Nader Voters Were Right In 2000 And Dems (Still) Need To Face Facts

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Sat Jan-21-06 03:49 PM
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Nader Voters Were Right In 2000 And Dems (Still) Need To Face Facts

In 2000, Ralph Nader was publicly addressing vital national and global issues, including corporate corruption, influence and control of our government and media. It was up to the Democrats and their candidate to address those vital issues-- or risk losing the voters who KNEW what was at stake and that the U.S. was heading toward inevitable disaster. For all the talk about �strategery� and ABB, in 2000 there was only one presidential candidate saying what needed to be said.

It was up to the Democrats to address those vital issues and it still is. Five years later, the far-sighted �kooky� Nader has been vindicated by the facts, historic events and criminal indictments. Even so, are Democratic leaders, legislators and potential candidates facing facts directly and communicating vital issues to the American people?

Even with the �Culture of Corruption� sound bite and the rush to wiping up the lobbyist gravy train, the symptoms -- not the causes -- are being treated with band aids. Both parties seem to be in too much of a hurry to look like they are closing lobbying loopholes, rather than correcting the real problems of corporate control of Congress, the elections, the media and the White House.

In 2006, Al Gore (former Vice-President, current Anti-Candidate and rightful winner of the 2000 election) threw down the gauntlet and Democratic leaders are carefully stepping around it.

Al Gore:

The Abramoff scandal is but the tip of a giant iceberg that threatens the integrity of the entire legislative branch of government. It is the pitiful state of our legislative branch which primarily explains the failure of our vaunted checks and balances to prevent the dangerous overreach by our Executive Branch which now threatens a radical transformation of the American system.

I call upon Democratic and Republican members of Congress today to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of government you're supposed to be.

But there is yet another Constitutional player whose pulse must be taken and whose role must be examined in order to understand the dangerous imbalance that has emerged with the efforts by the Executive Branch to dominate our constitutional system. "We The People" are -- collectively -- still the key to the survival of America's democracy. We -- as Lincoln put it, "even we here" -- must examine our own role as citizens in allowing and not preventing the shocking decay and degradation of our democracy. Thomas Jefferson said: "An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will."

The (2000�s not 2004�s) rightful president is crying in the wilderness and off the corporate media map; a few brave Congress members and bi-partisan witnesses are holding hearings in the Capitol basement; the President is illegally spying on Americans and says he�ll continue; the second Bush nominee for the Supreme Court has advocated an imbalance in the checks and balances for the past two decades; Iraq War troops are being threatened with losing their military death benefits if their families buy them the dragonskin armor that could save their lives; the Congress is on Christmas holiday at the end of January; and most Democrats refuse to stand up and say that the President�s actions are illegal, his war based is on lies, his nominee is unsuitable and there must be an immediate and thorough independent investigation into the actions of this administration.

Al Gore:

The revolutionary departure on which the idea of America was based was the audacious belief that people can govern themselves and responsibly exercise the ultimate authority in self-government. This insight proceeded inevitably from the bedrock principle articulated by the Enlightenment philosopher John Locke: "All just power is derived from the consent of the governed."

The intricate and carefully balanced constitutional system that is now in such danger was created with the full and widespread participation of the population as a whole. The Federalist Papers were, back in the day, widely-read newspaper essays, and they represented only one of twenty-four series of essays that crowded the vibrant marketplace of ideas in which farmers and shopkeepers recapitulated the debates that played out so fruitfully in Philadelphia.

Indeed, when the Convention had done its best, it was the people - in their various States - that refused to confirm the result until, at their insistence, the Bill of Rights was made integral to the document sent forward for ratification.

And it is "We the people" who must now find once again the ability we once had to play an integral role in saving our Constitution. And here there is cause for both concern and great hope. The age of printed pamphlets and political essays has long since been replaced by television - a distracting and absorbing medium which sees determined to entertain and sell more than it informs and educates. Lincoln's memorable call during the Civil War is applicable in a new way to our dilemma today: "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

�WE MUST DISENTHRALL OURSELVES, AND THEN WE SHALL SAVE OUR COUNTRY.�

Al Gore:

Forty years have passed since the majority of Americans adopted television as their principal source of information. Its dominance has become so extensive that virtually all significant political communication now takes place within the confines of flickering 30-second television advertisements.

And the political economy supported by these short but expensive television ads is as different from the vibrant politics of America's first century as those politics were different from the feudalism which thrived on the ignorance of the masses of people in the Dark Ages.

The constricted role of ideas in the American political system today has encouraged efforts by the Executive Branch to control the flow of information as a means of controlling the outcome of important decisions that still lie in the hands of the people.

:bounce: :bounce:

This legal theory, which its proponents call the theory of the unitary executive but which is more accurately described as the unilateral executive, threatens to expand the president's powers until the contours of the constitution that the Framers actually gave us become obliterated beyond all recognition. Under this theory, the President's authority when acting as Commander-in-Chief or when making foreign policy cannot be reviewed by the judiciary or checked by Congress. President Bush has pushed the implications of this idea to its maximum by continually stressing his role as Commander-in-Chief, invoking it has frequently as he can, conflating it with his other roles, domestic and foreign. When added to the idea that we have entered a perpetual state of war, the implications of this theory stretch quite literally as far into the future as we can imagine.

:kick:

Democrats: Can we please have leaders who will say what needs to be said BEFORE it�s too late, rather than after?