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The Assault on Reason, by the Honorable Al Gore, is to be released by Penguin Press on May 22 which is next week. It is reported to be about the difficulty politics has with making decisions based on facts and reason, and using this current regime as the prime example of corruption, fear mongering, and the assault on reason that seeks to bind the soul in perpetual servitude to those interests that represent the antithesis of all our Constitution stands for.
It also seeks to explore the part of the people and the reasons for their allowing corporatism and the politics of fear and deception to anesthesize Democracy as our Founders warned us about, which has been working for decades to bring us to the point in this country where we must seriously grab a hold of the hand of our dying Democracy or lose her. In that context it corollates exactly to the urgency of the climate crisis which is also tied into having a viable Democracy in order to allow for truth and reason to prevail, because unless the people are aware of the inconvenient truth and allowed to debate Democratically in order to find viable solutions without the threat of retribution there is no Democracy. And that Democracy cannot be unless the people disenthrall themselves, arm themselves with knowledge, and demand that truth and reason light our path rather than lies and the self interest that leads to the destruction of principle and our moral focus as a nation. In other words, this book is our wake up call. It is a call to arms, our Common Sense for the 21st Century.
It will go into detail regarding the Democracy crisis we face and our part in standing up to those who would dare see our Republic shattered, and to me it is very much anticipated as I would also anticipate the words of Thomas Jefferson who was the statesman of his time. Al Gore to me is the statesman of this time, and therefore the words he has written on paper to express his distress with this political system comes at a time when they are most needed to be read as were Jefferson’s and again, even Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
I am very happy to see Mr. Gore pursuing this avenue in speaking his mind on these issues in concert with the climate crisis. Being out of the political beltway that I don't believe ever truly appreciated his prescience and intelligence on these matters has certainly given him the chance to be a great advocate for the people and for Democracy. He has had a whole new perspective from out here as a free private citizen, and I believe he can then more clearly and passionately express his own ideas on these matters that will resonate more effectively with those who usually see books of this nature as just tokens to a run in that political system.
The politics behind this to me however, is not fodder just to be used by the same interests including the media for more political speculation that seeks to divert this important book’s meaning and discussion of it. This book like his speech on January 16, 2006 is a call to arms to the people of this nation to become involved in preserving their Democracy just as they need to preserve their planet as the two are definitely intertwined. The truth suppressed about the climate crisis by this regime and other administrations for the last thirty years is directly linked to how it does business in all other matters and their moral vacancy, and that then goes back to what we the people intend to do now to see that truth told and those keeping it from us made accountable for keeping it from us.
I do not believe impeachment is mentioned in this book specifically by Mr. Gore, but I would hope that would be one remedy that is not discounted in all of this either, as surely the Constitutional abuses committed by this regime qualify for such a remedy. And this corruption goes very deep. It has permeated all levels of government, business, and the media especially that has been a good front man for the purveyors of treachery and deceit. Therefore, the question then begs to be asked:
Can we truly get back to a way of thinking as a nation as was in Jefferson’s time after years of debasement from media and those in government who liken themselves to the very despots we sought freedom from to begin with? I suspect if Thomas Jefferson were alive today he would not even run for office in this debased, corrupted, corporate owned political system we have made either. Consider these quotes:
"I have seen enough of political honors to know that they are but splendid torments." 1797 letter to Martha Jefferson Randolph
And:
" Whenever a man cast a longing eye on them (public offices) a rottenness begins in his conduct." 1799 letter to Tench Coxe.
Even he back all of those years saw what politics can do to the soul without a moral compass. He would then not only be vocally calling out those who not only have debased it at our expense and at the expense of reason and true Democracy, he would also be forcefully excoriating us for allowing it to happen and to continue and to be perpetuated by our own inaction while looking the other way when time for responsibility for it rolled around.
A man like George W. Bush nor his ilk would ever have been tolerated by the likes of a man of reason like Thomas Jefferson nor the people of that time. The fact that he is now tolerated only illustrates how far down we have come from the reason that bore this country. Therefore, if Al Gore's new book can in any way shed a light on that and bring us towards turning to that reason again to guide us in our decisions it would be a great contribution to this nation and generations to come that may otherwise never truly understand and respect the brilliant men of reason who believed in this grand experiment and our part in making it a success.
The other questions I then must pose on that after the last six years are: Is it too late? Are we beyond reason? Beyond truth? Beyond being able to even fight for it on our own? Have we become too complacent to care? Can we even place all of the blame on media and government, or does some of it also fall on our laziness to even seek the knowledge we need to make change? It is there. All we need is the will to seek it out. Do we still have that will?
Why then could our founders be victorious over ignorance and treachery and yet we find it so difficult to do as they did? Well, that is because they read and were not distracted by other diversions. They discussed events of the time amongst themselves and had an interest in them because they were important to their lives. Government wasn't just some secret, mysterious, distant entity out of touch with them... They were the government. They also had a sense of pride in working to build a country that would last the test of all despotism... and their work wasn't completed which is why they handed off this country to us to continue building that more perfect union.
However, we have dropped the ball. We have become complacent. We have lost our ability to use reasoned debate and truly Democratic means to secure policy that benefits America as a whole. We have become debased, bought and sold by entities caring not for freedom and Democracy but only their bottomline and getting votes at the highest price. In short, we have become all that Jefferson and others of that time warned against.
It is then past time for us as a nation to come back to the reason that bore us. It is then time to hear our voices in the town square again. It is time for us to take a good hard look at what we have become and take responsibility for it, for change can only come once we admit our own part in the problems. Where our country and our world stand today didn't just happen without our help in one form or another, and it didn’t all just happen in the last six years. Inaction and complacency regarding this Democracy has been building for decades and it has bred the corruption and fear leading us farther away from that reason Jefferson and so many others believed in. And we can no longer allow it to stand.
Therefore, thank you once again Mr. Gore for being the statesman and advocate for Democracy and our planet that you are and for giving us the push we need. I truly hope this book is accepted in the spirit it is written in and heeded seriously on the part of all of us who must now once again become active participants in Democracy in order for it to survive.
I certainly know I will read it, treasure it, and continue to be the active participant in this Democracy that I have always tried to be, and pass this book down to my own son to read it as I have passed down the words of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, in order to warn him of what he must now do to preserve this precious grand experiment started over two hundred and thirty years ago.
We must get back to the townsquares and the pubs using the new mediums at out disposal. We must once again become excited about liberty and the exchange of ideas that leads to true independence. Thank you for making us once again think and look in that mirror to realize that, for nothing else will be accomplished until we take that first hard look.
"It is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1786. ME 6:10
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