Gore is Watching!....the failures of Congress ( Restoring Habeus, etc.) and...

[KoKo]

the inability to as Molly Ivan's once said: "Bang the Pots and Pans!"

Gore is watching and his conscience will not allow him to see what is going on in DC. Without strong leadership from the top (since Bush has taken all the power) the issues Gore cares about will NEVER get the attention our country in crisis demands.

Michael Tomasky has an excellent article in New York Review of Books about Gore. It's worth a read but it's long. I snipped paragraphs from the end that say why Gore's conscience will bring him in. (at least that's my hope). All Gore fans please read this article even if you have to print it out for later. It goes into why he probably won't run....but why he must run...and why I think he WILL come in to save us from another President with TOO MUCH POWER who will cower another Congress.
----------------

Review
Citizen Gore
By Michael Tomasky
The Assault on Reason
by Al Gore

-snip-

Gore for his part invokes Jefferson's hope that when the United States wanders from its republican principles "in moments of error or of alarm" it will soon set things right. He identifies a pattern in American history in which something like this has happened: Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, the Red Scare and the Palmer raids, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, McCarthyism, and the FBI's COINTELPRO program were all eventually undone when "the country recovered its equilibrium and absorbed the lessons learned."

He warns, though, that there are at least five reasons why such recovery may not occur: the war against terrorism is predicted to last "for the rest of our lives"; recent decades have witnessed a "slow and steady accumulation of presidential power"; new surveillance technologies are widespread, rendering privacy and freedom more vulnerable than ever; the threat of more terrorism is "all too real"; and the Bush administration has wrapped these powers in clever, self-justifying legal theories that any future administration could rely on.

The Democratic candidates have pledged to close Guantánamo Bay, renounce the use of torture, and balance the fight against terrorism with greater concern for civil liberties. But once politicians are in office, things change. Right now, of course, the president has the personal power, unchecked by any other person or entity, to declare an American citizen an "enemy combatant." Will the next president give up that right unilaterally? Democratic candidates should be pressed on that specific question and a host of others like it, including whether they will continue the administration's domestic surveillance programs, whether they'll amend any provisions of the Patriot Act, and whether they'll revise the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which may deny habeas corpus rights to US citizens in some circumstances. Forget the leading Republicans; Mitt Romney's vow to "double" the size of Guantánamo is representative of their views.

When Gore is asked, he never explicitly rules out the possibility of a run for president, although at this point it would be quite unexpected. If he does not, and if a Democrat wins the White House, we have to hope Gore will not abandon the concerns he raises so forcefully here and that he'll act as a prodding conscience to encourage the next president to rein in the executive branch. He has had his ups and downs as a politician, but as he has shown these last five years, he is a remarkable citizen.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20593

[still_one]

1. keep dreaming, but it isn't going to happen /nt

[snappyturtle]

2. Be off! I agree that Gore is a remarkable citizen but personally I

would feel a whole lot better if he just became president to take care of these ills of the country rather than persuade whoever becomes president to do so. I don't feel like time is on our side.

[Tesla]

3. Run Al Run!!!

Help us!!

[snappyturtle]

4. Yes! I would feel so much better about the country if he would

run! Wouldn't it be wonderful?

[Pachamama]

5. I am so uninspired by any of the candidates (w/ the exception of Kucinich but he can't win) that all

I can feel, especially after today, is that I wish that Al Gore would finally throw his hat in the ring and bring back hope and a feeling of a future for our country...

It would be more than wonderful...and yet, at this point, I am starting to get so depressed with a feeling of no hope for the future of our country...

I hope Al Gore will be able to overcome whatever hesitations he has....and if its a hesitation called Hillary, I suggest that he is far more powerful than anything she can throw at him...

[JNelson6563]

6. I'd sure love to vote for President Gore again.

:patriot:

[Echo In Light]

7. However...

Gore doesn't exactly have any substantial role in determining which views and what propaganda receives the most coverage in the corporate right-wing media. Therefore, 'heady' concepts such as habeas corpus, and sounding the warning bell over the swift closing of open society - fascism - are completely irrelevant subjects to a consumer populace that is largely instructed on which views/issues to prioritize by that right-wing media apparatus which naturally does not inform the citizenry as a necessary safeguard bewteen Power and The People, but instead serves to establish a collective unreality that only suits the agenda of those who seek - quite successfully - to impose an alien form of gov't in the U.S. Gore alone can't do much for that. A major reversal would require the immediate action of large segments of the populace, and because of the media system here, it hasn't happened, and likely won't until the next staged "attack" occurs here, and the totalitarian infrastructure already in place begins to be more overtly implemented. Then, after awhile, people will realize they need to fight back and will. I mean, this is the cornerstone of American fascism: until recently, it was done via smoke and mirrors, so the people didn't quite understand how they've been manipulated, and therefore are far less likely to revolt - which people will naturally do once perceptions of tyranny can no longer be trivilaized and contained through thought control/media.