Alterman Inc Quotes & Sayings

While history never repeats itself, political patterns do. — Eric Alterman

Bringing democratic control to the conduct of foreign policy requires a struggle merely to force the issue onto the public agenda. — Eric Alterman

For the past eight years, the right has been better at working the refs. Now the left is learning how to play the game. — Eric Alterman

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. — Eric Alterman

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. — Eric Alterman

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the tactics of the Occupy Wall Street movement, it's easy to understand the inspiration for its anger as well as its impatience. — Eric Alterman

Ironically, tendency to ignore inconvenient facts and unwelcome evidence is actually President Reagan's true legacy, as I noted in 'The Nation' back in 2000, before the current right-wing mania for President Reagan gained its full force. — Eric Alterman

Liberals do not appear to address potential solutions with anything like the far right's aura of God-given self-confidence. — Eric Alterman

American journalists tend to treat inequality as a fact of life. But it needn't be. — Eric Alterman

Fox News is nothing if not impressive. No matter how harsh the criticism it endures, the network somehow always manages to prove itself even worse than we had previously imagined. — Eric Alterman

The Economist is undoubtedly the smartest weekly newsmagazine in the English language. I always look forward to its quirky year-end double issue. — Eric Alterman

If newspapers were a baseball team, they would be the Mets - without the hope for those folks at the very pinnacle of the financial food chain - who average nearly $24 million a year in income - 'next year.' — Eric Alterman

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. — Eric Alterman

By the accusation of liberal bias ... the institutions that conservatives revere - the military, corporate America, organized religion, and the powerful conservative groups themselves - will be able to escape scrutiny and increase their influence. — Eric Alterman

The war on terrorism was a bait and switch operation. — Eric Alterman

Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago. — Eric Alterman

Trends in circulation and advertising - the rise of the Internet, which has made the daily newspaper look slow and unresponsive; the advent of Craigslist, which is wiping out classified advertising-have created a palpable sense of doom. — Eric Alterman

Americans have always evinced some distrust of government, but the current situation has exacerbated this to a degree that may be unprecedented. — Eric Alterman

Three centuries after the appearance of Franklin's 'Courant', it no longer requires a dystopic imagination to wonder who will have the dubious distinction of publishing America's last genuine newspaper. Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive. — Eric Alterman

Stylistically speaking, Barack Obama could hardly be further from Jimmy Carter if he really had been born in Kenya. — Eric Alterman

The White House and the media need one another in order to be successful in their jobs. The White House depends on the media to make its case to the public; the media need the White House to fill their airtime and news columns. — Eric Alterman

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. — Eric Alterman

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. — Eric Alterman

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. — Eric Alterman

Americans get mad as hell with reasonable frequency but quickly return to their families and sitcoms. — Eric Alterman

As a parent and a citizen, I'll take a Bill Gates (or Warren Buffett) over Steve Jobs every time. If we must have billionaires, better they should ignore Jobs's example and instead embrace the morality and wisdom of the great industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. — Eric Alterman

America's great newspapers have staffs that range from 50 percent to 70 percent of what they were just a few years ago. — Eric Alterman

One of the many, many salutary aspects of Barack Obama's impending presidential nomination is the sea change his victory marks in the battle for the mind-set of the American foreign policy establishment. — Eric Alterman

I am deeply devoted to the 27,000 songs I can take anywhere on my iPod Classic as well as the exquisitely engineered MacBook Air on which I typed this column. — Eric Alterman

There are more people at Obama's table offering ideas than there were five years ago, but when it came to facing up to the Republicans' threat to force a double-dip recession if they didn't get their millionaires' tax cut, they still amounted to nothing. And therein lies our fundamental problem. — Eric Alterman