Posted on 12/23/2002 10:31:05 AM PST by DoctorMichael
THE LAME WHITE HOPE
Americans Face Dark Times Minus Al Gore
"Nobody knows where we go from here in these darker times"
Soft Cell, 2002
NEW YORK--Charles de Gaulle offered a rare ray of hope to the French during World War II. A two-star general who fled to exile in London during the 1940 fall of France, de Gaulle formed the Free French resistance movement while higher-ranking, more powerful Frenchmen either joined Marshall Henri-Philippe Pétain's Nazi puppet regime at Vichy or chose to sit out the war.
It wasn't much fun. Underfunded, insulted and sabotaged by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and even sentenced to death by Vichy France, de Gaulle repeatedly took to the airwaves to urge his countrymen to resist for the sake of "eternal France"--only to have his BBC radio broadcasts blocked by German transmitters. The British and American governments considered him a shrill, annoying obstacle to Roosevelt's plans to place France under Allied military government. His "allies," who recognized Pétain, not him, as France's head of state, didn't even bother to fill de Gaulle in on D-Day until after the invasion had begun.
Ultimately De Gaulle's perseverance and determination that France would resume its prewar status as an important country paid off. Four years after being threatened with execution, he became president of France and the resistance he embodied by his public persona restored dignity to a nation whose leaders had mostly chosen to collaborate with a brutal enemy.
American democracy now faces its greatest menace since Joseph McCarthy, not from foreign terrorists or invaders but from cynical extremists occupying the White House. Engaging in an obsessive campaign of domestic spying, assassinating American citizens, provoking baseless wars and furiously unraveling civil protections and rights that we hold dear, George W. Bush's ersatz presidency is working hard to transform the United States from a law-abiding republic into a postmodern blend of late Soviet totalitarianism and Gold Rush-era company town.
Workers by the hundreds of thousands are stripped of their union protection. Oil drillers and clear-cutters are set loose in our national parks. Officials refuse to tell the truth about the 9/11 attacks. In the middle of a deep recession, the deficit is run to record highs to accommodate tax cuts for a few rich individuals and corporations. Ludicrous ideas that would have been dismissed as absurdly paranoid a few years ago are floated, signed into law and fully funded: smearing liberals as disloyal, a Total Information Awareness office that lets the Pentagon track which magazines you buy, unmanned "drone" spy planes deployed over the West Coast {{Me: Huh?}}, jailing and executing people without letting them see a lawyer, much less a judge.
Years after Bush is gone, we'll be paying off the debts he ran up and the lawsuits brought by those whose rights he violated.
Opposing Bush isn't a question of partisan politics. Patriotic people of all political stripes, including lifelong Republicans and war veterans, increasingly understand that this administration's antidemocratic, unconstitutional tactics, thinly disguised as part of a fake "war on terrorism" that has yet to catch a single planner of 9/11, are a cover for dangerous, dictatorial impulses.
Until the Dec. 15 announcement that he had decided not to run, Al Gore represented the nation's best hope for defeating Bush in 2004. A mid-November Time-CNN poll showed that Gore would have been all but impossible to beat for the Democratic nomination. He led Joe Lieberman and Tom Daschle with 53 percent of likely Democratic voters compared to their 10 percent each. An energized Gore campaign would have enjoyed the enthusiastic support of Democrats still angry about the judicial coup d'état of 2000; a 2004 rematch would have been a chance to put things right.
After remaining mostly silent since the Supreme Court ruling of December 2000, Gore tested the Gaullist waters beginning in September 2001 with speeches criticizing Bush's handling of the war on terrorism and the economy. In so doing, he briefly became the leading--and the only--major Democrat willing to openly and repeatedly attack Bush.
Progressive-minded Americans despaired after the midterm elections left Bush with a rubber-stamp Republican Congress to go with his rubber-stamp Republican Supreme Court. Fortunately, one prospect remained: Gore would run in 2004, spending the next two years speaking up against the Bush junta.
