Its great to have you here ralph, on cspan. Guest thank you. Host im very hardded to be able to interview on this new book return to sender. Is that an homage to elvis presley. Host thats the point these days. Guest its a message that 103 lettered sent to president bush and president obama from 2001 to 2015, were with very few exceptions not acknowledged and not answered. And so i thought id embarrass myself by putting them all in a book and raise a bigger issue which is the most Democratic Media is when a person writes a letter to an elected official, like a mayor governor, senator president , cant be censor order not distorted and not to respect it and to try to answer it or even to acknowledge it so that people know its not going to some dark hole, is major issue, i think and most young people dont realmize that a written letter to pool particular has far more impact than an email. They get lots of letters. I income a half million a week. Guest yes. Host certainly you dont expect them to answer every alert. Guest no. Heres how i break it down. Host you spoke about that. Guest a lot of people dont know that teams of volunteers go to white house every morning and they separate all these letters. Now, no one expect this president to answer these letters. Right . But he has a staff. He has departments. He has agencies throughout the sprawling executive branch, and the should all be acknowledged, at least and thats my complaint. Now, they have robo letters for profile issues like the gm bailout, people writing letters yes, no. Theyll send a robo, which onis like this, doesnt even answer the letter. Or they will write letters to supporters or contributors, and president s do write personal letters to a governor, a mayor who supports the president or who gives something some finance er gives money so anybody that says the president doesnt sign particular letters to particular people, doesnt know what theyre talking about. And so they do play favorites. Then they also heres the way to get a letter automatically from the white house jump say, mr. President i want you to taken my Daughters High School graduation. So they have to be polite. So they write a let expressing regret. Host or tell them, dear, mr. President , i want to give you money. Theyll an that right away. Guest they will. I have a variety of letters which they could have farmed out to the second of energy, the secretary of transportation, he the head of the federal trade commission. No they dont even acknowledge my letters simple wrote both bush and obama a letter and said what is your policy on answering letters. Right . And they didnt answer that one. Host naturally. Guest by comparison i sent two credit critical letters from the Prime Minister of canada, and back came a formal acknowledgment saying they received my message and referred it to the respective ministry. At least you know a human being or more answered the letter. So, if it all goes to a dark hole and is not acknowledged, andy fewer people will write letters, and the Postal Service shows that herwriting is declining, and not just because of the internet. What interesting in canada, they have an affirmative policy encouraging people to write letters to their members of parliament or Prime Minister, because its free. No stamp is needed. And our country the politicians are free. They send letters to us. The franking privilege. But we cant do it in reverse. Host you said most of letters were not answered. A couple were. Can you spoke about that . Guest i wanted to make it easy for president obama. When he was running for reelection heres what president carter did oppositement he went a major Hotel Ballroom three blocks from the white house and we filled it with a thousand leaders of citizen groups, labor environment, religious charities, community groups, you name it, who have millions of members out there around the country. The Nonprofit Sector. And i said, youve gone to india, you always have to have a little spark in a letter. Youve gone to indiana to promote Harley Davidson motorcycles, boeing airplanes. This is three blocks. Host surely you can walk across the street. Guest yes, and he did walk across Lafayette Park to pay homage to the United States chamber of commerce, who criticized him every day. This didnt answer the letter. I thought it was good for him and thephone profits because he would bring viz exhibit they would get more contributions and a lot of jobs are involved in the Nonprofit Sector so more conclusions, more service for poor children, people in need, et cetera. So i sent the letter, copied to Michelle Obama and she writes back and she says, thank you very much but the president is too busy. So you see when you do persist, when you try to get an answer you get a response that is more interesting. Host now theres at letter that you got from president bush. He actually invited you to contribute to his library. Guest yes. Host what did you reply. Guest a letter to me by name. They can do that now. They can separate out dear hari harry. Was that in response to a letter. Guest i was on their mailing list. He was out of office heel. Hes asking me for money bus of the president ial library. I consider him a certified war criminal along with dick cheney of i have picketed him. Ive challenged him publicly. The computer is nonpartisan. Host thats right. Guest so anyway, i said, i know i chided him on his criminal invasion of iraq, and how he didnt even have the decency to open up to iraqi refugees who were supportive they werent supportive of the mission but to feed their family they were chauffeurs, translators, some of them lost their lives because of that. And he wouldnt let them in. We let 160,000 vietnamese refugees in, maybe 10,000 at the most iraqi refugees, and then at the end said i want to make a contribution in kind. So i sent him a book by mainstream think tank guy clyde and the title of the book is