Ralph Nader - Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State

PRAISE FOR UNSTOPPABLE

One of Ralph Naders finest efforts. A bold and lucid handbook for the future.

Patti Smith

Conservatives and liberals both look askance at the Leviathan state and realize that promises of doing good often obscure the reality of doing well at taxpayer expense. Those looking for opportunities for bi-partisan cooperation should look at the nexus of statism and cronyism. Unstoppable shows that opposing such corruption can bring activists of the right and left together to fight side by side.

Grover Norquist

Ralph Naders timely book once again makes him prescient in his insights about American politics. His against-the-grain predictions of a Left-Right alliance is not just a hope, but it is grounded in emerging evidence.

Cornel West

Nader at his best-original, indignant, idealistic, and on the lookout for new political alliances and possibilities. A tonic for the cynicism thats poisoning the groundwater of our democracy.

Robert B. Reich, Chancellors Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley

No American in recent decades has done more than Ralph Nader to construct a workable alliance between the principled Right and the sincere Left to salvage our country and our national prosperity, and Unstoppable outlines his vital mission.

Ron Unz, former publisher of the American Conservative

Even-handed, erudite, practical, and necessary, Unstoppable is Ralph Naders most broadly accessible book yet. Harnessing his lifelong crusade for the public interest over the corporatist agenda, Naders convergence manifesto wisely calls for Left-Right alliances with similar goals to shun abstract labels and unite for the common good. Naders treatise is optimistic and patriotic. He demonstrably shows that effective Left-Right alliances arent pipe dreams, but historic realities in need of strategic cultivation, for the sake of our future.

Nomi Prins, author of All the Presidents Bankers

I read Ralph Nader for the same reasons that I read Tom Paine. He knows what he thinks, says what he means, and his courage is a lesson for us all.

Lewis Lapham

Thomas Jefferson fretted that, with the passing of the founding generation, the truer patriotism that he knew as the Spirit of 76 would be lost. He need not have worried. Ralph Nader has recaptured the founding faith with an inspired call for a Left-Right coalition of conscience on behalf of democracy, liberty, fairness and peace.

John Nichols, Washington correspondent for the Nation and coauthor of Dollarocracy

UNSTOPPABLE

ALSO BY RALPH NADER:

Told You So:

The Big Book of Weekly Columns

Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism

The Seventeen Solutions:

Bold Ideas for Our American Future

Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!

(political fiction)

The Seventeen Traditions:

Lessons from an American Childhood

The Good Fight:

Declare Your Independence and Close the Democracy Gap

In Pursuit of Justice:

Collected Writings 20002003

Crashing the Party:

Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender

No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the

Perversion of Justice in America

(with Wesley J. Smith)

Winning the Insurance Game

(with Wesley J. Smith)

Unsafe at Any Speed:

The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile

Copyright 2014 by Ralph Nader.

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Designed by Trish Wilkinson

Set in 11.75 point Goudy Old Style

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nader, Ralph.

Unstoppable : the emerging left-right alliance to dismantle the corporate state / Ralph Nader.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-56858-455-3 (e-book)

1. Business and politicsUnited States. 2. CorporationsPolitical activityUnited States. 3. Right and left (Political science)United States. 4. DemocracyUnited States. I. Title.

JK467.N34 2014

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the memory and writings of Jonathan Roweinsightful skeptic, optimist, believer in the potential of Left-Right coalitions, and a practitioner of what he preached

and to John Richard, networker and extraordinary advisor to civic reformers.

Contents

W hen thinking about the genesis of this book, I remember the days working in my familys restaurant. The premises were spacious: a long lunch counter and many booths filled with townspeople and jurors from the local county courthouse, summer residents at the local lakes and camps, salespeople and travelers driving along busy Route 44 in Connecticut. In those nonfast food days, family restaurants were conveners of talkers, not just eaters. There was much ado about local and larger politics, and lots of free associative talk about the YankeesRed Sox rivalry or what was going on in the many factories lining the towns streets.

Working the counter and the booths was a great education. It was conversation central, with humor, ribbing candor, and the famous Winsted raspiness. People didnt hide their party affiliations, mostly Democrat and Republican, but they didnt pigeonhole themselves when they gave their opinions or rendered their judgments. They werent all friends by any means, but they werent enemies either, all speaking as companionable individuals in a small town where everyone knew each others ethnicity, religious denomination, and business. I listened more than I talked; therefore I learned.

As a college student, I was a serious, inveterate hitchhiker, eventually using my thumb to cover thousands of free miles in many states to reach my destinations. Once I was in the front seat of the truck or car, it would have been discourteous to promptly fall asleep, no matter how tired I was. Besides, I found talking with the drivers was a way to learn. They each had their expertise, working experience, and homespun life philosophy.

Years later, in 1992, stereotyped politically as an ultraliberal, I ran a brief none-of-the-above presidential campaign in the New Hampshire primary. I had no ads and little money to spend on the four or five trips I made to the Granite state, but of the 342,131 total votes given in a crowded field, I received 6,312, or 1.85 percent. Heres the funny thing: there were slightly more Republican than Democratic votes in my total. People were surprised and kept talking about this unexpected dual appeal. I wasnt surprised. I spoke specifically, naming names, and asking for improved health, safety, and freedom of information laws, to be provided by accountable government and corporations in a society where freedom and justice discipline each other, so we can escape license and tyranny. My positions were largely for the benefit of everyone, regardless of creed, ideology, color, race, or gender.