October 12, 2007

• Al Gore and Ralph Nader

  I’m not opposed to Al Gore in any way. I was in favor of him in 2000, and I greatly liked An Inconvenient Truth. I did what I could to try and promote the movie back when it hadn’t yet reached wide circulation because I thought the message was important. So please don’t take what I am about to say as an attack on Al Gore. I only feel the need to write this because I absolutely deplore the unjust inconsistency in the world of politics.

  Al Gore, in 2000 was a politician, bent on victory and very much willing to compromise in order to win. That’s not to say he was a bad politician, far from it, it’s just that like every politician running for president he needed to appeal to such a large variety of people that he couldn’t afford to come out in favor of or opposed to any positions that might alienate potential voters. He had to bend without breaking in order to convince enough people to vote for him. That’s just the way the corrupt system works.

  He lost. There are a lot of reasons. But credible arguments can be made that he, and the people working for him are at least in part to blame. He messed up in Florida, didn’t give it the concern he should have, didn’t fight hard enough to do an appropriate recount and picked the wrong method for recounting, the one most likely to cause his loss when he did. So he lost, and we have George W. Bush and war and everything else. Would things have been the same had he won? Who can say? But it certainly seems unlikely.

  After 2000, Al Gore became an advocate. He fights now for things that he believes in unapologetically and he does not need or try to compromise. And so he doesn’t. Rather than convince people that he thinks like they do, he gets them to think like he does. And great good has come from his fight, or at least started to. Climate Change is reaching the global consciousness. Maybe, just maybe, many lives will be saved thanks in part to his hard work and dedication.

  Before 2000 Ralph Nader was an advocate, and he fought  to create change and to convince people to do the right thing when it was needed. He was a leader, much like Al Gore is now, trying to raise people’s awareness of issues that they’d rather not think about, rather not talk about, but deep down inside they now are important and need to change. He fought to create that change and through his work many lives were saved and much good was done.

  Ralph Nader in 2000 was a politician, but a very different politician than Al Gore. Knowing his chances for victory were slim he did not compromise as much and fought to present his message unapologetically to the people in order to raise awareness, to bring the things he believes in to the global consciousness. He fought to present his message everywhere, including Florida, perhaps too much in Florida. But he like Al Gore was trying to have win, only for him victory was creating the greatest impact on the greatest number.

  And Al Gore lost. And credible arguments can be made that it is at least in part because of Ralph Nader. Because Nader would not bow down, would not support Al Gore, would not compromise and would not stay away from Florida. And so we have George W. Bush and torture and everything else.

  These two stories sound fairly similar do they not?  So what is the end result of this progression? Where do we stand right now?

  Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace prize.

  Ralph Nader is reviled and blamed for all the evil that resulted from the Bush presidency, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

  How exactly is this in any way shape or form fair? Many commentators whom I have a great deal of respect for have joined on the hate Nader bandwagon and it is quite a disgusting thing to behold. Where is the consistency here? Why should Nader be blamed for everything that resulted from Al Gore’s loss but Al Gore himself get off scott free for that same loss? Do we really imagine that Nader had so much more of an impact than Al Gore had on his own future?  That seems unlikely and certainly unfair.

  It seems Nader is faced with the curse of Caesar. The good is buried. The evil lives. My question is, why is it not the same for Gore?  Maybe it’s just because people see him as a more likable figure than Nader. Maybe it’s because he follows the norms and acts against the mainstream opinion and expectations so frequently. Society seems to hate and revile the rebel. We only support the people who we think of as being sufficiently “normal”. And Nader is anything but. I think that’s sad.

  Maybe it is wrong for me to bring up this old news at the time of Al Gore’s triumph, but I can’t help it. Al Gore’s rise was totally predictable and I am in no way surprised by anything that has happened including this award. In my mind he had already won a long time ago. But I guess in my heart as much as I like Al Gore, I’m always wishing for the less renown figures to get more of their just deserved credit.

  • 4:03 pm
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