The Citizens’ Utility Board, or CUB, is a model approach for bringing together large numbers of diffuse consumers into a voluntary organization, which can then pursue a common citizen/consumer agenda in banking, insurance, housing or dozens of other arenas. I call it the “silicon chip” for the citizen movement because it is a low-cost, high … Read more
By Ralph Nader April 30, 2021 David Gelles, the New York Times reporter, likes to report about corporate plutocrats raking it in while stifling or endangering their workers. We’ve all seen those large advertisements by big companies praising the sacrifices of their brave workers during this Covid-19 pandemic. When workers ask for living wages, most … Read more
By Ralph Nader April 23, 2021 President Joe Biden likes to say, “I’m a union guy.” Unfortunately, as Vice President from 2009 to 2017, his boss, Barack Obama wouldn’t let him be a “union guy.” Even with large Democratic majorities in Congress and control of the White House, worker needs went unmet. Setting records for … Read more
By Ralph Nader April 16, 2021 Reporters at major newspapers and magazines are hard to reach by telephone. Today it is increasingly hard to converse with them about timely scoops, leads, gaps in coverage, and corrections to published articles. We started an online webpage: Reporter’s Alert. From time to time, we will use Reporter’s Alert … Read more
By Ralph Nader April 9, 2021 Let’s contemplate on good reporters. If you are a regular reader of prominent newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post (and the dispatches by AP and Reuters), do you ever get the feeling that reporters who write great stories of corporate greed and crime are writing … Read more
By Ralph Nader April 2, 2021 When Cornell University Press sent me an early copy of my sister, Laura Nader’s book: Letters To and From an Anthropologist, a collection of correspondences compiled over fifty-five years, I wondered whether such print letter-writing exchanges assembled in books were nearing extinction. My impression preceded young parents relating remarks … Read more
By Ralph Nader Reporters at major newspapers and magazines are hard to reach by telephone. Today it is increasingly hard to converse with them about timely scoops, leads, gaps in coverage, and corrections to published articles. We just started an online webpage: Reporter’s Alert. From time to time, we will use Reporter’s Alert to present … Read more
By Ralph Nader Reporters at major newspapers and magazines are hard to reach by telephone. Today it is increasingly hard to converse with them about timely scoops, leads, gaps in coverage, and corrections to published articles. We just started an online webpage: Reporter’s Alert. From time to time, we will use Reporter’s Alert to present … Read more
By Ralph Nader Do you remember the promises made by the Democratic Party’s presidential and Congressional candidates on universal health insurance? You can forget their pledges and somber convictions now that your votes put the Democrats in charge of the House and the Senate. The Democrats’ leaders are abandoning their promises and retreating into a … Read more
By Ralph Nader Reporters at major newspapers and magazines are hard to reach by telephone. Today it is increasingly hard to converse with them about timely scoops, leads, gaps in coverage, and corrections to published articles. Their voicemail messages often tell you how rarely they check their calls and urge reaching them by email. Good … Read more
By Ralph Nader James Ridgeway formally majored in English in the late 1950s, but he really majored in “Reporting” as the editor of the Daily Princetonian. Imagine what it took to put out a daily college newspaper. He had it all in spades and proved it over the next sixty years, with quiet energy and … Read more