Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Unstoppable 20140803

[inaudible conversations] good afternoon will come to the Cato Institute i am Vice President for research a and will come to a booker forum today where we will be discussing the latest book from ralph nader unstoppable you heard that right ralph nader is speaking at the Cato Institute. [laughter] that popping sound is heads exploding all over washington. Just when people realized the Koch Brothers support drug legalization because look at the ideological spectrum you see things in terms of left first is right one of the most interesting things because of an invisible if you look at a recent American History important parts of the story get lost seeking back through the 60s and an opposition that this is a heroic leftwing cause due to radicals were opposing but the other parts of the story is the other opponents was none other than Milton Friedman the economic adviser to goldwater and nixon in to serve to pave the way for the all volunteer army. So with the heyday of deregulation when a the most important deregulatory initiatives of the 70s and 80s occurred during the Carter Administration during the regulation in congress it was ted kennedy and his young aide steven briar in one of the most influential supporters was none other than our guest today ralph nader. Fat fast sorted once again he sees interesting developments with the blind spot of partisan wisdom the prevailing picture today is that of polarization the left is left in the right is right but ralph nader looks past the cable news to see the possibilities of the left right convergence inky policy areas. In particular he sees potential for principal libertarians and progressives to form the left right alliance of outsiders against a corrupt and overreaching bipartisan washington establishment. The most promising causes are oppose the massachusetts Civil Liberties in the fighting bloated Pentagon Spending with the overreach in to campaign against corporate welfare for privileged insiders. The common denominator is a suspicion of power that can be corrected by using the power that can be abused by richard a. The coercive machinerys of the state. Of course, this is a blind spot if there is one thing that washington insiders of is sure the suspicion of the others but power of the abstract is just fine for washington insiders feel the trick is making sure it is in the right hands. For libertarians it is in the dna so in the effort to reorient politics in this direction should come as welcome news and from my part i cannot think of a better leader than ralph nader. Whose whole career who has been characterized by the principal opposition of the unchecked power and notably in his recent years it is easy to find people of the left to criticize Civil Liberties the abuses they got a lot more silent during the Obama Administration but he is maintained that decibels level as abuses have been consolidated in and expanded. Of course, ralph nader and libertarians have real differences that are in different conceptions he is much more worried than i am about Corporate Power and we libertarians tend to worry more about expansion of government power and wealth does in particular but we can agree when big business and government are in bet to gather we are unlikely to look at the baby pictures. [laughter] in any event of a tidy minority when anyone wants to extend a hand to us but me introduce our speakers for what will be a wonderful discussion. After ross speaks our first, mr. Is ralph a part to mccarthy from a magazine that has direct relevance to todays proceedings as a standard bearer for Foreign Policy and in contrast to those taunt tendencies i mention this with special humility as he was right when i was dead wrong it took too small experiences of afghanistan and iraq to me that old world talk out of me. He has written numerous other publications with modern age and even the wrong paul campaign. Our other kaufman turd tim kearney from the Washington Examiner we are his speech is from business and government a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise institute with the barriers to competition of american life. The author of the big ripoff. And obamanomics. Those are two separate books [laughter] aunt Shirley Ralph nader needs no introduction in if a gatt revolving unnecessary jobs in washington then where would we be . So in the public career he has been an activist Coalition Builder in president ial candidate of thunder of the Consumer Protection and the overall a career that has made ralph nader one of the 100 most influential figures in history. I met him a yearandahalf ago at an event that is related in this book but before that the last of actually saw him on stage i was a freshman at princeton in university 80 years old my roommate and i were very libertarian at the time we went to go see him speak on campus with giddy anticipation to see him in the flesh. [laughter] somehow or other my present day self could have whispered in his ear to save 100 years from now you will host an event with ralph nader my mind would have been blown. So it is my great pleasure to introduce ralph nader. [applause] thank you very much and thank you for coming. This book is a long time to be conceived in terms of experience with ideological labels it is clear many years ago that the power structures believe in the ruling if they can distract the areas where different groups agree to where they disagree they can pretty much take that strategy into the awareness level so with all this level of rents a blue state conservative liberal the polarization word used all the time and it is true the left and right to disagree on things like reproductive rights, a balanced budget, school prayer, gun control, with variations on the margins so with areas of disagreement but they are extraordinarily numerous and fundamental in terms of for any society that calls itself democratic and fundamental in terms of misuse of taxpayer dollars for example, into the of military industrial complex. Indentures to have sovereignty from excessive surrender to unaccountable transnational systems and Corporate Governance like nafta and fundamental in terms of law and order for the rich and powerful not just street criminals fundamental to give voters more voices and choices that means lower access barriers we have the highest dollar access barriers in the western world demand more voice and more choice for voters. Structurally if we give candidates more rights to get on the ballot were giving voters more rights to have traces of those are important areas and there are more areas of convergence between left and right to. This book is for serious people who read or think in their serious about our countrys future in to say you can get them in one room . I think though left right convergence operates at different stages from inception to