National Nurses United

Nader_1 4/1/10 2:57 PM Page 26 CEO Saviors? Consumer crusader Ralph Nader's new work of fiction explores whether the rich can rescue the world. Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! By Ralph Nader; Seven Stories Press, New York Reviewed by Carl Bloice L ongtime consumer activist and attorney Ralph Nader had a dream. A long one.  In it the country is saved, its political logjam broken and its decline reversed. Economic and social justice reigns. But wait; does it really turn out that way? Nader has rendered this hopeful vision in the form of a narrative (not a novel, he says, but "a practical utopia") and you will have to read the book to find out how it ends. The key thing here is the premise. As the title suggests, a small group of people come together and decide to set out a new progressive legislative agenda. What they have in common and what, in this telling, makes the endeavor possible is that they are all very, very rich. They're also capitalists that don't make things for sale— "older" financiers, technical innovators, artists and entertainers. This is important because arrayed against them and determined to thwart their plans are "entrenched" big business people who own and profit from things like factories and giant retail chains. The heroes have names we recognize, like Warren Buffett, Warren Beatty, Bill Gates Sr., (an attorney; junior makes things), Bill Joy (retired), George Soros, Ted Turner, Phil Donahue, Yoko Ono and Bill Cosby. Through the words and actions of such people, Nader sets out the major themes of his cause and lifetime work. First and foremost is the truism that money is the mother's milk of U.S. politics. Nader, who ran for president four times, first as a Green Party candidate and then as 26 N AT I O N A L N U R S E an independent, never takes the view that there is not power in the people or that change can come about without its exercise. In fact, in a recent interview he affirmed that the forces for meaningful political change come from below. He simply suggests it will all go easier with a whole lot of seed money from above. His protagonists have mucho dinero and with it they can hire more community organizers, event planners, bus tours and advertising campaigns than you can shake a stick at. And that's what they set out to do as the story unfolds. Healthcare reform and nurses turn out to be major players in all this. When the "Agenda for the Common Good" is rolled out, item one is a $10 minimum wage. Then comes: "comprehensive health insurance coverage for all citizens, taking off from Medicare but with many refinements in the areas of quality control, cost control and organized patient participation in the oversight of this nationwide payment program for the private delivery of healthcare." It's a W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G single-payer system, with "no more corporate HMOs…no more tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of undiagnosed injuries and illnesses every year." The Common Agenda plotters—and they do plot—are referred to by their real-life names, but other characters have pseudonyms…including "Ann Moro of the California Nurses Association."  She emerges as a spark plug both among the crusaders and within the previously "all but moribund and anything but organized" labor movement, helping to transform the unions into a powerful force and Labor Day from an excuse to eat barbeque into a relevant and meaningful observance. The protagonists in this story are known as the Meliorists, a title drawn from the mid-19th-century Latin term melior (better), and embrace the view that society tends naturally to progress onward and upward and that conscious agents can spur the process along. They are an agreeable lot and highly appreciative of each other's standing in society and contribution to their common effort. Their opponents, on the other hand, are a squabbling bunch with their prerogatives at risk and their greed challenged. In the face of the campaign for the Common Agenda, they can't quite manage to keep a united front. Therein lies Nader's tale. The setting for the book seems to be the recent past. The effect of the 2008 Presidential election is unregistered and the Great Recession hasn't happened. There are no tea parties and a new leadership hasn't emerged in the labor unions. Ten percent of the labor force is not unemployed and millions of people are not losing their homes. All of these recent developments make the Meliorists' effort and the message of the book all the more intriguing. The content of the Common Agenda would make a lot of sense right now. Who's going to make it happen? Could it be the super-rich? Carl Bloice is a freelance writer in San Francisco. MARCH 2010

• Cover