Al Gore is John Galt??? Hell no, he's Cool Hand Luke.

Fly by night

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Mon Oct-15-07 09:36 AM
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Al Gore is John Galt??? Hell no, he's Cool Hand Luke.

Edited on Mon Oct-15-07 09:48 AM by Fly by night

If I've noticed anything over the past few days (post-Nobel), it is the frightened scrambling of the corporate media and too many others to denigrate the prospect of Gore re-entering politics -- of finally becoming our President. And of all the arguments being posed to discourage that decision, the argument posed in a thread here on GD (on the "Greatest" page and certainly in too many other places) that Al Gore is John Galt is the most odious.

Gore is "too good" for America? Not the America I know and love, not by a long shot.

That thread said that Gore "... can recognize that this nation is past changing, let alone saving...." Oh, I hardly think so. Since the US remains the leader (if not the role model) for industrialized nations on this globe, if Gore thought this country was "past changing", I doubt if he would be spending any time on global warming or any other serious issue. He would kick back on his Tennessee farm and sadly let the world pass him by. That's not the Al we know. That's not the Al I admire and respect.

Gore is a public servant, the child of public servants. His father (whose 1970 US Senate re-election campaign I worked in as a rosy-cheeked Vanderbilt student) voted for civil rights and against the Vietnam war in the 60s when neither of these votes were easy for a Southern Senator (and the consequences were definitely hard.) People of principle don't run from a fight worth having -- they embrace the opportunity to kick un-American ass and call out treasonous names.

Gore is not too good for this country -- he, and the people like him, are what make this country the great nation we always have been, the current bull-shit and mindless blather Smirking Chimp period notwithstanding.

Gore is not above this fray -- he is among the best equipped to enter it. Don't sell short Gore's courage, his intelligence, his love of this country (the country he will help leave to his children and grandchildren, and ours).

The only thing I agree with in the "Al is John Galt" thread is the "fooled me once" comment. If we had not spent the past seven years working to prevent future election fraud and theft, if we had not called the corporate media to task for their no-longer even thinly-veiled biases, if we did not have the majority of Americans awakened to the many threats we now face and to the dishonesty, immorality and blood-lust of the Rethugs, it might be possible to fool us twice. But boy howdy, we are all wide awake now!! We will protect our polling places like the Houses of Democracy that they are -- we will turn out voters in numbers that will stagger the imagination, we will tune out the shrill voices of corporate media complacency and resignation whenever and wherever they appear, and -- in the majority of states -- we will count the votes as they were cast. What a long-overdue (and country-saving) concept that is.

Folks, after seven years of Bushitler, we have met the enemies and they sure as hell ain't us. Are any of us too "good" for the hard fight we have ahead of us to take our country back? If we're not, then certainly Al isn't either.

Al Gore is John Galt? Hell no, Al is Cool Hand Luke.

And while the corporate media talking-head "sheriffs" might continue to bemoan a "failure to communicate" with Al's message (and what I sincerely hope is his strategy for rescuing this country by leading it again), the other convicts (that is ALL of us, folks) get Al, get "it" and are more than ready to get on with it. The difference today, besides the other democracy-saving steps I mentioned above, is that we won't let nay-sayers keep Al bottled up in semi-retirement, we won't let them convince us he has "escaped" to a better world (the world above politics, as if there was such a place) that does not involve fighting -- here and now -- for what is right, including the right (finally) to lead this country as we chose him to do. Al earned the "consent of the governed" once and he will earn it again, handily, when he chooses to ask for it.

Fool us twice? After seven years of horse-shit, we know there is no pony buried in any Rethug's stall. But there sure as hell is a strong, stubborn and serious Tennessee mule waiting in the wings, and his name is Cool Hand Al.

Bring it on! Please, Cool Hand Al, bring it on.