What would have been different if Gore was elected?

soulsinging

Jasunmark wrote:

soulsinging wrote:

I know you're going to think I'm joking, but I may be going into IP law (trademarks and copyrights)... so what would I need to do to make the move to the west coast and get a desk job in the industry? I'd be up for a more active role, but I'm not sure I'm... ah... built for that, hehe.

Though I am madly in love with Keri Sable...

No idea.

I went to film school and started as a video editor making DVD menus for a solo male site. I now work for a gay hardcore site. Not a lot of desk jobs for copyright lawyers at studios. They generally don't have lawyers on staff unless they're dealing with piracy or legal stuff like contracts and such.

That's exactly what I'm looking to do, even if I'm not working directly in their company, I'd love to be their go to counsel. It's one of the few big corporate industries I can get behind

I'll keep Keri to myself. But you're right... some of the stuff in those videos... whoa

musicismylife78

wasnt gore, and clinton and all the other democrats saying iraq was a major threat in 2000, and 2001 and even before that?

I mean its a pretty simple exercize folks, pull up some gore speeches from 2000 and pull some up from 2004 or so, and see if they are different, beyond the personal changes one might expect someone to have after 4 years. Did Gores tone change? Was he more pissed off? Did he get more radical and urgent?

What could have been the impetus for such a strong steering to the left? Was it merely that Bush was in office?

Al Gore worked with Madeline Albright, who said that "it was worth it" for 500,000 iraqis to die via U.S. sanctions. I didnt hear gore say that was a horrific thing to say. You know why? Because he believed it.

Gore viewed Iraq as a threat and he like any other concious human being knew that america has vital interests in the middle east.

Until recently, gore has been a fairly mainstream environmentalist. Honestly. Look at some of the solutions offered up at the end of An Inconvenient. They are all things like recycle or buy a hybrid or get new lightbulbs. None are big picture things. Do we honestly think that recycling is the solution to the melting polar icecaps? Even if every single person recycled, and got a hybrid, would bears go back to hibernating, would the salmon not go extinct etc...

Gore is just like all the other people. He identifies a problem, an important problem and offers a solution that allows us conveniently to continue our way of life. We can still build more cars, but just please make them hybrid. We can build more highways, but please dont build over wetlands and dont cut down trees. We can continue to to live our hyper consumerist and capitalist ways, which are inherently antienvironment. Antilife. Antihumanity.

Thats the ironic thing about the whole damn issue. For someone who cares so deeply about the planet, what does Gore think war does to land and animals, to the sea? What does he think those bombs in Bosnia did to the environment there? And he certainly isnt antiwar, so what does he think war does?

musicismylife78

Can you honestly say capitalism and life can go hand in hand? Theres no way in hell. Life values...life. And capitalism values the almighty dollar. Moses and his prophets.

Gores refusal to endorse a more radical environmental solution is all the answer one needs to the original question I asked.

Do you value life or dont you. If you start wars and profit from them, I cant think of any definition in the world of "valuing life" that encompasses this. If you bomb some countries but dont bomb others, are you somehow morally superior to the Bush administration? How is any war justifiable?

Its funny, year after year, its "this politician is different, things will change". But things never do change, and we have the same idiots year after year in the white house and the halls of congress and the senate, bowing down to their real masters, no not us, the people who elected them, but corporations and money.

I dont support politicians. They all lie. To believe otherwise if to ignore all of human history

jlew24asu

musicismylife78, who do/did you support for president?

musicismylife78

I voted nader in 04 and 08. And supported Kucinich and had hoped nader and ron paul would have teamed up and been a ticket.

That said, I am wise enough to know that to believe any politician is going to come in and make the world a better place is naive in the extreme. I dont believe people should support politicians. I think they should be activists and act of their own accord. Putting faith in a politician to end the war or stop global warming or to save the salmon and polar bears puts the responsibility for those important issues on politicians and the pressure is taken off individuals, normal average folks.

