Who are extremely demoralized and discouraged about the future. They feel themselves helpless. They feel theyre powerless. Theyre cynical about politicians, which, of course, just strengthens politicians vulnerability to powerful corporate and other lobbyists in washington, d. C. When i lost a lot of friends in traffic accidents as a young man, i looked into how they could have been saved. And they could have been saved by seatbelts and they could have been saved by a whole series of engineering devices that we now take for granted in our cars collapsing steering columns, better brakes, better tires, head restraints, padded dash panels. All of these and more were developed by engineers a long, long time ago, but they werent applied because the companies, as somethose of you who are a little older remember the companies were selling style and horsepower. They werent selling engineering integrity, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and millions were injured in ways that todays carswhich could have been yesterdays carscould have prevented. Now, when i went to washington, i was hitchhiking to washington to try to get Congress Interested in holding hearings, and it never occurred to me that i could not take on General Motors and defeat them because i believed i had the facts. They were certainly understandable by people; everybody drove, everybody knew friends or relatives who were killed or injured. And everybody knew that American Ingenuity was pretty good, that they didnt have to build psychosexual dreamboats that could kill you in a 10 or 15mileanhour collision because your head would hit sharp edges on the dash panel with lethal impact. And i remember i was hitchhiking once and a truck driver picked me up right outside delaware, and he said, where are you going . And i said, im going to washington to go see some members of congress. And he said, what for . I said, because i want to federally regulate the Auto Companies so they have to meet safety standards. I thought he was going to let me out on the road right then and there. [scattered chuckling] but, you see, i never exaggerated the power of these corporations because, if you exaggerate their powerand they are powerful and they know exactly what they want. They want to control the environment of their Business Activities so that they can make more money and get more bonuses and, perhaps, give more dividends to their shareholders, and they do that in a very strategic way to this day. They strategically want to control the environment that they operate in. If the governments part of the environment, they want to put their officials in high positions in government. They want to contribute Campaign Money to members of congress. And if consumers are a potential drag, then they want to have more exciting, emotional advertisements and try to get them to buy their cars. And if the labor is considered an obstacle, well, theyll try to make their influence known there. And if they dont want to pay a certain level of taxes, they will shape and strategically plan the tax. And if they want to have members of congress who are receptive to them, they will enter through their executives and Political Action committees, the Campaign Cash that is needed. And if they want the engineering schools in our country not to be too curious about why automotive engineering was never risen to the level of a ph. D. It was all civil or mechanicaland if they didnt want m. I. T. Or caltech to research the lack of Safety Engineering design in cars, well, they just give a lot of money to m. I. T. Or caltech. And i saw that personally when i was trying to get engineering help for my work on unsafe at any speed. But i never exaggerated their power because i had a very, very realistic view of the power of people. And i realize that corporations, for all their power, they dont have a single vote, and that what members of congress wanted were votes. And so people became alert and they began to realize that it wasnt always the nut behind the wheel in crashes and injuries on the highway, that the engineering systems of highways and vehicles were very critical in minimizing crashes and, if they occurred, minimizing their injuries, such as a seatbelt, then the Public Interest would prevail. Now, that served me pretty well because i had my feet on the ground and i knew i had a lot of work to do. I had to get the Technical Community behind what we were doing, i had to get it out to the media, i had to have contacts with senators and representatives who remembered where they came from and had a pro bono publico in their mind, and i had to have some contacts with the white house. All that happened, and we got more done in 10 years on the consumer, environmental, and worker safety front, under freedom of information front, on support for science and technology for the people, in terms of pushing for more benign forms of energy, pushing for detection instrumentation to detect coaldust levels in mines, for example, pushing for safer automotive technologies, aviation technologies. And in doing that, i thought we were going to really go to the next level. And what was the next level . The next level was to have full Health Insurance for everybody; nobody out, everybody in, with free choice of doctor and hospital. That would have saved about a million american lives in the last 20 years. Where do i get that . The Harvard Medical School study showed and this is a peerreviewed study in the journal of American Public health, december 2009that because people could not afford Health Insurance to get diagnosed and treated in time, 45,000 americans die every year, 800 a week. Completely preventable. Nobody dies in canada or japan or taiwan or germany or england or sweden because they dont have Health Insurance. That could have been accomplished by a Democratic Party as good today as it was in the 1960swasnt that great, but by comparison, it was much betterand a Republican Party that had some liberal elements in it in 1960 compared to todays draconian conglomeration of political ignorance, arrogance, stupidity, and cruelty in congress. [applause] so. I can footnote all this if we had time. [laughter] now, the first thing we have to ask ourselves is, can 1 of the American Peopleone out of a hundred; lets say 3 Million Peopleorganized back home where you are, and Congress Watchdog groups steer congress along the whole line of redirections that a majority of the people support . A majority of the people support full medicare for all, including a majority of doctors and nurses. A majority of people support raising the minimum wage to levels of 1968, adjusted for inflation. It would be 10 now an hour; its, federal, 7. 25; a little higher here in california. A majority of people want law and order against corporate crime, fraud, and abuse, whether its wall streetstyle or houstonstyle. A majority of people want a tax system that does not provide perverse incentives, horrendous complexity, waste of our time; a tax system that starts with the principle that we should tax first, before we tax labor, that which society likes the least or dislikes the most. So we should first tax pollution. Even exxon prefers a carbon tax. We should tax speculation on wall street, which has reached horrendously frantic levels, and computerdriven derivatives 700 trillion last year. Trillion dollars last year. And theres no sales tax. Here in california, what do you do . You go buy furniture, clothes, you pay what, 7 . 