Ralph Nader Quotes

The shortcomings of America's political leaders do not stop at our borders.

[W]henever there have been periods when enough of the country organizes and resists, we see movements of people and communities breaking through power. Progress is made. Rights are won. Education and literacy increase. Oppression is diminished.

America's business leaders said NO to the idea of revolting against the British monarchy. ...In later decades, commercialists... consistently said NO to efforts to end child labor... to starting labor unions... to the regulation of railroad and banking abuses... to the 40-hour work week and progressive taxation... to antitrust laws and the regulatory agencies... to a woman's right to vote (they feared the women's vote against exploiting child labor and cheating consumers), and NO to the minimum wage, Social Security, universal healthcare, and to... protect the environment, empower consumers, reduce government secrecy, protect ethical whistleblowers, and... to reduce commercial fraud on the government as with Medicare and military contracts.

The 1963 Corvair, which has some remarkable characteristics. It's one of the few cars I know that can do the bossa nova on dry pavement and the watusi on wet.

Exxon/Mobile, Pfizer, Citigroup, General Motors, Lockheed/Martin, Proctor & Gamble, United Health Care, Comcast/NBC Universal, Apple, and many other giants garner revenues as large as numerous nation states... Most are global... but there is no public global government holding them accountable... [T]here are dictatorial trade agreements that corporatists conjure up to subordinate the general population's labor, consumer, and environmental protections—a stunning end-run around our courts and legislatures. These protections are seen as "non-tariff trade barriers"... [T]hese... entities have a clear and obsessive unity of purpose—money for bosses... for shareholders, money to buy lawyers and politicians to take down laws and whatever else slows the pace of hoarding wealth.

Paradoxically, we are in a golden age of books, documentaries, and films that... expose the abuses, crimes and authoritarian essence of corporate commercialism. ...[N]ever ...have they had less impact for change.

A judicial coup in 1886... determined that corporations were persons, for the purpose of the Constitution. ...[T]he Constitution doesn't even have the word company, corporate, or political party in it. So why are we ruled by them? You see the distortion? The only persons recognized in the Constitution are real people. It starts... with "We the People" not "we the corporations."

Half of democracy is about just showing up.

[W]e have all these myths... about a Democratic society... [W]e have been disintegrating our Democratic institutions for over 40 years.

The "democracy gap" in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the “least worst” every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the “least worst” gets worse.

It only takes one percent or less of The People... mobilized in every Congressional District... say three or four thousand [out of an average Congressional District population]... [A]s long as they represent a majority opinion... they can control the Congress against any vested interest. We used to do it on far less... regulating the auto industry, getting through the Freedom of Information Act, which was opposed by... almost every corporate trade association, because they didn't want government information on them available to the public.

[E]stablish a public national complaint-handling system using the Internet to help consumers, taxpayers, and workers... It will also be a good way for policy makers to detect patterns. Patterns lead to deterrence...

Mike Pompeo is Secretary of State, a total warmonger, and... bigot against Arabs and Muslims, based on his own assertions when he was a member of Congress, and after that.

This could be the most serious event in American political history. Because you're no longer dealing with a rural government where most of the workers were postmen, like in the nineteenth century. You're dealing with an unstable personality who takes everything personally in terms of a bruised ego, has stated again and again that he'll lash back even if he has to get up at 3 A.M. and twitter about an overweight former Miss Universe ... and he's got his finger on the nuclear trigger, or on drones, or on, you know, aircraft carriers.

They would surround part of the Congress with bull horns and shout, "Resign! Resign! Resign!" ...Some of the incumbents ...just ran out of the Congress and joined the crowd.