Draft Gore 2008 PAC

The newspaper Le Monde has an unsigned editorial on the relationship between global warming and social instability, even warfare. The spin in the US-voter targeted media outlets is overwhelmingly prize-as-politics, but out in the real world where adults read Le Monde and Le Monde Diplo, that narrative is absent, and the prize award is a reflection of outright concern.

Update: Le Monde has published a surprisingly long overview of Al's work since Bush v Gore was decided by the Rehnquist Court on December 12th, 2000, and some background as well. The OpEd is here: Al Gore, un révolutionnaire très convenable.

via El Universal: Agradece Al Gore concesión de Nobel de la Paz

El ex vicepresidente de Estados Unidos advierte sobre emergencia planetaria por cambio climático, que es un reto moral y espiritual

El ex vicepresidente de Estados Unidos, Al Gore, agradeció hoy la concesión del Premio Nobel de la Paz que comparte con científicos y defensores del medio ambiente y advirtió de que el cambio climático constituye "una verdadera emergencia planetaria" .

"Me siento muy honrado de recibir el Premio Nobel de la Paz" , señaló Gore en una declaración.

"Encaramos una verdadera emergencia planetaria" , añadió. "La crisis del clima no es un asunto político, es un reto moral y espiritual para toda la humanidad" .

El Comité Nobel otorgó este viernes el Premio de la Paz 2007 a Gore y al Grupo Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC) de las Naciones Unidas.

En su declaración, Gore dijo que donará su porción del premio de 1.5 millones de dólares a la Alianza para la Protección del Clima, una organización en la cual él es el presidente de la junta directiva.

Gore, de 59 años de edad, fue senador por el Estado de Tennessee y vicepresidente de Estados Unidos durante los dos mandatos del demócrata Bill Clinton (1993-2001) .

En la campaña electoral de 2000 fue el candidato presidencial del Partido Demócrata y perdió la contienda con el republicano George W. Bush tras una prolongada disputa sobre votos en el Estado de Florida.

Desde entonces, enfocó sus esfuerzos en los problemas ambientales y en 2007 ganó un premio Oscar por su documental "Una verdad inconveniente" , en el cual él es relator y que describe los cambios climáticos en el planeta, que él atribuye a la actividad económica de los humanos.

[A recent posting to the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) mailing list. It is interesting how broadly Al is referenced as having something to do with something important. I've removed the author's contact information, leaving just the "what if" from deep in the heart of network operator country, where we all know how much Al did for the net. ebw]

A number of people have bemoaned the lack of any IPv6-only killer-content that would drive a demand for IPv6. I've thought about this, and about the government's push to make IPv6 a reality. What occurred to me is there is a satellite sitting in storage that would provide such content:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triana_(satellite)

Al Gore pushed for this satellite, Triana, to provide those on earth with a view of the planet among its scientific goals. The Republicans referred to it as an "overpriced screen saver," though the effect even of just the camera component on people's lives and how they treat the planet could be considerable.

By combining the launch of Triana with feeding the still images and video from servers only connected to native IPv6 bandwidth, the government would provide both a strong incentive for end users to want to move to IPv6, and a way to get the people of this planet to stop from time to time and ponder the future of the earth.

Of course getting this done any time soon would require getting the present administration to reverse its bias against Triana and global warming. But it seemed to me an interesting way to advance two goals in synergy.

While the Democratic fear caucus in Congress grows with progressively more embarrassing surrenders to executive abuse, and Hillary Clinton now debates herself about whether a presidential candidate should ever renounce first use of nuclear weapons, which she was for before she was against, Al Gore is the leader of the courage wing of the Democratic Party.

The true choice in 2008 is Bushism versus Goreism. Bushism is the complex of policies that promote massive profiteering and tax avoidance by the oil sector, destruction of the environment that follows from an economy addicted to oil, unwise wars inexorably tied to the oil fields of Arabia, massive campaign donations from oil profiteers to Republican candidates, and an infrastructure of secrecy, fear and deceit necessary to support policies that would be rejected in open and honest debate.

Goreism is a pro-American energy policy that promotes safer and renewable sources; the protection of the planet that inevitably follows from those safer energy sources; avoidance of unwise wars and the use of diplomacy to avoid them when possible; integrity and truth in public debate; a reduction of the corrupting influence of money in politics, and respect for the rule of law and constitutional Americanism.

Bush embodies the exploitation of fear; many Democrats embody their own fears in their repeated surrenders to fear. Al Gore embodies the politics of courage, the clarity of conviction.

Begin with Bush’s premise, we end with Bush’s tactics, policies, unwise wars, corruptions, and abuses of constitutional rights while the planet is polluted. Begin with Gore’s premise, we end with honest public debate, political reform, less pressure for unwise wars, far more equitable distribution of wealth, far more respect for the rule of law, while the planet is protected.

