What Al Gore’s speech reveals about the state of US politics

[IndianaGreen]

What Al Gore’s speech reveals about the state of US politics

By Patrick Martin
26 January 2006

In the ten days that have passed since the January 16 speech delivered by Al Gore in Washington charging President Bush with trampling on the Constitution in his conduct of the “war on terror,” the former vice president has been alternately vilified, ridiculed or ignored. There has been little serious discussion of his criticisms of the Bush administration, however, outside of the World Socialist Web Site. (See: “Bush administration domestic spying provokes lawsuits, calls for impeachment,” January 18, 2006, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/bush-j18.shtml).

The substance of Gore’s speech was the most sweeping indictment of the Bush administration by any significant figure within the US ruling elite since Bush took office in 2001. He not only charged that the Bush White House seeks to exercise quasi-dictatorial powers over the American people, but he painted a picture of a judicial system and a Congress which are unwilling to challenge the presidential power-grab and uphold the traditional institutions of the American constitutional system, based on the separation of powers between Congress, the White House and the courts.

Such statements from such a source have extraordinary political significance. Gore is, after all, not an accidental figure in American politics. The son of a longtime senator from Tennessee, he was in turn a congressman, senator, vice president for eight years—during which he was played a central role in much of the policymaking of the Clinton administration—and then the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in 2000. He received more than 50 million votes in that election, beating Bush by 500,000 in the popular vote.

Now this representative of the highest level of the American ruling elite declares that “America’s Constitution is in grave danger,” and that democratic values “have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.”

In the current exposure of illegal surveillance, Gore said, “What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law, repeatedly and insistently. A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/gore-j26.shtml

[Emillereid]

1. It depresses me so that even a clarion call from one of the ruling

elite can be nullified and ignored in this day of corporate media's connivance with Bush's right wing government. How are we to get through when even the man who rightfully should be president can't. If he can't get no respect, who can? The national dems should have taken up the charge and echoed his warnings from every mountain, or at least every podium. Instead, they can't even mount a respectable filibuster against a man who will probably declare Bush king. Oh I grieve.

I gotta get out of this place....

[firefox]

2. You would think people would be alarmed wouldn't you?

It makes you wonder where everyone's priorities are. Just how much time is going to be spent talking about the Superbowl compared to the Constitutional crisis. This morning I put up Walter Cronkite's calling for a Constitutional convention and the fact that he also had done a narration on the original Constitutional Convention and the ratifying process. I thought maybe someone would comment on the need for amending the Constitution to end any question such as presidential powers.

Thank goodness Gore talked about the Constitutional crisis, because who else is? Besides Ron Paul, Maxine Waters, Conyers, Kucinich, and Cynthia McKinney I do not know of anyone I would call a representative in the House. There might be others, but I sure have not heard of them speaking out in the midst of a real Constitutional crisis. Maybe Pelosi is part of the time.

Somebody needs to settle this "living Constitution" bullshit too coming from the fascists. I wish Gore would have mentioned that, because again, who else will?