Ralph Nader: Extremist

Nearly everyone -- except Karl Rove, who has been too busy applauding -- has remarked how Ralph Nader has finally jumped off the deep end with his decision to run for president again in 2004.

Now, it seems, he really has jumped off politically, too. According to former supporter Doug Ireland, Nader has now formed an alliance with Fred Newman, the ex-Larouchite extremist who operates his semi-cult out of New York.

Ralph's Dark Side: Mr. Nader and the Newmanites

Nader has now jumped into bed with the ultrasectarian cult-racket formerly known as the New Alliance Party and its guru, Fred Newman: Ralph was the star attraction at a January conference of "independents" that was just a front for the Newmanite crazies. By rejecting the Greens' ballot line, Nader will have huge difficulties getting his name on the ballot. So he went shopping for help in ballot access from the Newmanites. The New York Times reported Nader says he'll "link up" with existing "independent" parties in New York and elsewhere -- which can only mean the Newmanites (who control New York's Independence Party and similar remnants of the Reform Party in many states).

This cult is the antithesis of every value Nader holds dear. A Maoist grouplet in the '70s, the Newmanites morphed into supporters of Pat Buchanan in the Hitler-coddling commentator's 2000 takeover of the Reform Party. Newman recruits and controls his followers through a brainwashing scheme baptized "social therapy," designed to create blind allegiance to Newman. He has frequently dipped his rhetoric in the poisonous blood-libel of anti-Semitism, denouncing Jews as "storm troopers of decadent capitalism." By French-kissing the cultists to get on the ballot, Nader has allowed himself to be used as bait to lure the unsuspecting into the Newmanite orbit, where they risk being sucked into the cult. That's a betrayal of the many young people to whom Nader is still a hero. And an acid commentary on Nader's judgment.

Chip Berlet and Political Research Associates have tracked Newman's activities for some time. Here are some reports worth stocking up on:

Clouds Blur the Rainbow: How Fred Newman & Lenora Fulani Use Totalitarian Deception to Manipulate Social and Political Activists

Fred Newman and the Historical Roots of the Newmanites

The Newmanites and Lenora Fulani

Lenora Fulani and the Politics of Opportunism

Buchanan, Fulani, Perot, & the Reform Party

Letter from a therapist about Newman and his followers

Anyone who votes for Nader isn't just voting for Bush. They're voting for a right-wing tool and a wacko in his own right.