getting the reality in front of you when you see the card and you see all these key issues, especially that relate to progressive need and change; and you see the way some candidates vote and some don't. And it became very obvious very quickly who the progressive candidates were and were not.
So, there's a lot of different ways of communicating that I think are extremely important. The community narrative is really one of the main goals that we have. So, we are constantly putting out memes, little cartoons that depict an issue or need with little sayings. And it's amazing how they get spread around. A lot of different tools are available through the internet. And in fact, we did a lot more digital promoting in the 2020 election, compared to 2018 when we were more volunteer based. We had about 250 volunteers who participated for the election process and it was relationship-oriented where we would hand out cards like at the county fair where we had people at all three gates, and they handed out 22,000 cards in three days. And that means having little conversations with people too as they go along so an interconnection happens. We have these Friday events that happen here on the island so, we'd always be there with booths and then touting our candidates and the issues.
There are a lot of ways to get out there and communicate. And I think that when you start to have people involved and see that they can make a difference, especially now. People need something that's positive, that's uplifting, and they see that, whoa, we don't have to go along this route that they're doing right now. We can do something totally different and change the system. And again, that's what we're doing. And when people start to see the changes that have happened and how things are moving forward in such a positive way, they want to participate and be engaged. Ralph Nader: One thing about this book is you really go deep into human motivation. I mean, you have all kinds of ways of motivating people and not taking credit for everything and being extremely aggregate in terms of bringing more and more people in. And I assume you're starting to bring more younger people in because people in your circle were over 50, the original circle, and it's growing. You have almost a 70% voting turnout. You use quotes like you quote Mahatma Gandhi of India. He said, “Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses to a sense of their dignity and power. I cooperate with all that is good. I desire to non-cooperate with all that is evil.”
I mean, you’re really into this and I say this because we're trying to motivate members of our Congress Club to begin interacting in very specific ways on major ignored redirections in our country with their senators and representatives. And it hasn't been easy. And I know they're going to want to get copies of this book and other listeners want to get it. And we'll tell you shortly exactly how to get it directly because this has not been published by a commercial publisher yet. But tell us, how do you deal with cynicism? How do you deal with the ‘Ah, the pox all our houses; nothing's going to change. I'm just going to live my private life and try to enjoy myself and get a decent standard of living. And I'm not into politics, Paul.’ How do you deal with that?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, certainly, there are people who don't want to participate in and be involved. But when you start to hit things that affect them on a daily basis and they see that there are issues with roads, there are issues with water distribution, there are issues with especially affordable housing at this time; when they see that, wait a minute, if I get involved and participate just a little bit, or even tell my neighbors about some of the positive change and candidates who could support that change, then there's involvement, engagement. I think that the more you make it so that it is a local issue and it hits home viscerally, that's when you start to stir the emotion.
Ralph Nader: There's been inequitable property taxes in Maui, favoring the rich and the big landowners. Are you tackling that problem?
Paul Deslauriers: Oh, it's already been changed. So, new homes over 5,000 square feet just got additional taxes, tax increase for the different hotels that have been undertaxed. So, there's a lot happening. We're looking at some additional means also so that it could really support affordable housing. And we need to subsidize housing here. You know, what you read before in terms of the average house sale was about $778, I think, in 2018; now it's getting over a million dollars. I think that people are seeing Maui as a safe haven and so, the property has been bought up during this post pandemic period. And I think that, again, it really emphasizes the importance of having affordable housing, but affordable housing in perpetuity. So, we're looking at community land trusts and doing all these things that are evolving and developing at a very rapid rate.
Ralph Nader: Are you looking at co-operatives, consumer co-operatives, food co-ops, housing co-ops? Because there's a National Cooperative Bank in Washington [D.C.], which we got enacted in 1978 under President [Jimmy] Carter. And they have more loans available than the demand. So, you could do health co-ops, food co-ops, and housing co-ops. Have you thought of that?
Paul Deslauriers: Yes, we have. And right now, especially with food, actually, one of the charter changes that occurred in last election in 2020 was to get our own agricultural department to separate ourselves in some way from the state agricultural department, which is focused on big agriculture with a lot of toxic chemicals. Instead, what we're focusing on is smaller farmers, education and getting this collaborative, cooperative ways of dealing with food processing. And so, it's underway as far as food goes. And we are right now working with housing issues in that similar manner.
Ralph Nader: Well, think of loan requests to the National Cooperative Bank here in Washington, D.C. How do you give people credit? People like to be given credit when they do the right thing and there are all kinds of ways to give people credit. How do you give them credit?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, I think acknowledging people is important as far as the motivation process and getting people to continue to be involved. I just look at our team; now we have a small group that’s at the core. And then, from there, we have our different committees, and we have volunteers who are participating in those different committees. We always acknowledge the people on the team and put them in the forefront. And especially when it comes to candidates or people who are supporting particular issues, we put them up front and let their name be out there because we want name recognition especially for some of these younger candidates that we're supporting.
One of the things that we do for our candidates, for example, is that we started a minor league, which I think you'll find interesting, Ralph, in that basically it's like a baseball minor league where we have a Double-A and Triple-A. And they look for high school and college players who are really, really good and they ask them if they want to be a professional. We're doing, the same thing. We're going around looking at people who testify, who are involved in civic type of activities, who are working with nonprofits, who have that type of ability and skill in terms of their communication, relationships, and who are focused on progressive issues and needs. And so, we ask these young people to come in and we look at where their interest is, and then we get them involved in different ways.
For example, we have right now, six people involved with the different county council members as assistants, supporting them on specific initiatives. We have people that we help and support to get on boards. So that these young candidates who are coming up in the ranks get more and more skills as they develop, and we give them coaching as they go along. And with that we're able to truly see that we don't elect someone who then does a turncoat on us. Like we did in that first election in 2018. We learned our lesson, and we said, “We have to vet these candidates and understand where they're coming from.” And we do that by getting them engaged, seeing how they show up, looking at their productivity. And from there, we can say, “Okay, here's someone I want to bring up to our Double-A league.” And that means that we get them involved in our meetings. We get them more involved in social media; we start to promote them. And when it comes to election time, if they look like they're a good candidate that we really want to support, they go to the Triple-A. And if they get elected, they're in the majors.
Ralph Nader: Well, your boards like zoning board, your board of education, they're all elected. Are you starting to get the progressive wave there in all these boards?
Paul Deslauriers: Absolutely. We already did. So, with a charter, before the mayor used to select all of the different commissions and boards. But now we have what we call a Blue Ribbon Commission, which is basically main citizens who have been really proactive that are well-respected; they have high integrity. This group then of nine people will then be the people who will select them – all the boards and commissions for the county itself. So, it eliminates a tremendous amount of the issues and problems we've had with not getting qualified people or the right mix or the right representation in those different committees and boards. Now it is just open and clear in the process with a lot more transparency.
Ralph Nader: Well, Paul, in the interest of time, some quick questions and quick answers. Are you trying to get civic skills taught in the schools and connect the schools with outside activities under adult supervision and what is the minimum wage? And are you trying to do some about that? And what are you doing about health insurance?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, let me just say about the wage thing. First of all, we've been trying. It's a state issue and the house rep would not even allow the discussion to go beyond… right now it's $10.20 an hour. Studies have been done where in order to live here with the cost of living for housing and food, about $17 an hour is needed. So, there's such a huge gap. We tried to make it $15 an hour. And again, it's based on the state. So, there's a real challenge in dealing with minimum wage issues. And we're trying to do that more on a local level where a lot of the different businesses now have put in their minimum as $15 an hour. And we're really encouraging that. But as far as the state goes, it remains a challenge. And that's why we're trying to get the other counties to get involved in that way so that we can get the right representation, the right state reps in there.
