The Assault on Reason

I just finished reading a very good and eye-opening book - "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore.

Al Gore is, of course, well known as the Vice President of the US in the Clinton administration, narrowly "lost" to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election and, most recently, as an ardent and eloquent lecturer on the threat of the climate crisis.

"The Assault on Reason" has little to do with the climate, rather, it is an extended essay on the problems with the modern US democracy with a particular focus on how the current Bush administration has undermined the constitution, destroyed the US's international reputation and ignored any international treaty with which it disagrees.

The book starts off with an interesting observation on the lack of discussion in the modern US democracy by an interesting observation on the role of television in the national discussion. Al Gore asserts that television has made the national discussion a one-sided affair - essentially making the national discussion a one-sided operation wherein the politicians or interest groups can essentially buy votes through the number of 30 second television advertisements that they can purchase. Gore shows how this has eliminated any debate within the democracy - there is no path for the electorate back to the politicians to engage them in meaningful dialog on policy and national matters.

He then connects this with the Bush administration and the case for the Iraqi war - the lack of debate, both within the houses of congress as well as nationally resulted in the fiasco that the Iraqi war has become.

Gore then goes on to show the abuses of the US administration in the areas of human rights (best demonstrated through the continued abuses in Guantanamo Bay), the complete disconnect from the principles laid out by the founding fathers of the US, and how this has resulted in the loss of moral leadership by America in the world. This lack of moral leadership has led to the abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and has shown the world that the US is little better than the terrorists it proposes to fight in respect for the basic principles of human rights.

Although the book reads very much like a long essay in structure, Gore does a very good job in linking the principles and history behind the US constitution and how those that created and formed the United States had the forethought to consider many of the challenges to democracy that this document would need to address in the future. This historical context does much to tie history to the present day in the spirit of understanding the future by examining the past. In no uncertain terms does he ultimately brand George Bush as a criminal - a stunning indictment from an ex-Vice President.

Upon finishing this book, I (once again) could simply not understand how Americans can continue to let their current government erode their basic rights, lose their moral leadership in the world and, in a very pragmatic sense, continue to let their government squander billions in a war started under false pretenses. (By the time the Iraqi war ends, whenever that is, the total cost of the war is projected to be around 2 trillion dollars). Why are Americans not out marching in the streets? How can Americans not see the lies that have been perpetrated upon them by their government? This still perplexes me.