9. 8 sales tax . Tomorrow, somebody can buy a hundred Million Dollars of intel derivatives and pay not a cent. Thats not fair. We had a transaction tax in this country in 1905, and it was in the thirties under roosevelt. And then, for a variety of reasons, it was phased out. But do we really want that kind of speculation . No. So one way you do its to tax it. At one half of 1 and other countries are thinking about this, too, and japan already has one, small one. One half of 1 will bring in 300 billion. Isnt that preferable to taxing work . Or you should tax corporate crime more. We should tax addictive products more. Things that we dont like, we should tax before we tax labor, things that we presumably like, which is work. A majority of the people dont believe in unconstitutional wars against countries that dont threaten us. And 7. [applause] 70 of the American People, even though the propaganda is on the other side, and we dont have an Opposition Party that is on the side of 70 of the American People, want out of afghanistan yesterday. Even though both parties were complicit, but mostly the republicans, in invading iraq under bushcheney on a platform of falsehoods, deceptions, and coverups which are now a part of american history, incontrovertible, half of the country was against it just on their own intuition, their own what are we doing . Iraq doesnt threaten us. Its run by a frightened dictator surrounded by a dilapidated army who we supported to invade iran years ago and who was our ally because he was anticommunist, and wed give him lists of suspected communists, who he slaughtered. He was surrounded by much more powerful neighbors. Why are we invading . I mean, people figured it out that way, some of them, half of them. 300 retired generals, admirals, National Security officials, famous diplomats, including jim baker and Brent Scowcroft and marine general zinni and the head of the former National Security agency, bill odom, spoke out and wrote against invading iraq before it happened in march 2003. A majority of the people in this country think that theres something inflated about our military budget. [scattered laughter] all right. Well, theyve read the pentagon audits and the gao reports and the 60 minute exposes and so on. Its horrendously inflated. Waste, fraud, abuse is only part of it. Were still building costoverrun military Weapons Systems designed for the soviet union era of hostility. Like, the f22 should never be built. You could put it on this stage. Thats how much 200 million of electronics cost, profit in overruns. Why are we building more submarines, Nuclear Submarines . One trident submarinenuclear warheads can destroy 200 cities. Thats before it reloads. Why are we building more aircraft carriers, 15 billion a carrier . We got 13. The next country to challenge us is italy, has two. [laughter] its the military Industrial Complex that eisenhower warned us against. People dont like that. Theyd rather have that money go where eisenhower wanted it to go in his famous cross of iron speech that you can look up on the internetapril 1953, when he said, is this the way we want to live . We can wipe out the soviet union. They can wipe us out. And then he did what no other president did. He listed how much a bomber cost, a tank cost, a cruiser cost, and translated it into schools and clinics and Public Transit systems and hospitals. A majority of the people think congress should have skin in their game. This is one which i almost got unanimity on when i was campaigning. I said, how many of you think, since congress likes to buck it over to the white house about getting us into war, they dont want to deal with article 1, section 8, which gives them the exclusive right to declare war, how many of you think that any Time Congress and the white house want to plunge us into war, constitutionally or unconstitutionally, that immediately all ablebodied and agerelated children and grandchildren of all members of congress are drafted . [scattered chuckling] see . That would tend to concentrate their deliberations on capitol hill with thorough hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the house foreign relation committee, and some of those retired military diplomats security would have been up there with all the media to transmit their views back to the people. How many people here think that we should have civic training courses and civic experience for middleschool and highschool children all over the country . You know, physical education is being dropped all over the country. Our children are getting fatter and fatter, theyre getting more diabetes, they are getting demoralized, it restricts their potential in life at a young age, theyre predisposed to high blood pressure, theyre being exposed by electronic child molesters called Food Processing companies. [scattered chuckling] teaching them how to nag their parents at a very young age to buy junk food, to drink junk drink, while theyre watching violent programs that show them how to kill. A colonel who used to teach at west point, col. Grossman, was so offended by these child programs and vicious toys that he wrote a book called teaching our children to kill. Do you know any parents that arent bothered by that . Do you know any parents who want to have their children exposed to clever ads that nag them . Thats the word thats used for prizewinning ads toward children on madison avenue. It has a high nag factor. [scattered chuckling] how about restoring our Civil Liberties . You think the majority of the people dont want arrests without charges, throwing people in jail without lawyers, many indefinitely . Invasion of your privacy. Going to your librarian and finding out what books you signed off on. And if the librarian notifies you, the librarian can be criminally prosecuted under the patriot act. You think a majority of the people want government to be able to invade your home without a warrant and not have to tell you for 72 hours . Theres a huge consensus in this country on things that matter when you get down to specifics where they live, work, play, pray, sleep, and raise their children. Its when its at the abstract level of ideologies that the polarization exists, and those are promoted in order to control people, divide them against one another, divert them. You know, i sometimes meet conservatives who say, im againstwere against government regulation. I say, do you have a car . Yeah. What if the company discovers a serious defect, like a sticking throttle for a million cars, and doesnt tell you, and all of a sudden, your cars are going through other cars and trucks and walls . Do you think the government should force them to do it . Not many people would say, absolutely not. We want the freedom to go through a windshield. [scattered chuckling] you think the American People dont want a Law Enforcement expansion on corporate crime, fraud, and abuse . If you learned how few prosecutors there were in the Justice Department against environmental crimes, you wouldnt believe it. Last time i counted, it was 78. 