From Lehrer:
"GWEN IFILL: Let me ask you one final question, which is, as you were putting this book together and assembling your thoughts about what you see as a broad-based collapse in a lot of the way we think and reason in our society, did you ever think to yourself, based specifically on the indictment that you make against the Bush administration, that perhaps you conceded too soon in 2000?Gore has used a similar formulation in the past. In an interview in New York Magazine, May 06:
AL GORE: Well, there was -- I took it all the way to a final Supreme Court decision. And in our system, there is no intermediate step between a final Supreme Court decision and violent revolution.
So, at that point, having taken it as far as one could, then the question becomes, are we going to be a nation of laws and not people? Do I support the rule of law, even though I disagree with the Supreme Court's decision? I did disagree with it, and I think that those of us who disagreed with it will have the better of the argument in history."
"Does he, like many Democrats, think the election was stolen?SteveA sez:
Gore pauses a long time and stares into the middle distance. “There may come a time when I speak on that,” Gore says, “but it’s not now; I need more time to frame it carefully if I do.” Gore sighs. “In our system, there’s no intermediate step between a definitive Supreme Court decision and violent revolution.”
Later, I put the question of Gore’s views on the matter to David Boies, his lawyer in the Florida-recount battle. “He thought the court’s ruling was wrong and obviously political,” Boies says. So he considers the election stolen? “I think he does—and he’s right.”"
"I did not see Gore on Lehrer. From what you said here, though, it seemed he understood that the election had been stolen. He might have been able to make a case if he had wanted. But, he figured he had two options only. He could either go along with the result as he was given it by the Bush people, knowing they had stolen the election, or he could have taken a course that would have inevitably lead to violence in the streets.Good questions, all.
Is this why politicians on the left never do anything in this country?
They always think that doing something will get lots of people killed?
So, people on the Warren Commission planned to cover it up because if the general population knew that the assassination of their President was an inside job, then, they figured, there would be blood in the streets and we can't have that.
We can't challenge the efforts of republican operatives to steal elections because why? Democrats do the same things? The people who steal elections whether dem or rep are not against killing large numbers of Americans if it means preserving their hold on power?
Do we go along with making the 9-11 murders into some bogus act of war by foreigners when there were obvious questions about who had to be involved on the inside because to open up those questions would have lead to blood in the streets?
I do not think that fighting in the streets can get us anywhere where we want to be. So, I am very interested in finding some third alternative between "rule by gangsters" and the "blood in the streets" options Gore sees for us.
Did anyone ask Gore whether he thought the consequences to the country of his acquiecence to the coup would be worse than if he had decided to stand up for something? He could have just stated the facts as he saw them. Maybe he could have argued that we should not let the coup stand, nor should we start shooting up the place.
Did anyone ask him whether he thought that if the Bush people could have stolen the election, as he seems to have conceded, that they could have planned and carried out all that came afterward?
When the election in Mexico was stolen just recently, and the people were in the streets, there was not great bloodshed. Did Gore think that he couldn't risk even that kind of confrontation? What would he have been afraid of, that the government and the gangsters would have capitulated? That there would not have been enough people concerned about an honest election showing up. Does he think people basically go along with gangster rule and he doesn't want to expose that fact?
I could go on with my questioning. I will not consider Gore for any elected office unless I hear some kind of better excuse for what he did."
OTOH, I'd be happy to forgive Gore for 2000. Compared to the alternatives, he seems like a giant. Is there another Dem candidate that would even dare mention the theft of 2000? (or 2004 for that matter.) The theft in 2000 didn't 'happen to Gore' - it happened to all of us.
6 comments:
There are damn few, if any, Democrats with the spine and the wisdom of a Martin Luther King, Jr., unfortunately.
Technical clarification: Congress performs the final step in electing the president. The US supreme court ordered Florida to stop the election process before completing it, and Florida complied and sent its electoral votes to Congress. Congress reviews the electoral votes for validity and counts them and makes the final declaration. Congress could have refused to accept the votes from Florida on the grounds that there was no valid election there, but did not.
Luke,
You and your blog can present these questions and make all kinds of criticisms. We might even put together a fairly accurate account of just what happened on all these matters. But they don't have to pay any attention.
Gore was in a position to effectively raise the questions we want raised, but didn't. You say there aren't any other D's that would.
I am not completely unsympathetic with Gore. I suspect the only ones who would speak up have died when their planes fell out of the sky, or by bullet, or whatever. The anthrax people are still out there, and everyone knows that.
The actors can say things, maybe. But their talking about our issues can also be ignored and discounted.
