and the problem is not getting better. it's getting worse. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> ralph nader presents his thoughts on america's economic and social very political landscape and provides 17 solutions that he contends will answer questions facing the country. this is about an hour, 15 minutes. >> i've just been told by c-span that i'm addressing the most serious audience i've ever addressed. [laughter] all these years. and, so thank you for coming. this is not an ordinary book. we live in an age of muckraking, expose documentaries and an age of muckraking books on almost every abuse in industry and

government and who knows what. and yet very little has happened. so we're operating in a kind of a curve with exposes. years ago there were far fewer exposes, and more happened. we had people in congress who with took these seriously, we had some judges who took some of them seriously. we had people in the white house who signed off on legislation under lyndon johnson and new york stock -- nixon. nixon was the last republican to be afraid of liberals. he signed bills he loathed, he signed the environmental protection agency bill, the occupational safety and health administration bill, signed the safety bill, and he wanted more. he actually was the last to propose to congress a minimum incomes plan to reduce poverty and a drug policy plan that

focused on rehabilitation, not incarceration. they didn't pass. he also supported voting rights for people here and in the district of columbia, america's foremost colony. this is richard nixon. so when we look back at richard nixon, it was from nostalgia. you can see how we've declined since then. [laughter] and this brings me to this effort and this book with, "17 solutions." sometimes when we just deal with exposes, they either alarm people, astonish people, anger people or overwhelm people. and the result is no follow-up. we don't have that many people in congress or in the courts or in the white house as we did in the '60s and '70s so connect with these exposes. when they saw them on tv or the books came out, there were hearings, there was litigation, there were statements from the

white house. we don't have that anymore. and, therefore, we can't just rely on exposes. we got to recognize there's a banality now to exposes, although they're very, very important. they're the predicate for doing something and changing something. we've got to focus on solutions that embody as their rationale the descriptions that come out of the exposes. in that sense we sort of leap over the mere anger or alarm or feeling overwhelmed, the passivity of it all, and focus people on redirections. now, we happen to live in a country that's full of problems we don't deserve and solutions we don't apply. and the gap is the democracy gap. the gap is a massive withdrawal from democratic engagement, even by the small number of people who used to engage.

not that there's no one who engages. no that there are people in every community who aren't engaged. but my guess is they're a smaller percentage of people who are in the first stage of engagement, in second stage, backup, third stage, showing up for rallies and marchs, showing up in city council halls. half of democracy's showing up. those of you who are under 30 in this room, you can assail yourself as being a generation that doesn't show up. and you don't show up in part because you've grown up corporate without a fraction of the civic experience of people who were fighting the civil rights battle as students in the south and in other parts of the country, putting earth day on the map for environmental focus

in april 1970, 1500 events around the country. and being embroiled in controversy over the vietnam war, student rights on campus, many other issues. those gave students experience. they came back, they talked to students who didn't go out with them, it was of an educational process. they had teach-ins. they didn't look at screens all the time. they didn't have text messages. they didn't have e-mail. they had to face to face each other. and, therefore, you would see at cafeterias arguments and discussion about the major confrontations. it did help to have the draft. part of the risk, you're part of the solution. so your generation needs to sober up, get out of virtual reality a little more, get into reality and realize that there's

no change without person-to-person mobilization in real life. you can get information off the internet, you can find out about events on the internet, nothing happens without real life exchange, and that's what the occupy wall street tried to show in their three months last year when they had the eye of the mass media. encampments this -- 24 hours a day, very, very personal. now, i can overcome anything in an audience but a little baby. [laughter] and this is about your future, little baby. so sleep away for a while. [laughter] now, let me discuss something very personal in terms of all of us. the theme of this book is that democracy works, that it's a lot

easier than you think, that it takes a lot smaller number of people to lead the way in communities distributed, say, in congressional districts because congress is the pivot here for a lot of these redirections. but people make excuses for themselves. these are not people who can barely get through the day because they're so poor. these are people who have time. these are people who have a level of flexibility in their personal life to engage some hours in the civic culture. that's very, very important. but they make excuses for themselves, and those of us who go around the country trying to mobilize people, trying to get 'em out, try to get them to express their creative civic juices, who can think up a

fraction of the tackics and strategies -- tactics and strategies that are needed, nobody comes close as being smart as everybody. and here are the excuses. first excuse in why they don't get engaged in pursuing change that they believe in, and they're not disagreeing with the change. they believe in it, they see the wrongdoing, they see the need, they see the trust for our children and grandchildren before them. first excuse, they don't have time. you don't have time. congratulations, you've dropped out of democracy. and you will have to swallow your grievances as you walk through life. but what if they say they do have time? second excuse, i don't know how to maneuver. i don't know what the rules are. you go to these meetings, they do robert's rules. some of the town lawyers or city lawyers tell you to shut up and sit down, and i don't know how to, how to work it.

okay? well, that's something you can learn. i mean, these are the same people who know how to deal with complex video games, who know how to deal with computers, who know how to deal with detailed instructions on how to build their porch or fix their plumbing. okay. so let's say they have the time, and they know the rules or can learn the rules, excuse number three. well, you know, i'm a little sensitive, they'll say. and i don't like to be smeared. development with like to be lied about -- i don't like to be lied about. and i don't like to be intimidated, and at work it can create problems for me. i might not get that promotion. all right, so let's say you get over that. you're not blistered by moon beams, you live in the usa, you've got constitutional

rights. so you've got the time, you can learn about the rules of engagement, and you're not blistered by moon beams. here's the final excuse. well, even if i do this, each if a lot -- even if a lot of us do this, it won't make any difference. because the big boys run the show. because the government is in the pockets of the corporations, and the corporations are in the pockets of the government. so why, why worry about it? be why waste your time? just eat, drink and be happy. have a happy private life. maybe plant the garden and watch the country and the world head toward the cliffs, into the abyss. we live in a time unlike other generations where we can destroy

