Oh, God how I love the OTA idea: a comprehensive, special interest-free assessment of technology & its' value, NOT just to the nat'l defense, but ALSO to the promotion of the General Welfare. Combined with campaign reform (to make the peoples' reps, the PEOPLES' reps once more), & a U.S. Treasury-as-Nat'l Bank, & the HOUSE reps as the bank directors, with directly uttered Federal credit & Lincoln Greenback currency, they can formulate a CAPITAL BUDGET to fulfill the Constitutional mandate to promote the general welfare, establish justice, provide for the common defense. No more spurious "where's the money going to come from?" questions, as if the banksters were sitting on a leprechaun's pot-o-gold or something.
Congress ALSO needs an OGWA (office of general welfare assessment). Among the many advisors to these offices there should also be given a permanent audience to the 13 GRANDMOTHERS.

When you read the intelligent writing of Nader, don't you feel a little sad that you were swept up in all that 'HOPE and CHANGE'? You held onto your fervant faith that the Democrats are the political party for the working people of this nation. Even after the Democrats backed NAFTA and we lost our manufacturing, even after they deregulated the banks and our economy collapes, even after they finished off the last vestiges of the New Deal where a child had the right to food clothing and shelter -- you still think the Democrats are working for you?

Look where we are now with the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress. The bastards on Wall street post major profits and enjoy their massive bonuses while we lose our homes. The wars go on and EXPAND! Bushie attacks Afghanistan and Iraq but now we are killing people (as we win their hearts and minds) in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and Iran at any moment. Our democracy is dead and gone. Our representatives are not representing us---they are doing the bidding of their corporate contributors. (Well, the Supremos say a corporation is a person.)

The fact that the Democrats are not working for the people of this nation couldn't be more clear than to look at the Congressional votes on three current issues. The bankster bailout. The phones in D.C. were shut down for three days before that vote and the people said, "NO!" or "Hell, NO!" ---but it passed. Then there was Single payer health care. Polls showed that 74% of the people want this, but in Congress it was "off the table". And the war. They just voted billions more for the illegal and immoral wars. Do you know ANYONE who wants to cut all of our domestic programs to fund the endless wars?

Before Nader's critics all jump in to dismiss this piece as just "more Nader crock", think about it just a bit.

Of course Ralph, and the rest of us, know(s) why the OTA was gutted and why it is unlikely to be revived - ignorance is bliss. With a robust OTA, the Pres. and Congr. would not be able to claim that "because Industry knows so much more than we do, we must let industry decide on the solutions to the problems they cause", e.g., obviously, the Gulf blowout. It's like shutting up the little kid who pointed out the Emperor was naked.

His proposal is not evidence of naivete, but an an example of an approach I learned long ago from a wise local Planning Board attorney - you cannot get up and keep yelling at someone to fix a problem, you will get the standard "reasonable" answer, "we're working on it". Nor does it do any good, as is so often done here, to simply claim they are all "bad apples" and condemn them as that only results in a spirited, easily mounted, generic defense by their supporters, and until the challengers outnumber the supporters, you won't change anything.

So what you must do, as he does here, is to challenge them with a very reasonable, by anyone's light, direct and specific proposal that doesn't need to be "studied" (i.e. deep sixed), because it already has a good track record, to help fix the problem, although you know that the chances the bad apples will not adopt it are practically zip. Why bother? Because the bad apples must do one of four things in response 1) ignore it, 2) fail to adopt it, 3) reject it, 4) adopt it. If they pursue 1, 2, or 3, it clearly demonstrates, in a very direct manner, to all, that the generic rhetoric they use is clearly BS.

For those of us who are already convinced that it is, this appears a waste of time. But for those out there who, with more proof, are willing to turn from supporters to challengers, this is the way to go as it provides another nail in the coffin of any concept of a "reasonable" defense of the bad apples' actions.

At best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) they will do 4, in which case the immediate problem at hand which needs to be solved, is solved. This may make the bad apples look good temporarily, but if a problem really needs to be solved sooner than it takes to get rid of the bad apples, this is a useful approach.

His proposal here is a direct challenge to the Admin. "our hands are tied because we don't have the expertise" defense, quite reasonably seen to justify direct gov't. inaction. What he is saying is "you have the means to get the expertise, if you are serious about fixing this problem and many others like it; here's an easy, inexpensive way to do it, fund this agency." The implication, again obvious to any reasonable person, even those who may be, thus far, still inclined to support this admin., is that failure to fund it indicates a lack of sincerity.

