Frankly, I think we should stop depriving people of the right to slam headfirst through their car's windshield.

It might improve the quality of America's gene pool.

"Masters of the repeated lying sound byte, the craven Congressional Republicans are feasting on the health and safety of the American people with gleeful greed while making the corporate and trade association media swoon."

Politicians are not the answer. Ralph, Chomsky and Zinn endorse direct democracy:

http://ni4d.us/en/endorsements

For those who think they might want to give up on representative government, I offer this: http://www.gpln.com/announcing_for_2012.htm

I dunno 'bout this or Nader in general these days. He's still and always will be American Citizen One. THE man. But given what has transpired with this so-called "opposition" line-up of candidates (they're not candidates at all) and this latest piece, I can only surmise he's been threatened by democrats not to run or support anyone else when it comes to challenging this sure-to-lose loser in the White House. (And he IS going to lose.) Perhaps he's just tired and he's doing the best he can. Hell, he has a right to be outta steam. Who can blame him for trying to get democrats to be the party they used to be? Maybe he's just wants to go out being a team player. Who knows?

Probably doesn't make a lot of difference at this point. There's little chance our destination as a nation can be changed now – wherever we are going.

Ralph, you're blaming Republicans, not the sham of "Congress" and phony "elections." You're still a hero for many reasons, bit I never thought I'd see the day...

I agree with most of the comments made so far. What we're seeing is the result of such a great fear that the Kochs & their minions will take over the entire country, as they have some states, if the Dems. weren't energized enough to vote for "the lesser of two evils again." The fear is palpable and maybe it should be.

On a different vein & from the article:

"Pete Altman, from the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote:

'In reversing his Administration’s previously strong support for ozone regulations to protect the health of American children, President Obama (in the words of one observer): “drank the conservative Kool-Aid, and agreed that tightening ozone emission rules would have cost billions and hurt the economy. But clean air is very popular politically, and the EPA's own studies show that a tighter standard could have created $17 billion in economic benefits.'” and

"3. Preventing ozone-layer-destroying CFC emissions from aerosols."

The above two quotes are somewhat confusing together. Also, I'm not sure I understand what it is that emits ozone.

I use both an ozone air purifier and water purifier in my small apt. Ozone, which consists of 3 atoms of oxygen, will release the third atoms which rush toward and destroy all kinds of pollutants. That is the reason the ozone layer is being depleted--ozone is continuously going after increasing amount of pollutants. People who have something wrong with their lungs and breathe in too much ozone at one time will be overwhelmed by the debris left in their lungs. When I have my ozone air purifier on, I turn it off when and if I start coughing. Of course, also, I always keep at least one window open. For those who are interested to know more, the book "Flood Your Body With Oxygen" is all about ozone and its benefits and how it works.

Reply to lefttown:

" ... whenever I read someone exclusively castigating the Republicans ... "

I've been reading the posts on commondreams.org for about a week.
I am aware that I don't have a large data base from which to judge the
climate of opinion. But just from what I have seen, I don't remember
any poster's straightforwardly castigating the Republicans -- that is before
R. Nader's article that we're posting about here. I know that castigating
has been directed at both Republicans and Democrats, with the further
appellation of a "duopoly" of both of the major parties. But look at that
formalism of criiticism more closely. Consider -- just for the purpose of
examination of the climate of opinion more closely -- that one party is worse
than the other [maybe, as undoubtedly will be replied by my detractors, it
is only a little bit worse (which I doubt to be a FINALLY defensable case)].
Then considering both parties to be EQUALLY odious participants in the
duopoly has the EFFECT of draging the slightly better party down to the
level of the slightly worse party. It seems to me -- and admit I'm uncertain --
that the climate of opinion in commondreams.org in the past week is at
least a little bit pro-Republican. Perhaps that's why all of the comments
here have been essentially opposing holding REPUBLICANS accountable.

One might be (presumably wickedly) tempted to sum it all up with the
motto: LET'S ALL NOT VOTE, OR VOTE REPUBLICAN, JUST TO
LET THE CORPORATION'S OPPRESSION OF US BECOME WORSE.
You may say: It can't get any worse. The heck it can't. Just go ahead and
strategize as you like. The present situation is not a game; it is at a
"tipping point". Whatever you all say about me -- and I know you will --
you must admit that the REPUBLICAN PARTY, unified as it is, deliberately
took this nation to the brink of financial catastrophe in the debt "crisis", just
for it's own political advantage. Doesn't that tell us something about the
Republicans' level of virtue?

Let's get real here: we have a fascist party, and we have a conservative party. Lots of luck in your voting. How long will idiots be disillusioned into believing that ANYTHING can be done within the system. It's like trying to sculpt a figure out of a shit pile. It's always going to stink. I respect Ralph Nader, but he would serve us better by going back to making cars safer.

Ralph Nader is simply calling out the Republicans on their lies, repeated over and over, on the effect of regulations. That is all. The ones repeating the lies are the Republicans, who use it to score points over the Dem's and therefore the Democrats are the ones who should be countering the lies. That does NOT mean that Nader is taking the side of Dem's or that he is giving them a pass. He just wants the lies countered.

These are not just any lies. These are lies about what effect regulations have. And that is something that is obviously very close to Ralph Nader's heart. If anything, in his anxiety that these lies must be countered, he is actually offering the Democrats free, bullet-proof talking points. That is, to the same Democrats who have insulted him and who pretend he does not even exist. Please re-read the article. The whole thrust is on countering the lies of the Republicans with proof that regulations are NOT what the Rep's claim them to be, but they CAN and DO have an overall positive impact on the economy and society.

As usual, it occurred to me how much gratitude the U.S. society owes Ralph Nader and how it is actually a form of ingratitude that he does not get his due, time after time. I thought I should look up some passage from the book "Black Swan" by Nassim Taleb that I thought may be relevant here, and then I remembered I had actually posted that part before, and that too on an article by Nader:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/28-1

>>"A NEW KIND OF INGRATITUDE
It is quite saddening to think of those people who have been mistreated by history. There were the poètes maudits, like Edgar Allan Poe or Arthur Rimbaud, scorned by society and later worshipped and force-fed to schoolchildren. (There are even schools named after high school dropouts). Alas, this recognition came a little too late for the poet to get a serotonin kick out of it, or to prop up his romantic life on earth. But there are even more mistreated heroes – the very sad category of those who we do not know were heroes, who saved our lives, who helped us avoid disasters. They left no traces and did not even know that they were making a contribution. We remember the martyrs who died for a cause that we knew about, never those no less effective in their contribution but whose cause we were never aware – precisely because they were successful. Our ingratitude towards the poètes maudits fades completely in front of this other type of thanklessness. This is a far more vicious kind of ingratitude: the feeling of uselessness on the part of the silent hero. I will illustrate with the following **thought experiment**.

Assume that a legislator with courage, influence, intellect, vision, and perseverance manages to enact a law that goes into universal effect and employment on September 10, 2001; it imposes the continuously locked bulletproof doors in every cockpit (at high costs to the struggling airlines) – just in case terrorists decide to use planes to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. I know this is lunacy, but it is just a thought experiment (I am aware that there may be no such thing as a legislator with intellect, courage, vision, and perseverance; this is the point of the thought experiment). The legislation is not a popular measure among the airline personnel, as it complicates their lives. But it would certainly have prevented 9/11.

The person who imposed locks on cockpit doors gets no statues in public squares, not so much as a quick mention of his contribution in his obituary. “Joe Smith, who helped avoid the disaster of 9/11, died of complications of liver disease.” Seeing how superfluous his measure was, and how it squandered resources, the public, with great help from airline pilots, might well boot him out of office. Vox clamantis in deserto. He will retire depressed, with a great sense of failure. He will die with the impression of having done nothing useful. I wish I could go attend his funeral, but, reader, I can’t find him. And yet, recognition can be quite a pump. Believe me, even those who genuinely claim that they do not believe in recognition, and that they separate labor from the fruits of labor, actually get a serotonin kick from it. See how the silent hero is rewarded: even his own hormonal system will conspire to offer no reward.

Now consider again the events of 9/11. In their aftermath, who got the recognition? Those you saw in the media, on television performing heroic acts, and those whom you saw trying to give you the impression that they were performing heroic acts. The latter category includes someone like the New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso, who “saved the stock exchange” and received a huge bonus for his contribution (the equivalent of several thousand average salaries). All he had to do was be there to ring the opening bell on television – the television that, we will see, is the carrier of unfairness and a major cause of Black Swan blindness.

Who gets rewarded, the central banker who avoids a recession or the one who comes to “correct” his predecessors’ faults and happens to be there during some economic recovery? Who is more valuable, the politician who avoids a war or the one who starts a new one (and is lucky enough to win)?

It is the same logic reversal we saw earlier with the value of what we don’t know; everybody knows that you need more prevention than treatment, but few reward acts of prevention. We glorify those who left their names in history books at the expense of those contributors about whom our books are silent. We humans are not just a superficial race (this may be curable to some extent); we are a very unfair one."<<

Have in the past few days returned from a sojourn in the U S A. My first visit since 1944/5.

I am more than ever convinced that the American political and legal system, as a whole, needs to be totally renewed, but can't see that happening without the average American's education being substantially upgraded.

There is no need for a multi party system replacing a two or three party one but there is vast room for improvement by eliminating Capitalist Corporatism from controlling the country. Once again it won't happen until the people are educated and not brainwashed into believing that being rich is a right and the path to those riches is open to all. I have been , for many years, amused by the average American, and particularly Republicans, equating Socialism with evil. They disregard that every pro American country in Europe, and include my own Australia and our cousins in Canada and New Zealand, who all have varying forms of Social Justice, a term I prefer.From Education to Medication and their legal systems, throw in for good measure Social Welfare and the
U S A is woefully behind in all areas.

In Texas I was confronted with the argument against advanced welfare measures because of those that abuse the system as a reason for not embracing it.
They had no answer to my response that the less than one percent of those who "Cheat" was no reason to persecute the 99% who didn't. That is Fascist collective retaliation, tantamount to jailing a whole village for one persons illegal activities.

I cannot see how you will change your systems until your average Joe is enlightened by a better education standard, and that could take a very long time. Meantime nibbling and niggling will gain nothing. As I also remarked to the Texan. "I've lived under Capitalism and modified Socialistic States. I'm glad I chose to go to Australia rather than stay in Texas back in the forties.

Foiling environmental regulation is looked upon as an achievement within the corporate environment.

Corporate financial analysis is made to look as if environmental regulation is a burden and money is saved by avoiding regulation.

The individual corporate environmental managers and lawyers receive personal reward when they can thwart regulation.

Corporate governance is authoritarian, they simply don't like being told what to do.

Plus, capitalism doesn't seem to work unless labor can be exploited and the environment degraded.

Where would our health care industry be without sustainable, life long conditions to profit off of.

Use the system we have, to fix the system we have... and demand one simple law: make it a misdemeanor NOT to vote in federal elections.