victory depending on the issues. In terms of Public Opinion it is already there we have large majorities the polls to break up the of big banks come in and around 90 percent the wall street will crash main street is the fear it will happen again. The polls come high on prosecuting wall street crooks coming in off the charge showing there is wrongdoing to burden taxpayers with a gigantic bailout not to mention the shredding of worker pensions and the savings of people yet nobody was prosecuted in and nobody went to a jail in contrast with the savingsandloan scandal where the prosecution in jail terms by over 800 officials of the s l 25 for 30 years ago so things are getting worse in terms of what fdr called fascism in a message to 1938 with a temporary commission to investigate corporateq0dvw . The basis of the convergence to go deeper is the preamble of the constitution that we the people not read the corporation. The word corporation or company or Political Party none exist in our constitution. It is interesting to raise the question why do they control less . Why do corporations and Political Parties control us . It is largely the added control judiciary that shows the Constitutional Rights across the board with the exception of the fifth amendment to artificial entities known as corporations. The sovereignty of the people began to be subordinated to the transnational corporation. The basis for the convergence runs in the following stages in terms of Public Opinion as Abraham Lincoln said with public sentiment you can achieve anything. But the number of convergences with Public Opinion or reduced dash 24 partly because iran out of space there are 24 significant areas including the opposition of Eminent Domain and allow the state to level that area the Supreme Court ruled that is okay it is the 54 decision in five that of the four och were liberals but it is the one thing to take private property to build a highway or a school but when you take private property from the powerless in with that kilo decision about 27 state legislatures and immediately passed legislation saying not in our state will you had a minute domain on private property to be transferred to private property. But the state legislature level a lot is building on that could not go on without the glove right legislators juvenile Justice Reform to reduce the horrendous sentences has been passed in about 15 states and with that right left cooperation. More over the of reevaluation of the war on drugs has severe economic incident civil liberty dimensions also to see questioning of Economic Development policies that require taxpayers to fund stadiums and ball parks and the assortment of those that could not have made it on their own. And at the Cato Institute he said i oppose all corporate subsidies unconstitutional wars come a Civil Liberties restrictions, the patriot act, and the Federal Reserve run amok. I said that is a pretty good start. Those are not minor issues. How you turn the left right Public Opinion operational . Induced to coverage by the press moving to candidates at a local or state National Elections then it is part of the base then the media covers it and the pollsters cover it then it drops to political dynamism is part of the public discourse. Working at corporatist they have no problem running the economy they have no problem with big money or sovereignty shredding of its type trade agreements talk about wall street misbehaving once in awhile that is how the free market operates you rising and you fall except they fall on the backs of the taxpayers theyre not worried about the reality so with the washington scene for the most important of the officials they become a federal judges so it is important to ask ourselves issue by issue what stage Public Opinion convergence to become more coherently visible to be recognized by the media to put on the table by the candidates. As part of the public discourse. Minimum wages interesting. That is from strict libertarians but for those that are converging many libertarians in conservatives you never call themselves corporatist liberal sam progressives and when you come in 80 percent for restoration of the minimumwage to what it would have been at the level of 1968 adjusted for inflation just under 11 it is 725 federal. When you do that you know, conservative workers will not sacrifice necessities of life for their families to reject to the 1968 level because they are conservatives. This raises an interesting point that highlevel of extraction is more you disagree because powerbrokers realize because by eddie each other fighting each other with general philosophy ferocity but bring it down to where people work or raise their families at the Community Level of reality begins to weaken the ideological abstract rigidity that people might call the the rise. I took an opportunity how corporatist masquerading as conservatives vastly outnumber corporatist. But they are more in power. Those better conveniently avoided for those political philosophers starting with adam smith with corporate coercion it spills off with an instrument of control in addition to direct corporate coercion with other recipients. Adam smith the first widely read philosopher of his time he went even into customs if you read that travelers all over the world and wrote their accounts of voracious absorber and with the human nature and he warned repeatedly about businesses getting together against government regulation because they believe they will be taken over by Corporate Power to be used against the people even someone like Frederick Hayek who was someone whos advocated in the words of his biographer reagan enjoyed mechanisms to provide fraud and deception as strong case for government providing machen some minimum of food shelter and clothing sufficient to preserve health and capacity with social insert insurance and against medicare and medicaid because there were not universal in discriminatory. Eric is a larger convergence betrayed many of the heralded philosophers in digest want to say a few brief words with the issue of government waste. This is one of the early convergences what convinced me there is likely to be the only political realignment to get things done than the next 12 years. You can see that bubbling up with the house of representatives to defy and john boehner and nancy pelosi to block the dragnet and a say to the american people. You can see it in the passage with the whistleblower protection bill 2012 and the false claims act of 1986 to give Public Employees the protections to blow the whistle with corporate and other fried with pentagon contracts. But in 1983 hour groups were fighting the reactor and to it is in that river in tennessee it was the pet project of senator Howard Baker Cruz sadly just passed away and to also of westinghouse and General Electric supported by Ronald Reagan. It already spent 1. 