Along with any other actual progressive...

That NSA spies on politicians to find blackmailable embarrassments that can help them gain leverage on them to support themselves, the corporate agenda or the war machine which are really all the same thing.

Way before Greenwald/Snowden decided to pin it to Obama.

Here's highlites of the best speech Gore ever gave.

So where are all the apologist, excusers who always post on this issue while demanding we know and accept what liberal democrats they are? Me thinks they doth protest too much. I guess it looks bad contradicting Gore.

I was responding generically. But I'm sure he realizes what these subvertors are capable of.

should have been on a first name basis with the collectors and analysts. Add to that, he was a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence which submits the classified Intelligence Community Authorization Bills. Then in the Senate, he was a member of the Armed Services Committee. Members have access to all Department of Defense Special Access Programs (except waived programs which are known to the Chairman & Ranking Member & Staff Directors of the Senate & House Armed Services Committees, and the Defense Subcommittees of the Appropriations Committees).

Al hit the trifecta and was an insider for everything except Clinton's personal lawyers handing Lewinsky.

Its also common sense that what is happening to our freedom has roots in evil. I hope Al speaks out more.

surprising.

Given his technical acumen, I'd be amazed if he wasn't deeply involved in transforming NSA in the 90s.

I think he understood that messing with the Darklord Bush Sr would put him or his family at risk. When allied groups were ready to protest in the streets he told them to stand down. He understood that human life meant nothing to the Bushes as history proved. He didn't want to get JFK'd or JFK Jr'd for that matter.

a paranoid.

Maybe a little hyperbolic but messing with the Bush family objectives carries serious penalties. Yes Gore didn't want to divide the country but deep down he knew it was already planned and decided to bring back another neoconning Bush administration. Wars had already been planned with trillions of dollars at stake.

the Clinton Administration that used 911 as an excuse to abuse the FISA Court and instill a Supreme Executive presidency...? In this speech he's talking about the administration to follow the one he was in. As VP he certainly was aware of the power of the Executive Office as well as the constraints.

us doubled over laughing.

And I'm very, very sure the Clintons never, ever used the power of the state to handle his "bimbo eruptions" or to silence any of his "enemies".

was installed, 9/11, the Patriot Act, FISA and Homeland Security came to the fore.

Gore's primary job as Vice President was to further and support the Clinton Presidency, to which he did admirably, he was never a shadow President as in Cheney.

Perhaps you have a link or source supporting your speculation that Clinton used the NSA to handle his "bimbo eruptions" or silence his "enemies?"

sod off, number guy.

don't read something into it that isn't there.

If you don't jump on the "Snowden and Greenwald are vile" bandwagon here, "Libertarian" is one of the nicer names you get called.

Maedhros is simply trying to have a sense of humor about that.

It's just that it has loud and repetitious speakers.

One is, "DUers who support Snowden and/or Greenwald are only a small, but very vocal, not to mention obnoxious, minority of DU."

The other is, "Yes, DUers who support Snowden and/or Greenwald are a small majority of DU, but DU is not representative of Democrats in real life."

Those things, of course, contradict each other. But, that doesn't matter. Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. So is wise consistency.

That its the frightened Snowden-is-a-traitor crowd that are in the minority.

So, it would have been hard to mean the opposite of my post.

You have the Snowden supporters as being the minority, when in fact Meadhros was stating that it is the Snowden bashers who are in the minority, to which I merrily agree.

Maedhros may have meant a larger majority, but that is not the opposite of a small majority.

I read your post wrong. I thought you said "minority" in both scenerios.

But still, I must point out that it seems you also took Maedhros "minority" wrongly. It was not the Snowden supporters but the Snowden bashers with a minority on DU that "has loud and repetitious speakers" he was talking about in post #38. So your first scenerio is not applicable. But perhaps your second one is,...I don't know. But I think not. I think more Democratic voters are with Gore than are with Kerry on this topic.

...he is Old, White and Male...the three things that make up all racists.

compared Gore to Bush, saying that they were Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Repeal of Glass Steagall, DOMA, NAFTA, DADT, bragging on having ended "welfare as we know it," "extraordinary" rendition.

And, it's always comforting to imagine that Imaginary President Gore would have been very different than real President Bush and maybe even real President Obama. But the reality of the matter is that we'll never know, no matter how "certain" some of us may imagine we are.

Maybe, since Gore never had the mixed blessing of the Oval Office, he was freer to advocate for the environment and to call Snowden a patriot than he would have been as President or even Past President. But, as I said, we'll never know.

than Bush the Least, all that takes is common sense and logic.