78 lawyers. Can you imagine all the pollution laws that are not being enforced and being violated . Just the water permit laws, for heavens sake, are chronically violated by water polluters. You know, the double standard in corporate crime is really almost beyond belief. Did anybody any of you see this, um. This documentary that won the Academy Awards . Im sure some of you did. Here we go. Inside job. Its called inside job. Well, you must have seen the Academy Awards. California, you know. [scattered chuckling] ok, well, the producer, charles ferguson, he won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2011. He goes on the stage, and the audience is a billion people worldwide, and he says, 3 years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single Financial Executive has gone to jail, and thats wrong. Now look at the contrast. In december 2007, roy brown, a 54yearold homeless man, walked into a Capital One Bank in shreveport, louisiana, without a visible weapon and told the teller to give him money. The teller handed him 3 stacks of bills, but brown took only a single hundreddollar bill. He said he was homeless and hungry. The next day, he surrendered to the police voluntarily, telling them that his mother hadnt raised him that way. He pleaded guilty. You know what he got . 15 years in jail. Wow. 15 years in jail. Happens all over the country. The big boys get off. We are underenforcing the criminal justice laws against corporations. Theres no 3 strikes and out for a corporation. No 3 strikes and out. Theres no probation for a corporation, hardly ever. And the executives, they have shields of law firms to defend themselves. And its getting worse because there were several hundred savingsandloan executives prosecuted, convicted, and sent to jail 20 years ago, and some enron executives were. But they have so gamed the system, the Corporate Lawyers, its extremely difficult to put them in jail. And by the way, if they went to jail, they would improve the prospects for prison reform. [laughter] and the food would be better. [laughter] the governments buy almost everything we buy. You know, its called government procurement. They buy food, they buy clothing, they buy motor vehicles, they buy energy. They buy construction materials. And they can do specifications where they can stimulate innovation, and we got airbags that way. The Auto Companies controlled department of transportation under reagan, and we couldnt get airbags. So i went over to the General Services administration, and i said to the administrator, who, luckily, happened to be a rigid republican from New Hampshire and he was an auto supply dealer. Now, listen, if you know anything about auto supply dealers, auto parts dealers, they have no awe of the Auto Companies in detroit. So i said to him, you buy 40,000 cars a year for federal employees. He said, yeah. I said, how would you like to save some lives and some money . He says, how . I said, just specify, next time you procure these cars and put them out for bid, airbags. He did it, and gm knew it was coming because once the gsa gets airbags in cars, their ball game is over. Theyre going to have to provide it to the public. So they refused to bid. Chrysler refused to bid. Ford bid on 5,000 vehicles, and the rest is history. You now have airbags that can prevent you from exerting your freedom to go through a windshield, ok . [chuckling and applause] so. So people say to me, look at all the things youve done. This is unbelievable. I said, dont make me out as a freak. [scattered chuckling] you can do the same thing. You can have the same passion. You just want to do it. Somebody wants to win the olympics, they work night and day to train. Someone wants to be a great poet or sculptors, they work hard to do it. And if we want to be an effective, strategic, successful citizen advocate, you work on it. You read history. You learn the lessons of the people before you who won; at how they won the struggle against slavery, and womens right to vote and civil rights and the farmer populist victories and the victories of industrial trade unions in those horrific dungeon factories in the late 19th century. You learn from them. You learn why our founders used the word posterity again and again. But we dont use that word anymore because were too shortsighted as a society. We want it now. The corporations want it for the next quarterly report. The politicians want it for their next report on how much money theyve raised. So the idea that ordinary people cannot become extraordinary citizens is nonsense. Its a lot easier than we all think to change it. How do you turn the country around . Well, where do you start . You start where the lever is the most physically effective, and thats the u. S. Congress. Congress has the tax power, the spending power, the war declaration power, the confirmation of nominees power, the investigative power, the power to say no, the power to say yes. It affects us all the way down to our stockings. Congress is made up of 535 men and women who put their shoes on every day like you and i. They want our votes. 1,500 corporations get their way with the majority of the congress these days. They have no votes. Were the ones who have the votes, but we dont work at it. Half of us dont vote, most of us dont do any homework about our incumbents, so we really cant critique them, and we allow them to flatter us, fool us, and flummox us. And, boy, are they good flatterers. If you ever meet a politician who doesnt flatter the people, ill show you a visiting martian. [laughter] so, how do we do it . We start out by having a training session. You know, you want to learn how to play mahjong, poker, video games, you know, bridge, you got to learn the rules. You got to develop skills, so we have training sessions. Nobody can stop us. Theyre right in our neighborhoods neighborhood training sessions, community college, adult education. Whatever. Simple. You can do it over the internet. We learned how to lobby. We even learned simple things like how do you put on a news conference, how do you use the freedom of information act, how do you develop coalitions, how do you confront depression, political depression, people getting discouraged, people getting burntout. How do you elevate their morale . How do you get them to get rid of this mindset of you cant fight city hall or you cant take on exxon . We have historical antecedents for this. The next thing you do is you guarantee to your senator and representative an audience of 300 people, and you summon them to an agenda entitled the subordination of Corporate Power to the sovereignty of the people excessive Corporate Power and what needs to be done. Even business week believes theres too much Corporate Power, and they live off corporate ads. You realize that so few people show up, and half a democracy is showing up at marches, city council meetings, courts, demonstrations. So few people show up, that if you can show that youre going to put 300 people in an auditorium like this or a highschool auditorium, you will get your