Ralph Nader: By the way, listeners should know that Hawai'i has been dominated forever since it became a state by the Democratic Party. You have to look here and there to find a Republican, so they are very much corporate Democrats as you said, but they certainly don't have to worry like in Kentucky and Alabama about any resurgent Republican Party. What about civic skills in the schools?
Paul Deslauriers: We have Kelly King, one of our council members [who] is right now helping to bring that more into the schools. And part of what we're looking at then is to actually use that as part of the farm team into the minor leagues, basically, so we can get civic engagement happening early on. And they're putting together a mock county council, which would be done by high school kids. And they in turn will pass legislation and do different things that encourages them and demystifies government functions; it's something that they can easily participate in and understand. And we have a great video that they just did, and the county just did also through Kelly King that lays it all out in terms of civic engagement and how to do that and how to be involved and how to be involved and get elected. It is a great overview that is being shown all civics classes in all high schools.
Ralph Nader: Before we tell people how they can get your book, we have listeners from all over the world. We've had feedback from Hong Kong and Eastern Europe, Canada, of course. And you intend this book to apply to anywhere in the world where there is corporate rule that needs to be replaced by home rule. Why do you think people should read this book?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, first of all, I think that it's an uplifting solution and that's what we need. I hear so much in terms of talk radio and what's out there that the focus remains on the problems, what's happening, what the federal government is doing, what the state government is doing, lockdowns. And it becomes overwhelming. When that's all the message you hear, it gets very depressing. But this is a different message, and this is a different approach where we can actually do something proactive to really make a positive change. And I think that once people start to realize that it dissipates that fear, that anxiety that so many throughout our entire planet are feeling right now. Because I find that if there's something that is bringing up fear or concern, if I can do something proactive that I can see can create a resolution and change this, then I'd become uplifted, excited, and enthusiastic, versus these other low-level emotions of fear.
Ralph Nader: Before we continue on, tell us how people can get this book.
Paul Deslauriers: They can go to reclaimparadise.org and also it's available on Amazon [.com, Inc.], but I would hope that they can come over to this website so that we can start to connect with them. I think that once people get a look at how really easy it is to create the systemic change, that they want to do that within their own town, city or county. So, reclaimparadise.org.
Ralph Nader: reclaimparadise.org. You'll find out how to get this book and apply it to your own circumstances. Now, I know county government is restricted in what it can do in Maui as elsewhere and that state and federal governments have very strong jurisdictional claims on what can be done. But what are you doing in such situations as the prisons in Maui, the healthcare problem in Maui? What can you do given the limits of county government?
Paul Deslauriers: Again, that's where we're really working with the other counties to get a majority of progressive state reps in there. It's not the case right now. Corporate reps are in there controlled by corporations and big money interests. So, that makes it very difficult. However, when you start to, you can control what happens to a large extent. There are things that can work, but home rule certainly varies from county to county and in terms of the level of jurisdictions. But there is a lot you can do within the county that can really make a significant difference.
Ralph Nader: Getting back to the mechanics, how do you avoid bickering? I've seen the Green Party paralyze itself because of internal bickering at the state level. And a lot of other parties often propose things yet weaken themselves by constant bickering. Some have very personal, trivial personality differences, not policy differences. How do you deal with the bickering thing? Because you're actually doing the work on the ground. It's not just proposing or debating. How do you deal with the bickering?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, yeah, the whole issue of divisiveness and bickering and people attacking each other, I think, is something that we're very cognizant of and very sensitive about so that if there are issues that come up for individuals, we sit down and we talk and we deal with that. And one of the things that we've done here, what I think that this should really be based on, it should be issue-based. People are not debating whether we have issues with water or with affordable housing; these are not debatable issues in that sense. And there are very good, clear solutions that have been utilized in other counties that we could also bring within our own group. So, I think the solutions and dealing with specific issues and needs, I find it doesn't become more of a personality issue or anything like that. It's issue-based; you deal with numbers and facts; you deal with specifics in terms of what has worked in other counties and why it's effective. You make it so that it's very rational and you don't come to these far-off conclusions, but you make it so that it's very grounded. In that way, I find that people come along because they want to see these changes happen within their community. And yes, there'll be divisiveness at times. There'll be… talk about divisiveness, look at the whole vaccine issue right now. So, what we've done is we've avoided… the Maui Pono Network is not involved with any of pro-vax or anti-vax or any of these other things around pandemic. Because we see that from our perspective, that's very divisive. So, we avoid divisive, real divisive issues like that, and focus on what's really going to make a difference long-term here in the county itself.
Ralph Nader: And you go through a lot of this in chapter nine. It’s called “The Road to Home Rule: Get Started, Build a Local Citizens Political Action Committee”. This is what you want, listeners, so, pay heed to reclaimparadise.org. And let's get Steve and David in on this. I hope, Steve and David, you talk about how do we apply some of these lessons from Maui to the mainland, to the Congress Club, and get people to think that any level of civic energy can have just returns and replicate the motivation in a kind of leveraged fashion. I take it, Paul, you haven't gotten much media coverage from the mainstream press, have you? NPR [National Public Radio], PBS [Public Broadcasting Service]?
Paul Deslauriers: None, whatsoever. No. No, I haven't. So we're still in the early stages of trying to communicate this, and being on your radio show is certainly a big part of that, Ralph. So, thank you.
Ralph Nader: We're going to try to get the New York Times and Washington Post. Once they do it, then you'll get a lot more media because these are publications that discover the so-called new activities. So, we're going to try to help out, Steve?
Steve Skrovan: Yeah. I wanted to kind of pick up on just what you were saying, because, Paul, we spoke to you almost exactly two years ago, December of 2019. And I was going to ask if other communities have reached out to you? Have you, if you’ll excuse the expression, been able to spread the contagion?
Paul Deslauriers: [chuckles] Well, I would say spread the good news, and yes, it has been. There are a few counties that are engaged in that. But what we did was two years ago, after Seven Steps was published, it was outdated two months after it got put out. And so we said, wait a minute, we have to take a step back and let's not go ahead and promote and get this going. Instead, we had to go back to the drawing board because instead of being more relationship oriented in our approach, we had to become more digitally oriented in our approach.
So, with that, for example, during the lockdown, we reached out to all the candidates, and we got them on video on Zoom [Video Communications]. And basically, we recorded an hour interview with all of the candidates, both progressive and non-progressive. And then we had that on our website and it became a real source for people to become informed. Just on Facebook Live, we were doing this. We were getting over 2,000 views and then we had it on Akakū, which is our local community television station. So, there were a lot of things that we did that basically were a lot different that we wanted to utilize in this next edition. So, we have both. We have post pandemic and pre-pandemic approaches that will work based on the level of lockdown or issues that are faced within each community. We've just finished that, and Steve, we're just putting this out right now. So, there will be more effort after we really got a way/a system/a process that really, really works, working with both lockdown and non-lockdown.
Ralph Nader: You know, I can't let the program end without getting your views of the native Hawaiian sovereignty movement, which has really developed since the mid-1970s. When I was in Hawaii, I met with some of the organizers of this and they're moving to get tribal recognition the way native tribes in the US have under US law. But they also have other programs to recover some of what was destroyed. Eighty percent of the native population was destroyed in the early 20th century and all kinds of diseases that came from the sailors--tuberculosis, influenza, measles--that the natives had never experienced [and] had no immunity toward. Can you give us a capsule of what's going on there? Because I know you're part of that effort.