Gore's primary job as Vice-President was to support and advance the Clinton Presidency, and on that score he did an admirable job.

Gore was advocating for the environment long before he left public office, as a Congressman, Senator and Vice-President.

So, if you are certain about what Gore would have been like for 4 years, especially after 911, as President, yes, it is your imagination. It sure isn't fact.

I was pretty certain in 2008 about what Obama would be like as President too. Turned out that was my imagination, only I got a chance to know that, rather than imagine it, because he actually got into the Oval Office.

President.

was a campaign. That is just about what Lincoln had before being elected President, if you substitute a term in the House for two years in the Senate.

Sorry, not buying that Obama could surprise me that much, but Gore couldn't surprise me at all.

There is fact and then there is imagination or crystal ball reading, which is about the same thing, passing for fact.

concerned specifically, Gore would've never instituted the program at the level of Bush or Obama for it was anathema to his core ideals of respecting the First Amendment as his substantial track record attests to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_gore

Gore was one of the Atari Democrats who were given this name due to their "passion for technological issues, from biomedical research and genetic engineering to the environmental impact of the "greenhouse effect."[32] On March 19, 1979 he became the first member of Congress to appear on C-SPAN.[49] During this time, Gore co-chaired the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future with Newt Gingrich.[50] In addition, he has been described as having been a "genuine nerd, with a geek reputation running back to his days as a futurist Atari Democrat in the House. Before computers were comprehensible, let alone sexy, the poker-faced Gore struggled to explain artificial intelligence and fiber-optic networks to sleepy colleagues."[32][51] Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn noted that,

"as far back as the 1970s, Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship [...] the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication."[52]

Gore introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986.[53] He also sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises."[52]

As a Senator, Gore began to craft the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as "The Gore Bill&quot after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by UCLA professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet).[54][55][56] The bill was passed on December 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the "information superhighway."[57]

would have researched it. Ditto his campaign. Neither, however, necessarily showed exactly what he'd be like as President.

And to help Bush win. He even once acknowledged that he'd prefer to see Bush win because he thought we'd have to hit bottom before we changed directions, and that Bush would help us do that.

There is absolutely no reason to think that President Gore would have started a war in Iraq because bin Laden attacked the US. There is even good reason to think President Gore wouldn't have ignored the hair-on-fire warnings coming his way from the CIA, and might have been able to do something that would stop the attacks -- improve airline security.

And I very much disagree with you that the Gore Presidency could only have gone one way. But, I am not going to debate the ins and outs of the imaginary Gore Administration. It's too silly.

...of the Snowden Greenwald variety...

And I hear he might have written fan mail to Vladimir Putin, too.

Oh, and this is Old News. It happened more than an hour ago! Stop dwelling on the past.

Maybe because I felt I was taking my life in my hands the first time I had to look for something my mother in law's garage. Boxes would have implied some kind of organization and therefore been a huge improvement!

While it was likely noted as something random and inconsequential, it became a perfect caricature of the anti-Snowden mentality to find something--anything at all--to call his character into question.

said, "This is a threat to democracy, to the heart of democracy,” Our founders warned us to be wary of tyrants that will want to take away our freedoms and liberties. The Constitution was written to guide us and yet there are those here claiming to be liberals that are more than willing to give up freedoms and liberties for a "promise" of security. Pretending that the NSA/CIA wouldnt do the unthinkable.

“First they came for the leakers, but I had done nothing wrong so I didn’t speak up.
Then they came for the whistle-blowers, but I had done nothing wrong so I didn’t speak up.
Then they came for the journalists, but I had done nothing wrong so I didn’t speak up.
Then they came for the protestors, but I had done nothing wrong so I didn’t speak up.
And when they came for me and I had done nothing wrong, but no one spoke up.”

An unregulated NSA/CIA security state will be the death of our Democracy. Dont try to distract us with ad hominem attacks on Snowden, Greenwald, or others willing to put their names on the line to awaken us to threats to our Democracy.

Last edited Tue Jun 10, 2014, 04:38 PM - Edit history (1)

The Framers had a choice between the two. However, like most politicians, they had no trust or faith in the "mob,"so we got a Republic. And the Senate, then elected by state legislatures, got more powers and longer terms than did the House, elected by everyone. They like to tell us we're a democracy, because it sounds so, doggone, well, democratic but, by definition, we have representatives, the hallmark of a republic.

As for counting votes, I don't know what you mean, but they just counted votes in Egypt. At least, I assume that's how they knew the general got over 96% of the vote.

