Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel: "Eisenhower's Warning"

[Swamp Rat]

Run time: 05:32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCkgFr7CACY   Posted on YouTube: November 27, 2006 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 28, 2007 By DU Member: Swamp Rat Views on DU: 1090

 
Many more video clips here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_query=Gravel&search_sort=relevance&search_category=25

[smokey nj]

1. Kick!!

[patrice]

2. Kick!

I wish Mike Gravel had more of a chance. It's WRONG that he doesn't!

[Redstone]

3. Kicked AND recommended. Gravel for President! God, do we need him now.

Redstone

[ralps]

4. Kick For Gravel!

:hi: :loveya: :hug: :pals: :woohoo:

[whistle]

5. Kick it up

[judaspriestess]

6. I like this guy

he has nothing to lose and will speak the truth because he feels it is his DUTY, I so respect that.

[Peace Patriot]

7. WOW! I just listened to it. It was like listening to Ike in his last speech--

a man transformed by his years as leader of the victorious forces in WW II, and two terms in office dealing with the growing monster of the "military-industrial complex" (a term he coined, I believe), and who I think was contemplating the tragic errors that the CIA and the secret government led him into, a prime one being Vietnam, not yet a full scale war, but heading that way, because of decisions he had made. I think he was possibly aware of the war profiteers' plot to escalate that situation into a needless slaugtherhouse (upwards of 2 million dead in Southeast Asia before it was over--and billions in profit sucked from the US taxpayer tit), and was possibly trying to warn the new young president, JFK, of what he would be facing. It seems to me Ike was laying the groundwork for decisions that JFK made, including his refusal to support the CIA invasion of Cuba and, towards the end of his life, his executive orders beginning the withdrawal of US military "advisers" from Vietnam. These two decisions were probably JFK's death warrant. From that point on, the war profiteers were in control. I'm sure Ike did not have realize how dangerous his advice was.

Gravel talks and thinks just like old Ike, at the end of his term. He's almost a reincarnation of him. His analysis is nothing short of brilliant. He quotes Ike on the dangers of militarism that will destroy our country and our democracy. Where did Gravel come from? I've never noticed him before. And I had no idea he was running for president. This guy is SOMETHING. Truly. I am impressed. I need to find out more.

[Peace Patriot]

8. I thought I was well-informed on US politics. Somehow Mike Gravel slipped

through the cracks in my knowledge base. I just visited his web site. I was unaware that...

---"In 1971, he waged a successful one-man filibuster for five months that forced the Nixon administration to cut a deal, effectively ending the draft in the United States." (I remember that fight, but I don't remember him. You live and learn.)

---"He is most prominently known for his release of the Pentagon Papers, the secret official study that revealed the lies and manipulations of successive U.S. administrations that misled the country into the Vietnam War." (Another missing link in my brain...)

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Here are his major issue positions (front page)


The War in Iraq

Immediate and orderly withdrawal of troops followed by aggressive diplomacy

Fair Tax

Eliminate the income tax and replace it with a progressive national sales tax - Fair Tax.

National Initiative for Democracy

Empower Americans and turn every citizen into a lawmaker by enacting a national initiative.

America's System of Education

Education should be our nation's priority. We need to foster competition and rethink the system.
Social Security

Put real money in the Social Security Trust Fund and invest it properly so Americans can leave surplus to heirs.

Veterans Affairs

Fully finance the VA and end the war on our nation’s vets.

National Healthcare

Enact a national, universal, single-payer, not-for-profit U.S. healthcare system.

------------------------

I totally agree with most of these--and would need to know more about replacing the income tax with a national sales tax. I have always understood a sales tax to be especially punishing to the poor, and protective of accumulative wealth. I would agree more with a flat tax--a percentage of total income--for simplicity's sake. But probably we should go back to the progressive tax of the '60s--the graduated income tax (the rich pay more). His national initiative is a great idea. Think of what we could do with that right now--with 75% of the people wanting this war ended--and a president and a hamstrung, Diebold/ES&S-shaped congress who refuse to end it. Or what we could do about Diebold and ES&S, for that matter.

But the national initiative would have to be NO MONEY--AND I MEAN *NO* MONEY!--campaigns. Just ideas. And we vote (on handcounted hemp ballots!). Provide licenses to use our public airwaves only on the condition that broadcast corporations give back a chunk of free air time for political debate. That's where we fight out the national initiatives. Otherwise, rightwing billionaires will control national initiatives the way they control the president and congress.

I will need to look deeper into Gravel's reasoning about these things--to determine if he has thought them through. You know, as long as he is good on issues like Iraq, aggression, cutting the military budget, and providing universal health care, and veterans care, it may not matter that he has some ideas I don't agree with. They will have to be fought out among various forces anyway, and he does seem like a man who wants full debate.

I'm interested. And I haven't been excited about anyone else--except Al Gore. But Gravel's statements on US militarism in the vid clip are THE FIRST TIME ANYONE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT (besides Dennis Kucinich who has an image problem*), OR ANY POTENTIAL CANDIDATE, HAS CHALLENGED THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE BEHIND ALL OUR WOES: A MILITARY BUDGET MADE TO ORDER FOR AGGRESSIVE WAR.

