Nader’s Book ‘Unstoppable’ a Formula for Talking Heads to Listen
[image error]In recent weeks, I can’t seem escape the frustrations and outright anger expressed by my friends who are dedicated to set-in-concrete ideologies of either the left or the right. Newscasts and red-faced commentators give me no relief. I found it in career listener Ralph Nader’s new book.
In Unstoppable, the Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State, Nader offers movers and shakers, and especially the stallers, a well-referenced guidebook on how to work together, and across the aisle, to prevail over the modern corporate state and crony capitalism.
He illustrates how corporation interests block bipartisan hand clasping on issues important to the tax paying public, such as the eroding of civil liberties, the corporate welfare state, and America’s perpetual need for wars instead of sound trade agreements. “Convergence is not for the timid. Convergence is for pioneers breaking out of cultural ruts to move to the higher planes. Of human agreement and achievements.” All well and good you say.
But give the great consumer advocate Nader his due. He has earned his strips in political scrutiny. Nader brings to the table tasty morsels of successful convergences from American history to show how conservatives and liberals have lost their appetites for compromising with each other. Emerging from Roosevelt’s liberal New Deal, he says, many activists and intellectuals, for example, saw the necessity of radical change in the face of dire circumstances. Nader documents conversion efforts aimed at righting the national economy, giving the right and left share of credit. From Jefferson to Eisenhower Eras, Nader sites examples of convergences. But, that was then. Now the essence of political will has changed from flexible rubber to fast-hardening cement.
Pure Nader in this book is found in his letter, Dear Super Rich, to the more than 100 top billionaires, who have pledged to help “good causes.” He explains, “When you see their website ( http://givingpledge.org ), you’ll see that just on this list are possibilities that would take us beyond tilting at windmills.
Do leaders dare jeopardize funding by joining forces “to take on deplorable corporate practice or position?” Nader asks in the pivotal Chapter 6, Obstacles to Convergence and How to Overcome Them. He writes, “Whether you work at a think tank, a university, a corporate law firm, a public relations firm, or as an independent consultant, you would have to think twice. Money from businesses, their foundations and their executives flow daily into these institution’s coffers. If they are not overly contractual, the implied quid pro quo in exchange for this largess is that the donor will get a polemical or scholarly defense to trumpet to third parties.” Scholarly apologists, for example, will defend big box stores blocking minimum wage increases because such raises will cost lower-paid workers their jobs, he says. Sound familiar? Nader gives lots of examples on the right and on the left.
Therefore, seeking a convergence may threaten your infrastructures. You may find it is uncomfortable to go off the chart to listen and court the other camp to find solutions. Worse yet, “your social life might shut down, Invitations to homes and restaurants for dinner start to decline. You’re not on the guest list any more. Outings with your customary friends and their families become rarer. You float free.
Don’t believe it? Well you might find yourself …. Well, anyway, Nader could just as easily just put his song to music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU
