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Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Ralph Nader Radio Hour

By: Ralph Nader
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Ralph Nader talks about what’s happening in America, what’s happening around the world, and most importantly what’s happening underneath it all.

www.ralphnaderradiohour.comRalph Nader Political Science Politics & Government
Episodes
  • A Progressive Compact for America

    A Progressive Compact for America
    Jun 20 2026
    Ralph welcomes political consultant and pollster, Celinda Lake, to outline a ten-point Progressive Contract for America that she and Ralph believe – if adopted by Democratic candidates— will ensure they landslide the Republicans in the midterms. Then, Ben Cohen stops by to fill us in on his “Free Ben & Jerry!” campaign to take back the brand from the conglomerate that no longer retains the social justice values of their original company. Plus, Marine Corp veteran, Matthew Hoh, tells us about the provocative speech he made on Veterans Day entitled “Armistice Day and the Empire.”Celinda Lake is a political strategist and president of Lake Research Partners. She and her firm are known for cutting-edge research on issues including the economy, health care, the environment and education, and have worked for a number of institutions including the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Governor’s Association, AFL-CIO, SEIU, CWA, Sierra Club, NARAL, Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, VoteVets Action Fund, and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Her international work has included work in Liberia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus Ukraine, South Africa, and Central America.I think [a Compact for America] is a really, really, really important idea, and it’s absolutely essential to winning…And it should include concrete economic proposals. And it is noticeable that the two people who won governorships in 2025—Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill—both had contracts with their voters.Celinda LakeDemocrats need to lay out ten concrete proposals and run on them. We have the critique of what’s going on. We understand what’s happening in real people’s lives. The third leg of the stool is offering our alternative—and a concrete alternative that people can pass on to their friends and family, that people can hold us accountable for. And the last of the ten proposals in the contract needs to be something about campaign finance reform. We have to get corporate money out of politics, or our system will continue to be rigged against us and rotting from the middle.Celinda LakeBen Cohen is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and longtime anti-war activist. He is a co-founder of the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s and a prominent supporter of progressive causes. He is co-founder of Up In Arms, a public education and advocacy campaign pushing for a common-sense approach to military budgeting.What’s happened is that the company recently got owned by the Magnum Corporation, and the Magnum Corporation has disbanded that independent board of directors. I mean, it’s kind of a crazy, stupid move because it’s under that independent board (which has legal authority over the social mission and the quality of the product and the use of the trademark) it’s under that independent board that the company has grown and done so well. But they’ve gotten rid of the independent board.Ben CohenWhen Ben & Jerry’s was in the midst of trying to fend off this acquisition, there were some new laws that were passed in Vermont that allowed a consideration of the benefit of the community with regard to a potential sale. And after the sale happened, B Corporation started. And I’ve talked with the founder of B Corp, and he was saying that one of the inspirations for starting B Corporations was what happened to Ben & Jerry’s. So B Corporations are a different legal structure for corporations which requires them to take into account the social benefit to the community and legally makes it easier to resist these efforts to have the company taken over.Ben CohenMatthew Hoh is a disabled Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War and former Afghan War State Department Officer. In 2009, after being appointed to the Foreign Service, Hoh resigned his post in Afghanistan over the Obama administration’s escalation of the Afghan War. He is now an analyst and commentator on foreign and military policy issues as a senior fellow with the Eisenhower Media Network. He serves on the advisory boards of many peace organizations, including Veterans for Peace and World Beyond War, and is an associate member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.The United States recognized Armistice Day as a holiday until after the Second World War. And then in the height of the Cold War in the early 1950s, this idea of a holiday dedicated to peace, a holiday dedicated to the abrogation of warfare, a holiday that exposed just how false the motives for war are—oh that was incredibly troublesome. That was very problematic for the American empire (again, at the height of the Cold War). So there was this campaign to rename Armistice Day to Veterans Day. And this way, it became not a remembrance of the horrors of war, of what war entailed, of who profited from war. But rather a celebration of American veterans, that they have won freedoms, they have protected us from overseas enemies—and utilizing veterans, then, as a tool to crush dissent, to ...
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    1 hr and 44 mins
  • Leo XIV on AI / SOS C.S.B.

