Ralph welcomes Eva Borgwardt from the grassroots Jewish-American organization IfNotNow to bust the myth that Palestinian rights and Jewish safety are mutually exclusive. Then, Ralph is joined by CPA and corporate accountability advocate Dr. Ralph Estes to discuss his book “Fight the Corpocracy, Take Back Democracy: A Mad As Hell Guide for the 99%."
Eva Borgwardt is the national spokesperson for IfNotNow, a grassroots Jewish-American organization that is dedicated to ending U.S. support for Israel's apartheid system and demanding equality, justice, and a thriving future for all Palestinians and Israelis.
It's terrifying for Jews, for Muslims, for any marginalized community in the US—so many people would be vulnerable and under existential threat under a Trump presidency. And so I'm very clear-eyed about that. And I'm furious with President Biden, who seems to be willing to risk that scenario by insisting on sending unconditional aid and unconditional diplomatic support for this assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza led by Netanyahu's rightwing government.
Eva Borgwardt
There's a key concept that's happening—especially among young people—which is that you can't manufacture consent with a population that has social media and direct access to what Palestinians are experiencing…And the immediacy of that horrific situation is very, very clear for a much wider swath of the American public than has had access to that type of information before.
Eva Borgwardt
Investors do not create corporations, they finance them. All corporations are created by the state. And that's often missed by the public in the description of private enterprise. It's viewed like it's sui generis—someone figures out a thing to produce or a service and goes around raising capital and starts a corporation. And what Ralph Estes is saying is the essence of the corporation—the reason why it's allowed to have limited liability for its shareholders, the reason why it has so many privileges and immunities—is because it was originally supposed to fulfill public purposes.
Ralph Nader
Dr. Ralph Estes is Emeritus professor of business and accounting at American University in Washington, D.C., organizer of the Stakeholder Alliance, co-founder and vice president of The Center for Advancement of Public Policy, and Emeritus Trustee at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the author of several books, including Tyranny of the Bottom Line: Why Corporations Make Good People Do Bad Things and Fight the Corpocracy, Take Back Democracy: A Mad As Hell Guide for the 99%.
When I was in accounting, I learned one thing…Your goodwill, your persuasion, your humanness—these things, they've all got the lip service for it, they've got the words, but it doesn't cause action. I discovered what causes action is embarrassment. Corporate executives do not want to be embarrassed.
Dr. Ralph Estes
Mad as Hell