Al Gore reads deeply from the book of my soul

Al Gore, delivering pearls of wisdom at the Democratic National Convention:

Al Gore: Eight years ago, some said there was not much difference between the nominees of the two major parties, and it didn’t really matter who became president. Our nation was enjoying peace and prosperity, and some assumed we would continue with both, no matter the outcome. But here we all are in 2008, and I doubt anyone would argue now that election didn’t matter.

With his unfailing, uncanny insight, Al Gore stares deeply into my very being and gives voice to my innermost thoughts.  Yes, it's true, it's all true: eight years ago I blithely assumed our nation would continue with the unparalleled peace and prosperity that Al Gore and also Clinton had brought us, no matter the outcome of the election.  My satisfaction during the Al Gore-Clinton years defied all measure; it was like one never-ending, 24-hour-a-day orgasm.  And I thought to myself: this time of plenty is so perfect, so unassailable, so durable and lasting—why should I bother voting to prolong it?  Why, even if the Republican man is victorious he can't possibly damage this towering edifice of success that Al Gore has constructed with some help from Clinton!

And so I voted for a funny man with a funny name: Ralph Nader.  I scarcely knew or cared what he stood for—if anything—so great was my faith in the perpetual ascendancy I had enjoyed for those years.  I admit it: it was a lark.  A lark, Al Gore!  I assumed the paradise you had brought us could never be shattered!  How wrong, how tragically wrong I was!

I'm so sorry, Al Gore, so very, very sorry.  I know my sin is inexcusable, but I only hope you can find it within yourself to forgive me for the terrible blindness that prevented me from seeing that you, and you alone, were capable of continuing that dazzling peace and prosperity you had brought us.  Al Gore.

Comments

[Save the Oocytes]

Don't worry, John, change is in the air.

[MFB]

It may be in the air, but I don't see no sign of any in this tin cup I'm holding out on the streetcorner.

That, by the way, was a jolly spiffing post, Cde. Caruso.

But, in all fairness, a Gore presidency would probably have been slightly less of an obvious catastrophe than the Bush one has been. In that sense, you can argue that the American left would have been co-opted, whereas they have been dynamised by Bush's antics.

But, frankly, they haven't been, have they? They're all fighting to get a hold of Obama's sugar-tits.

[Gaylad]

Nicely said. I don't ordinarily associate Bob Somerby with either optimism or blindness, but he somehow found -- in that same quote by Gore -- an initiation of discussion into the "sordid history" of 'liberal leaders' failing to *confront* deception!

It is, all too clearly, just another instance of a liberal leader *engaging* in deception.

And Somerby's usually so sharp...

[John Caruso]

Gaylad: I see Somerby chose to excise just the critical "Our nation was enjoying peace and prosperity, and some assumed we would continue with both, no matter the outcome" bit, to avoid this thorny issue. You have to give him credit for achieving an impressive depth of irony—using his own deception to cover up Gore's deception, so he can discuss the failure of liberals to confront deception.

You have to parse Gore carefully there too, as usual. When he says that if he'd been elected we wouldn't be "bogged down in Iraq," he means we'd still be committing our genocide from a comfortable distance. Another thing Somerby ignores.

MFB: Thanks. The last eight years have actually been an object lesson for me in how the Democrats co-opt the (American) left even when they're out of power.

[Thomas Daulton]

Funny enough -- I mean, this is the whole point of your post, but it just struck me as odd, how little emotion of Al's seems to be behind this quoted passage. It seemed like he was only saying it because he knew the hyperpartisan Dem conventioneers would demand that he take a dig at those evil little Naderites, and tip his hat towards this imaginary Utopian future where Al had solved all the world's problems between 2001-2008. (It sure doesn't seem like Al truly, personally wants to be plopped back into the Oval Office at this particular juncture in time.) Of course, this is hypocrisy on his part too, but the direction of deception seems to be the opposite from what you're implying: he's not lying to Dems, they are demanding that he lie.

Dave Neiwert over at Orcinus seems to be a faithful Democrat partisan, or at least his commenters are quite faithful to the Party. So it's ironic to use his analysis on the Democratic convention: but he has often said that, once the masses pick up a drumbeat, individual leaders can quickly find themselves powerless to cool down the rhetoric even if that's what they want to do. He says this about right-wing elimination sentiment, "send those illegals back where they came from," or "liberals are traitors, love this country or leave it".

