Bake Sales for Body Armor: The Assault on Reason

I just finished Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason. By 'just finished,' I mean I finished it a few days ago. I will say two things about Al Gore here and now: he is a brilliant man, and he has balls of steel.

The book, despite its depth, is not a difficult read; I like this, because it means more people will read it. (Also, because I have a very short attention span when it comes to dense books. I'm not stupid, I just can't pay attention long enough to cut through jargon, pretentiousness, and verbosity.) Al Gore is very clear about the problems facing American democracy today; he's also very clear about the root of the problems facing America today. He lays a lot of problems at the feet of the Republican party. Get this, though--he does it without petty name-calling and snide shrewishness. Are you taking notes, Mr. Hannity and Mr. O'Reilly? Mr. Gore lays out the facts as they are and draws conclusions based on evidence: leave the drama with your mama.

Mr. Gore details several problems in the book, one of which is the lack of communication between the government and the people. He says that television, the current most popular advertising medium, is a one-way communication device--which explains why people in Washington never hear me screaming when I watch C-Span. This undercuts the very foundation of democracy, to which two-way communication is crucial. As we've all seen in our lives, a relationship with a communication problem heads straight into the toilet, which is right about where we are now. The solution? The Internet--the great equalizer. Here, we are free to speak our minds, as long as the internet doesn't come under control of some faceless conglomerate who can control everything. (That means you, Time Warner.) We shall rebuild democracy in the blogosphere, huzzah!

Another problem is money--money, it's always money. We all know that Bush and Cheney are not running a government, they're running a racket. Mr. Gore has enough Washington connections and political knowledge to point out exactly how they're doing it. No, Mr. President, Iraq has no connections to Al Qaeda! What do you mean, look again? Wait, what are you doing with that steak knife? Wait!

With money there is always power, coupled together like a freak show; between the love of money and the love of power, our government is as corrupt as its been in a long time. I'm thinking worse than Nixon. To generously interpret and paraphrase a point from the book, you know the government doesn't give a damn about you when you have to hold bake sales for body armor.

If you don't believe what I say, go to the source--read the book. I tell you now that if you don't walk away from this book practically weeping (or actually weeping, I know I got choked up) for what America should be, then I better not ever hear you call yourself a patriot, because you don't know what America's all about. You can also take that yellow ribbon magnet off of your Hummer.