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Al Gore: The Assault on Reason |
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Al Gore's third Algae Award was a foregone conclusion as soon as he decided to write this book. But we waited until we finished reading it to make the announcement. Reading it took a while, due to limited available time, and the desire to savor it. Some sections just deserve re-reading before moving on. We cannot do justice to describing the importance of this book. Yes, it lambasts the people currently occupying the White House and perverting the entire Executive Branch of our government while tampering with the Judicail Branch, bullying the Legislative Branch, and manipulating the Fourth Estate into serving as its mouthpiece. And yes, those are the very people who stole the 2000 election from Al Gore. But this book presents the facts in such a straightforward manner, it is clearly NOT sour grapes and NOT a ploy to launch a campaign. What it does is examine the very nature of democracy, what the engine is supposed to be that makes it work - government by consent of the governed, with a presumption that it is informed consent. It sounds an alarm for our country. The urgent Climate Crisis alarm was sounded in An Inconvenient Truth. If it is possible, this book sounds an even more urgent alarm, because the accumulation of wealth and power currently in control clearly cares nothing for the climate crisis, for the future of this planet as reasonably human-habitable. If the junta that has seized control and is calling the shots, including starrting wars, dismantling social programs, destroying the American economy is left to its own devices, the entire planet will one day be a single *oligarchy. The suffering of millions, perhaps billions, of people due to runaway climate catastrophe will mean nothing to the elite few who will control. They will be as medieval kings - living comfortably in castles on the high ground, while the masses drown and starve below. Al Gore does not go nearly that far in sounding the alarm. He just states the facts, and encourages public discourse. He does not attempt to thrust himself in front of the crowd, playing the hero, crying "follow me!" No, he just acts as the messenger: To paraphrase, "America, you are squandering your birthright. The founding fathers designed an elegant government of the people, and you have willingly turned it over to scoundrels, while obsessing over entertainment news and sex scandals. He lays it out and invites We the People to rise up and do something about it. He is wise enough to realize that shrill cries for redress will only bring personal attacks. He leaves it to The People to participate in actual discourse, as did the founding fathers when they met in secret prior to the Declaration, and determine how to take back America. |
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Award: Book: "The Assault on Reason" |