3 billion the projection was three or four times over the original cost estimate. Our side did not like that because of safety issues in the diverted tax dollars away but we were not getting very far. So why did you commit to connect as those right wing groups . So i talked to fred smith you will not find a stricter of libertarian who was running the competitive enterprise institute. He said i dont like this for Taxpayer Protection reasons it is a waste of taxpayer dollars. So we created the Taxpayer Protection group the Umbrella Group of the left in the right than we went to work on capitol hill against all odds by the way. Taking on the Nuclear Industry Ronald Reagan the powerful legislators with the lobbies of westinghouse and General Electric is pretty well insurmountable. We won 56 40. That was the end of the reactor. Why did this work . The new group was formed to it was the umbrella over both sides the people working under that went to work every day the problem with think tanks like heritage the Progressive Policy Institute in the Economic Policy institute is they have a lot of issues. It comes out with a tax of corporate welfare. But the next page did not occur to do something about it. To me that is the problem. Unless we start advocacy groups that nursing is a focused on convergence issues. ]h0 to restrict corporate welfare at the time but whether Newt Gingrich above him he was not moved to the of legislative stage. But he received three letters from me when he was elected had to do something about corporate welfare at the state level and i received no answer. That is because there is no infrastructure for convergence when i was debating i got him to agree there should be regulation of pollution. There should not be licensing for doctors but he did agree there should be regulation since long rage damage is not market joyce. In challenging on corporate subsidies he came right back to say i always tell my friends in the Business World not to put their hand in the of washington trough so he came out against subsidies but when he was president he did not challenge with that constant expansion and welfare proceeded under his watch as well. And again the lack of infrastructure, a Public Opinion convergence raised the alarm in the minds of politicians and it doesnt get very far, as it can be visible and again it on the table of the political candidates so i have a chapter in my book called der billionaire. And i figure the following. Some do not even know there billionaires but they are with their net worth. But those who are no bunker thinking of posterity. Thinking of their children and grandchildren in where the world is going. So the connector nonprofit advocacy groups to dismantle the corporate state will require some of these groups not conflicted from which we are receiving funding day after day. Into half of the priorities of the military budget in this Civil Liberties in the patriot act. There is another libertarian in New Hampshire with term limits and gerrymandering and election reform. I point these differences out because there will be differences of priorities. They dont have to be written in stone. Then there are thus disagreements opposing something. With that concentrated power is so heavy that there is so much to oppose without proving down the differences to the company agreed upon end. Diluting the taxpayer dollars issue of corporate crime in terms of political tentativeness i call it a crime in the suites. I call a rhyming that liberal progressives are keener to be sensitive to to the rules that i spoke to not that they are insensitive just a different level of emergency. They have a different level of urgency about government waste. But the impunity and immunity of the complex manifestation as well as a Global Presence of the asian brings down the very principle of the rule of law in this country. If anything conservative liberal economist with the freedom of contract for wrongful injuries theyre not competed over at ford or General Motors resolve the fine print and when it comes down to we have lost freedom of contract with the vast majority of transactions that cannot go across the street because theyre all pretty much the same. Without modification and compulsory arbitration in. So enough of the convergence to a licit disagreement that is not what this is about. We disagree but now we have to focus where we agree to turn it into operational change for this country and its place in the world. Thank you. [applause] before i launch into my remarks in frederick kayak there are many others as well in many traditionalists conservatives like peter and wrestle. Among conservatives or libertarians youll find something you did not know before that is compelling it it will change the way you looked at the political specter. Also the Cato Institute for the kind introductory remarks it is a new set of tools the problem that the left and right by themselves are inadequate for addressing. It was well diagnose half a century ago. Though leader for students of a Democratic Society of leftwing activist group during the vietnam war era was asked to leave the system was the system of the new left was opposing . was responsible and the sense of hopelessness the name did very well corporate liberalism the essence of the system right in the difficulty to fight that system. Extreme corporate liberalisms sounds as if it is capitalistic or has something to do with the free markets that is what the word means to many conservatives are libertarians but is that the case . His book shows effectively our political economy is not truly a free market but a system that is karate capitalism such as tim kearney doing a brilliant work opposing exactly how government works. So what is called corporate liberalism is not capitalism you can oppose corporate liberalism without opposing capitalism. With said grand coalition of left and right those have ongoing contest critiques but they are free to do that and they are free to say we want capitalism but not crony capitalism or favoritism or corporations to have privileges to attain monopolies for about police. Also sounds as if it has to do with freedom many of the good things that come with our system of government it is not liberal to oppose liberalism. And in fact, it is responsible for such sayings as the normalization of torture and the vastly growing surveillance state with every man will mayor child with the erosion of rights and the magna party or even earlier as a result of the direction our government has taken of the of a gradual way corporate liberalism is something that is corrosive of what we have loved most dearly with freedom of government and basic decency. So why is it so difficult why does he have to write this book unstoppable touche show us how to fight the system. The name is accurate it shows us how a confusion is introduced into the political discourse to make us incapable