Ralph Nader, Fiction Writer (Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!)

Time ^ | 9/23/09 | Tim Morrison

[nickcarraway]

Ralph Nader has been many things: lawyer, consumer-rights bulldog, political activist and perennial third-party presidential candidate. He has now added a new title to his business card: fiction writer. His latest book, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, is a 700-page populist fantasy in which a small group of billionaires and media moguls — led by Warren Buffett and including Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Cosby, Yoko Ono and Phil Donahue — pool their massive resources to reform the U.S. With the help of a $15 billion war chest and a p.r. campaign starring a talking parrot, the group successfully unionizes Walmart, ends corporate influence on Congress, makes Warren Beatty the governor of California and legalizes industrial hemp. TIME talked to Nader about the origins of his book, its celebrity characters and the U.S.'s real-life political battles. (See 50 entertainment highlights for fall.)

You say in your author's note that this book is not a novel. And yet it's not nonfiction. So what is it? In the literary world, it's either called a work of speculation — "What if something happened?" "What if somebody did this?" — or a practical utopia. We haven't had many practical utopias. Russell Jacoby, a professor out in California, wrote a book called The End of Utopia in 1999, which argues that the idea of imagining better futures has diminished, as we wallow more and more in our desperate state of societal and governmental decay. So I tried to revive the genre, so to speak.

Was that your goal in writing the book? To create a practical utopia?

No. As you go through year after year, as many civic advocates do, being overwhelmed by the corporate lobbies and their allies in government, you say to yourself, 'If we only had more media, if we only

[nickcarraway]

Fiction? It sounds like a roman à clef about the Obama campaign.

[nickcarraway]

Populist fantasy? Does the writer know what populist means? It sounds like the opposite of populist.

[ansel12]

Nader has managed to accumulate a few millions himself.

[Nuc1]

No. As you go through year after year, as many civic advocates do, being overwhelmed by the corporate lobbies and their allies in government, you say to yourself, 'If we only had more media, if we only...

If only you had a point.

[nickcarraway]

He has a point: all us peasants should be the property of the wealthy elite.

[Puckster]

“He has a point: all us peasants should be the property of the wealthy elite.”

An achievable goal without the 2nd amendment.

[KarlInOhio]

His latest book, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, is a 700-page populist fantasy in which a small group of billionaires and media moguls — led by Warren Buffett and including Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Cosby, Yoko Ono and Phil Donahue — pool their massive resources to reform the U.S. With the help of a $15 billion war chest and a p.r. campaign starring a talking parrot, the group successfully unionizes Walmart, ends corporate influence on Congress, makes Warren Beatty the governor of California and legalizes industrial hemp.

I'll call it "Atlas Picked Up Even More"

It will be like Atlas Shrugged with Wesley Mouch shown as the hero.

[cripplecreek]

Maybe those super rich can limit themselves to saving the people who want to be “saved” without seeking tax money from everyone else to do it.

I’d be quite satisfied if conservative super rich could give me a means of earning my own salvation. (Also without taxpayer dollars)

[Dick Bachert]

Yeah, right!!!!

The only interest the super wealthy have is to remain SUPER WEALTHY and keep the power that comes with that wealth.

“The urge to save humanity is most often a false front for the URGE TO RULE.” H.L. Mencken

MIDDLE CLASS MUST NOT FAIL, PART 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmgwCmBmyKU

MIDDLE CLASS MUST NOT FAIL, PART 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0JLFHQiMs4

[FrogMom]

If only the super rich can save us, I guess we won’t be saved. BO isn’t leaving any.

[Nuc1]

They sure seem to think they own us don't they? For example, today in Vermont, my wife called me and told me that all channels on comcast cable were blacked out except for the ones carrying PFL BO. She called Comcast and they said it affected all of Vermont. And they didn't know why. Blacking out channels in the United States, can you imagine. Where is the Marxist Propaganda Media covering this? I have absolutely had it. And I am not alone. The elites have no idea what is coming in 2010. No idea at all.

[nickcarraway]

conservative super rich

That's an oxymoron. The super rich are all ultra left wing.