G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
The Last Founder Standing
By Sheila Samples
Created Nov 18 2007 - 9:49am
"If you want to go quickly, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
We need to go far -- quickly." ~~ Al Gore
No entity in this once-proud nation is more corrupt than its shallow,
hubris-infested media. Any *****s of conscience the media may have felt for
covering up the treasonous seizure of the 2000 election were swept away in
the swirl of terror following the attack on 9-11.
The "big story" to confront George Bush when he returned from his month-long
vacation in September 2001, his approval numbers tanking, was that Al Gore
got more votes than any Democrat in US history -- nearly a half-million more
than Bush. It was that five conservative Supreme Court judges stopped the
vote count that would prove Gore won because, in their unsigned decision,
they wrote such a democratic win would cause "public acceptance," which
would "cast a cloud over Bush's legitimacy" and thus harm "democratic
stability."
Into the Abyss
The election coup was a shot across the bow of democracy, a power seizure
orchestrated by the ever-present, hands-on man who leaves no fingerprints,
James Baker III, and carried out by mob leader John Bolton. Luckily for
Bush, he blundered into 9-11 and managed to hit the trifecta before the
papers managed to hit the newsstands. And, thanks to the media and its
burgeoning power to manipulate citizen opinion and form legislative
attitudes, Bush demanded -- and was given -- a license to kill.
The beast was loosed.
The last seven years have been a hell of a ride for Bush, Dick Cheney and
their toady media -- continuous, absurd politicking for the next election,
blood-gushing adventure abroad and a Constitution-shredding free-for-all at
home. Power is a heady thing, and they grow more powerful and immoral with
each lie they tell, each freedom they destroy, each crime they cover up.
For the rest of us, those years have just been hell. Like our fellow
Americans in New Orleans caught up in the despair [1] of waiting for help
that will never come, we remain mired in a Samuel Beckett wasteland, [2]
waiting for our own "Godot" to return and claim what is rightfully his.
Rightfully ours. Our rights, our freedoms, our civil liberties -- our
government.
Gore tested the water in 2004, and the media met him head-on, fangs bared,
in a concerted effort to ridicule and destroy him and to keep their
corporate benefactors and war profiteers in office. From the New York Times
to the Washington Times to the Los Angeles Times the message to Gore was the
same -- get lost.
Over at CNN, Paula Zahn and Judy Woodruff each did an "exclusive" interview
with Gore. Each pointed out how popular and wonderful Bush is; each asked
Gore virtually the same question -- "Do you really think YOU can win?" Each
looked at Gore in stunned amazement, and Woodruff even added in her
intensely oh-so-blonde bewildered way (eyes wide, hands spread) -- "People
are saying that nobody out there likes you, even the leaders of your own
party. Given that (you're such a ridiculously low lying slimeball) -- what
makes you think you can win...?"
People are saying. Should anyone doubt who those "people" are, during the
same period, CNN's Suzanne Malvoux opined to then morning anchor Soledad
O'Brien, "There's a connection between Bush 43 and the public -- it's a
comfort level...Bush has a glow about him." O'Brien announced a bit later,
as if noticing it herself, "Bush seems to have a glow about him." Later,
Woodruff credited Malvoux with reporting earlier that "Bush is so relaxed,
he has a glow about him." Later in the day, Wolf Blitzer commented, "Some
people are saying that Bush has a glow about him..."
Gore was determined that the election be more than some "media" people
saying he is boring, he is fat, he is a liar. He knew that Bush, if forced
to address the issues facing this country, if forced to explain the
disconnect between his words and actions, explain to Americans why their
civil rights were being desecrated in the name of freedom, explain how a
"man of God" could morph so effortlessly into an "Angel of Death," he could
not -- and should not -- survive. So Gore withdrew, hoping to set the stage
if not for Bush's defeat, at least for him having to answer some critical
questions about this nation's economy, its domestic chaos, and the
pathological lies that took this nation into a bloody, senseless war.
Going Quickly, Alone
That didn't happen. So Gore set out to continue his lifelong quest of
awakening the world's population to the reality of global warming. In spite
of the media's vicious efforts to discredit him, Gore soared to new heights
of credibility with his book, "An Inconvenient Truth," published
concurrently in May 2006 with the documentary film of the same title. The
film, by far the most popular at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, was mocked
at home but received well-deserved acclaim in foreign media and captured not
one, but two Academy Awards. It went on to become the
fourth-highest-grossing documentary in US history.
