A Talk with Ralph Nader
by J.p. Lawrence
The Free Press spoke with six-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader in advance of his speech at Bard College on Saturday, Sept. 22. Below are his thoughts on the upcoming election, the level of activism in today’s youth, and the role of government in peoples’ lives.
A little preview, what will you be talking about this weekend?
Yes. I‘ll be talking about what presidents don’t do, that they should do as a result of the authority of their office and its bully pulpit reach as well as what presidents are doing that is contrary to the constitution, violating our federal statutes and treaties that our country belongs to that involves military and foreign policy, civil liberties and other issues.
Will you be drawing from any examples in particular?
Yes, the wars of aggression, such as the invasion of Iraq that was unconstitutional, unauthorized by federal treaties and federal statute, international treaties and international statute.
The election this year, will you be discussing those topics? And if so, what will you bring to the discourse?
Well of course. We will be talking about the lack of competitions in the two parties, because the third parties are excluded in a whole variety of ways, from ballot access barriers to the presidential debates. And how a two-party duopoly is a contradiction to any concept of democratic elections.Then we will talk about what is not being talked about.
Do you have any thoughts on whether the national media is part of maintaining this two-party election season?
The mainstream, commercial media behaves more like a dittohead, a massive daily dittohead…they had 15,000 journalists in Tampa and Charlotte, and they just tripped all over each other imitating each other's stories. So they didn't really cover what the police did to demonstrators in any detail…And of course they didn't independently and critically analyze the speeches.
So what outlets do you use? How does one keep abreast of what's going on in the election?
I usually listen to “Pacificia.” You read “The Nation Magazine,” “Progressive Magazine,” “In These Times,” and you learn to read between the lines. You can read the mainstream press and see what they are avoiding. Go back to that Votenader.org place, for example. It is like nothing changes. That is the same list I put up in 2004 and 2000. Politics in this country is paralyzed. Paralyzed and corporatized.
Are there any 3rd party candidates that you feel should get more press this season?
Yeah. At least three. Jill Stein, Green Party. Rocky Anderson, Justice Party, two-time mayor of Salt Lake City—he's not on all that many states—and Gary Johnson, Libertarian party, former governor of New Mexico.
Now, if voters didn't have a two-party system, how do you think they would vote in the absence of a two-party system? What would be the alternative?
They'd have more choices! And it's up to them. But the choices would be visible to them, because a press worthy of a democracy would give them some time and space. And they'd open up the debates. Why do we have three debates owned by a corporation called the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by the Republican and Democratic party as their pet cat?
They decide who gets on, who doesn’t, what reporters ask questions, how frequent should the debates be. We should have 21, 30 debates. Campaigns should run debates all over the country. Regionally, nationally. Instead the country's seeing the same old spiel…You can't reach tens of millions of people—unless you're a multi-billionaire candidate—without getting on the debates.
Something that is of great interest to a lot of students, especially at Bard College, is Occupy Wall Street. What are your thoughts on that movement, especially now that it's reached its one-year anniversary?
Well, there should be more occupiers, all around the country. There are not enough students involved. It’s got the right policies. It’s got the right focus, but it doesn't have enough people.
Why do you think it hasn’t had enough people?
Because there’s no draft. You bring back the draft, you’ll see a lot more students become active.
So would you say a lot students are divorced from the implications of the national politics?
Completely. Other than student loans. And they don’t pay them right away when they’re in college, so that’s remote too. They’re also indifferent to the job-creating effects of corporate globalization under NAFTA and WTO. This generation spends far more time looking down at their little iPhone than it does looking ahead at the horizons that they have to build.
So you would say that there’s a gap in the amount of activism and involvement of this generation and past generations?
Yeah. Because years ago, previous generations of young people—the only virtual reality they had was television. Now they have television, internet, computer, iPhone, videogames; non-stop, 24/7. So they’re living more in virtual reality than they are in reality. That’s not very healthy for democracy.
But on one hand, wouldn’t all this information theoretically lead to a more informed populace where they would be able to access more information?
