On 4/9/2010 7:33 AM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
writes:

Nader then wrote a book about the Volkswagen Bug using much the same
tactics that had been so successful in the first book. However, this
time Road and Track, and probably other main line car magazines wrote
rebuttals. I read the Road and Tack article and it demonstrated that
Nader's engineering was faulty, his many quotes, mainly taken from
N.Y. State Police reports, were either taken out of context, cherry
picked for effect or partially quoted, and in fact little in his book
was accurate of true. In short they did to Nader what Nader did to
the Corvair.

Not quite -- the rebuttals were well-reasoned and factual.


This is the same thing that has gone on for decades. You criticize
business at your own peril. They play for keeps. Nader's criticisms of
American car makers were right on the button. They made unsafe cars and
couldn't care less. They wouldn't even put seat belts in cars until the
government made them. You go up against the business world and they will
destroy you. Ask the guy who blew the whistle on the tobacco industry.
Now they've gotten rid of the number one consumer protector.

It's just like with this coal mine disaster. The company running it
has been violating safety rules left and right and now 29 guys are dead.
I heard a mine safety expert today explain that in the last few years
about fifty miners have been killed in 5 different coal mine accidents.
But guess what? All the mines where the deaths happened were
nonunionized mines. Try going up against them and see what happens to
you. Nothing has changed. Businesses have been getting workers killed
and maimed for years and if you try to get in their way like Nader did,
or anyone else tries to do, they will get you. The mine expert also said
that coal mining was not dangerous anymore, at least in union mines, and
that the year before was the safest on record...if your company had a
union. If not, fifty dead in five years. Those non union coal companies
really look out for their workers, don't they? Just like the auto
companies really cared about drivers' safety? Yeah, like not at all.

Hawke