Ralph Nader (born February 27, 1934) is an American attorney, author, lecturer, political activist, and four-time candidate for President of the United States, having run as an independent candidate in 2004 and 2008, and a Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000.
Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government. With grassroots democracy civic actions, green politics and left-wing politics, he is a reputed populist, harking to 19th century American populists and movements like Henry George's geoism, which he referred to in his 2004 presidential election platform.
Background and early career
Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut. His parents, Nathra and Rose Nader, were immigrants from Lebanon, and his mother was Orthodox Christian. His family's native language is Arabic, and he has spoken it along with English since childhood. His sister, Laura Nader, is an anthropologist.
Nathra Nader was employed in a textile mill, and at one point owned a bakery and restaurant where he engaged customers in political discourse.
Ralph Nader graduated from Princeton University in 1955 and Harvard Law School in 1958. He served in the United States Army for six months in 1959, then began work as a lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut. Between 1961 and 1963, he was a Professor of History and Government at the University of Hartford. In 1964, Nader moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He also advised a United States Senate subcommittee on car safety. In the early 1980s, Nader spearheaded a powerful lobby against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of mass-scale experimentation of artificial lens implants. Nader has served on the faculty at the American University Washington College of Law.
Automobile-safety activism
Nader's first consumer safety articles appeared in the Harvard Law Record , a student publication of Harvard Law School, but he first criticized the automobile industry in an article he wrote for The Nation in 1959 called "The Safe Car You Can't Buy." In 1965, Nader wrote Unsafe at Any Speed , a study that revealed that many American automobiles were unsafe, especially the Chevrolet Corvair manufactured by General Motors. The Corvair had been involved in accidents involving spins and rollovers, and there were over 100 lawsuits pending against GM in connection to accidents involving the popular compact car. These lawsuits provided the initial material for Nader's investigations into the safety of the car.
A 1972 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration safety commission report conducted by Texas A&M University concluded that the 1960-1963 Corvair possessed no greater potential for loss of control than its contemporaries in extreme situations. GM executive John DeLorean, asserts in On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors (1979) that Nader's criticisms were valid.
In early March 1966, several media outlets, including The New Republic and the New York Times , alleged that GM had tried to discredit Nader, hiring private detectives to tap his phones and investigate his past, and hiring prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations. Nader sued the company for invasion of privacy and settled the case for $284,000. Nader's lawsuit against GM was ultimately decided by the New York Court of Appeals, whose opinion in the case expanded tort law to cover "overzealous surveillance."
Nader's advocacy of automobile safety and the publicity generated by the publication of Unsafe at Any Speed , along with concern over escalating nationwide traffic fatalities, contributed to the unanimous passage of the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The act established the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and marked a historic shift in responsibility for automobile safety from the consumer to the manufacturer. The legislation mandated a series of safety features for automobiles, beginning with safety belts and stronger windshields.
Activism
Hundreds of young activists, inspired by Nader's work, came to DC to help him with other projects. They came to be known as "Nader's Raiders" who, under Nader, investigated government corruption, publishing dozens of books with their results:
- Nader's Raiders (Federal Trade Commission)
- Vanishing Air (National Air Pollution Control Administration)
- The Chemical Feast (Food and Drug Administration)
- The Interstate Commerce Omission (Interstate Commerce Commission)
- Old Age (nursing homes)
- The Water Lords (water pollution)
- Who Runs Congress? (Congress)
- Whistle Blowing (punishment of whistle blowers)
- The Big Boys (corporate executives)
- Collision Course (Federal Aviation Administration)
- No Contest (corporate lawyers)
- Destroy the Forest (Destruction of ecosystems worldwide)
- Operation: Nuclear (Making of a nuclear missile)
In 1971, Nader co-founded the non-governmental organization (NGO) Public Citizen with fellow public interest lawyer Alan Morrison as an umbrella organization for these projects. Today, Public Citizen has over 140,000 members and investigates Congressional, health, environmental, economic and other issues. Nader wrote, "The consumer must be protected at times from his own indiscretion and vanity."
In the 1970s and 1980s Nader was a key leader in the anti-nuclear power movement. "By 1976, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who later became allied with the environmental movement 'stood as the titular head of opposition to nuclear energy'" He advocates the complete elimination of nuclear energy in favor of solar, tidal, wind and geothermal, citing environmental, worker safety, migrant labor, national security, disaster preparedness, foreign policy, government accountability and democratic governance issues to bolster his position.
Ecology
Nader spent much of 1970 on his campaign to educate the public about ecology. Nader said that the rivers and lakes in America were extremely contaminated. He said that "Lake Erie is now so contaminated you're advised to have a typhoid inoculation before you set sail on some parts of the Lake."
He also added that river contaminations affect humans because many residents get their water supply from these contaminated rivers and lakes. "Cleveland, takes its Water Supply from deep in the center of Lake Erie. How much longer is it going to get away with that?"
Nader told how some rivers are contanimated so badly that they can be lit on fire. "The Buffalo River is so full of petroleum residuals, it's been classified an official fire hazard by the City of Buffalo. We have the phenomena now known of flammable water. The Cuyahoga River outside of Cleveland did catch fire last June, burning a base and some bridges. I often wonder what was in the minds of the firemen as they rushed to the scene of the action and pondered how to put—put this fire out. But we're heading in river after river: Connecticut River, Hudson River, Mississippi River, you name it. There's some rivers right outside of Boston, New Hampshire and Maine where if a person fell into 'em, I think he would dissolve before he drowned."
Non-profit organizations
Throughout his career, Nader has started or inspired a variety of non-profit organizations, most of which he has maintained close associations:
In 1980, Nader resigned as director of Public Citizen to work on other projects, forcefully campaigning against what he believed to be the dangers of large multinational corporations.
Presidential campaigns
Presidential campaign history
1972
Ralph Nader's name appeared in the press as a potential candidate for president for the first time in 1971, when he was offered the opportunity to run as the presidential candidate for the New Party, a progressive split-off from the Democratic Party in 1972. Chief among his advocates was author Gore Vidal, who touted a 1972 Nader presidential campaign in a front-page article in Esquire magazine in 1971. Nader declined the offer to run that year; the New Party ultimately joined with the People's Party in running Benjamin Spock in the 1972 Presidential election. That year, Nader also received one vote in the Vice Presidential Nomination at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.
1990
Nader considered launching a third party around issues of citizen empowerment and consumer rights. He suggested a serious third party could address needs such as campaign-finance reform, worker and whistle-blower rights, government-sanctioned watchdog groups to oversee banks and insurance agencies, and class-action lawsuit reforms.
1992
Nader stood in as a write-in for "none of the above" in both the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic and Republican Primaries and received 3,054 of the 170,333 Democratic votes and 3,258 of the 177,970 R
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