Ralph Nader at blog.nader.org:
Over the years, discussions about whom the mainstream media gives voice to and whom it excludes are far too general. Editors bristle at the notion that they are anything but fair and objective. Sure, they concede that reporters miss stories, but appearances of bias or censorship, they say, are more likely due to laziness.
Well, let’s climb down the abstraction ladder and make some observations. William Kristol, an editor at The Weekly Standard, and Newt Gingrich, long retired as Speaker of the House of Representatives (apart from his 2012 presidential campaign), have received in the past 15 years more national newspaper ink and more television exposure over more media outlets than all of the following public intellectuals, advocates and writers whom work on very important national subjects, put together.
1. Robert Fellmeth is a law professor and prolific author. He is arguably the nation’s leading specialist and litigator on legal protections for children.
2. Karen Ferguson, Esq. is the head of the Pension Rights Center in Washington, DC, the only public interest group on pensions and retirement security since the mid-Seventies. She is also a co-author of Pensions in Crisis.
3. Jim Hightower is a former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, author, advocate for progressive agendas nationwide and editor of The Hightower Lowdown publication, which has a circulation of twice that of Mr. Kristol’s The Weekly Standard.
4. Edgar Cahn, who with Jean Cahn conceived and lobbied through Congress the National Legal Services Program for the poor, founded the Antioch School of Law and is the most creative, hands-on expert on poverty in the US and how to enlist the poor in ending it. He is a prolific author, including the groundbreaking Time Dollars, which he co-authored.
5. S. David Freeman, energy expert extraordinaire, is an engineer and lawyer who ran three major public utilities: the New York Power Authority, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. He also stopped the construction of some nuclear power plants while chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and served as an advisor to Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Jerry Brown.
6. Professor Rena Steinzor, corporate crime specialist, is the President of the Center for Progressive Reform, a large group of academic experts on regulation and de-regulation. She is the author of the new book Why Not Jail? and a specialist in regulatory matters.
7. Paul Hawken, industrialist, is widely published on the nexus between industry and ecology and the economic and environmental necessity of conversion to a green economy. His book, The Ecology of Commerce, inspired the leadership of Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface Global at the time, in breaking new ground in combining pollution reduction and corporate efficiencies. He was named by Esquire magazine as one of the best 100 People of a Generation.
8. Joel Rogers is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin where he serves as director of Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS), a nonpartisan social change organization. Rogers is a frequent author and consultant on national labor issues and public economic policies. He is extremely knowledgeable and articulate on politics and democratic reforms and is the founder of ALICE, a foil to corporate-backed ALEC.
9. Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project is a top expert on whistleblower rights, disclosures and the role of the judiciary in this regular front-burner subject. He is the author of The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survivor Guide.
10. Robert McChesney has written numerous books on the old and new media, including his 2014 title Digital Disconnect.
11. Bill Black is a former government official in the Justice Department, author and law professor. Black is a leading expert on corporate crime, corruption, negotiated settlements and obstructions to reform–topics in the news every day.
12. Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch, specializes in the trade agreements NAFTA, GATT, and the politics of the forthcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership before Congress and should be the go-to person on this important topic.
13. Danielle Brian is the Executive Director of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) where she focuses on both the big picture of national security and intricacies of topics including military contracts and the Pentagon budget.
14. Colman McCarthy has been a long-standing peace advocate, who started the Center for Teaching Peace that inspired high schools and colleges across the nation to adopt peace-related courses. Through his prolific articles, he has repeatedly made the case that waging peace trumps waging war for our national and global security again and again.
15. Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, is the leading expert on unfair tax breaks, tax havens and the overall dysfunction of our tax system. He is a leading go-to for reporters searching for specific company and industry data, but rarely makes national TV or print media.
16. Lois Gibbs got her start in community activism protecting her hometown, Love Canal. Her movement grew to become the country’s largest grassroots anti-toxic movement with hundreds of neighborhood groups working to protect their families from the silent violence of toxic chemicals. She founded and directs the Center for Health, Environment & Justice.
17. Patrick Burns is the Co-Director of the Taxpayers Against Fraud Educational Fund, which applies knowledge of experts and whistleblowers to enforce federal and state False Claims Acts.
18. Tom Geoghegan is a nationally recognized labor union specialist and author of Whose Side Are You On and his latest Only One Thing Can Save Us. Few can speak so knowledgeably, as a scholar and practitioner, to give workers a collective voice vis-à-vis multinational corporations.
19. Shelly Krimsky, a long-time Tufts University professor, is a historical and contemporary specialist on science, ethics, conflicts of interest and the deceptions and perils of genetically modified food. He is the co-editor of The GMO Deception.