senator on this stage in person and a representative. And once you got them there and youre summoning them, and youre informedyou got all kinds of informed people economists, accountants, engineers, technicians, community organizers, graphic artists. Whos got this poster . Right at your knees. Right here . Ok. Lest you graphic artists among you, you want to see how you get your attention of your member of congress . You get the names of all the corporate interests that got their hooks in him. Its all public, its all on the internet. You get the graphic artist to draw the senator, and then you put a jacket on the senator or representative, and then you put the logos, depending on the size of the contribution, all over the jacket like a nascar race, ok . So we did it for the speaker of the house, john boehner, who is the nemesis of the Democratic Party, and guess what. The Democratic Party so disrespects democratic voters in his southwest ohio district that they did not field an opponent this year. Hes running unopposed, ok . Heres john boehner. [audience murmurs] i dont know if you can see it, but afterwards, you can look at it. Do you realize what it does to a politician to present him as Something Like this . Huh . These are the Interest Groups who own him. Sallie mae. He was a main opponent for student loan reform for years, and a very powerful one. Look at it. Its on the sleeve. Sallie mae. Now you got 300 people here, 300 people there in the district, the district has 650,000 people, and pretty soon, youve got the numbers to select for a thousand serious members of a Congress Watchdog group, and this happens all over the country, 435 districts. Every district has talent, every district has a community college, 4year college, lot of talent. The thousand people put themselves behind an agreed agenda. I mentioned some of these the living wage and full insurance and so on, war and peace. They agree from the beginning, so they dont have to bicker so much. They agree to devote 200 hours a year, volunteer 200 hours a year, 4 hours a week. They agree to raise or contribute 200 a year, and they open an office with 2 or 3 fulltime staff. And then they summon their members with an agreedupon, National Agenda of longoverdue redirection supported by a majority of the American People, what Abraham Lincoln called the public sentiment when he said, with the publics sentiment, you can do anything, which is why i say 1 of the American People turning congress around, turns the executive branch around, turns our priorities into humane and productive paths, reduces the level of corrosive greed, and on and on. We become a humanitarian superpower instead of a militaryravaging empire. On and on. Do you know how fast the congress would turn around . You couldnt count the days. You couldnt count the days. Theyll be so stunned with all of these Congress Watchdog groups coming at them in so many strategic and technical ways and reaching out, and they know that this group has a majority behind them. Thats how fast we can turn it around. And in many areas, if you dont do the reforms fast, youll give the opposition time to game the system and delay. Harry truman proposed universal Health Insurance in the 1940s. We still dont have it. We got regulation of the Auto Industry 9 months after unsafe at any speed came out in november 1965. Im not talking from political theory here. Im talking from experience. Ive never seen more public demoralization. Ive never seen more americans give up on themselves as citizens. Ive never seen people so pessimistic that their children are not going to do as well as they are, and the future looking so grim. Ive never seen them elect more ignorant and stupid people, who have taken their power and sold it for what used to be called the mess of pottage and is today called campaign contributions, and then turn that power against the very people who gave them that power under our representative form of government. 25 of the Congress Today would support this agenda that i described. 20, 25. Thats a pretty good start. And once they see the support from back home, they will become your tribunes with their colleagues on capitol hill. Now, let me put it very specifically Justice Needs money. I know a lot of progressives dont like that. They like to do gods work with no money. Every social Justice Movement in our country of significant magnitude was funded, with the exception of the labor movement, by rich people. Rich bostonians and new yorkers funded the abolition movement, including supporting frederick douglass, who came up with one of the greatest civic insights of all power concedes nothing without a demand. And if we are so, so shorn of any morale that we dont even demand anymore because weve given up on ourselves, why should the power brokers give us the time of day, especially when they got two parties dialing for the same commercial dollars . So here we go. Youll never hear this type of proposal. Ready . Justice needs money. The Environmental Movement was funded before it became a Membership Base by a few rich people. The early civil rights movement, heavy funding from the stern fund in new orleans, the curry family in virginia. The Womens Suffrage Movement was slowing down until some rich women helped fund it in the 19th century. A small portion of very rich people, especially in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, where they have a different perspective on life. They want to look their grandchildren in their eye. Theyre thinking of not wanting to leave this country, heading for the cliff. They can do a tremendous contribution by funding these Justice Movements. I even wrote a book on it called only the superrich can save us. It was political fiction, but it had a lot of reality. So, for example, george soros could have backed up those hundreds of retired military, diplomatic, and National Security people, quadrupled their number in two months if he put 200 million behind them to stop the invasion of iraq and to stop and expose the lies of bush and cheney in the 9 months before march 2003. George soros was vigorously against the war. He gave interviews. He spoke, and he wrote. He didnt make the connection that it needs money to back up with an infrastructure for these people. 200 million for george soros can be compared with a reasonably good year when he makes 3 billion. Ted turner, for example, can vastly increase the peace movement. Weve heard of waging war. What about waging peace . What about anticipating conflict . What about not exaggerating criminal gangs and following up with massive invasions, blowing countries apart, and spreading the criminal gangs into 22 countries . Alqaeda. What about spending ourselves into penury in terms of deficits and the 3 trillion over the next 30 years that joseph stiglitz, a nobel prize laureate, said the iraq war is going to cost us . Not just the immediate war and all that, but all the followups of the veterans and so on. Bill gates sr. And the famous trial lawyer in texas, joe jamail, could easily fund reopening our courts so ordinary people can use them, so ordinary people who are wrongfully injured can have their day in court and not be blocked by what is maliciously called tort reform by taking peoples ageold rights of having a trial by jury away from them. They could open up the courts to poor people. Because bill gates sr. Has made that one of his missions in life. Hes a Corporate Lawyer, but he made opening up access to justice one of his missions in life. Warren buffett, hes worth now 52 billion. For 1. 