Paul Deslauriers: Yeah. I think that what happened with all these different types of native Hawaiian movements that were happening in 70s, 80s and 90s; they never really unified in a way that I think is necessary to move the needle. If you have different factions that are fighting against each other or not collaborating in alignment, then that will dissipate the energy being created through that movement. And that's exactly what happened with the Hawaiian movement to a large extent. Now, it was revitalized on the Big Island with Mauna Kea recently and a lot of the Hawaiian groups came together and unified around these issues. And I think that's a key thing to keep in mind regardless of native Hawaiian or any type of group. You’ve got to avoid that divisiveness/separation, because our strength and power comes from the unity and collaboration that can happen among us. So, that's the thing to really encourage. It's still there, but it's in factions to a certain extent. But it got together on the Mauna Kea issue, which was about putting out these huge telescopes, size of three football fields on the top of this very sacred place of the Hawaiians.
Ralph Nader: Is there anything else you want to tell our listeners, Paul, that we didn't cover? Are you available for interviews on local radio around the country?
Paul Deslauriers: Oh, well, first of all, yes, I'm definitely available for interviews. And in terms of just the last message, I really want to encourage your listeners to get involved and participate because there is a way out. We don't have to do this reset that's being promoted by mainstream media or these lockdowns in the way that they're doing. What we can do is have our local governance support the people in the environment and also have a protective screen against any of, let's say, tyranny that may be coming from above down. So, having this grassroot base, this foundation of people supporting each other, their community, the common good, I think, is so crucial as we move forward. And there's a countermeasure that we can do that is involve locally so everyone can participate.
Ralph Nader: Listeners, to be clear, what Paul was saying is this isn't about trying to persuade your elected representatives to do the right thing, representatives who have been indentured to a lot of commercial and invested interests. This is about replacing them! You have a slate of candidates who represent of, by, and for the people and you replace them and take over the local government. [chuckle] That'll save you a lot of time. That's what you're saying, right, Paul?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, exactly. In fact, what I'm really saying also is that you want to go to the primary place of change, not secondary and third-level repercussions that'll get you nowhere. So, when you go and protest, you're protesting to politicians who enacted the problems in the first place and whose loyalty is somewhere else. So those efforts become dissipated and not effective. What I'm saying is take that energy and focus it on this key point: getting a majority of the county council, for example, or the board in the towns and cities. Let that be the focus, not so much what's happening on a national level, vote on a national level, but where we can really have control and influence is by gaining this progressive group of representatives who will provide that protective shield and protect those residents within there. And I think that's what we have to focus on, especially in terms of what's coming down. We don't know exactly how far this is going to spin down in terms of fascism. But I'm just saying that this is a way.
Ralph Nader: This is a way because if you recover the elected county or the elected town or elected city council, then you can begin replacing the corporatist heads of the departments in the local government. You can then get more people elected to the boards of education and zoning and assessors, et cetera. So, it isn't just the electing the legislature, so to speak, of the local government. It transforms the entire local government once you do that first step. Is that right?
Paul Deslauriers: It's systemic change. And this is, from my perspective, the way to do systemic change. I don't think we can access it on a federal level or a state level, but we can on a county, town, and city level. And this is where the protection happens in the future as we move forward.
Ralph Nader: Well, thank you very much. We've been talking with Paul Deslauriers, author of the book, Reclaim Paradise: RESET for the Common Good. Maui County shifted from corporate rule to home rule and the template for global system change. And people listening to this program want to hear Paul talk about this in your local community on local radio or cable, you know where to go, reclaimparadise.org. Thank you very much, Paul. To be continued.
Paul Deslauriers: Thank you, Ralph, and again, a pleasure.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Paul Deslauriers. We will link to his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Now, let’s check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, November 26, 2021; I'm Russell Mokhiber. Switching seniors to Medicare Advantage plans has cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars more than keeping them in original Medicare, a cost that has exploded since 2018, and is likely to rise even higher. That's according to a report from Kaiser Health News. Richard Kronick, a former federal health policy researcher and a professor at the University of California, San Diego, said his analysis of newly released Medicare Advantage billing data estimates that Medicare overpaid the private health plans by more than $106 billion from 2010 through 2019 because of the way the private plans charge for sicker patients. “They are paying [Medicare Advantage plans] way more than they should,” said Kronick. Giant insurer UnitedHealthcare [Inc], which in 2019 had about 6 million Medicare Advantage members, received excess payments of some $6 billion. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. Hey, we have a special treat for our radio listeners this holiday week. We're going to conclude the show. We're going to play a fun segment that was available only to our podcast listeners couple of months ago. Ralph was complaining about how corporate branding was intruding on his enjoyment of listening to his beloved New York Yankees radio broadcast. So, we put together a parody that highlights that absurdity. Enjoy. We hear the closing chords of the National Anthem.
Radio Announcer (Skrovan): Hello everybody, this is Tommy Dudley and it’s time to “play ball” here in the Windy City for the first of a four-game tilt between your New York Yankees and the Central Division leading Chicago White Sox. Our “Salute to America National Anthem” was brought to you by LensCrafters.
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We’re ready for the first pitch. Giolito toes the rubber and looks in for the sign. The first pitch of the game is sponsored by First National Bank of Long Island. When you’re looking for a loan, let First National Bank be Your first pitch.
Giolito winds and we’re underway. Gardner takes a fastball for a strike. Right at the knees that just painted the outside corner. And painting the corner is sponsored by CertaPro Painters. Whether it’s an inside or an outside job leave your painting to the pros at CertaPro.
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The one-one pitch. Up and in with a fastball that spins Gardner out of the box! A little chin music. And if you’re looking to repair a musical instrument, look no further than Raffy’s Musical Instrument Emporium and Repair. Fine workmanship at low prices. At Raffy’s, they’ll get that broken violin back under your chin, so you can keep on making beautiful music.
No score here in the top of the first inning. 2-1 on Gardner, who steps back in. Giolito looks in for the sign, nods, fires. Gardner swings and sends a line drive just over first baseman Jose Abreu onto the right field grass, sponsored by Scott’s Turf Builder. The ball rattles around the corner, which is brought to you by Sal’s Corner Bar and Grille. If you’re looking to heft a tall cold one after the game, like that baseball, head to the corner: Sal’s Corner Bar and Grille.
Gardner motors for second as Eaton airmails the throw over shortstop Tim Anderson’s head. That error is brought to you by FedEx where unlike Adam Eaton’s throw, your package will arrive on time and online. Gardner races for third as Yoan Moncada gloves the ball with a mitt made by Rawlings, the official glove of Major League Baseball.
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I’m looking at Gardner over there at third. He is limping around a bit after that slide. He’s feeling the back of his leg. This hamstring tweak is brought to you by Zoid, Zoid, and Zoid. When life throws you a 95 mile an hour fastball to the face, call the injury lawyers at Zoid, Zoid, and Zoid. Looks like the umpires are removing their Sony headsets, and the call is upheld. Gardner is “safe.” You can hear the crowd doesn’t agree. And neither does Tony La Russa! He’s charging out of the White Sox dugout toward home plate umpire Joe West.
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And the first pitch to Judge, swing and miss on a breaking ball...
Steve Skrovan: Guess what, it's time to say goodbye. I want to thank our guest again, Paul Deslauriers. For those of you listening on the radio, we're gonna cut out now. For you, podcasts listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call “The Wrap Up.” A transcript of the show will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted.
