Wednesday, December 19, 2007

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

4 comments:

Citizen Carrie said...

I've kind of forgotten what life was like in the old days. I think politicians should bring back higher wages and benefits for the working class just to remind us how miserable we used to be.

2Truthy said...

And when pancakes were dripping with syrup of sarcasm of the loftier bygone days of fill in the blanks...:)

Anonymous said...

I have to disagree with just one thing. We don't need Leninism, the corrupt democrats you reference, like Gore, Clinton and the ones in Congress, Howard Dean and the rest, are employing Marxist/Leninist principles to destabilize our economy and collapse our economy from within.

Both the far right and the far left are exactly the same, the outcomes are no different. Fascism originated with the left.

BTW, I'm a life long liberal democrat, well I was until five months back when I reaffiliated as an independent. I'm one of those dems who fought for Al Gore through '99 and '00 and I now regret it, I was wrong, Nader was right. I voted Nader in this election.

2Truthy said...

anon, you are right. Fascism originated with the Left, and I agree, we don't need any of that:)

My assertion that we need "Leninism" is based only upon the contextual extent to which Alterman defines it here. I believe that Alterman is referring to Nader supporters such as ourselves as "Leninists" to make the distinction between insufferable "I Got Mine" Liberal Democrats who are connected to the trough and the insightful rabble of departed Democrats who take issue with the ethically challenged, hubris ridden, corporate welfare crowd of corruption that the Democratic Party has sunk to.

Alterman's article erroneously suggests that for those (Nader supporters) who are not onboard with the neo-fascist corporate Democrats' co-opted Democracy which benefits only a few at the top, the Country will socially and economically be doomed to a pathetic state of national accountability and transparency. Shudders.

I have been to both big ticket Dem fundraisers and to big ticket Nader fundraisers, and there is a world of distinction between the 'tude in both crowds.

The smug, arrogant BS labeled as "neo-cool, frat-boy one world etc." of one and an intellectually honest yet truly pragmatically minded, no pretenses crowd in the other are worlds apart. Can you guess which is which:)?