Hello Randy Gage,
Thank you for your strongly-worded commentary in your newsletter today. As a fellow speaker and former journalist in Europe and the U.S. who feels passionately about the issues you covered in this newsletter, I feel that some Americans are in a celebrity-centered sleep walk, ignorant of the world events unfolding outside their doorstep whilst other Americans are yelling in outrage at how their country is being sandbagged from within.
I am a long-time reader of your "Rants" yet this one really struck me.
If Al Gore can grow into his fullness of potential then perhaps more Americans will be inspired by his example and do the same, like you, to stand up for the greatness that can be our country again. Lord knows the world needs strong moral and economic models in this week when the media finally covered the child slave trade in central China.
I believe that some of the biggest trends will not follow country boundaries.
The so-called "power of us" means evil and good changes can happen from more places and will spread faster and farther. Consequently those who can capture people's attention (like you) can motivate people to act, more than company or country can.
Beware of the inevitable, increasingly clever mash-ups you'll see, demonstrating deception and truth in this presidential campaign already unfolding.
Here's to inspire more people to speak truth to power.
In this New, New Normal World of The Attention Economy, with a quicksilver future, one's personal reputation is paramount. With the Internet we must be mindful of the power of our every word, action and image as we can motivate people to kill or to bear witness to wrongs.
I'll be curious to hear your reaction to the Soprano finale. Like the world and your life, it is a sometimes raw, enigmatic, unfinished story.
cordially
Kare
~ ~ ~
Randy's newsletter that inspired my response:
..... "I'm serving notice to all you techno-geeks: I'm coming!
Of course the real proof will be when I get back home from this trip and see if I can watch the final episode of The Sopranos. (Although I have had my mother tape it, just in case!) And be warned: nothing Tony Soprano ever did will be as violent as what I will do to anyone who ruins the ending for me! I've avoided all media coverage, so I‚m completely in the dark hhttp://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/post?id=35440932&saved_changes=1&blog_id=517631#ow David Chase decided to send the show out.
No matter how it is, it will be a sad ending for me. That show is the most intelligent, brilliantly written, and powerfully acted show ever done on television. We can all be grateful it was passed up by all three networks, and ended up on HBO, where Chase could unleash his awesome mastery at depicting the human condition.
And speaking on the state of man, I just finished the new book by Al Gore, and it is positively brilliant. If you want to see the other side of the coin ˆ how the masses would prefer someone to think for them and have given away all of their critical thinking ability, Gore's book absolutely nails it.
Frankly, being a card-carrying Libertarian, I'm pretty skeptical about anything from the leaders of either of the Democrats or Republicans. But the title, The Assault on Reason lured me into picking it up.
To see a call for reason in the public arena was simply too intoxicating to pass it by. And I sure am glad I didn't. The book simply is exceptional. It is a clarion call for critical thinking, logic, and reason. It‚s done in a way that will likely shock many who read it. They will wonder where this Gore was on the campaign trail. He‚s older, wiser, and now free from the spin-doctors and handlers.
Gore is lucid, analytical and relentless, and makes his case is such a commanding way there really is no substantial margin to argue. He exposes the Bush Neo-Con agenda for what it really is, a bloodthirsty grab for raw power. But that is not the agenda of the book. It really is about how democracy is imperiled when the citizens are no longer well informed. Gore cites example after example of how the Bush administration has corrupted the process of an informed electorate to further his power grab.
The Democrats will jump on all this with glee, but it's really not happy news for them or anyone else. It really is about getting back to reason. It‚s not a cheap political play, nor is Gore angling to set himself up to run again. (Although this bookimmediately catapults him to the top of this list in my mind. Something I would never of conceived of before I read it.)
I can't stand the Democrats‚ entitlement mentality of thinking that the government is supposed to provide everything for everyone. And I can‚t stand the Republicans‚ platform to police the bedroom, and legislate their fundamentalist dogma on everyone around them. But Gore almost has me feeling guilty that we don't have universal health care!
Gore does not try and portray President Bush as the dim-witted cowboy playing president that many would try to make him. In fact, he makes quite clear the wonder he has for the president's ability to manipulate the congress, the media, and the public.
We’re talking about a man that sold a law eviscerating the Bill of Rights as the Patriot Act, a bill to increase air pollution the “clear skies initiative” and another bill to increase chopping in national forests the “healthy forests initiative.”
This week is another primary example. I‚m on a Russian tour, and the news the other day was about President Bush castigating Russian President Putin about backsliding on human rights. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! This is a man who opens mail, wiretaps without warrants, systematically denies lawyers, detains people for months without charging them, and evened practices torture.