this planet ip add very tently -- inadd inadvertently. not just by nuclear war, inadvertently. and it's not just climate change. so for those of you who don't want to make excuses, here's my suggestions on how to change. these 17 changes -- they're not, you'll think of others -- these 17 solutions, number one, are largely supported by a majority of the american people now or, if they learned about them, my guess is they would be overwhelmingly supportive of ones they haven't learned about like speculation tax on wall street as part of transforming the tax system. second, a lot of them are supported by both liberals and conservatives, whether it deals with war, militarization of foreign policy, patriot act,

corporate welfare and others. third, it belies this manipulative notion that we're a highly polarized society. polarized by who? at what level of abstraction ideology? how polarized are we? oh, well, some people hate regulation, and some people think it's very important. well, let me talk to the ones who hate regulation. what is it you hate about the regulation of the auto industry? well, i just think it stifles poet vegas, and it's part -- motivation, and it's part of the socialist philosophy of command and control economy. do you have a car? yeah. i won't ask you the model. but what if the manufacturer you bought the car from through the dealership discovered a serious defect in all the cars of that model and didn't tell you if --

tell you? would that bother you, anti-regulatory person? [laughter] well, it fends on -- well, it depends on the defect. well, let's say it's a sticky throttle, you know, the kind that overpowers your brake and throws you into a brick wall or another vehicle. do you think that manufacturer should notify you? yeah, sure, it's only fair play. all right. what if the manufacturer doesn't want to? do you think the law should require it? when you get down to where people work, live, play, sleep, raise their children, the abstractions as george will pointed out once disappear. or diminish. one day george will was in his home in northwest washington. he's a syndicated columnist, very conservative, and he's writing out his column for that

week, and he hears a crash. he rushes out and on the residential street are two cars crashed into each other and a dead motorist that was expelled from the door. he comes back in, tears up his column, and he writes a column saying, we should have mandatory installation of air bag. enough of these pitiless abstractions. all right. now,s this is not a list of policy wonkish-type recommendations, although it has policy recommendations. it tries to say what are the long overdue changes ask solutions that we need in this country, what kind of support is there out there, and how do we get the tools of democracy, how do we get the mobilization all over the country to push 'em

into application? whether they're through congress, whether they're through our own community economies, whether they're through our own personal self-determination. neighbor to neighbor. accumulating across the country. so let's say a lot of people think the tax system nutty, crazy, overly complex, unfair, unreliable, wastes a lot of our time. how would we transform the tax system? this is an hour, but it's not going the take that long because i just have, basically, three suggestions here. one is a new principle of taxation which says we first tax before we tax labor, we first tax that which society likes the least or dislikes the most. okay? so we tax pollution, carbon tax,

and other taxes on pollution. good. we don't like pollution, it's a silent form of violence, it sickens us, it tarnishes the value of our property, so we would like to tax it the bring it down. second, we don't like the kind of speculation on wall street derivatives that crashed the economy in 2008 and '9, unemployed workers, fractured trillions of dollars of pension funds and mutual funds and people's savings and then ended up with a taxpayer bailout in washington, d.c. of citigroup and merrill lynch and washington mutual and aig and morgan stanley and jpmorgan chase, all these giant corporations that knew right from the beginning they were too big to fail. and they were going to be bailed out by uncle sam. socialism bailing out communism. [laughter] a decan -- a derivative, a tax

on derivatives, a tax on stocks comes off the huge volume of trading, computer-driven trading. i think last year derivatives in terms of notional trades was 700 trillion, all right? most people don't know ant all of this. most people go into the stores every day, and they buy clothing and furniture and necessities of life, and pay they 6, 7, 8, 9% sales tax. but tomorrow somebody can buy $100 million of exxon derivatives in wall street and pay not a penny. now, that's what's called appealing to liberal and conservative senses of fair play. not a penny. now, if they have to pay one-half of 1%, not 6% that you pay, 7%, one-half of 1%, that's

$300 billion with a b. france, germany, other countries, if they're not considering it, they already have a little what they call stock frank action tax. we had one can be stock transaction tax. we had one in the early 1800s. it still exists in new york state, but it's rebated every day electronically back to the brokers. new york state could have eliminated it deficit and then some the they simply stopped rebating it when it came pouring in every day from those transactions. so there's a little ditty here. first, tax what we burn before we tax what we earn. first tax what we bet -- speculation, gambling -- before we tax what we net.

did you hear that in the presidential debate? [laughter] second principle of transforming the tax system is equity. why do we have 25 major corporations who last year paid zero federal income tax on billions and billions of profits, u.s. based? verizon, general electric. i just met a fellow from general electric at union station. i said, what'd you do? he said, i was in the cfo's office. i said, you've got quite a crack tax avoidance -- could have been evasion too -- club there. he said, they're some of the smartest people in the company. he said we actually give them prizes when they end up saving us from our tax requirements. year after year general electric

has escaped from federal income tax and gets billions back from the treasury. they get a check back from the treasury after they pay zero. the head of general electric is jeffrey immelt. he has presided over a company that exports more jobs than creates in this country. so he's a job exporter, and so he was nominated by president obama to head the jobs council of the white house. he pays no federal income tax for his company. he pays more federal income tax than his giant corporation in dollars, and his income is larger, of course, than the income tax that his giant corporation pays which is zero. the equity here goes to closing down tax havens, getting international tax compacts. there are countries that would like to do it, but if they don't

want to do it if no one else does it. it involves getting rid of what are called loopholes, tax shelters for the wealthy. if we restore the tax system for corporations and the wealthy that we had in the 1960s which were quite prosperous by conventional yardsticks, it would be another $2-$300 billion. so we're not talking about a tax increase, we should be talking about a tax restoration. the third principle of transforming our tax system is to simplify it. this will unemploy some bookkeepers, accountants and tax lawyers, but we need to simplify it so we can collect more of it. right now $300 billion in taxes escapes -- in income escapes taxation according to the u.s. treasury. if we had a more simplified

