Ralph Nader in Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change, by Mike Gravel

On Corporations: Democracy is gone when elections are commercialized

Senator Gravel understands that we must take the domination of just about everything by giant corporations as a major issue. If you don't make this a major issue, it will affect our economy and our electoral reforms, and we will be avoiding a critical issue and engaging in rhetorical charades, slogans, clich‚s, and self-censorship.

If money is the index of electoral politics, Senator Gravel rightly believes our democracy is gone. We're supposed to have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. There can be no democracy if it is a government of the Exxons, by the General Motors, for the DuPonts.