20. Ramsey Clark, former attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson, has devoted decades on conflict prevention, conflict resolution and opposing criminal wars of aggression.
21. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein are scholars and practicing physicians who have taught at Harvard Medical School and have written pioneering reports on the failures of the health care system and the need for full Medicare for all.
22. Ted Postol, a MIT engineering professor, is by far the leading technical critic of the over $7 billion a year Ballistic Missile Defense program.
23. Amory Lovins and Peter Bradford both decry fossil fuels and nuclear energy in favor of solar renewables and efficient technologies, and reject the “all of the above” policy of Washington. Lovins is a physicist, author and consultant to utilities and government agencies and Bradford is a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
24. Arthur Rosenfeld, a prominent Berkeley physicist and advisor to state and federal governments, is the nation’s leading specialist on massive energy conservation opportunities.
25. Jerry Mander of the International Forum on Globalization, a former advertising executive, has become an incisive published critic of globalized economies and what new technology is doing to damage localism.
The above knowledgeable, thoughtful, articulate Americans, mostly blocked out of the mainstream media and, for the most part, national public television and national public radio, demonstrate the media’s obsession with the tedious punditry of the well-connected corporatist and militaristic “opinion oligopoly” in Washington and New York. It is always the same old talking heads uttering the predictably same old oligarchic commentary.
It is the independent media, such as the Pacifica stations, community radio and sometimes C-Span that search for people who know the realities and reforms that resonate so often with majoritarian opinion and the public’s well-being.
People own the public airwaves. Shouldn’t they be pressing for broader and deeper uses of their property on television and radio?
“The New York Times and Washington Post articles, on the other hand, seem to be a bit more balanced. I’ll try to respond point-by-point to your question later.
We’ll continue this later…”
Thanks, looking forward to it.
Interesting asides in the rest of your response, but so far none of it addresses what I found to be interesting at that link. I’d rather not make a comment long enough to contain all that stuff, but I could, if that’s the only way to get the extraneous stuff out of the way.
“contends that Nader cost Al Gore the presidency fifteen years ago”
I actually agree with you about that one. I don’t think he did, and if he had, I don’t think it would matter, given that I don’t see Gore as being any better than Bush.
I was referring more to the verifiable/falsifiable claims with sources in the article, not the introductory blurb.
“anonymous “Skeleton Closet” web page ”
Not anonymous. Mark Saltveit: http://realchange.org/funnystuff/ You can find more if you look.
“Sorry to infer that you’re some sort of frustrated Republican, but what exactly is your political background and philosophy? Seriously, I won’t make any judgment. I’m just curious.”
Former progressive Democrat/democratic socialist, now libertarian.
Martin,
Sorry to infer that you’re some sort of frustrated Republican, but what exactly is your political background and philosophy? Seriously, I won’t make any judgment. I’m just curious.
Regarding the anti-Nader link that you provided…
For starters, the very first charge made by the anonymous “Skeleton Closet” web page contends that Nader cost Al Gore the presidency fifteen years ago, presumably by polling a substantial number of votes in Florida. The 97,488 votes cast for the longtime consumer activist in the Sunshine State didn’t belong to either major-party candidate; they were cast for Ralph Nader and nobody else. Not a single one of those votes was intended for Gore.
The then-Vice President, moreover, failed to carry populous Florida precisely because more than 19,000 votes were tossed out in Duval County’s predominantly African-American ninth ward on the basis that those voters allegedly voted for two presidential candidates. A forensic analysis of those ballots — something that I pledged to do when I ran briefly for Duval County Supervisor of Elections in 2005 — was never conducted. For years, they were stored in a warehouse on the city’s west side. The ballot, which listed presidential candidates on two separate pages, instructed voters to mark their ballots on every page. It’s a story that was largely overlooked by the pundits and by subsequent historians, but it’s a fact. One nationally-recognized writer devoted a paragraph to it in his book, but everybody else completely missed it. They were too riveted on the so-called butterfly ballots in Palm Beach County and the ridiculous “Jews for Buchanan” story promulgated by angry South Florida Democrats and missed what might have been the biggest story of all. If a theft of the presidency actually occurred that year, it happened in Jacksonville — and Nader had absolutely no part in it.
I don’t have anything against Al Gore — my sister-in-law’s sister was Gore’s book agent when he published “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006 — but the Democrats completely bungled the Florida recount effort.
I tried to bring up some of those points in more than two dozen radio and newspaper interviews during the 2004 campaign when Nader was being lambasted by the Democrats for costing Al Gore the presidency four years earlier. I remember going round and round with Norman Solomon, a progressive but partisan Democrat, before he would publish my comments in a press release issued by the Institute for Public Accuracy in D.C., but much to his credit he eventually published my remarks in their entirety.
