Ralph Nader Quotes

Concentrated power in the hands of the few really... matter[s]... if you are denied full-time employment or paid poverty wages and there are no unions to defend your interests... if you are denied affordable health care... if you are gouged by the drug industry... lack of public transit or packed highways... if you or your children... breath dirtier air and drink polluted water... if your children are receiving substandard education... are being taught to obey rather than question, think and imagine, especially when it comes to the nature of power.

[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.

[F]amily functions have been outsourced to business... everything is for sale, and money is power... Our elections and our governments should be... commercial-free zones; our environment, air, and water should never fall under the control of corporations or private owners. Children should not be programmed by a huckstering economy...

[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...

Half of democracy is about just showing up.

Unlike members of Congress, Big Business knew what the WTO agreements contained. That's because corporate lobbyists helped draft them.

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

We must strive to become good ancestors.

The tired whine of 'But the Republicans are worse' will fall flat as more young Americans take charge of their future and move, with their reenergized elders, toward the Green Party and parallel civic and political movements.

...the Democrats know that no matter how many GATTs, NAFTAs, empty OSHAs, and other betrayals...they heap on those labor leaders, they can be had because, once again, the Republicans are deemed worse.

...organized labor...rushes to support the party without demanding a turn away from corporatism toward workers’ needs. This is the logic of the lesser of two evils. It tethers labor to a relentless slide deeper into the corporate power pits year after year.

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.

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.

Up against the corporate government, voters find themselves asked to choose between look-alike candidates from two parties vying to see who takes the marching orders from their campaign paymasters and their future employers. The money of vested interest nullifies genuine voter choice and trust.

...the Democratic and Republican parties, two apparently distinct political entities feeding at the same corporate trough.