1 Boring Old Man

In regards to the 2000 election, the short answer is this:
the reality [and you can know this for yourself if you see http://www.anunreasonableman.com is that
gore threw the race in ‘00 at least 3 times:
1.] when, at the beginning of his campaign, he and lieberman stopped trying to say things that the people wanted to hear because their corporate paymasters yanked their leash [see “crashing the party” by ralph nader]
2.] gore now ADMITS that he didn’t try hard enough to contest the voting irregularities
3.] if you see michael moore’s FAHRENHEIT 9/11, you can see with your own eyes Al Gore shouting down the congressional black caucus’ attempt to question the voting irregularities on a ‘point of order’ which is like saying that, if i mug you, you can’t yell for help if we are in a ‘quiet hospital zone’.
Besides, there were a total of six third party candidates, all of whom got more than the # of votes that gore ‘lost’ by, so why blame nader?
the dems blaming nader for their losses is like a hooker blaming their v.d. on mother theresa…!

I mean, the democrats wanted the biggest job in the world and blamed their mistakes and losses on the man who gave us the EPA, OSHA, the freedom of information act, and so much more? it’s just baloney…

Ralph Nader did all that? Methinks not. He got GM to kill off a perfectly reasonable automobile and has ridden it to an utterly derivative, ignoble and clownish conclusion including the disingenuous and damaging dabbling in Realpolitik. P.T. Barnum had enough sense to stay the heck away from the honest business of the country. Would that Mr. Nader been a bit less self-possessed these last 4 decades. But, like the bard said “all the world’s a stage”.

The fact is that many people were dying and being needlessly hurt and maimed, the great Ernie Kovacs among them, in accidents that were caused by the Corvair’s design faults! This does not indicate small ‘problems’. And detroit didn’t try to fix things; they didn’t thank Nader… they sent detectives after him to try to discredit him! They weren’t interested in innovation; they were building junk and they knew it. See and read “Unsafe At Any Speed.”
You should be thanking this great American; your anger is misplaced.

…if you look at the dvd of “An Unreasonable Man,” it quite clearly states that Mr. Nader became interested in auto safety when a law school friend of his, who had a wife and 4 kids at the age of 28, was in an accident that caused him to become a paraplegic. He was a trailblazer with his 1959 article for the Nation magazine about the designed-in dangers of automobiles. This was a totally novel topic at the time since these machines were basically being sold as part of the American Dream. At that time, he did not single out any particular vehicle, but instead wrote: “…Almost no feature of the interior design of our current cars provides safeguards against injury in the event of collision.” He gave specifics about “…doors that fly open on impact, inadequately secured seats, the sharp-edged rear-view mirror, pointed knobs on instrument panels and doors, flying glass, the overhead structure–all illustrate the lethal potential of poor design.”

He went on to write about a safer alternative that had been tested:
“… the car body was strengthened… doors were secured…occupants were secured… interior knobs, projections, sharp edges and hard surfaces have been removed and the ceiling shaped to produce only glancing blows to the head…the driver’s environment was improved to reduce accident risk by increasing visibility, simplifying controls and instruments, and lowering the carbon monoxide of his breathing atmosphere…”

He also wrote about changes that increased pedestrian safety as well. This was a totally novel topic at the time. In fact, Henry Ford II put a safety package option in their cars in 1955-56. It had seat belts and a padded dash, etc and was extremely popular with the public. But then, General Motors called up Mr. Ford and said that if they didn’t stop it they would undercut Ford and put them out of business; Ford decided to drop the safety package! The reason for this was that car companies did not want the Federal Government to tell them how to build cars because, they feared, then they would tell them about mileage and pollution control… that was an easy sell in Detroit! That meant more to the executives than the lives and safety of the public. This is all documented in An Unreasonable Man.

the car manufacturers could not keep up with the demand for the safety features; they made the decision not to continue due to pressure from General Motors and fear of further government control, rather than caring about the consumer and the environment. Furthermore, the car makers tried to blame the accident’s on the “nut behind the wheel,” and tried to abdicate any responsibility in the midst of all this! The engineers, who Nader used to interview in secret, admitted that they knew all along that they were building junk!

… Nader originally gave the story about the problems of U.S. cars to James Ridgeway at the New Republic who wrote an article on car design and public safety which, among other things, stated that this car that was being marketed to the general public was “…inherently dangerous…” When publisher Richard Grossman called him up and wanted a book, it was Ridgeway who said that Nader was the man to write it as he knew more “… than any other 10 people in the world on the subject of auto safety…”

This was not a popular subject at the time. He took the idea of the “nut behind the wheel” and revealed the truth that cars that were being built were unsafe.

…if you read “Unsafe at any Speed,” one of the things that stands out is, on page 7, the testimony that dealers of the Corvair were *never* instructed to tell the public that tire pressures were crucial to safety. He goes on to write on page 33, “…The car was built and sold as ‘easy handling’, as a family sedan, ‘as a car that ‘purrs for the girls,…”. Although other cars were unsafe, it is the marketing of the Corvair that seems to make it’s safety issues that much more deadly!

Nader cannot be called a politician in the sense that we typically use the word. When the book first came out, GM sent detectives to try to discredit him and actually sent hookers after him to try to get him in a compromising position that would discredit him. How many “politicians” could stand up to that? This was proven in a lawsuit that Nader won and what did he do with his money? He did not “… go to Disneyland…”… he used it to start his campaign “…for the people…”.

Also, if you see “An Unreasonable Man,” you will see, among other things, some of the laws Mr. Nader is responsible for e.g. The Freedom of Information Act, OSHA, The EPA, the clean air act, the clean water act… he is estimated to have saved over 500,000 lives just from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Act that LBJ signed and that Nader was responsible for. In short, this is one of the greatest friends the American people have had for the last half century… but the human race is famous for not knowing who their friends are.

