People say to me – Ralph, why don’t you just go back to doing what you used to do – just be a consumer advocate? You were so good at it. Politics is too sleazy for you.

Good question.

When I first hitchhiked to Washington, DC more than forty years ago, my goal was to impose a measure of law and order on the automobile industry.

Too many of my friends had been injured or killed in automobile collisions.

And being a regular hitchhiker, I was often first on the scene of grisly automobile accidents.

I witnessed the carnage first hand.

At the time, the automobile industry was placing blame for a steady increase in death and injury on the highway on the “nut behind the wheel” – not the designed-in dangers of the automobile itself – like rigid steering wheel assemblies that would crush the driver to death.

At Harvard Law School, I started researching automobile safety and learned what safety engineers inside the auto industry knew – seat belts, air bags, collapsible steering wheels, padded dashboards, stronger door latches – had all been invented or perfected by the automobile industry itself.

But the industry bosses kept these life-saving devices on the shelf and were refusing to free their engineers to implement them.

So, I wrote a book, Unsafe at Any Speed, whose first chapter focused on one unsafe creature – the Corvair.

The broader point was not missed by General Motors – I was on an industry-wide crusade to make automobiles less deadly.

But instead of seeing this as an opportunity to win friends – automobile passengers wanted safety too – GM saw Unsafe at Any Speed as a threat to its bottom line.

And so they hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on me.

One day, while I was on Capitol Hill, a security guard noticed that someone was following me.

One thing led to another, and eventually, the President of General Motors had to appear before a Senate hearing where he apologized to me before a massive media turnout.

The nation’s largest corporation was apologizing on network television for hiring a private detective to follow me and harass me.

I sued GM for invasion of privacy, and GM settled the case.

I used the payment GM made to settle the case to seed a number of consumer groups in Washington, DC.

These groups went on to work the system – and improve the lives of millions of Americans by passing into law landmark environmental, consumer protection, and worker safety legislation.

Unsafe at Any Speed became a nationwide bestseller.

The publicity generated by the GM spy scandal led to the passage of the federal auto safety and highway laws, which imposed safety standards on the industry.

As a result, over a million lives were saved and many more injuries were prevented.

Such laws regulating the auto industry could not be passed today.

Big corporations have both political parties under their collective thumb.

Washington, DC is corporate occupied territory.

We cannot continue to delude ourselves into believing that the Democrats will be able to break this stranglehold.

In 2004, a handful of well-meaning wealthy individuals spent $100 million on private efforts to defeat President Bush.

They failed because they resisted this simple truth – the frozen Democrats are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

It’s time that we move on and create a nationwide grassroots effort to overturn the two-party corporate duopoly.

In 1966, the Corvair was Unsafe at Any Speed.

Today, it’s the two party duopoly that is Unsafe at Any Speed and that is leading us over the brink.

That’s why there can be no more business as usual inside the Beltway.

It is incumbent upon us to develop new and more creative strategies to upend the two-party corporate duopoly.

In 2004, liberal Democrats abandoned our progressive agenda in droves.

But during our 2004 campaign through all 50 states, we met active citizens, young and old alike, who are with us now in this energetic effort to free our democracy from the grip of corporate rule.

Here you see me with one such supporter at a campaign rally earlier this year at historic Cooper Union in New York. She represents the new young generation that will carry us forward into a brighter and more confident future.

Like General Motors in 1966, the Democratic Party in 2004 launched a dirty tricks effort – this time against the Nader/Camejo campaign, driving us into debt.

We have to make up our shortfall by the end of the year – about $450,000 for both debts and winding down the campaign.

Because you have been such a loyal supporter of our campaign, I’d like to make you a special holiday offer that will help us retire this debt.

We are making available to you a limited number of this vintage 1972 paperback edition of Unsafe at Any Speed with my updated introduction.

For a donation of $100 or more to our campaign, I will autograph for you this historic copy of Unsafe at Any Speed - the book that launched the modern consumer movement - and send it to you in time for the holidays.

This will make a lasting gift for your friends and family during the holidays.

So, please consider buying more than one. (And let your friends and family know about this offer by forwarding this letter to your address book.)

We are looking for 5,000 donors to help us wrap up this campaign on a happy fiscal note.

Please go to our contribute page and give as generously as you can.

If you want to give $100 or more and receive a signed copy Unsafe at Any Speed, click here.

Thank you for your ongoing generosity and bright horizons,

Ralph Nader