Thump Al Gore on the Head

Several times and real hard, please. Gore's impressive-sounding but meaningless speech on current affairs and the standard textbook refresher course on the intent of the founding father's was a forced read for me. Half-way through the piece I had to bribe myself to even finish it. (Okay, I confess, a few times I had to re-read paragraphs as I lost my place in the drone.)

Sure there were items I could agree with but I wasn't interested in being reminded how voyeuristic, sadistic, shallow, and ignorant the public is - in regard to his references to the obsession with the OJ trial, or that ½ + of the public still believes Saddam was connected to 9/11, or that we are routinely torturing helpless prisoners. Gore points out our abhorrent medieval behavior shortly before reiterating the continuing gap between rich and poor and our increasing apathy and lethargy. I then wandered off asking myself if the rich being abhorrently medieval has led to the poor being pathetically lethargic.

He states : "On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?" Yes, where were all those apathetic pols? Were those senators scurrying without putting up a fight? Not that I'm referring to Gore's past behavior, or maybe I am.

Al continues with a nostalgic walk through the country's early period, reminiscing on the founding fathers placing their "trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed."

(Rut-ro I thought, here it comes, bash the media.)

But Al, to be informed the public needed to be educated. Back in the founding fathers' day, much like today, the first quality schools were private. When "free" schools came about they taught the basics and/or a tradecraft. Apprenticeships (indenture) were for boys who could read and write; the "middle class" if you will, but a large percentage of the general public remained illiterate. In the 13 colonies those who could read were taught by parents with a Bible. Upper class education was usually taught at home by tutors, and college often meant shipping the kids off to England. The average female didn't attend school. Everybody's hero, Thomas Jefferson, fratted at William and Mary College, founded by royal charter and British royalty. Not for the common man back then although considered a "public ivy" today. Al himself is an alumni of the oldest American university, Harvard. The manner/manor of education most Americans did not have access to then, or today.

Al does the usual, romanticizing the founding fathers and their intent; a no fail no brainer in any speech. So many these days seem to think we've fallen away from what the founders intended but I believe the founders and their intent have been followed more or less for the last 200+ years. An elite and educated class of very predominantly white male surrogates for the European royals.

After the Revolutionary War much of Jefferson's public couldn't vote. Ineligible were those men without property, women, slaves, free black men, apprentices, indentured laborers. You know, all those Joes who built the country at the direction of their leaders who sailed back and forth between New York and Europe. It was only when lots and lots of Joe Little House OnPrairies became educated enough and informed themselves that troubles began for the ruling class. Demanding the right to vote, abolition, suffrage, protection from government and corporate abuses, etc. We the people have fought, died, nibbled, and gnawed for 2 centuries at attaining the rights today's elite tell us we always had. Could that be because the "we" originally meant only "them" ? The better educated property owning public?

Gore hums on in my head, about the uses and abuses of television and how overly much Americans watch it, etc. and about the bad people who own, control, and manipulate television. Sorry Al, but I hear this with every administration regardless which party, and it's always true - power controls the media. He even mentions a "former male escort" in the WH press pool posing as a reporter. Thanks for the chuckle there.

"Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public." Al, Al, Al. I haven't trusted television news to inform since the government took over the airwaves on November 22, 1963 and blacked out everything but the official reports and bulletins played over and over and over and over until folks were ready to kill Walter Cronkite so they could watch Guiding Light again.

I voted for Gore in 2000 but he really is a bore. This speech included the usual talking points in connection to history, freedom, education, news, television, the environment, advertising, campaign finance, the internet, marketplace of ideas, the fact that we are vertebrates with brains, and on and on and on. And now look what I've done - went on and on about his speech.

What I don't see mentioned is where Gore was a few years ago, back when those members of the Congressional Black Caucus moved to challenge the vote of the Electoral College. He should remember it clearly as he presided over that session, bringing down the gavel each time one of those members objected to the certification of Bush. I hope the faces, of those who stood and begged at least one Democratic senator to stand against tyranny, keep Gore awake at night, as the results have certainly been a nightmare for the rest of us. Gore's last public political performance was ratifying the theft of democracy. And he now expresses concern.

"Four years ago I didn't intervene, I was asked by Al Gore not to do so, and I didn't do so." Senator Boxer. (Thump her head too.)