I feel no sympathy for the car companies and the argument that Nader’s work inhibited innovation or safety is simply not borne out by the facts; it was, in fact, the greed and short-sightedness of the auto executives!

In fact, your post sounds very much like the testimony before congress of J.F Gordon, the head of GM in 1961, who said:
“The traffic safety field has in recent years been particularly beset by self-styled experts with radical and ill-conceived proposals…The general thesis of these amateur engineers is that cars could be made virtually foolproof and crashproof, that this is the only practical route to greater safety and that federal regulation of vehicle safety is needed. This thesis, of course, is wholly unrealistic. It also is a serious threat to a balanced approach to traffic safety. To begin with, it is completely unrealistic even to talk about a foolproof and crashproof car…” [unsafe at any speedk, pps 3-4]

“Mrs. Rose Pierini did not read about Mr. Gordon’s complaints. She was learning to adjust to the loss of her left arm which was severed two months earlier when the 1961 Chevrolet Corvair she was driving turned over on its top…GM decided to pay Mrs. Pierini $70,000 rather than continue a trial which for three days threatened to expose on the public record one of the greatest acts of industrial irresponsibility in the present century.” [pp4-5]

As decribed by a CA Highway Patrol officer, John Bortolozzo, who witnessed the flip-over… the … vehicle was travelling about 35 mph in a 35 mph zone in the right lane…He saw the car move towards the right side of the raod near the shoulder and then ‘all of a sudden the vehicle made a sharp cut to the left and swerved over’…[he] testified at the trial that he rushed over to the wreck and saw an arm with a wedding band and wristwatch lying on the ground…two other men came over and tried to stop the torrent of blood…she was very calm…only saying that ‘something went wrong with my steering.’”

“After helping Mrs Pierini to the ambulance, the officer made a check of the vehicle wihile it was on its top. He noticed that the left rear tire was deflated because of an air-out. Looking at the road, he noticed some gouge marks made by the metal rim of the left rear tire. he gave his opinion at the trial that the distinctive design features of the Corvair caused it to go out of control and flip over as had other Corvairs in accidents he had investigated. It was during cross-examination of Officer Bortolozzo by defense lawyers that Gm decided to settle the case.” [pp 5-6]

Mr. Nader goes on to cite how the dealers and service managers were never instructed to tell the public that tire pressures were critical.

Again, this does not indicate that there were ‘no problems…”Sure, the Corvair was popular due to its being a “…waterless wonder…”; the first modern American auto to offer a swing-axle independent rear suspension with an aluminum, air-cooled rear mounted engine; however, by 1963, only 4 years after its introduction to the unsuspecting public, sports car racer and writer Denise mcCluggage could begin an article on Corvair handling idiosyncrasies with woulds that assumed a knowing familiarity by her auto buff readers: “Seen any Corvairs lately with the back end smashed in? Chances are they weren’t run into, but rather ran into something while going backwards. And not in reverse gear either.” [p. 10]

“Hardly had the first Corvair hith the highway…before a … company in Riverside, CA, EMPI, …developed, tested and began to sell an accessory rear stabilizer…that was specially designed… to help keep the wheels in … contact with the road…” [p11]

Sports Car Illustrated…in 1961… took note of the “irrefutable evidence that the EMPI [device] does indeed do much to reduce oversteer and smooth out the unstable rear-end breakaway.” [p 11]

Ocee Ritch, a well-known CA auto specialist who had tested and treated almost every Corvair line [36 through 1963] states that the camber compensator ‘limits positive camber [tuck under of the rear wheels] to a great extent and changes weight transfer characteristics of the car. [p 12]

The veteran ‘car doctor’, Bill Corey, working out of his shop in Pasedena, CA, has diagnosed the Corvair’s ills and puts the ‘raw’ vehicle through an improvement course; then he sells it as the ‘corey corvair’. In addition to the …’Corvairs unconventional handling to say the least;, he recommends stronger shock absorbers and higher quality tires than those offered to the ordinary purchaser.” [p 13]

John Fitch, formerly a highly successful racing driver and consultant to General Motors [!!!!]…made it clear…’i did want to feel more confident when behind the wheel that the car would go where i pointed it.’ [ p14]

for the complete story, i suggest that people read “Unsafe at Any Speed” by Ralph Nader… but it is easy to see that he neither was alone in his analysis, nor “not an educated engineer and the main >flaw with his analysis of the design was it does not conform to the laws of >physics.”
Try citing facts before you attack someone as well-documented as Ralph Nader.

I think I’ll rest my case instead.

with all due respect, there is more to the story of Ralph Nader than what you “methink”

this is from “On The Issues” http://www.ontheissues.org/Nader_Reader.htm

Since 1996, when Nader made his first presidential run, people have considered Nader a political figure. But in fact that is not the focus of his career — his actual focus has been as a consumer advocate and legal activist. His long list of accomplishments include:
1965: Published “Unsafe at Any Speed”, about GM’s Corvair, and started the movement for auto safety which resulted in seat belts & airbags, as well as the establishment of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
1966: Coined the phrase “Corporate Welfare” and started the movement to address the issue.
1971: Founded “Public Citizen” (the formal name for his group nicknamed “Nader’s Raiders”), an umbrella organization of groups working on consumer rights and government corruption. Nader’s organizations are credited with establishing:
The Safe Drinking Water Act
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission
1980: Founded Multinational Monitor, a magazine covering multinational corporations
1993: Founded the Appleseed Foundation, a funding organization to assist with local change and activism.
2000: Published “Crashing the Party”, about how the two-party system quashes outside opinions and candidates.