There's something to be said for that.

Chad refers to fragments sometimes created when holes are made in a paper, card or similar synthetic materials, such as computer punched tape or punched cards. "Chad" has been used both as a mass noun (as in "a pile of chad&quot and as a countable noun (pluralizing as in "many chads&quot .

In the 2000 United States presidential election, many Florida votes used Votomatic style punched card ballots where incompletely-punched holes resulted in partially punched chads: either a hanging chad, where one or more corners were still attached, or a dimpled chad or pregnant chad, where all corners were still attached, but an indentation appears to have been made. These votes were not counted by the tabulating machines.[1][2]

Chad is sometimes used as confetti.

It's one man, one vote. Senators are elected by the people, not by state legislatures. Remember. We amended the Constitution. We are a democracy. That's what we tell the world.

We could be more democratic. We could introduce apportionment of Senate seats. That would give me in California meaningful representation in the Senate. Two senators representing the huge population of California is not justice.

The history of the US is the history of a move toward more and more democracy. Like it or not that is the way it is. First only white men had the vote (in many states only property owners). Then we moved away from the property requirement. Then African-American men were insured the right to vote (at least theoretically and in the Constitution although not in reality in Southern states), then women, then 18-year-olds (used to be 21; I couldn't vote until I was 21 and therefore could not vote for JFK). We have moved toward more and more democracy. We have broadened the voting base. Hurrah for democracy.

Because of the electoral college.

We should have begun moving toward that after Bush stole the 2000 election. Gore had the popular majority.

The two extra votes cast by electors in small states that tend to be conservative make my vote here in California worth less.

Still, our system is representative democracy, one man, one vote. We need to change the Constitution to fulfill that promise.

The representatives can be appointed or they can be elected. It is valid to say that our representatives are chosen democratically. However, the manner of choosing representatives does not convert the form of government from a republic into a democracy.

And, I might add, it was long, long time before even how we chose our representatives in this replublic was democratic, even as an illusion. At first, about 5% of the continent's population could vote--and then only for the House and for electors. Over half the population could not vote until after World War I, not quite a full century ago. Now, we at least are can have an illusion of choosing them.

And to the other point that we should recognize what democracy is, regardless of what was allowed in the Bush v Gore election by the Supremes.

Time has a way of making us think even harder the mistakes made, not only by the SCOTUS, but by the Senate to allow those crazy bastards passage to the Supreme Court. It led the way to even greater apathy, and finally, it's easier to become Snowden haters.

When are people going to understand the price of doing what's right versus breaking the law, versus being led around by our collective nose rings?

When Roberts was nominated is complained to both about the nomination. One of them, I cant remember which, but one replied to me that the president (Bush) should get his nomination. I say bullshite to that. The system allows the Senate oversight and they should take that responsibility serious. Just sayin.

Al Gore has served his country with great distinction. He has been a champion on so many core issues that are central to the real Democratic Party over the course of his lifetime. While I may not necessarily agree 100% with his opinion on this issue, I do respect his opinion & I applaud his courage to let his opinion be known.

Al Gore is a DEMOCRAT, & a damn good progressive one at that. He has fought his entire life to enhance the lives of millions of Americans, He has fought hard for the Democratic Party, & he has fought extremely hard for the issues he believes so deeply in, especially his work on combating & educating the world on the dangers of climate change, and I believe that if he wouldn't have raised the issue of man-made Global Warming, the entire world & especially a majority of Americans' would be far less knowledgeable about the issue.

So Agree or Disagree with Al Gore, Anyone who is posting on this site should RESPECT his opinion!

Let Become a More Civil DU, A DU where we can disagree without being disagreeable...Thats' what makes DU so great, and unfortunately we seem to have forgotten that while we may not agree on everything, at the end of the day we are all Democrats, and if your not a Democrat, you don't belong on this website, plain & simple...

to express their convictions and feelings.

We need to understand that we all become frustrated when we discuss things, when we argue (in the intellectual sense of the word).

That's what is so great about DU. That frustration we feel when we can't explain our ideas well enough to persuade someone else that we are right, that is the frustration of learning, of developing a clearer understanding of our own ideas. We learn so much from that frustration.

We have to just view the insults, etc. as growing pains, the growing pains of the intellect. It's good for us all.

Don't mean to scold. Just hope my remarks are helpful to you. My father was an award-winning debater. I learned to love argument. I know a lot of people who have difficulty with conflict of any kind and hate argument.

