Perhaps it’s apropos that, at this time when our right to access the food of our choice is under frontal attack in New York and California, Ralph Nader should declare himself a candidate for president.
This is the same Ralph Nader whose Public Citizen’s Health Research Group pressed a reluctant U.S. Food and Drug Administration to place a ban on interstate sale of raw milk in the mid-1980s, and eventually got its way via the courts. Nader’s role was discussed previously on this blog last November.
There’s a detailed account of his group’s role on a site I wouldn’t normally reference, QuackWatch (the site is pretty much opposed to all natural health remedies), but it’s worth taking a look at for historical purposes. His group was unrelenting over many years in its pursuit of consumer "protection."
He was so successful in bringing the FDA around to his point of view that it has become more rabid in its opposition to our right to consume raw milk than he probably ever could have hoped. I think it’s also safe to assume that much of the hysterical anti-raw-milk propaganda presented in California, cited on my previous post, are the result of his efforts.
So, let’s see, Ralph Nader helped cost us access to raw milk. He helped siphon enough votes to give us George Bush during the ultra-close 2000 election. What might he have in store for us this time around?
I ask this question having been favorably inclined toward him earlier on—first, because of his bravery way back in the 1960s in exposing the auto industry over car safety and, more recently, because of his willingness to challenge the limited choices inherent in the two-party system. I figured his political challenge alone was a worthwhile cause if it helped move us to more of a muti-party system.
But he didn’t do that. All he seems to want to do is re-appear every four years, a la Harold Stassen, and offer us the benefit of his arrogant form of protection.
Bob Hayles
There was truth in what he said about powerful special interests, but I gradually came to realize that for Nader the "mothering" instinct drove him far more than a desire to fight for freedom and justice. He is, IMHO, a classic psychological case: Weak, fearful, and rationalizing his personality with activism. I think he found favor with an overly-mothered generation.
(By the way, the old maxim says that if you’re 20 and not a liberal you have no heart; if you’re 40 and not a conservative you have no brain. Notably, libertarianism cultivates both heart and mind, and is naturally accepted at any age. It is the one political strain that works to cut the marionette strings of socio-cultural conditioning.)
Bob Hayles
<a href="http://www.systemsthinker.com/blog/2008/02/key-issue-missing-from-ralph-nader-table/">The Key Issue Suspiciously Missing from Ralph Nader’s "Table"</a>