Ralph Nader's claim "#Capitalism will always survive, because #socialism will be there to save it" is the perfect punchline to the greatest economic joke: capitalism in its purest, most Darwinian form should've self-destructed a thousand times over. Yet every time it teeters on the brink, who comes to the rescue? The very socialist principles its champions claim to despise.
Banks collapse under the weight of their own greed? Socialize the losses with a taxpayer bailout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzKSu_Ir6uU&pp=ygUNZGVtb2NyYWN5IG5vdw%3D%3D
'A Declaratio of War Against the American People' #RalphNader on Trump's Address to Congress
American businesses starting to feel Musk poison
https://nader.org/2025/02/15/trump-musk-dictatorship-is-galvanizing-the-american-peoples-resistance/
Now in College, #LudditeTeens Still Don’t Want Your Likes
Three years after starting a club meant to fight #SocialMedia’s grip on young people, many original members are holding firm and gaining new converts.
By Alex Vadukul
Jan. 30, 2025
"Biruk Watling, a college sophomore wearing a baggy coat and purple fingerless gloves, walked the chilly campus of Temple University in #Philadelphia on a recent afternoon to recruit new members to her club.
She taped a flier to a pole: '#JoinTheLudditeClub For #MeaningfulConnections.' Down the block, she posted another one: 'Do You Desire a Healthier Relationship With Technology, Especially Social Media? The Luddite Club Welcomes You and Your Ideas.'
"When a student approached, Ms. Watling dove into her pitch.
"'Our club promotes #ConsciousConsumption of #technology,' she said. 'We’re for #HumanConnection. I’m one of the first members of the original Luddite Club in #Brooklyn. Now I’m trying to start it in #Philly.
"She pulled out a #FlipPhone, mystifying her recruit.
"'We use these,' she said. 'This has been the most freeing experience of my life.'
If Ms. Watling had a missionary’s zeal, it was because she wasn’t just promoting a student club, but an approach to modern life that profoundly changed her two years ago, when she helped form the Luddite Club as a high school student in New York.
"But that was then, back when things were simpler, before she had embarked on the more independent life of a college student and found herself having to navigate QR codes, two-factor-identification logins, dating apps and other digital staples of campus life.
"The #LudditeClub was the subject of an article I wrote in 2022 — a story that, ironically, went viral. It told of how a group of teenage tech skeptics from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn and a few other schools in the city gathered on weekends in Prospect Park to enjoy some time together away from the machine.
"They #sketched and #painted side by side. They read quietly, favoring works by #Dostoyevsky, #Kerouac and #Vonnegut. They sat on logs and groused about how #TikTok was dumbing down their generation. Their flip phones were decorated with stickers and nail polish.
"Readers inspired by their message responded in hundreds of emails and comments. Reporters from Germany, Brazil, Japan and elsewhere flooded my inbox, asking me how to reach these students who were so hard to track down online. Snarky Reddit threads and think pieces sprouted. #RalphNader endorsed the club in an opinion essay, writing: 'This is a rebellion that needs support and diffusion.'"
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/style/luddite-teens-reunion.html
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/
#SolarPunkSunday #Nature #NeoLuddite #Luddites #LessScreenTime #MoreBoardGames #MoreGreenTime #MoreOutdoorTime #FlipPhones #MoreBooks #ResistTheMachine
The Cybertruck Appears to Be More Deadly Than the Infamous Ford Pinto, According to a New Analysis
https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-ford-pinto-comparison
"He was the last president to actively encourage participation and involvement in governmental processes by the progressive civil community"
#Carter "brought the best out of people," Nader says, while " #Trump brings the worst out of people."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14X4yaO9rJY
'Sabotaged by His Own Party': #RalphNader on Carter's Legacy
With Trump returning, it's time to prepare:
- Civil servants should get ahead of Trump’s unqualified appointees.
- Protesters need to watch for infiltrators who could incite violence.
- Trump will create fake threats to keep his base loyal and push extreme policies.
- Expect him to focus on tax cuts for the rich, military spending, and backing Israeli policies.
