1976 Ralph Nader interview-lowering expectations. The meanest trick

Johny intro- " He's a remarkable gentlemen, The old saying goes, 'you can't fight city hall, a cliche that he just disproved quite a few years ago, and you can fight GM, you can fight corporations, and get something done , if you have the perseverance and the moral fiber that Ralph Nader has. i AM SURE YOU ARE familiar with the book he wrote: Unsafe at any speed, an indictment on some of the cars put out by , uh, one of the giant corporations. He is almost personally responsible for making changes in certain laws in this country. He is an attorney, he is a leader of several consumer groups. Welcome , please, Mr Ralph Nader."

JC;' The book, in itself, 'Who runs congress?" The average person would say ' WELL, THE CITIZENS RUN CONGRESS,right, we elect the people and send them there, but that as usual is quite not the case is it?"

RN: " No, in reality three factors are most influential, one is campaign money-so expensive to run for re-election, whoever's got the money tends to call the tune."

JC;'will that change this year because of the law being changed, toward certain contributions?"

RN:" No, uh, it spreads it out in terms of a lot of smaller contributions, under a 1,000 dollars. The second is the power of the white house, The White House, in particularly when the President uses the Veto again and again and again, can tell Capital hill into withering heights as we call it. In other words -the power of the Presidency is enormous on congress, they send their lobbyists up there. They can, you know, manipulate it. The third-is citizen apathy, Thats the big one, I figured out that the average citizen in this country will work about two months or more for congress. cause thats the amount of taxers that congress imposes and spends, and, uh, there aren't enough opportunities for people to spend a day, on congress, a year, to make sure that money is spent wisely and efficiently. "

JC:" You know you are absolutely right when you say, everybody has said at one time or another -"whats wrong with the country?" but when it comes down to the short strokes people are apathetic about joining, uh, consumer action groups because they don't feel they can do anything."

RN:" One-they think somebody is doing it for them. That's what we elected them for. Um, the second is, uh, they don't think they make a difference even if they try. And thats the cruelest facet because they can make a difference, i mean, all over the country there are citizen groups..Arkansas, California, you name it, that have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps.They've gone after inequitable property taxes, consumer fraud or pollution. And with virtually no staff, Just a lot of guts and interest and gathering the information, gathering the facts and doing something about it. They've made tremendous strides. The same is true with congress. i mean if you-an average lets say Superbowl game -you got--i dunno 40 million people watching it..if 40 million people , a year, spent an average of ,10 hours on congress, that place would really shape up. And when you figure they're working two or three months a year to sustain the government and washington, that's not much of a sacrifice, "

JC;" You mean writing letters, writing and asking, and joining groups uh, you can bring about changes?"

RN: " Sure, because in the final analysis , the votes are what count, the people votes, even though the campaign money gets in the way, when the people aren't alert.

JC; "You find this ambivalence, i think people feel helpless. And they say "what the hell is going on" I think the federal government just proposed a 60 million dollar subsidy for tobacco groups, at the same time, the surgeon general comes out , and there is great campaign to get people not to smoke. That it is obviously not good for your health, and at the same time they subsidize the industry , don't you find a strange...."

RN;" sCHITZOPHRENIA

JC;"Don't you find a strange immorality, i understand its money, Tobacco products are important to Virginia and Kentucky, and we send a lot of tobacco products over seas, but at the same time they are saying don't smoke its terrible for your health."

RN:" The department of health education and welfare spends 900,000 dollars a year trying to educate people not to smoke, right cross the street the department of agriculture spends 60 million as you say, 30 million of it to support the sale of cigarettes abroad under the food for peace program. There is no question, cigarettes are linked to cancer , heart disease and a whole range of ailments so what in the world is the government doing using tax money to promote this sort of thing? It makes people just nod their head in disbelief, if there is a problem with the tobacco workers and growers it is better to help them directly by transferring their efforts into other healthful work and industry. "

RN:" sMOKING is an addiction, prohibition doesn't work, people have to decide themselves to stop smoking, but what can be done is to get the Government out of promoting it. Like in Sweden , now, is launching a major campaign to try and teach the consequences to smoking. i have heard people say they are sorry they didnt stop but i never heard nobody say they are sorry they did stop."

JC;"tHATS TRUE, i am one of those. so i better get off that subject."

JC;" gENERAL MOTORS launched a vicious campaign against you, to pry into your personal life to find any peccadillos that might haunt you, that they could nail you up on a cross , and they didn't and you won a large settlement, which proved that when you get close to something and-uh-and start hurting them they will react very violently won't they."

RN;' Yeah, but if there is enough pressure they'll, uh- put out safer cars. and thats really whats really important. I mean, you look at all the problems in the country and you just say-what are we doing? a country like this wealthy, intelligent, a lot of science and technology , what are we doing with all these problems, we shouldn't have all these problems, we can stop pollution, we can have a better health system.we can, uh, put out problems that don't cheat or swindle people. And its all a matter of getting consumers and citizens really affected, i mean, thats the key thing, because if they re all out there unorganized its not going to happen. And if people think thats dull , and thats something thats impossible. They don't understand what that Constituition gives them. that Constituition gives them rights they can really define and hone right in their own communities. and city , states and nations, to get these problems resolved.

JC: " iF A MANUFACTURER puts out a product that is bad or false and misleading, citizen action groups have redress, they can not buy the product or they get together.."

RN: "fOR Example they cn, uh, get the right to, uh, sue the manufacturer as a consumer class, if somebody's cheated 10 bucks from a mail order house you can't go to a lawyer on that, but if 300,000 people are cheated an average of 10 bucks they have the right to sue as a consumer group. It's a matter of just not getting more information out to people-because people are learning more about nutrition. So, they are learning what to buy, in the supermarket, a little more astutely, but its also , the government to do what its supposed to be doing, now all these politicians -really amazingly-they lower every bodies expectation-that's the style these days-they make these inaugural addresses and they say-"You mustn't expect to much from Government, lower your expectations, thats another way of saying: Don't make me responsible for what i am doing or not doing." see, they lower people expectations. The fact is they don't lower the taxes, the taxes are still coming in and government has got-uh-a mission to perform, .....its all up to the public.

RN...."tHE KEY THING is that you have hundreds of thousands of people with common grievances and no way to connect