Ralph Nader

Green Party Presidential Candidacy Speech (2/21/2000)

• ...the Democratic and Republican parties, two apparently distinct political entities feeding at the same corporate trough.

• Up against the corporate government, voters find themselves asked to choose between look-alike candidates from two parties vying to see who takes the marching orders from their campaign paymasters and their future employers. The money of vested interest nullifies genuine voter choice and trust.

• The "democracy gap" in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the “least worst” every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the “least worst” gets worse.

Crashing the Party (2002)

• Like knowing hostages, the AFL-CIO and its unions march in tandem to endorse the Democratic presidential nominees early in the primary season. They have given up their capacity for negotiation, so frightened are they of the Republicans. Meanwhile, the rank-and-file workers suffer their dwindling status in silence.

• ...organized labor...rushes to support the party without demanding a turn away from corporatism toward workers’ needs. This is the logic of the lesser of two evils. It tethers labor to a relentless slide deeper into the corporate power pits year after year.

• ...the Democrats know that no matter how many GATTs, NAFTAs, empty OSHAs, and other betrayals...they heap on those labor leaders, they can be had because, once again, the Republicans are deemed worse.

• The tired whine of "But the Republicans are worse" will fall flat as more young Americans take charge of their future and move, with their reenergized elders, toward the Green Party and parallel civic and political movements.

The Good Fight (2004)

• We must strive to become good ancestors.

• The shortcomings of America's political leaders do not stop at our borders.

• Unlike members of Congress, Big Business knew what the WTO agreements contained. That's because corporate lobbyists helped draft them.

• Half of democracy is about just showing up.

An Unreasonable Man (documentary film, 2006)

• The 1963 Corvair, which has some remarkable characteristics. It's one of the few cars I know that can do the bossa nova on dry pavement and the watusi on wet.