Ive said it a thousand times. Pick an important issue or cause or movement, Women's suffrage, environmental justice, racial equality, issues of war, none of those issues were fought for because some president or senator decided to get with the cause and help out. Quite the opposite, things changed and change because people are pissed off and no one in political office is doing anything.

change has never come from the top down. Presidents didnt think up the montgomery bus boycott. Presidents werent getting their heads beaten in on the Edmund Pettis Bridge demanding civil rights. Presidents werent out there during Vietnam demanding the troops come home. Presidents dont care. Its always been the normal person. The person who will never appear in any textbook or history book that changes things.

decides2dream

amazingly, politicans DO tho. all those activists, and you are right...it IS the communities, the activists, who go out and spread the word, fight for the causes they believe in.....get it going, but bottomline, some politican still has to go in and support it too. and politicans were 'normal people' once upon a time. carolyn mccarthy, was a housewife before she became a congresswoman, and something she personally fought for, and still does, is gun control. i am not endorsing her here, merely using her as an example. activists get it going, but it still takes the cogs in the machinery - our elected officials - to actualy inact said changes, create/repeal/rework laws, etc. even activists are 'working the system'...to push forth the ideals they want to see represented in their government. it's all related.....

soulsinging

musicismylife78 wrote:

wasnt gore, and clinton and all the other democrats saying iraq was a major threat in 2000, and 2001 and even before that?

I mean its a pretty simple exercize folks, pull up some gore speeches from 2000 and pull some up from 2004 or so, and see if they are different, beyond the personal changes one might expect someone to have after 4 years. Did Gores tone change? Was he more pissed off? Did he get more radical and urgent?

No, that's not all you have to do. Because you said Bush and Gore were the same. So proving Gore changed between 2000 and 2004 does nothing to prove that Gore was the same as Bush in 2000. I feel like I'm talking to a kindergartner here. No wonder you can't get a job.

musicismylife78

gore was going to be elected in 2000, not 2004. He didnt run in 04, at least not to my knowledge, or if he did, we all know it was kerry who was nominated for the dems. So I dont get what your saying.

Saying Gore changed from 2000 to 2004 makes no difference in my argument. My argument was, Gore and Bush would have attacked iraq and Afghanistan no matter what. And Gore was going to be elected in 2000.

Maybe try your insults again. Pot meet kettle. Try that kindergarten comment again, but this time, look in the mirror and say it.

Gore changed. Still my argument holds. In 2000 Gore would have been elected and would have started wars.

I think schools letting out about now, so you may want to sign up for kindergarten for the fall.

musicismylife78

In 2000 gore felt iraq was a threat. What evidence suggest gore would have done nothing? Gore was an is anything but a pacifist. He believes lobbing bombs is justified. Given that, why are we even having this conversation. Gore believes in the use of military power to obtain objectives, thus, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to infer, having said iraq was a threat, he would have used the military to attack iraq as well.

I know its alot of brain power to think these things through soulsinging, but just stay with me...hopefully the logic and facts dont jar you and scare you. I know I have to speak in a slow and deliberate manner as you are going to be entering kindergarten vewy vewy soon little buddy!

soulsinging

musicismylife78 wrote:

My argument was, Gore and Bush would have attacked iraq and Afghanistan no matter what. And Gore was going to be elected in 2000.

Exactly. And you have no proof of that whatsoever. No evidence, not even a lame argument to support it. All you say is that Gore was different by 2004. That doesn't mean a damn thing. It's like saying "he was a butterfly in 04, but a caterpillar in 00, so it's clear that in 2000 it was a bear like the other guy." What sense does that make?

soulsinging

musicismylife78 wrote:

In 2000 gore felt iraq was a threat. What evidence suggest gore would have done nothing? Gore was an is anything but a pacifist. He believes lobbing bombs is justified. Given that, why are we even having this conversation. Gore believes in the use of military power to obtain objectives, thus, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to infer, having said iraq was a threat, he would have used the military to attack iraq as well.

That premise does not lead inevitably to that conclusion. Bush said Iran and Korea were threats... he didn't invade either of them. So just because a given politician calls somebody a threat does not mean we will automatically invade them. Yes, there would have been military action in the wake of 9/11 if Gore had been elected. But there would not have been an Iraq invasion. That was solely Bush's initiative.

soulsinging

musicismylife78 wrote:

Try that kindergarten comment again, but this time, look in the mirror and say it.

musicismylife78 wrote:

I think schools letting out about now, so you may want to sign up for kindergarten for the fall.

musicismylife78 wrote:

I know I have to speak in a slow and deliberate manner as you are going to be entering kindergarten vewy vewy soon little buddy!

Grow up dude. This isn't grade school. I said your REASONING is like a kindergartner's. You aren't going to disprove it by acting like one, only by showing a little bit of intelligent logic in your arguments.

jlew24asu

soulsinging wrote:

musicismylife78 wrote:

In 2000 gore felt iraq was a threat. What evidence suggest gore would have done nothing? Gore was an is anything but a pacifist. He believes lobbing bombs is justified. Given that, why are we even having this conversation. Gore believes in the use of military power to obtain objectives, thus, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to infer, having said iraq was a threat, he would have used the military to attack iraq as well.