Some of the interviews that autumn were particularly hostile, especially my hour-long appearance on Thom Hartmann’s show. How could anybody be defending Nader’s candidacy, Hartmann asked his audience while I was on the air. Hartmann, who fervently believed that Nader gave us Dubya, arguably the biggest buffoon to ever occupy the White House, can be pretty nasty when he wants to be. While most of them were cordial, some of the more partisan talk-show hosts simply didn’t want to look at the facts. Nader, they believed — and some of them still do — was the enemy, a kind of evil incarnate.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
In any case, Martin, I’ll try to respond to your question regarding the sources used in your link later today when I have a bit more time, but just a quick glance at the website’s footnotes indicates that quite a few of them are from Regnery — a right-wing publishing house that routinely churns out the nonsensical ramblings of intellectual lightweights like Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza — the Wall Street Journal, a publication which never had anything nice to say about the feisty consumer advocate, and Marty Peretz’s New Republic, a magazine long outright hostile to Ralph Nader.
The controversial Peretz, who was known for occasionally making insensitive, if not inflammatory, statements about minorities and once implied that Muslims shouldn’t be granted First Amendment rights, was at one time — long, long ago — a pretty cool guy and had contributed $100,000 to Eugene McCarthy’s insurgent antiwar candidacy in 1968 and also supported Clean Gene’s independent bid for the White House in the year of America’s Bicentennial. But all of that was before the dove-turned-hawkish editor, the son of Zionist parents, became something of an unapologetic Neocon. And a devout Nader hater.
A pro-Israeli and outspoken advocate for the catastrophically misguided and disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Peretz’s New Republic was arguably Vice President Gore’s most enthusiastic champion — and cheerleader — in 2000.
Just for the record, Peretz, who purchased the New Republic magazine back in 1974 with his wife’s money — she inherited a boatload of money from her father, an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine Company fortune — always personally despised Nader. Thanks to his wife’s inheritance, Peretz — a guy wouldn’t know the first thing about sewing a stitch — quickly became a prominent voice on the American Left as editor-in-chief of one of the country’s most influential independent progressive weekly magazines.
Under Peretz’s ownership, the magazine slowly drifted away from its liberal moorings, steadily drifting to the right and often battling with those who should have been its friends.
Ralph Nader was one of them. Over the years, Peretz’s publication never tired of bashing the aging public-citizen.
Peretz, moreover, has long made disparaging comments about Arabs and Muslims and one can only wonder if his deep dislike for Nader has anything to do with the four-time presidential candidate’s Lebanese origin. One would hope not.
The New York Times and Washington Post articles, on the other hand, seem to be a bit more balanced. I’ll try to respond point-by-point to your question later.
We’ll continue this later… With best wishes.
I’m not even close to being a Republican, frustrated or otherwise, in any way shape or form, and never have been. Skeleton closet profiles all the candidates, and sources their information. Attacking them as an intermediate source is kind of besides the point, because even if they are bad guys as you say for compiling and publicizing this information, their multiple sources and all the information in them are still there. Can you tell me what parts of the information about Nader at http://realchange.org/nader.htm isn’t true, and how you know it to not be true? Do you believe any of it is true, and if so, what parts?
And I’m damn proud that IPR contributors William Saturn and Jed Ziggler voted for Nader in 2004 and 2008, respectively. There were, of course, far worse ways to cast one’s ballot in both of those elections — and, sadly, most Americans did.
Martin — “Ralph Nader’s Skeleton Closet” was brought to you by the same folks who later put Barack Obama in the White House, a foundation-backed creature of the Wall Street establishment if there ever was one. I remember reading this, or something very similar, when Nader was gearing up to run as an independent in 2004. The Democrats absolutely vilified him that year. I guess it’s easy for libertarians — both big “L” and small “l” — most of whom are just frustrated Republicans, to despise the man, but he’s always had what he honestly believed to be the country’s best interests at heart. In fact, he’s probably accomplished more for the country’s better self in a variety of areas than any president in his lifetime.
