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Nader In 1972: "Punish Corporate Crime!"
by Bob Feldman
The Independent Majority's 1996 [and 2008] presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, has been urging the federal government to punish U.S. corporate criminals and reduce U.S. corporate power for many years. In the 1972 book "Nader: The People's Lawyer" by Robert Buckhorn, for example, Nader observed:
"I don't know of any horde of hippies or yippies who have managed to smog New York City or contaminate the Gulf of Mexico. But I know companies that have done that. Consolidated Edison smogged New York. Chevron Oil dumped hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico with impunity until the law finally came down on it, then only with a $1 million fine--the equivalent of about one hour's gross revenues of Chevron's parent company, Standard Oil...
"...Corporate crime should be punished, but it isn't, because we have not been conditioned to think in terms of curbing corporate power or punishing it for excesses. There is a corporate crime wave in this country of unprecedented proportions, but if you look at the FBI crime statistics, what do you see? Have you ever seen a company on the `Ten Most Wanted' list? Do you ever see statistics as to how much corporations stole from consumers?
"My job is to try to bring these issues out in the open where they cannot be ignored. The only real defeat is giving up, just as the only real aging is the erosion of one's ideals."
(Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 4/10/96)