Eric Alterman

The Low Spark of Well-Heeled Boys

Eric Alterman on July 20, 2012 - 12:32 PM ET

My new Think Again column is called “Our Broken Political System,” and it’s really about what a much better country Canada is than this one. You can find it here.

Alter-reviews:
I didn’t go see any live music this week, sorry. And I don’t have a time machine, but if I did, one of the things I would use it for, after killing Hitler, Stalin and Mao, and teaching the old Jews in Florida how to use their voting machines, would be go to the Checkerboard Lounge in Chicago on November 22nd, 1981 at the Muddy Watters show when Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Ian Stewart showed up together with Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, and an unfortunately soused Lefty Dizz, who eventually gets pushed off the stage, belatedly I might add. Still, it’s all pretty cool and new you can see it on DVD and listen to it later on cd, that is if you buy the package which you can find here.

'She Was Black as the Night…'

Eric Alterman on July 13, 2012 - 10:40 AM ET

My new Think Again column is called “When It Comes to Bruce Springsteen, Chris Christie Is a Big, Stupid Idiot,” and you can find it here.

Alter-reviews:
I saw David Johansen at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett last weekend. It was the same two man show David’s been doing around town—I reviewed it when I saw him a few weeks ago at Terminal 5—and a grand time will be had by all, even if you see it every few weeks. Out of his many personas, David has developed into a grand old man of post-pre-punk and sings mostly blues standards and old David Johansen gems, to a bunch of people who really appear to appreciate it. I can’t imagine that he ever expected to end up like this, but it strikes me as a really pleasant way to make a living.

Citizens United: The Sequel

Eric Alterman on July 6, 2012 - 10:40 AM ET

I took the week off from Think Again in honor of our nation’s 236^th birthday, but Robert Parmet did a nice review of The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama for the History News Network, here.

I see a talk I gave last year on Kabuki Democracy at the Kennedy school’s Shorenstein Center is up here.

One of my (many) pet peeves in the Internet age is the use of “we” when the “we” does not include me, or, indeed, most people I know. For instance, from Slate, “Why Do Hotels Turn Us Into Monsters?” with the subhed “What is it about hotels that makes us all go so bizarrely and baroquely berserk?”

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The Judge Sure Is Funky…

Eric Alterman on June 29, 2012 - 11:30 AM ET

My new Think Again column is called “What Howard Kurtz Thinks You Don’t Need to Know” and it is here.

My Nation column is called “On the Other Hand... Nothing,” and it’s here.

I have a longish article in this week’s Nation on the Washington Post's conservative blogger problem focusing on the misdeeds of one Jennifer Rubin and that’s here.

Affordable Care vs., um, Nothing

Eric Alterman on June 22, 2012 - 2:11 PM ET

My new Think Again column is called “Fearmaking, Then and Now.” It was inspired by all the time I spend watching TCM and it’s here.

Alter-reviews:
Kinky Friedman in Concert

Poor Boys and Pilgrims

Eric Alterman on June 15, 2012 - 11:17 AM ET

My new Think Again column is called “Government by (and for) Murdoch” and it’s here.

This came out this week, too: “Eric Alterman often ends up the reasonable man in the room. He wears the label “liberal” in full view, but he brings integrity to his positions and confronts his opponents with intellectual honesty. One of the nation’s foremost media critics and a trained historian, he has insightfully diagnosed a chief malaise of contemporary journalism: it’s ignorance of American history. So who better than to acquit liberalism while pulling together a history of its development since Franklin Delano Roosevelt?"

—From the review of The Cause in America (the National Catholic Weekly), June 4-1, 2012, 19-24
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Related Topics: Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Music

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Walker Wins, Money Shouts

Eric Alterman on June 8, 2012 - 10:28 AM ET

My new Think Again column is called “When Labor Unions Were at the Center of Politics” and it’s here.

My Nation column is called “Show Us the Money” and it’s here.

I did a Daily Beast piece for Tuesday morning called “The Downside of Obama’s Decision to Skip Wisconsin” here.
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Related Topics: Politics | Society

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Never Drone Alone…

Eric Alterman on June 1, 2012 - 12:07 PM ET

CSPAN II will air bookstore talk of mine on The Cause Sunday at 7, more here. That’s all for now. Here’s Reed.

Droning On, Drowning Out
by Reed Richardson
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Related Topics: Politics | Society | World

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Don't Think Twice

Eric Alterman on May 25, 2012 - 11:56 AM ET

My new "Think Again" column is called "Think Again: The Conservative War on Knowledge," and you can read it here.

My Nation column is called “All the Media Money Can Buy” and it’s here.

My contribution to The Nation's “OpinionNation: A Forum on Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)” can be found here.
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Related Topics: US Politics | Congress | Music

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Off to the Horses...

Eric Alterman on May 17, 2012 - 3:37 PM ET

My new “Think Again” column is called “As a Matter of Fact,” and it’s about how easily these alleged “fact-check” organizations can be manipulated into buying into right-wing propgapanda via “On the One-Handism” and you can find it here.

Thanks very much to Jordan Michael Smith for this thoughtful and generous review of The Cause.

I will be talking about liberalism and The Cause at an event sponsored by Demos and The World Policy Institute in lower Manhattan on Thursday, May 23 at 6:00. Further information should you wish to attend is here.
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Related Topics: Executive Branch | Campaigns and Elections | Electoral Politics

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