Ralph Nader at 90 on the "Genocidal War" in Gaza & Why Congress Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction

this is democracy Now democraticnow.org Warren's peace report I'm Amy Goodman with Juan González yes, we spent the rest of the hour with Ralph Nater, the four-time presidential candidate who ran with the Green Party, the independent Reform Party and the Democratic candidates, he is a long-time Corporate Critical Consumer Advocate and today is his 90th birthday. Ralph Nater is the author of many books, including his latest, The Rogue CEO and Breaking Power Is Easier Than We Think and, of course, his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed ​​The Final Designed Dangers of the American Automobile, which focused in part on the safety defects of General Motors' Chevrolet Corvair, later won a major settlement against General Motors for spying on him and attempting to discredit him and Use proceeds from lawsuit to start Responsive Law Study Center Ralph Nater the son of Lebanese immigrants also publishes the Ralph Nater and Family Cookbook.

He is the founder of the monthly print newspaper The Capitol Hill Citizen, where his front-page article in the February and March edition is collectively titled Congress is a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Ralph, welcome back to democracy. Now and happy 90th birthday, thank you so much Amy, thank you, it's great to have you with us. Why don't we start with that provocative headline on the front page of your newspaper? Congress is a

weapon

of

mass

destruction

, he explains with multiple warheads, this is a very important article because, the opposite of what I am going to point out, it is an opportunity for the people to regain control of their Congress.

All of these

destruction

s are very unpopular with the American people, including the left and the right. support to change the scene on Capitol Hill so that first, what a destruction it is to democracy itself, Congress has put itself up for sale or rent and opposes electoral reform, it is excluding civic groups from public hearings, not even prints public hearings, and There are more reports, that is very unpopular with the American people and could be reversed. The second is as a

weapon

of

mass

destruction, literally the destruction of millions of lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, elsewhere, the Empire itself is an illegal, unconstitutional weapon of mass destruction. which continues to this day in those invaded countries that did not threaten us.

Third, Congress is destroying Medicare and Medicaid, increasingly handing health insurance companies their corporatization of Medicare and Medicaid with misleading advertising, single-payer to the winds, and we are seeing more than half of Medicare beneficiaries have been lured into Medicare Advantage, what we call Medicare disadvantage, which is just the usual exploit of giant health insurance policies that deny benefits, narrow networks, all kinds of other abuses. Congress has destroyed progressive taxes, it's a growing tax full of loopholes, dodges for campaign cash and something that even Warren Buffett has spoken strongly about, so they've destroyed it and they've destroyed the consequence as well. , which are public budgets. that can protect people and participate in public services.

Congress has also gutted corporate crime law enforcement, not only with the most recent disaster that allowed Boeing and Boeing executives to be criminally prosecuted, but imagine we have a wave of corporate crime in this country , an incredible billing fraud. uh, pollution violations, workplace violations and they haven't had comprehensive hearings, they only had one hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, just one previous hearing in favor described in the Capitol Hill Citizen and there, uh, two 250,000 Americans a year die from quote-unquote, preventable problems. hospitals according to a John's Hopkins University School of Medicine peer review study and they just don't do anything and collect money from all these corporate packages and then of course on child poverty they just didn't extend the child tax extension . rather, the tax benefit that had reduced child poverty by 40% by January 2022 and they did not do that and, by the way, I make an important distinction Amy and Juan, that is why I use the word collectively.

Congress is a weapon. of mass destruction because there are some good people in Congress, but as a body it is definitely a weapon of mass destruction. Imagine millions of people are being taken off of Medicaid as we speak, 45 million Americans are experiencing food insecurity, another euphemism for hunger, and Congress is about to send $4 billion from the genocide tax uh for more weapons to Israel to massacre more God and families. I mean, we're talking about criminal performance here of the first order and then the last list, there's a long list, but I'll end with this Congress. It's destroying the commons, which is huge property owned by the people, public lands on land, offshore, public airwaves, much of the Internet, all of this belongs to the people, but they've given up control over it, uh , to corporations, media corporations, oil gas. uh Logging industry uh Etc. now all of these are very unpopular with the American people uh the

congress

ional organization could change all of this with less than 1% of the people organized as a

congress

ional watchdog group of the Congress in the congressional districts all of this is discussed uh and More in the Capitol Hill Citizen and a print publication that we are publishing to get your copy, just visit capill Citizen.com and you can get additional copies for your libraries or your discussion group and with a donation of $5 or more.

The new issue The Capus Hill Hill Citizen 40 pages packed with vibrant, readable prints will be sent quickly by first class mail and we want more people. Why would you think you could say a word and sing on Ralph's 90th birthday, but let's just go to one sense plus one key phrase plus the idea of ​​the citizen of Cap Hill is not just to inform people with unofficial journalism, since they don't read article after article about the need to repeal the Insurrection Act that Trump could use. to turn the Armed Forces against the people of this country should be repealed there is an article about that by Bruce Fine, the citizen of the capital, it is to get more IED people to ask as much as they can.

I wanted to ask you anyway, we're in the middle of a presidential election year, these kinds of issues that you raised when you ran for president, President Bernie Sanders raised them when, when he ran, but now we're facing the Michigan primary. approaching and the rest of the election season in Michigan, some people are pushing. for an uncommitted vote to send a message to Biden on Gaza, what do you think about that strategy and also, as you look at this presidential race, what would you urge progressives to do? I urge all people to vote with their conscience.