system -- and i'm not going to go into details, but we certainly have a lot of good, smart people who can show us how to do that -- we will collect those 300 billion. and if you add it all together, we'll be able to dramatically reduce the tax rate for 80% of the working families in this country. including those who now pay taxes and are making a modest middle class income. all right. so the second is called making our communities more self-reliant. that's a simple one. that goes with a trend that is expanding. every dollar we spend at a democratically-run credit union or community bank, every dollar we spend at a farmer's to

consumer marketplace that now offers food stamps because some of the prices are beyond the range of low income people, every day we -- every dollar we spend supporting renewable energy, wind energy and others in our locality, every dollar we spend at a community health clinic that is community based and emphasizes prevention of disease and trauma are dollars we take away from giant corporations, and we reduce their sales. that's called the strategy of displacement. now, we have tens of billions of dollars in these community economies going on now. yes magazine, how many of you have heard of yes magazine? they chronicle this very well around the country. but we need hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of displacement money away from giant organizations whose strings are pulled far from our

community be who can shut down and abandon our communities in place of community economies who are rooted in the community are not going the shut down and go to china. they're not going to start speculating with your money was they was -- because they have to face you every day. they're not in some skyscraper in london, new york, chicago or tokyo. community economies, another solution. the third is giving science and technology back to the people. look at all the science and technology that's going on. we lead the world. huge amount of it is working on ever more refined and reliable weapons of mass destruction. chemical, biological, physical. scientific brains, technological brains. not applied to modern public transit, not applied until recently to solar energy, not applied to building practices for efficiency, not applied to

advanced systems of sewage processing, water purification, not applied to science and technology for the people. we need that. we need to redirect it. one way is to elaborate the role of citizen scientists. there are thousands, now, of citizen scientists. they're volunteering for environmental groups in europe, east asia, north america. what are they doing? >> well, they're counting the number of seals that go into a certain bay in canada. they can't hire people for that. they're measuring and detecting is certain contaminants per billion parts for drinking water or soil contamination. the more citizen scientists there are -- and they come from all ages, retired, students, people of middle age -- the more understanding there is of science and technology for the

people on october 24th center for science and the public interest which is an offshoot of one of our groups led by dr. michael jacobson of mit is having national food day. if you look it up, center for science and public interest, you will see useful materials that you can use and apply immediately even though it's only two or three weeks away. to have a food day that has its locale in the schools, in the community, in the stores, in the gardens, in your community. right now the food that is grown in backyard gardens in america if it was given a retail sales price over $20 billion, and it's just getting started. science, technology for the people. protect the family unit. i just picked one slice of that. the commercialization of childhood is out of control.

when i was a child the, the companies maybe sell us directly bubble gum, but they never dared bipass our parents and undermine parental authority and go for the 3-year-old, the 4-year-old, the 5-year-old, the 6, 7, 8, 9, 10-year-old selling junk food, junk drink. watching the obesity epidemic grow among the young. the diabetic epidemic, the precursor of high blood pressure. and laughing all the way to the bank. these electronic corporate child molesters. laughing all the way to the bank. they would never sell this junk to their own children. and they add violent programming. two-way interactive, environment prming. there was a colonel grossman who taught at west point who is so appalled to this kind of marketing to children, the commercialization of childhood,

the corporatization of child rearing while the parents are away on long commutes one, two job, they put the guilt rap on the parents by teaching the children how to nag. and the ads in madison square garden get the prizes for what they call a high nag factor. hey, this is a -- the kids, this is a high parental nag factor. he was so appalled, colonel grossman, he writes this book "teaching our children to kill." we have to shield our children from commercialization of their daily lives, and the description here is one that all parents and grand parents and aunts and uncles and neighbors can play a role in when they simply start asking the question, what are they doing to our children? their mental and physical health and the range of their horizons? and how they no longer interact

with other children as they spend more and more of their life looking at screens. fourth, get corporations off welfare. that happens to be supported by liberals, democrats, republicans, conservatives, libertarians but not corporatists. by the way, i have never met a corporatist who doesn't call herself or himself a conservative. but i've never met a conservative who calls themselves corporatists. they call it on the right crony capitalism. we call it corporate welfare. subsidies, handouts, giveaways, bailouts, artificial quotas, contrary to have market discipline. all kinds of governmental power and governmental tax-collected money to these giant profitable corporations. without corporate welfare you would not have seen some of the

great industries in the country. but corporate welfare's defined as no quid pro quo to the taxpayer. without government research and development, trillions of dollars in the last 60 years, you wouldn't recognize the biotech try. you wont recognize the con -- containerrization industry. you wouldn't know much about the semiconductor computer industry. ..

i didn't get much of a response. but if we are going to engage in taxpayer providing of these profitable giant corporations, we need to have conditions, we need to have reasonable price restraints, for example in cancer drugs. our tax dollars develop tests clinically approved these cancer drugs, give them away free to bristol-myers squibb and fire and they can charge us whatever they want. a woman with other in counselor $14,000 for six treatments. bristol-myers squib didn't spend any money or engage in a clinical testing sales. the taxpayers did that to the national cancer institute. cracking down on corporate

crime. that's an easy one. who hasn't heard and read until the corporate crime wave? credit card, debit card, price-fixing, unapproved sales of drugs, the government has gone after those huge fines come four, five, $600 million per drug company. the dish is come back because they made 15 billion a half to pay a billion and fines. it's a pretty small cost of doing business. none of the executives go to jail. there finds on the company. we live in a corporate crime wave in the enforcement budget is trivial. imagine a corporate crime wave with very few federal crops on the corporate crime beat. and this is the question most investigative reporters never ask or do they never asked the state attorney general for the u.s. attorney general for the

