Agree

I advocated a Gore-Obama ticket for 2008 following the 2004 convention. I am also curious about his reticence now. As to why he did not run, I have no idea save that no one wants to get burned and many blamed him for 2000. Also he might not have relished a contest versus Hillary (aka the Clintons).

by Stephen C. Rose (35 articles, 64 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 56 comments) on Monday, March 17, 2008 at 9:43:22 PM
 

thank you for the many responses

As always I learn more than I submit, especially when I submit something as controversial (I knew I would get some serious flack on this one -- and I understand it). However, this site (Op-Ed News) keeps a dignity and illuminating discourse so consistently, that I gambled and wrote something I myself had profound second thoughts about and the responses below make me glad I did. I have about five new perspectives on Gore (who I still love for his environmental courage) that I didn't have before, and I thank you all for youf courtesy and restraint on this highly changed subject. I was particularly struck by the observation that none of us every DREAMED the pug/neo-Nazis were (and are) planning to TOTALLY take over our country in 2000. My God, how I long for my country back. Circumstances notwithstanding, they havn't changed our hearts and I think in the long haul that will still make the difference.

Solidary to one an all. Even even when we disagree, we're still passionate progressives and there's millions and millions of us.

Bill

by W. Christopher Epler (Bill) (218 articles, 44 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 485 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 3:58:32 PM
 

Gore Abandoned Us?

Bill: With all due respect, as I do enjoy your posts, I didn't realize that Al Gore is the one who is supposed to carry the cross for us in the upcoming election. Didn't the man already do his time? And where was one single supporter he needed to contest the ripoff we called an election when he won the Presidency back in the days before the country started unraveling?  I understand how you feel, but we certainly cannot blame Gore if he chooses to remain a private (and, yes, 'elite') citizen and carry on with the work he's doing for, not just our country, but the entire planet.  He did try to contest Bush on his sleazy, phony Supreme Court appointment as president, and where were we?  Ahem.... Now we  whine and expect him to  come back and save us from the mean old Republicans and mend the rift among the Democrats?  It would be nice, but, hey, if it were up to me, I'd stay out of it too.

Debbie 

by Debbie Scally (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 43 comments) on Monday, March 17, 2008 at 9:51:58 PM
 

if only, if only

Debbie,

I have to admit I wrote this with many second thoughts. I really profoundly respect the man and, you're right, God knows he's already done plenty. I guess I was just in such despair when he didn't run since it really would have been a slam dunk, and at this time in our history and the Earth's history, and western civilization's history, that slam dunk would have been INFINITELY timely. But, his life is his own and Godspeed to him.

Bill

by W. Christopher Epler (Bill) (218 articles, 44 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 485 comments) on Monday, March 17, 2008 at 11:00:29 PM
 

Thanks for clarifying...

After reading your original post, Bill, I felt much like Debbie did...  Thanks for taking a deep breath and clarifying your position.  There is a certain anger or rage about it all, I suppose -but we've got to make sure it gets directed at the justifiable targets.  I, too, wished he had run this time around... I felt like he would have put most of the other candidates to shame easily.  I guess it's time that I took down the editorial cartoon clipping (from when Assault on Reason came out) that pictures him at a book signing surrounded by a crowd carrying signs urging him to run...  What really makes me sick is the Democratic Party itself and the two candidates we are left (forced) to choose from!  I don't especially like either of them -but I'll support Obama in order to defeat Hillary and ultimately (I hope) McCain.  There's hardly a single politico in DC that 'deserves' anything but retirement...  Don't get me started on Nader, McKinney, or Paul.

-Bid

by C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 647 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 10:29:46 AM
 

Just one Senator

Debbie:

Just to set the record straight, there were plenty of Senators who WOULD have stood with the Democratic Black Caucus to contest the electoral vote total in 2000, but Gore TOLD them not to.  He made a "deal" of sorts on the issue, and it has been well documented in a number of books, including THE BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY and FOOLED AGAIN.

As he has said, after a Supreme Court ruling (which he didn't necessariy believe was fair) there is no recourse other than REVOLUTION, and having been a second generation political insider, this was unthinkable to him.

It should also be pointed out (though I do not consider it an excuse for Stevens or O'Conner's treason on the Supreme Court) that most people didn't really have a clue how criminal, treasonous, fascistic, vile and evil the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration would turn out to be. 

Many people just saw "the Rethuglicans stealing the election" and that it would all be sorted out in 2004.  They didn't realize that these scum had BIG PLANS and would solidify and cement their criminality by compounding it with more and more criminality and treason.

