Ralph Nader's Blog, page 60

Debating Taboos

The first nationally televised debate (C-SPAN) on the subject of mandatory voting, or voting duty, occurred in Washington D.C. on June 27, 2011 (watch it at: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/DebateonMa). Why did it take so long? Because discussing this topic has been a taboo in electoral, legislative and main media arenas.
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Ralph Nader's Update #1 to Upset Cisco Shareholders

Dear Cisco Shareholder:



Thank you for your e-mail support for my demand that Cisco's bosses disgorge some of that $43+ billion in cash that management is stockpiling, back to its owners - the shareholders. My criticism and demand for a 50 cent annual dividend and a special $1 per share dividend were reported in the Wall Street Journal (June 24), Barron's Financial Weekly the next day and CNBC two days later.



Your e-mails were thoughtful and wonderfully impatient. You were properly critical of top Cisco management, often urging that John Chambers and members of the Board of Directors be replaced.
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Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama:



Yesterday's Washington Post published a page one article headlined "President Waging A Charm Offensive. Obama woos big donors to help fund early campaign expansion."



Later in the article appears this unseemly behavior by a public servant paid for by public funds:



"A key player in the closed-door donor recruitment is White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley, a former banking executive who has huddled in recent weeks over breakfasts and dinners with business leaders and Wall Street financiers in Chicago, New York and Washington--seeking to ease tensions over new financial regulations and other administration policies."
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The Sports Fan's Manifesto

Why do many serious readers of newspapers go first to the Sports section? Maybe because they want to read about teams playing fun games by sports journalists and columnists, who have more freedom to use imaginative words and phrases than others in their craft.
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Letter to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco

John T. Chambers, CEO

Cisco Corporation

170 West Tasman Drive

San Jose, California, 95134-1706



Dear Mr. Chambers:



Cisco share valuation may not be one of your priorities but your owners
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Waging Another Unconstitutional War

The meticulous Harvard Law Review editors should be rolling over in their footnotes. The recidivist violations of constitutional and statutory requirements by their celebrated predecessor at that journal - Barack Obama has reached Orwellian dimensions in the war against Libya.



You see, the widespread daily bombing of Libya, the strict naval blockade of Muammar Gadhafi-controlled Libya, the destruction of Gadhafi's family compound and tent encampment in the desert--killing his son and three grandchildren--and the deployment of special forces inside Libya is not a "War." It is in the Obama White House's evasive nomenclature just a "time-limited, scope-limited military action" Can you find that phrase in the Constitution?


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Fighting for FOIA

The 45th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) next month should remind all who have used this wonderful citizen tool against government secrecy and cover-ups of FOIA's towering champion Congressman John Moss (D-Calif.)
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Open Letter to President Obama from E.coli 0104:H4

Dear President Obama:



My name is E.coli 0104:H4. I am being detained in a German Laboratory in Baveria, charged with being "a highly virulent strain of bacteria." Together with many others like me, the police have accused us of causing about 20 deaths and nearly five hundred cases of kidney failure--so far. Massive publicity and panic all around.
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Statement on Fluoridation, June 3 2011

NEWS RELEASE



In a statement released in Washington, DC today (Friday, June 3) consumer advocate Ralph Nader, responding to growing media coverage and developments in the Atlanta area on the risks posed by water fluoridation, said,



"It's way overdue for this country to have an extended and open scientific and regulatory debate on fluoridation. There should be no mandatory fluoridation without the approval of people in a public referendum preceded by full and open public debate with disclosures. There is an old Roman law adage that says, 'What touches all should be decided by all.'"



This statement is being sent to the editors of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. In recent weeks statements calling for a repeal of mandatory fluoridation in Georgia have been made by a number of prominent civil rights leaders including former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, Rev. Gerald Durley, and Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.

Contract Peonage

It is time to shine the light on the big, affluent corporate lawyers who anonymously create those non-competitive fine print contracts we all have to sign to purchase goods and services.



It's time for an open letter to these Darth Vaders of business law who have destroyed our freedom of contract and built a new road to serfdom made of corporate cement.
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