epa or the food and drug administration. investigators do not probably with enough of medicare and medicaid are the health industry. how many do you have in the antitrust division to stop price-fixing for their collusive behavior? how veteran environmental crimes division? last i heard the justice department they had over 100 lawyers and environmental crimes division. corporate pollution, violating laws, sound form of deadly violence. so one of the solutions here is not just more disclosure, automatically discos this information, not just more subpoena power by regulatory agencies, but more enforcement. the way they get off the hook as they go to congress and make sure law enforcement budgets are

trivial so there are fewer federal cops on the corporate crime fraud and abuse beat. create national charters for national corporations. that one was imposed over 100 years ago by president teddy roosevelt and president howard taft. so all we have to do is go backwards into the future. for right now, giant corporations are created by state charter. investors do not create corporations. they finance them. these corporations are given their life, their perpetual life, limited liability for investors. they are given their existence, their very existence is artificial entities. they are not people, as artificial entities by state governments for the most part come the state charter. pretty automatic, but it's the way we can conditioned behavior,

just like they can condition your drivers license. just think of this, which i corporations now global. they pick government against government to their advantage. they strategically plan about everything that we do in life. that's what they do. they don't have to conspire. if we were strong resistance, they would have to conspire. how do you conspire against passivity, latitude? okay, so may santilli strategically planning your genetic future by moving to get more and more patents on human gene sequences and genetic material in our vegetarian and subhuman animal world. they are planning the genetic future. exxon and peabody coal are planning our energy future. pfizer and bristol-myers squibb are planning our medical

treatment future, along with hospital corporation of america. general electric is planning a letter from medical device future. all these corporations are planning their political future, electoral future, supporting, opposing that without minute under citizens united candidates they like or don't like. they certainly have planned our government. this is a corporate government. i talked to civil servants who say coming summit when government agency or department to which the question -- the answer to the question, who is the most powerful outside lobbying force on your agency or department? defense commensurate sure you can fta come into her our culture that is not corporate? they couldn't come up with one, not even the department of labor. and these corporations are pumping huge money into the campaigns of our legislature and they are also putting their

officials, corporate executives in high government positions. we need to rewrite the compact between the people and the corporations. that's why it's important to talk about federal charters for large corporations. restore our civil liberties. i don't have to tell this audience what the patriot act has done. i don't have to tell this audience how presidents of whichever party can round people up and arrest them without charges and throw them in jail, sometimes indefinitely, and make it hard for them to get attorneys. i don't have to tell this audience at busboys and poets that have heard people who have seen and witnessed and suffered from a transgression of their civil liberties and civil rights, how important it is to combine with conservatives and libertarians who are also very concerned about an asian

privacycombinations of due process come at the end of something called probable cause into right of of trial by jury any presumption of innocence. we now have a president, who like its predecessor but as merger is to play with, who every tuesday morning is given to recommendations as to who lives and who dies in remote countries overseas. and he decides courageously which button to push. and seconds later, people disappear and are vaporized. some of them are suspects. suspects about? trying to overthrow tyrants and their country that we still back trying to protect customs that we may not like? is when you type or ice? and what if they're other people

rate near them? what if there are families near them? they are vaporized. we are having our power used this way. we are having our name used this way by unconstitutional acts of criminal aggression, with the president of the united states has declared he will kill anybody in the world, including american citizens, who he and his advisers suspect is a threat, not even an intimate yet it seems, to our country. so we now have a president who is irrigated to himself as george bush, dick cheney had before him, the role prosecutor, judge, jury, executioner and cover-up her. this is in the land of the free, home of the brave, under the bill of rights, a constitution that has not been technically

repealed. where is their level of constitutional indignation here? [applause] we think we can get away with it because were all-powerful then the world's leading empire? we are banking on that of revenge of air. we are banking a lot of revenge that is going to come back to haunt us. we are very vulnerable. we know it and we've got to recover. and it is time for us to become a humanitarian superpower. we've got so much to offer the world. not a military superpower. use government procurement to spur innovation. i remember when the divine transportation but not mandate airbag in your cars. so i went down to the general services administration back in the mid-80s under ronald reagan. the general services administration is about 40,000

motor vehicles for government employees every year. the pastor has always had told the administrator, who happened to be churl carmen, who was in office supply business name from new hampshire. that's just what she wants for some and not to be in awe of the auto club based in detroit. and he said why not? i'll save some lives of our federal employees and he put for bid x number of car orders what they spent saying airbags. mgm didn't did, chrysler didn't bid. forward it, that the ground. after that, they'll came on board. so if you use government procurement, and government by some most everything we buy, plus submarines and missiles that we don't hide from the daybed paper paper. if they food, construction materials, energy, food. as i said food, day by motor

vehicles, equipment of all claims to be used. and why can't they spur the innovation, create the new civilian market by upgrading their specifications. you know, a lot of companies want to sell to the government. if they have to sell upgraded consumers safer environmentally benign products, they are more likely to turn to their civilian customers. a person you had that idea early with with the greatest environmentalist of the 20th century, who just passed away. barry commoner. he told the pentagon 30 years ago, a few by photovoltaics for your remote locations, you will spur innovation and you will help create a civilian economy are much faster than the case with the. that's another solution. federal, state and local purchasing is over two and a

quarter trillion dollars this year. the customer is always right. we also want to reinvest in public works. it's called infrastructure. if you get rid of the about of corporate welfare, if you renovate the tax system, if you crack down on corporate crime, you will liberate resources that can he put back into repairing and every community in america, with good paying jobs that can be exported to china. our schools crumbling, highways, bridges need repair. sewage, drinking water systems need upgrading the modernization. how many people in the district of columbia without even knowing for four years were drinking water with lead and it. about 10 years ago. we need to rebuild our dams. we need to rebuild our public health means, our courthouses and were not doing it because we

