Ralph Nader Quotes

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.

[T]he concentration of power in the hands of the few is common to all cultures... When a small group of people rules a society the political system is considered an oligarchy; when only money and wealth determine how a society is controlled, the political system is a plutocracy. From the standpoint of a democratic society, both oligarchy and plutocracy are inherently unjust and corrupt. ...In many ways, the majority of Americans live in a democracy of minimums, while the privileged few enjoy a plutocracy of maximums. ...[T]he dominating influence of the One Percent...

We have 206 law schools in the country. You would think they are the first responders to challenge the criminal injustice system, conditions in the prison, violation of civil rights, crushing consumer rights, and the government being taken over by corporations. It's not happening. It's like they're training technicians... lawyers to serve the powerful interests.

This administration is not sympathetic to corporations, it is indentured to corporations.

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

I've been part of these mass protests... almost invariably on a Saturday, when the members of Congress are gone. ...The [organizers] ...are so exhausted that they don't... have the energy left to pass the funding buckets around... where they could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and on Monday morning open an office with full-time lobbyists... Members of Congress have very good antennae... [they can sense that] there's no stamina... not a lot of follow-through.

[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.

This is clearly the most dangerous political movement since the Civil War, the GOP under the corporate fascist Trump's thumb. He spread a whole breed of mini-Trumpsters who are getting far too much publicity compared to their opponents. Everything we fought for, for over 50 years, is at stake here...This is an order of magnitude we have never seen before. We have never seen a party literally trying to repress the vote, miscount the vote, purge the vote, intimidate precinct worker volunteers and steal elections. They have actually basically said, 'Any election we lose is because it has been stolen from us.' That is the word of a dictatorship party.

In addition to stimulating the economy, creating more jobs, and establishing less need for public welfare assistance, the movement for a... living wage... teaches how little it... takes to change the balance of power... especially when there is overwhelming public opinion... These lessons... should be, applied to winning the myriad of public interest, ecological, and civil rights struggles that the ultra-rich and their commercial interests obstruct... increasing wages... decreasing militarism and crushing... military spending... decent and affordable housing and healthcare, reducing... carbon emissions... to prevent catastrophic climate change... enabling democracy at all levels.

If the minimum wage of fifty years ago—$1.60 per hour—were adjusted for inflation, today it would amount to about $11 per hour. A long-overdue minimum wage hike would... end a decades-long windfall for employers... while [they were also] receiving many tax breaks and subsidies.

They say we have a free... independent judiciary, but... on the big questions of abuses of power, like going to war without congressional declaration... which is a requirement under out Constitution (and we have not had a declaration of war since 1941...) The courts have a very convenient doctrine. It's called, "This is a political question, invading Iraq, and we don't deal with political questions. This is to be decided between the Congress, which abdicates its duty, and the Presidency"... When citizens say "We don't believe in that. We're going to go to court," and go all the way to the Supreme Court to challenge this illegal war of criminal aggression against Iraq, they have another convenient doctrine... "You have no standing to sue." So all the American People have no standing to sue..? Well, who has a standing to sue... dealing with a criminal war of aggression... with all... who have died? Well, who has standing to sue? Only one person. The Attorney General, and guess who his boss is, the President.

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.

America's Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that never once uses the words "corporation," "company," or "political parties." Their use of language reflected their antipathy toward the domineering influence of empire and big business... If "We the People" are the sole subjects of the Constitution, why is it that we are ruled by large corporations and their largely indentured servants—the Republican and Democratic Parties... "We the People" have allowed these plutocratic forces to slowly siphon away our power.

Like knowing hostages, the AFL-CIO and its unions march in tandem to endorse the Democratic presidential nominees early in the primary season. They have given up their capacity for negotiation, so frightened are they of the Republicans. Meanwhile, the rank-and-file workers suffer their dwindling status in silence.

One of the themes of the book is don't wait around... [with] steady mobilization. It doesn't work that way. It gives the corporation lobbies too much time to game the system. Look at the health care. It was proposed by Harry Truman in the 1940s, universal health care, and look where we're still at. ...Speed was of the essence.