David Feldman: Please subscribe to us on our Ralph Nader Radio Hour YouTube channel. And for Ralph Nader's weekly column, you can get it for free by going to nader.org. For more from Russell Mokhiber, go to corporatecrimereporter.com. Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, everybody. Listen to what's going on in Maui. It can happen in your locale.
by Ralph Nader
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 403 TRANSCRIPT
November 27, 2021
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/ove ... ess-story/
Ralph Nader: Hello all the way from Maui on this program.
Steve Skrovan: Yes. While national elections get major PAC [political action committee] money and infinite coverage on mainstream media outlets, local elections can seem insignificant in comparison. But school boards, zoning commissions, city council, and other local authorities really go a long way to shape our daily lives. On this program, we push listeners to go out and do things. Your local government is a great place to start. Regular listeners may remember Paul Deslauriers, who was a guest on our show back in 2019. He, along with other dedicated activists, took on the entrenched interests in his home county of Maui, Hawai'i. And guess what? They won. Last time he explained how their movement got started. Today we're going to hear about how it's going. As always, it wouldn't be a Ralph Nader Radio Hour if we didn't check in with our intrepid corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, let's get an update on democracy in Maui, David?
Ralph Nader: Paul Deslauriers is a grassroots organizer and the author of Seven Steps to Reclaim Democracy: An Empowering Guide for Systemic Change. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Paul Deslauriers.
Paul Deslauriers: Well, thank you for having me and it's a great pleasure to be here and to have this conversation with Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Well, Paul, you're a success story in Maui. I want our listeners to read your book, Reclaim Paradise [: RESET for the Common Good] [about how] Maui County shifted from corporate rule over decades to home rule--from corporate rule to home rule and the template for global system change. And I've never seen an effort like this reach the level that you've reached. Let's just tell some of our listeners very briefly about Maui. Maui County in Hawai'i is considered one of the most popular vacation spots on earth, a physical form of paradise for a reason--its beauty and year-round pleasant temperatures, waterfalls, beaches, and aloha spirit. In 2018, the county of Maui’s budget was $800 million a year with a population of 166,000. Maui is considered a wealthy county per resident yet the corporate rule still generates hardships causing the struggle for residents to survive. And then you say, “Let's take a snapshot of some key residential needs--housing, water, food education, healthcare.”
In the book, you paint a history of staggering exploitation of the Hawaiian Islands after Western explorers landed on it, toppled the government, concentrated power in five big corporations, dispossessed the land of the natives, contaminated/poisoned the water. It's almost a laundry list of how corporations can control people in their own interest s. Now, Maui is a very high-priced place. The average home sale was $775,000, which requires an income of $198,000 to apply and to make mortgage payments to a bank.
So, just to paint this picture: you land at the airport in Maui and you go around the country and you're just staggered by the beauty, but behind the scenes, there's a lot of exploitation, a lot of poverty, a lot of labor manipulation, and it's dominated by a very few people. So, you decided you were going to live in Maui. You were a consultant to over a hundred businesses as to how they can function at their optimal potential. So, you know the inside of the way corporations behave and this book can only be described as amazing. Step-by-step clear, readable descriptions of what the challenge was, starting a few years ago, how the county government was really a pawn of commercial interests and how you and a small number of people had endless conversations, discussions, analysis, and then hit the ground running.
In 2018, you won 9 of 16 seats, a slim majority. The counterattack was overwhelming. The corporations flooded the island with money, propaganda, lies, deceptions, and you persevered. And the result, you won 14 out of 16 seats. And you did it door by door, person to person, as more and more people encouraged by what you and your small group was doing joined the movement.
Now this is only one island in the chain of Hawaiian Islands and you want people not to just look at it as a sort of quirky, lucky development. You say the template is global, that the same kind of corporate concentration is everywhere. They take over the local governments and the people have to pay the consequences. You have a pyramid in the book where you have at the top, the power structure, very tiny number. And as the pyramid broadens, at the bottom are the voters and their local government.
So, here you are. You’re in 2020. You've had all kinds of obstacles. You even had one of your elected people turncoat on you in 2018 and you show people all the obstacles. This is not a pollyannaish presentation, and you made sure you were not one of the elected. You stood outside so that they couldn't accuse you of anything personal [or] partisan. So, here you are, November election, you're 14 out of 16. You did some things in 2018, but it was a very slim majority. Tell us what you've accomplished.
Paul Deslauriers: Well Ralph, it's really been an amazing process of working with our community here in Maui County. And as you mentioned, this is something that is applicable globally. And I think that a lot of people have been so suppressed and feeling so filled with fear and uncertainty about the future because there's really no mechanism or way that they can see that, yes, this is what I could do to really make a shift and change. But what this does here and what we've done with this process is show, wait a minute, there is an uplifting way of creating systemic change; that we don't have to go along with the system that right now mainstream media is toting with this great reset. The reset doesn't have to be about this fascism and technocracy and taking away our liberties and freedoms. We can reverse that and it's not a difficult process. Once you start to understand that we are dealing with a system and take a system approach, that's where everything becomes visible. Because right now our society has our economic, education, military, medical, judicial, transportation--these are all systems that create a framework around our society and they're like circuit boards that are directing and applying social energy. But what overrides all of that is our governance, so, federal and state. But where we really do have that access point, as you mentioned, is on a local level. And this is where we can really make a difference on towns, cities, and counties.
And I think that all your listeners should realize that, wait a minute, we don't have to go along with what mainstream media is telling us, because they're not allowing us to look at this other avenue, this other track that we can take that can bring about systemic change that is incredibly wonderful in terms of how it supports the people, the community, and the environment; and we can very simply do this. And the engagement process can be uplifting and supportive.
So I think that first of all, realize that we have an entry to the system and that is through counties, cities and towns. And that is where we have a voice. That's where mainstream media doesn't have the level of control because we have this local network that we can co-create of communication. And that's what we did here in Maui County. We really supported it so that we created a way that our organization became an information hub of progressive issues, values, and candidates. And we became a way where people can look at what's really happening, what are the problems we're facing, and what are the solutions that work. And from that, people can start to participate and get involved because these are touching things that affect them on a daily basis.
Ralph Nader: You know, your group is called the Maui Pono Network for those who want to look it up. And what struck me was on page 208, you have this, “Within a short time, entrenched department heads were voted out by the new county council and replaced by bright, experienced and creative coordinators. The $90 million construction project that primarily enriched the good old boy network was canceled. Funds were being allocated for affordable housing. They settled the longstanding injection wells case.” That's contamination of water, serious problem in Maui. [County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund--US Supreme Court]
“They made it so the community associations must approve any development. They proposed seven charter amendments, which were passed in 2020, that would rewire the county system to serve the common good. It would increase transparency and cronyism and increase citizens participation. Big money out of county, corporate super PACs responded with a vengeance in the 2020 county elections, spending $430,000 in the last 40 days of the election. They endorsed and promoted the exact opposite of the Maui Pono Network, including its Ohana candidate slate. The Maui Pono Network helped stop this attempted coup of our local governance.”
So, unlike so many reform movements that temporarily succeed and then the counterattack throws them out of office, you just got stronger in 2020. So, what you did in in 2020 with 9 out of 16 seats; now you have 14 seats out of 16, diversified as can be in terms of members and focusing on class exploitation--a perfect combination! So, what do you expect to be done in the next year or two now that you have an overwhelming majority on the county government? Paul Deslauriers: Well, it's been incredible changes that have happened here in Maui County. Very positive and uplifting again, supporting the people and the environment in ways that it never had before. And you mentioned many of those things that have happened and there is a lot that continues to happen. One of the charter amendments that was passed was that instead of the mayor, who is typically part of the good old boy network, would – every 10 years, our charter is reviewed. That's our constitution. That's the way the county gets wired and how things get allocated and the power structure lines up. So, out of those, basically 11 charter commissioners, that for the first time, the county council now has an opportunity to select 9 of the 11 and the mayor selects 2. So, as a result of that, I'm one of the 11 commissioners on the charter. And right now, we're making so many changes to our whole structure and governance system so that we can eliminate that cronyism and the way things have been wired for so long.