Prior to 2000, the Rethuglicans and the Democrats really WEREN'T that different.  Yes, the Rethuglicans were for tax cuts for the rich and deregulation of anything that would slow down corporate profits, and the Democrats were less so, but the striking difference between neo-cons and Democrats wasn't as clear-cut and obvious.

Nobody could have forseen how bad these criminals would be.  We were just expecting the same old level of criminality, but the Bush/Cheney/Rove folks took it up a thousand notches.

Now, I suspect Gore KNOWS that he couldn't run without everything they've gotten from phone taps coming public.  Not worth it.

by Charlie L (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 638 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 11:20:39 AM
 

no slam dunk

I'm not sure it would have been a slam dunk.  The Clintons would have tried to knee-cap him, too.  Frankly, looking at it a year ago, with practically unlimited fundraising and a baseline floor of, say, 30% of the vote from women even before the opening tip, I thought Hillary was pretty unbeatable too and didn't blame Gore for not wanting to get into that brawl.

When you've done more good and made more money without having your  character attacked every day outside politics, why would you want to get back in it?  Well, for the power and influence of course.  I haven't given up hope for an Obama/Gore ticket in '08.  It may be the only way out of the current clusterf**k.

by Gregg Gordon (26 articles, 47 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 199 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 2:41:18 AM
 

Very interesting ticket there...

That would certainly heat things up a bit!  Obama/Gore '08.  It might even make Obama a little more palatable for some...  Like I said above, Obama has my support (but not for the right reasons).  Coupled with Gore, I could absolve the guilt I'm having over the lesser of evils ordeal.  This, again, is merely one of the many reasons I'm disgusted with the Democratic party and politics in general...

by C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 647 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 10:40:33 AM
 

interesting ticket? IMHO no sir.

     Balancing this lesser of choice is not acceptable. I know your point of absolving the guilt is real, but for me Bid, it is unacceptable. Nader, Mckinney etc...a waste of a vote, worse, one more not counted against McCain the 'Angry and paid for Depends President'? What a choice!

     I step back. Bigger picture. Does the prez matter? Yes, but with these 3 choices, do we really think the differences are enough for any of them knowing, let alone doing what we need done? So, I stand back, look around and I think like perhaps you did for yourself as you looked to yourself and pulled yourself up and into your life, this election is important not for who we want to be president, but how are we to make our lives better. Not how are they.

     I don't mean to be a pessimist. I still believe we can stem this tide. It'll take years, but I, in my faith that 1776 was and is not for naught, we The People have to look to ourselves. If you (me) and your (my) wife ran your (our) family the way our elected leaders run our country, your (our) children would have no honor. That is what I believe is our downfall. We have lost our compassion for each other, our respect for our laws, our diligence to uphold the legacy of personal liberty and our ability to be humble and fair.

     I vote because it is an honor to be part of this once great land. I think we can get it back. It will be a badass time doing so. That my vote has to be considered in such a way that my choice is continued corruption with a difference in style only does not please me. So, big picture. What can I do?

     1. Love my family.

     2. Vote in 'good conscious for whomever I choose.

     3. Build relationships locally to prepare for the difficulties ahead.

     4. Share my ideas, thoughts with you and others who give a shit.

     One day at a time. Hey It took us a lot of lazy to allow this to happen. It's gonna take a long time to get it back. It always easier to wreak something than to rebuild it. There are good folks out here.

     31 flavors is all about ice creme. Our leaders are all about them.

     I believe while we must keep battling inside this broken system, it's time for us to build our personal foundations again. Our honor. For each other. If we don't, it won't stand. Our kids deserve to know the difference.

     It's a sad time in what used to be a rather wonderful place. Could be again. I am buoyed by how many folks do care. You are one.

     Work to do.

     peace

by mikel paul (10 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 365 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 2:40:09 PM
 

Mikel,

I cannot say that I disagree with anything you have said here... but, I am torn as to what to do!  The debate rages on within me until I feel obligated to cast my vote in order to prevent the further damage that would come under the rule of either other candidate (Hillary or McCain)!  It is not the proudest of moments in my voting career.  However, as much as I understand the reasons and arguments made by those who refuse to cast their ballot in protest or by principal, I cannot with 'good conscience' abstain from voting -even if the main factor behind my support is only to keep Hillary and McCain out of the oval office...  I'm disgusted with my reasoning, this dilemma I'm facing, the system that has enabled it, and our continuing pattern of cookie-cutter candidates selling themselves as the dessert of the month/year/election cycle that starts this perpetually troubling and repetitive dance!  It is this dis-satisfaction that is bleeding over into a near self-loathing and helplessly melancholic pessimism concerning all things personal in addition to political...  You could say that it's fucking with me!

