Some Thoughts on Gore's Speech

I’d like to weigh in on Al Gore’s recent speech regarding the Bush Administration’s wiretapping policies.

The speech, made on Martin Luther King Day (yes, the same federal holiday Dick Cheney opposed as senator, appropriately made this day by Gore because King himself was a victim of illegal FBI wiretapping) is making headlines and facilitating discussion everywhere in the blogosphere, and for good reason; Gore made some brilliant and passionate points. What has been endlessly disgusting is the Republican response to this speech.

As if you need to be shocked as you read the juvenile response to Gore speech – he was smeared by the Right, and accused of being unpatriotic and hurting the war on terror, as ANYONE IS WHO IS WILLING TO QUESTION THIS PRESIDENT’S AUTHORITY.

Q: “Mr. President, why are we torturing people?”
Republican Response: “9/11, terrorists.”

Q: “Mr. President, why are we unlawfully detaining people indefinitely in prisons in and outside the United States without access to a hearing, a lawyer or any type of judicial process?”
Republican Response: “Gotta keep the terrorists on the run. Oh, did you happen to forget 9/11?”

Q: “Mr. President, why are you proud of authorizing illegal wiretapping of Americans without warrants or approval by the FISA court, or even congress?”
Republican Response: “Why do you hate the firefighters who died on 9/11?

Q: “Mr. President, why are we illegally kidnapping people for imprisonment and interrogation in nations that are known for torturing prisoners?
Republican Response: “We’ve noticed you have less then 3 American flags on your car. Please come with us.”

I have three things to say to Republicans regarding this neo-fascist, nationalist, infantile bullshit:
1. Not everyone who raises legal concerns in the realm of illegal detention, torture, wiretapping or any other disgusting rape of civil liberties protected by the Bill of Rights is cheering on the next car-bomb, gassing, or nuclear explosion in downtown Los Angeles. Really – we’re simply concerned Americans who are fighting for the very freedoms we’re propagandized to and supposedly spreading in the Middle East.

2. The more Republicans continue to play the Patriot Police, and accuse anyone who calls this Administration on their lying bullshit as hurting the war on terror, the more those accusations lose their meaning. I would like to refer them to the fable of the “boy who cried wolf.”

Just because one doesn’t want to give up their civil liberties, finds flaws in the government’s reasoning, and finds misconceptions, half-truths, misleading statements and 100% lies in their speeches, doesn’t mean that individual is encouraging terror or “siding” with Al Qaeda as if this were like picking soccer teams during recess.

3. To accuse, intimidate or even suggest that one is “aiding” terrorists by seeking to preserve the laws and foundations of the very Democracy we're trying to protect is so irresponsible I can’t paddle the asses of the children behaving this way fast enough.

It truly makes it more ironic that those who furiously defend this type of behavior are the ones who put an extra shine on their American flag lapel pins, and are overly excessive in their Patriotic symbolism.

You are exactly the opposite. You are the oppressors, the government’s minions, and a huge, disgusting and shameful stain the soul of this nation.


Here are some highlights of Gore’s speech(as well as some video thanks to crooks and liars):

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President went
out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

But surprisingly, the President's soothing statements turned out to be false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was uncovered by the press, the President not only confirmed that the story was true, but also declared that he has no intention of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.

Whenever power is unchecked and unaccountable it almost inevitably leads to mistakes and abuses. In the absence of rigorous accountability, incompetence flourishes. Dishonesty is encouraged and rewarded.

Last week, for example, Vice President Cheney attempted to defend the Administration's eavesdropping on American citizens by saying that if it had conducted this program prior to 9/11, they would have found out the names of some of the hijackers. Tragically, he apparently still doesn't know that the Administration did in fact have the names of at least 2 of the hijackers well before 9/11 and had available to them information that could have easily led to the identification of most of the other hijackers. And yet, because of incompetence in the handling of this information, it was never used to protect the American people.