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

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.

Reviews

This jaunty, provocative and entertaining on-the-road memoir/manifesto maps out Nader's political philosophy and provides the Nader take on the contemporary U.S. political scene. Whether it is what he sees as the corruption of the national media "I can't overemphasize the influence of The New York Times and Washington Post in setting the scene for the rest of the media" or the need to resuscitate the town meeting as he did repeatedly during his campaign tour, Nader presents a strong case that national politics is run more by money than issues and that there is a "democracy gap" that "discourages people from shaping the future for our country." Like a plucky protagonist in a Frank Capra film, Nader insists on speaking up for the little people and backs his arguments and decent sentiments with hard facts: an appendix of stats on affordable housing needs, "corporate welfare," personal bankruptcies, uneven distribution of wealth and the current minimum wage (which, adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was in 1979) is an impressive indictment of the state of the national economy. Holding up last November's squalid election bickering as the end result of a fatigued system "To tell you the truth, I think they [the people] never really liked either one of them," he quotes Gore's own campaign manager as saying Nader, ever optimistic, ends his book with a pragmatic 10-point "First Stage Goals for a Better America." (Jan.)Forecast: Despite the general shift of interest away from last year's election, Nader's faithful and other opponents of two-party domination will undoubtedly seek this out. It should do well in areas where he has strong support.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

What made Ralphie run: billed as an unrepentant memoir.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lifelong consumer, environmental, labor, and women's and minority rights advocate Nader always seems to be in a hurry. It was a trait that stood him in good stead for his Green Party run for the presidency in 2000, during which he campaigned in all 50 states and plenty of poor communities whose votes the Democrats take for granted and the Republicans write off. Nader's point throughout this breathless memoir is that both parties ought to be doing something for such communities; instead, he argues with plenty of factual ammunition, they are marginalizing more and more Americans, so they won't have to pay them any attention, either, and can concentrate exclusively on the corporations that bankroll elections. The two big parties have taken over the presidential debates by creating the corporation that runs them and sets eligibility rules to shut out third-party candidates. They have seen to it that nearly all the states put gargantuan hurdles before ballot access by third parties. And the Democrats, Nader's political family of origin, have betrayed virtually all the constituencies that historically made up that party's formerly electorally invincible coalition--never more so than during the Clinton-Gore years, as the book's last appendix summarizes in a 20-point bill of indictment piquantly entitled "Wouldn't President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney Have Done the Same?" While elaborating his complaint, Nader valorizes seemingly everyone who helped his campaign, which, along with his clear but impetuous, often imprecise verbal style, makes for a punishing as well as an exhilarating read. Ray Olson
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Edition details

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