of fighting both left and right it is extremely dangerous. For the mainstream or the establishment they dont use corporate liberalism then you must be against free markets. Here against liberalism that humans are allowed to democracy and human rights . If you are against that against military operations abroad you must be against universal at six. So there is this conflict and the complication ralph nader tries to solve. They say look at your allies you may have differences with the mainstream Republican Party. Isnt someone like ralph nader against all kinds of Market Freedom better than a progressive that is supposed to will libertarians believe in an naders book with his genealogy dispels the myth it is not the case said american progressives and they are as well. With it even more fundamental difficulty we face with corporate liberalism and with his way of life not only the way of life of you have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in fact, to tap corporate liberalism he will do damage to the free markets with humanrights liberty and democracy because there has been a historical convergence with corporate liberalism and the american way of life to have the very difficult problem. That is why ralph naders book is valuable to show the practical steps to take to differentiate these things to separate the american way of life. Ice laura the difficulties facing it does he hand in glove with his book shows us a tremendous alternative said much Bigger Picture overtime with commonsense practical ideas from the pentagon conservatives believe in economic rigour and efficiency that the pentagon with the same sort of auditing it has not been the case up until now and it does bring together the left and right if practical ways as ricos surveys practical steps that prevent us from cooperating we can address the 33 most fundamental questions and those are the questions from the left or right to load. But the first of these questions is what kind of economy do we have in this country . Is it a free market economy . Looking of various abuses the plight of the board that this is the free market we are opposed with those practical steps what kind of government to we have . To we have the knicks received from the Founding Fathers or Something Else like it oligarchy they are progressive and set have come too dark the conclusion san the final conclusion what kind of Foreign Policy would is a place in the world this question has gone unaddressed for so long that a certain insider establishment with little transparency that makes decisions to use ideologies and rhetoric into a number of wars for implications or civil liberty. So ralph naders book well can possibly answer all these had to show the beginnings of the answers in such a way how to address the problem of corporate liberalism. Thank you very much. [applause] thanks for writing the book and the Cato Institute for hosting us. I may lean a little heavier than a criticism but first of all, i am now a suburban libertarian catholic data was born the limousine liberal is Greenwich Village with the antitrust lawyer to use says Ronald Reagans name as a curse although we inherited was a healthy distrust of big business settled think enough of the right to started off with that but the idea that the dennis dominated the right to prevent anything on this topic in then when barack obama was elected 1 million from employees of Goldman Sachs that they broke the record where decaying fine gold existed then with the support of the chamber of commerce basically betting found hospitals that woke up a lot of people logged the right that frankly that single biggest enemy of Free Enterprise is the big business lobby and while i say that to conservative audiences it is not ralph nader. He is not the biggest enemy. That is before the book and this will make it clear if what you are fighting for is Free Enterprise than the biggest enemy is corporatism. And unstoppable the awardee next you are being used by big business. In thin they throw out of the welcome mat for the slush fund better not libertarian or conservative with their demands. In one paragraph you put very well what the dynamic is of the Republican Party. Ended two Voter Program may said to come back to say he will sign it but why not . Hoodie think funds the campaign . This is a big problem with concentrated benefits of corporate welfare and the cost there is not a lobbyist is corporate welfare so the point that somebody is a libertarian sounds like me does not like that concentration but it is true there is a lobby the most important fight of the Export Import Bank talks about that more of cater with a strong lobby to keep the subsidies going a very tidy lobby. Those victims dont get the loans because they are guaranteed for someone else but they would never be as concentrated and is organized. Another interesting warning was for conservatives particularly but since established institutions usually reflected the existing distribution of power conservatism has been with the few dominating the many. The argument is used to justify Big Government in many ways. In the declaration of independence dont change unless you have to but that argument the resistance to change is a corporatist protectionist people use that word just to referred to a terrorist but i use it to refer to the wall street bailouts people saying we have this economy they do good things there are good things brought about by the giant investment banks they could do things 100 small banks can do so that pinstripe protectionism says with this arrangement we need to preserve that ended a thorshavn than and says they were directed at saving the way wall street was working because and there was good it is a conservative mindset that if things are good lets keep them that way even with Creative Destruction would destroy that i remember sitting fee off the record meetings where somebody shows up and says there is a new technology on the internet that is ruining the ability is to make a profit so why should we worry about the records labels . That conservative argument is a limit the coal legitimate institution that makes profit and pays taxes and employs all sorts of people so we protect it they were a legitimate institution but it works and how will warns conservatives they use conservative arguments to justify the protection of the status quo one who wrote this was of liberal cocoa rhoda book the triumph of conservative is seven he was talking about that mine said the preservation of the status quo that the current structure is structures ought to be preserved when he was one of the most formative writers to channel some of that. I am glad you brought up a minute domain that is our my liberal friend said it is so confusing i cannot rich for pfizer where this little the to have her house to a kid but not scalia . It takes moments like that to get the preconceived alliances