rogue nation. Host did you get any reply . Guest no. Im going to check and see if they cataloged it in the president ial library. Host a lot of the letters are funny in some ways. You wrote one bat terrorist name e. Coli. Can you [speaking speak about that. Guest there was a bacterial outbreak in europe. They gave it the name, e. Coli and then some numbers. So ive been trying to get become back to president clinton, to, shall we say redefine terrorism. Youre worried about the loss of innocent civilian life you better worry about viruses and back tiera not just the ones from africa or asia. We are dealing with a lot of mutations. You were a scientist. This is a scary thing. I we dont get ready too time it could be like the influenza epidemic after world war i. I said, how am i going to get to these people . I decide to write a letter in the name of ecolow in a petri dish in austria. Its life is limited. They analyzed it has no more use, so this e. Coli figures i got to do something to redeem myself. Host the back tier use. Guest made the case nor president to rates the priority of resource, focus and concern to prevent epidemics. Deadly epidemics all over the worlds, and theres no one better than the United States to confront that if we can get over the restriction of the word 0 powe terrorist toy to a few gangs. Host i was at a few of the events where you spoke about book politic and prose. I wanted to ask you issue was fascinated how that talk went. It was a great talk, obviously but the first question that you got was about why did you give the election to al gore in 2000 . Have you ever been to an event where you have spoken where that question was not asked. Very rare. Just hangs in peoples head into i thought your answers were so spot on and so direct. In fact, the audience there tends to be rather skeptical about their theyre staunch democrats, but you got applause, like serious applause. Please enumerate the answer. Its important for people to hear. Guest because we can never file political bigotry against third party or independent candidates who we have the right to run for elocation and if we all have the trying run for election, big guys, third parties, we all have a right to get votes from one another which means were either spoilers of one another or none of us. Why should the Green Party Candidate be a second class citizen. That at the fundamental reply. The pragmatic reply if you ask al gore why he lost the election, he would say i won the popular volt. The Electoral College antiquated threw it into florida, and then he say it was stolen for him in florida secretary of state, jeb bush there, shenanigans those of us remember all of that. Host the Supreme Court no then the Supreme Court. And also would have been president if he just won one state, his home state of tennessee, that he represented in the house and the senate and his headquarters were there. So when you eave seen a sin na quan non, two three any one of which, Everything Else being equal, would have put him in the white house why blame the green party . Host 250,000 democrats voted republican. Guest in florida. 250,000. Host now, how much was that election lost by . 50537. Host at 250,000 democrats switched parties to vote. Also arkansas. Guest thats right. Host the state of he was Vice President to clinton. Guest thats right. He didnt want clinton to campaign. Clinton could have gotten arkansas for him. Oo im amassed how many time people continue to ask the question. Guest part of it is like an alibi. They so dislike the runs theyll take anything the democrats offer. The corporations are pulling on two parties 24 7. So how do you the progressive wing of the democratic part, which is becoming inning creasingly corporatized, militaristic, Hillary Clinton militarist corporatist how do you have any well, not by saying were going to go for the least worse take me im yours, im not going to put any pressure on you in april may june july. They tell the pollsters exactly what the corporate democratted want to hear, which is blanket support no matter what the democrats will do that you dont like because the runs are worse. Every four years of that least worse mindset and both parties get worse. Host back to the book. Return to sender. Have you sent a copy to the white house . Guest yes. I sent a copy and a letter. Theres no certitude it ever got to the white house. Has to be screened. Now i think i have a contact in the white house and i may give it to her so she can give it to the resident in the oval office. Host what would be a victory for you in this . Would you a phone call from the president . An invite . What would be a victory . Guest well it would be first of all to acknowledge the letter and by the way issue send these letters around you. Cant put all your agencies in the white house basket. You send it to white house reporters at times. You send it to opponents. Send it to members of congress. You send it around to, Say University professor who is interested in the subject. Acknowledgment thats a courteous we have to deal with courtesy here. And i would like substantive responses. For example, we tried for six years to get an appointment with the secretary of energy, who is pro nuclear who meets all the time with the nuclear industry, and i had before leaving antinuclear groups who have been around for decades and been right and right and scientists, et cetera, never been able to see him. And he would just blow us off. So i wrote to president obama and i said, your secretary is not giving equal time here anywhere near. No answer. And they didnt even refer it to the secretary of energy for response. So would like the sprawling executive to get some of these letters and respond. If they come from the white house, they should have more meaning, where the cabinet secretaries or assistant secretaries respond. Host you talked to two president s you stuck to two president s, bush and obama. Obviously written letters previously to other president s. Why did you stick with those two . Are they more egregious than the others as far as not replying . Guest yes. Its getting worse. Even senators and representatives when it comes to substantive letter, im shocked to they dont respond. Host because of email. Guest theyre very secure in their seats. Jerry arey maundering, safe republican, safe democrat. They have robo letters and dont want to be bothered. Host so not answering is safer than maybe answering in the wrong way. Guest yes. They have robo letters which sand papered and noncontroversial. But the interesting thing i would write to jimmy carter and once in a while he would respond, or his special assistant would respond. I would say write to senator Warren Magnus son asking for a congressional hearing and it would be in the Washington Post or the new york times. Now no matter how fresh new and authoritative a letter is lets say it froms from professor ted postal at m. I. T. Against the Missile Defense saying its a total boondoggle. Nine billion a year almost as much as the epas entire budget. Suppose he writes a letter and its new . The press just degrades letters. They dont report them the way they used to. I once wrote a letter to a public official on what we call white lung disease in the textile carding rooms can the dust and it was kill can wells in North Carolina and south carolina. It was page three of the Washington Post. So its a dying media. We have to reand it theres no one who can stop us. No one can stop us from writing letters and sending them around. No one can stop us by writing more powerful letter biz putting cc to different parties and the senator and the white house says this person is a networker. This is going to a reporter. I better write him back. You have a podcast and people can go to it, nader. Org. Do you put those letters in the podcast or other ways to bring them out in obviously sending them to white house may not get the attention but theres a lot of people out there reading alternative meet ya and listening to alternative radio. So aside from the alternative lets talk about the use of the podcast in getting the information out. Your ultimate goal is to get the information out to the people. Guest thats right. Host not just to get an answer obviously. Do you do a multitier approach to accepting out this information . Guest i should do more of that. The Radio Program basically interviews people on very important subjects that are not in the news. So that is the whole bulk of the program. I just interviewed steve silver steen from San Francisco a philanthropist, and helps with other fund seven or eight people who are going replace this president ial practice where you can come in second in the popular vote and still become president , like happened four times in American History most recently in 2000 when gore came in first, bush came in second, but Electoral College put bush with the Supreme Court help. So who knows about that . They now have 165 electoral votes, laws from maryland, new york california, if they go to 270, thats the end. What do the laws say . The law says that in maryland or california, they will throw the electoral votes completely to the winner of the National Popular vote. So they redefined what the Electoral College cannot do. And so we had him on. But youre right. I should her some of the letters herald some of the letters and summarize them. Host one way would be to put the letter out you send the white house, and along with it you could do some sort of grassroots activism so people can write similar letters focus on the issue call the white house, do whatever it takes. A lot of times from what i hear at least from people in congress and even the white house, they do respond to the number of calls the number of letters. So when you have the same voices being heard over and over again there is a little bit of a tick, i guess in their that count the letters. They count the calls they count the letters. Thats right. They may not respond but it has an impact if its coming in, in larger numbers. Host if you picked up the phone and called the white house, do you ever get a call back . Guest if i called the special assistant, like jean sperling, i would get a call back maybe after the third call. You have to be quite persistent. Host when was the last time you were invited to the white house . Guest it was under bill clinton. Excuse me. He would assign mr. Mccharty, a special assistant to handle our groups, so to speak. So we were invited several times, but only to see him. Host i see. You were name one of the hundred most influential people of the 20th century by time magazine, by atlantic monthly. Im just flabbergasted that and having run for president having had an impact, i understand theres an old saying in politic you bring your friends close and your enemies closer so whatever you are whether youre seen as a friend or enemy bringing you closer would serve probably better purpose. Why do you think theres this resistance to ralph nader. Who reasons one the 2000 campaign produced a lot of shunning by the democrats in congress and the white house. How dare i challenge a mutating Democratic Party that is a shell of what it was in the 1960s. We couldnt have gotten through all these bills for Environment Consumer worker safety, couldnt have gotten them through today. We got them through in the 1960s. I think the second thing is if you dont get Mainstream Press coverage they dont think that they need to respond to you. And so if the new york times, decided theyre not going to cover certain citizen groups, then they theyll say why should we bother responding . Its too bad because these letters often point out things going on in their own government they dont know about. Things going on in the country they dont know about. They dont like the criticism. They like the praise.