25 billion, i can show Warren Buffett in 3 years maximum how to completely transform the tax system so it is an efficient, fair source of revenue without inequities that exist today and the perverse incentives that distort investment into unproductive channels. What is 1. 25 billion for Warren Buffett . He gives 3 billion a year to the gates foundation, on whose board he serves. Ive had rich peoplevery, very rich peopletell me, we know how to make a lot of money. We do not have a clue what to do with it, and that includes us. So if we want to be very practical about it and speed things up, if we know very rich peopleand Silicon Valley has a few of themrecognize the following that a lot of them could care less. They want to make more money, or theyre into their little gadgets. Its amazing how much brain power is being poured on technical changes and innovations of minimal significance. Just look at the apps lately. I mean, theyre embarrassing as a culture. [laughter] people can find ways to save millions of lives and not make anywhere near the amount of money that some little quigley app for some idiotic whim that is promoted, ok . But there are people in Silicon Valleyyou should try to bring them together for a dinner. I would be glad to attendwho i can show can leave a legacy with their heads so high that it would reach the sky. Because the countrys ripe were a country that has so many problems we dont deserve and solutions we dont apply. And thats the democracy gap. And to get it changed, we need field organizers; we need media; we need expenses. And these billionaires, without having to persuade them. You go where their own sense of justice is already indicated, like buffett on taxes. He thinks he should not pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. We can show him how it can be done. Now, this comes from many a year of going into the corridors in capitol hill in the office. I know their psychology. I know their vulnerability. I know how they can be shamed. And i know how they can be led to hold their head high as well. Let me just end on this note. Some of you try to get people out to meetings, marches, demonstrations, city council meetings. You phone them, you email them, you beg them. Youre not trying to change their mind. They agree with you. They just are otherwise preoccupied. And so you know what the 4 excuses of civic abandonment are, dont you . The first is when you ask them, well, why dont you come out with us . Why dont you be engaged . I dont have time. If they have time, the second excuse is, i dont know the rules. I dont know what to do. These are people who know complex video games. These are people who know how to fix things. These are people who know how to read the tax code, and theyre telling us they dont know about roberts rules of procedure in a town council meeting. Well, if they have the time and theyre not daunted by learning some of the rules, they say, well, i dont want to get myself in trouble where i work. If im seen as a troublemaker, i wont get promoted. And i dont need that. Well, if theyre not blistered by moonbeams, whats their final excuse . This is one i cant rebut. The excuse is, well, i have the time. I know what to do, and i dont care about being controversial. But i can do it and nothing will happen because the big boys will decide. Now, thats the prescription of dropping out of democracy. Thats the ultimate surrender. And we should try to avoid that with our friends and our neighbors. Because in so many ways, if we dont do it for ourselves, we have to do it for our children. And in so many ways, this concept of fair play, where people live and work, and the concept of the golden rule, which is transcultural, bring people who are divided at abstract ideological levels together in the pursuit of what senator Daniel Webster many decades ago called justice, which is the great work of human beings on earth. Ill leave it at that for a discussion. Thank you very much. [applause] good evening. And im just delighted to have this conversation with you, mr. Nader. And welcome to all of you this evening. We are gonna have a conversation. And then were gonna open up to questions that you all have submitted. So lets just kick it right off now. When i told my friends, ralph, that i was going to interview you tonight, the most frequent response i got was, ralph nader. Wheres he been . Whats he been up to . So where have you been . And what have you been up to . See, if youre not on the evening news, youre not on the national media, they dont think youre doing anything. We have never stopped. We start new groups. We foster all kinds of proposals. We try to disseminate information. We lobby capitol hill. We never stopped. I mean, if you want to see what were doing, you want to get my weekly column free, just go to nader. Org and sign up and look back over the years. Its been 40 years now. Youll see what were working on. And all the groups that i founded i like to spin off so theyre autonomous and theyre on their own two feet. There have been over a hundred of these groups. Fantastic. So were coming up now on the president ial election. What is your prediction for the president ial election . And are you going to vote . [laughter] uh, first of all, i always believe in voting. I dont ever publicize my vote. I believe in the privacy of the vote. The election now is basically, its a twoparty duopoly. They dont like competition. They exclude third parties from debates, which commissioned, is a corporation they control. And so i think that the differences on foreign and military policy are de minimis. The difference on corporate policy, not much. The democrats have better rhetoric. There are differences on Social Security and medicare and civil rights. I dont think theres that much difference on Civil Liberties. Unfortunately, the democrats have degraded in that area very seriously. So my guess is that obama will probably win. Biden was going at it on the way with paul ryan. And i was just amazed at how unimaginative the questions were. I mean, just to give you one quick example, when paul ryan was indicating his solicitude to the poor. [laughter] this is one of the cruelest budgets ever proposed, if not the worst, in american history. Biden, because mums the word, the democrats have decided that Franklin Delano roosevelt, one of his cardinal achievementsthe 1938 federal minimum wage lawwas never to be discussed in this campaign. Elizabeth warren is not allowed to discuss it. Joe biden is not allowed to discussed it. George miller doesnt discuss it publicly. He put in a bill under our stress just for pro forma. Never had a press conference. Nancy pelosi doesnt discuss it. Richard trumka of the afl doesnt discuss it. And the minimum wage today adjusted for inflation, as i mentioned, would put tens of billions of dollars at ten bucks an hourtens of billions of dollars in peoples hands to jumpstart for the recessionary economy. Biden could have skewered ryan, and he was muzzled because obama doesnt want to discuss this because he might be accused of being against small business, who hes given 18 tax breaks by his own admission on the first debate. 18 tax breaks, and 2 3 of all lowincome workers are employed by 50 large corporations, like walmart and mcdonalds, whose ceos get an average of 10 million a year. And you think this was a slam dunk, but it isnt. So i think our president ial politics are rancid, repetitious, cowardly, and commercialized. So whoever wins, dont expect that much. Ok. So. [applause] ralph, youve run for the presidency a number of times. So lets just hypothetically, if you were, in fact, elected and you were president of the United States, how would you deal with the extreme partisanship of congress . How would you break the gridlock if you were in the white house . Go straight to the people. You know, the president is known to get good media. [applause] ha ha you barnstorm the country around a, lets say for conveniences sake, a 10point agenda of redirecting our countrylike i pointed out and youll see the partisanship melt in favor of political survival on capitol hill. You know, youre supposed to be a president of all the people. Go to the people. The people are sovereign. The constitution starts with we, the people. Not, we, the corporation. And you will see how fast that happens. You know who did that . Bill bradley did that. He went all over the country as senator from new jersey generating support for tax reform in 1986. And it was a fairly good piece of legislation, which Ronald Reagan endorsed. But he hit the hustings. Well, didnt president obama do that with health care . Wasnt he out there beating the drums and. . But the wrong kind. What do you mean . He wouldnt further what he said he believes in single payer, full medicare for allbecause he said, its not practical. Which is another way of saying, i cant take on the supremely popular Health Insurance companies and drug companies, right . He wasnt worried. As a result, his system will not restrain the enormous costs that are increasing. Itll leave 30 Million People still uninsured after its fully implemented. And its so complex that it opened itself up to attacks and parity by the republicans. You know, the canadians got full health care for everybody. They do it on half the cost 4,500 per capita a year. We spend 8,500 per capita a year, 50 Million People uncovered. Our obamacare is 1,500 pages. Do you know how long the canadian medicare bill was . 13 pages. [scattered gasps] the more complex, the more waivers, the more exceptions, the more ooh, ah, the more it can be gamed, delayed, twisted, misapplied, nullified. So i always knew obamaback in illinois, he had a personality thats conflict averse when it comes against power. He doesnt care about people who support him. Hell turn his back on people who support him because hes got them for granted. If hes conflict averse, hes not the president that we need. You have to have the president take on the Corporate Power brokers and their Corporate Law firms and their p. R. And their cash writing arms. If you dont, how are you gonna change washington, which is corporateoccupied territory . All right. Another question. [applause] all right. So. You have authored, i believe, 11 books. And ive read two of them. Ive read your seventeen solutions, and ive read the seventeen traditions. Whats up with the number 17 . Ha ha well, when i wanted to write how my parents raised their 4 children in a factory town in connecticut in the depression and during world war ii, i ended up with 17 traditions. And theyre basically how they raised us. Its all the problems all families havehow do you get your children to eat right; not to fall in with the wrong crowd; to respect their parents; to do their chores . You know, things like that. And i reached 17. And so they called it seventeen traditions. Now my publisher, harpercollins, is hung up on. 17. The number 17, solutions. I told them, i either have a lot less or a lot more solutions, but if you want 17, ok. So lets talk about changing the system through civic engagement. And thats really at the core of your 17 solutions. Yeah, exactly. So the case in point i want to talk about is mine. Yes. I ran for the Palo Alto City Council in 2004. And in taking a stand against campaign financing, i refused to take any monetary donations from anybody. Oh, my god. Thank you very much. So. [applause] so in doing so, i had to then develop a grassroots organization. And i did win a seat on the city council. So thereafter, i won, and nothing has changed. So in Subsequent City Council races, palo alto, bay area, those running for city council, theyre out raising a bunch of money, going to people getting the donations. So what did i do wrong . You mean because you didnt win the votes on city council . I won. I won the election, but i didnt change the way people are running for elections, meaning i didnt take any money. But people are out taking money, so what did i do . There are two ways to win an election. One is to be a good candidate and be very persuasive and win like you did. And another is to mobilize people so you win from a mass movement. Because once you have a mass movement, two things happen you get a mandate, so you dont forget where you came from. But you signal to your competitors that there are gonna be other mass movements in their bailiwick the next time around. But if you win sort of solo, because youre a good person and youre articulate, you dont have that kind of mandate. The last major Reform Movement in america, the most major, was the populist progressive one in the late 1880s. And they elected senators and governors and mayorsalmost a president over the next 20 years. And its because they came out of a mass movement. And these representatives for the most part delivered because they came out of that movement. They knew that they couldnt face that movement if they betrayed them. So thats really what i suggest. You have to be elected with a lot of people, not from a lot of people. Got it. So lets talk about another aspect of this, of we, the people, and about the Initiative Process. Now, its my understanding that the Initiative Process was initiated by we, the people. It was basically an effort by people to take back government from wealthy people. And, really, the Initiative Process started in idaho, of all places, where the Railroad Barons were pretty much paying off legislators. So we have today the Initiative Process that i think has primarily become the tool of the wealthy. A rich person gets an idea, pays people, gets the signatures, and gets whatever he or she wants on the ballot, oftentimes poorly drafted. And i tend to call it the initiative Industrial Complex, basically. I think thats what we have in california. So what do you think about the Initiative Process and how do we, the people, take the Initiative Process back . Well, as you know, it was governor hiram johnson, a great gift to the people of californiai wish we had that in connecticut, where i come fromand we had a little