I am diappointed with Gore. But understand that his failure to speak also says what's going on.
thanks anon.
SteveA - yep, I don't think for a minute that we can change much here (apart from, maybe, the SIbel stuff)
Gore was in a position to effectively raise the questions we want raised, but didn't. You say there aren't any other D's that would.
actually, there aren't any Dems that ARE or HAVE. They know exactly as much as Gore knows.
Luke,
I wish I had more time to pursue the arguments that you've been presenting here.
You've just said that you suppose that we won't be able to change much by what we do here. I take it you mean here on your "little" blog. Actually, I think that if we had the argument, one that addressed the right issues, it wouldn't matter where we started from, we would be able to change things from even the smallest podium. (I'm an optimist today...)
I said I was wanting to find some third alternative to the "rule by gangsters" and " blood in the streets" options. In looking for some such position I would try to find a position that both the gangsters and the revolutionaries would find appealing. I'm thinking that if we understand the gangsters and the revolutionaries well enough, we would be able to come up with, at least, some proposals that they might consider.
This would not be easy. However, it means we look at the way both these guys think.
I've noticed that you spend a lot of time quoting some of the political people who write things that you agree with, or that try to be informative on Turkey, and so forth. This is helpful to see what one's own are saying. But, I'm hoping that you would try to present some of the views of the gangsters. We need to see better what our opposition is thinking and first come up with our own understanding.
For example, I've been wondering about Podhoretz. He's made an argument about why we should nuke Iran asap. So, he goes on,
"...In their view, none of the things it envisages would follow even if Ahmadinejad should get the bomb, because the fear of retaliation would deter him from attacking us just as it deterred the Soviets in World War III. For our part, moreover, the knowledge that we were safe from attack would preclude any danger of our falling into anything like Islamization.
But listen to what Bernard Lewis, the greatest authority of our time on the Islamic world, has to say in this context on the subject of deterrence:
MAD, mutual assured destruction, [was effective] right through the cold war. Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that [Iran’s leaders] do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights."
Nor are they inhibited by a love of country:
"We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."
These were the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who ruled Iran from 1979 to 1989, and there is no reason to suppose that his disciple Ahmadinejad feels any differently.
Still less would deterrence work where Israel was concerned. For as the Ayatollah Rafsanjani (who is supposedly a “pragmatic conservative”) has declared:
If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession. . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.
In other words, Israel would be destroyed in a nuclear exchange, but Iran would survive.
In spite of all this, we keep hearing that all would be well if only we agreed—in the currently fashionable lingo—to “engage” with Iran, and that even if the worst came to the worst we could—to revert to the same lingo—“live” with a nuclear Iran..."
This found here:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.html?id=10882&page=2
It seems he's saying that we have every reason to think that Iran is just like Hitler's Nazi Germany and can not be trusted. Given half a chance they would kill all jews. His moral is that we should kill them before they would kill us.
I'm thinking that if we want to find an argument to change things we should be addressing ourselves to those we would want to change, the planners on the Republican side. We should try to come up with an argument that would resist their argument for destroying Iran, for example, but appeal even to those who are now advocating it. That is, we should try to change Podhoretz's mind.
Well, at least that would be my goal.
I expect we should be finding the argument that justifies the gangsterism and challenge that.
SteveA - the problem with all of these people is that they are all nuts. Not only that, they don't appear open to any rational discussion. I commend your optimism, but i'm disillusioned by that fact that they all agree with each other ON EVERY SINGLE DAMNED ISSUE.
That is, it appears to me, they belong to an authoritarian cult. They arent, it appears, worried about islamofascism, they're 'worried' about whetever they're told to worry about. It's incredible to me that the exact same people who purport to be worried about islamofascism also happen to all agree that 'climate change' is a hoax and that 'gay marriage' or 'gays in the military' will be the end of civilization.
in other words, we have an abundance of evidence that they will spout whatever they are told to spout, and the corollary of that is that it appears very difficult to reach these people with logic.
Very occasionally, we get a split, such as Dubai Ports or the current immigration 'debate' that might be 'wedged.'
One often sees argued that 'the Left is in disarray' - and that is accurate, because, it appears, we take each issue on the merits, and deal with complexity, and have legitimate disagreements. Why don't you see that in the 'message disciplined' Right wing?
Are they actually automotons, or are they really that consistent, cohesive? Evidence seems to point to the former - even as i know this not to be true.
But, when i see the religious leaders on the xtian Right, for example, all line up to 'debunk' global warming, i'm led to the same conclusion.
As for my 'little blog' - i'm of a mind of closing it down, and that might very well happen in the next little while.
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