Loving argument in the way I do is actually good for a marriage. If what you love is not the argument itself and the exchange of ideas that takes place best through argument, but rather what you (general you, not you personally) love is winning. Winning is wonderful if you are in a courtroom or on a debating team. But the point of argument is gaining new insights, new understanding, not winning.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to express myself on this point.

Nailed It. Anyone trying to persuade us to give up our freedoms is a rat in my opinion.

“This is a threat to democracy, to the heart of democracy,” Gore said,

Democracy. On second thought, it is fair to say that.

I bet posters here are going to start denying global warming now

There is no answer to this one. So the m.o. for these kinds of events is to ignore it altogether. If the swarm doesn't intervene, there will be no arguments over their incredibly dense & silly talking points, and thus no 500-post thread that stays atop the forum for a week.

A week later, they will pretend it didn't happen, or else take some quote from 20 years ago or without context to show that Al Gore supports a strong defense and opposes terrorism, therefore agrees with the anti-Snowden party line, or Al Gore didn't really say what you crazy people think he said, etc. etc.

The ways of sophistry are manifold!

Already a valid scientific argument against anthropogenic climate change, this will now become an equally valid defense of NSA spying.

I also agree that it is important to find out exactly what NSA was doing. I simply disagree with the way he exposed the NSA surveillance. I still believe that he did much harm to US security and standing in the world. And there will be no way to know if NSA makes the changes we all want to see. Leaving the country and not facing up to consequences of his actions is not the way to this. I have little respect for him as a "whistleblower" or patriot.

He's a war veteran. He referred to himself as a "raging moderate" and he was a founding member of the DLC. He was Vice President under a New Democrat President for 8 years and he ran for President.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore

With all due respect, if I have to take someone'opinion, I'd choose Gore's over that of a lot of posters here.

As it happens, I don't necessarily agree with him 100% on this, but it is not simply a matter of differing opinions, with both sides having the same basis (or same lack of basis), for forming an opinion.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

And I'm sure Clinton had nothing to do with the Gonzales thing.

BTW, you may have to remind me what Gore with respect to Gonzales that was so awful.

He tried to play both sides in a very wishy-washy way. And eventually, of course, Gonzales went home. I thought it was a despicable play at politics.

That being said, I respect the hell out of Al Gore for nearly everything else he has done. I disagree with him about Snowden.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]

a politician's trying to have it both ways on an issue where he did not absolutely have to take a stand. How unusual.

Who got hurt as a result of Gore's "wishy washiness" over Gonzales? If no one, that's not exactly like, say, trying to have it both ways on the gay marriage issue, is it?

I disagree with him some about Snowden, but neither your nor I are anywhere near as qualified as he is to assess this. So, again, it's not simply a matter of differing opinions.

My opinion -and yours- are just as good as anyone's. Maybe even more valuable since they come from outside the bubble.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

for 8 years.

Both those things seem highly relevant to being in a position to react to what Snowden did. Certainly more than simply pulling an opinion out of your air.

Did you read this article from NPR. Hardly an extreme left-wing news source.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/06/10/320347267/project-eavesdrop-an-experiment-at-monitoring-my-home-office?sc=17&f=1001&utm_source=iosnewsapp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=app

There is difference between "Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion" (duh. Try to stop someone from having a thought) and an expert opinion, which courts recognize as, not definitive, but a lot more valid than the run of the mill, pulled out of thin air opinion. I can have an opinion that someone is nuts, but that doesn't mean a court would allow me to testify to that unless I can demonstrate that my opinion is worth more than most people's in that regard. Hence, an experienced psychiatrist with a good academic background can voice an opinion in court on such matters.

Al Gore has actual experience in having his life possibly at the mercy of classified info and he also has had 8 years of being briefed on classified info. (I say "possibly" because he has said that he was not in any particular danger during the Vietnam War. Which federal politian's son was, though? Still, you never know what happens if the enemy gets their hands on classified info of the kind that actually merits classification.)

randome on the other other hand, seems to have a fair amount of experience in posting in support of the whatever position the Obama administration seems to be taking and hoping we'll take as well. So, we can't really equate randome's right to have an opinion with the weight that Al Gore's opinion in this matter should carry. Well, randome claims to be able to do that, but I can't and neither can most people who try to consider and think about things.

Thanks for the link, though.

anyone else's. Just recognize that I, like many others, have a right to an opinion that may differ from the majority. And "same basis" is relative to the basis chosen. I just feel certain that most of the Snowden supporters would not feel the same had a contractor of Iraqi or Iranian or Indian descent divulged the same information by fleeing to another country. And we all would be questioning how one such person could have gotten such a sensitive position with the same background as Snowden.

