The new documentary about Ralph Nader comes at a fortuitous time. As we begin the long slog toward the 2008 elections it is a good idea to look back at the last decade to understand how we got here. If we don’t look both ways before we cross the next street we might just get steamrolled again.
The film An Unreasonable Man first of all has a wonderful website, I encourage you to visit it and explore. The first thing you will see is a quote that explains the title which I will reprint below:
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903)
The quote certainly fits Nader and he is given plenty of on-screen time to show us why. We get flashbacks to his youth and the early years after law school when he made an enormous amount of progress and instilled change in this country. Of course that means he hit the corporate and weathy hornet’s nest like a pinata. Just going over all of the consumer safety issues he confronted is astonishing and it is refreshing to see him get his due. From seat belts to cleaner air and food this man has left his mark and the list of things he did by the end of the 1970’s is downright amazing. No one has done nearly as much in the last half of the 20th century as Nader, much of it with the help of dedicated students and volunteers.
Like all good things, the right-wing forces conspired to slow him down as much as possible. Of course just to show how some things are a constant the Democrats enabled the right to do this starting with the Carter era and it only got worse (didn’t everything) under the Reagan era and beyond.
The film inevitably spends a fair amount of time on the 2000 election and I’m so glad it did. It gives the audience a chance to re-examine that race in light of all that has happened since and gives Nader a chance to explain his views while also consulting people on all sides of the issue. I had been one of those people who cried foul in the early years of the Bush era and blamed Nader for being a spoiler. The intervening years have only served to let me know that Nader was right because very few Democrats (and absolutely no Republicans) address the issues I care most about and a 2nd textbook terrible Democratic candidacy in 2004 by Kerry served to tell us yet again that being Republican-lite is not an alternative, it’s just another branch of a sick tree.
I encourage everyone to visit the website, view the trailer and see the film when it comes to your town. The release schedule is on the website too as the film is platformed around the country. To paraphrase the saying, if we don’t learn from the mistakes of this country we will be doomed to repeat them. If we go down yet again, let us do it while standing for our true selves and not a facsimile.
cross posted at liberalstreetfighter.com
