A friend sent me a link to a short–only ten minute–TedTalk by Al Gore. (If only the Supreme Court hadn’t given us George W…)
This is so powerful, I’m using it for today’s post.Be sure to watch all the way to the end.
I’ll be back with one of my usual diatribes tomorrow. And don’t forget to register for Women4Change’s inaugural Civic Education Conference on October 6, 2022, in the Clowes Auditorium of the Indianapolis Public Library, 40 East St. Clair Street, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Thank You. This is a good reminder of how different the world might be had poppy Bush’s friends at the Supreme Court not take the election away from Al and let the counting of votes continue. Bad stuff follows when the rules are twisted.
Gore wanted to do a selective recount of certain Florida counties, a strategy designed to help him. The SCT 7-2 said “no,” a violation of equal protection. The 5-4 vote was whether there was time to do a recount of the entire state. There the Court said no. Nonetheless, several media outlets later did do a statewide recount of Florida ballots and they all showed GWB winning.
Once NATO comes unraveled by European social unrest and the realization that the USA is no longer running a unipolar world where they call the shots, the US Oligarchy (including the MIC) will have to accept that sourcing and addressing major crises will require cutting billions from the Pentagon budget and changing our political system.
The solution is through financing a complete restructuring of economic and political lives, and this can be done by diverting hundreds of billions from the Pentagon to employing young people to help rebuild the country and forgive their student debt.
The alternative is quickly becoming a deadly dead end.
I’ll go back to Michael Hudson’s article from yesterday:
“This neoliberalism has been a path to becoming a failed economy and, indeed, a failed state, obliged to suffer debt deflation, rising housing prices and rents as owner-occupancy rates decline, as well as exorbitant medical and other costs resulting from privatizing what other countries provide freely or at subsidized prices as human rights – health care, education, medical insurance, and pensions.
The success of China’s industrial policy with a mixed economy and state control of the monetary and credit system has led U.S. strategists to fear that Western European and Asian economies may find their advantage in integrating more closely with China and Russia. The U.S. seems to have no response to such a global rapprochement with China and Russia leverage except economic sanctions and military belligerence.”
https://unac.notowar.net/2022/08/31/americas-real-adversaries-are-its-european-and-other-allies/
I couldn’t download Gore’s talk, but the comment in the header about net-zero caught my eye. That is the “way” to disaster. By the time society gets to net-zero (if it ever does), climatic conditions will be more variable, and the average temperature will be higher than today. But the real problem is that at net zero we will be putting as much in as goes out into space, which means that however severe the conditions are, that will represent the long-term future
Zero emissions represent the only sensible strategy, but the people who can implement it don’t want the negative feedback from their superiors in the large corporations, who are heavily invested in the economic status quo. So it won’t be done.
If America was still a democracy, the climate crisis would have been solved 10 years ago.
If Gore had only campaigned in his home state a couple of times, he might have won. He didn’t and he didn’t. Lesson that should be learned? Never forget where you came from.
That aside, he has been free to pursue his passion for 22 years. He might just be the most knowledgeable politician in the world in the field of climate change. The only question that remains to be answered is, “Do we have the political will to make the necessary changes?”
If Al Gore had won the presidency, he never would have spent the last twenty years doing the crucial work of mustering attention to the climate crisis across the world and fostering climate action. Absolutely crucial work! Video is straightforward and convincing on the dangers but also clear about how much faster the solutions are taking hold so now it’s a race. Very energizing!
Remember GWB had 9/11 and a deep recession in 2008 under his watch GWB fans!! VP Gore has it right that we must act now to save our planet for our future generations!!
Paul K. Ogden; I lived in Florida in 2000 and voted for Al Gore. I watched all news filled with the recount in the state where George W’s little brother Jeb was Governor and ruled the courts. Day after day the suppression of voters was part of the recount news; those who had been denied their vote due to felony convictions had no arrest records, those who had been declared dead showed up at the polls to vote and during the recount, a locked closet filled with boxes of Absentee Ballots which were dated as arriving before election day were declared invalid for not arriving in time to count. Of course any recount done by anyone later would find W the winner; those suppressed votes were never considered.
Please stop pissing in our ears and telling us it is raining with your Republican “facts”.
Thanks for sharing this video. I plan to send it to all my friends and family members and I hope everyone will too. I’m not on facebook, but would love to hear that this video went viral there.
For those of us that live in Indiana please send this video to your state reps and senators. They need to see this! Maybe it will help change their minds if they are all sent the video. If we citizens collectively demand that the state legislature enact a return to the higher net metering exchange along with the subsidies for installing solar and wind energy we might overpower the corporate lobbyists voices. It’s worth a try.
Indiana used to allow net metering, but that ended on June 30, 2022, thanks to the power of the coal industry lobbyists for southern Indiana. Here is a link to a recent Indianapolis Star story on the demise of energy net metering in Indiana.
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2022/06/29/solar-panels-energy-rooftop-indiana-expensive-electric-bills-power/7758887001/
JoAnn – Excellent comment! I agree with your first hand knowledge and I recall completely different news stories about the 2000 election than what Paul claims. His comments continue to be 100% nonsense.
be thankful Al can talk and get across the facts in a easy way to digest. the fact that many of the working class(the majority of voters) and some below in the ditches never see or hear the reasonable aspects of climate.
that TED will be stashed away in my file for use as needed..as i rerun the index of other TEDS i hope to blend like subjects to the political changes. theres a need for easy to digest subjects,too long we have ignored the majority of Americans who dont literally have time to gather what is needed and act upon to benefit all of us. those easy to understand,and talking points to follow. Robert Reich has been on a slam dunk the last few years with easy to digest points to everyday subjects. these make my day easier to relate to like minded blue collars, and being here gets me some $5 words to add to them.. best wishes…
Thank you for sharing that link, Professor!
15 minutes of facts! I loved Gore’s enthusiasm and tone of voice. He’s mastered his presentation for maximum effect! Thank you.
Right On, Jo Ann!
Gore’s fundamental message is that the current political fight over what will of we the people will prevail is not just about doing what’s best for most of us but what’s best for all of us.
We are in a political battle for the future of the species (and most other species of life). It’s not about any of the details but all of them. The good news is that we can do this. The question is only, will we?
JoAnn, you are so freaking badass!
Sorry Paul, but I go by my brother’s view, as he has been a recount specialist since finishing his clerkship with the Michigan Supreme Court, fifty some years ago.
Several things – the politically directed voter purge (don’t touch Hispanic names, they may be Republican Cubans; hit the Black precincts); the politically created mob threatening poll workers in Broward County; the reports my brother received during the recount of police chasing Black voters away from the polls; just a fair “will of the people” election
I agree, as did my brother, that selective recounts was a bad call. I cannot support that.
However,
the journalist used several different methods of counting hanging/dimpled/ etc. chads
One method was used by more then 30 states, and could be considered the “gold standard” – if you needed to pick one uniform, state-wide standard for a recount, that would have been the one they used – Gore won that one
The difference, of course, is that Gore and the Democrats respected Democracy and accepted that Bush won by a vote of 5 to 4, even though Justices given a life appointment by the father of one of the litigants probably should have recused themselves. I don’t recall election denial two years after the fact.