Hummmm, a little problematic but still good

There are three main thrusts to Al Gore’s newest book The Assault on Reason. The first is the secret and even blatant power grabs by #43 and the do-nothing Congresses from the inaugural in 2001 to the kick the bums out election in 2006. The second is that the medium of television is making the supposed democratic communication all one way. The third is that the Internet is the solution. I will summarize each of the chapters and analyze it along side. This is not a novel so there is no plot to give away. I’ll list what I see as strengths and weaknesses and leave it at that.

Chapter one is “The Politics of Fear.” Simply put this is how the administration plays up 9/11 at every chance it gets. Further that they used several avenues of known misinformation to make it sound like Saddam Hussein was responsible in part or in whole for the attacks on September 11, 2001. This is no conspiracy theory it is well known and well documented misinformation, never corrected despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. His examination is thorough and can easily be defended either with the pages or on independent research. It is worth noting that Mr. Gore does not use endnote numbers but does have notes in the back of the book. I find this kind of sloppy, but it seems to be more an editorial decision to make the book faster to read.

Chapter 2 is “Blinding the Faithful.” Again, this is well documented. 43 wears his extremely constipated reading of religion on his sleeve. He thinks, and this worked for a while, that so long as he talks the talk loud and often enough, it doesn’t matter what walk he walks. The radical religious right have followed blindly for about five years until they noticed that 43 was really only using them. Unfortunately those who are closer and could gain relatively easy access to the White House still tend to side with 43 even though he has really given them nothing substantial beyond vetoing a stem-cell research bill (just from an economic stand point—since no one can really agree on when life begins—we are going to be behind the EU and Korea on this front and if we wait too long, it will not matter in the least if we do finally fund the research). I take issue with the word faithful. I think the blinding has been of the religious. I am convinced that each word has a significant meaning: the religious are dogmatic and more sanctimonious than not; the faithful know what they believe is right and leave it at that. It is the religious that are blinded (however one can argue their blindness already existed, as I do).

“The Politics of Wealth” is where Mr. Gore spends most of his time decrying television as a one way medium of the thirty-second ad. The idea he brings up constantly is that a republic or democracy (he uses the words interchangeably but they most certainly are not) can only function well with a well informed public. Since television is all one way, the citizenry isn’t well informed so much as just pummeled by whatever nonsense will fit in thirty seconds of men and women superimposed over a waving flag in the background as they tout their family values and desire for low taxes; if they say anything else they will open themselves up to having to respond to it, so we are stuck with smiling wives and the notion of taxlessness. Further, of course, this chapter covers the effect that corporate money has not only on elections in general but in 43 administration policy. Members of the energy companies wrote the first energy bill; members of the pharmaceutical companies helped write the Medicare Drug Plan whose costs were hidden from everyone so it was only after it was voted on that Congress realized it was going to cost 4 times the estimate. Here he points to the problem that Congress was such a rubber stamp for so long that no effective checks from Congress were done on 43’s administration. I will come to this more later.

Chapter 4 is “Convenient Untruths.” This mainly covers the fact that politics drives the entire administration—policy is just for pansies apparently. Mr. Gore spends the vast majority of this chapter on the mainly gutless people like General Shineski originally saying that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to subdue Iraq. This didn’t gel with the administration so he had to come back to Congress cowed saying that the small number would work well. I have zero respect for people who will not stand their ground and speak truth to “power.” For the same reason I have no respect at all for Colin Powell. If you know you are right and power doesn’t believe it, quit if you cannot change it. You cannot be effective if you stay on knowing you were cowed publically and that you cannot make work what you knew would never work to begin with. Mr. Gore mentions the Powell Doctrine in this chapter—the Doctrine says you go in with an overwhelming force and do all you can to end it quickly and effectively. He never stood up to say this was necessary—he is just credited with saying that if 43 breaks Iraq, he buys it. This Doctrine should not be called the Powell Doctrine anymore and if we are never going to use it, expunge it and him altogether.