where you see that today mostly owned though local levels try to get regulations on food trucks not because Restaurant Owners are tripping over thou bald lines but because they dont want competitions. Then you see the taxi drivers that it is upsetting people messing up traffic so a good way to win public sentiment is to deny consumers of choice . When uberfight was going on when the regulations were being proposed to keep uberfrom operating here in d. C. , and we got lots of support on the left. The Washington Examiner editorial began, how do you turn a progressive an urban progressive into a libertarian for a day. Threaten to regulate his limousine service. So, these things happen. Theyre natural to have hes, but the victims of the corporate welfare often arent as visible and arent as prominent as they are when its, say, youre blogger. Com wanting to get a limo ride to his bar on u street. Thats probably actually an old reference. Used to be the hip neighborhood. Im learn his hip references are now outdated. I think unstoppable missed the target and i offer this criticism in a constructive way. Kind of like were in a new relationship. Things are awkward and we need to get to know each other a little better. Some things identified under the word conservative in the book was the American Bar Association and brink lindsey, neither of them would be broadly identified as conservative, but we all look the same to you from far away. Its understandable. I have to defend one of my employ issues employerers, the american instate, they hired me to fight against corporate welfare, and that this is maybe a new priority for a lot of groups on the right, but its becoming one. And lots of groups, i think, on the right that might have been more corpist, are coming around took obama for them to realize it and maybe when theres a republican president they will stop pretending corporatism doesnt exist we have our cheese economist beat up bush for the ethanol sub diss so every corner not every corner, some organizations are bought and paid for by boeing and Lockheed Martin but there are in every corner some mobilization against corporatism, thanks in part to the bailout. I think fdr doesnt get enough scrutiny in unstoppable. He gave us the National Recovery act, literal lay government enforced cartel of businesses that crushed Small Businesses. The scheckter brothers, two brothers who owned jewish deli who were abused by the nra. You had was school fillburn, you might have heard his name during the Obamacare Mandate debate. The government said youre not allowed to grow corn for yourself. You have to grow it into the economy because the ag industry didnt like people doing that. Ralph, you do a good job of pointing out on left and right there are people who are prisoned principled or people who are corporatist or partisan but somehow you miss the liberal games are really tied up and the liberal entities are tied up with the corporatism. Men wage fight is not an easy issue. The reason theres so much popular port and conservative opposition, is because this is obviously a selfserving answer for someone who opposes the hike, put its a tricky economic issue and we think it will cost becames, and its worth noting that walmart and costco both support a hike in the minimum wage. And i think, is that because it will crush mom and poppers whoer more likely to pay lower wages . Every regulation adds to overhead costs and that will fall more disproportionately on mom and pop. The lessons of uber, of airline regulation, all of these things ought to teach us every regulation makes its harder for a small guy. Sometimes its justified, but typically they make it harder for a small guy and put the ball every time you bring something into the arena of government, you are making it a home game for big business. That is not a conclusory argument against all relations, just a warning. Against all regulations. Just a warning. I would say that if a a final note and then ill go on to where the fights can be won. In your sort of argument, discussion, with phil crain, and with grover nordquist, the question is, who is to became . Is corporatism a question of government taking control of business or is it a question of business taking control of government . I think the answer is both, and i think that a lot of people on the left, including this book, dont quite see the governments culpability. Not a question of a couple corrupt politicians. A lot of it is the institution. Ill read you a definition of corporatism. Corporate statism, as grover nord quest calls is, first and foremost a doctrine of corporate supremacy. Whatever advances the system of pour and tatus over the sovereignty of the people, comprises a widening, all encompassing corporatist agenda. I think that leaves out the culpability of government. I think that when you downplay the fact that corporatism is an align between government and business, and that needs to be more strongly seen. Consecutive conservatives need to be made more wary of corporations and liberals need to be made much more wary of politicians and government. With that said there are couple fights that can win, and thesess way to do it, when we look at washington, getting something passed is really hard you might think thats good if youre a libertarian, especially. But killing things is a little easier, especially the way a lot of thinks worked in washington, gets reauthorized temporarily. So there are fights that could be the real fight of a leftright coalition against corporate welfare. The current fight has to do with export subsidies. At thened of this fiscal jeer, the Export Import Bank and the overseas private Investment Corporation expire. Typically almost a unanimous in fact theres been unanimous consent or voice vote to renow it. This year theres a real fight but a you has jeb somehow became chairman of the house financial selfs committee, despite not doing everything the banks asked him to, and he is opposing reauthorizing it. Youd a eric cantor, who was the majority leader, and then something happened to cantor where his new to be replacement Kevin Mccarthy flipflopped and said, no, were not going reauthorize the expert import bank. So if no bill passes, Export Import Bank is dead. I if no bill passes overseas private Investment Corporation is dade. Its not an easy fight. Chamber of commerce are lining up trying to win the fight. Winnable because you dont have to get a majority of either champber, just have to get a majority of one or the majority leader stopping it. Thats right not a public groundswell. Before the last month nobody ever heard of export import back. Say, xm, the think youre talking about a rocket ship. And these are things if people cared and knew about, they would say, its a bad idea for u. S. Taxpayers to be forced to subsidy boeing sales to the chinese government. The ethanol tax credit died and the ethanol