Gore and Sheehan Join Forces (by Marie Cocco for Truthdig)

[marmar]

Gore and Sheehan Join Forces

Posted on May 30, 2007
By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON—They are an unlikely couple. She, an exhausted and emotionally spent woman limping home to find solace in a measure of solitude she could have given herself long ago. He, an upbeat and oh-so-confident man who once was down but is now anything but out.

Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan has announced her “retirement” as an icon of the movement against the Iraq war, a conflict that took the life of her son, Casey, and catapulted Sheehan into a chaotic and often cruel journey through the ugly precincts of political activism in the age of Bush.

Al Gore has launched another book, “The Assault on Reason.” In it he indulges his penchant for intellectualism alongside his utter horror at the degradation of politics and the destructive policies he lays at the White House door. These have their roots, Gore argues, in the deceits and manipulations President Bush and his administration practiced, artfully and dangerously, for too long and with too little consequence.

Besides their opposition to the Iraq misadventure, the two have little in common, other than having borne the contempt of a media culture that finds them easy targets for ridicule. Now they return the sentiment.

...(snip)...

Gore, the scold, is a familiar character in his own political saga—the same fellow who was ridiculed for sighing audibly during a 2000 presidential campaign debate. But, like Sheehan, he speaks a truth: The country didn’t make so many bad decisions—about Iraq, global warming, torture or the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists—in the absence of information about these policies and their historic consequences. It ignored what information was available.

For this “absence of reason” Gore offers no antidote—nor does anyone. He suggests that more political discourse be conducted over the Internet, which happens to be where some of the vilest commentary and wildest conspiracy theories circulate. Eventually these peculiar dark ages will end. We can only hope historians see them as an aberration, not an early marker of decline.....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070530_gore_and_sheehan_join_forces/

[Christa]

1. Great article

Thanks for posting!

[papau]

2. the internet is the only source of truth since our media is now GOP controlled -

"vilest commentary and wildest conspiracy theories" are as always descriptions of, and projections onto the left, of what the right is actually doing.

[jimshoes]

3. Maybe it's time to start thinking

third party. Who better to jump start it than President Gore.

[mzteris]

4. don't be ridiculous.

Much as I would like to see multi-parties -

it ain't gonna happen (not any time soon)

Gore - of all people - knows what a 3rd party non-conservative candidate will do - ENSURE a republican in the WH.

[Virginia Dare]

6. Gore is a DEMOCRAT...

always was, always will be.

[mzteris]

5. what a misleading title. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

7. Two points regarding the last paragraph, the author contradicts

her self from the first sentence to the second sentence, maybe the author didn't want to delve in to that.

Al Gore does indeed offer solutions,the Internet is the new town hall and as it gains strength, so will our democracy where decisions can be based on a meritocracy of ideas in stead of television's method of shaping the will of the people through one way communication, information and propaganda.

Second point, regarding vile commentary and wild conspiracy theories on the Internet. Has the author been asleep for the past fifteen years while television and radio spew their poison in to the airwaves. Slander, lies and obfuscation are vile and this goes all the way back to "Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor". And this has also created the fertile breeding ground for those conspiracy theories the author is so concerned about on the Internet.