http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/Nader_020612.html
a story on Grover Norquist inviting Nader to one of his Wednesday sessions. Nader accepted: "Most proceeded as if an ideological arch-nemesis was not there, listening, nodding, and arching an occasional eyebrow. (One regular meeting-goer, the American Land Rights Association's Mike Hardiman, casually referred to a group Nader founded as "spoiled suburbanites." Nader smiled wanly.)
When it was Nader's turn to speak, he took on the basic assumptions of his audience.
"Some of it is arguable, some of it is not so bad," he said of what he had just heard. "But the thrust is, strengthen the oligarchy, and strengthen the concentration of power."
He did not hold back.
Issuing a Challenge
He immediately challenged "anybody who calls himself a conservative or a libertarian and not a corporatist" to join his crusade against what he called "corporate fraud." "I think it's time for people who call themselves conservatives and libertarians to address the contradictions in their lives," he said."
Jacob quoting Alterman:
> As for Noam, well, it is unfair to compare him to Bill Bennett, because a)
>he does appear to be decent person with very good manners, and b) he has a
>day job as perhaps the most important linguistic philosopher since
>Wittgenstein. But politically, I¹m sorry. I defended the guy for years, even
>through the Faurrison affair. And I think he did a lot of good work on East
>Timor. But look at the man¹s political judgment. He defended Faurrison. He
>championed the Khmer Rouge. His condemnations of the Israeli-Palestinian
>conflict are one hundred percent one-sided, based on the (obviously) false
>notion that the Arab nations and the Palestinian people have been trying to
>arrange a peace with Israel for decades.
Alterman's wrong - perhaps maliciously so - here about Chomsky and the Khmer Rouge and about the "Palestinian people." Some do want peace and not all of Palestine; unfortuanely the Israelis built up Hamas and the religious fundamentalists who are less compromising and realistic.
> He viewed the rescue mission undertaken in Kosovo as nothing more
>than the extension of imperial power. He accuses the United States of
>perpetrating a holocaust in Afghanistan and thinks that the mistaken attack
>on the pharmaceutical factory in Somalia was as bad if not worse than the
>attack on the Twin Towers. One could go on, but it all adds up to, I fear,
Sudan not Somalia. However, Alterman is correct here except for the "one could go on" bit and I don't think Chomsky ever said "holocaust." He might have said genocide. One can see why people think Alterman is the secret mover behind Media Whores Online.
Peter