Ralph Nader Still Around and Kicking!

I finally bought a magazine with my Kindle; pretty handy. The magazine was The Progressive, which even makes my liberal bones tingle a bit. In it Ralph Nader writes a piece “Overcoming Powerlessness.”  He goes back to as essay by John Maynard Keynes called Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. Keynes point was that with our resources and abilities we could easily eliminate our “economic problem” namely poverty. He envisioned that his grandchildren could live in a time of no poverty that there was no economic excuse for not abolishing poverty and giving all people what they needed included retirement security.

Keynes was right we had and have the ability we just don’t have the will. Nader sees this as a “failure of corporate capitalism—and the corporate state in Washington, D.C., that feeds and protects it. He points out our workers work harder than out workers in the western world but get less.

Then Nader brings the problem home with pointing out all our expertise in our pastimes, from biking, stamp collecting and chess (he fails to mention professional game watching), but our lack of expertise in the “democratic arts.” He wisely points out the need to watch both government and mega corporations in order to be better and wiser citizens. He quotes the American revolutionaries: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” He is not talking about the chronic complainers who have been swayed by wealth owned media shock media entertainers who call themselves newscasters. That is just more entertainment and diversion from real issues. This is coupled with a feeling of an inability to make changes and the big guys will get what they want anyway. This is victimology at its worst.

On NPR I heard a piece about the 50^th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Her impact upon society, not ready to hear her prophetic message, was and is profound. We need folk like that today. We may even have them but the public may be so apathetic the planet my die before they wake up and pay attention.

Nader is right, we need lots more grassroots groups looking out for the common good; informed citizens who demand and get what is good for the nation from its public servants. Then perhaps our grandchildren we know no poverty.