From tragedy to frace: Todd Gitlin on Traitor Nader

[WillyBrandt]

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"A classic book of social psychology analyzes a flying saucer cult of the 1950s. This sect of Midwesterners believed that on a particular date to come, a date revealed to them and them alone, the world would be engulfed by a flood of biblical proportions -- but also that, on the day in question, flying saucers would arrive and rescue the true believers. The researchers infiltrated the group and waited to see what would happen.

"When the designated date came, the landscape remained dry and no saucers landed. A number of followers fell away. But a core of fanatics stuck to their guns, reinterpreted the data, concluded that they had (slightly) misread the signs, figured out the right date, and redoubled their energy. If reality was going to be in such poor taste as to disconfirm their belief, they would find a way to make them match. Thus does the book that emerged from this research, "When Prophecy Fails," by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956, anticipate Ralph Nader. Nader, like the cult members, has newly retooled arguments at his disposal, and therefore must be counted as fervent in his reckless disregard for the all-too-real world in which George W. Bush and his crowd have taken power over every important institution of American politics on behalf of preventive war, plutocracy, environmental meltdown, cultural rollback and a judiciary that ratifies the above."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/02/22/nader_candidacy/

[joeybee12]

1. I saw this--pretty scathing...

...what a huge, friggin' ego!

[diplomats]

2. I only read the beginning

but Nader's comment about the "liberal intelligentsia" trying to talk him out of his run made me laugh. Weren't many of these people supporters of his in 2000?

[boobooday]

3. Nader blows it all

How sad. He could have done the right thing, and been a hero.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[aquart]

4. He's not young. His arteries could be rocks.

Tends to cement the mind.

[glitch]

5. didn't he have a stroke awhile back?

perhaps he has never fully recovered.