The New York Times' Michiko Kakutani did review [3] Gore's book, pointing
out that it was "largely free of the New Age psychobabble and A-student
grandiosity that rumbled through" his 1992 book, "Earth in the Balance."
Kakutani reminded readers that Poppy Bush had earlier dismissed Gore as
"Ozone Man," but conceded that Gore's "passionate warnings about climate
change seem increasingly prescient," and that his "wonky fascination with
policy minutiae has been tamed in these pages..." Finally, while noting that
Gore wrote the Introduction for (1994 reprint) Rachel Carson's "Silent
Spring," Kakutani wrapped it up by sneering that Gore "isn't a scientist
like Carson and doesn't possess her literary gifts," and accused Gore of
writing "as a popularizer of other people's research and ideas."
Perhaps if Kakutani had known that, just 18 months later, Gore and the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would be awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge
about manmade climate change, and to lay the foundations ... to counteract
such change," she might have mentioned that the premise of Gore's book was
clearly that global warming is not just about science nor is it just a
political issue. It is a moral issue and we -- all of us -- have a
responsibility to do something about it. Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" is, as
Kafka [4] wrote, "the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
Al Gore is a "larger than party" guy, and stands head and shoulders above
the hypocritical Bush clones in both parties who are flip-flopping all over
the campaign trail. Since 2000, he has wielded that axe again and again via
op-eds, speeches and face-to-face interaction with the people -- a wake-up
call to resist the imposition of tyranny by the powerful. As early as 2003
Gore was ahead of the pack, warning [5] Americans about the loss of civil
liberties, unwarranted searches and seizures, and illegal surveillance.
In a September 2005 speech in San Francisco, a heartbroken Gore spoke of the
morality [6] -- or lack of it -- in the Bush administration's belated
response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Don't point fingers -- don't
hold us accountable -- appeared to be the only plan in place to deal with
catastrophe.
However, "When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic
floodwaters five days after a hurricane strikes," Gore said, "it is time not
only to repond directly to the victims...but to hold the processes of our
nation accountable, and the leaders of our nation accountable..."
Gore had personally responded to the tragedy by arranging to have 270
evacuees airlifted on two separate flights from New Orleans to Tennessee. He
agreed to pay $50,000 for each flight, recruited doctors and cut through
government red tape to allow the planes to land in New Orleans. The media
did not mention this act of courage and compassion, perhaps because Bush had
not yet arrived for his belated flyover and cathedral photo-op where
spotlights cast a glow about him.
Going Far Together -- Quickly
For millions of us who wait for Gore, each day begins anew, with hope that
he will return -- yet each night ends in despair because he did not. We have
hope because we know that each step Gore has taken in his entire career --
representative, senator, vice president and, yes, president -- has been
forward. The grassroots movement to draft [7] Gore is spreading across the
nation, and will continue unless Gore himself says "Stop!" To date, he has
not done so. Perhaps that is because he knows -- as do we -- that both the
earth and our democracy are teetering on the brink of disaster, and their
restoration depends entirely upon the person occupying the Oval Office.
We have hope because we read his explosive new book, "The Assault on
Reason," [8] wherein he exposes the Bush administration for what it is --
traitorous. Gore wrote more than once in his book, "Where there is no
vision, the people perish." Gore shares the vision of the Founders that we
are a government of laws, not of men. He warns that a "president who breaks
the law is a threat to the very structure of our government."
Gore is a Tom Paine, a Paul Revere, who tells us -- "It is time now for us
to recover our moral health in America and stand again for freedom, demand
accountability for poor decisions, missed judgments, lack of planning, lack
of preparation, and willful denial of the obvious truth about serious and
imminent threats that are facing the American people."
Al Gore is for the people who are rising to the challenge of restoring
democracy. He is of the people who long to "rekindle the true spirit [9] of
America." And Gore will be re-elected by the people -- because he is the
last Founder standing.