    Leo XIV on AI / SOS C.S.B.
    Jun 13 2026
    Ralph talks to journalist and M.Div. Chris Hedges about Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on artificial intelligence. Then, Ralph speaks with Rick Engler (former member of the US Chemical Safety and Hazards Investigation Board) about Trump's proposed closing of that agency. Finally, Ralph pays tribute to some recently departed friends.Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He is the host of The Chris Hedges Report, and he is a prolific author— his latest book is A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine.I think that Pope Leo kind of missed the point of AI. In that he describes that it could be a positive force for Catholic education (these are his words), compassionate health care, creative platforms that tell the Christian story with truth and beauty. I think those were all indications to me that he didn’t quite understand what AI is about. It’s not about education, it’s not about compassion, it’s not about truth, and it’s not about beauty. It is a very pernicious force that will go beyond, of course, replacing all sorts of labor, but creating a world where fact and fiction are blurred together.Chris HedgesI think that mass organization is kind of all we have left as we barrel towards an authoritarian state. Congress doesn’t function, certainly doesn’t function as Congress was designed to function. They have surrendered their traditional constitutional authority, including, of course, the call for Congress to declare war. And this kind of unitary executive branch—this was put into place, by the way, before Trump. He’s just taken advantage of it…And I think that it’s absolutely fundamental that we recapture that kind of militancy, that kind of organized workforce that has traditionally throughout our history been such an important corrective to democracy—along with, of course, journalism.Chris HedgesRick Engler is a former U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board member and labor advocate who founded the New Jersey Work Environment Council. He has advocated for successful landmark state and national public policies that ensure workers and the public’s “right to know” about potential chemical dangers, and that promote safer processes, chemical incident prevention, and whistleblower protection.The CSB is unique. I mean, nobody would think of abolishing the National Transportation Safety Board. And no one should think about abolishing the Chemical Safety Board, which does the same thing. It’s not about issuing, in this case, fines or violations. It’s about trying to understand the underlying causes of what led to these incidents.Rick Engler[Trump’s allies] have a certain religious fervor about this. When I talk to plant managers, the plant managers of the corporations are much more careful and nuanced in most cases. They don’t want their own plants to explode. But somewhere at the higher corporate levels, I think they’re just willing to take the risks that the tradeoff for them is: Trump is supporting them in so many ways, why interfere? Why become part of some nuanced opposition to the most extreme EPA attacks? But I do think the elimination of the CSB is driven by the Trump administration in a way that wouldn’t be happening if it was just left to the chemical industry trade associations alone. I’m not sure that’s an adequate answer. I’m actually kind of puzzled by it. Because it’s also really clear that if there was any one major incident, it would cost so much money—not only in the human tragedy of the lives lost and neighbors harmed and evacuations and shelter-in-place and property damage, but these incidents destroy facilities.Rick EnglerNews 6/12/26* Our top stories this week come to us from California, where, after an excruciatingly protracted wait, authorities have finally called some of the most high-profile races. In Los Angeles, Democratic Socialist City Councilwoman Nithya Raman has secured the second slot in the mayoral race, beating out reactionary former reality television star Spencer Pratt, PBS reports. Pratt garnered significant attention from conservative media for his slick AI-generated ads and his false claims about living in an airstream trailer after his LA home burned down in the recent fires. In actuality, he was living in the posh Bel Air hotel, billed as a campaign expense, per TMZ. Now the question becomes whether or not Raman will be able to expand her coalition to unseat incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in November.* If Raman’s victory is the good news however, the bad news is that Trump-endorsed Republican Steve Hilton will advance in the gubernatorial race. He will face off against former California Attorney General and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who has accepted large campaign contributions from the California Association of ...
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    1 hr and 33 mins
  • AI Backlash

