Ramtin Arablouei
speaker
199 appearances
5 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 29 Mar
Ramtin Arablouei’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 1.
Appearances
All of a sudden, your wheels lose traction with the road. The paramedics will later tell you you're a lucky one. As you crawl out of the driver's window, you think to yourself, what happened? How could driving a brand new car end up with me lying on the road?
So if you're feeling skeptical, we get it. But bear with us, because before Ralph Nader was infamous, he was famous.
the right to clean drinking water, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, whistleblower protections, the Freedom of Information Act, and more. Nader was instrumental in all of them.
His activism and efforts spurred the modern consumer movement, a movement fueled by the idea that public citizens, consumers, people like you and me, can and should hold governments and corporations accountable to our needs.
And I'm Ramtin Arablui. Today on the show, the story of consumer activism in the U.S. and what we can learn from Ralph Nader's wins and losses.
As glamorous as that may sound, solving the mystery of these grisly car crash deaths mostly involved a lot of reading of very wonky documents. And I mean a lot. Nader sifted through court documents and case law. He dug into a whole series of research studies from Cornell Medical College, funded by Ford, Chrysler, and the Pentagon, that looked into what could make cars safer.
This is a CBS report about that research.
Like any good detective, Nader even pounded the pavement. What he found was that the auto industry knew that it was cars themselves that were unsafe. Doctors and researchers had repeatedly recommended features to add to the cars to make them safe. Seatbelts, padded dash panels, rollover bars. But the carmakers often shied away from putting these features into cars on the market.
So Nader set out to take down the auto industry. To do that, he knew he was going to need to harness the power of the consumer.
That's President John F. Kennedy speaking in 1962, and he was identifying a powerful new current in American life.
This is Paul Sabin. He's a professor of history and American studies at Yale University.
There was a growing call for consumers to take up that charge themselves, and Nader was at the front of the line.
Years later, a government study found that the Corvair wasn't any more dangerous than other similar cars. Nader disputed the study. But by that time, there was no turning back the movement Nader had started. In response to the criticism, GM created a position for coordinator of auto safety. But Nader's book wasn't just about exposing a problem with the Corvair or even with General Motors.
It was about revealing failures across the entire auto industry.
The press got wind of the story, along with Congress.
Roach got up and said that when he first heard of the allegations against GM, he was shocked. He immediately ordered a statement to be released denying GM's involvement. But he discovered, quote, to my dismay, we were indeed involved.
Senator Rybakov declared in front of the Senate committee that Ralph Nader was squeaky clean. He said, quote, they put you through the mill and they haven't found a damn thing out against you.
This public apology couldn't have been a better press moment for Nader's crusade. Try to imagine how monumental this would have been. It would be like if Elon Musk apologized for harassing a critic of Tesla. It would be front page news. And it was. People were outraged that a major American corporation would attempt to intimidate a whistleblower. GM's plan to discredit Nader had backfired.
But he kept at it, and Joan Claybrook and Representative Mackey introduced their bill. And within a few short months, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act passed into law.
Ralph Nader had won his first victory on behalf of the American consumer. And he was just getting started. That's coming up.
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