Now that hope is gone. Gore, unlike de Gaulle, didn't trust in his principles or in the people enough to fight for them. He let himself be discouraged by Democratic National Committee mucketymucks, who viewed him as tainted by the Y2K debacle. Failing to understand that a politician's role is to lead, Gore wrongly conceded the 2000 race rather than demand a complete recount of disputed Florida ballots no matter how long it took. His decision not to run in 2004 came from that same cowardly perspective--perhaps he hoped that throngs of disenfranchised voters would carry him to Washington on their shoulders. The Gary Cooper role in "High Noon" wasn't for him.
As Gore told "60 Minutes" host Leslie Stahl, whoever the Dems pick to take on Bush will likely enjoy the benefit of Bush's dismal handling of the economy. "I think that the policies they're committed to do not work," Gore said. "And I think that if they don't change them, which I don't think they're likely to, that it's going to be apparent to people." Another major terrorist attack could also hurt Bush.
The 2004 Democratic nominee, whoever he is, may win the presidency. But no Democrat will enjoy the loyalty of those angered by what happened to Gore as much as the man many regard as our President-in-Exile. And no candidate but Gore can give us hope during the dark year about to begin.
(Ted Rall is editor of "Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists," an anthology of cartoons, ephemera and interviews with 21 of America's best editorial cartoonists. Ordering and review-copy information are available at nbmpub.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2002 TED RALL
RALL 12/17/02
Originally Published on December-17-2002
Gore = DeGaulle
Republicans = Vichy French
America = Occupied France
Bush = Henri-Philippe Pétain
Ted Rall = Communist Ass-Clown
Hey, let's keep a good thought, Ted! </sarcasm>
Thanks for posting!
Rall is such a friggin' idiot. I guess he can't be bothered mentioning that the one American citizen "assassinated" by Bush happened to be with an Al Queda big at the time. Baseless wars? Where was Rall during all of Slick's military adventures? And how, Rall, are laws passed? Seems it takes a DEMOCRATIC Senate to go along with these matters, pinhead.
Rall is the biggest liberal idiot going - he makes Molly Ivins seem downright celebral and balanced by comparision. And maybe that's the whole idea of running his rants...
You mean yet another bend.
how does he explain Bush's high approval numbers?
Americans haven't read enough of those crude scrawlings he calls "cartoons" to understand what he is saying yet.
Ted Rall is a freakin idiot, in French?
When having any discussion about Rall my natural inclination is to insult him in French, the universal language of al surrender monkeys and useful idiots.
Gore and Mo Dees would have found some way to blame 9/11 on a "right-wing militia".
Yea, I know.............kinda like DU.
In all honesty, I went to lunch at the cafeteria and someone had left one of those artsey-fartsey, free, "alternative" rags (you know the type) on the table I was at. The first thnig that caught my eye was the cover-promo for the editorial, which I read (to my horror). Getting back to my computer I posted it.
Yes, I agree, this man is totally delusional and desperately needs his Lithium or Thorazine prescription to be filled. Still, sometimes it's just a damn good reminder of the mindset we're still up against and that is present out there.
Don't you know? It's a CIA plot. They're dumping mind control fluoride in our water from those unmanned drone airplanes on the west coast...zapping our precious bodily fluids and stuff.
Ted Rall est un &*%$& idiot!
Mr. Ted Rall, Your feeble attempt at badmouthing Joe McCarthy is DemoncRATic Baseless and Mindless Word-Drool.Joe McCarthy was proven that his allegations were "correct" via a Book called "The Venona Secrets".
Quote: In The Venona Secrets, Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel intend to create a new impression of treacherous Americans "who willfully gave their primary allegiance to a foreign power, the USSR.... For Communists, true patriotism meant helping to make the world a better place by advancing the interests of the Soviet Union in any way possible." By using the now-celebrated Venona documents--top-secret Soviet cables sent between Moscow and Washington, D.C., in the 1940s--Romerstein and Breindel tell a frightening story of how deeply spies penetrated the U.S. government. There was the famous case of Alger Hiss, whose guilt as a Soviet spy is now beyond doubt thanks to Venona. Less well known, but still important, were the roles of Harry Hopkins in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's White House and Harry Dexter White in the Treasury Department. "
Until you get your story correct Mr. Rall,you're to be known as a Mis-Leading Skunk, just like #42.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.