Nader's novel is 'utopian' fantasy

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. activist and presidential candidate Ralph Nader says his novel about a group of super-wealthy liberals saving the country is a work of utopian fantasy.

Although he uses real people such as Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Cosby, Yoko Ono and Phil Donahue in his new book, "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!" he told Time Magazine Wednesday that the book is what the literary world "either calls a work of speculation -- 'What if something happened?' 'What if somebody did this? -- or a 'practical utopia.'"

Time said the novel postulates what would happen if a group of billionaires and their media allies pooled their resources into a $15 billion effort to reform America by unionizing Wal-Mart, ending corporate influence on Congress and making Warren Beatty the governor of California.

"As you go through year after year, as many civic advocates do, being overwhelmed by the corporate lobbies and their allies in government, you say to yourself, 'If we only had more media, if we only had more money, if we only had more field organizers, if we only had better ideas and strategies,'" Nader told Time. "That's what produced the book."