But this meme about "Nader is responsible for the evils of Bush" also seems to have taken on a life of its own, and I wonder whether it will continue to worsen as the Dems hold more and more Nuremberg-type rallies behind Obama. This is the equivalent of the "red meat" that Bush and McCain toss to their followers. As Neiwert points out, the illusion of victimhood is crucial towards fomenting Fascism, and the Democrats seem to have found their ideal scapegoat in Ralph Nader and the Greens. A tiny minority who somehow wield magical power to oppress the righteous destiny of the hardworking, true and honest people for their own evil gain. Hmmmmm, did the percentage of Jews in Weimar Germany resemble the percentage of Naderites in the 2000 election?

Paging Arthur Silber...

[John Caruso]

Well, the wooden man isn't known for his expressiveness, but even so the inflection doesn't come across well in print. I didn't link to the video, but if you check that out you'll see just how smarmy and self-satisfied Gore's delivery was. And also, he followed it up with a litany of self-aggrandizing claims about what he would have done over the past eight years.

So I don't think this was Gore feeding the faithful a line he didn't himself believe. Rather, I think that getting back into election mode has revealed for us, once again, the true Gore; not the selfless public servant trying to alert the world to a critical issue, but the self-serving, puffed-up twit willing to say whatever it takes to gain a Democratic victory.

I don't buy the line Gore gave about staying out of the election since he could do more good as a private citizen, BTW. I think it's much more likely that he thought he'd lose again, and that he was worried that would tarnish his ego-satisfying hero status.

[Thomas Daulton]

I can't watch videos from work, but... well... on that last point it appears all three of us agree!

Still I'm amazed at the currency this debate about Naderites still has, eight frikken' years later. People who were born in 2000 are halfway to voting age by now! But just listen to the Salon audio of Glen Greenwald interviewing Dennis Perrin recently and you'll hear some "inflections" all right. Kerry losing the 2004 election all by his lonesome didn't draw any steam off of this argument whatsoever. And I still think this is a drumbeat which comes mainly from the masses, not the career politcos, who understand that they basically still have cushy jobs even as administrations come and go.

Maybe it's my own paranoia but I've felt since around 1999 that someday the Democrats would resort to the tactic of actually legislating against a scapegoat in order to consolidate their own political power, and that when they reach for a scapegoat they're gonna reach for us Green types. Certainly no one on the Right, for them it's "bipartisan co-operation" to "resolve gridlock".

[Gnome Chomsky]

Still I'm amazed at the currency this debate about Naderites still has, eight frikken' years later

It's all part of the package - part of the Donk mythology is that the unwashed masses are noble and generous and easygoing, but too trusting and naive, therefore they get manipulated and lied into war, for example, by scurrilous Republicans. I guess they're sorta like Lenny in Of Mice and Men - endearingly dumb, don't know their own strength, but they always feel really bad about accidentally crushing some little country when they only wanted to stroke its fur.

Anyway, the party faithful can't bring themselves to actually blame the masses for refusing to vote, when just a fraction of the 50-60% who always stay home in November would easily tip elections their way if they could just persuade them to go to the polls. It's easier to pick on Greens - who weren't actually Democrats, last I checked - because they're much smaller and they smell like patchouli and eat tofu, and everybody hates those types, don't they, so no one will accuse them of being elitists for bashing them, but Zeus forbid they ever say anything harsh about Joe Nascar because one day he might vote for them. Besides, the Greens and their freakin' moral stances make the Donks feel bad for being such craven sellouts who only care about the ends justifying the means.*

*Tristero at Hullabaloo has been an absolutely fantastic specimen of this for the past week, explicitly urging Democrats to view everything (natural disasters, for chrissakes) as a marketing opportunity for the "brand", while convincing himself that, unlike everyone else who has gone that route, he and his won't be corrupted by the process and will only use their powers for good.

[Thomas Daulton]

they're sorta like Lenny in Of Mice and Men - endearingly dumb, don't know their own strength, but they always feel really bad about accidentally crushing some little country when they only wanted to stroke its fur.

Classic! Very quotable.

