>From the Glorious Revolutionary Federation of Fortune
500 Killers Press Office
Eric Alterman, as many of you know, is a smug-smarmy pundit-weasel—a Bill O’Reilly for confused liberals. If he is not on the cable news networks whining about his meager book sales, or boasting of his Stanford Ph.D., you can find this obnoxious wonk in the pages of The Nation, usually with bi-weekly attacks on Ralph Nader.
Recently, in an article for the aforementioned magazine of the bourgeois Morningside Heights liberal elite, Alterman, probably a bit distressed about his candidate’s inability to pull his act together, went so far as to call Nader an “idiot.” Alterman snarls at Nader for refusing to accept any responsibility for the horrors of the Bush Administration.
Alterman, like a thumb sucking brat, is still grasping on tightly (and desperately) to the notion that Nader stole the 2000 election from the clutches of Al Gore and the pathetic Democrats. In Alterman’s universe, it is all Nader’s fault. Forget that hundreds of thousands of registered Democrats voted for Bush. That was Nader’s doing, not the Democrats'. Forget that virtually every leading Democrat supported Bush’s war, forest plan, Patriot Act, Homeland Security bill, $87 billion occupation handout, and prescription drug bill (the vote for which John Kerry didn't even bother to show up for). It’s that damn Nader. All Nader. Always Nader! Not the Democrats. Never them.
Whether or not its members agree with Nader’s decision to run this year, the left should concur that Democrats deserve the competition. They have asked for it. Had the Dems actually challenged Bush these past four years, Nader would have no reason to run. Had Kerry stood arm-in-arm with the protesters on the streets prior to the Iraq invasion, as he did upon his Vietnam return, Nader would most likely not be in the race. The Democrats could have stopped this war. They had the power. They could have challenged Ashcroft’s Patriot Act, portions of which were written by John “I Committed War Crimes and Am Tough on Terror Too” Kerry. They blew that too. And who is surprised? Perhaps just flak Alterman and his fellow clones, who still believe that all sin is Republican in origin.
Alterman, with his history degree in hand, must have missed the chapter on the 1990s: Clinton’s welfare reform, NAFTA, the U.S. backed Iraq sanctions, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the salvage rider, and Plan Colombia, along with the increased funding for Israel, and the war in Yugoslavia, just to name a few of the more egregious items. The Federation supposes little Eric thinks this is Nader’s fault too.
It was nice not having to hear Alterman and other elite liberals whine about Nader spoiling the 2002 elections , when the Democrats lost control of the Senate all by their lonesome selves, and never really offered a decent explanation (sorry Nader was unavailable). The pitiful Democrats have been doing a pretty bang up job of self-destructing on their own lately. Why will 2004 be any different?
Somebody should pass the smelling salts. This Alterman twit must be out cold.
The Glorious Revolutionary Federation of Fortune 500 Killers is a Columbia University-based anti-capitalist, anti-racist student insurgent group. To learn more about the group, e-mail ceodeath99 at yahoo.com, or visit our site at (link).
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