“The Assault on the Individual” covers mainly the men and women fighting in Iraq and the men and women tortured there and in Gitmo and in the various places for the horribly named “extraordinary rendition.” He covers this well trod ground that shows how the torture of Iraqis and others was not only allowed but sanctioned. Mr. Gore says that the McCain bill forbidding cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment was ‘signed’ but had a signing statement that 43 could ignore it if he wanted—which he has. The problem I have with this chapter is this: “Remember how shocked each of us was when we first saw those [images of torture at Abu Ghraib]?” This is followed 2 pages later by: “Rush Limbaugh . . . said publically that the torture at Abu Ghraib was a brilliant maneuver and that the photos were ‘good old American pornography.’” Obviously not all of us were stunned or shocked or even cared. That this was not enough to cause impeachment sickened me to the point where I have almost stopped caring. However it is less the members of Congress who make me want to toss my cookies as the people here who were more concerned with American Idol rather that Americans in Iraq and what was happening not only to the Iraqis but to Americans. There was a brief outcry at the fact that the Army was not supplied with enough body and vehicle armor to prevent death and injury due to IEDs (that Improvised Explosive Devices have entered the lexicon as a recognizable acronym makes me equally sick). This is why I have “cynic” metaphorically tattooed on my butt; I know I am but it is times like these that prove my cynicism right and exactly the times when I would far prefer to be wrong.

“National Insecurity” covers the fact that little has been done to protect the country from more attacks. This is covered fairly well but it ignores something that I think all of Washington down to the aides and interns have all ignored. We have not been attacked since 2001 directly—why bother to do that when you can to it in your own neighborhood; it is cheaper and more effective, plus you already blend in? Bali was attacked by an Al Qaeda cell killing hundreds of Western tourists. London was attacked with more than fifty killed in 4 separate bombings. Hundreds were killed in Spain when two trains were blown up. I can only imagine the quiet ire that officials in those countries and the countries that were home to the victims have when they hear Washington spout that the Iraq War has stopped all attacks at home. This is true but countries that supported us had their own attacks. It is childish and horrific of this nation to make insensitive claims like that. Our unnecessary attack of Iraq is directly related to the attacks in our supposed coalition of the willing. If I were in any of those countries I would be petitioning my government to officially condemn the US for the stance it takes on this account. After the review, I will have a bit more to say here.

Chapter seven covers “The Carbon Crisis.” This is very well trod ground since Mr. Gore has been the political environmentalist for about as long as I’ve been conscious. You can almost skip this chapter if you are already aware of his stance. If you only know his stance based on what is reported in the media, then read it—the media oversimplifies it.

“Democracy in the Balance” investigates the bootless Congresses (even including the one that took office in 2007 who seem to be in a holding pattern until the run up to the election next year) and the stacking the federal bench at all levels with ideologues rather than independent jurists. The idea is that 43 is taking even more power than Nixon tried to get and no one is really doing much about it. The administration has stonewalled the very few attempts at holding investigative hearings even going so far as to ignore subpoenas. From the perspective of the federal bench things are only worse. Judges who are part of the truly anti-federal Federalist Society are the only ones who appear on lists of judges to be considered. What is worse, though it is not handled directly in the book is that the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States had only been a judge for two years and had almost no record to go by. This turned out to be a good thing for moderates and liberals when 41 nominated the almost totally unknown David Souter. My cynic tattoo glows hot when I think about it though so I think we have more to fear than not with this jurist. I will have more personal things to say about this after I close the review.

The last chapter of length is “A Well-Connected Citizenry.” I don’t want to be hopeless, but I can’t help myself. The solution to the one-directional TV is the Internet so says Mr. Gore. On the surface this is a noble idea, but it fails under analysis. Mr. Gore covers two of the problems in an almost off handed way. The first is that there are still far fewer people off the net than on. He mentions this by saying that the FCC needs to use the nondiscrimination edict to force providers of Internet content to start providing it to all areas. While this is an interesting idea, I think it is completely economically impossible. Even so, the people in these rural areas probably care more about their local politicians than those of us who are hyperconnected to the net and cellphone towers and all other manner of mass electronic communication. I believe the Internet would actually ruin their level of information and connection with their representatives. The second is that there is ‘evil’ content on the web as much as good. I would hesitate calling part of the web as evil. If he is referring to porn and hate groups, then he is ignoring something that is an open but unspoken secret and the idea of freedom of speech. The open unspoken secret is that porn drives the Internet’s financial engine. More porn is paid for online than books and clothes bought. It is the same dirty and open secret that the porn industry makes a full three times the amount of money that Hollywood makes (a full 9 billion dollars). So long as porn is the quiet king, the net won’t be controlled (one of Mr. Gore’s fears). The problem, though, is not with the fact that only about a quarter of the people in the country are connected to the web it is that the people connected are no more interested in politics than the rest of the population without the web. It is likely true that the average user of the net is more well-informed than people without it, but does this make them more likely to vote? Does it make them more likely to use reason instead of fear to decide it? It is going to take someone who can inspire the electorate again. I loved Mr. Clinton and Mr. Carter and despised Mr. Reagan and 41 and 43. I am politically astute and active, but it is harder and harder since my votes essentially do not count since I am a liberal in a totally unliberal area. Still I try to stay connected.