are blowing apart with our tax money instead, iraq and afghanistan. $2 billion a week goes to blowing apart and making more enemies than it can withstand. $2 billion a week at least. so we need that. that is the way to create paint jobs that are real, that actually improve life in every community in america. we need to get funds for this by reducing our military budget. do you know our military budget is higher in real dollars than it was during the cold war when refacing soviet tussles collects it is now $800 billion, including the wars of choice in iraq and afghanistan. by the way, 70% of the american people wanted out of afghanistan yesterday. if we cut the military budget, which is now 800 billion, 26,

five, four, general mcphee retired at the air force and set about back if we can't defend the u.s. than $309, with better get a new set of generals. we liberate that money. we bring the soldiers from the spaces all over the world of our empire, who are just agitating and making people hate us, including our allies like in opera now a off of the mainland of japan. we are still there. huge basis. and put it back. get the soldiers tuition free, college and community college education and put it back into our public works. we need to reengage with civic life. that's the key, isn't it? have you get these things rolling quakes have you get the train moving but that the engine and the field of collaborative citizens? and every congressional district, which i get to in a

moment. we need 142 organize congressional watchdog groups. now this is one that is very modest. congress is the most powerful branch of our three branches. they don't use some of that power, but they have the tax part misspending park were declaration part of investigating power, confirmation power, on and on. they are the smallest branch of our government. we don't have to deal with millions of executive branch employees. we don't have to deal with judges therefore life in the courtroom. we deal with little congress. 500 or defragmented women to put on their shoes every day, like you and i do. endangering every day of getting votes. [laughter] but they have figured out that the way to get those dispersed

to gerrymandered districts so that either the democrat wins easily for the republican wins easily, sometimes without even an opponent. have you heard a speaker john boehner? hears us that the democrats are. they have made sure that in southwest ohio, john boehner does not have a democratic opponent. so it's pretty easy for most of these people to get reelected. a lot of them have no opponents. more of them have nominal opponents of the major party. nevermind the green party or the libertarian party, constitution party. they know how to marginalize small parties, keep them out of debates, wear them down with ballot access obstacles. so what are we doing about our member economies? the guy to ask ourselves work questions.

answer this one for me. please be candid. someone who is your neighbor, let say, knocks on your door, says hi, i am your new neighbor. i want to tell you a little bit about myself. he put down your little iphone, turn off the tv. i spent 23% of your income. i can let all kinds of companies rip you off, and employ you, i made sure you come disrespect to come to invade your privacy and expose you to toxic chemicals. i can raise your taxes or lower your taxes. i can sing your children off to war by just letting the president do it without even having to declare it. and i just thought i'd let you know,, what are you going to say that person? pester congressmen, by the way.

senator, representative. why you, i was going to text message -- or are you going to say, come back here. do you mean something to me, so i better mean something to you. now, how many people here spend more time watching congress than they spend watching themselves in the mirror throughout the year, throughout the year? don't all raise your hands. that is the problem. i am told there are 15 million serious birdwatchers. do you know what a serious birdwatcher is? okay, up at dawn come into the marshes, never mind the weather, binoculars, camera, pat, pan, tabulation, united e-mails and text messages when they come back. i'm up to 48.

i'm going to catch you, you are at 73. and that woodpecker wasn't different. you are double counting. these are serious people. it's a healthy habit. here's what it takes to turn congress around if you have an agenda with these kinds of solutions that are supported by a majority of the people, however passively, included off to liberals than and libertarians. 20% of the number of people and the number of hours that serious birdwatchers spend watching birds direct it to lashing congress. how do you get it going? one ways to realize that most people don't show up anymore. half of democracy is showing up. so when the members of congress have town meetings back home, do

you know do you know what the big complements other than the august of two dozen nine, when the tea party people showed up? the big problem is don't put too many seats they are. you are lucky if you get three dozen people barring some hot timely issue. so let's say you can demonstrate to your senator and representative as you can fill a high school auditorium with 300 people. you'll have that representative and senator on the stage at the earliest convenience. that's what it takes. is that a big deal? of course not. not if you go neighbor to neighbor, not if you converse, not if you know how to generate a little fire in the belly and not if you know how to give a cutting edge to what they're thinking about what's wrong and what needs to be put right anyway. now was to get your senator or

representative, let's say we do this in 435 districts. this is like an earth day event. let's say the obvious subject for this event, said victor -- a senator, is excessive corporate power. were not discussing anything else. you better come prepared. that simple series of events will become changing the quarter talk, will become encouraging the good people in congress to start having hearings, to start putting in bills. they were afraid of the people, but the people aren't making them give cause to be afraid of the people in constructive way. if people showed them some rumble out there, you would see these lobbyists, disarming lobbyists about 1500 corporations who don't have a single vote, they get their way with the majority of the congress to start having second

doubts about what they need to do. so once you get people in the room come you get their names. that becomes the core at the beginning of the congress watchdog groups. the target is 1,022,000 every congressional district, which has 650,000 people. is that too much? do you know how many people show up for high school football games? 1000 to 2000 people. every congressional district has colleges, community colleges, people of good intent were frustrated, her daughter how to connect. okay, so let's say you have 1002 may 2000. what are you building on that? he pledged 200 hours each of volunteer time while these three directions, solutions. you agree ahead of time and establish two offices with four full-time people in each

congressional district by raising our contributor and each a couple hundred dollars. you know, dinner for four at a decent restaurant. once a year. you will see what i mean when i say it's a lot easier than you think. the reason why we do not have a strong democratic society in this country are many, but one reason is that we grow what he told in 100 ways we are powerless. we're told you can't do to the hall, you can't take on exxon. you want a job, you better shut up. just shut up and shop is what george w. bush told us prior to the invasion of iraq. you are told that because there is no countervailing telling you that you count, you matter, a few people make a difference. look at our history. all the major social justice movement started with a handful