mandate has to get renewed. This is a place where some people used to think it was good for the environment. Its not. Supposed to to be good for farmers. Helps corn farmers at the expense of ranchers. Drives up prices for drivers. Its simply there for a few companies to profit. Here is where it gets murky and uncomfortable, especially for liberals, and me. The way to killing nothing, probably to kill ethanol, to rope in big business like mcdonalds, and the other one i would put up every export subsidies and ethanol, the sugar program. This is part of the farm bill. Its unchon unconscionable. We keep out Sugar Growers and then if the prices are not high enough they forfeit it to the government. We pay 20cents a pound for raw sugar, buy it off the Sugar Growers and then sell it to the ethanol makers for one cent a point. So sugaring, export subsidies, three fights that are winnable because they involve killing a piece of legislation that has to get renewed. I think theres broad leftright agreement on this, and it would be amazing to see the big concentrated industries that benefit from this lose, both through strategy, bringing together the businesses that lose from them, and through trying to get people to compare about it, and the groundswell. I think Going Forward we could have some really exciting time. We could change some of the way business is done in washington. If you can get enough people, enough libertarians and conservatives and liberals to concentrate on this idea. I think, again, got to get to know each other a little better, figure out where well agree and what issues were not going to bring up again, like a relationship. Lets not talk about that. Maybe minimum wage or Public Sector unions, leave aside, and focus on the government should not be taking money from regular people and giving it to big business. That a fight that i think we can twin. Thank you. [applause] ralph, did you want to address anything before we open up the floor . Yes. Listening to the interaction, reminds me that one of the purposes of this book is to go right down to the neighborhood and living rooms so people who are leftright can have this kind of discussion, and get to know each other, and then move that back home all the way to wall street, washington, state legislators. I was in connecticut recently on this book tour, and in the audience they actually formed an ad hoc group. Right in the audience. And said they were going to meet and discuss a number of these issues, and then try to move them operationally. So its in peoples hands. Nobody can stop people from doing this. The whole point of this discussion is to show what the potential is for people in now that theyre watching on cspan, people all over the country can have these kinds of discussions, and theres nobody more fearful of a leftright Alliance Coming at them than the plutocrats and the oligarchs and in fact in the congress, whenever theres a rush of emails or letters, the senator says to the aide, where are they coming from . And theyre coming from the lefties or righties. And when the aide says theyre coming from both, the senator pales. Thats why i call it unstoppable. When the fcc put this rule out in 2003 to allow more concentration of big media over local tv, radio and newspapers there, was such a huge uproar coming from the nratypes, common cause types, on congress, that for the first time in congressional history, the house of representatives challenged big media and voted to overrule the fcc rule by 400 to 21. And it was about to go over into the senate and they were getting the leftright barrage from the public, and the senate machinery slowed it down until the stamina of the big media prevailed and blocked it. You see, thats why when you get the leftright, theres this idea of gridlock, this idea of paralysis, is severely destabilized in terms of reflecting the will of the people. Lets open it up for questions now. Ill call on you. If you could give your name and make it a question rather than a comment, that would be awesome. Right here. Citizens united was greeted with as much enthusiasm in this building as the return of the hidden imam would have been greeted in a shiite circle. Any open ending the webbing of Big Government being bins without overturning citizens united. Is that for you see, i dont think that corporations should have equal Constitutional Rights with human beings. I think their penchant for concentrating power and achieving immunity and impunity makes sure theyre supreme over ordinary people. So when it comes to citizen united, think that was a bad decision, not only because it enhances secret money and influence over our elections, procedurally bad decision, but it basically allows corporations to independently spend as much money as they want against or for a political candidate, the local, state and national, and theres no contest with individuals on that. You see. The entire president ial and Congressional Campaign in 2012 was slightly under 8 billion. Right . Thats a quarters profit for exxonmobil a few years ago. So, i would be against it. I found leftright are worried about big money in politics. They cant yet agree because they havent spent enough time with each other on how to get it done. I think there are ways to get it done. First of all, look at the Republican Party, what has happened since citizens united. One of the indirect effects has been a second power center against the against k streete the only way for runs to get money and now you have the club for growth, heritage action, these outside groups that are funded by basically rich conservatives, which is different than big business, and that they go ahead and they win or at least contest some primaries. We have justin amash is getting attacked by the business lobby but other groups are able to protect him. That cochran almost got driven out in part because there were outside groups. And the same groups are opposing Export Import Bank and that sort of thing. The second thing is regulation in general puts the ball on the court of the big guys, and i think when you get government involved in political debate, youll we see in the individual Campaign Contribution limits. You can onlyyo5ingv]co give 2,y you would want to give 2,500 to a politician is beyond me but were supposed supposed to be libertarians. That means politicians have to go around and get 50 checks from a bunch of people. Who do you know who could go out, with friends of the politician, and knows 50 other business men . The k straight lobbyists. Its the unintended consequences of regulation. So i think looking at the revolving do would be a good place to look. Regulate politicians more of what they can do for regulating outside player inside political debate. Theres an argument for it but im wary of that. Let me just say, you zeroed in on one of the issues that could completely blow up the leftright romance and its