_______
Sheila Samples
About author Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US
Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety
of Internet sites.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Sheila Samples
Created Nov 18 2007 - 9:49am
"If you want to go quickly, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
We need to go far -- quickly." ~~ Al Gore
No entity in this once-proud nation is more corrupt than its shallow,
hubris-infested media. Any *****s of conscience the media may have felt for
covering up the treasonous seizure of the 2000 election were swept away in
the swirl of terror following the attack on 9-11.
The "big story" to confront George Bush when he returned from his month-long
vacation in September 2001, his approval numbers tanking, was that Al Gore
got more votes than any Democrat in US history -- nearly a half-million more
than Bush. It was that five conservative Supreme Court judges stopped the
vote count that would prove Gore won because, in their unsigned decision,
they wrote such a democratic win would cause "public acceptance," which
would "cast a cloud over Bush's legitimacy" and thus harm "democratic
stability."
Into the Abyss
The election coup was a shot across the bow of democracy, a power seizure
orchestrated by the ever-present, hands-on man who leaves no fingerprints,
James Baker III, and carried out by mob leader John Bolton. Luckily for
Bush, he blundered into 9-11 and managed to hit the trifecta before the
papers managed to hit the newsstands. And, thanks to the media and its
burgeoning power to manipulate citizen opinion and form legislative
attitudes, Bush demanded -- and was given -- a license to kill.
The beast was loosed.
The last seven years have been a hell of a ride for Bush, Dick Cheney and
their toady media -- continuous, absurd politicking for the next election,
blood-gushing adventure abroad and a Constitution-shredding free-for-all at
home. Power is a heady thing, and they grow more powerful and immoral with
each lie they tell, each freedom they destroy, each crime they cover up.
For the rest of us, those years have just been hell. Like our fellow
Americans in New Orleans caught up in the despair [1] of waiting for help
that will never come, we remain mired in a Samuel Beckett wasteland, [2]
waiting for our own "Godot" to return and claim what is rightfully his.
Rightfully ours. Our rights, our freedoms, our civil liberties -- our
government.
Gore tested the water in 2004, and the media met him head-on, fangs bared,
in a concerted effort to ridicule and destroy him and to keep their
corporate benefactors and war profiteers in office. From the New York Times
to the Washington Times to the Los Angeles Times the message to Gore was the
same -- get lost.
Over at CNN, Paula Zahn and Judy Woodruff each did an "exclusive" interview
with Gore. Each pointed out how popular and wonderful Bush is; each asked
Gore virtually the same question -- "Do you really think YOU can win?" Each
looked at Gore in stunned amazement, and Woodruff even added in her
intensely oh-so-blonde bewildered way (eyes wide, hands spread) -- "People
are saying that nobody out there likes you, even the leaders of your own
party. Given that (you're such a ridiculously low lying slimeball) -- what
makes you think you can win...?"
People are saying. Should anyone doubt who those "people" are, during the
same period, CNN's Suzanne Malvoux opined to then morning anchor Soledad
O'Brien, "There's a connection between Bush 43 and the public -- it's a
comfort level...Bush has a glow about him." O'Brien announced a bit later,
as if noticing it herself, "Bush seems to have a glow about him." Later,
Woodruff credited Malvoux with reporting earlier that "Bush is so relaxed,
he has a glow about him." Later in the day, Wolf Blitzer commented, "Some
people are saying that Bush has a glow about him..."
Gore was determined that the election be more than some "media" people
saying he is boring, he is fat, he is a liar. He knew that Bush, if forced
to address the issues facing this country, if forced to explain the
disconnect between his words and actions, explain to Americans why their
civil rights were being desecrated in the name of freedom, explain how a
"man of God" could morph so effortlessly into an "Angel of Death," he could
not -- and should not -- survive. So Gore withdrew, hoping to set the stage
if not for Bush's defeat, at least for him having to answer some critical
questions about this nation's economy, its domestic chaos, and the
pathological lies that took this nation into a bloody, senseless war.
Going Quickly, Alone
That didn't happen. So Gore set out to continue his lifelong quest of
awakening the world's population to the reality of global warming. In spite
of the media's vicious efforts to discredit him, Gore soared to new heights
of credibility with his book, "An Inconvenient Truth," published
concurrently in May 2006 with the documentary film of the same title. The
film, by far the most popular at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, was mocked
at home but received well-deserved acclaim in foreign media and captured not
one, but two Academy Awards. It went on to become the
fourth-highest-grossing documentary in US history.