Look, I realize that there are many who scoff at this approach, but it is a good one. I have used it and it IS useful. Once you have made a clear, direct, reasonable proposal and the powers that be reject it, you stand on much firmer ground in challenging the legitimacy of those powers and in establishing your own credibility as one who has real solutions and not some radical kook who just likes to scream and yell. Their constituents then say, "Wait a minute, that WAS a good idea, how come you guys didn't do It? Maybe the critics are right." This approach, if used over and over, in myriad ways, produces more and more cracks in their armor, until the structure collapses. It is only "subversive" in the sense that it subverts a structure of lies, and it does so honestly, bit by bit, piece by piece. It is a way of injecting truth in small, easily digestible bites that ANYONE can manage.

I know, I'm depending on "reasonable" people in the audience and many on CD will deny there are enough left out there to make a difference, but I think there are, and, besides, what have we got to lose in trying it? Right now, we are still in the position of being outnumbered by supporters, we need more challengers from our side of the fence and this is a good, honest, legitimate, way to get them.

Let's get behind this idea.

OTA,but of course.Appropriate technology for the social environmental and economic conditions is being ignored.This is Peace Corps stuff and since we have devolved into a Corporatist Banana Republic,we need it more than ever.Thanks to Ralph Nader who speaks truth to power.
Aquifer too knows why OTA funding is not apropriate to corporate sponsors!
peace

Of course the OTA should be reinstated.
The problem is Congress and the US president, hell, the whole stinking lot are so corrupt they don't want facts or scientific proof that might conflict with legislation written by their donors.

So, of course Pelosi is resistant.
Obama, crap, good luck with him.

I highly doubt it's coming back,
And if Mr. Smoke and Mirrors agrees, he'll leave it unstaffed and underfunded for the remainder of his term, God help us.
But he WILL be able to say he's a man of science.

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

It's articles like this that are why I LOVE good old curmudgeonly Ralph Nader. All the silver spoon-fed John Galtniks who troll this site praising anti-regulatory Libertarian imbeciles like Ron Paul couldn't find their asses in broad daylight with a halogen lamp and a magnifying glass in a globally impacting regulatory failure like the banking crisis or the BP oil deluge. That jackass Rand Paul braying, "Obama has his boot on BP's throat!" says it all.

But, lo, "mainstream media" and the DLC Dimocrats treat Ralph as a leper when he might have saved the Democratic Party in the 1980s if enough of the non-DLC types had listened to him. He was the only national figure who saw the anti-regulatory "free trade" leviathan for what it was before it slouched into NYC, DC and Jerusalem. He was always our best canary in the cultural coal mine. Even now many erstwhile progs find him boring to read or listen to because of his rigorous command of the core regulatory FACTS. He knew how the regulatory apparatus was supposed to work and why it needed to work back when many more parts of it still actually worked. People with his institutional memory are fading fast and he won't last forever. Enjoy him while he's still alive, folks, because once he's gone Amurka will be one vast Flowers for Algernon during the final stupefaction. Every last vestige of common sense, let alone intelligence, will be annihilated.

Excellent article. Nader at his best: he has the facts; his logic is impeccable; his writing clear, smooth, and readily understood; and he doesn't take gratuitous shots at anybody. He just challenges Pelosi to act.

And he knows the system well enough to know where are the stress points, where something seemingly minor like this office actually plays--or could play--a key role.

Great stuff.

With or without the OTA, transformative energy-saving ideas will be invented by the dozen. Then the inventors will eventually die, and the inventions will go to the grave with them. That's how it's always worked. Because no politician will stand against the company that bought him or her.

I know this idea enrages libertarians and "free market" fans, but I've always wondered why there's not a government agency that does what "Consumer Reports" Magazine does-- or at least is supposed to be doing.

I should go Google "Underwriter's Laboratory", because as a toddler I noticed "UL" labels on electrical appliances-- and there's that deal with labels on every freaking pillow, blanket, and piece of furniture ever made. So there are SOME agencies out there routinely checking out merchandise, whatever their scope and mandate may be.

This popped into my head a while back when I read about the "Energy Star" progam actually being mostly for PR purposes-- it's a voluntary program with no uniform, rigorous standards, etc. It's the usual weak sizzle sans steak, a "cooperative" commercial-governmental partnership in which one hand lightly washes the other.

