Gore Sighting

The former VP and inventor of the internet has surfaced yet again to warn us that our Democracy is at grave risk. Why? For starters since people are watching too much Television, a point that I’d tend to agree with him on, but mostly, because there are media out there now that report both (or many) sides of issues. In Al Gore’s America, “Democracy” is imperiled by views other than Al’s being presented.

The speech is long and ill-formed as a lot of Al’s ideas, I pulled some excerpts and will provide some comment.

“In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a short time - a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public discourse that reminded some Americans - including some journalists - that vividness and clarity used to be more common in the way we talk with one another about the problems and choices that we face. But then, like a passing summer storm, the moment faded.”

Yes Al, when only one side of an issue is covered things are MUCH more “clear”, but “clarity” is no substitute for “truth, information, knowledge, facts” or a whole host of other good terms.

“Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 minutes every day -- 90 minutes more than the world average.” I completely agree, far too much,  and a very bad choice. He doesn’t indicate how he might change that … potentially if those that select TV have less worthwhile lives in terms of accomplishment, happiness and standard of living, they might learn to make other choices? Usually liberals like Al don’t believe that people should live with the consequences of their choices, so other than “lament”. His point here is unclear.

“And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.” 

 The “strangeness” seems to be that people voted for Bush and Republicans for office in the face of all manner of thing that Al sees as completely their fault and “unpardonable”. Apparently an “Al marketplace” is a lot like the old USSR where there was one kind of soap and they either had it or they didn’t. Al sees the US “idea marketplace” as having been “destroyed” by the introduction of ideas and people that don’t agree with Al.

“As recently stated by Dan Rather - who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House - television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up."” 

Somehow Al seems to have forgotten that Dan ran a news story trying to effect an election with fake documents and lost his job because of that. In the “good old days” of course CBS would have “protected their sources” and kept the “documents” under lock and key so nobody would have been the wiser. Ah yes, the world with a “marketplace” of all the same ideas … “fake but true”, and EFFECTIVE at least in the past from Al’s view. Pity. It is easy to understand why Al and Dan lament the passing of the infallibility of the MSM.

“As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. -- including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.” 

 He gets a bit more clear here I think. Opinions that don’t agree with Al have no place in the “marketplace of ideas”. The proper way for a good liberal intellectual to deal with such ideas is to call them names. Liberal intellectuals and playground bullies have a lot of the same sensibilities and apparent level of maturity. If you can’t defend your beliefs, try to pass a law that limits speech so you don’t have to. What a great way to defend “democracy”.

“…And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.” 

We persist in the name calling only we go for the Nazi theme now. If the media isn’t 100% in “Goose Step” against a Republican president 100% of the time, the most rational thing to do is to play that Nazi card. That McCarthy was SO terrible calling people commies. Nice intelligent people call others Nazis! It makes it all clear how the left is so far superior to the right when it comes to name calling. The left has a name for the phenomenon when the finger points their way “McCarthyism”, when the finger points the other way there is no name. “Normal” doesn’t require a name.

“It is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.” 

 Ah, the “summation”. I found it amazing he never mentioned Fox directly … perhaps he just forgot. There is some evidence that an Al Gore "Democracy” CAN’T actually survive the conservative position being presented, so since one has to assume from this speech that it is HIS view of “Democracy” that we need to preserve, he is probably right. If people are allowed to see more than one side then ideologues from the left like Al will be labeled as such and most people will reject their views.

A grave risk indeed.