of people. six women in upstate new york 1847. the women's suffrage movement, handful of workers in the sitdown strikes in michigan to build the united autoworkers come up with their entire livelihood on the ground at risk in the late 30s. and what about rosa parks? talk about someone who started a multiplier effect in montgomery, alabama when she refused to go to the rear of the bus. how many times do we have to be told at every social justice movement starts with one or two people? that we have far more than that in our country. and of those thousand and 2000, you will see attorneys, community organizers, communicators, graphic artists, people in the health care industry, social industry, people who simply know how to go up and down their street and mobilize the neighbors that they played poker with that they

played poker with that they played poker with. people know how to connect if they see something at the end of the tunnel, if they see a reason for them to step forward, locking arms with other people. there are three little ones here, which i will summarize very quickly. but the congressional -- the congressional watchdog is one of the tools. i'm not going to go into the other tools, but you can dream all you want. you cannot do faster ructions in the best polls if you don't have the civic tools that we use and you can use. were not going to get past first base to home plate. one of them is simply this. every community has very rich people cared most of them could give a darn about strengthening our democracy. they are into their own lives and spoiling their grandchildren may be by giving them too much

money. but there are always one, two, 3% who were in their 70s, 80s, 90s, have a different perspective on life and just getting richer. they want to look their grandchildren in the eye. they're worried about our country. they are worried about our world. and i don't think we spend enough time with these people. there's a lot of rich people who give to charity, but a society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. and while they may get to sit kitchens, why'd we have millions of people and children hungry and the richest country in the world. justice addresses the prevention of hunger. and so, i have one of these 17 solutions is find the enlightened superrich. i can show warren buffett, whose leading reform, tax reform come as you know, he pays a lower tax

rate than his secretary and he has told senators that. i can show him for $1.25 billion, we can get transformative tax reform in the u.s. congress in three years or less. now he is worth 52 billion. he gives 3 billion a year to the gates foundation, which is on the board. and you know how many billions of dollars can be saved and redirected on tax reform every month? we have to think big before going to to achieve long overdue, big reforms in our country. last one is getting on the field, letter leap. we have a week of fans group. we have turned into a nation of spectators, as fewer and fewer

superb at a get more and more money. and while we watch them, we eat and we drink and most of us are not chewing on carrots or drinking nutritious smoothies. and so we get bigger and heavier and more out of shape. and so many of us are watching sports at the city officials say, why ask and then upgrade neighborhood recreation facilities? even the kids are watching. in middle-school they sort themselves out and watch their superior athletes and set up they themselves. we need unorganized spores. we need on professionals worse. we need activities as simple as sandlot softball or baseball. we need activities is sent to less having a troop of the

garage and using them for what the kids. we need a connection with the ages, with grandmothers and grandfathers played a little bit with their grandchildren and children. that is what the last one is called get back on the field. it will save lives. it will prevent anguish. the lengthy lines and save health care dollars. and when you are more in shape physically, you are more likely to be in shape intellectually and physically because you won't be diverted. so this book is designed to be read, digested, add to it yourselves for your own ideas, your own strategies, your tactics. get motivated. if it doesn't out of date you, it's not because of what is in this book because you agree with what is in a lot of this boat. it's because you have enough on yourself yourself. it's because you're in your own routine and not willing to

change it. it is because you are otherwise preoccupied. and if you don't become physically occupied, you willing to be otherwise preoccupied with more and more personal stresses, pressures, damages and all the things that come with living in a society, with a concentration of power in the hands of the few. our power in the hands of the few stars with we the people, decimates in the constitution. not we the corporation. our power in the hands of the few, politically and corporately that are used against us and are rendered decisions that are again starring self-interest and that of our own posterity. if you're interested in this book, wu also gave me this book appropriately called, calling all radicals, meaning

fundamental, people who are fundamental, not send do not take. and they said title, how grassroots organizers can help save our democracy. i entertain your questions. if you bought a weekly column for electronically, visit nader.org. if you want to see what all of our groups are doing, public citizen, alan morrison is here to a lot of supreme court cases for the public citizen litigation group. if you want to know that, there are two simple websites. essential.org, essential.org. and the other one is citizen.org. you can see how poorly we got that domain name, citizen.org. get involved, friends, neighbors, coworkers involved. remember, with armor solutions supported by a majority of the people and we apply to the problems the justices on the ground. the democracy gap can be filled

by us, small numbers of us. it's a lot easier than we think as long as we have the public sentiment, as abraham lincoln pointed out behind us. thank you very much. [applause] before we have questions -- yakima are going to have questions now. >> wait for the night. i will come around with the mic. [inaudible] one quick announcement, we are going to the book signing redrick this front table, so i'll ask you to make your way to the bookstore, purchased ralph nader spoke, get the book by david thompson, birgit back and do the same in this room. we'll ask you to along the metal

side of the room to this table. that's all i have. what you think c-span c-span's booktv are coming out. we'll start right here at the questions. >> mr. nader, i have one question. [inaudible] [laughter] >> i've run several times as most of you know. there's some good candidates now, third-party candidates, green party, joe stein, rocky andersen justice party and others at the more conservative persuasion that are on the ballot to give voters more choice. we have documented through litigation and our writings that this is a rather vicious two-party duopoly that doesn't want competition in increasingly calls for the same campaign dollars, so they become less and less different, especially in

corporate issues and foreign and military policy. so i hope a lot of you will run for local office, state office, national law is, and try to run on third parties if you want to bring your conscience to your task. and it's easier to get on the ballot, the local, and that's where really it needs to start, build a two state and the national. anybody? yes. idea mike [inaudible] everything is rigged against an

outsider. and your political career needs to be an example that everything looks great against you. what do have to say about that? >> first of all you have to demonstrated because you don't want them to get away with theory. you don't want them to say, how do you know it's a great? we have a free country. well, you show that the challenging and their famous come out and all these bad state laws begin to be invoked and more and more people learn about it and get upset. so we did get a lot of young people interested in clean election organizing. they are going to be heard from in the future. would certainly reach tens of millions of people on how great it was. but the fact that you knock on the, the steel door doesn't open the first time come the second, or time, it will open. you got to keep knocking on the door. if you knock at the local level, you'll open up the national level as i said, quicker.

