Weigh in for pubic good over private interest

Left to the devices of any stripe, person or party operating in the corrupt and compromised politics of contemporary Washington — constructive progress will never happen in domestic or foreign policy.

“The government has ceased to function,
the corporations are the government.”

— Theodore Dreiser—

From Nader.org., excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

“…Notwithstanding the latest corporate crime wave, the devastating fallout on workers, investors and taxpayers from the greed and corruption of Wall Street, and the abandonment of American workers by U.S. corporations in favor of repressive regimes abroad — the Democrats have failed to focus voter anger on the corporate supremacists.…

“The giant corporate control of [the United States of America] is so vast that people who call themselves anything politically—liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, independents or anarchist—should be banding together against the reckless Big Business steamroller.…

“…When eighty percent of the Americans polled believe ‘America is in decline,’ they are reflecting in part the decline of real household income and the shattered bargaining power of American workers up against global companies.…”

Political forebears forewarned …

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” — Thomas Jefferson —

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. …corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed” (1864). — Abraham Lincoln—

“The citizens of the United States must control the mighty commercial forces which they themselves call into being.” — Theodore Roosevelt —

“Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.” — Woodrow Wilson—

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt—

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” — Dwight Eisenhower, farewell address —

Sources and notes


“Road to Corporate Serfdom,” Posted Friday, October 29. 2010, by nimda in In the Public Interest, http://nader.org/index.php?/archives/2218-Road-to-Corporate-Serfdom.html#extended


Ralph Nader (nā'dur), is a U.S. consumer advocate and political reformer born 1934 in Winsted, Connecticut.

Largely through Nader’s influence, the Congress of the United States passed (1966) a stringent Auto Safety Act. Nader founded (1969) the Center for the Study of Responsive Law that exposed both corporate irresponsibility and the federal government's failure to enforce regulation of business.


Nader later founded the Center for Auto Safety (with Consumers’ Union), Public Citizen, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an umbrella for many other such groups.


Nader was a presidential candidate in 1992 and has since that time run as the Green party’s candidate in 1996 and 2000 and as an independent in 2004 (endorsed by the Reform party) and 2008. In recent years he has been a severe critic of the power of multinational corporations his books on this issue The Good Fight and In Pursuit of Justice (both: 2004).


Ralph Nader is a graduate of Princeton University (AB, 1955) and Harvard University (LLB, 1958). He was admitted to the bar in 1958, practiced law in Connecticut and was a lecturer (1961–63) in history and government at the University of Hartford. In 1965, Nader published Unsafe at Any Speed, a best-selling indictment of the auto industry and its poor safety standards. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0834699.html
More at Ralph Nader — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0834699.html#ixzz14JtJiPAh



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