The New York Times' Michiko Kakutani did review [3] Gore's book, pointing
out that it was "largely free of the New Age psychobabble and A-student
grandiosity that rumbled through" his 1992 book, "Earth in the Balance."
Kakutani reminded readers that Poppy Bush had earlier dismissed Gore as
"Ozone Man," but conceded that Gore's "passionate warnings about climate
change seem increasingly prescient," and that his "wonky fascination with
policy minutiae has been tamed in these pages..." Finally, while noting that
Gore wrote the Introduction for (1994 reprint) Rachel Carson's "Silent
Spring," Kakutani wrapped it up by sneering that Gore "isn't a scientist
like Carson and doesn't possess her literary gifts," and accused Gore of
writing "as a popularizer of other people's research and ideas."
Perhaps if Kakutani had known that, just 18 months later, Gore and the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would be awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge
about manmade climate change, and to lay the foundations ... to counteract
such change," she might have mentioned that the premise of Gore's book was
clearly that global warming is not just about science nor is it just a
political issue. It is a moral issue and we -- all of us -- have a
responsibility to do something about it. Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" is, as
Kafka [4] wrote, "the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
Al Gore is a "larger than party" guy, and stands head and shoulders above
the hypocritical Bush clones in both parties who are flip-flopping all over
the campaign trail. Since 2000, he has wielded that axe again and again via
op-eds, speeches and face-to-face interaction with the people -- a wake-up
call to resist the imposition of tyranny by the powerful. As early as 2003
Gore was ahead of the pack, warning [5] Americans about the loss of civil
liberties, unwarranted searches and seizures, and illegal surveillance.
In a September 2005 speech in San Francisco, a heartbroken Gore spoke of the
morality [6] -- or lack of it -- in the Bush administration's belated
response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Don't point fingers -- don't
hold us accountable -- appeared to be the only plan in place to deal with
catastrophe.
However, "When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic
floodwaters five days after a hurricane strikes," Gore said, "it is time not
only to repond directly to the victims...but to hold the processes of our
nation accountable, and the leaders of our nation accountable..."
Gore had personally responded to the tragedy by arranging to have 270
evacuees airlifted on two separate flights from New Orleans to Tennessee. He
agreed to pay $50,000 for each flight, recruited doctors and cut through
government red tape to allow the planes to land in New Orleans. The media
did not mention this act of courage and compassion, perhaps because Bush had
not yet arrived for his belated flyover and cathedral photo-op where
spotlights cast a glow about him.
Going Far Together -- Quickly
For millions of us who wait for Gore, each day begins anew, with hope that
he will return -- yet each night ends in despair because he did not. We have
hope because we know that each step Gore has taken in his entire career --
representative, senator, vice president and, yes, president -- has been
forward. The grassroots movement to draft [7] Gore is spreading across the
nation, and will continue unless Gore himself says "Stop!" To date, he has
not done so. Perhaps that is because he knows -- as do we -- that both the
earth and our democracy are teetering on the brink of disaster, and their
restoration depends entirely upon the person occupying the Oval Office.
We have hope because we read his explosive new book, "The Assault on
Reason," [8] wherein he exposes the Bush administration for what it is --
traitorous. Gore wrote more than once in his book, "Where there is no
vision, the people perish." Gore shares the vision of the Founders that we
are a government of laws, not of men. He warns that a "president who breaks
the law is a threat to the very structure of our government."
Gore is a Tom Paine, a Paul Revere, who tells us -- "It is time now for us
to recover our moral health in America and stand again for freedom, demand
accountability for poor decisions, missed judgments, lack of planning, lack
of preparation, and willful denial of the obvious truth about serious and
imminent threats that are facing the American people."
Al Gore is for the people who are rising to the challenge of restoring
democracy. He is of the people who long to "rekindle the true spirit [9] of
America." And Gore will be re-elected by the people -- because he is the
last Founder standing.
_______
Sheila Samples
About author Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US
Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety
of Internet sites.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson