Return to Sender: Unanswered Letters to the President, 2003-2014

About the Book

In letters addressed to Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama, Ralph Nader provides incisive critiques of more than a decade of American policy decision and indecision. Each letter offers frank advice and shines light on government mishaps and missed opportunities for progress. With his signature dry wit, Nader holds these Presidents to their campaign promises. He also boldly points to the ignoble and sometimes heinous decisions made in pursuit of party platforms and misguided ideals. Covering a range of still-current topics--including the Iraq war, torture, the Crimean annexation, the minimum wage, worker's health legislation, and corporatism--these letters were wholesale ignored on receipt. Here they are reproduced to refute that fate in the spirit of true and healthy democracy.

About the Author :
RALPH NADER is America's leading consumer's and citizen's advocate, a lawyer and an author who has co-founded numerous public interest groups including Public Citizen, the Center for Auto Safety, Clean Water Action Project, the Disability Rights Center, the Pension Rights Center, Commercial Alert, the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), and the Center for Study of Responsive Law. For the past forty-five years Ralph Nader has challenged abuses by corporate and government officials and urged citizens to use their time, energy and democratic rights to demand greater institutional accountability. In 1965, Nader's landmark book Unsafe at Any Speed changed the face of the automobile industry. The Atlantic named Nader as one of the 100 most influential figures in American history, and Time and LIFE magazines honored him as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century. As a result of his efforts, cars are safer, food is healthier and our environment is less polluted and our democracy is more robust.

Review :

"Another triumphant look into the legendary prowess of Ralph Nader. We can’t count on Washington, but we can always count on Ralph Nader to speak for the rest of us.” —ROSEANN DEMORO, executive director of National Nurses United 

"For a half century Ralph Nader has said what he thinks, written what he believes, and told it like it is—even to presidents. Too bad they don’t write back. I’d love to know how they’d explain themselves to Ralph, and to the American people." —ROBERT B. REICH, chancellor’s professor of public policy, University of California at Berkeley, and former US secretary of labor 

"For the ordinary citizen the reading of a letter from Ralph Nader is an option; for a president of the United States, it is not." —Lewis Lapham, founder and editor of Lapham’s Quarterly

"Ralph Nader is without a doubt the most dedicated, fearless, and intelligent citizen crusader America has ever been fortunate enough to have in our midst. Having spent my own time researching the twentieth-century presidential archives for All the Presidents’ Bankers, including the plethora of two-way letters between the most elite and wealthy American bankers to presidents, it is clear that Ralph’s insight and letters speak on behalf of the vast majority of our nation’s citizens, and theirs do not. It is as shameful of these presidents to ignore his well-reasoned, fact-based, and population-centric letters and comments, as it is heroic of Ralph to produce this compilation that holds their denial and silence to account. Bravo, Ralph!" —Nomi Prins, author of All the Presidents’ Bankers