How The Corporations Broke Ralph Nader And America, Too

by Chris Hedges from Counter Currents. This ruling class will always destroy anybody who gets in their way of accumulating profits in spite of the fact that this pursuit is ultimately against the public's interest. Nader is only one of many who have recently been destroyed as political figures. If the ruling class can't co-opt them, they remove them one way or another. Nader was, and is, not against the capitalist system--he only wants it to function more honestly and somewhat more in the public interest. Since he could not be co-opted and wasn't a basic threat to the system, he was only marginalized. People like Martin Luther King were assassinated. The capitalist system is simply not designed to function for the public benefit, and Nader doesn't seem to understand that.  The ruling class has on occasion provided a few crumbs for workers, but only under the threat to their system as when, for example, the New Deal was brought out during the 1930s to stifle growing radical dissent.

Ralph Nader’s descent from being one of the most respected and powerful men in the country to being a pariah illustrates the totality of the corporate coup. Nader’s marginalization was not accidental. It was orchestrated to thwart the legislation that Nader and his allies—who once consisted of many in the Democratic Party—enacted to prevent corporate abuse, fraud and control. He was targeted to be destroyed. And by the time he was shut out of the political process with the election of Ronald Reagan, the government was in the hands of corporations. Nader’s fate mirrors our own.