23 Comments

At times, when discouraged, I seek out something by Mr. Nader. Whether it is his current "Ralph Nader Radio Hour", where he provides indispensable but otherwise overlooked people a public forum; or the semi-biographical documentary "An Unreasonable Man" or even his book "Unsafe at Any Speed" and his appearances before Congress back in the 1960s now sometimes locatable on the Internet.

And finding at least a bit of solace in this I'm convinced that, at least for a brief time, justice can prevail.

And if justice can prevail for a brief time now, perhaps someday it will prevail for ever and for all. (Not that it will happen in my life time but still....)

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Great program!

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Poverty is a ‘symptom’ not the cause(s) of global poverty. Fighting the statistics of poverty is treating symptoms not the root causes of global poverty. Who is deliberately impoverishing the global population? Answer: The parasitic ‘ownership’ CLASS.

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Thank you, Mr. Nader and staff. This has been an important session regarding implications of election neglect or negligence. My desire is that many people take it to heart.

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While Bishop Barber means well, voting based on promises of future action has not and will not achieve his/our goals.

The "close elections" he refers to that could be "won" are not close at all. No matter who wins those elections it will be a politician that is controlled by big money which means that election has been lost 100% to zero to the big money interests.

His list of questions he wants politicians to answer with promises of future action while campaigning have already been answered with a resounding NO by any politician that takes big money to run their campaign.

The first demand needs to be that politicians run small donor campaigns- then we look at how the politicians will answer the rest of his questions.

Voting for big money politicians in 2024 that make empty promises is not going to change anything in the next twenty years anymore than it has for the previous forty.

But just 10% of voters nationally casting a write in vote in the 2024 congressional elections to register a vote against the big money politicians on the ballot and to create and demonstrate demand for small donor candidates in 2026 can begin to make a difference in 2026.

With 10% national participation in 2024 there will be some districts below the 10% and some above the 10% at 12, 14 or 15%.

In the 90% of districts gerrymandered for one party to get 60% and the other party 40% the non-gerrymandered party can often get only 8-10% of general election voters to vote for their token candidate in the primaries.

If such a district were to remain a 60-40% split in 2024 it will again be a 60-40 split in 2026. But if that district were to instead be 55-30% with 12-15% casting a write in vote in 2024 demanding small donor candidates in 2026 a small donor candidate could run in the primary against the token non-gerrymandered candidate a win the primary in 2026.

Then the 60-40 district would not only be a 50-50 district in the 2026 general election it would be a district that can be won by a small donor candidate that is not controlled by the big money interests.

This could inspire more citizens to participate in making this demand and more politicians making the small donor commitment in 2028 making more districts competitive in this fashion in 2028.

It will be much easier to get legislation passed on the important issues Bishop Barber raises with legislators that are not just giving lip service to those issues after telling us by taking big money that they will not do anything but superficial treatment of symptoms no matter what promises they make while campaigning.

Ralph, you can keep offering citizens a choice of well meaning exercises in futility that is voting for big money candidates but please also include the choice of using the basic principles of democracy of citizens demanding small donor candidates and enforcing that demand with our votes.

I believe you have said something like more voices, more choices.

I know you have said politicians want our votes more than big money.

Let's find out in 2024.

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In addition, the 120 million citizens that do not vote are not likely to inspired by the empty promises of big money politicians. Many have been disappointed by those empty promises so often and that is why they don't vote.

But when those citizens see something different or a chance to send a message some of them do vote (see Perot, Ventura, Sanders, Trump).

What better message is there to send with our votes in 2024 than we do not want politicians to take big money?

If you keep voting for big money candidates you will keep getting big money legislators.

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Jun 9·edited Jun 9

In Case you Haven't Heard, #7;

Retailers are reducing prices? Not at all. Two weeks ago I purchased Yuban coffee at the grocery store I shop at. It was, and has been a 31 oz. container of coffee for $8.95. Two days ago I bought another container of Yuban that is now 27.9 0z. for $9.95. Where are the lowered prices?

That is just one example of consumer goods I purchase. All of them are going up in cost.

Charge, arraign and prosecute them all.

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Watch "Michelle Obama 2024" A Joel Gilbert production On Musks X @JoelSGilbert

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Ralph did you ever get wind of this- http://www.thenationreport.org/the-uss-liberty-fifty-years-of-us-cover-up/ June 13, 2017 ?

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Wish that someone with the integrity and confidence of the public would recommend a candidate to write-in on the democratic ballot. We would then have someone to be glad to vote for. Things cannot be any worse. Perhaps such

a mass voting event would carry weight.

