Ralph Nader — Right or Wrong?

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I just want to be sure I get these links on the blog somewhere so I can find ’em when I need ’em — see “Thanks, Ralph!” by Avedon and these posts by Teresa Nielsen Hayden — “An Odd Thought Concerning Ralph Nader” and “Fckng Ralph Nader, fckng Public Citizen.”

Please read these, especially if you are still a Ralph Nader admirer.

16 thoughts on “Ralph Nader — Right or Wrong?”

  1. I’d say give the man a break. He did a lot of good years ago with his work with the auto industry – you can say a silent prayer to Ralph every time you get into your car and buckle up.

    I’d also say who else has been doing the kind of work he’s done for years? The guy is at least 70 years old now, who else has come up to do the kind of thing he did for so long? Isn’t he entitled to some kind of rest at this point?

    That said, St Ralph is not without his faults. He’s got a lot to answer for in inadvertently aiding the current gang of megalomaniacs in their quest for power. His fierce independence is to blame for this; it’s also part of the reason he hasn’t really groomed anyone in my knowledge to take his place in public advocacy. I don’t know how effective his organizations are in doing advocacy – they’re hardly a household name – nor how well they’d endure his absence.

    I’m reminded of the difference between General Electric and Westinghouse. While both companies started out on more or less the same footing, the former was able to build a world class culture that is highly admired in the business world and is also self-perpetuating. As for the latter, Westinghouse is an also-ran that I believe was recently bought by somebody.

    Nader is like Westinghouse – he doesn’t do culture, or at least not very well. He’s a lone operator, unfortunately, and so his triumphs are huge as well as his failures.

    But attacks like those linked to in your post strike me as being a bit too loaded with personal invective, and lack a sense of history to take seriously. They also sound like the whines of complainers who never put themselves on the line anywhere near to the degree that Ralph Nader did.

    I don’t care that Ralph has the very stocks of companies he criticizes in his portfolio, just as I didn’t care that Ned Lamont holds shares of Wal-Mart, hidden away in various mutual funds. Whose life is not riddled with surface contradictions like these? What counts is the overall thrust of a person’s life, and on that score, I think these recent criticisms of Nader are unfair.

  3. I don’t care that Ralph has the very stocks of companies he criticizes in his portfolio,

    You need to go back and re-read the posts I linked to. His little crusades are helping the companies whose stocks he owns.

    I’d say give the man a break. He did a lot of good years ago with his work with the auto industry – you can say a silent prayer to Ralph every time you get into your car and buckle up.

    Sure; back when I was a college student I admired Ralph enormously. That was, like, 200 years ago, though.

    I’d also say who else has been doing the kind of work he’s done for years?

    Ralph hasn’t been doing it, either. He’s been doing other things, things that are not nearly so beneficial.

    The guy is at least 70 years old now, who else has come up to do the kind of thing he did for so long? Isn’t he entitled to some kind of rest at this point?

    Rest, yes. If he would only retire, we’d all be better off. But, alas, he isn’t retiring. The harm he has done in recent years pretty much balances whatever good he did all those years ago. He needs to go away now.

  4. Maha,I take it you won’t be endorsing Nader in 2008?
    Well some how I didn’t think you would. ( little birdie told me)
    It will be an interesting race anyway,If the old boy runs again. I’ll be looking for some offshore property to hide away in( pickle what’s left of my brain with dark rum) just in case the repugs win with McCain or the elections get cancelled do to a “terrist” threat.
    For What it’s Worth, if you know what I mean…..

  5. Whoa…Public Citizen has done mountains of good in America. Ralph Nader started the organization decades ago, as well as starting others of great value to ordinary citizens. I’m not at all convinced that a gripe about this one action of one arm of Public Citizen is supposed to suffice to make it ok to slam the organization to smithereens, nor to hold Nader himself to account for an organization that has grown up and is, under Claybourne, now maturely on its own, independent of Nader.

    Yes, Ralph Nader has alienated many folks, me included when he made his smarmy statement about ‘no difference between the parties’…..but I do have difficulty finding anyone else who can match his record of voluntary and brilliant life-long service grappling with issues that matter to us all. I do not agree that ‘the harm he has done in recent years pretty much balances whatever good he did all those years ago.”
    Nader is a gad-fly, for sure, but the guy is very very bright and well-read and very genuine, so he’s worth listening to in any arena of fully open inquiry about today’s issues. I don’t have to always agree with him to appreciate his his gad-flyness.

  6. While I am a big fan of maha and site (most of the time anyway), I find the swipes at Nader to be tiresome.

    To all those people who think that Nader “stole” votes from Gore — Gore doesn’t own my vote, and he never did. My vote was not the rightful property of Gore, which was somehow “stolen” from him by Nader.

    You might claim I should have voted for Gore instead of Nader. My answer is that you should have voted for Nader instead of Gore.

    Nuff said.

  7. I’d give Nader mixed marks even when it comes to auto safety. He did get part of the ball rolling, and much of the crash protection stuff in cars now is due to that effort, but an equal part of car safety is due to much better tires, brakes, suspension and steering, and this is due — some might think ironically — to people who pushed hard for years for better performance from cars.

  9. maha — it seems to me that you are basing your “sold out” criticism of Nader on shaky ground, at best. I suspect your rather . . . hostile . . . feelings towards him stem from the emotional blame you place upon him for the 2000 election, thus distorting your usual clear vision.

    Anyway, as far as I am concerned, as long as he is still writing articles like this one, he is still fighting the Good Fight:

    http://www.counterpunch.org/nader08152006.html

  11. I’m sorry, maha, but that article you linked to is an absolutely ridiculous article.

    The original article which Nader co-authored (you can find it here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=85000676 ) was not by any stretch of the imagination the Bush-worshipping diatribe that your linked article tries to spin it as).

    The author of your linked article even goes to the ridiculous extreme of chastising Nader for not criticizing actions of Bush that occurred AFTER Nader’s article was written, such as in these two paragraphs, for example:

    “On the very day that Nader’s column appeared, Congress passed a bill, backed by big business and the Bush White House, overturning new workplace safety regulations designed to prevent repetitive strain injuries, an affliction that affects more than one million workers every year. Two days later Bush intervened to outlaw a strike by Northwest Airlines mechanics and announced he would block any strike action by workers locked in contract negotiations with the major airlines.

    Even if Nader were able to overlook such anti-democratic and anti-working-class measures, one might think his enthusiasm for the new administration would be dulled by its pro-business offensive against the environment. Nader was, after all, the presidential candidate of the Green Party.”

    I cannot imagine a more ABSURD criticism of Nader than this article engages in.

  12. Sorry, Diogenes, but I’ve read the same and similar charges in several sources. So go ahead and drink the Kool Aid, son, but don’t you dare tell me I’m just being emtional about Nader. You’re the one who’s being emotional about Nader.

  13. If you can’t see with your own eyes that Nader has become nothing but a self-aggrandizing demagogue, I can’t help you. Just keep your eyes open and your hands on your wallet when dealing with Nader.

  15. Diogenes — I didn’t think I had deleted it. It got caught in the spam filter but I thought I had approved it. It never got here, though.

    You can repost, but you’re not going to change my mind.

  16. maha,

    you’re delusional, myopic, and a polemicist. You support Hillary for Christ sakes! Hillary?!!!

    Nader is a good man with integrity. I’m looking at things on the quantum level.

    He’ll get my vote anyday over Obama, Hillary, or any of the other clowns in the other corporate party.

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