COLUMN: Nader: Just another with a radical view
Luring me back required the entry of a crusading whirlwind, Ralph Nader, who has launched a quixotic effort under the banner of the Green Party.
For the first time in my memory, a liberal with unimpeachable character is running for national office on a platform that stands outside and above the blinkered positions held by the stagnant mainstream .
In Nader, America finds a perfect vehicle for its aspirations. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, he devoted his life to defending citizens against predatory big businesses.
Nader first gained attention in the mid-1960s when he took on the Detroit auto makers regarding auto safety. He was instrumental in getting car safety legislation passed by Congress soon after and became a household name when he won $280,000 in an invasion of privacy suit filed against General Motors for sending a private investigator to spy on him. Characteristically, nothing damaging could be found on Nader.
In 1968, he forced General Electric to admit that it was recommending higher doses of radiation on its X-ray machines for blacks; apparently, they held to the notion that blacks had tougher skins and bones than whites. From those days, Nader has not relented in his fervor to protect the American citizen and make the government more responsive. Many reforms that are taken for granted today, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Consumer Product Safety Commission and Freedom of Information Act, originated in ideas or movements created by Nader.
As anyone bemoaning Bob Dole's poll numbers will attest, there is more to an election than just the character issue. But on issues, too, the Green platform endorsed by Nader seduces with its simplicity and honesty.
With the Soviet Union gone, why do we need $250 billion a year for defense? Cut it in half by 2000, says Nader. With patient choice declining under Health Mainteance Organizations, with 40 million Americans uninsured and with America 17th in infant mortality in the world, let's get universal health care.
With drug use up among teenagers, with alarming limits on Constitutional rights due to the War on Drugs and with colossal expenditures going to interdiction, let's reconsider where we are going with drug policy, he says. With the wealth of the bottom 90 percent of Americans equal to the wealth of the top 2 percent of Americans, let's make the rich help out with higher taxes, says Nader. With our foreign aid money tied to recipients' willingness to undergo International Monetary Fund-imposed conditions, let's free these nations to pay off debts instead of burdening them with destructive "structural adjustments," says Nader.
Repeatedly, Nader attacks institutions and questions practices that have been sacredly maintained by the reigning duopoly. With a 23 percent child poverty rate in the United States, a scandalous amount by any measure, Nader wonders why welfare recipients are so demonized. And this at the same time that the Wall Street Journal estimates that corporate welfare runs to $140 billion annually.
Nader dares to ask such questions and points them directly at the heart of Americans. Votes are moral statements, he is telling us, and though the Greens will not win this year, they are a force for the future. When you step into the booth a few days from now and feel giddy at the immense power in your hands, write in Ralph Nader for president and feel good about what you are flushing away.
This item appeared in the Opinion section of the November 1, 1996 issue.
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