Mike Gravel Reading Pentagon Papers in Senate - 1971

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 00:24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNXMO8Dc5lk   Posted on YouTube: July 12, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 18, 2007 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 625

 
"Mike Gravel filibustered the end of the draft entirely on his own. Here's a scene where he starts to cry. It's taken from the ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos."

[leftchick]

1. a real patriot

unlike the fakers with corporate cash.

[bluestateguy]

2. He fillibustered to end the draft, or to block ending the draft?

I always thought that Nixon did that by executive order.

And where has this guy been for 26 years?

[Hissyspit]

3. To end the draft!!!!

He read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. He is a true patriot, although I don't agree with many of his views nowadays.

From Wikipedia:

Vietnam War and foreign policy

See also: Gravel v. United States
In 1971 Gravel played a key role in the release of the Pentagon Papers — a large collection of secret government documents pertaining to the Vietnam War — which were made public by former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg. Gravel inserted 4,100 pages of the Papers into the Congressional Record of his Senate Subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds. These pages were later issued by the Beacon Press as the "Senator Gravel Edition" — the most complete edition of the Pentagon Papers to be published. The "Gravel Edition" was edited and annotated by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and included an additional volume of analytical articles on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn.

Also in 1971, Gravel embarked on a one-man filibuster against legislation renewing the military draft. Using various parliamentary maneuvers, Gravel was able to block the bill for five months before President Richard Nixon and Senate Republicans agreed to allow the draft to expire in 1973.

Also:

Career after leaving the Senate

Mike Gravel with campaign finance reform activist and friend Ethel Granny D HaddockGravel took the 1980 defeat hard, recalling years later: "I had lost my career. I lost my marriage. I was in the doldrums for ten years after my defeat."<14> Sometime in the early 1980s, he and his first wife Rita were divorced; she would later be the recipient of all of his Senate pension income.<6>

During the 1980s, Gravel was a real estate developer in Anchorage and Kenai, Alaska,<15> a consultant, and a stockbroker.<6> One of his real estate ventures, a condominium business, was forced to declare bankruptcy and a lawsuit ensued.<6>

Beginning in 1989 he reentered the world of politics.<6> He became founder and head of The Democracy Foundation, which promotes direct democracy.<16>

Gravel led an effort to get a United States Constitutional amendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives. He argued that Americans are able to legislate responsibly, and that the Act and Amendment in the National Initiative would allow American citizens to become "law makers".

Gravel married his second wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, circa 1984;<17> they live in Arlington County, Virginia. They have two grown children, Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier, and four grandchildren.<18> In the 2000s, Gravel suffered from serious health issues, requiring three surgeries in 2003 for back pain and neuropathy;<6> in 2004 he declared personal bankruptcy.<6> After that, he began taking a salary from the non-profit organizations he was working for. Much of that income was lent to his presidential campaign; in 2007, he declared that he has "zero net worth."<6>

[whistle]

4. Speaking truth to power, Gravel is a brave and decent American and human being