Snowden had acted during Bush's Presidency.

But, Gore is far better qualified than either of us to assess this.

I keep seeing that meme but have yet to hear any evidence at all of actual damages. We know the harm Cheney did with his outting of Valarie Plame, but zip about any solid harm caused by Snowden. Can you provide some real evidence and not just what the NSA types are saying?

of actual damage either. The universal assumption at DU seems to be that if that poster was not unaware of something, none of our allies or enemies were already aware of it either. Yet, we know that Ben Laden never used email or phones and it's fairly obvious that our allies in the WOT all knew as well.

They are just use the unspecified "damages". I think the only damage is letting the cat out of the bag that we are breaking our own laws and for no good reason except to build up the security state and to be able to find/manufacture incriminating evidence on anyone they don't otherwise like - ala OWS.

The USG is never going to say, "Someone stole and disclosed classified info, but nothing bad resulted. The worst thing that happened was that Americans found out what we had been doing secretly and that embarrassed us. However, we revoked his passport and want to try him anyway, just on principle."

Never going to be said, even when it's true.

They can't say he's hurt us by allowing the world to see our dirty underpants, but that's the actual truth.

at discovering that we tap the phones of their heads-of-state.

I, personally, don't view that as "damage" but "comeuppance."

I would be very surprised if our allies were not fully aware of our efforts in that regard. All part of being allies in the war on terrorism.

Angela Merkel got in trouble with her own people because she was doing to them what the NSA does to us--and maybe also to them. Because of that, she made a brief, half hearted noise about her personal cell being monitored-to show her people that she was in the same boat as they were. However, it was very half hearted, and brief, and only after she got flap from her own people.

At that, she only ever mentioned her personal cell. Not a word about her entire government's phones being monitored (web use, too). So, clearly, she knew about that all along. Given that, she would have been a fool to assume her personal cell was sacred. And Angela is nobody's fool. I would not even be surprised if she had cleared her half-hearted and soon dropped complaint about her personal cell with us before she went public with it.

is the least ridiculous of the claims (because the others have been so effectively refuted).

The only harm is to the vicarious thrills that run up the spines of American Exceptionalists when we flex our hegemonic muscles.

Sort of like the Commander in the "Mr. Neutron is Missing" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus:

BTW, Obama is an American Exceptionalist now, too, though I believe (but can't swear) that I heard him speak out against that in 2008. Ah, I really liked most things that 2008 Candidate guy said.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10864

Too bad he was replaced with a reprogrammed Life Model Decoy by the time inauguration day rolled around.

Or by the time he sat in Rick Warren's church and opined that he believed in "contract rights" for gay people (duh?), but "when it comes to marriage, God is in the mix." Yeah, yeah, I know that, when he was running for 2012, his gay bundlers put pressure on him to evolve his thinking on that--right back to where it had been in 1994. But, it's not as though no one got hurt by his remarks during those four years. Or by the briefs his D of J filed, comparing homosexuality to bestiality and incest.

But, of course, that was when his D of J was acting totally independently of the President. So it's unfair to blame him. Not like when he told his D of J to stop fighting for DOMA in circuits where it had already been ruled unconstitutional and the D of J suddenly became obedient to the Executive, instead of independent of the Executive. So, of course, it was also fair to give him the credit then.



And he claimed only the other day that the D of J is entirely independent and he doesn't even try to influence it.

Sorry, I just can't keep up sometimes.

but, yeah. 2008. Good times.

composed of equal parts marketing and wishful thinking.

Our votes are not earned by the candidates, they are harvested by campaign strategists and advertising firms.

marketing and wishful thinking, only their marketing strategy seems to include a large dose of wilfully offensive.

And we all know what they say about voting third party.

When Republican crazies vote in candidates, the candidates deliver on the crazy.

Begs the question: when liberal/progressive Democrats vote in candidates, why do they not deliver on the liberal?

As long as you get elected and re-elected as "the lesser evil," and not much more is REALLY required of you, as when the rubber hits the road, why alienate the big money and not be able to look forward to campaign donations, lucrative speaking engagements, jobs for your nephews, a nice lobbyist or think tank job when you can no longer get re-elected, etc.?

And that is the problem with voting out of fear or resignation. You really do help make it worse in the long run.

Democrats know they don't have to deliver on campaign promises, because they know that the rank-and-file whips itself by shaming those who dare suggest holding our elected representatives accountable. (e.g. "Do you want Ted Cruz to win?&quot