The observant reader may have noted that this newsletter is not exactly a Ralph Nader fan. So we might be expected to rejoice over a new book by his former staffer D. Sanford (Me and Ralph: Is Nader Unsafe for America? New Republic, $v.95), but we are a little disappointed. We are not interested in Ralph's love life or his alleged $80,000 house. Our quarrel with Nader involves a hundred issues, not all of them nuclear, and what underlies them a11 is this: The man who masquerades as a consumer advocate would destroy the system where the consumer is king by voting with his dollars, and replace it by planning boards of "Consumer Advocates" who legislate, regulate, regiment and redistribute.
Apart from his dictatorial goals, we don't like his dictatorial methods, nor those of his corporate empire of PIRGs, Public Citizens, Critical Masses and whatnots. No Standard Oil or General Motors has ever used the type of vicious bullying to reach into college students' pockets that Nader, by Sanford's account, used at Penn State (and other universities). No corporation has ever been more oblivious to human lives and health than Critical Mass with its hounding of the safest folly of power generation while ignoring the hazards of its alternatives.
Now Nader has embarked on a new bullying venture. He has sued columnist Ralph de Toledano for $1,005,000 damages for a sentence in which Toledano invokes a US Senate document to charge that Nader falsified and distorted evidence to make his case against the automobile.
On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with Nader's suit. If the charge was false, Nader was libeled and will collect; if it was true, Toledano will be acquitted and Nader, in most peoples' eyes, will be branded a liar.
On the face of it. But Sen. Fannin (Ariz.), in his statement "Nader vs. the Freedom of the Press" (Congr. n avalanche of facts supporting Toledano's charge and repeating it on his own behalf, exposing the real reason for Nader's suit: "The only conceivable explanation for the libel action is that Nader is attempting ... to muzzle a consistent critic."
Such a procedure would not be open to an ordinary citizen, of course. But corporate king Nader, with an annual income of $250,000 (AP estimate), with his batteries of lawyers and his staff in the hundreds, has the power to bleed Toledano white: Toledano is not a wealthy man and does not have the $60,000 up that it would cost to expose Nader in court.
The First Amendment is being mocked by an abuse of economic power of the very kind that the bogus consumer advocate pretends to oppose.
Don't let him get away with it. Please contribute to the Ralph de Toledano Legal Defense Fund, 2121 P Street, N.W., Suite 220, Washington, DC 20037.
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Vol. 4, No. 1
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 4 Issue/No.: Vol. 4, No. 1 Date: September 01, 1976 12:19 PM (For actual publication date see newsletter.) Title: Abuse of Corporate Power
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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