Your point is, of course, irrevocably proven by the utter silence of the Dems regarding the 12% of their own registered voters who voted for Bush in 2000 in Florida (10% nationwide). Just endearingly misguided, trusting and naive Democrats, as opposed to those evil scheming Naderites with their anti-freedom agenda.

(For comparison, 10% of Florida Republicans voted Gore, 8% nationwide. Simply narrowing that gap slightly would have handed them the 2000 election on a silver platter, and likely insured victory in 2004, but NOBODY BUT NOBODY on the Dem side ever asks how they could improve themselves in that respect. Nope, it's all just part of the partisan fun, should be expected, nothing anyone can do about a little spillover, etc. etc. you evil Naderites!)

[Gnome Chomsky]

Oh, they haven't been silent, Thomas - I've been informed by defenders of the faith that those were all Dixiecrats who never got around to changing their party affiliation. Yep, all 200,000 Florida Dems who voted for Bush. Dixiecrats.

Anything is possible as long as you believe!

[Donald Johnson]

Yeah, the Nader hatred is weird. Even some people who are very far to the left of the Democrats and who probably agree with Nader much more than with Gore feel it. The argument that is especially strange is the claim that there would be hundreds of thousands of Iraqis alive today if Gore had won. Yeah, I certainly remember people warning that there might be a terrorist attack in 2001 and many Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden would support a decision to invade Iraq unless Gore was in the White House (with his trusty sidekick Lieberman) ready to stop them. If only I had listened.

Of course if Gore had been in the White House there would have been huge pressure to invade Iraq or do something else equally stupid, and politicians who are no longer running for anything are often more peace-loving than when they have power, so it's not exactly clear to me what a President Gore would have done in Bush's shoes, except it probably would have been pretty bloody.

[Donald Johnson]

"Twice in four paragraphs, Klein understated the size of the problem–but liberals linked to his post, with high praise! Why do we liberals maintain such low standards? Why do we accept such crumbs? Why don’t we insist on something much better? "

That was from Bob Somerby today (Sept 4). The thing about Somerby is that he is very clearsighted about how the "liberal" press behaves, but he never applies this criticism to the Democratic politicians themselves. He apparently feels they really are the best we can hope for.

[John Caruso]

Still I'm amazed at the currency this debate about Naderites still has, eight frikken' years later.

I know what you mean, but it's not really surprising because it plays a crucial role for Democrats and their fellow travelers: maintaining discipline on their left flank. This has always been their Achilles' heel, and they know it, and the 2000 election handed them the ultimate weapon to combat it—a perfect ideological morality play. Eight years is nothing; they'll still be talking about it decades from now.

On the flip side, proving their willingness to abandon the Democrats is by far the strongest way the progressive left can exert positive pressure on them (whether as a side effect or as the main tactic, it doesn't really matter). So in true leftist fashion, they've voluntarily abandoned the option. Because as we all know, rewarding bad behavior and then meekly asking for what you want has a staggeringly high success rate.

[angryman@24:10]

John, sarcasm? I thought you were above that. Very small. Very, very small.

Your point is, of course, irrevocably proven by the utter silence of the Dems regarding the 12% of their own registered voters who voted for Bush in 2000 in Florida (10% nationwide).

Guilty as charged.

But look, give me a break. When the two parties stampede towards the middle in the general election it's hard to tell them apart. The dust and all. Ack.

[Thomas Daulton]

angryman: When the two parties stampede towards the middle in the general election it's hard to tell them apart. The dust and all.

What, are you calling Al Gore a liar?

Hmmmmm, on another subject completely, Al seems to be taking a little dig at people in 2000 who "assumed we would continue with... peace and prosperity".

Waitamminute, I remember the 2000 elections.

I remember that Al and George both had extremely detailed plans of exactly how to spend the Clinton budget surplus. Both of their plans assumed the budget surplus would continue to increase by leaps and bounds throughout the next 8 years, and neither of their plans focused much on paying down the actual National Debt (as opposed to the yearly Deficit). Bush's plan was, surprise surprise, tax cuts; but Al had proposed numerous increases in government spending, some on social programs but quite a bit on an expanded military and Star Wars. Both of them parroted the line "It's your money, it should be given back to you", (as opposed to paying down the Debt).

I get soooo very tired of asking, "How do politicians get away with saying this stuff, without getting lynched by their audience?"