The Hawaiian Islands were taken over in 1893 and five corporations ruled Maui County for all that time. And as you mentioned, it was horrific for many of the residents here and we're still dealing with some of those repercussions, obviously, in terms of developments and environmental standards not being kept. But we're moving forward at an incredible clip. Because again, once you get a majority of the county council and you get them elected, that serves the people and the environment, then things can move very rapidly in terms of how different types of things get changed. So, now I can list a bunch of things that will be coming up in the 2022 election that has to be approved by the voters or these charter amendments that we're proposing at that time.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, go ahead. You're trying to reset the constitution of the county in effect. It may sound dull, but you're trying to shift power from the way it was manipulated over a hundred years. So, tell us about that. I'm also interested, Paul, in the reaction of a million tourists who come to Maui every year [chuckle]. It's a very busy airport. How are they reacting to this new government of, by, and for the people and what are the newspaper and radio stations like? But go ahead, let's do the charter first.
Paul Deslauriers: Well, for example, one thing that just got passed was that the mayor would select the planning department and the people who would then be involved with the planning commission and looking at all of the development happening throughout the entire island. And obviously, it's been rigged for quite some time. And the mayor would select his group of people that was in alignment with him and what his buddies would basically want to see happen. What we've done now is we've disbanded the central planning department and now we're making planning happen through all the citizens. We'll have seven different planning districts where each of the different citizens groups then becomes the planning department for that region; so, they can really have a say in the development and evolution of their local area. And it was a very, very frustrating and obviously a huge problem here in terms of how things were evolving with the residents and the environment. That's one little shift that is going to affect all of the development throughout the entire island for generations to come.
Ralph Nader: You have a real water problem. Listeners should know there's water on one side of the island that is wet and the other side needs the water. And this whole distribution network for decades was controlled by just a handful of powerful people and companies, right?
Paul Deslauriers: Yes. And this is a battle that we're facing still, but we're making tremendous progress in terms of the county purchasing some of the water infrastructure, but also there are a lot of different issues that we're facing in terms of leases. So, the battle continues. Water is a big issue because, whoever controls the water controls Maui County's future, because they can then determine where the agriculture goes, what type of crops are grown and where the developments happen since we need water as a foundation for that. It’s the lifeblood of the island, and yet it's controlled by offshore corporations at this time. So, we're rapidly moving towards changing that.
Ralph Nader: Tell me, are the corporations going to the state government to try to preempt you the way they did in Texas when some cities increased the minimum wage. They went to the corrupt Republican dominated state legislature and preempted local authority. Are they going that way to try to block you?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, I think that we have a real challenge when we look at the Democrat run state government because they're corporate Democrats; [chuckle] they're there for corporate interests, not for the people. So, it's been a real challenge. That's why we're working with the other counties here in Maui, so that they can get and elect progressive state reps. We need that majority in order to really make that shift on a state level. We are working right now with the other counties so that they can form a standard pack like we did with the Maui Pono Network and organize in a way that is effective and efficient, that can influence the community narrative, which is essential in terms of the election process.
Ralph Nader: How is the corporate media treating you in Hawai'i, the newspapers, radio and TV in Maui and in the other islands?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, you'll get a certain twist, but again, we can utilize the existing system effectively and efficiently and also create new forms of communication, which we've been doing proactively here in Maui County. We have, let's say, our newspaper, the Maui News that has been corporate run since its existence, but they have this thing which is highly read in terms of letters to the editor. So, during election time our network of really good writers did a whole training so they would be sending - on a regular basis - letters to the editor; we always maintained a progressive stance in all of the papers through this process. There are ways to even work with some of the media to help make them a little bit more progressive. We have a new newspaper, the Maui Times, which is a really good way of communicating with our community. We also have local radio talk shows and a local television station Akakū [Maui Community Media] that are very open and supportive to informing our community so we've utilized them an awful lot to get the message out.
I would say that social media has been another avenue of communication that has been extremely important. We averaged in this last election about 30,000 hits on our Facebook social media site alone and then we had Twitter and all these other things we had on our website. Our website became an information hub of progressive issues and candidates. We received 128,000 hits on our website because people want to know; they want to be informed. We put together report cards on all the different candidates on how they voted. And there's nothing like [chuckle] getting the reality in front of you when you see the card and you see all these key issues, especially that relate to progressive need and change; and you see the way some candidates vote and some don't. And it became very obvious very quickly who the progressive candidates were and were not.
So, there's a lot of different ways of communicating that I think are extremely important. The community narrative is really one of the main goals that we have. So, we are constantly putting out memes, little cartoons that depict an issue or need with little sayings. And it's amazing how they get spread around. A lot of different tools are available through the internet. And in fact, we did a lot more digital promoting in the 2020 election, compared to 2018 when we were more volunteer based. We had about 250 volunteers who participated for the election process and it was relationship-oriented where we would hand out cards like at the county fair where we had people at all three gates, and they handed out 22,000 cards in three days. And that means having little conversations with people too as they go along so an interconnection happens. We have these Friday events that happen here on the island so, we'd always be there with booths and then touting our candidates and the issues.
There are a lot of ways to get out there and communicate. And I think that when you start to have people involved and see that they can make a difference, especially now. People need something that's positive, that's uplifting, and they see that, whoa, we don't have to go along this route that they're doing right now. We can do something totally different and change the system. And again, that's what we're doing. And when people start to see the changes that have happened and how things are moving forward in such a positive way, they want to participate and be engaged. Ralph Nader: One thing about this book is you really go deep into human motivation. I mean, you have all kinds of ways of motivating people and not taking credit for everything and being extremely aggregate in terms of bringing more and more people in. And I assume you're starting to bring more younger people in because people in your circle were over 50, the original circle, and it's growing. You have almost a 70% voting turnout. You use quotes like you quote Mahatma Gandhi of India. He said, “Non-cooperation is an attempt to awaken the masses to a sense of their dignity and power. I cooperate with all that is good. I desire to non-cooperate with all that is evil.”
I mean, you’re really into this and I say this because we're trying to motivate members of our Congress Club to begin interacting in very specific ways on major ignored redirections in our country with their senators and representatives. And it hasn't been easy. And I know they're going to want to get copies of this book and other listeners want to get it. And we'll tell you shortly exactly how to get it directly because this has not been published by a commercial publisher yet. But tell us, how do you deal with cynicism? How do you deal with the ‘Ah, the pox all our houses; nothing's going to change. I'm just going to live my private life and try to enjoy myself and get a decent standard of living. And I'm not into politics, Paul.’ How do you deal with that?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, certainly, there are people who don't want to participate in and be involved. But when you start to hit things that affect them on a daily basis and they see that there are issues with roads, there are issues with water distribution, there are issues with especially affordable housing at this time; when they see that, wait a minute, if I get involved and participate just a little bit, or even tell my neighbors about some of the positive change and candidates who could support that change, then there's involvement, engagement. I think that the more you make it so that it is a local issue and it hits home viscerally, that's when you start to stir the emotion.