    AI Backlash
    Jun 6 2026
    In a program devoted to the topic of AI, Ralph welcomes first, Tyson Slocum, director of the energy group at Public Citizen, who tells us about the local backlash against the construction of data centers. Then New York Times climate writer, David Wallace-Wells, explains how the Big Tech CEOs did not count on human beings possibly rising up against them and their machines.Tyson Slocum is director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, covering the regulation of petroleum, natural gas and power markets. He serves on the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s “Energy & Environmental Markets Advisory Committee,” and frequently intervenes before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) representing the interests of household consumers.The basic question is they (Big Tech companies) are developing essentially governmental powers— governmental powers— not market powers or corporate powers. They’ve reached a level now where they are our government, the corporate government. And we have to escalate our urgencies to that level. It’s more than just the hour is late. The hour is over. So we have to go back and respond with a completely unprecedented level of public interest, standards, etc., including whether this technology (AI) should be allowed at all.Ralph NaderI definitely see that we are in a speculative bubble. That bubble will burst. And folks within the AI industry, like Sam Altman, have been very clear where they have publicly said, when the bubble breaks, we expect to get a financial bailout because our AI applications are so important to the national interest.Tyson SlocumAnd the backlash to data centers isn’t just about, oh, I’m concerned about my power rates going up or I’m concerned about the noise or the water usage. It’s also a civil rights and human rights issue where people are saying, I don’t like this vision that Big Tech is laying out for us that is going to be produced in this building down the street from our community.Tyson SlocumDavid Wallace-Wells is a columnist and staff writer at the New York Times, where he writes a weekly newsletter on climate change, technology, and the future of the planet. He is the author of the book, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. His recent feature in the New York Times Magazine is “AI Populism is Here. And No One is Ready.”Just over the last six months, there’s been a huge surge in anti-AI and in particular anti-data center organizing and activism in the U.S. And you can see that on the ground where you see huge crowds coming to town halls to protest new data centers that are being proposed. You see some towns that have approved those data centers literally having their entire city council voted out of office as a result. And you see it in these surveys where within the span of just a few months. Huge sentiment flips among the American public from being basically agnostic about AI with some misgivings and some optimism to pretty striking majority opposition to the technology and the infrastructure build out that it requires.David Wallace-WellsThis (AI) is a technological revolution that has been designed and is being built by an extremely small number of people with very particular idiosyncratic, in certain ways, I think, somewhat sociopathic worldviews.David Wallace-WellsNews 6/5/26* Our top story this week comes from Congress, where the House has, at long last, successfully pushed through a War Powers Resolution on Iran. As NPR notes “The resolution had originally been set for a vote two weeks ago, but Republican leaders sent House members home early for a May recess when it appeared the largely Democratic-backed measure had enough Republican votes for passage.” However, this did not substantially erode Republican support and the resolution passed by a margin of 215 to 208, with four Republicans, led by Thomas Massie, voting for a cessation of hostilities. The measure now heads to the Senate, where Democrats have been pressing the matter as well but face an uphill battle, and even if it passes through the upper chamber, President Trump is likely to veto the measure if it arrives on his desk. Moreover, House progressives are now pushing a new War Powers Resolution, this one focusing on Lebanon. POLITICO reports Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib forced a vote this Thursday on a resolution calling for the removal of U.S. troops from Lebanon in seven days, despite opposition from the leadership of her own party. The resolution failed by a wide margin, but still garnered a respectable 92 votes, including support from Congressman Massie. Symbolic though they may be, these votes show a growing backlash to Trump’s military adventurism abroad, particularly in the Middle East. With oil prices continuing to rise, this discontent shows no sign of abating.* The main news this week however were the primaires. Tuesday saw a wave of major Democratic primaries across the country. Faiz Shakir, longtime advisor to Bernie ...
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    1 hr and 33 mins
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