When the Supreme Court Stole the Election in 2000, It Was a Death Sentence for Earth

[Playinghardball]

As we face a growing catastrpohic crisis in the form of global warming, and economic hardships from policies that benefit billionaires while working Americans struggle to pay for basic necessities, I can’t help thinking about Al Gore and how different things would be under his leadership after Bush followed by years of broken promises.

Let’s remember that Al Gore won the popular vote and the state of Florida if the votes had been fully counted, despite the legal evidence proving that there was plenty of cheating going on for Bush in 2000, and last but not least, let’s not forget how the Supreme Court Justices unjustly ruled to stop counting the votes in Florida.

Predictably, the industrial oligarchs would never have allowed an Al Gore victory.

In 2000, we were at the crossroads or as President Clinton liked to say to “building a bridge to the twenty-first century, the New Millennium.”

Whatever Clinton's neo-liberal flaws, he was light years ahed of Bush and Obama on the environment. Over four hundred toxic waste dumps across the country were cleaned up. Regulations were tightened on oil drilling. The Arctic was preserved, and millions of acres of forest land were protected from the claws of fossil fuel industrialists.

Plans for a major shift from dirty energy to clean and sustainable energy supported by a new high tech market was in the making and ready to go under a Gore administration.

In retrospect, Clinton made some regrettable decisions such as lifting the Glass Steagal Act. (Barack Obama campaigned to repeal it in 2008, which became another broken promise in a long chain of empty promises.)

On the other hand, the wealthiest members of society were not in the least burdened by a slight tax increase which helped to pay for essential public services: police, fire fighters, schools, infrastructure, that in turn fortified the middle class economy.

To top it off, the Clinton-Gore administration left a hefty surplus that Al Gore, had he been made President according to the people’s election, and not sidelined by the Supreme "Oil Industry" Court, would have likely put that surplus to productive use for new jobs in the rebuilding of America’s infrastructure based on a sustainable energy vision.

We all know the ending of this story.

Bush moved to the White House and cheerfully gave away the surplus to his billionaire friends via a tax benefit for the wealthy. The oil industry won. The oil wars began. The Constitution was shredded. The country was sinking in trillions of dollars of debt while Bush and Cheney associates became multimillionaires from war profiteering.

Unfortunately, this dark chapter in our history is not over by a long shot.

More at: http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18317-when-the-supreme-court-stole-the-election-in-2000-it-was-a-death-sentence-for-earth

[Little Star]

1. Yep. k&r

[gollygee]

2. Well, Earth will survive

It just won't be able to sustain human life.

But, yeah.

[truebluegreen]

5. If you think of Earth as a single, huge, living entity

which like a tree has all the life in a thin outer layer, then I would say that the Earth may very well not survive.

[AverageJoe90]

6. It would. And so would humanity.

Just remember, this planet's been thru far worse than global warming, and so far, not one single catastrophe has managed to wipe out ALL life on Earth yet(though we might not survive another dino-killer if we haven't gotten off the planet yet by then, as unlikely as that is).

[rhett o rick]

20. Humans will make the world uninhabitable for humans before they make in uninhabitable for all

living things.

The race is on as to whether the robots will reach singularity before humans destroy themselves.

[snooper2]

21. LOL

[AverageJoe90]

3. Title's a tad hyperbolic, but a good article nonetheless.

2000 was an enormous setback that we're still recovering from and a recovery that may take another decade or more to finish, and that's if TCTPB aren't able to install somebody like Scott Walker in office(even Chris Christie would still foul things up, I fear, unless we manage to take back the House and not lose the Senate).

Obama has, despite Republican obstructionism as of late, been able to make some surprising strides forward in this regard. And we ought not to lose sight of that.

[G_j]

4. I'm not impressed with Obama on the environment

starting off with his appointment of Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior.

[2naSalit]

7. Since then it's been

a steep, slippery slide downward.

Here's something he's probably going to sign into law, if he doesn't it would be likely only because the TPP will do it for him.

*Special Alert! Oppose the “Grazing Improvement Act”


http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2013/11/18/special-alert-oppose-the-grazing-improvement-act/

[G_j]

8. thanks

I missed this one...

[2naSalit]

9. It just came out online about an hour ago.

I made an OP out of it...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024055338


F'kers.

[libdem4life]

10. Covered a lot of political ground and some old memories...but the Supreme Court Bush appointees

...indeed...and two are saying they will wait to retire until there is a Republican in office. Oh, joy. We also need federal judges desperately. Obama needs to get out the bully pulpit...Elizabeth Warren is the first I've ever heard publicly even discuss the matter. We have a lot to learn and thank god she's a great teacher.

The other similarly devastating event/s was the deaths of Fairness and Intelligence and Social Liberalism ... JFK and Bobby Kennedy. Certainly they were imperfect, but we were robbed of our social inheritance...literally. We got Nixon after all. We've never recovered from that socially or politically. I also have thought that even though there are likely people in this world who could have filled their shoes, that they didn't for obvious reasons. And the social millieu just isn't there today...a bit too obviously.

2014 then 2016 ... That's it. The Right has lurched far enough into the dregs of idiocracy...even for many of them. People are beginning to see it. We have much more power, especially with social media, to help right the ship.

for the Kennedy brothers

[Decaffeinated]

11. How.... dramatic...

[deutsey]

12. On the bright side, though, Sandra Day O'Connor got to retire

"...at an election night party in 2000—yes, that’s the year George W. ran against Al Gore—O’Connor’s husband, John, reportedly said that his wife wanted to leave the court, but wasn’t eager to do so if a Democrat was in the White House. 'This is terrible,' she reportedly exclaimed when CBS called Florida for Gore."

Now she regrets giving the election to Bush...too late, dumb ass.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/05/justice_sandra_day_o_connor_s_bush_v_gore_regrets_she_shouldn_t_have_retired.html

[ellennelle]

14. sheez; i'd take her in a heartbeat...

over either roberts or alito!!

[deutsey]

16. Birds of a feather, as far as I'm concerned n/t

[indepat]

15. Sandra Day O'Connor will forever have the albatross of the 2000 election hanging from her neck and

no amount of good she can ever do will offset the heinousness of her complicity in subverting that election result.

[ellennelle]

13. i've said since that day...

...12/12 was a far far worse day for the US - and the world - than 9/11 ever was.

[mountain grammy]

22. I agree. In fact, IMO, no 12/12, no 9/11.

[Overseas]

17. K&R. Well said.

[spanone]

18. k&r...

[rhett o rick]

19. When push came to shove, Ms. Sandra just had to support the wealthy class.

After all, God made them wealthy for a reason. She will have some splainin to do when she meets her maker.

I hope that she is sentenced in purgatory to sit in a room alone with Georgie the Dim-Son for eternity.

[mountain grammy]

23. We always say Republicans have no accountability, but here's one who does.

She understands the enormity of her crime, oops, decision.

Scalia famously told us to "fuck off," oops, "get over it"

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/scalia-on-bush-v-gore-get-over-it/