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A candidate with integrity would run a small donor campaign and the public should not be confident that a big money candidate will represent the interests of anyone except the big money interests.

I suggest you write in S Lowrey in 2024 for the purpose of registering a vote against the big money candidates on the ballot and to create and demonstrate demand for small donor candidates in 2026 as described in my previous comment and encourage Ralph to help lead this mass voting event in 2024. Vote for the idea in 2024 and it will inspire candidates to meet the demand in 2026 and 2028.

Then we might actually have small donor candidates to vote for in 2026 or 2028.

Power concedes nothing without a demand.

Until we make that demand and enforce it with our votes things can and will get worse.

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Also like your comment. Have often written-in a candidate thinking this is the only way to give the democratic

party a message. Recently learned write-in votes are thrown away….so much for anyone caring what we

think. I will still be writing-in Bernie. Ralph Nader would also get my vote any day.

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Write in votes are often not counted toward electing the write in candidate, depending on where you live.

But they would still be counted for the purpose of registering a vote against the big money candidates and to create and demonstrate demand for small donor candidates in the next election.

For example, if 200,000 people in a congressional district cast a vote and 20,000 of those people cast a write in vote the total votes cast would be 200,000 with 180,000 votes counted to elect a candidate.

So by subtracting the 180,000 from the 2000,000 total votes cast we get the 20,000 votes cast for the purpose the votes were cast.

If those 20,000 were registered on the One Demand website saying they cast the vote for this purpose the votes we cast will not be counted to elect a candidate but will be counted for the purpose we cast the votes.

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Another interesting show that main stream media doesn't comment about, the largest voting block in America today - Poor people. If this group was united as a block maybe Obama would of kept his campaign promise to have universal Medicare for all, instead of Obama care. I'm a little upset that DeSantis in his segment called The Fourth Largest Paper, The Epoch Times a rag. I actually knew the CFO of Epoch Times was charged with money laundering, because I read it in the Epoch Times. Then he uses the New York Times as a source where they repeated and promoted BIG Lie of weapons' of mass destruction in Iraq. To me the New York Times is more of a rag especially during Covid and the AIDS epidemic where they repeated Dr. Fauci's lies.

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Never heard of Francesco DeSantis, but yeah, he's wrong on The Epoch Times. I remember once upon a time the Left supported Falun Gong as an oppressed religious minority. Now they're a cult, the same accusation the CCP themselves use against them? More disturbing is the usual smear of "Right-wing propaganda" to anyone criticizing the establishment. Hello, what the fuck was Nader saying in 2000? How did he get my vote? By convincing me the parties are no different on the most important issues like American hegemony.

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In reference to Mr. Nader’s comments about social safety measures in Europe, I think Mr. Nader needs to be cautious about those types of comments because Europe is suffering from continued neoliberalism, much of it pushed by supposedly social democratic parties, just like we have and those assumptions about European social policy are not always correct. While it can correctly be said that every western country has better health policy than the US, many European countries have policies which are not tremendously different than the US’s and they’re only becoming closer to the US by the year. This is important to study because we need to advocate for modeling progressive US policy after successful European examples, such as the UK’s National Health Service, and not after the failed and failing privatized systems in many other countries.

I'll use the Netherlands as an example. I follow the news out of the Netherlands quite closely and the Netherlands is a country which, at least since the mid-2000s, uses a privatized health insurance system not entirely different from what we have in the US. It is not as abusive as ours, but it is slowly becoming more like our system with problems we will quickly recognize. To get a feel for this, I will link to a few recent short articles on the NL Times website, a website providing news from the Netherlands in English:

‘Over 60% of NL residents worry about affording their health insurance premium next year’ (Nov. 7, 2023): https://nltimes.nl/2023/11/07/60-nl-residents-worry-affording-health-insurance-premium-next-year

‘Dutch to pay more for healthcare as insurers add restrictions, cut supplementary cover’ (Nov. 28, 2023): https://nltimes.nl/2023/11/28/dutch-pay-healthcare-insurers-add-restrictions-cut-supplementary-cover

‘Health minister Helder will not ban private investors’ (June 8, 2024): https://nltimes.nl/2024/06/08/health-minister-helder-will-ban-private-investors

Hopefully these woeful stories of neoliberalism and austerity out of Europe will shed some light on which policies the US should emulate and which should not be emulated.

