Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Ralph welcomes back retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson to talk about American military policy, including the record $816.7 billion Pentagon budget, the war in Ukraine, the insanity of nuclear weapons, potential conflict with China and what the right-wing caucus in the House of Representatives really wants when they say they want to cut military spending. Plus, Ralph reads and responds to your questions and feedback from previous programs.Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired U.S. Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. During the course of his military service, Colonel Wilkerson was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Bronze Star among other awards and decorations. At the Department of State, he earned the Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award, as well as two Superior Honor Awards.My position on Ukraine now is: Shut up and start talking. To both sides. I’m convinced, from my contacts in Moscow, that the Russians would do that. If we even seemed to be serious. We’re the impediment.Colonel Lawrence WilkersonLet’s just take a scenario: let’s put ourselves down on the ground in Ukraine. Let’s say we put our army (which is smaller than the army of Bangladesh) on the ground in Ukraine, with the purpose of fighting the Russians. We would have 10,000 casualties a day for the first 30 days… The American people have never had these kinds of casualties. NEVER. Never. Not in any of their lives have they had these kinds of casualties. And they’re going to have them. That’s what it’s all about.Colonel Lawrence WilkersonOne person, an otherwise very gifted diplomat, said to me the other day, “We don’t know how to do diplomacy anymore. We don't do diplomacy anymore. Because our diplomacy has been replaced by bombs, bullets, and bayonets.” He’s right. He’s absolutely right. That’s what we’ve done. That’s the kind of insanity I’m talking about. You have no diplomacy.Colonel Lawrence WilkersonWe do not have a democracy. We have a deep-state oligarchical corporatocracy. And the American people are on the outside. And the American people— intuitively and, in some cases, intellectually— understand that and go about their business and do what they have to do… but they don’t participate in the government.Colonel Lawrence Wilkerso Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph explains it all for you, the history and the consequences of the legal fiction that is corporate personhood. Then his associate, Francesco DeSantis, from the Center of Study of Responsive law updates us on progress being made to institute a corporate crime data base along the lines of the street crime database in order to track repeat corporate criminal offenders.Francesco DeSantis is a public interest advocate and Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Study of Responsive Law. He has coordinated with the offices of Representative Mary Gay Scanlon and Senator Dick Durbin to get the Corporate Crime Database issue back on the Congressional agenda, and he’s advocated for it among members of Congress and consumer, labor, and environmental groups.Once unleashed, [a corporation] doesn’t conform to normal human accountabilities. It doesn’t have the same level of shame or guilt. It can make a lot of mistakes and hurt a lot of people and still be credible.Ralph NaderIt’s important for all of our listeners to know that corporations are not created by investors. They are created by state authority.Ralph NaderLimited liability was the yeast that unfurled the future elaborations of corporate power.  Ralph NaderThe Justice Department has every statutory authority to [create a corporate crime database] on their own. It completely, 100% falls within their purview to monitor crime, to attempt to arrest criminals, to prevent recidivism… So, we are very hopeful that the Justice Department will see the light on this issue.Francesco DeSantisIf you think about the kind of crimes that corporations engage in, they would be completely beyond the pale for any individual.Francesco DeSantisIf the American people—journalists, academics, prosecutors, and so on— were able to see that “X Corporation” committed a crime, committed it again, committed it a third time, and each time got basically no serious penalty, I think that that would go a long way towards the political movement to demand more from the corporate criminal enforcement division of the Department of Justice.Francesco DeSantis Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

