|
The Ralph
Nader Reader.
On the Presidency and Democracy
"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 interests nullifies genuine voter choice and
trust. Our elections have been put out for auction to the
highest bidder."1a
"Thomas
Jefferson said that "a little rebellion now and then" might be a
good thing. He was right, and we need such a rebellion now: a
democratic revolution that will reinvent and rediscover democracy."1b
"What
can be done when government itself becomes lawless,
flouting the very Constitution and congressional laws that it is
duty-bound to uphold? This is one of the most important yet
neglected problems of self-governance of our time."1c
MONTESQUIEU
On the
Corporate State and the Corporatizing of America
"The
principal call is almost primitive in its simplicity. It is a
call for corporations to stop stealing, stop deceiving,
stop corrupting politicians with money, stop
monopolizing, stop poisoning the earth, air and water,
stop selling dangerous products, stop exposing workers
to cruel hazards, stop tyrannizing people of conscience
within the company and start respecting long-range survival
needs and rights of present and future generations."1d
"Conglomerate
mergers are usually justified by the magic of synergy, that
2+2=5. To be sure, economies of scale require that firms be
large enough to be efficient. But firms can also be too
large to be efficient (or 2+2=3)."1e*
"The
problem of corporate power comes in three
expressions -- misfeasance (the improper use of
proper power), malfeasance (the use of improper
power) and non-feasance (the non-use of proper power)."1f
On the
Information Age
"With
99 percent of all contracts not negotiated -- e.g.,
insurance policies, credit card conditions, mortgage instruments,
shrink-wrap licenses, and installment loan agreements -- sellers
demand that consumers sign on the dotted line and give up rights,
remedies, and bargaining."1g
"It is the rare American
who does not live in the shadow of his dossier. The
"dossier industry" is a huge and growing business. There are 105
million files kept by the Association of Credit Bureaus of
America (ACBA). . . "1h
"Unless citizens are
provided with an "information bill of rights" enabling
them to see, correct, and know the uses of these dossiers, and to
impose liability on wrongdoers, they can be reduced to a new
form of computer-indentured slavery." 1i
|