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There was an excellent article published yesterday on Nathan J. Robinson's 'Current Affairs' publication (Robinson was a RNRH guest quite some time ago, though this article was not written by Robinson himself) offering a history of the UK's National Health Service, why a single-provider system like the NHS is superior, and how it has been under neoliberal attack from the Conservative Party and from the 'New Labour' neoliberal side of the Labour Party. Link: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/defend-britains-nhs-from-privatization

This, combined with the links I already provided about the Dutch healthcare system, shows how healthcare is hardly a solved issue in Europe. That said, and the 'Current Affairs' article alludes to it, the NHS single-provider system is still far superior to the rather US-ized Dutch system. Again, it is vital to know the differences in these systems so we know what to advocate here in the US.

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Cleansing my brain! Thank you. I get hope reinvented every time I read you,

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Just another rehash of the same empty rhetoric I've heard for 50 years. "VOTE!" But for who? What's the program? Where's the consensus?

I hate to say it, but I'm so jaded after Bernie that it just sounds exactly like "Trump Bad/Biden Not So Bad".

No mention of Stein, no coverage of the alternatives, just the admonition that "your vote matters", when it obviously doesn't. Do I have to point out that we still use the same privately manufactured voting machines that are not audited by any independent agency?

Gee, one wonders how (CIA connected) Keir Starmer's labor party received fewer votes than Jeremy Corbin did but somehow gained the Prime Minister position and a majority in commons. With only 35% of the vote they have 65% of the seats. The coming farce in November is going to be even worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq7YDNrYsV8

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I agree with much of what Bishop William Barber stated in the interview. I think the policies he highlighted which need to change are all worthy ones. This comment will be a bit redundant, but I wish to go back to what I wrote in my comment during the last RNRH episode with Bishop William Barber back in March. In fact, Bishop William Barber himself alluded to this in reference to David’s question during the Wrap Up. The famous 1963 ‘March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom’ is often shortened now to the ‘March on Washington’ and I think this is very unfortunate because many people don’t really understand the purpose for the March and how it was really March for the rights of all especially in the area of employment.

Former UAW president Walter Reuther was one of the speakers at the ‘March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom’ and he delivered one of the most powerful progressive statements during the event which is now almost completely ignored:

Walter Reuther: “I am here today…because the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for equal opportunity is not the struggle of Negro Americans but the struggle for every American to join in. If we can have full employment…for the negative end of war then why can’t we have a job for every American in the pursuit of peace?”

Link: https://www.jfklibrary.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/Speech%20excerpts.pdf

So, with that in mind, I’m disappointed that Bishop William Barber did not mention the need for federal full employment policies. It really seems to me that Bishop William Barber should be advocating for full employment and a job guarantee program along with the other policy priorities. And, as Reuther alluded to, Bishop William Barber might do well to advocate for nationalizing the military industrial sector and turning it into an industrial peace sector. The same could be said about the energy sector given what Robert Pollin mentioned on the RNRH several months back.

As a society, we’re not far removed from the Covid lockdown era and we should be able to see the corrosive results short-term unemployment had on individuals, families, and society even with protections in place to (mostly) keep people sheltered and fed. With this being very recent history, we should use this to motivate citizens to see the importance of full employment given that short-term and long-term unemployment/underemployment are hardly solved issues given the continued neoliberalism and trickle-down economic policies as referenced by Bishop William Barber in this episode.

I’d love to see Bishop William Barber collaborate with economic professors studying full employment such as Randy Wray and Pavlina Tcherneva. I think the economics professors could benefit from experiencing Bishop William Barber’s knowledge ‘on the ground’ and Bishop William Barber can benefit from getting deep into the latest research in economic theory which can be used to forward progressive policy. If anyone on the RNRH staff is so moved, perhaps they can suggest this to possibility to Bishop William Barber since surely they have some open line of communication with him.

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Dogs love them! But then again dogs enjoy eating excrements such as vomit and poo too!😳

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I listened to this podcast and am reminded of one candidate (RFK, Jr.) who talks about both of these issues, promising to attack corporate crime and poverty as two of his main issues. I assume that is the reason the corporate media has created a blackout on mentioning his name unless it's to attack him as an anti-vaxxer (is that what pro-science is) or conspiracy theorist (does anyone reading this think we know the real scoop on the assassinations of either JFK or RFK). If any candidate bridges the gap between Red and Blue, he seems to be the one to pay attention to what matters instead of perpetual division as a smoke screen.

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Jun 9·edited Jun 9

Have you not read about RFK Jr.'s brain worm dying from starvation?

It will be beneficial to the US, and the rest of the people of this planet, to eliminate both Red and Blue. Then vote against colonialism, endless wars of aggression, and an end to izzy genocide.

Vote against genocide.

Jill Stein 2024! Green Party for all other elected offices 2024!

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