Ralph Nader: There's been inequitable property taxes in Maui, favoring the rich and the big landowners. Are you tackling that problem?
Paul Deslauriers: Oh, it's already been changed. So, new homes over 5,000 square feet just got additional taxes, tax increase for the different hotels that have been undertaxed. So, there's a lot happening. We're looking at some additional means also so that it could really support affordable housing. And we need to subsidize housing here. You know, what you read before in terms of the average house sale was about $778, I think, in 2018; now it's getting over a million dollars. I think that people are seeing Maui as a safe haven and so, the property has been bought up during this post pandemic period. And I think that, again, it really emphasizes the importance of having affordable housing, but affordable housing in perpetuity. So, we're looking at community land trusts and doing all these things that are evolving and developing at a very rapid rate.
Ralph Nader: Are you looking at co-operatives, consumer co-operatives, food co-ops, housing co-ops? Because there's a National Cooperative Bank in Washington [D.C.], which we got enacted in 1978 under President [Jimmy] Carter. And they have more loans available than the demand. So, you could do health co-ops, food co-ops, and housing co-ops. Have you thought of that?
Paul Deslauriers: Yes, we have. And right now, especially with food, actually, one of the charter changes that occurred in last election in 2020 was to get our own agricultural department to separate ourselves in some way from the state agricultural department, which is focused on big agriculture with a lot of toxic chemicals. Instead, what we're focusing on is smaller farmers, education and getting this collaborative, cooperative ways of dealing with food processing. And so, it's underway as far as food goes. And we are right now working with housing issues in that similar manner.
Ralph Nader: Well, think of loan requests to the National Cooperative Bank here in Washington, D.C. How do you give people credit? People like to be given credit when they do the right thing and there are all kinds of ways to give people credit. How do you give them credit?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, I think acknowledging people is important as far as the motivation process and getting people to continue to be involved. I just look at our team; now we have a small group that’s at the core. And then, from there, we have our different committees, and we have volunteers who are participating in those different committees. We always acknowledge the people on the team and put them in the forefront. And especially when it comes to candidates or people who are supporting particular issues, we put them up front and let their name be out there because we want name recognition especially for some of these younger candidates that we're supporting.
One of the things that we do for our candidates, for example, is that we started a minor league, which I think you'll find interesting, Ralph, in that basically it's like a baseball minor league where we have a Double-A and Triple-A. And they look for high school and college players who are really, really good and they ask them if they want to be a professional. We're doing, the same thing. We're going around looking at people who testify, who are involved in civic type of activities, who are working with nonprofits, who have that type of ability and skill in terms of their communication, relationships, and who are focused on progressive issues and needs. And so, we ask these young people to come in and we look at where their interest is, and then we get them involved in different ways.
For example, we have right now, six people involved with the different county council members as assistants, supporting them on specific initiatives. We have people that we help and support to get on boards. So that these young candidates who are coming up in the ranks get more and more skills as they develop, and we give them coaching as they go along. And with that we're able to truly see that we don't elect someone who then does a turncoat on us. Like we did in that first election in 2018. We learned our lesson, and we said, “We have to vet these candidates and understand where they're coming from.” And we do that by getting them engaged, seeing how they show up, looking at their productivity. And from there, we can say, “Okay, here's someone I want to bring up to our Double-A league.” And that means that we get them involved in our meetings. We get them more involved in social media; we start to promote them. And when it comes to election time, if they look like they're a good candidate that we really want to support, they go to the Triple-A. And if they get elected, they're in the majors.
Ralph Nader: Well, your boards like zoning board, your board of education, they're all elected. Are you starting to get the progressive wave there in all these boards?
Paul Deslauriers: Absolutely. We already did. So, with a charter, before the mayor used to select all of the different commissions and boards. But now we have what we call a Blue Ribbon Commission, which is basically main citizens who have been really proactive that are well-respected; they have high integrity. This group then of nine people will then be the people who will select them – all the boards and commissions for the county itself. So, it eliminates a tremendous amount of the issues and problems we've had with not getting qualified people or the right mix or the right representation in those different committees and boards. Now it is just open and clear in the process with a lot more transparency.
Ralph Nader: Well, Paul, in the interest of time, some quick questions and quick answers. Are you trying to get civic skills taught in the schools and connect the schools with outside activities under adult supervision and what is the minimum wage? And are you trying to do some about that? And what are you doing about health insurance?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, let me just say about the wage thing. First of all, we've been trying. It's a state issue and the house rep would not even allow the discussion to go beyond… right now it's $10.20 an hour. Studies have been done where in order to live here with the cost of living for housing and food, about $17 an hour is needed. So, there's such a huge gap. We tried to make it $15 an hour. And again, it's based on the state. So, there's a real challenge in dealing with minimum wage issues. And we're trying to do that more on a local level where a lot of the different businesses now have put in their minimum as $15 an hour. And we're really encouraging that. But as far as the state goes, it remains a challenge. And that's why we're trying to get the other counties to get involved in that way so that we can get the right representation, the right state reps in there.
Ralph Nader: By the way, listeners should know that Hawai'i has been dominated forever since it became a state by the Democratic Party. You have to look here and there to find a Republican, so they are very much corporate Democrats as you said, but they certainly don't have to worry like in Kentucky and Alabama about any resurgent Republican Party. What about civic skills in the schools?
Paul Deslauriers: We have Kelly King, one of our council members [who] is right now helping to bring that more into the schools. And part of what we're looking at then is to actually use that as part of the farm team into the minor leagues, basically, so we can get civic engagement happening early on. And they're putting together a mock county council, which would be done by high school kids. And they in turn will pass legislation and do different things that encourages them and demystifies government functions; it's something that they can easily participate in and understand. And we have a great video that they just did, and the county just did also through Kelly King that lays it all out in terms of civic engagement and how to do that and how to be involved and how to be involved and get elected. It is a great overview that is being shown all civics classes in all high schools.
Ralph Nader: Before we tell people how they can get your book, we have listeners from all over the world. We've had feedback from Hong Kong and Eastern Europe, Canada, of course. And you intend this book to apply to anywhere in the world where there is corporate rule that needs to be replaced by home rule. Why do you think people should read this book?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, first of all, I think that it's an uplifting solution and that's what we need. I hear so much in terms of talk radio and what's out there that the focus remains on the problems, what's happening, what the federal government is doing, what the state government is doing, lockdowns. And it becomes overwhelming. When that's all the message you hear, it gets very depressing. But this is a different message, and this is a different approach where we can actually do something proactive to really make a positive change. And I think that once people start to realize that it dissipates that fear, that anxiety that so many throughout our entire planet are feeling right now. Because I find that if there's something that is bringing up fear or concern, if I can do something proactive that I can see can create a resolution and change this, then I'd become uplifted, excited, and enthusiastic, versus these other low-level emotions of fear.
Ralph Nader: Before we continue on, tell us how people can get this book.
Paul Deslauriers: They can go to reclaimparadise.org and also it's available on Amazon [.com, Inc.], but I would hope that they can come over to this website so that we can start to connect with them. I think that once people get a look at how really easy it is to create the systemic change, that they want to do that within their own town, city or county. So, reclaimparadise.org.
Ralph Nader: reclaimparadise.org. You'll find out how to get this book and apply it to your own circumstances. Now, I know county government is restricted in what it can do in Maui as elsewhere and that state and federal governments have very strong jurisdictional claims on what can be done. But what are you doing in such situations as the prisons in Maui, the healthcare problem in Maui? What can you do given the limits of county government?