I don't doubt that there would be complications and difficulties with this simple, idyllic wish. Still, at the end of the day I would much rather have my taxpayer dime spent on gummint techies in white coats impartially testing and rating everyday products than sitting at computers annihilating innocent foreigners with drone missiles.

This is a great idea. However the problem is that Congress's "Common Sense Office" has been defunded as well. Also the "Office for Honesty and Integrity" has to be revived too as it's been closed for so long. Once those 2 are back at full power the "Office of Caring for the Main Street" will need to be reinstated as well, making it possible finally possible to reopen the "Office of Translating the Science Speak" which could become a part of new "Office of Catching Up with The World"...

Unfortunately, the old OTA was totally supportive of the status quo--did not involve labor, ethnic minorities, etc in its operations (even when their interests were at stake in the assessment). Always used mainstream "experts", etc. Ralph should know this.

I taught Tech Assessment for over 25 years, was involved in the development of the concept, and was frozen out of OTA operations because i questioned the failure to follow any progressive lines of inquiry.

saving money isn't the only value this website should be concerned about.

The OTA is useless as long as disaster capitalism and science are allowed to mix. Science could be put to better use as they do elsewhere. For example, foreign cars are better than American made ones because the American government rewards sloppiness and punishes honest work and research which no other country would do. Additionally, young geniuses who don't have money try to be creative and innovative even to the point of inventing something great only to have it all crushed by the vested corporate interests. Instead of being a mechanic, one of my cousins could have had the chance of fulfilling his dream of inventing a better car and setting up a small local business to see if he could be judged as successful or not in his inventions by his locals. Another example is approving of nuclear research while simultaneously restricting stem cell research. If science is too restrictive structurally, then what will OTA do to change that so that science could allow for true creative and innovative thinking like other countries?

The National Safety Net (NSN) proposes that each and every American has a basic right to a dignified and decent lifestyle in virtue of citizenship alone, and it entails a Seven Point Plan that concretely defines what this means. Universal healthcare, free education, ect., are among the elements of a minimum threshold of quality life that this very rich country can easily afford in many ways--for example, America spends more money on advertisement (in which people are persuaded and manipulated to buy things that they mostly don't need or enjoy) than the entire cost of implementing and administering NSN. Despite the obvious need for a strong national safety net in this country, given the historical and inevitable ups and downs of the American economy, especially for lower and middle class families, the so-called "progressive" political organizations overwhelmingly think and act on the false assumption that Americans are not ready for big and sweeping changes in their everyday lives. These well-known organizations have become so cowardly and timid in their goals and expectations that they can no longer be counted on to lead people to a qualitatively better social life, and they, taken together, now define and own the meaning of progressive politics in this country, and unfortunately they have turned it into a dead or dying sociopolitical movement (which is not at all what it was when it arose and lived under men like Theodore Rossevelt and Eugene Debs). Therefore, NSN cannot and should not be considered part of the progressive movement in America, but rather the beginning of a new, bold, and visionary politics that comprehends the great hunger in this country for real change, and offers people what they need and deserve, even if many of them do not yet conceptually or fully understand what this is. In other words, NSN leads people to a genuinely satisfying life by clearly and loudly articulating and demanding the fundamentals of such a life, instead of pandering to people for votes, money, and support for weak and fragmented goals that would not substantially alter everyday life for all Americans even if they were successfully achieved tomorrow. Why are so many silent, asks Ralph Nader, because they are Progressives, not Visionaries. Nader is a Visionary.

We don't need OTA--it would only burden Congress with facts and unbiased assessments. Ignorance is bliss, and Congress is one happy puppy.

Great post, Ralph. Of course this kind of common sense rationality in the public interest at a relatively modest cost will be opposed by the 85% corporate-plutocratic owned Congress. Pelosi, are you listening, for God's sake, especially during this worst ecological disaster in our history?

Why should any of this surprise anyone in light of the killing of the Gulf, war escalation, drone strikes targeting non combatants, et al?

Pelosi is just in the mold of Obama they both Talk Left then move Right while characterizing themselves as 'progressive.' If you have not figured it out by now, go back to the couch and continue numbing yourself down by pundits funded by the corporate forces wiping everything of value out.

The acclaimed photographer Ansel Adams once noted after his meeting with Reagan and Interior Secretary Watts that he came away from his meeting thinking that they knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing.