The Body And The Machine
Nader returned to this same frame--the body and the machine--a few years later in the opening chapter of Unsafe At Any Speed, writing this time about the general design flaws of the modern car, but also about a specific incident involving Mrs. Rose Pierini and the Chevrolet Corvair:

As described by a California Highway Patrol officer, John Bortolozzo, who witnessed the flip-over while motoring in the opposite direction, the Pierini vehicle was traveling about thirty-five miles per hour in a thirty-five mph zone in the right lane headed towards Goleta. He saw the car move towards the right side of the road near the shoulder and then “all of the sudden the vehicle made a sharp cut to the left and swerved over.” Bortolozzo testified at the trial that he rushed over to the wreck and saw an arm with a wedding band and wristwatch lying on the ground. Two other men came over quickly and began to help Mrs. Pierini out of the vehicle while trying to stop the torrent of blood gushing forth from the stub of her arm. (Unsafe At An Speed, Grossman Publishers, New York, 1965, pp. 2-3)

For Nader, framing the debate was not a gimmick, but the critical first step towards forcing the auto industry to build cars that did not cause horrific injury to Americans. Before any government regulation could emerge, before any successful litigation could be mounted, the idea that car crashes were all “accidents” caused by faulty drivers had to be displaced. Hence, Nader’s early writing begins with narrative sequences about seemingly innocent machines who, under the normal conditions of driving, suddenly transforms into medieval weapons of torture and destruction--arsenals of sharp objects that butcher the fragile and unsuspecting human body. Successful torts against the auto industry depended on this reframing, which would in turn spill over into government regulation of consumer products, leading eventually to safer designs and fewer accidents.

Fifty years ago as today, the captains of industry know that they are much better off if they can frame the debate about consumer safety in terms of money--be it cars or fast food or medicine or children’s toys or factory equipment. The latest effort by the authoritarian wing of the Republican party--the so-called “torn reform” movement--in other words, is part of a much larger effort to force the debate on public safety back to that pre-1950s frame where Americans talk about personal injury in terms of accidents and money.

What is the solution?

Framing Law and Government
For starters, everyone should crack open their copy of Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed and read it with an eye towards how he frames the debate. Notice how the gruesome sequences that open up the early chapters are not just there to catch our attention or to make us feel sorry for the victims, but to define the terms of the debate in terms of the body and the machine.

In response to the Republican cries that greedy “trial lawyers” are ruining American industry, liberals and progressives should avoid framing the debate on consumer safety in terms of money and markets and focus instead on those murderous confrontations between machines and the human body.
Of course, not all consumer safety involves such clear and obvious machines as automobiles. But Nader’s frame for car safety is a productive starting point for any consumer advocate seeking to define the logic of the debate in a manner that benefits people and undermines the relentless framing efforts of industry.

In other words, the battle against authoritarian Republicans seeking to destroy the consumer rights movement is really a struggle to establish which principles and values will frame the national debate about law and government.

After nearly a decade of Republican dominance in government, law and government have been framed as institutions that impede the flow and accumulation of money. And so, consumer advocates must do their best to reframe law and government as institutions that protect the bodies and lives of people.