Paul Deslauriers: Again, that's where we're really working with the other counties to get a majority of progressive state reps in there. It's not the case right now. Corporate reps are in there controlled by corporations and big money interests. So, that makes it very difficult. However, when you start to, you can control what happens to a large extent. There are things that can work, but home rule certainly varies from county to county and in terms of the level of jurisdictions. But there is a lot you can do within the county that can really make a significant difference.
Ralph Nader: Getting back to the mechanics, how do you avoid bickering? I've seen the Green Party paralyze itself because of internal bickering at the state level. And a lot of other parties often propose things yet weaken themselves by constant bickering. Some have very personal, trivial personality differences, not policy differences. How do you deal with the bickering thing? Because you're actually doing the work on the ground. It's not just proposing or debating. How do you deal with the bickering?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, yeah, the whole issue of divisiveness and bickering and people attacking each other, I think, is something that we're very cognizant of and very sensitive about so that if there are issues that come up for individuals, we sit down and we talk and we deal with that. And one of the things that we've done here, what I think that this should really be based on, it should be issue-based. People are not debating whether we have issues with water or with affordable housing; these are not debatable issues in that sense. And there are very good, clear solutions that have been utilized in other counties that we could also bring within our own group. So, I think the solutions and dealing with specific issues and needs, I find it doesn't become more of a personality issue or anything like that. It's issue-based; you deal with numbers and facts; you deal with specifics in terms of what has worked in other counties and why it's effective. You make it so that it's very rational and you don't come to these far-off conclusions, but you make it so that it's very grounded. In that way, I find that people come along because they want to see these changes happen within their community. And yes, there'll be divisiveness at times. There'll be… talk about divisiveness, look at the whole vaccine issue right now. So, what we've done is we've avoided… the Maui Pono Network is not involved with any of pro-vax or anti-vax or any of these other things around pandemic. Because we see that from our perspective, that's very divisive. So, we avoid divisive, real divisive issues like that, and focus on what's really going to make a difference long-term here in the county itself.
Ralph Nader: And you go through a lot of this in chapter nine. It’s called “The Road to Home Rule: Get Started, Build a Local Citizens Political Action Committee”. This is what you want, listeners, so, pay heed to reclaimparadise.org. And let's get Steve and David in on this. I hope, Steve and David, you talk about how do we apply some of these lessons from Maui to the mainland, to the Congress Club, and get people to think that any level of civic energy can have just returns and replicate the motivation in a kind of leveraged fashion. I take it, Paul, you haven't gotten much media coverage from the mainstream press, have you? NPR [National Public Radio], PBS [Public Broadcasting Service]?
Paul Deslauriers: None, whatsoever. No. No, I haven't. So we're still in the early stages of trying to communicate this, and being on your radio show is certainly a big part of that, Ralph. So, thank you.
Ralph Nader: We're going to try to get the New York Times and Washington Post. Once they do it, then you'll get a lot more media because these are publications that discover the so-called new activities. So, we're going to try to help out, Steve?
Steve Skrovan: Yeah. I wanted to kind of pick up on just what you were saying, because, Paul, we spoke to you almost exactly two years ago, December of 2019. And I was going to ask if other communities have reached out to you? Have you, if you’ll excuse the expression, been able to spread the contagion?
Paul Deslauriers: [chuckles] Well, I would say spread the good news, and yes, it has been. There are a few counties that are engaged in that. But what we did was two years ago, after Seven Steps was published, it was outdated two months after it got put out. And so we said, wait a minute, we have to take a step back and let's not go ahead and promote and get this going. Instead, we had to go back to the drawing board because instead of being more relationship oriented in our approach, we had to become more digitally oriented in our approach.
So, with that, for example, during the lockdown, we reached out to all the candidates, and we got them on video on Zoom [Video Communications]. And basically, we recorded an hour interview with all of the candidates, both progressive and non-progressive. And then we had that on our website and it became a real source for people to become informed. Just on Facebook Live, we were doing this. We were getting over 2,000 views and then we had it on Akakū, which is our local community television station. So, there were a lot of things that we did that basically were a lot different that we wanted to utilize in this next edition. So, we have both. We have post pandemic and pre-pandemic approaches that will work based on the level of lockdown or issues that are faced within each community. We've just finished that, and Steve, we're just putting this out right now. So, there will be more effort after we really got a way/a system/a process that really, really works, working with both lockdown and non-lockdown.
Ralph Nader: You know, I can't let the program end without getting your views of the native Hawaiian sovereignty movement, which has really developed since the mid-1970s. When I was in Hawaii, I met with some of the organizers of this and they're moving to get tribal recognition the way native tribes in the US have under US law. But they also have other programs to recover some of what was destroyed. Eighty percent of the native population was destroyed in the early 20th century and all kinds of diseases that came from the sailors--tuberculosis, influenza, measles--that the natives had never experienced [and] had no immunity toward. Can you give us a capsule of what's going on there? Because I know you're part of that effort.
Paul Deslauriers: Yeah. I think that what happened with all these different types of native Hawaiian movements that were happening in 70s, 80s and 90s; they never really unified in a way that I think is necessary to move the needle. If you have different factions that are fighting against each other or not collaborating in alignment, then that will dissipate the energy being created through that movement. And that's exactly what happened with the Hawaiian movement to a large extent. Now, it was revitalized on the Big Island with Mauna Kea recently and a lot of the Hawaiian groups came together and unified around these issues. And I think that's a key thing to keep in mind regardless of native Hawaiian or any type of group. You’ve got to avoid that divisiveness/separation, because our strength and power comes from the unity and collaboration that can happen among us. So, that's the thing to really encourage. It's still there, but it's in factions to a certain extent. But it got together on the Mauna Kea issue, which was about putting out these huge telescopes, size of three football fields on the top of this very sacred place of the Hawaiians.
Ralph Nader: Is there anything else you want to tell our listeners, Paul, that we didn't cover? Are you available for interviews on local radio around the country?
Paul Deslauriers: Oh, well, first of all, yes, I'm definitely available for interviews. And in terms of just the last message, I really want to encourage your listeners to get involved and participate because there is a way out. We don't have to do this reset that's being promoted by mainstream media or these lockdowns in the way that they're doing. What we can do is have our local governance support the people in the environment and also have a protective screen against any of, let's say, tyranny that may be coming from above down. So, having this grassroot base, this foundation of people supporting each other, their community, the common good, I think, is so crucial as we move forward. And there's a countermeasure that we can do that is involve locally so everyone can participate.
Ralph Nader: Listeners, to be clear, what Paul was saying is this isn't about trying to persuade your elected representatives to do the right thing, representatives who have been indentured to a lot of commercial and invested interests. This is about replacing them! You have a slate of candidates who represent of, by, and for the people and you replace them and take over the local government. [chuckle] That'll save you a lot of time. That's what you're saying, right, Paul?
Paul Deslauriers: Well, exactly. In fact, what I'm really saying also is that you want to go to the primary place of change, not secondary and third-level repercussions that'll get you nowhere. So, when you go and protest, you're protesting to politicians who enacted the problems in the first place and whose loyalty is somewhere else. So those efforts become dissipated and not effective. What I'm saying is take that energy and focus it on this key point: getting a majority of the county council, for example, or the board in the towns and cities. Let that be the focus, not so much what's happening on a national level, vote on a national level, but where we can really have control and influence is by gaining this progressive group of representatives who will provide that protective shield and protect those residents within there. And I think that's what we have to focus on, especially in terms of what's coming down. We don't know exactly how far this is going to spin down in terms of fascism. But I'm just saying that this is a way.