With Bush, there is a synergy between lying and misrepresenting intelligence to promote war, lying to buy science to fraudulently deny the risks of global warming, and pressure to censor administration science that is based on truth.

With Gore, there is a synergy between telling the truth to educate the world about global warming and knowing the truth about why we should have avoided a disastrous war in Iraq.

This is a clash of civilizations, a war of the worlds, between the world of Bush and the world of Gore, between competing visions of America, competing aspirations for the Earth, competing ideals of integrity in politics, competing values of reason versus ideology and delusion, competing visions between reverence for the Constitution and the rule of law versus contempt for American traditions that were previously accepted with near universal consensus since Jefferson put pen to paper.

Democrats in Washington should close down the fear and surrender caucus in the Capitol, listen to what Gore is saying, and do what Gore is doing.

[This appeared in Brent Budowsky's column in thehill.com's Pundit's Blog. ebw]

There is no doubt in my mind that John Edwards won, or that the format and "user generated content" was a lot less stale than the faux gravitas of whoever is doing "Tom Brokaw" duty for the network that was hosting/producing the prior moments of infotainment and soundbite gotcha.

But that isn't the most important conclusion to draw from yesterday's matchup. The most important conclusion is this: in alphabetical order, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, and Richardson are, on the Iraq War question, and therefore its cognates affecting the Departments of Justice, Intelligence, Defense and State, indistinguishable from Al Gore and his position of record since 2002. On that question we are united, and divided from Senators Biden, Clinton and Obama.

Joe Trippi sent out a note after the event to the Edwards campaign's supporters. It was typical of the art, proud of his candidate's performance, and simultaniously effective as a fund raising tool, and he gave five planks of that should be the platform of the Democratic Party:

1. Ending the war in Iraq.
2. Taking on the insurance companies and HMOs to fight for universal health care.
3. Taking on the oil industry and fundamentally changing our energy policies to end global warming.
4. Taking on the powerful who care about nothing but profits and greed at the expense of working people, the middle class and the poor.
5. And returning our government of the people to the people.

But Joe's letter has a very serious error. The error is in this line:

Contribute and spread the word about the one candidate and the one campaign that will change America.

Al isn't the only candidate, and all of the Draft Gore campaigns rolled into one, isn't the only campaign that will transform what we have and don't want, into what we don't have and clearly need. Neither is John or his campaign and neither is Chris and his campaign and neither is Mike and his campaign and neither is Dennis and his campaign and neither is Bill and his campaign. Any one of these candidates and their campaigns will do, on Iraq, and the assault on reason.

Each fails on some part of the rest of these five planks, and the candidates and their campaigns can be ranked on how far each is from perfection (its not just big oil, its also big coal) but the difference between these is not so very great, compared with those with whom we are divided, in our own party or the party of George Bush and Dick Cheney.

We have to recognize that getting three or four or even five of the planks right is more important than which candidate and which campaign. No matter who or which it is, the work of scientific, social and political reasoning on some issue will still need to be done. If it is Al, he'll still need minding to divorce him from the Clinton/Gingrich "welfare reform" and reminding that NAFTA and CAFTA and fast-track generally have non-solved environmental, social justice, and economic dislocation consequences. John will have his must-be-minded issues, as will Chris and Mike and Dennis and Bill.

Any of five, or six, will do. Each of them will campaign for transformation. Any of three won't. Each is attempting to transact their way to 2,181 delgates, and there really is a difference.

Eric Brunner-Williams
Technical Director
Draft Gore 2008 PAC

Suzie Madrake, our initial Communications Director prior going to a paid full-time position as CD in the Philly mayorial race, writes:

I was on a local TV show this morning to talk about the Draft Gore movement. The host was surprised to hear both from me and the other Gore supporter that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton weren’t real worries for Gore backers.

“If Gore announces, it’ll be a tsunami,” the Gore guy said.

I agreed. “If Gore runs, it will suck most of the money and the attention his way,” I said. I said I’d spoken to campaign staffers who say many of them took jobs with the understanding that if Gore announces, they’re leaving to work for him.

A Republican consultant who appeared with us said he didn’t think Gore would present a major problem for the Republicans, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

After the show, the Draft Gore worker and I went out to the local diner. As the waitress prepared to take our order, she pointed to his “Draft Gore” button and said, “Is that a Gore button?”

“Yep. Do you want one?” he said. He fumbled around in his pocket and handed it over.

“Oh my God, I would absolutely love it if Al Gore ran. He’s really the only one running on either side that I want,” she gushed. “I really hope he does run.”

See, Al? This time, America knows we need you. Run, Al, run.