Given what happened in Mexico can we stop saying Gore should

[dsc]

have taken to the streets? Mexico recently had a very close Presidential election in which many feel voter fraud permitted the conservative candidate to win. Unlike Gore the liberal candidate took to the streets and his party protested the results. None of it worked. The conservative candidate is the official President and the liberal party is less popular now than he was then. Given those results, in a country used to protests, can we finally say that Gore did the right thing, even if we don't like the results?

[MasonJar]

1. Baker, Jeb and the Supreme Court allied to cheat Al Gore out of the

presidency, an act which has cost 650,000 Iraqis and no telling how many US soldiers their lives. I hope they burn in hell. Just remember the babies and the 2 year olds and the 3 year olds and all the etcs. that would have still been alive 100 years from now if not for the BFFE and its RepubliCons. They make me sick!

[DanWithAngel]

2. yes, not one death is worth the futility and result

see: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20060915-2117-mexico-holidayconflict.html
for some insight on the decision to back off on the Mexican protests.

[iamjoy]

3. Not Necessarily

this is not Mexico. It is entirely possible that if Gore had fought it, he would have won.

But we don't know.

If you want to look at other results that were contested, you also have to look at Washington state's 2004 Governer's race. There was a successful fight there. :) But then you also have to look at Florida's 13th Congressional District 2006 race - which was not successful x(

I think the point is now to not Monday morning quarterback his decision.
He made the decision he thought was best at the time based on the evidence at hand.

[cassiepriam]

6. At the time he didn't want to damage the country with an ugly battle.

And no one could have predicted the evil inherent in Rove and Bush.

In hindsight, what other options were open to him?
How could he have continued to fight after the Supremes appointed Shrub?
What could have been done to challenge the repugs?
I have always wondered what he might have done to fight harder.

[dsc]

8. that is baldly false

The Democrats narrowly won the WA governors race and it was the GOP who UNSUCCESSFULLY challenged that.

[bahrbearian]

4. We didn't need to go to the Streets, we needed one Senator to stand up

[dsc]

9. that was because Gore requested them not to

but it should be noted that at best we could have had Lieberman installed as VP as the GOP had full control of the House.

[BattyDem]

5. Gore respected the decision of the Supreme Court ...

even though that court didn't deserve his respect. He respected the law. That was more presidential than ANYTHING the Chimp has ever done.

I don't think Gore should have taken to the streets for one simple reason: the media is bought and paid for by the GOP. All he did was ask for a recount, which was allowed under the law - and he was portrayed as an angry, sore loser who didn't know when to quit. Can you imagine what they would have said about him - and his Democratic supporters - if he had taken to the streets? It would have taken the party years to recover from the "anti-democracy extremists" label that would have been repeated over and over by the talking heads.

Democracy will never truly reign again unless the media monopolies are broken up and any program/network labeled as "news" is actually required to report the facts.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Well, we didn't know then what we know now about the Bush Junta and

what its dreadful intentions were. So I'm not sure that massive street protests would have materialized, or would have been persistent enough to be successful. That was way long ago--it seems like centuries.

Mexico and the U.S. are very different places. Really, there is no place like the U.S. It's so big, so various, and so lacking in a center of gravity. Protesters have to travel 2,000 or 3,000 miles to get to the capitol. And where is the capitol? Is it in Cheney's bunker? Is it in NY in the NY Times building? Is it in some hunting lodge somewhere? Is it in Saudi Arabia? Washington DC is a place of statues and barricades against the people, and posing politicians. What is the use of protesting there, if the Supreme Court is going to appoint the President? A normal protest isn't going to change that. An unusual one, with say a couple of million people sitting down in the streets, and not moving for anything--maybe that would have worked. But was it feasible? Was the country ready for that? Not in 2000, I don't think. And a big protest in Florida would have been ignored, dissed, marginalized by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies. We didn't know then what we know now about the NY Times and the WaPO either. They likely would have crucified Gore. And, on top of everything else, take a gander back at the Dem party leadership of that era. God, it was awful. Would they have backed Gore? Would his own VP (Lieberman) have backed him? The evidence is that much of the Dem Party leadership likes Bush's heinous war well enough. They voted for it. They've repeatedly funded it. And they also voted for Bushite electronic voting corporations "counting" all our votes with 'trade secret,' proprietary programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Not a peep out of them about that. Not a word of caution or warning. Would Gore have had ANY support at all, among the powers-that-be (war profiteers) or the Dem Party leadership of that period (many of them soon to be either gungho war or frightened by anthrax envelopes )? To be fair, 156 Congress members and Senators voted against Bush's war--a truly courageous lot. But the main leadership was for it. And those would have been the "deciders" on a Gore challenge. I think Gore took a look at this situation, and realized he couldn't proceed without significant Dem Party support, and it just wasn't there. (And I think Kerry faced a similar situation.)

I tend to think that change in the USA is going to happen differently than it has in any other country. And that DOES seem to be what's happening--a sort of growing rumble beneath the surface, that grows ever stronger, and that erupts here and there--as with the people outvoting the machines in '06--and that will, eventually, put the country back on a good course. It may take awhile, or it could suddenly flower and change things rather quickly. And all the protests and witnesses for peace, in all the many demonstrations, and all the grass roots activities--impeachment resolutions and antiwar resolutions in towns and cities, and efforts in the states--and all the "Committees of Correspondence" on the internet, informing people and heartening people--and all the rebellion and whistleblowing and dissent (even in the military)--will have contributed that great consensus that is building, for serious reform, accountability and renewal of our purpose as a good and progressive people.

Mexico is fairly big, but all of its political power is concentrated in one place, Mexico City. That's makes big protests more feasible and more potent. Although I loved the feistiness of the Mexican legislators, and the million-people protests, I think it was probably wise to call off serious disruption of the government. The left lost by only .05 in a very suspicious election. They more than likely won. This poses a large challenge to anything Calderon wants to do, regarding the agenda of the rich and the corporate. There is also a very big leftist movement in southern Mexico, which was smashed by federal troops, but is by no means defeated. Dozens of people have been killed. It is a great scandal. And Calderon is also pressured by the huge leftist (majorityist) movement in South America, with leftist governments elected in Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil and Nicaragua, and big movements in Peru, Paraguay and Guatemala (more leftist electoral victories are likely). Sometimes it's better to do quiet grass roots work. Obviously, a lot of work needs to be done on the transparency of Mexican elections. Finally, many Mexicans--the vast majority--are extremely poor, and they just got hit last year with a quadrupled price of the tortilla--their staple food (in part due to corporate cornfuel production in the US). Shutting down the capitol would have caused more poverty and disruption of life, and would have alienated allies needed to solve Mexico's extensive problems. I think Lopez Obrador will eventually get credit for having called off disruptive protest. The tide will turn back in his favor--especially after Calderon turns out to be the corporate shill and malefactor that I think he is. Lopez Obrador really does represent the majority. But I don't think it's very comparable to the Gore election and the US. The countries are just too different. And the political parties arrangement is too different. And so, I don't think significant lessons can be drawn from the Mexican situation, that are pertinent to Gore's decision--after fighting it quite hard--to give up on it. It's worth thinking the thing through, though. There are parallels--just no exact ones.