It is well documented how much more cost effective a Medicare for All system would be in the aggregate. But do you want to know how much money per year a Medicare for All system would personally save you? Listen to Dr. James Kahn, explain the calculator he developed to help you figure that out. Plus, we invite Dr. Fred Hyde and healthcare consultant, Kip Sullivan, back to answer the feedback you sent us on the topic of Medicare (dis)Advantage.Dr. James Kahn is an expert in policy modeling in health care, cost-effectiveness analysis, and evidence-based medicine. He is an Emeritus Professor of Health Policy, Epidemiology, and Global Health at the University of California, San Francisco. He is also past president of the California chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. He recently launched the Medicare for All Savings Calculator, which compares what individuals or families currently spend to what they would pay under Improved Medicare for All.If you compare 70% of our healthcare spending to total healthcare spending in any other wealthy country around the world, we’re already spending more in public money than any other country spends in total. I like to say we’re already paying for universal healthcare, we’re just not getting it.Dr. James KahnWhy the American people do not wake up and demand that their members of Congress come to their town meetings back home— run by the people, where they talk all about this health care shenanigans— and send their Senators and Representatives back to Washington with instructions to support the kinds of single-payer that was illustrated in H.R.676 two years ago…HR676 is the gold standard, and it should be reintroduced in the next Congress so that people can rally around it.Ralph NaderDr. Fred Hyde is a consultant to hospitals, medical schools and physicians, as well as to unions, community groups and others interested in the health of hospitals, health care facilities and organizations. Dr. Hyde is also the publisher of a daily health policy newsletter called DCMedical News.A problem aside from the extraordinary cost of our medical care system is its complexity. I’m not surprised that your listeners have questions. I have questions, and I’ve been in the field fifty years. I teach graduate students in hospital operations and healthcare finance, and, trust me, everyone has questions when it comes to their own coverage… Complexity is itself an issue. And we live in a society where there are a good deal of middlemen who undertake to smooth over the complexity of our society, and make a buck doing so.Dr. Fred HydeKip Sullivan is a Health Care Advisor with Health Care for All Minnesota, and has written several hundred articles on health policy. He is an active member of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for universal, comprehensive single-payer national health insurance.It is impossible to give you a dollars and cents comparison of the costs of Medicare Advantage with either Medicare alone or Medicare with supplemental coverage. And the reason it’s impossible is: you don’t know what you bought from Medicare Advantage until you need it.Kip Sullivan Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

In a live Zoom event in conjunction with the American Museum of Tort Law, we welcome back Claire Nader, author of “You Are Your Own Best Teacher” and Susan Linn, author of “Who’s Raising the Kids?” for a lively panel discussion moderated by child advocacy legal expert, Robert Fellmeth, on the ongoing corporatization of childhood. We also hear from audience members but not just old people talking about “kids today.” A thoughtful seventh grader gives us a young person’s perspective.Robert Fellmeth is the Price Professor of Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego and the Executive Director of the Center for Public Interest Law. He is also Executive Director of the Children's Advocacy Institute, which authored The Fleecing of Foster Children: How We Confiscate Their Assets and Undermine Their Financial SecurityWe have one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of the world, which basically equates corporations with individuals. It equates corporate entities with private citizens. And they’re not the same thing…You cannot have the Citizens United-type case that equates the two and still have a democracy.Robert FellmethDr. Susan Linn is an author, psychologist, and award-winning ventriloquist. She was the Founding Director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (now known as Fairplay), and she is a world-renowned expert on creative play and the impact of media and commercial marketing on children. Her latest book is Who’s Raising The Kids? Big Tech, Big Business and the Lives of Children.I think what people don’t understand is that these beloved characters are used to sell things to kids. And that there is really almost no place in media—including public media, today— where children can go, where someone is not trying to sell them something.Dr. Susan Linn, author of Who’s Raising The Kids? Big Tech, Big Business and the Lives of ChildrenClaire Nader is a political scientist and author recognized for her work on the impact of science on society. She is an advocate for numerous causes at the local, national and international level. As the first social scientist working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, she joined pioneering initiatives in energy conservation and the multifaceted connections between science, technology and public policy. Her latest book is You Are Your Own Best Teacher! Sparking the Curiosity, Imagination and Intellect of Tweens.