- Progressive groups must organize across all government branches to fight back.
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/need-for-anticipatory-strategies-for-oncoming-trumpism/
gm,
Trump is a scumbag. Democrats aren't much better.
For example Obama put Wall Street guys in charge after the crash. They all made bank. He should have never let the insurance companies help him write Obamacare.
And now the slaughter of Palestinians.
Look at what the Tea Party accomplished. We the people need to create a movement. The platform shouldn't be TDS. Democrats did that the past 9 years.
It should be what Bernie and Ralph Nader talk about.
@JdeB Interesting, at 4:45, the subtitles say "An idea that has now been championed by liberals interested in working within the system for change, like #RalphNader...." yet his name is not mentioned in the audio, which is odd, and the audio has definitely been clipped. Not sure why you would leave that out, unless it is wrong?
Also - wtf, #Nespresso is a #BCorp??? #GreenWashing
Depressing, but interesting.
@arrrg Tune into #RalphNader or #WilliamBarber They bring this up every day for years #WhatLiberalMedia ignore them just as they ignore all poor and low wealth people. Millions of us.
[#Podcast] #LawAndDisorder, September 9, 2024
#September11, 2001: Lessons Learned And Overlooked
"It has been 23 years ago this week since the attacks on September 11, 2001 in New York City, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring more than 6,000. On that day, the United States had a choice: The #GeorgeWBush administration could have treated the attacks as a violation of US and international law, launched a criminal investigation, and brought the perpetrators to justice in accordance with the rule of law. Instead, President Bush waged #EndlessWars against #Afghanistan and #Iraq, pushed through Congress the USA #PatriotAct, opened the notorious detention center at #GuantanamoBay which remain to this day, rounded up Muslims and South Asians for #IndefiniteDetention, initiated a wave of #CivilLiberties and #HumanRights violations, and committed wholesale torture against detainees and others.
"To assess the legacy of 9/11 and the lessons learned and the lessons overlooked, we’ve invited someone who was at the center of Bush’s #WarOnTerror. John Kiriakou is a journalist, former CIA counterterrorism officer, former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former counterterrorism consultant for ABC News.
"In 2007, Kiriakou blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program, telling ABC News that the #CIA tortured prisoners, that torture was official U.S. government policy, and that the policy had been approved by President George W. Bush. He knew what he was talking about. In 2002, he was responsible for the capture in Pakistan of #AbuZubaydah, then believed to be the third-ranking official in al-Qaeda.
"He became the sixth #whistleblower indicted by the #Obama administration under the #EspionageAct of 1917 — a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his revelations.
"In 2012, the #RalphNader family honored #Kiriakou with the Joe A. Callaway Award for #CivicCourage, an award given to individuals who 'advance truth and justice despite the personal risk it creates.' He won the PEN Center USA’s prestigious First Amendment Award in 2015, the first Blueprint International Whistleblowing Prize for Bravery and Integrity in the Public Interest in 2016, and also in 2016 the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence, given by retired CIA, FBI, and NSA officers."
Listen:
https://lawanddisorder.org/category/criminalizing-dissent/
#CIASponsoredTerror #CivilRights, #CriminalizingDissent #ExtraordinaryRendition #FreeSpeech #HumanRights #IraqWar #BushAdministraiton #HumanRights #HumanRightsViolation #TargetingMuslims #Torture #WarResister #Whistleblowers #CivilLiberties #CivilLibertiesRadio #EndlessWar
As usual #RalphNader makes great points about the #Democratic Party's idiocy. Harris refused to campaign with Sanders and stood instead with Cheney, to appeal, as Clinton had, to a nonexistent constituency. Corporate oligarchy controls both major parties.