One thing that happens throughout the book is that Mr. Gore conflates democracy and republic. What we live in is a republic. We vote for representatives that are supposed to represent our desires as their constituents. Sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn’t, but this is the system we have. The only way we are a democracy is when we vote on referenda or ballot initiatives—this is when the electorate gets to vote directly on something that affect its lives. Mr. Gore is suspicious of ballot initiatives which seems odd to me. His concern is that they do not encourage political discussion and I think this is just the opposite.

I recommend The Assault on Reason to anyone who wants to know more about the way the current administration is gutting and trying even to change the Constitution.

The review is complete, the paragraphs that follow are some thoughts I have that are not part of the review proper—I didn’t want to muddle it with things a bit off topic

The Congress will not do what the Congress really must do. In this regard, no matter who controls the bodies, they refuse to bring articles of impeachment for a man who has waged aggressive war, abrogated the Geneva Conventions without de-ratifying it (so he is in breach of international law), and creating a constitutional crisis over the abuse of signing statements meaning he is taking powers that belong specifically to the legislature. Pick one of these, only one, and it is far worse than anything that Mr. Clinton did. Each of these has led to people dying, being tortured, or being unprotected in a way never intended by the Constitution Articles I and II. Refusing to do this shows that even the Democratic houses are nearly as bootless as those that came before it. I have written about this before, but the Nuremburg trials and the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia were both tasked with trying men for waging aggressive war—the crimes against humanity were not part of the original indictment in Nuremburg and was ancillary to that of those tried for the Bosnian portion of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. This should not be a matter of choice for the Congress; when facing this kind of situation, if the Congress refuses to do anything about it, then a precedent exists that says if you have an affair you get impeached, but if you lead to the deaths of tens of thousands you get a free ride.

One of the larger problems I have had with the administration is a vocal hypocrisy. It is one thing for them to do this secretly—we will eventually find that out and probably not be surprised which is going to be terribly sad. The hypocrisy has to do with the self-determination of other sovereign nations. The administration wanted to bring ‘self-determination’ to Afghanistan and Iraq. The problem with the first is that the number of voters for Afghanistan outnumbered the roster of registered voters—obviously there was fraud here. This determination has now led to more control by more warlords and the administration is trying to make us forget it. As to Iraq, it is hard to know what to do with it. Part of the population boycotted the election, fraud existed in others, and American troops, Iraqi troops and police, and ordinary Iraqis are being killed. I have said before that democracy or a republic cannot sprout from just any soil—if the soil isn’t prepared then the fragile sprout will die before it has a chance to even begin to thrive. But the problem is in how the administration and the public griped about France at the beginning of the buildup to the war and how the administration griped at the Spanish after the Madrid bombings which occurred just a few days before a general election. France is a sovereign nation that can make decisions for itself. It wanted nothing to do with the Iraqi conflict (for that matter neither did Germany). Suddenly people wanted ‘french fries’ to be called ‘freedom fries.’ There were “Boycott France” bumperstickers and so on. We would get extremely angry if France if the tables were turned. It doesn’t matter if we “saved” them in two wars. They are a sovereign nation (that helped us become an independent nation and allow us to buy an enormous swath of land). The Spanish threw out the extremely unpopular government that had supported the Iraq War. It was very likely that the government was going to fail even before the bombing, the bombing only made it stronger. Yet the administration had the audacity to say that Spain had made a mistake. Spanish voters voted and that is what they said. Remember back in 2000 when 43 was fighting for the White House and said that the voters had spoken. So what works for him doesn’t work for others? Horses*it.

When it comes to the courts things are very confusing. The conservatives have a pretty strong lock on the Supreme Court, but as soon as Justice Scalia leaves the bench , he will be replaced with a moderate or a liberal. It is highly unlikely that both the presidency and the Senate will be in Republican hands after the next general election. One or the other may be, but not both. Given this, the liberals and moderates already on the court, if they leave will be replaced with same. Once Scalia has to leave or dies, he will be replaced causing a shift in the court to the left for the first time since the Warren Court faded.

There is one more thing. If the courts keep throwing things back to the states, basically not even bother to truly examine constitutional issues, then it will be roughly the same thing as having an inspirational president. And this really isn’t a bad thing. If more of us can push our local and state governments to ensure that equal protection applies to all and that businesses have to pay their fair share of taxes and ensure the environment is at least not made worse, then we will be in a better position. Legislation is always better, but it isn’t always possible. This is why some of us have had to rely more on the federal courts than we would otherwise. Still the idea would be to try to affect things at the local and state level. It requires energy, but I think that a serious backward looking judiciary will be enough to get more of us excited.