That’s—you put your finger on it. It’s theoretical. Cognition does not lead to ignition. You have to have fire in your belly, and you don’t get fire in your belly by looking at screens. You get fire in your belly by looking at the people who are repressed, injured, sickened, uninsured, disrespected, underpaid, excluded, marginalized—that’s when the ignition starts, otherwise known as fire in your belly. Cognition does not produce ignition. It’s important—it’s good to know what you’re talking about, but that doesn’t move you to break your routine and engage in the civic mobilization that’s needed.
Especially in context with your history with safety and seatbelts, what are your thoughts on the Bloomberg soda ban policies?
Well, he’s just going back to what it was 30, 40 years ago. If you look at the number of ounces that were sold in drinks by the fast food industry 40 years ago, his limitation is larger than that. He allows larger bottles. Now, the trick of the food marketing industry is to get people larger and larger portions of junk food, processed in a very dubious manner, full of fat, sugar, often salt, which produces obesity, which produces diabetes, high blood pressure, and other ailments, as you know. So who’s gonna counteract the McDonald’s fat farm? Who’s gonna counteract the Coca-Cola and Mountain Dew?
Mr. Nader, what’s kind of fascinating to me about this issue is that there are a lot of people who are very quick to jump to the defense of these large corporations, the fast food corporations. Do you feel there is a change of some sort that has somehow led to this moment where the instinct of a large segment of the population thinks that these large fast food corporations deserve to make as much money as possible, even if it is at the expense of people's health?
Well, I don’t know how popular that is. I mean yeah, yeah, he stuck his neck out on that. We’ll see what happens. He’s stopped smoking in bars. That was considered a bold movement that stuck, even though there were a lot of smokers upset with that.
Some people have to be, you know, saved from themselves. I mean that—that’s what pedestrian walks are all about. They have to be safe jaywalking, which endangers them. So they’re basically told, if you jaywalk, you may be cited. You will walk across this street at the prescribed white lines. You can take all of this too far, but the fact you can take it too far doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it at all.
I know that’s been a lot of the impetus especially among the youth around Bard College, about the interest in the Libertarian third party of Ron Paul, of the notion that there needs to be less of what you just said with the people needing saving from themselves by the government. What are your thoughts on that?
Well, I think Ron Paul’s appeal to the youth starts with his drug policy, decriminalizing/legalizing; second, his foreign and military policy—“What are we doing over there? Losing people, killing people, losing trillions of dollars that could be built—come back—be used here; and his third, he emphasizes civil liberties a lot. People don’t like to be snooped on; they don’t like to have files on them. So I don’t think it’s so much the corporate issue. I don’t think he gets many points by saying, “If you elect—if you vote for me and elect me President, I, Ron Paul, will make sure that you no longer have to have seatbelts and airbags in cars. You no longer have to have your medicines tested by independent laboratories so you can rely on your safety. You no longer have to rely on government to keep corporations from polluting your lungs and your bodies.” So I don’t think that’s his appeal. I think the other three are. Plus the fact, you know, that he’s a pleasant guy. I know him very well. He comes across in a pleasant way. And—and there’s no one on the Left to balance him out. There’s no Ron Paul on the Left. Remember, Ron Paul became visible because he got in on the primary debates in ’08 and ’12. That didn’t happen on the left.
Do you have anything you’d like to add?
Yeah, and the main thing is—the main thing. How many students are there at Bard?
Two-thousand and then another couple thousand overseas.
Okay. Two-thousand at Bard, right?
Yes.
You think one out of four will show up on Saturday?
Hmm—I believe that—
Or [will they be] too busy watching football games?
I don’t know if that’s what they’ll be doing...
Well you see, half of democracy, Mr. Lawrence, is showing up. Showing up at rallies and meetings, at marches, in courtrooms, city council gatherings, and the election booths. And if we’re gonna go 500 miles one way, and come back 500 miles, we expect to see a good turnout that makes your President proud.