I do not do it. I believe in tactical voting within a two-party duopoly that basically allows very little choice in foreign military policy. What is the difference between Democrats and Republicans on Wall Street? What difference there are? There is better rhetoric. Democrats are better with the social safety net. No no no. I'm hesitant about that with Medicare and other safety net programs, but is it enough? I think, as you say, Juan, people have to find some way out of this bipartisan Gulag, they are stuck with these options, and in one way. What I want to do is not compromise during the primary in Michigan and I hope it spreads across the country, but you also know that there are only a few swing states here, so the majority of the American people in the red and blue states can vote for a third party they can vote for the green party, which has a wonderful agenda that the Democratic Party should have taken up a long time ago, so people should vote their conscience.

I firmly believe that this is what Eugene Debs used to recommend to the great union leader at the beginning of the 20th century. I wanted to go back in time with me and Juan, because now we are also celebrating our 20th anniversary of democracy, when we take you to Ralph as a presidential candidate to the Republican convention floor, this was in Philadelphia and we were broadcasting. from the Independent Media Center may have been the first time in U.S. history that a presidential candidate held an impromptu but well-attended press conference at another party's convention; We were asking Ralph to come to the convention and provide commentary and analysis as a voice. from an outsider who has been excluded from the political process in many ways let's go back to the year 2000, do it while here well, I want to watch the action, it's hard to believe when you see it reported, you have to see it to believe it, I mean.

This is the most spectacular display of political cash register politics with corporate bigwigs in the history of the country and it's always good to see the latest technology shamelessly paraded on national television. What is your message to the delegate? My message is. go home and rethink what they are doing to the country when they sell politics to corporate Fat Cats in exchange for political favors and that's what I say to Democrats too: our democracy is being hijacked by big business interests against the everyday interests. people and we have to have political reform in this country. I am very sorry to see John McCain, who had millions of supporters who supported political reform, transform today into George W.

Bush. Some stats you're pulling are seven or % um. Do you think you would be the spoiler if if this race is too close you can't ruin a political system that is broken to the core we need a new political reform movement in this country that won't come from the Democratic or Republican party? So that was Ralph Nater in the summer of 2000 in Philadelphia on the floor of the Republican convention uh all the journalists that emigrated, he basically held a press conference there, we brought him in to present remarks, um, Ralph, you ran for president four times, um, what do you think about? what you call the duo and at this point when people talk about this election that could ultimately be between Biden and Trump, calling it the most important presidential election, maybe in history, what are your comments on that?

Well, what did he do in the democracy of the year 2000? It had never been done before, as you basically put me inside the Republican convention to provide some kind of counterpoint and alternative to the media that was there. I was as amazed as anyone and it didn't take me long to be. Escorted out of the convention center, but you did the job and what is the job? The job is to give more voices and options on the ballot to the American people. It's crazy what's happening with the gap between Democrats and Republicans. decreased tremendously since the days of Franklin Donald Roosevelt and the Republican Party says that in the 1930s the Democrats have rhetoric about environmental issues, labor issues, but they don't really use their strength in Congress and they should have long ago crushed the Republican Party, which is the worst ever on so many issues that have been reported on by you and others, so what do people do?

First they have to organize Congress, monitor, lobby at home, between elections, so that the elections become more meaningful so that people start to see. What is on the table is law enforcement against corporate crime, an end to corporate welfare, the establishment of arms control treaties and a peace department that Dennis Cinic is supporting. Now he's running for Congress again from Ohio. There are so many areas where effort was made. in 2022, what we call winning america.net, you can go and see it, showing that many of the major concerns of the American people don't matter if they label themselves as conservatives and liberals when they're trying to feed their families when they're trying to get by the day they live, work and raise their families.

The ideology of divide and rule does not work at all with them, but we tried to do it with america.net winner, we put the whole range of progressive policies that have enormous majority support that is the hidden story there is a lot of support from the left and right for a living wage for universal health insurance to crack down on corporate crime to change the whole ridiculous tax system Ralph Juan wants to ask one more question first At the end of the show Juan, yes, Ralph, I wanted to ask you about Israel's war in Gaza.

You had a recent column headline about what the media should cover regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict. Could you explain to us that we only have a couple of minutes? If you can make your key points well, the key points are that, and this is not often acknowledged, there are five federal laws that the United States and Israel are violating by unconditionally and unconstitutionally supporting this illegal

genocidal

war in Gaza. had the assistance lawforeign policy, the Arms Export Control Act, the US War Crimes Act, the Human Rights Protection Act, and the Genocide Convention Implementation Act, and I think we need to refocus At home, we are the main facilitator of this mass slaughter on God.

There seems to be no end to this and there are over 100,000 people and children dead so far and many more dying every hour; It's a huge death toll, which is why I urge people to listen to the in-person interviews with these doctors and I on Democracy Now. Just read Amy the article you and Dennis Moran wrote about the sites on the hospitals that were destroyed. Doctors witness that they may not have returned to the United States and Canada. We have to get support for the senators who Already five senators have asked for direct aid without going through Israel, direct humanitarian aid with international organizations in Gaza right now, Ral, we are going to have to leave it there.

We want to thank you very much. I hate to interrupt you on your 90th birthday. but what else is new? Ralph Nater Longtime consumer advocate Corporate critic Former presidential candidate Happy 90th Birthday Founder of monthly newspaper C of Printon Capitol Hillcitizen I'm Amy Goodman with Juan González