Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender - Hardcover

Nader, Ralph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312284330 ISBN 13: 9780312284336

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2002

Synopsis

Ralph Nader is one of America's most passionate and effective social critics. He has been called a muckraker, a consumer crusader, and America's public defender. The cars we drive, the food we eat, the water we drink-their safety has been enhanced largely due to Ralph Nader. His inspiration and example have rallied consumer advocates, citizen activists, public interest lawyers, and government officials into action, and in the 2000 election, nearly three million people voted for him.

An inspiring and defiant memoir, Crashing the Party takes us inside Nader's campaign and explains what it took to fight the two-party juggernaut; why Bush and Gore were really afraid to let him in on their debates; why progressive Democrats have been left behind and ignored by their party; how Democrat and Republican interests have been lost to corporate bankrolling; and what needs to happen in the future for people to take back their political system.

About this title

Review

Crashing the Party is Ralph Nader's raucous and righteously indignant account of his Green Party candidacy in the 2000 American presidential election. Nader weaves an anecdotal recounting--virtually speech-by-speech--of his exhausting, 50-state campaign with impassioned summaries of his political opinions. Primarily, Nader sees the current political structure as ominously flawed: a two-party system, he says, exists in a "drowsy equilibrium," and the parties--both in thrall to corporate interests--are concerned less with the people's needs than their own self-perpetuation. An equal-opportunity critic, he slings arrows not only at what he sees as a myopic, lazy media and Republicans (he calls former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman a "latter-day Marie Antoinette"), but organized labor, prominent Democrats, and certain fair-weather Hollywood friends as well.

Though overly strident at times, Crashing the Party is a noteworthy, thoughtful addition to the literature of muckraking. --H. O'Billovitch

About the Author

Ralph Nader has written, co-authored, and sponsored dozens of books, including Action for Change, the Big Boys: Power and Position in American Business, Canada Firsts, Taming the Giant Corporation, Verdicts on Lawyers, The Menace of Atomic Energy, Who's Poisoning America, Winning the Insurance Game, The Frugal Shopper, and his bestelling exposé of the auto industry, Unsafe at Any Speed. When not heading up the Green Party, he runs his advocacy work through the numerous citizen groups he has founded.

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0312284330
• ISBN 13: 9780312284336
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352