[How children suffer due to corporate predators] scares me to death, as a matter of fact. I want to run away from the lives of children under these conditions. But I can run to a different atmosphere for children—if you will— and that’s what I try to put in my book.Claire Nader, author of You Are Your Own Best Teacher! Sparking the Curiosity, Imagination and Intellect of Tweens Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph welcomes the Washington Post’s technology columnist, Geoffrey Fowler, to explain all the ways your smart devices are gathering information about you, your garage door, your soap dispenser, your vacuum cleaner and even your toilet.Geoffrey Fowler is The Washington Post’s technology columnist. Before joining the Post he spent sixteen years with the Wall Street Journal writing about consumer technology, Silicon Valley, national affairs and China.I’m actually really excited by technology. I love it… What angers me is that we’ve allowed a couple of really big corporations—Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook— to give us (as consumers, as users of this stuff) a false choice. And the false choice is, “You can either live in a world where you have all these great conveniences, you can use this new technology… But if you want that, you have to give us all of this data. You have to allow us to surveille you. You have to allow us to watch everything your kids do so we can market to them.” And the false choice here is: if you don’t want that, you can’t have the future. You just have to go live under a rock.Geoffrey FowlerWe looked at the 1000 most popular iPhone apps that are likely to be used by children, and found that 2/3rds of them were collecting data about children— personal information, including their location— and sending it off to the advertising industry… By the time a child reaches 13, online advertising companies hold an average of 72 million data points about them. Each kid.Geoffrey Fowler Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph welcomes Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times investigative reporter, Eric Lipton, to give us the over/under on how professional sports in the U.S. is now part of a multibillion-dollar corporate gambling enterprise that can now even reach children. And before you buy toys for your loved ones this holiday season you need to hear our interview with Teresa Murray, director of U.S. PIRG’s Consumer Watchdog office, discussing their latest report on dangerous toys, entitled “Trouble in Toyland.”Eric Lipton is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and an investigative reporter for the New York Times. He traveled to Topeka, Kansas to report on lobbying and sports-betting legislation for the New York Times’ new series that examines how the sports-gambling industry has expanded in the US.The end goal for the sports betting industry is not sports betting. It’s actually something they call “iGaming”... They’re pushing states that have already adopted sports betting to move on now to iGaming. And we’ll see how successful they are, but already we have witnessed—just since 2018— the largest expansion of legalized gambling in United States history.Eric LiptonYeah, it’s true that many people bet on the side— college basketball or Super Bowl betting— that’s been around for so long. But with the institutionalization and the legalization now it’s become such a part of the enterprise of sports. It has fundamentally transformed the relationship we have with such an important part of our culture.Eric LiptonA major-league ballplayer is not going to strike out in a key game in order to collect some hidden gambling bets from their family or friends. But it’s terrible for appearances, and it’s fertile for suspicions— where you’re sitting there, watching, and you know that there are all kinds of endorsements and entanglements, and you say “Ah, he couldn’t have bungled that play! That was deliberate.” And so, there’s a stench that begins arising by people who suspect that this greed does penetrate the games. Ralph NaderTeresa Murray is a Consumer Watchdog with the US Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, and she directs US PIRG's Consumer Watchdog office, which looks out for consumers' health, safety and financial security. She is the primary author of “Trouble In Toyland 2022”, the Consumer Watchdog’s annual toy safety report.We have an increasing number of smart toys. Which, on some levels, can be good— maybe it keeps the kid’s interest, maybe there’s an educational value… The problems are when these toys are invading our children’s privacy, collecting information about them, maybe without the parents’ knowledge. And then in some cases the information can be used to market to the child, which is wrong. Or spy on the child, which is creepy. Or in some cases perhaps even stalk the child.Teresa MurrayFamilies should realize and remember that just because a toy is for sale, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily safe. It could be a recalled toy. It could be a counterfeit toy. Or it could be a toy that’s just not appropriate for your child.Teresa Murray Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph invites longtime colleague, Joan Claybrook, to the program to help him pay tribute to the work of the legendary, Michael Pertschuk, an individual responsible for an enormous amount of landmark, lifesaving consumer legislation. Then Steve and David interview Claire Nader about her book “You Are Your Own Best Teacher! Sparking the Curiosity, Imagination and Intellect of Tweens.” Plus, Ralph