experience with that in prop 103, the Auto Insurance property, casualty Reform Initiative of 1988 that we advocated here, because your Auto Insurance premiums are among the highest in the country. And we had 2 million to spend. The Insurance Industry hurled 80 million against us tv ads and so on. And we beat them. And there are about 80 billion less money you all have had to pay in the ensuing years. Why did we beat them . One is we went up and down the state. It was a real grassroots effort. Harvey rosenfield and others were involved. Second, the media covered it every day, and especially the los angeles times. And, third, it was something everyone understood, when they write their Auto Insurance, you know, check. So it wasnt complex to understand. So it is true. The corporations have twisted grotesquely this initiative right that you have against you. I mean, even the Tobacco Companies blocked one recently, didnt they . There was supposed to be a little higher tax on tobacco. Tobaccos not very popular these days. But they twisted it because they dominated the airwaves with their propaganda. Ok, so Campaign Finance reform. If you want to have an Honest Initiative referendum recall process, you got to have public funding of public campaigns. Otherwise, you will get this grotesque takeover of the Initiative Process. Not all of thembut that will basically demoralize everybody. You say, look, this is direct democracy, and the corporations have taken it over. There have been some great wins in california in the last 30, 40 years by the people through the Initiative Process. Theres a great one, prop 37 it would be if you win it, the first labeling of geneticallyengineered foods in the supermarket. And that has. [applause] that has major consequences beyond your right to know that are beneficial in the future. Prop 30 restores some of the taxesa tiny biton the wealthy. Governor jerry brown is trying to get through. Otherwise, there are gonna be some serious further cuts in calceducation and tuition hikes and so forth. So there are some good ones. But if people dont do their homework, they cant nullify some of that money against them. Because theyll be vulnerable to propaganda, to that 30second ad. But if they look at that bookletwhats that called, that booklet . The. For the initiatives . The election guide, the ballot guide. Yeah. The election guide. If they spend some time, you know, just studying itthey got the pro and conits a way to insulate themselves from this 30second propaganda barrage that hits the airwaves. We can to only have 10 minutes to take questions from the audience. And ive got a lot. So im going to ask a favor of you, which is. Sure. To, if you can, keep your answers brief. And ill go 20 if youd like. Well, im looking at my timekeeper here. I had a rule in my court for lawyers to be the 3 bsbe clear, be brief, be seated. Ok. So youre already seated. So just be clear and brief, and were ready to go. All right. First question, what is the most significant ideological issue on which you have changed your mind over the course of your life . The draft. I was against the draft. Now we have a professional army. It is flattered by the politicians who send it into illegal maneuvers abroad and invasions. And that was a mistake. I think we should have the draft. Because there will be too many people drafted, they will go into two years Public Service. Even william f. Buckley supported a Public Service foryoung people who are 18. I think when youre part of the risk, youre gonna be part of the solution. Our Founding Fathers did not want a professional army. They were very explicit about this. They called it we did not want a standing army. And the moment we get awe and a tiny number of people go to fight when they shouldnt be sent to fight because theyre a professional army doing their jobthe moment we have that awe, we surrender to that kind of militarization of our foreign policy. And having been in the army, i can assure you that when youre in the army, navy, air force, or marines, you dont have awe of those people when you get out, because you know too much. Second question, what are the most important questions you would ask the president ial candidates in the next debate . How will you shift power from the few to the many in ways that make it very easy for people to band together as consumers, as workers into democratic trade unions, as small taxpayer groups, and as communities who are being abandoned by corporations under government policy and tax benefits to send the jobs to fascist and communist regime abroad . Compound and complex. All right. [applause and cheers] new york was home to 3 teams the giants, the dodgers, and the yankees. The giants and the dodgers were known as the peoples team. The yankees were the elitist team. What possessed you to be a yankees fan . [laughter] first of all, whenever youre a yankee fan and youre a little boy, youre a little boy forever. And i was a yankee fan right after lou gehrig died. And i learned a lot about stamina by knowing about lou gehrig. You know, his constant playing, his constant game attendance. He set a record until the Baltimore Orioles broke it, the player cal ripken broke it. And i grew up in the era of joe dimaggio and mickey mantle. And when steinbrenner came across, it sort of soured me. And i lost interest pretty much. But im still 10 years old when it comes to being a yankee fan. All right. Ha ha [applause] why do you think Elizabeth Warren was not given the position of head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . Because she was too good for the job. My father once said, the only way you lose your job in government is to do your job. [laughter] there you go. [applause] all right. What advice would you give to someone having a child in 2013 . Uh, is there a reason for the year . Just meaning now. It could be now. This is not a nostradamus question. No, no. [laughter] dont know. Probably not. Ha ha [audience member speaking indistinctly] this is the advice. Read the book. These are my parents. We just wrote them down from time to time through their comments in a cigar box, which all children should do for their parents and grandparents, because theres huge wisdom in experience over a period of years. And itll be forever lost to history, to our larger society, and to your children and grandchildren. Its a lovely book, and i just read it this weekend the seventeen traditions. Thanks. What is the chance of developing a true Progressive Movement in this country, one that can be impervious to money . If enough people will it, it happens. If they organize the 1 , it will happen. It takes people with the same determination to do what your question is directed that people indicate when they join a serious birdwatchers club. Ill settle for that level of intensity. [laughter] nobody can stop people from doing it. The other answer to your question if you get a very enlightened billionaire, who is a progressive billionaire and runs for the presidency, writes out a check for 500 million and turns it into a 3way race. Ipso facto. The press covers him or her because theyre rich. The polls cover them. They cant keep them off the debates. A 3way race. Break