Cheers,

-Bid

P.S.  Sorry I never got back to you on email.  If you're still up for more private discussions, drop me a line at the same address I gave you earlier and we can get started...  I just never quite got back on my feet after my trip (weeks ago) and am still trying to catch up on all my emailing!   

by C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 647 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 11:54:42 PM
 

Al Gore: The Man, The Myths, The Inconvenient Truths

On many of the issues that progressives care about most-curbing pro-corporate trade agreements, stopping the flow of U.S. arms and training to corrupt and abusive regimes in Colombia and Indonesia, ending the deadly civilian sanctions against Iraq, reducing the nation's grotesque military budget-the differences between the standard-bearers of the two major parties range from subtle to nonexistent.

Peace Action, the nation's largest grassroots peace group, highlighted six issues in its Presidential voter guide. On five of these, Gore and Bush agree:

"Increase Pentagon spending" (Yes), "Spend $60 billion or more on 'Star Wars' anti-missile system" (Yes), "Give aid to Colombian army guilty of human rights violations" (Yes), "End sanctions on food and medicine to civilians in Iraq" (No), and "Require labor rights and environmental protections in all trade agreements" (No).

Gore's stances have decidedly been against the positions of most progressive organizations and activists. On only one issue, "Support treaty to ban nuclear testing," was Gore in favor and Bush opposed.

On October 4, The New York Times asked Gore, "Would you press for the lifting of sanctions?" Gore answered: "No, no, I'm a hardliner on Castro."

And on the sanctions against Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands?

Here's more Gore. Do you really support this guy?

GORE: We have to keep a weather eye toward Saddam Hussein because he’s taking advantage of this situation to once again make threats and he needs to understand that he’s not only dealing with Israel, he is dealing with us.

BUSH: The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it’s unraveling, let’s put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don’t know whether he’s developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be or there’s going to be a consequence, should I be the president.

Q: You could get him out of there?

BUSH: I’d like to, of course. But it’s going to be important to rebuild that coalition to keep the pressure on him.

Q: You feel that as a failure of the Clinton administration?

BUSH: I do.

GORE: We have maintained the sanctions. I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Some say they’re too weak to do it. But that’s what they said about those opposing Milosevic in Serbia.

Source: Presidential Debate at Wake Forest University Oct 11, 2000

Gore wanted to go FURTHER than just mere sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands!

 

Indeed, Al Gore was one of only ten Democrats to break with the party and vote for President Bush Sr.’s Gulf War in 1991.

Gore was a relentless supporter of the Hyde amendment, which banned federal funding for abortions for poor women.

In 1986, when the IRS proposed new regulations denying tax-exempt status to private schools that barred black students, Gore was among those in Congress who tried to undermine the regulations.

Soon after his arrival in Congress, Gore formed the Vietnam Veterans Caucus with John Murtha, Jim Jones and Les Aspin. For Gore the caucus opened up a useful avenue into hawkish Democratic circles, where men like Aspin and Sam Nunn were doing the Pentagon's work, proclaiming that "Vietnam Syndrome" was sabotaging the nation's vital sinews. Gore picked up the lingo quickly enough: "I think it is important to realize that we do have interests in the world that are important enough to defend, to stand up for. And we should not be so burned by the tragedy of Vietnam that we fail to recognize an interest that requires the assertion of force."

With such language, Gore established himself early on as "safe" from the point of view of the Pentagon and the national security complex. Safety meant never straying off the reservation on such issues as America's right to intervene anywhere it chooses. Gore backed Reagan's disastrous deployment of the US Marines in Lebanon in 1983. He supported the invasion of that puissant Caribbean threat to the United States (population 240 million) by Grenada (population 80,000). He later chided his 1988 Democratic opponents for their failure to embrace this noble enterprise. At a time when many Democrats wanted to restrict the CIA's ability to undertake covert actions, Gore said he wouldn't "hesitate to overthrow a government with covert actions", a posture he ratified with his approval of the CIA's secret war in Afghanistan. This, the largest covert operation in the Agency's history, ultimately saddled Afghanistan with the Taliban fundamentalists, destroyers of cities, stoners of women, harborers of Bin Laden and overseers of that country's rise in status to the eminence of world's largest exporter of opium and heroin to the United States and Europe.