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/6/ralph_nader_on_trumps_win
/1 critical reading
R. Nader 2024
Ralph Nader: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader
Let’s Start the Revolution. Tools for Displacing the Corporate State & Building a Country that Works for the People
https://nader.org/books/lets-start-the-revolution
Out of Darkness
https://nader.org/books/out-of-darkness/
Peter Phillips 2024
Project Censored >> Media Freedom Foundation >> Peter Phillips: https://www.projectcensored.org/who-we-are
Titans of Capital: How Concentrated Wealth Threatens Humanity
https://www.project-censored.org/shop/p/titans-of-capital-peter-phillips
Let’s Start a Revolution; Usurping the Titans of Capital
https://www.projectcensored.org/start-revolution-usurping-titans-capital
* podcast ft. Ralph Nader, Peter Phillips re: latest books
* iconic consumer/civil rights activist/author Ralph Nader
* need to
dismantle corporate state
boost civic engagement f. grassroots up
demand dark money/billionaires be driven of political system
How Concentrated Wealth Threatens Humanity
@aaron.rupar #ChrisMurphey is almost right. Poor people are not voting for Dems because they aren’t motivated. Listen to #RalphNader or #WilliamBarber tell it like it is. Millions of possible voters are ignored by think tanks and the consulting class #WhatOppositionParty
"This Is a Collapse of the #DemocraticParty": #RalphNader on Roots of #DonaldTrump's Win Over #KamalaHarris.
More from #DemocracyNow's interview with #RalphNader:
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph? Ralph, let me ask you. For the #progressive movement now, as it faces the return of Donald #Trump, what do you think are the next steps in terms of #resistance or reorganization that have to occur?
RALPH NADER: Well, it’s got to be focused on #Congress. The House is not yet resolved, but only Congress can stop the #Trumpsters. It isn’t just Trump. Trump is a figurehead. Trump is a bullhorn. It’s the Trumpsters. It’s the #HeritageFoundation. It’s [#Project2025]. It’s the takeover of departments that are dedicated to standing up for the people, the environmental protection bureau [#EPA], the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [#CFPB], the #AutoSafety bureau [I'll bet Trump puts Elon in charge of that], the Federal Trade Commission [#FTC], the Justice Department. These are all going to be turned into virulent, vengeful or inactive governments. They want to destroy the civil service, bring it back to the spoils system. We’re in for huge turmoil. One can say that the election yesterday really elected #PresidentVance. Trump is not going to last. He’s going to disintegrate. And #Vance is in a position to become the next president.
So, what has to be done, Juan, is massive focus on Congress, which is the main constitutionally authorized lever to hold the executive branch #accountable, build for 2026. The Democrats will have far fewer people up for the Senate than the Republicans, unlike this year.
And they’ve got to stop blasting away at people who want to challenge the #DemocraticParty. The party says to everybody on their side, “You know how bad the Republicans are? You got nowhere to go.” They spent a lot of money attacking the #GreenParty, the tiny Green Party, instead of listening to William Barber, Reverend William Barber, who said, “Look, there’s 80 million people who aren’t going to vote. A lot of them are low-wage workers. If you get 15% of low-wage workers who aren’t voting to go to the polls, the Democrats would have won.” They didn’t listen to him. They didn’t listen to all the citizen groups who know how to talk to people, not just liberal patients or liberal workers, but conservative workers, conservative patients. Remember, a vast majority of this country wants to tax the undertaxed #wealthy and the #corporations. They want to break up the #BigBanks. And above all, in poll after poll, they say that corporations have too much control over their lives. Sherrod Brown pulled in his horns and lost. #BernieSanders campaigned on corporate power, and he won in a landslide in Vermont. And Harris refused to campaign with Bernie Sanders, but she campaigned in several states with #LizCheney of the criminal Cheney family and the invasion of #Iraq that killed over a million Iraqis.
So the blunders were endless. And it was basically turning her back on the progressive and the genuine populist constituency in this country. And Bernie, of course, supported Harris, but his positions were rejected constantly. He said, “Get the living wage up. Get universal healthcare up. Crack down on corporate crooks. Increase Social Security benefits that have been frozen for over 50 years. And get the taxation on the wealthy.” She ignored all that. Just throwaway lines.
OUCH!
Read more:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/6/ralph_nader_on_trumps_win