once again warns against falling for Medicare (Dis)Advantage.Joan Claybrook is one of the public interest champions of the modern consumer movement. She is president emeritus of Public Citizen. During the Carter Administration, Ms. Claybrook headed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Ms. Claybrook has testified frequently before congressional committees on many public interest issues, but with a particular focus on auto and highway safety.There is not anyone in this country who has not benefitted from what [Michael Pertschuk] did.Ralph Nader[Michael Pertschuk’s] strategies were brilliant because he figured out how to get people to work with him, as opposed to against him… And he did that beautifully. He was a charming guy. Very sweet, very smart, and he didn’t act like a “tough insider,” but he worked with people.Joan ClaybrookI think that every staffer and every member of Congress ought to read [When the Senate Worked for Us: The Invisible Role of Staffers in Countering Corporate Lobbies], because it shows how you can achieve a legislative goal and get things to the finish line, as opposed to just having hearings, or introducing bills, or voting on someone else's bill.Joan ClaybrookClaire Nader is a political scientist and author recognized for her work on the impact of science on society. She is an advocate for numerous causes at the local, national and international level. As the first social scientist working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, she joined pioneering initiatives in energy conservation and the multifaceted connections between science, technology and public policy. Her latest book is You Are Your Own Best Teacher! Sparking the Curiosity, Imagination and Intellect of Tweens.[Tweens] will tell you what’s on their mind, and you can’t help but notice that they have no ax to grind. And you’re asking yourself, as an adult “What is my ax?” And what’s the difference if you don’t have an ax to grind? Then you really focus on the problem, not any self-interest.Claire Nader, author of You Are Your Own Best Teacher! Sparking the Curiosity, Imagination and Intellect of TweensAARP comes across in its own promotion as a great consumer advocate for elderly people. But it was commercialized years ago. It’s a nonprofit, and in 2021 it made over $800 million in profits by working with the UnitedHealthcare corporation, selling royalties off the use of its name and trademarks, etc, and it pays its CEO $1.3 million a year.Ralph NaderAll this is to warn listeners if you know elderly people that are being swarmed over with these deceptive brochures – tens of millions of people have been receiving them for several weeks – tell them not to go into Medicare Advantage. It’s a snare and a delusion. And it’s a cruel surprise when you’re really sick, and you need to get those bills paid.Ralph Nader Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

On this week of Thanksgiving, Ralph welcomes two distinguished anti-war activists and Nobel Peace Prize nominees, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODE Pink to discuss her book “War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict” and David Swanson of World Beyond War to not only put the conflict in Ukraine in context but also to reveal the financial incentives that drive endless war.Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. Her most recent book, coauthored with Nicolas J.S. Davies, is War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict.I remember everybody was talking about the peace dividend: “Hey, the Soviet Union collapsed. Now, we can shrink the military budget. We can disarm more. We can put the money back into communities. We can rebuild and restore America’s public works— our so-called infrastructure.” We didn’t count on the profit motive of the determined, deliberate, limitless greed and power of the military industrial complex.Ralph NaderWe have a history of the US making coups in countries around the world. And it’s oftentimes decades after those coups that we find out the information about the extent of US involvement. That will be the case in [Ukraine] as well.Medea BenjaminWe are looking sector by sector about how to mobilize and put pressure on our Congress and directly on the White House. Because I think that it’s the only way that we, in this country, can use our influence. And we must do it.Medea BenjaminDavid Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, radio host and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He is executive director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. His books include War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War.When you see these videos contrasting “all the money going to Ukraine” and the homelessness problem and the poverty problem in the United States, we shouldn’t imagine this money as benefiting the people of Ukraine at the expense of benefiting the people of the United States. It’s exacerbating and prolonging a war that is devastating the people of Ukraine.David SwansonThey’ve made war something that involves no US lives— or very, very few, and not officially a US war—and they’ve made it all about assisting a “struggling little democracy” against a “brutal authoritarian dictatorship”. And it has been the most phenomenal propaganda success I can recall or have read about in history.David SwansonBruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law.  Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.NATO expansion only happened because the Senate ratified the inclusion of all of these new countries in amending the NATO treaty. So, Congress is a partner with the President in flouting the pledges to Gorbachev (at the time) against further NATO expansion east after the collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union. Just another example of congressional dereliction.Bruce Fein Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph welcomes back old friend and America’s Number One Populist, Jim Hightower to hash out a whole range of topics including what happened with Beto O’Rourke in the recent governor’s race in Texas, the battle between corporate Dems vs. progressive Dems and much, much more. Plus, Ralph warns again about falling for the relentless corporate pitch for Medicare (Dis)Advantage and gives us an update on the ongoing Boeing Max 8 litigation.Jim Hightower is a syndicated columnist, national radio commentator, and America’s Number One populist.  He has written many books including Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. Mr. Hightower is a board member of Public Citizen. He is also a founding member of Our Revolution, an organization inspired by the issues brought up in the Bernie Sanders campaign. Along with that, he writes a monthly newsletter called the Hightower Lowdown.Shakespeare said “First, kill all the lawyers,” but I think first, kill all the consultants.Jim Hightower[To see what’s gone wrong], you’ve got to go back… to when the Democratic Party didn’t just abandon Texas, they abandoned grassroots politics. They went with the money.Jim HightowerIf you don’t show up, you’re not gonna win. And we’re not going to win just by going to cities and the inner suburbs. Yes, we have to be strongly active there. Yes, we have to be totally committed to women’s right to control their own bodies. All of that is a given. But you’ve got to have something in addition to that.Jim HightowerRepublican attorneys general, Republican congressional leaders when they’re in charge, they use power. And they use it to change the structure of the system… And we tend to fumble around with it and say we’ve got to be cautious, we don’t want to offend anybody, and we need to pursue the law carefully. That’s why we have to have grassroots movements that build power at a local level.Jim Hightower Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Ralph invites political psychologist Dr. Drew Westen back to the program to give his analysis of what happened in the midterm elections. What the Dems did right and what they still do wrong. And we also welcome back labor journalist, Steve Early, co-author of “Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends, and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs.”Dr. Drew Westen  is a clinical, personality, and political psychologist and neuroscientist, and Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University. Dr. Westen is the author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation and is the founder of Westen Strategies, a strategic messaging consulting firm. He has advised a range of candidates and organizations, from presidential and congressional campaigns to major progressive organizations to the House and Senate Democratic Caucuses.Normally, within the first couple of years of a president’s administration, he’s usually picking up from where the last president left things— which is usually with a bad economy. And voters blame the new president for it, and that’s why you see these historic midterm effects where the party in power usually gets killed. And this time, the Democrats didn’t get killed. Let’s give them that first.Dr. Drew WestenDemocrats have trouble figuring out that if you just speak honestly as a populist, you can win anywhere… Because people know when they’re getting screwed. And they know when somebody has their back. And they know when someone is speaking honestly to them. Dr. Drew WestenAll politicians—with very few exceptions— flatter the voters. When do we say, “It’s the voter’s responsibility”? That they have exerted a wave of masochistic voting against their own interest?Ralph NaderSteve Early is a lawyer, organizer, union representative, and labor journalist. He is the author of Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City, and co-author, with Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven, of Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends, and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs.One of the great things about the VA is that a third of the VA caregiving workforce is veterans themselves. So you have this unique culture of solidarity and empathy, connection between patients and providers. You don’t find that at Kaiser, or Sutter, or UnitedHealth, or any of the other big for-profit or nonprofit healthcare chains. So this is a real national treasure that needs to be defended.Steve Early, author of Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends, and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe