Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman
Eric Altermanis an American historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. He is currently CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College, the media columnist for The Nation and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, as well as the author of ten books. His weblog named Altercation was originally hosted by MSNBC.com from 2002 until 2006, moved to Media Matters for America until December 2008, and is now hosted by The Nation. He writes...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBlogger
Date of Birth14 January 1960
CountryUnited States of America
The ability of the 1 percent to buy politicians and regulators is nothing new in American politics - just as inequality has been a permanent part of our economic system. This is true of virtually all political and economic systems.
Americans have always evinced some distrust of government, but the current situation has exacerbated this to a degree that may be unprecedented.
Stylistically speaking, Barack Obama could hardly be further from Jimmy Carter if he really had been born in Kenya.
Liberals do not appear to address potential solutions with anything like the far right's aura of God-given self-confidence.
Face it, the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us.
If liberalism has grown so weak and ineffective, why does it evoke such alarm on the part of conservatives? It turns out that while liberals are weak and spineless, they are also sneaky and clever.
So was it a political mistake for Obama to put so many eggs in the health-care-reform basket? Well, a negative decision from the Supreme Court will certainly make it appear so.
Americans continue to suffer from a notoriously short attention span. They get mad as hell with reasonable frequency, but quickly return to their families and sitcoms. Meanwhile, the corporate lobbies stay right where they are, outlasting all the populist hysteria.
To own the dominant, or only, newspaper in a mid-sized American city was, for many decades, a kind of license to print money. In the Internet age, however, no one has figured out how to rescue the newspaper in the United States or abroad.
Apple is a wonderful company for its customers and investors. So, too, Pixar. (NeXT, not so much...) But Apple is also an engine of misery for its subcontracted Chinese workers.
Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment.
The consequences of President Johnson's campaign of deliberate deception regarding Vietnam could hardly have been more catastrophic for the nation, the military, the president, his party, and the presidency itself.
This trend of reporting process over substance is unfortunate, if omnipresent. Even worse is the media's inability - or unwillingness - to fact-check Republicans who are angry about the Democrats trying to debate and vote on Iraq policy.
Local politics, like everything else, are not what they used to be. But the fact is that our political system - like our physical existence - still breaks down along geographical lines.