How's that for a resumé of inconvenient truths?

“Well, although we are cousins, and I was a friend of his father’s, I’ve always thought he was absolutely pointless as a politician. He’s just another conservative southerner.” - Vidal Gore

In fact, Al Gore’s voting record as a senator was surprisingly conservative until he rolled his eye toward the White House. Throughout most of his career, he was pro-life and had an 84% anti-abortion rating from the National Right to Life Committee. From 1979 – 81, he voted five times on the side of a Republican sponsored rider that granted a tax exemption for schools like Bob Jones University that discriminate on the basis of race. He was openly anti-gay, calling homosexuality “abnormal” and “wrong,” and telling the Tennessean in 1984 that he did “not believe it is simply an acceptable alternative that society should affirm.” When it came time to vote on conservative Supreme Court nominees, Gore publicly praised but voted against the scandal-ridden Clarence Thomas. He voted in Antonin Scalia. If the wider public had been more aware of his legacy, few would have recognized the Al Gore of 1988 who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.
 

More inconvenient truths: 

NAFTA cleared the Senate by one vote. Al Gore was called in to perform his constitutional role as Senate President to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the treaty. Clinton and Gore, through Gore's tie-breaking vote, delivered what Bush I could only dream of. Thus began the precipitous hollowing-out of American manufacturing. The Clinton-Gore passion for "free" trade agreements such as NAFTA, the WTO, and GATT greatly accelerated the pace of exporting the American manufacturing base in ways that backers of their Republican predecessors could only dream of.

Gore has been a corporate errand boy from day one. Once we get beyond the liberal mythologies and examine the actual details we find Al Gore's record is predictably in agreement with the ruling elites.

by coyote (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 73 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 12:00:48 PM
 

Gore made a deal

'Gore has been a corporate errand boy from day one. Once we get beyond the liberal mythologies and examine the actual details we find Al Gore's record is predictably in agreement with the ruling elites.'

The above is from coyote comments and right on the money. He made a deal.  That deal is still intact: he can play his toys as soon as he does not enter politics. That simple. It is a deal.

by Mark Sashine (47 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3362 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 12:12:10 PM
 

Slam Dunk?

Al Gore is busy making money and flipping around the globe as Chairman of Generation Investment Management.

Mr. Gore was both supportive and V.P. for the passing of both NAFTA and the WTO. Not only did these agreements gut Middle American jobs for ever, but they unleashed and ultimatley funded the greatest increase in global polution that has ever been witnessed!

Sponsering agreements that moved America's industry to the world's most polluted and poverty sticken areas of the planet, do not make Mr. Gore a slam dunk.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 12:19:51 PM
 

Just a LITTLE CORRECTION

Under the Taliban opium was curtailed and banned as un-Islamic.
Everything else though, seems spot on.

by ibrahim turner (25 articles, 27 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 172 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 3:40:42 PM
 

HE IS NOT A GOD

REMEMBER AL IS NOT GOD -HE MAKES MISTAKES JUST LIKE ALL OF US --HIS DUTY NOW IS BIGGER THAN AMERICA,AND  HE IS STILL DOING GREAT THINGS FOR US THAT MAYBE WE DONT FULLY UNDERSTAND. THE WORLD IS BIGGER THAN AMERICA,AL REALIZES THIS BETTER THAN MOST AND TO HELP US IN THE BEST WAY IS TO DO EXACTLY WHAT HE IS DOING FOR WHO BETTER KNOWS THAT OUR SYSTEM IS CORRUPT,AND TO HELP US BEST IS TO DO IT GLOBALY GAINING POWER THERE THAT HE COULDN'T GET HERE---WITHOUT A WORLD -THERE IS NO POLITICS

by skiidogs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 92 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 6:19:00 PM
 

let's hope this view is correct

This is a positive view and it may well be correct.  He certainly has an international perspective and God knows we need all the internationalism we can get.  It may be the only thing that can save us.  Someone once pointed out that we saved Europe from fascism twice (the 2 world wars), but now that the neo-Nazis have us by the throat, there's no one to save us.  Anyway, yes indeed, Gore can make mistakes (so what), but my idealism still wants to believe (in spite of this piece) that somehow, someway he's kicking butt for America.

Solidarity, Bill

by W. Christopher Epler (Bill) (218 articles, 44 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 485 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 6:28:21 PM