In the Public Interest

In the Public Interest By Ralph Nader 5/13/11 Everyday around the world innocent people, many of them children, are killed or injured by millions of unexploded land mines and cluster bombs. Some of the cluster bomblets look like candy or a toy which attract a child in a field, orchard, schoolyard or by the roadside.…

On the evening of May 4, a day before he was to join dozens of billionaires convened by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in Phoenix, Arizona to discuss how they might spend over half their wealth for “good works” media entrepreneur, peace advocate and environmentalist, Ted Turner joined another billionaire, Peter B. Lewis (chairman of…

Among the vast daily news sources bidding for our readership, I find four little-heralded publications representing major causes worthy of attention. Spotlighting the dwindling survival of the family farm and ranch is the monthly OCM News published by the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM). OCM is opposed to the concentration of power in a few…

It is time to apply the standard of patriotism to the U.S. multinational corporations and demand that they pledge allegiance to the United States and “the Republic for which is stands—. with liberty and justice for all.” This July 4, 2011 would be good day for Americans to demand such a corporate commitment. Born and…

When liberals and progressives have nowhere to go, New York’s new Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo can move toward the corporatist-right of the political spectrum with impunity. Brandishing an inherited $10 billion state deficit, Cuomo has earned the following description in the April 7th edition of The New York Times: “He has clashed with unions, who…

Dear President Obama: An interesting contrast is playing out at the White House these days — between your expressed praise of General Electric’s CEO, Jeffrey R. Immelt and the silence regarding the widely desired nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Regulatory Bureau within the Federal Reserve. On one hand, you promptly…

President Obama’s pick of Kansas to win the “March Madness” collegiate basketball tournament ended with their defeat by Virginia Commonwealth University this past Saturday. He must know how the Jay Hawks are feeling because he is entangled in his own March Madness that will continue after this month ends. The expanding nuclear meltdown disaster from…

The unfolding multiple nuclear reactor catastrophe in Japan is prompting overdue attention to the 104 nuclear plants in the United States—many of them aging, many of them near earthquake faults, some on the west coast exposed to potential tsunamis. Nuclear power plants boil water to produce steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. Nuclear power’s…

The tumultuous managerial shakeup at National Public Radio headquarters for trivial verbal miscues once again has highlighted the ludicrous corporatist right-wing charge that public radio and public TV are replete with left-leaning or leftist programming. Ludicrous, that is, unless this criticism’s yardstick is the propaganda regularly exuded by the extreme right-wing Rush Limbaugh and Sean…

New York State’s Governor Andrew Cuomo will be judged harshly by history if he doesn’t reverse his position supporting limiting the legal rights of brain damaged babies. Imagine a life-time $250,000 cap on pain and suffering and families having to endure a burdensome and humiliating struggle to get medical bills paid as they arise from…