you know, there are senators who waited decades before their reform was enacted. there are people -- like a lot of the women's suffrage in the abolition movement. i'm not saying we should wait that long. we've been waiting for single-payer and teddy roosevelt , but what i am saying -- [applause] -- if you lose the first time, you want to try and try again. most are willing to lose, you'll never win when you are fighting powerful forces. you've got to be willing to flus, balance back, get more resources and keep going. i [inaudible]

>> well, you see now there are paxon super pacs and corporations under citizen united that can flood the elections in our country, local, state, national. and they think you do have to find a way to give full public financing of public campaigns come either through the unlikely event of a supreme court revisited at some of their three or four notorious decisions in the past or through constitutional amendment. or through intermediate ways, like saying if you want to do business come to me with u.s. government, you cannot avail yourself of them committed admitted independent expenditures under such as intimated. maybe that will work, but we've got to find ways to do it. i can tell you, most politicians don't like to grovel for money, but they do it because it pays off against a potential

challenger for the desired no challenge election and reelection. so if you start doing this piecemeal, and sometimes bizarre you can get through, the games men are brilliant at designing around the restriction. all designed around mccain-feingold. i'll try to defeat it is a supreme court, part of it. both diverse and then like citizens united, over rules state laws for giving money for elections. so that's why we've got to get a very, very fundamental effort here. public funding of public campaigns. and a lot of the money people race could be replaced by giving them a certain amount of free time unlicensed radio and television stations. that is we give them the license free to use our property 20 hours a day.

they get it free. we could say no, no, you have to now get a certain amount of free time before elections to ballot qualified candidates. that will reduce a lot of the pressure to raise more and more money because that's where a lot of it goes. yes. >> i wanted to thank you for bringing up the united states health use of drones against so many of our close friends. [inaudible] but on this piece, every so often you have used the 2000 people per congressional constituency. and i ain't that's a really powerful idea.

and i am wondering, have i missed, and the things that i have read and what you have written, is there an organization helping us do that? is there soft water or do we need to initially make it up ourselves? i mean come is there an organization that has more details about how we can organize system structure? >> well, there a lot of good manuals, videos that you know on how to do this and not, how to defuse your member of congress record in ways the member may not want, how to put on a news conference, how to use it for information act, how do the coalition. we shared this congress watchdog idea. we didn't have the resources to put into it. for what happiness of people who came forward were rdf to and said they had their local issues and they had trouble focusing on congressional because the local issues to doubling up for their

attention. now, i don't know anyone who's really doing this. the pieces of it are a lot of people doing it, the pieces, the techniques. it's something the labor unions could run with, something some of the other national groups could run both together. my favorite one is to try to price it out for the first year. it prices out at about $100 billion. find a mega-billionaire who wants to make an historical record for herself or himself. and they give away a couple hundred billion here, 2 billion there to jumpstarted. it would remaster we started the grassroot. and maybe it can be done through some media can't seem. it is labor-intensive. there's no doubt about it. thing is to be maybe three or four pilots. but once the first big dreams

come to me you will see people standing at the doorway, trying to sign-up to the 2000 people in each congressional district. [inaudible] >> i do have a heart question. if we can show that arab and muslim people are not the culprits for these attacks of 9/11, wouldn't that undercut the islamist phobia -- [inaudible] >> well, of course. with the people into a frenzy like iran and before on iraq comes from a widespread feeling that that ethnic religious group was, as a whole, a deeply implicated in support, which of course is entirely false. politicians like cheney and

bush, to this day, tried to give the impression that saddam hussein was involved in 9/11 but when he was mortal enemies of al qaeda. he was secular, religious so-called. yeah, it is quite clear. to get immobilized is a history of time criminal wars of aggression come you got do it successful stereotyping of whole groups. >> there is time for more question. one quick announcement. i just learned that there is a website for this book, 17 solutions.com. >> that's right. if you want an autographed copy for a gift for someone, sometimes they're more willing to read it. don't ask me why. if you visit 17 traditions -- excuse me, there's also took 17 traditions that came out at the

same time. 17 solutions.com. and you can order an autographed copy. >> or you can buy a book here in our bookstore operated by teaching for change. all proceeds to help keep an independent, progressive nonprofit bookstore live in d.c. so after one last question, make your way to the bookstore and get the book. >> and you get this free. this is a real cracker jack book, calling on radicals. the visitor history of the courageous people that tends to be motivating when you see they did all this without electricity in motor vehicles and telephones and didn't even have e-mail. [inaudible] >> thank you for being here. i've been a supporter for some time now. i haven't yet purchased the book.

i intend to. i sent an elevated -- [inaudible] i wonder if that's an intentionally conscious feeling? and if i'm right, there is an elevated challenge for us to get out of custody and to get involved, even mocking some of these personal emphasis for comfort and the lack of civic engagement. >> yes, i couldn't have put it better. it's very, very right is what i'm trying to convey. i could add to it because you can write to that point. it's a lot of fun to advance into cheap justice. it really is very gratifying.

it's hard work, it is. but it's a lot of fun. so ask alan morrison how he felt when he won a unanimous decision on legislative veto. it was unanimous, wasn't that? close, sorry. and its supreme court, did a great party. it was unbelievable. it overturned more provisions than all other supreme court decisions declaring legislative items unconstitutional, right? okay. so it's fun. you don't do it because it's fun. you do it because it's necessary. and if it's necessary and important, it's fun. the important thing about this book is you can intersect it piecemeal. you can pick and choose. you know, if you want to deal with establishing an agribusiness displacing armor to

consumer market in your community is spreading around the country, offering food stamps for low-income people, you can do that. if you want to start a civic skills course in your schools said the students in middle-school and high school learn civic skills and experience between the classroom and the community and not just computer skills, they actually engage in reality, not just looking at screens, you can do it. so what is a pick and choose as well as an overall comprehensive approach that deals not only with where we should go, how to get there and what the tools that we can grab to organize ourselves for the rep said that power. >> i want to thank you all for coming out tonight. what think ralph nader. [applause]

>> for more information about ralph nader and is book, visit 17 solutions.com. here's a look at books being published this week:

>> we are here and tv on c-span 2. we want to introduce you to author elizabeth ames, was written a book with steve forbes, how capitalism -- "how capitalism will save us: why free people and free markets are the best answer in today's economy." elizabeth ames, first of all, tell us about yourself and your personal experience, particularly when it comes to economics. >> well, then a financial journalist, but i've also been on both sides of the press release.

so i started as a journalist and had my own pr business and have also done projects, other communications projects for clients. among them, co-authoring books. and basically i've worked with steve forbes on books and conversations led to the idea for this book. >> how did you meet steve forbes? >> i imagine many years ago an event that i did when i was working at the university of southern california. one thing led to another. i moved back to new york. i'm actually from new york, and started working at "forbes" in the pr department. >> so elizabeth ames from their practical experience prior to working at "forbes," how do you inject that into how capitalism will save us? >> will basically i've learned a lot since "forbes." i learned a lot about markets and again i began as a journalist and i worked at "businessweek" many years ago as

a journalist. but when i started to work as a notch for newer, i learned about the fact that you really need to have economic freedom to create jobs. and it's something i learned personally. if you're obviously just getting a paycheck can you really don't understand how government can affect a small business and job creation. and i experienced that firsthand. suppose one of the things that led me to think this is an useful idea for a book. >> overall philosophically, how to use the role of government, the role of congress, the role of the president in the economy? >> will basically this book raises and answers the question. we need government, but we need government to create a stable environment for businesses to function and create jobs. when government nettles, too much into the economy, government and its decisions and policies are driven by politics

and markets are driven by the desire of individuals and companies to meet the needs -- the real-world needs of the people. that's the difference between what government does and what markets do. so you need government to protect us from fraud, from wrongdoers. there are wrongdoers and government can protect us from them. but overly meddlesome sub human goes too far and you end up suppressing underpricing job grecian. >> the 2008 and it's a situation and the so-called l.a. at, are you supportive of that intervention? >> we raise the question in the there in the boat. you can see that this sort of an emergency intervention. if government had done it and got now, that would've been

fine. unfortunately, they stay too long. i think the comparison we make is to katrina. there's emergency aid and then basically people get up and get back on their feet. when unfortunately the government has viewed the financial crisis has an excuse to expand itself and control the economy. >> and at what point would you say the government should step down as the emergency aid ends? >> i mean, they didn't allow banks have wanted to pay that money. obviously, they were making it difficult. david and keep them for something so didn't want to tape a lot in the first place. so basically, you know, some people have argued with the fact that we basically make this point that the bailout was necessary. but she now, basically went too far and certainly afterwards they used a financial crisis as an excuse to overregulate with

doctrine, et cetera. >> well, we are interviewing u.s. freedom fest in las vegas. do you find a lot of opposition to that idea, to some of the ideas in this book? >> now, that is that this event is about. it is about free people and free markets. people understand what is in this book. the whole idea is you best serve the needs of people by free enterprise. what is free enterprise? is people trying to meet needs, their own needs than the needs of others. that's what it's about and that's what they understand. they understand on should prepare a business in the fact that you create jobs not through government, but through innovation. you know, innovation has created the most jobs. to government and the automobile? no. >> elizabeth ames, with delight to write a book with steve

forbes? >> is a great learning experience and i was almost in a way that the higher education. customized and better. >> one of the themes that we've been talking with authors here at freedom fest about is the moralism or the the amoral system of capitalism. it's a moral component in your view to capitalism? >> guest service. that's a subject of the next book coming out against the month, the end of august. capitalism is moral because it is again about meeting the real world needs of other people. a free market transaction is a reciprocal exchange, that each person provides benefit to the other. george gilder, who i saw you interviewing talks about it as giving. each site is to the other. he's great on wealth and poverty talking about that. so capitalism is basically people who believe in big

government. they see a free market transaction is a one-sided transaction, that there's exploitation. but it's not about that. each side gets benefits. it may not be a deal. you know, but there's benefit always in the transaction. otherwise they would not occur because it's in a free market. if no one is forcing you to enter into this exchange, that is why there's benefit to both sides. if you are being forced, the unilateral transaction is one that takes place between the individual and government. as for his unilateral. >> what is your enthusiasm level from the romney as a candidate? >> well, i think he is going to be a very good president. i think he gets it and i think he's moving forward and i think he is saying the things we need to hear. >> you mention a new book coming out. what was the title of that?

>> the new book is freedom manifesto: why free markets are moral and the government gazette. >> that's another book by you and steve forbes? >> yes, it is feared >> you thatcher back over there. push it above all elizabeth ames fishes that. "how capitalism will save us." and here is the new book by elizabeth ames and freedom for us. >> why free markets are moral and big government isn't. >> why isn't the government moral? >> because the government makes decisions and transactions based on political agendas, based on its selfish political interests. it's really about meeting at own political selfish needs. free markets are meeting the real-world needs of people. >> well, someone who follows economics and former financial

journalist and somebody who has opinions on this issue, bernie madoff, jamie diamond, in your view, were those two treated fairly by the federal government? >> earnie middaugh was treated early. i wouldn't even put them in the same breath actually. bernie made us got what he needed to get. i'd think he's a serial killer he's a serial killer he's a serial killer he's a serial killer. and you don't condemn a whole society because of criminal elements and street crime. he does say one should be in jail because of criminals. there's bad people in all systems, but a capitalist system come a free-market system is going to shuttle people's self-interest into the most construct to activities that affect everyone. >> jimmy davin he called before congress because it's come they lost