“I believe William Wirt is very underappreciated as well.” – New Federalist
Indeed, my friend. Except, of course, in Vermont and in my favorite state of Pennsylvania, the latter of which gave the former attorney general two-thirds of his popular vote nationally on the Anti-Masonic ticket in the 1832 presidential election. In his time, Wirt was easily as famous as Daniel Webster or Henry Clay, and his role in the famous Cherokee Nation v. Georgia case and in the subsequent case involving missionaries was nothing short of spectacular. He was also quite a writer, a true “Man of Letters.” By the way, have you ever read Gregory Glassner’s “Adopted Son” — a biography of Wirt published in the late ’90s? The late Eugene McCarthy wrote the foreword to Glassner’s book. If not, I’d be happy to send you my copy. I can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected]. Best wishes.
http://realchange.org/nader.htm
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Ralph Nader lately. While some here might not agree, in many ways he is our greatest public citizen and one of our country’s few remaining political heroes. It’s really a shame that he’s so underappreciated.”
I believe William Wirt is very underappreciated as well.
I greatly admire anyone who is willing to challenge the duopoly, no matter how much I disagree with him or her politically. Ralph Nader is an American hero & I am proud to have voted for him in 2008.
I’m proud of the fact I voted for Ralph Nader in 2004.
Ralph Nader is right again.
To this general rule, hard working candidates, and their campaign teams, who are not members of the two larger parties, can through years of discipline, and hard work, on limited occasion gain coverage.
Here’s just such a good news example from this week that is a pleasant surprise to us, and would be Ralph Nader as well. .
Main stream media (The Washington Post, The Fairfax Connection, Inside Nova Sun Gazette of Fairfax and Arlington counties) all covered the Independent Green Party endorsee Carey Campbell this week. Carey Campbell is an accountant, and U.S. Air Force veteran. Campbell is running as an Independent in a nonpartisan race for Fairfax County Virginia Board of Supervisors – Braddock District.
Carey Campbell has been elected to the North Springfield Civic Association Board, a member of the PTA, elected to the Braddock District Council. Carey Campbell was a member of the Comprehensive Transportation Task Force. Campbell was elected Vice President of the Fairfax County (population 1.1 million people) Federation of Civic Associations. Carey Campbell served as co-chair on the Transportation, and Budget committees.
After decades of work on Fairfax County Virginia Transportation, and Budget policy, Carey Campbell is a respected subject matter expert. Carey Campbell has worked as an accountant fro 25 years. Campbell is known for bring his quarter century experience in finance, and his discipline, dedication, focus, and attention to precise detail to the campaign and debates.
Brian Trompeter’s Inside nova story on Carey Campbell testimony.
Fiscal conservative Independent Green Party endorsee Carey Campbell’s many positive, constructive, Green New Deal eco for the economy proposals do not include raise for supervisors.
http://www.insidenova.com/news/fairfax/fairfax-supervisors-push-back-vote-on-pay-raise/article_2ab8ee10-a7b3-11e4-80c7-2bb637e3a7c6.html
Reporter Tim Peterson of Fairfax (Burke) Connection newspapers covers Carey Campbell testimony before Board of Supervisors.
Carey Campbell is an Independent candidate in a nonpartisan race for Fairfax County Board of Supervisors – Braddock District.
Carey Campbell, Independent Green Party endorsed.
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2015/jan/29/fairfax-county-supervisors-defer-decision-salary-a/
Antonio Olivo of Washington Post reports on Carey Campbell speech before Fairfax County Board of Supervisors opposing Supervisors pay raise.
Campbell appears to have convinced enough members of the Board to delay the proposal until the next Boars of Supervisors meeting
Campbell, ” As I go door to door in Braddock District I find no support for this proposal …to raise supervisor pay.”
Carey Campbell is an Independent Green Party endorsed candidate running as an Independent in a non partisan race for Fairfax County Board of Supervisors – Braddock District.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/fairfax-puts-off-decision-on-supervisor-salary-increase/2015/01/27/3f17b1bc-a672-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html
Thank you Ralph Nader! An excellent guest list for Green Party Green TV. In fact an interview with David Freeman was taped on Green Party Green TV last night. Two other shows interviewed Independent Green Party or Green Party candidates for local office in 2015.
Watch Green Party Green TV for interviews of all the people listed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0k0T_wwf5I
With the possible exceptions of “Fighting Bob” La Follette’s insurgent candidacy in 1924, a year when the financial oligarchy threw everything except the kitchen sink at the Wisconsin progressive in an attempt to stifle his increasingly popular candidacy, and Earl Browder’s 1940 candidacy, a campaign in which federal authorities prohibited the Communist Party candidate from traveling outside of New York City while limiting his campaign to a few written statements and the distribution of a handful of recorded speeches, Nader’s independent bid for the White House in 2004 — a campaign subjected to more Democratic dirty tricks and obstacles than one could possibly imagine — stands out as one of the most heroic presidential campaigns in American history.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Ralph Nader lately. While some here might not agree, in many ways he is our greatest public citizen and one of our country’s few remaining political heroes. It’s really a shame that he’s so underappreciated.