Consumer advocate Ralph Nader spoke Tuesday night...
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader spoke Tuesday night as part of the University of Redlands Convocation-Lecture Series. From his remarks:
On the Concentration of Wealth “When the powers that be . . . in any society control too much power and too much wealth, and indeed control wealth that is owned by ourselves, like worker pension funds, then what happens is that the deterioration expands and before you know it, people are fighting people over ethnic differences, racial differences, because they are trying to grab a piece of the shrinking pie. . . . We tend to forget what’s caused all this. I mean this country should be prosperous, there should be no poverty, no homeless families. There should be a decent amount of income security. Can anyone say there shouldn’t be? Why are we having this problem? Too much power and too much wealth in too few hands. One percent of the people in this country control over 35% of the wealth. . . . The top 10% control as much as the remaining 90%. So it’s important for us not to get so embroiled in the cussedness of daily life . . . and begin coolly analyzing why these things occur.”
On the Entertainment Industry and Community Needs “Any power clique would like the people they are mistreating to be bereft of information, to be demoralized, to feel like they can’t make a difference and then to plunge them into addictions . . . like the glazed-eye watching of TV 30 hours a week out of sheer exhaustion and despair. The best asset these power brokers have is our apathy. The entertainment industry is basically designed to be almost a relentless process of addictive relief. . . .
“Why don’t we have investment in community needs? Isn’t it interesting that you can raise $24 billion in this country to finance a totally worthless leveraged buyout of RJ Reynolds-Nabisco, which created no new jobs, no new wealth, even harmed the shareholders, but made a few investment bankers and wheeler-dealer executives at the top fantastically rich. And a lot of that money came from worker pension funds. . . . (Take) the recent bid to take over Paramount--there are now two groups fighting for it. Where are they getting the money? It’s not their money; it’s other peoples’ money. It’s pension money, it’s money in trusts that managers have to invest. Meanwhile . . . the local schools are in disrepair . . . public works are in gross disrepair. No money for this! . . . There’s under-investment in necessities. A society starts from scratch. Its needs are food, then housing, education, transportation, medical care, etc. These seem to be at the bottom of the list for these go-go international, multinational companies.”
Looking Ahead * Tuesday: Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke will speak on “Women and Minorities in Government” at 6:45 p.m. at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, Claremont McKenna College, 385 East 8th St., Claremont. Free and open to the public.
Announcements concerning prominent speakers in Los Angeles should be sent to Speaking Up, c/o Times researcher Nona Yates, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053
