Shredding the fabric of democracy (Ralph Nader | Register-Citizen)

[struggle4progress]

... Perhaps Justice Kennedy didn’t hear that the financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing in Washington over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse ...

The health insurance industry trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) also spent several million lobbying Congress. No wonder Single Payer Health insurance — supported by the majority of people, doctors, and nurses — isn’t moving in Congress.

Energy companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron are also big spenders. No wonder we have a national energy policy that is pro-fossil fuel and that does little to advance renewable energy ...

No wonder we have the best Congress money can buy ...

http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2010/01/25/opinion/doc4b5d1c54b254c367303082.txt

[Zoeisright]

1. And who did YOU take money from, Ralph?

Oh yes, that's right, REPUKES.

Hypocrite.

[struggle4progress]

2. For decades, Ralph showed us how fight corporate power and win, through a combination

of careful accurate research and grassroots activism. He did great work as a non-partisan public interest advocate, using an impressive mix of tools including community organizing tactics. His focus was never electoral politics. The media environment changed in the Reagan era, with the loss of the fairness doctrine and the great conglomerations, and Ralph may have been blindsided by that

The rightwing has hated him rabidly since the mid-1960s, and I suspect the media blitz to blame Ralph for the 2000 coup originated in some rightwing think tank

[aquart]

5. Or possibly it originated with me.

Because I notice that I still can't stand the sight of him.

[ima_sinnic]

11. how idiotic

continue with the know-nothing hatred, it's so "progressive."

but there are many phonies on this board.

[aquart]

14. So many years later, still trying to justify it.

Never happen. And I don't think you're phony. I think you are pure and genuine. It's the noun they describe that's in question.

[struggle4progress]

13. Could be. Do you work for a wingnut thinktank?

[depakid]

3. Oh for crying out loud

please tell us you're not that shallow.

[aquart]

6. Shallow is imagining he is still what he was.

All whores were once virgins.

[struggle4progress]

8. The text in the OP sounds like the same Ralph I've always admired

[depakid]

9. Do you agree with the OP?

or any of the dozen of other articles he's published over the past year?

Fact is, Nader got it right- over and over- whereas Democrats repeatedly got it wrong, and in so doing, bear some responsibility for not only the economic crash- but also the justices (and federal judges) that they confirmed to the court, and every egregious Bush era policy that they rolled over on.

Just as Nader predicted that they would.

ENRON? Caused by Dems complicity in Republican policies. California energy crisis- same deal. Nader and his groups fought hard and warned the Dems what would happen- but they didn't listen.

Media deregulation? That was a beaut, eh?

The list goes on and on.

Me, I have a lot of respect for those who are repeatedly proven right- and very little for those who get it wrong (or are too timid, corrupt or complicit to do the right thing- or even to learn)

[aquart]

4. Wasn't this his case? Didn't he win it?

Am I confused and need someone of wisdom to put me on the path?

[struggle4progress]

7. No. Ralph's been warning us about the dangers of corporate "personhood" for years

[struggle4progress]

12. No. "Citizens United" is not a Nader group. The Sourcewatch page is worth a look:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United

[Vidar]

10. K&R.