Ralph Nader: This is a way because if you recover the elected county or the elected town or elected city council, then you can begin replacing the corporatist heads of the departments in the local government. You can then get more people elected to the boards of education and zoning and assessors, et cetera. So, it isn't just the electing the legislature, so to speak, of the local government. It transforms the entire local government once you do that first step. Is that right?
Paul Deslauriers: It's systemic change. And this is, from my perspective, the way to do systemic change. I don't think we can access it on a federal level or a state level, but we can on a county, town, and city level. And this is where the protection happens in the future as we move forward.
Ralph Nader: Well, thank you very much. We've been talking with Paul Deslauriers, author of the book, Reclaim Paradise: RESET for the Common Good. Maui County shifted from corporate rule to home rule and the template for global system change. And people listening to this program want to hear Paul talk about this in your local community on local radio or cable, you know where to go, reclaimparadise.org. Thank you very much, Paul. To be continued.
Paul Deslauriers: Thank you, Ralph, and again, a pleasure.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Paul Deslauriers. We will link to his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Now, let’s check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, November 26, 2021; I'm Russell Mokhiber. Switching seniors to Medicare Advantage plans has cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars more than keeping them in original Medicare, a cost that has exploded since 2018, and is likely to rise even higher. That's according to a report from Kaiser Health News. Richard Kronick, a former federal health policy researcher and a professor at the University of California, San Diego, said his analysis of newly released Medicare Advantage billing data estimates that Medicare overpaid the private health plans by more than $106 billion from 2010 through 2019 because of the way the private plans charge for sicker patients. “They are paying [Medicare Advantage plans] way more than they should,” said Kronick. Giant insurer UnitedHealthcare [Inc], which in 2019 had about 6 million Medicare Advantage members, received excess payments of some $6 billion. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. Hey, we have a special treat for our radio listeners this holiday week. We're going to conclude the show. We're going to play a fun segment that was available only to our podcast listeners couple of months ago. Ralph was complaining about how corporate branding was intruding on his enjoyment of listening to his beloved New York Yankees radio broadcast. So, we put together a parody that highlights that absurdity. Enjoy. We hear the closing chords of the National Anthem.
Radio Announcer (Skrovan): Hello everybody, this is Tommy Dudley and it’s time to “play ball” here in the Windy City for the first of a four-game tilt between your New York Yankees and the Central Division leading Chicago White Sox. Our “Salute to America National Anthem” was brought to you by LensCrafters.
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It’s a beautiful day here at Guaranteed Rate Field on the south side of Chicago. Game time temperature is a balmy 72 degrees. This beautiful day is brought to you by our friends at Comfort Pros Heating and Cooling. No matter what the season, Comfort Pros can make every one of your days beautiful.
Looking forward to today’s game. The Yankees, Gerrit Cole, goes up against the Sox, Lucas Giolito, in a battle of American League aces, a heavenly pitching match-up brought to you by Chock Full O Nuts coffee -- New York's heavenly coffee since 1932.
Umpiring tonight’s game. At first, we have Angel Hernandez. Second base will be manned by Bill Welkie. At third is Ron Kulpa. And behind the plate, crew chief Joe West. Tonight's umpire alignment sponsored by Levy, Phillips and Konigsberg, a leader in asbestos litigation. If you or a loved one suffers from lung cancer or mesothelioma, let Levy, Phillips and Konigsberg call your balls and strikes.
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Okay, the White Sox have taken the field, and we’re ready for the first pitch. Leading it off for the Yankees in your McDonald’s “I’m Loving It” line-up is left-fielder Brett Gardner. Brett Gardner is brought to you by Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Brett is one Gardner who won’t plant himself in the batter’s box before visiting Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Tell ‘em Brett sent ya. And use the promo code: Guiliani
We’re ready for the first pitch. Giolito toes the rubber and looks in for the sign. The first pitch of the game is sponsored by First National Bank of Long Island. When you’re looking for a loan, let First National Bank be Your first pitch.
Giolito winds and we’re underway. Gardner takes a fastball for a strike. Right at the knees that just painted the outside corner. And painting the corner is sponsored by CertaPro Painters. Whether it’s an inside or an outside job leave your painting to the pros at CertaPro.
The count now, 0-1 on Gardner. Giolito winds. Change-up drops low, which brings the count to 1 and 1. And you know what that means. Taco Bell's one and one special, featuring the new 99 cent Beefy Nacho Burrito. Now the crunchy chips, real seasoned beef, warm nacho cheese sauce and cool reduced fat sour cream on your nachos are all wrapped up in a burrito. Buy one get one free.
The one-one pitch. Up and in with a fastball that spins Gardner out of the box! A little chin music. And if you’re looking to repair a musical instrument, look no further than Raffy’s Musical Instrument Emporium and Repair. Fine workmanship at low prices. At Raffy’s, they’ll get that broken violin back under your chin, so you can keep on making beautiful music.
No score here in the top of the first inning. 2-1 on Gardner, who steps back in. Giolito looks in for the sign, nods, fires. Gardner swings and sends a line drive just over first baseman Jose Abreu onto the right field grass, sponsored by Scott’s Turf Builder. The ball rattles around the corner, which is brought to you by Sal’s Corner Bar and Grille. If you’re looking to heft a tall cold one after the game, like that baseball, head to the corner: Sal’s Corner Bar and Grille.
Gardner motors for second as Eaton airmails the throw over shortstop Tim Anderson’s head. That error is brought to you by FedEx where unlike Adam Eaton’s throw, your package will arrive on time and online. Gardner races for third as Yoan Moncada gloves the ball with a mitt made by Rawlings, the official glove of Major League Baseball.
Gardner slides! The tag! The call! Safe! This safe call brought to you by ADT Security Systems. Call ADT and you’ll always feel safe at home.
It looks like White Sox manager Tony La Russa is signaling he wants to challenge the call at third. This replay review is sponsored by our friends at Replay Poker. While you wait for the call to be overturned. Log on to replay poker dot com and go all in on a hand of high stakes Texas Hold ‘em.
I’m looking at Gardner over there at third. He is limping around a bit after that slide. He’s feeling the back of his leg. This hamstring tweak is brought to you by Zoid, Zoid, and Zoid. When life throws you a 95 mile an hour fastball to the face, call the injury lawyers at Zoid, Zoid, and Zoid. Looks like the umpires are removing their Sony headsets, and the call is upheld. Gardner is “safe.” You can hear the crowd doesn’t agree. And neither does Tony La Russa! He’s charging out of the White Sox dugout toward home plate umpire Joe West.
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And La Russa has just been ejected from the game! This ejection brought to you by Rico’s Bail Bonds. When you need to get out of jail, you have a friend in Rico.
Oh boy oh boy. La Russa stomps back to the White Sox clubhouse as action resumes and Aaron Judge steps up to the plate for the Yanks. Aaron Judge is brought to you by The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. No one prosecutes a baseball like Aaron Judge. And no one puts as many bad guys on the other side of the fence like The Southern District of New York. Go to nysduscourts.gov.
And the first pitch to Judge, swing and miss on a breaking ball...
Steve Skrovan: Guess what, it's time to say goodbye. I want to thank our guest again, Paul Deslauriers. For those of you listening on the radio, we're gonna cut out now. For you, podcasts listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call “The Wrap Up.” A transcript of the show will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted.
David Feldman: Please subscribe to us on our Ralph Nader Radio Hour YouTube channel. And for Ralph Nader's weekly column, you can get it for free by going to nader.org. For more from Russell Mokhiber, go to corporatecrimereporter.com. Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, everybody. Listen to what's going on in Maui. It can happen in your locale.
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