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May 13, 2007

An Unreasonable Man

The rise and fall of Ralph Nader

By Tram

Watching the Ralph Nader documentary, An Unreasonable Man, was one of the most enjoyably bittersweet theatrical experiences I've had in years. Whenever Bill Clinton or Al Gore appeared onscreen, me and my fellow screening attendees would boo and hiss. These men were, after all, responsible for neo-liberal legislation such as the Telecommunications Act of 1996, NAFTA trade, and welfare reform. But as much as I reveled in the momentary rush of group think and belonging, I could not help but feel forlorn and hopeless as I walked back home alone: An Unreasonable Man, is not only a Shakespearean portrait of Nader's rise and fall, it is, in many ways, a requiem for the past.

The first image that appears in An Unreasonable Man is a quote, by George Bernard Shaw, in his play, "Man and Superman" (1903):

"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."

It is a marvelous quote, and one that could've not been more apt. Unlike the likes of Clinton and Gore, Nader has no ambitions to adapt himself into the post-Reaganomics, New Right era. The inevitable happened: he finds his priorities vastly different from the Democratic Party's, and stubborn man that he is, refuses to conform himself to them - all this culminating in the controversial 2000 Presidential race.

THERE IS SOMETHING VERY VIBRANT, youthful, and ultimately alive about the first half of An Unreasonable Man. In an archival footage, we see a clean-cut and youthful Nader testifying in front the congressional assembly. It is 1965, and General Motors is under congressional investigation for conspiring to discredit Nader's reputation, following the publishing of Unsafe at Any Speed , Nader's expose against the automobile industry's unsafe engineering of their "psycho sexual dreamboats". GM had apparently hired prostitutes to approach Nader at a neighborhood supermarket, in hopes of exposing him in a compromising position. Nader won the suit, of course, and with the victory was the $248,000 settlement that helped expand Nader's consumer rights advocacy.

Before Nader knew it, there were hundreds of young people, from across the country, were willing to amass their time and efforts for Nader's cause. This army of promising people - law students and young lawyers - eventually became known as "Nader's Raiders". They dissected the federal government sectors from top to bottom, scanning everything from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to the Department of Transportation. The dozens of books published on various investigative topics, along with the political trust Nader had accumulated with politicos and the masses, alike, helped pass landmark pieces of legislation such as the Clean Air Act (1970) and the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), and establishment of agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (1974) and the Consumer Protection Agency (1978).

One of the most memorable anecdotes uttered by Nader's former colleagues/talking head in the documentary was that Nader could do a mean impression of the one and only Richard Nixon, Nader's rival-at-the-time. It was memorable for two different reasons. The first is rather superficial: the thought of Nader doing "Tricky Dick" seems too ironic to be true - I mean, come on, this is Nader - the same man whose serious visage, once prompted People Magazine to ask in wide, bold letters: "Why isn't this man smiling?". But the second reason was a bit more troubling and telling: Nader, infamous foe to Nixon, still managed to exert influence during the Nixon administration, political difference and all. Such an oxymoron made me think about what a college seminar instructor recently said: "Who is leading the nation is not as important as the social forces already in existence."

THE LATE KURT VONNEGUT ONCE CALLED RICHARD NIXON "MEAN", but Ronald Reagan "evil". And although it's not of popular consensus to cut Nixon any slack, I'll wholeheartedly agree with Vonnegut, conventional wisdom be damned. Paranoid yuckfest that Nixon was, such rabid loathing should be reserved for the "ketchup-as-school-veggie" likes of Reagan. The second half of An Unreasonable Man begins with Reagan and his dreadful Reagonomics, which convinced the American people that small government was good, and anything resembling large government was a vice. Suddenly, everything that Nader and other activists worked hard for to establish (i.e. the federal civilian programs) in the previous decades became undermined.

Post-Reagan era, corporate lobbyists were the new "It" bedfellows to schmooze in Washingtonian society. Forget about Time Magazine's inconsequential cover story, "How the Right Went Wrong", which along with a lame CGI-enhanced image of Reagan with pseudo-tear, declares that "the Republican candidates need to reclaim the Reagan leagcy". Unless you've been living under a cave rock, you would know that the Democratic Party, post- 70s, have been tireless sucker-upers to Big Business.

For me, probably the saddest part in An Unreasonable Man was seeing Nader, in DV footage, being denied entrance to a 2002 Presidential Debate viewing event, at the University of Massachusetts. Although Nader had received a valid ticket through a Northeastern University student, he was still denied admittance by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which sponsored the debates. That the CPD is financed by multi-national corporations such as Phillip Morris and Anheuser-Beush comes as no surprise; limiting public discourse to two pro-Big Business parties is only common sense.

THE LAST HALF HOUR OF THE DOCUMENTARY to the infamous 2002 Presidential election. While I'm sure this doc won't change the minds of viewers who shall continue to mark Nader as the spoiler (die-hard Democrats will channel their anger in the form of The Nation columnist Eric Alterman, appearing prominently as the handful of talking heads critical of Nader), I shrug off such a hot button issue with casual indifference.

Like Nader, I see no point in trying to adapt myself to a world where Al Gore and John Kerry are considered the only viable options for progressive change. Because continuously endearing myself to the lesser of two evils is a path I do not see fit anymore.

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