Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win

Ralph Nader's Getting Steamed will make you repeat that phrase from the movie Network: "I'm as mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" His compendium of corporate crime, greed, and exploitation of honest people everywhere will raise your temperature—to the boiling point.

Among Nader's stories:

• Health insurance companies working to stop doctors from delivering care
• Nuclear power companies demanding loan guarantees out of your wallet
• Pharmaceutical companies putting your life on the line
• Bank bailouts galore
• Corporate profits soaring on the backs of Wal-Mart wages

Nader knows from his own experience that getting you steamed will work. As he writes:

"Our democracy is in decay, with no end in sight unless there is a sustained response from an aroused citizenry to stop the corporatists from blocking so many proven solutions for our country's problems. First, we need to raise our expectations to realistically attainable levels so we can believe that a better country is possible soon. Back in the 1950s I, like many others in that era, lost several friends and classmates to motor vehicle crashes—horrific fatalities and injuries. I learned the truth about the auto industry bosses, who, in favor of styling priorities, restrained their safety engineers and scientists from installing long-known safety devices like seat belts, better brakes and tires, collapsible steering columns and interior padding. And, I got steamed."

As Jim Hightower put it, you won't read and weep; you'll read and leap.