My Oh My, Check Out Mike

Well, having one of my bouts of insomnia last night I was watching CSPAN at around 1am. The "underdog" Democratic Presidential candidates were getting their opportunity to address the DNC. Richardson was more interesting than I thought he'd be, but then came a new name - Mike Gravel. Mike Gravel (emphasis on the vel). He got going and I was quite impressed.

Mike Gravel was a Senator from Alaska back in the 1970s, and he was a firebrand - see his bio. He is a firebrand now. My jaw was dropping during his speech, and a lot of delegates were squirming. He was pulling no punches. I was hoping that I could find the video of his speech at CSPAN, but they haven't released Saturday's videos yet. If I can find it, I'll post it. However, here's the link to part of his speech. I say part, because he rewrote it before he went on. The excerpts below will give you the flavor of his speech.

History teaches us that nations fail when leaders fail their people. The decision to invade Iraq without provocation and fraudulently sold to the American people, by a President consumed with messianic purpose, sadly confirms this lesson of history.

The Democrats controlled the Senate on October 11, 2002 and provided political cover for George Bush to invade Iraq. The Senate leadership could have refused to even take up the resolution, or a few Senators who opposed it could have mounted a filibuster.

But the fear of opposing a popular warrior President on the eve of a mid-term election prevailed. Political calculations trumped morality, and the Middle East was set ablaze. The Democrats lost in the election anyway, but the American people lost even more. It was Politics as Usual.

....

Political leaders must bring two qualities to any public office:
political integrity and moral judgment.

If political calculations trump morality and occasion substantial loss of human life, it reveals the sense of moral responsibility these candidates are likely to bring to the office of President.

Saying "I would not have voted for the resolution if I had known the mess it would create"--or worse, saying "the decision was right but Bush botched the job"--is inadequate rationale for a person who may hold the most powerful political position in the world. Presidents have moral responsibility for the life and death of millions of people.

Politics as Usual is not acceptable for the presidency.

The Democrats in control of Congress need to act resolutely--and I'm not talking about some mealy-mouthed, nonbinding resolutions. They need to precipitate a constitutional confrontation with George Bush.

Our nation is in crisis. This crisis is greater than most people realize, and in some ways more significant than terrorism and the Iraq war.

We have become a nation ruled by fear. Since the end of the Second World War, various political leaders have fostered fear in the American people--fear of Communism, fear of terrorism, fear of immigrants, fear of people based on race and religion, fear of Gays and Lesbian in love who just want to get married, and fear of people who are somehow different. It is fear that allows political leaders to manipulate us all and distort our national priorities.

Fear has allowed our political leaders to spend more on military armaments than is spent collectively by all the other nations in the world.

We started an arms race in space a decade ago, without provocation. Now the Bush Administration is pressuring Eastern European countries to let us station anti-ballistic missiles on their soil. Most Americans are unaware that the Bush administration, under the cover of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been aggressively initiating a new arms race with Russia and China, whose defense budgets are a small fraction of our own. Our political leadership, controlled by military industrialists, insists on pursuing a Cold War strategy in a post-Cold War era.

American political leaders often boast of American exceptionalism, as you head from this dais. We are indeed a great nation, one that has made significant contributions to humanity. But our leaders are promoting delusional thinking when boasting that the United States and Americans are superior to the rest of the human race. We are no better and no worse.

It was a stunning speech in many ways. Here was someone running for President who spoke straight out about returning power to the people. One of his causes is to reinstitute the national referendum process whereby the people can propose their own legislation.

I have a suspicion that Mike Gravel will not get the kind of money necessary to make a serious run for president, but he has important things to say. Further, what he says - if he gets to say it where people will hear it - is going to make all of the other candidates take a stand rather than dance the political tango.

Below is a video of him speaking on Iraq in New Hampshire in November 2006. The clip is roughly 4 and a half minutes.

Posted by rowan at February 4, 2007 9:53 PM | [eMail this article!] |