We have lost our moral authority in the world, because we have broken the Geneva Convention and are now doing all of the things we used to complain about in Russia, Communistic China, and Cuba. But that doesn't stop Bush from deftly deflecting attention and mouthing the same rhetoric as though it was back in the day, when Russia was the one strangling personal freedoms. An of course the reality proves the points in the book, because the whole world press reported Bush's accusations, and no on called him on his own shameful record of abuse.
President Bush may be a mouth-breathing shit kicker, but he's no fool. He has orchestrated a mind manipulation propaganda machine the Nazis would be in awe of. Without sensationalism or hype, Gore uses cold, rational, logic to show exactly how the administration uses fear, religion, and deception to manipulate the herd to forgo reason and believe lies.
The book makes an airtight case for how Bush wantonly and deliberately led people to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, when he knew that was a complete fabrication. It provides a chilling portrayal of how Bush, Cheney and their underlings created a campaign of deception to link Hussein to Osama bin Laden, cause people to believe Hussein was trying to buy uranium, and possessed weapons of mass destruction -- when there was overwhelming evidence from their own people to the contrary.
Gore documents all the information, showing it had been the president‚s intention to invade Iraq since the first day he was elected. Even the right wing puppets on Fox News will be forced to concede much of the book, or simply remain mum and hope it goes away.
Of course most everything in the book has been reported in one place or another. But no one has tied it all together in such a coherent manner and demonstrated the real price democracy is paying for all this.
With Federalist Papers from Madison and Hamilton, from Thomas Jefferson to Adam Smith, Supreme Court Justices to think tanks, and Socrates to Kafka, Gore bolsters his arguments with overwhelming evidence. And that is where he will lose many readers. Frankly, the book is too thorough and to intellectual for the herd. The people who don‚t need it will read it, and the ones who need it most don't stand a prayer of cracking it open.
The results of all this became very apparent as I landed in Moscow on the flight from Kiev. As I was collecting my luggage, the guy in the row in front of me asked where I was from. When I told him, he launched into a diatribe against Bush, his war mongering, and all things American. Two guys in front of him also understood English and were nodding along. All I could do was smile weakly, sadly nod, and apologize for my country. America is such an amazing place and has so much to offer. It is so humiliating to see our current leadership bring so much shame upon it. I guess it’s getting time to tell strangers I’m from Toronto.
Other than Kiev landing, the people on this trip have been as gracious as ever. It’s nice to re-visit some of my favorite haunts and discover some new ones.
On my last night in Kiev, the heat wave broke and I discovered a cozy little park, just five blocks from my hotel. The pigeons were actually eating from people‚s hands. I don’t know what's in the blood in Ukraine, but the people are so beautiful. I fell in love at first sight 12 times!
In the year or so since I was in Vilnius, Lithuania last, the boom there is going stronger than ever. New buildings are rising into the sky in every direction. I stayed outside town at the Le Meridian Villon Resort again, and spent an afternoon writing on the terrace overlooking the lake. The lunch companions at my table were a large beetle and a ladybug.
Back in Novosibirsk, I stayed at the “ghost hotel” I told you about last time. The whole city is starting to grow on me. They have a new airport and the people are wonderful. (And falling in love at first sight again didn’t hurt.) If you go, be sure and stop by the News Café +7(383) 217 04 28. It has a Bohemian atmosphere, with wireless Internet, fresh squeezed juices, delicious food, and friendly service. Definitely the meeting spot for the artistic types of the city. Surrounded by drab Soviet era buildings, it is a contemporary, bright and trendy decorated little respite, one you would expect to see in Stockholm or Amsterdam, and never imagine finding in Siberia.
I was pleasantly surprised to land at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow and find a new terminal. Sheremetyevo is the dirtiest, drab, poorly signed, and hassle-prone airport in the world. (For those of you keeping score at home, the rest of the list is: 2) Charles de Gaulle in Paris, 3) JFK, 4) MIA, 5) Frankfurt.) Unfortunately out of four trips through Sheremetyevo this time, I got the new terminal only once. And since I’m going home through JFK, I’m actually hitting four out of the worst five airports on this trip!
Moscow is as vibrant as ever. I don‚t know how anyone actually lives here, because the entire place is a gridlock from Monday through Friday. But the sights, sounds, culture, and people are really amazing. The Kremlin and Red Square can still give you goose bumps.
Flew a new airline this trip, Aerosvit, a Ukrainian carrier. Pleasant service, but you can‚t compare it with Aeroflot. On one leg with them, I was the only passenger in Business. When I laid back to go to sleep, the flight attendant ran around and closed every window up front (about 15 on each side) to darken the cabin. When I woke up, she quickly opened them all.
Anyway, I have finished all my training and crowds were great everywhere. Tonight is time to relax, and then head home in the morning. Tomorrow night I’ll be the last person to find out how Tony Soprano went out. It’s been a great trip and wonderful to visit this corner of the world again. Talk to you on the other side.
-RG