the grip and get people used to voting for alternative candidates. On reflection, what are some takeaways you have from your campaigns for president . One is, a takeaway is dozens of lawsuits against us by the democrats to get us offbalance. And weve documented all that. And its very importantwhen a twoparty system has fangs to make them bring those fangs out publicly. So theyre not hiding behind the myth of democracy and competitive elections. And the other thing is ive never seen people convey to me their sense that theyve lost control over everything that matters in their life, including their children. Theyve lost control over their government. Theyve lost control over their big employers. Theyve lost control over their schools. They just feel theyve lost control. And, of course, we campaign to combat that. But that was a very deep feeling. And thats what we got to turn around. Thats what we got to turn around. And thats what i wrote this book, seventeen solutions, for. So weve got one minute left. What are your thoughts on the impact of social media today . I think its great to tell people whats going onevents. Its great to get information. Its achilles heel is this susceptibility to massive overwhelming gossip and trivia between parties. It hasnt proved yet, except a little bit in the occupy wall street, that it can take people from Virtual Reality communicating with each other into reality showing up as human beings with other human beings. And the only way to motivate people is person to person. It cannot be done through electronics. You can perhaps tell them about it. You can inform them that motivation comes from small gatherings growing into largescale movements. All change starts from one or two people and small communities. Theres a great book by arthur morgan, the former head of the Tennessee Valley authority under franklin roosevelt. He went all over the world to find out what could start change. His answer small communities. Those of you who want to extend this discussion, our website is essential. Org. And you can get my column, as i think i mentioned, by going to nader. Org. And you get it every week. And if you want to broaden out, connect with citizen. Org for many of our other groups in health, in energy, and Public Interest litigation, and so forth. Citizen. Org. You can see how early we got that domain name. [applause] so i thank you, ralph neighborralph nader. [laughter] ralph nader, the consumer advocate in our neighborhood. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. [laughs] [applause] [applause]q . Q . Q . Q . Q . Q . Q . Thank you. Thank you very much, and good evening to every body. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. To the muslimell legal fund for inviting me here and for the outstanding work they do. Im as genuine as i can be when i say everyone in those two organizations is extremely impressive, even inspiring to me because of the work they do in areas where very few other organizations are able or willing to venture. Im truly delighted to participate in any event they sponsor any work they do. For the last 6, 7 years, i have been writing about the systematic erosion and attack on Civil Liberties in the United States and the war on terror that justifies those erosions that drivesmphobia those. The past few years i have been spending an increasing amount of time traveling around the country speaking about these issues at events like this, similar offense on College Campuses and in large and midsized american cities. Reason that is so important to me and i have come to value that experience and the reason id continue to do it is it enables me to meet many of the people whose lives have been devastated by the injustices we have been talking about this evening and that i spend so much time writing about and advocating. If reason that so important, you spend a lot of time thinking about these issues and writing about them without having the human interaction, it is very easy to see these injustices as abstractions. Its important that even if you become somebody who is objecting to them on a theoretical level in terms of the concept and threat they pose to liberties that we consider so important that one not lose sight of the fact each and every instance in which these injustices manifest do actually harmon sometimes devastate the lives not only of the individuals who are targeted by them but i hold it in you Family Members and friends and members of their community as well, and its only by going around and having those interactions is that personalized aspect of these issues really in a visceral way brought home and conveyed. Its really that experience that has emboldened me more than ever before to continue to work on these issues. And whats really amazing about the persecution of muslims and the attack on Civil Liberties and the United States is the magnitude of it is so great that it really is a case in almost every single city i have been to there are people there to meet who have been directly harmed by these kinds of travesties. A lot of times when i get to the city, i am not even aware there are people in those places come its just that they are so common that it ends up in a most every place i go these experiences happen. Lastto give an example, week i spoke to the university of missouri law school, in columbia, missouri, a pretty small typical American College town. Unbeknownst to me prior to my arrival, that happens to be the moody lives. R. I was able to meet his son and soninlaw and hear about his truly amazing and genuinely disturbing experience. Was a student who decided to come to the United States to pursue a phd in nuclear engineering. He arrived at the university of missouri to study and obtained his phd and decided along with his wife he wanted to stay in the United States and work in the United States rather than returning to iraq. Work as aand got Research Professor at the university of missouri, became an integral part of the columbia community. He and his wife ultimately had five children, all of them americanborn u. S. Citizens. The problem is beginning of the early 1990s, for the next decade, he had numerous Family Member still in iraq, including 11 siblings, along with his elderly mother who was blind. Millions ofs and iraqis, his Family Members were not just suffering great deprivation, although they were, they were literally on the boundary of starvation, typically unable to feed themselves in any way that provides major sustenance. This is incredibly common among the regime sanctions. Although he was earning a modest salary, he simply could not in good conscious live even what was really a lower middleclass american existence with some discretionary funds while his family was suffering so greatly in iraq. He began to find ways to send very small amount of money back to his family in a rack, but a literally 10, 15, 20 per month to allow them to eat and buy medicine. When others figured out he had no figured out a way to do this, they wanted to send money back to their families. On behalf of 13 families, he spent very small amounts back to erect, never more than 100 a month for anyone
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