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*(Kucinich's appearance is my ONLY objection to him. He is exciting in every other way. A brilliant and courageous politician. But he looks like he's about 19 years old, and he occasionally does strange things, like singing during a speech. And image IS important, especially now, with the foundations of our country and our democracy so shaky. We need to be steadied. Really we do. We need a wise and calming presence to restore order. Experience. Wisdom. Age! And half of conveying steadiness is being able to project that quality on TV. Kucinich doesn't. And Obama and Edwards are not that good at it either. All three have impressive qualities--and many good policies. But NOT steadiness. It is critically needed. We've suffered a fascist coup. And we're doing down. Our country is FAILING, due to Bushite fascist policy and too much collusion by our Democratic leaders--with Hillary Clinton being typical. We need something more than good policy and good character. We need a steady hand. And the president needs to be PERCEIVED as being a rock solid personality.)

[nolabels]

9. Don't you think him telling the hard facts will turn off a corporate spoon fed audience

To be honest, for me, even many of the points he made seemed candy-coated to some degree

[Peace Patriot]

12. Some second thoughts about Gravel. No, I don't think what I heard on YouTube

was candy-coated. What do you mean? He even mentioned US destabilization of other countries, and listed a string of them including Chile and the Congo. I haven't heard talk like that in a lo-o-o-ng while. Not since Sen. Fulbright, it seems.

But two things are giving me pause. I went looking at his web site for his position on rightwing Bushite corporations counting all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, and found nothing on this, or on other Bushite election fraud and vote suppression. If he had had the right position on this issue, I would have sent him a check, and signed up as a volunteer!

Then I read his discussion of the national sales tax--and it could be seen as a corporate holiday from taxes. What's to keep these bastards from maintaining prices and CEOs and fatcat investors pocketing this enormous gift from the federal government. (He says taxing corps is passed onto us as 20% to 25% of the cost of products and services. But freed of that tax, would they lower prices? I don't think so.)

There are some salient arguments for his tax idea. The complication of the tax code costs billions and encourages rich tax cheats. Also, it is indeed invasive. I would like to see a simpler tax, but I'm not at all sure that a national sales tax is it.

And if he doesn't object to secret corporate vote counting--and doesn't even take notice of the purges of black voters--and wants to free corporations from taxes, I'm wondering if he is some sort of Bilderberg stealth candidate--creature of global corporate predators--like Christopher Dodd, running for president with no constituency. Dodd helped felons Tom Delay and Bob Ney engineer the electronic voting coup, and I suspect that Dodd expects a return favor from Diebold/ES&S. (I will not be surprised if Dodd--an incredibly dark horse--suddenly and mysteriously starts winning primaries. You heard it here first!) Gravel's positions on militarism and the Iraq War would speak otherwise--that he is NOT some kind of corporate tool. He seems very sincere about that. I picked up no snake-in-the-grass slickness and doubletalk (as I do especially with Dodd). And war profiteering and global corporate predation go together-- or they have for the last six years, especially. Maybe some split is developing among the corporate rulers. That is a possibility. Bush is bad for business. (I got this vibe for sure, following his tour of South America.) Maybe Gravel is the creature of the peaceful faction of the corporate rulers; maybe they're pissed off that Halliburton and Blackwater and Exxon-Mobile are freely looting everybody. Still, it is hard to reconcile Gravel statements about war and foreign policy with being a corporate shill.

Don't know what to think of him. Haven't made up my mind yet. Need more info. I'm going to email his people about election system issues.

[JoeySoCal]

10. Totally awesome.

Will kick.

[Swamp Rat]

11. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[PuraVidaDreamin]

13. Kicking up Gravel

:kick:

[Swamp Rat]

15. ¡pura vida!

:hi: :hug:

[PuraVidaDreamin]

16. Hey Swampy!

Been pretty busy-

Started training in the OR

Worked in a medical clinic for dice dias en Nicaragua
in March. Humbling
Still giving what I can to the cause.

PeaceIN
:hug: backatcha

[iamjoy]

14. I Have New Respect For Gravel

In the debate he came across like a grumpy old man, a joke.

Watching this, he is very intelligent. He comes across as very competent and scholarly.

[SlipperySlope]

17. K&R

[bobbie]

18. He states that no president since Ike even mentioned the force of militarism in our culture

Not true.
Kennedy was obsessed with it, gave speech after speech on it, and died because he opposed it.

[minkyboodle]

19. great clip

I'm really warming up to this guy. He seems like the
true iconoclast. I thought it was particularly interesting
when he brought up the late 70s/early 80s push to paint the
USSR as seeking to outdo/destroy the US (missile gap etc).
I'm sure many DU'ers remember who was behind that (Cheney and
Rumsfeld). Watch the first episode of The Power of Nightmares
if you want more info. Great clip Swamp Rat :)
Minkyboodle