That premise does not lead inevitably to that conclusion. Bush said Iran and Korea were threats... he didn't invade either of them. So just because a given politician calls somebody a threat does not mean we will automatically invade them. Yes, there would have been military action in the wake of 9/11 if Gore had been elected. But there would not have been an Iraq invasion. That was solely Bush's initiative.

/end discussion

musicismylife78

soulsinging wrote:

musicismylife78 wrote:

In 2000 gore felt iraq was a threat. What evidence suggest gore would have done nothing? Gore was an is anything but a pacifist. He believes lobbing bombs is justified. Given that, why are we even having this conversation. Gore believes in the use of military power to obtain objectives, thus, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to infer, having said iraq was a threat, he would have used the military to attack iraq as well.

That premise does not lead inevitably to that conclusion. Bush said Iran and Korea were threats... he didn't invade either of them. So just because a given politician calls somebody a threat does not mean we will automatically invade them. Yes, there would have been military action in the wake of 9/11 if Gore had been elected. But there would not have been an Iraq invasion. That was solely Bush's initiative.

Bush's initiative along with the countless democrats in the house and senate who voted with the president in authorizing the invasion of iraq, as well as the continued funding of it, that remains to this day.

Bush is a big reason why we have the iraq war, but it wouldnt have been possibly without the help of the incompetent Reid and Pelousy. Or the multitude of democrats who were caught on tape for all eternity, saying that iraq and saddam were threats. Or the multitude of democrats who knew torture was going on, and did nothing to stop it. Or the democrats who whined and whined and whined in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and said "we cant end the war because we arent in power". The we they came to power in 2006 and 2009 they have completely squandered it and done absolutely nothing to end the war.

Bush went to war because he had the verbal and nonverbal support of democrats who were too wimpy and scared of being antipatriotic and antiamerican to stand up and say "hell no we wont fund this war".

Gore viewed Iraq as a threat. Its a fact. He also viewed Bosnia as a threat, or clinton did, and clinton used military force there. Gore wasnt running in 2000 on some "lets put flowers in the barrels of guns" platform. He was strong on defense. He wasnt in the debates talking about reducing military spending.

To believe Gore wouldnt have started a war with Iraq is to believe the democrats and republicans are different parties. That they are funded by different corporations. That the democrats dont cower in the face of adversity or hardship and that they as opposed to the republicans are interested in the wellbeing of average people.

I wish it were the truth, but somehow, I dont believe thats true.

The fact is, there has never been a major politician who has run for president who has challenged the basic idea of expansion. Never been a presidential pick from either party who has run on the idea that we should drastically cut the military budget.

decides2dream

bottomline, gore DIDN'T get the white house, the presidency....so truly, wtf difference does it make what you or i or anyone think he *would* have done....b/c he didn't, and he couldn't..... so there is NO real, definitive proof of what he MIGHT have done in any case...and we are left with bushy's legacy.......

soulsinging

musicismylife78 wrote:

Gore viewed Iraq as a threat. Its a fact. He also viewed Bosnia as a threat, or clinton did, and clinton used military force there. Gore wasnt running in 2000 on some "lets put flowers in the barrels of guns" platform. He was strong on defense. He wasnt in the debates talking about reducing military spending.

To believe Gore wouldnt have started a war with Iraq is to believe the democrats and republicans are different parties. That they are funded by different corporations. That the democrats dont cower in the face of adversity or hardship and that they as opposed to the republicans are interested in the wellbeing of average people.

No, Gore wasn't running on a pacifist platform. No American president ever has. But once again, that does nothing to indicate he would have invaded Iraq... an initiative entirely conceived of by Bush/Cheney, sold by Powell, and then jammed through Congress. Yeah, everyone else went along with it, but it was entirely a plan hatched by Bush and his admin. And there's absolutely nothing to support your contention that Gore would have undertaken the same initiative.

All you have is your theories about party buying, which isn't even accurate. It's quite clear that some industries and corporations prefer one party to the other. CEO's prefer republicans, labor prefers democrats. Defense likes republicans, schools and pharmaceuticals love democrats. And no doubt, these elected officials favor the special interests that fund them. I agree that neither party is particularly concerned with the well-being of average Americans. But that does not mean they are identical and that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq. There's no reason whatsoever to think he would have. We'd probably still be in Afghanistan, but not Iraq. We'd never have gone if not for Dubya.