awkward getting to know each other phase. Hello. I am entering here in the summer in washington, dc at a private a Venture Capital private equity startup fund. My question is, from the sorry so my question is, i got really good points from both sides about how we can eliminate the corporate state, but wouldnt it be a challenge, in order to convince the republicans to say that a corporate state is not the best, given the fact that they chamber of commerce, wall street donors have been flooding into the Republican Party in particular, and many of the powerful run seats are being taken over by people who get support by these business lobbies and the wall street, and many of the contracting firms in particular. Would it be how hard would it be to convince the Republican Party, a challenge the corporate state, given their funders are from the corporate state. I would simply reiterate what tim said. We have seen the rise of a counterforce in the Republican Party against the chamber of commerce and against the corporate state. Now, sometimes its matter of one set of rich guys versus another set of rich guys, but having that competition is much better than having a system which combines economic power with political power good order to restrict competition. What i would say sort of answering both to this question and to the previous one, is that in some of these cases, with citizens united, for example, i think you can perform a little bit of judo here and say, the case in favor of citizens united, the case in favor of not having regulation of political speech, and political spending as a part of speech, is that you want as much competition as possible. You want the money to come from as many different sources in whatever quantities as possible, in order to have the most sort of evolutionary and combative system possible so you dont have just a few people who have all the resources both in terms of power and in terms of money. You can connect that with some of the themes that ralph talks about in terms of access. The argument for Ballot Access and widening ballots to third parties and independents are is the same is a the case for having unlimited donations in terms of our political system. If you believe in competition, if you think that you should have as many voter choices as possible, then you should look very closely at these restrictive regulations that dictate that only a certain kind of candidates, only certain parties have the most Privileged Access to our ballot. So you can create a kind of leftright fusion here. Not necessarily long the lines that ralph envisioned but along the lines of maximum competition within the political system. One of the points in the book is community selfreliance, local businesses, whether in energy and agriculture, food, credit unions, community banks, which is burgeoning around the country, as a way to shift power back from wall street to main street. This is an area of huge convergence, huge. And yes magazine cob kells a lot of what is going on around the country in terms of local community selfreliance. The other thing is, the most interesting comment by david bratz, and who overturned eric cantor, why concern for too much money on all sides but too much emphasis on this begins to ignore the wisdom of his comment, which was he was outspent 27 to one by eric cantor, and on the evening of his election he was interviewed by fox news and he said, money doesnt vote. Voters vote. So he said, thats a reflection of, get down there with the grassroots and mobilize people. Accomplish so the obsession with money in politics we should not forget about the other side, which can negate a lot of money in politics, which is local mobilization of the voters. Someone here on the aisle. Thank you. This is a question for the panel but for mr. Mader in particular. Since the financial recession, particularly the housing clean, we spent a lot of time talking about the balancing the benefits and the risks of government sponsored enterprise, like fannie mae and freddie mac. What i find particularly interesting is were not seeing a lot of discussion about what is happening with the farm credit system, which was intended to help young beginning and Small Farmers about is now starting to give multimillion dollar loans to corporations like verizon. I am curious to see if you think this is an opportunity for a leftright alliance to rein in the Mission Creep and return the focus back to young, beginning and Small Farmers, as intends by the farm credit system. Is than ive never heard of that issue and thats great. I Love Learning new stuff like that. My fatherinlaw works for the Farm Credit Administration so i shouldnt say anything until he retires and then abolish it. In general, happens in all farm suck diof sub days, the purpose of the organization and then serves the big guys. I learned the phrase, regulatory capture, from ralph nader, and the guys who are supposed to be regulated capture it, or if its an organization that hand out money, it ends up that the guy big guys get their hands on it, even the Small Business administration. So for he meats a lesson inning this kind of conservativism, when you create an institution in washington, the guys with the best lobbyists will get their hands on it. Let me just ad that they danger of regulatory capture isnt simply in the fact that the regulated industries can buy politicians to do their favor. You cant regulate an industry without massive amount of information on the industry, and the only place to get the information is from industry itself. They have a monopoly on the revel information. They frame it in the right way and so its very, very difficult over time for regulators not to succumb to the world view of the regulated industry and get intellectually as well as fiscally captured. One more quick point. This is a leftright convergence point on this issue, talking about banks. Dumb rules instead of smart rules. You create these bank regulations, regulators that do this and that. Thats asking for capture. A cap on the size of a bank doesnt involve as much mass. It doesnt involve as much of the looking to expertise. Doesnt involve as much lobbying so when rules are called for, such as with the banks which are backed be the taxpayers, the rules should be as simple as possible and transparent, and thats one hover at the great ways to make it not get captured. Gentleman in the blue shirt. Thank you. Im allen able. Mr. Nader, you mentioned the phrase 12 years. Dont know if you were referring to two terms of hillary and one of chelsea, but i need to ask you about 2016 and your thoughts about it. What was the question . Your thoughts about 2016, especially in terms of the enlightened billionaire. Looks like right now, if you want to guess, its the two dynasties, jeb bush and hillary clinton. Unless the republicans want to implode on people like rubio or cruz. But the big