An Unreasonable Man

"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

As we have mentioned before, "An Unreasonable Man," is an insightful and probing documentary about the man who started the modern consumer movement.

In case you missed it in theaters, now you have a second chance catch it on PBS beginning Tuesday, Dec. 18. Check your local listings for the exact show times.

The film traces consumer activism back to 1968, when a young bunch of "Nader's Raiders" began working on issues ranging from abuses involving public health and safety to nursing homes to economic concentration. Soon after, in 1971, Ralph Nader founded Public Citizen. Though Nader has been unaffiliated with Public Citizen since 1980, we continue to fight for health, safety and democracy. The film also documents Nader's campaign for president in 2000, giving time both to his supporters and opponents.

What's your opinion of Ralph Nader and his legacy?

Comments

[W Boyd]

Here in Indiana we have our own unreasonable man, unfortunately he is our current governor. By using political muscle and passing out public funds left and right he is selling away our state to satisfy his personal view of how a government should operate. Mitch Daniels sold off our East/West Toll road to foreign concerns with help from his "friends" at Goldman Sachs. He now is taking those public funds and reserving them to build the most expensive highway project in Indiana ever. It is better known to the rest of the world as I-69, part of the NAFTA highway. I-69 is opposed by 94 percent of the citizens, yet he is using those public funds to buy the backing of the highway construction lobby.

We are now in the continuing battle to oppose this highway, but also working to get some sort of Clean Elections legislation passed. However we know this will take some doing. http://www.indianacleanelections.org

Daniels received a letter from Mr. Nader telling him I-69 was a huge waste of taxpayer dollars......but true to form Daniels continues to show he is a truly unreasonable man.

[Howard]

My opinion is that for all the controversy, the most telling thing of all is Nader's failure to strongly advocate for - or even mention usually - election reforms like Instant Runoff Voting. Being asked constantly about "spoiling" gives him ample opportunity and a wide audience to promote these crucial reforms that so many of us are working hard to implement. Yet instead, he chooses to complain about how bad the Democrats are while ignoring the mechanism - the election system's flaws - that allow them to exclude. I say let's focus our energy on promoting these reforms instead of on talking about Nader himself and his being the latest victim of our flawed election system.

I wrote about this in my post, which is linked to by my name, called Instant Runoff Voting Excluded: An Unreasonable Omission from An Unreasonable Man. Please check it out and let me know what you think.