Nader Haters

"I don't care about my personal legacy," Nader says. "I care about how much justice is advanced in America and in our world day after day." -Ralph Nader

The Nation’s Eric Alterman hates Ralph Nader

Eric Alterman undeniably has great taste in music, as his recent newsletters describe his attendance at the Neil Young and Hot Tuna gigs this week in New York City. When it comes to preaching the Gore is God mantra, here is where we part company. Although Al Gore blatantly cost Ralph Nader the 2000 election, those in the Al Gore is God camp are still operating under the hallowed delusion that green businessman Gore

would have stopped the myth of the tech lobby sponsored, great labor shortage and job outsourcing through H-1bs

would have broken ties with the insurance companies so we’d all have health coverage today

would have not pretended that the “war” in Iraq was about democracy instead of oil

would have severed ties with Silicon Valley venture capitalists and green tech start up sycophants so that he would not appear to have a conflict of interest with the beltway

would never have evolved into a $2B green tech businessman with potential sites on soaking American taxpayers through quick get rich green tech investments

is a man for the people and not the elites (of course, the cult of Gore spinners really know it is the opposite but don’t want the rest of us to know that)

I met Ralph Nader at a 2000 fundraiser and was struck by how much he emphasized back then that neither candidate was committed to the economy and he stressed that the corporate welfare duopoly of Bush and Gore would both sink the middle class further as they sucked up to the tech lobby demanding increased immigration at a time when white collar jobs were disappearing due to the great dot.com bubble and burst. And yet, so many Democrats ignored this fact and to this day mindlessly bash Nader, a decent and honorable man who cared most for the interests as opposed to corporate welfare candidates who were running, Bush and Gore.


I knew that Gore would do nothing about this back then and to this date, Gore has only proven how dedicated he is to his friends responsible for selling out our white collar jobs with his roles as board advisor and member to Google and Apple and others who subscribe to the let them eat cake third world caste system, great labor shortage scam of outsourcing and driving down compensation at a time when cost of living skyrockets, health insurance is cost prohibitive and or unavailable, The FDA has been sold out, and the feudal lord sentiment that visibly sustains the greedy in this neoliberal cult from the smartest peeps in the room prevail.


Alterman calls the Nader voters a bunch of "Leninists" and yet as Gore’s history demonstrates, a jolt of Leninism is what we needed then and need now more than ever: a bunch of Leninists to rock the boat when journalists, pundits and columnists and authors are intimately pegged to the corporate welfare media trough.

Maybe Gore could indeed use his Nobel winning influence to stop this practice of replacing our white collar professionals with cheap immigrant labor when it has been proved there is no labor shortage here but in fact a shortage of high paid jobs. Has anyone heard him say otherwise? Hmph.

But hey, like I said – Eric Alterman has great taste in music.

-2Truthy