business is going to get behind jeb bush. By the way, he is different than george w. Bush. He is known to read a lot of books. Not as good a painter, though. In the back. Good afternoon, jeff seal. Given the argue accommodate be made that the american system has been deformed and having to compete in the 20th century against two arguably very deformed systems, nazi germany and soviet communism. Given that we given that our power structure has had to have been built up to compete against those monstrous entities, and we still have a oneparty state in china, and the argument is made that the muslim, islamic, cal feat risk is a monstrous threat, it seems easy that the status quo just continues because the power structure has been built and its very difficult to deconstruct this massive power structure that was necessary to defeet 20th century enemies. I think the issue of past dependence, how we got to the National Security state in particular, is of great importance, and the failure of imagination to rethink the premise of the National Security state after the colored cold war and look for enemies of equivalent stature is part of what is maintaining that failure of imagination. Dan . Some of it is a matter of time. In his entry duckie remark introductory remarks talking about how the experience of the cold war shaped heirs perceptions going into the war on terror. I think now the experience of the war or terror is going to shape our perceptions Going Forward and will lead to reforms of our military industrial National Security states. Only if we have a different level of civic motivation back home. As people define themselves as powerless and take themselves out of the equation. And its a selffulfilling prophecy. People have no idea how powerful they are, even if you point to areas in American History, again and again, major changes have occurred by less than one percent of the people organizing, reflecting broader public sentiment. Thats true right through American History. The occupy occupy wall street made a big deal of the one percent, the richest one percent. They might have talked about the one percent that were mobilized, reflecting public sentiment, can turn this country around again and again and that almost inherently means a leftright reflection of opinion. So, the book does talk about shift of power from the few to the many, rather unique areas of providing facilities so people can voluntarily band together more easily as consumers, as taxpayers, as voters, as workers , but we didnt have time to discuss it. A lot of these battles between leftright, about big money and politics and the rights of big business and all, can be handled by shift of power in the private sector. And you can see that a lot of the environmental advantages in our country came by a handful of nonprofit Environmental Advocacy groups, starting with earth day, and they represented a majority sentiment of the people about choking air pollution, contaminated water, and unsafe food. Thats why they got it through. They represented a broader Public Opinion. But just a handful of people. I can cite in the book the book cites a lot of examples like that. One more. This gentleman here, about twothirds of the way back on the aisle. A mic will come to you. On the aisle. Twothirds back. Hi, i am brian from new orleans, louisiana, interning here in d. C. My question is based on the Ballot Access, what you guys were talking about earlier. The federal Election Commission is seep in my opinion as one of the Biggest Barriers for third parties and other candidates to get on the ballot. My question is, would you recommend reforming it, abolishing it, and if you recommend reforming it, how would you do so . Well, during one of our president ialzn77s;3x campaignse assembled enough information about the Democratic Party pushing us off ballots, all kinds of unsavory manners, and tying us up in court. We were sued 24 times in 12 weeks to get us off the ballot in the states in the summer of 2004. Our petitioners were harassed and intimidated, on and on. So we compiled the major brief, asking the federal Elections Commission to investigate, and they turned it down, and never sent the brief in effect to the defendants, and its a Paralyzed Agency because its threethree, and its going to break threethree and dead look, three republicans, three democrats. So i really urge the complete abolition of it and then start new in a much more effective and simpler manner. There are bad behaviors between parties and candidates that have to be dealt with but not the way the fec has been doing it. Or even been avoiding doing anything because theyre totally deadlocked on any major accusation against one party or the other. Ill just say, on the this brings up exactly my skepticism, ralph, when you say this organization doesnt work, its been captured by the powers so lets scrap and make a new one. I mean, it sounds to me like, well, lucy pulled the football a. From Charlie Brown last time but this time, hold it. Trying to say almost suggests the problem with mississippi something just in this particular Government Institution and if we can just wipe it clean and make a new Government Institution that wont get captured by the industries and thats where the skepticism pops up. If it was a tool for the powers that be last time, it will will become that again. I also worry about that, too, tim, but i dont associate if with inevidentability. I always think that simpler systems that give incentives to go to court instead of going to the fec, are very preferable, but if you strip peoples standing to zurich put all kinds of procedural obstructions to them, so they can never have their day in court on the merits of their complaint, you got to give them more rights for to initiate theyre own grievances in a court of law, and if you do that, a lot of what the fec is supposed to be doing but doesnt do can be replaced. When you cant have your own day in court, when we filed all kinds of cases on what happened to news pennsylvania, and every time we were thrown out, we were thrown out by a procedural issue, never on the merits. We never got a single day in court on the merits. So, if you block the access to the courts, you go to go with some sort of regulatory agency. I you open the access to the courts you dont need that level of regulation. I think were out of time now. Let me just add, in closing, there was a Radio Program recently about ralphs book, and ralph and i were interviewed separately, and at the end if was noted that ralph has recently marked his 80th 80th birthday, and ralph replied that the only real aging is the erosion of ones ideals, and someone who is experiencing unreal aging, remarkably inspirational. And on that wonderful note, lets thank ralph nader and the commenters. Thank you all for coming. [applause] well head upstairs for lunch and ralph will be sitting outside to sign books if