I have been examining all the presidential candidates and think this guy has the best track record with reguards to issue important to me:
Primary Considerations 2008 - - Featuring Noam Chomsky :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g1K-zh1ZYI
Why big business loves Hillary. Mike Gravel and Ralph Nader :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exhjLka2ICk&NR=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel
As Senator, Gravel became nationally known for his forceful but unsuccessful attempts to end the draft during the Vietnam War and for having put the Pentagon Papers into the public record in 1971 despite risk to himself. .....
.... Nuclear issues and the Cold War
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the U.S. Department of Defense was in the process of performing tests for the nuclear warhead for the Spartananti-ballistic missile interceptor. Two tests, the Milrow and Cannikin tests, were planned, involving the detonation of nuclear bombs under Amchitka Island in Alaska. The Milrow test would be a 1 megaton calibration exercise for the second, and larger 5 megaton, Cannikin test, which would measure the effectiveness of the warhead. Gravel opposed the tests in Congress. Before the October 1969 Milrow test took place, he wrote that there were significant risks of earthquakes and other adverse consequences, and called for an independent national commission on nuclear and seismic safety to be created; [20] he then made a personal appeal to President Nixon to stop the test. [21] After Milrow was conducted, there was continued pressure on the part of environmental groups against going forward with the larger Cannikin test, while the Federation of American Scientists claimed the warhead being tested was already obsolete. [21] In May 1971 Gravel sent a letter to Atomic Energy Commission hearings held in Anchorage, in which he said the risk of the test was not worth taking. [22] Eventually a group not involving Gravel took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an injunction against it, [23] and the Cannikin test took place as scheduled in November 1971. [23] Gravel had failed to stop the tests (notwithstanding his later claims during his 2008 presidential campaign [24] ).
Nuclear power was considered an environmentally clean alternative for the commercial generation of electricity and was part of a popular national policy for the peaceful use of atomic energy in the 1950s and 1960s. [25] Gravel publicly opposed this policy; besides the dangers of nuclear testing, he was a vocal critic of the Atomic Energy Commission, [25] which oversaw American nuclear efforts, and of the powerful United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which had a stranglehold on nuclear policy and which Gravel tried to circumvent. [25] In 1971, Gravel sponsored a bill to impose a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction and to make power utilities liable for any nuclear accidents; [26] in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums. [27] By 1974, Gravel was allied with Ralph Nader's organization in opposing nuclear power. [28]
Six months before United States Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger's secret mission to the People's Republic of China in July 1971, Gravel introduced legislation to recognize and normalize relations with Communist China, including a proposal for unity talks between Communist China and Taiwan regarding the China seat at the United Nations question. [29] Gravel reiterated his position in favor of recognition, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971. [30]
[edit] Vietnam War, the draft, and the Pentagon Papers
President Richard Nixon had campaigned in 1968 on a promise to end the U.S. military draft, [31] a decision endorsed by the February 1970 report of the Gates Commission. [31] [32] The existing draft law was scheduled to conclude at the end of June 1971, and the Senate faced a contentious debate about whether to extend it, as the Vietnam War continued. [33] The Nixon administration announced in February 1971 that it wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, after which the draft would end; [34] Army planners had already been operating under the assumption of a two-year extension, after which an all-volunteer force would be in place. [35] Skeptics such as Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Stennis thought this unrealistic and wanted a four-year extension, [34] but the two-year proposal is what went forward in Congress. [33] By early May 1971, Gravel had indicated his intention to filibuster the draft renewal legislation, halting conscription and thereby bringing U.S. involvement in the war to a rapid end. [36] By June 1971, some Democratic senators opposed to the war wanted to limit the renewal to a one-year extension, while others wanted to end it immediately; [33] Gravel reiterated that he was one of the latter, saying, "It's a senseless war, and one way to do away with it is to do away with the draft." [33] A Senate vote on June 4 indicated majority support for the two-year extension. [33] On June 18 Gravel announced again his intention to counteract that by filibustering the renewal legislation, [37] defending the practice against those who associated it only with blocking civil rights legislation. [37] The first filibuster attempt failed on June 23 when, by three votes, the Senate voted cloture for only the fifth time since 1927. [38] Protracted negotiations took place over House conference negotiations on the bill, revolving in large part around Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield's eventually unsuccessful amendment to tie renewal to a troop withdrawal timetable from Vietnam; during this time the draft law expired and no one was conscripted. [39] On August 5 the Nixon administration pleaded for a renewal before the Senate went on recess, but Gravel successfully blocked an attempt to limit debate by Stennis and no vote was held. [40] Finally on September 21, 1971, the Senate invoked cloture over Gravel's second filibuster attempt by one vote, and then passed the two-year draft extension. [39] Gravel's attempts to stop the draft had failed [18] (notwithstanding Gravel's latter claims that he had stopped or shortened the draft, taken at face value in some media reports, during his 2008 presidential campaign [41] ).
Meanwhile, on June 13, 1971, The New York Times began printing large portions of the Pentagon Papers. [42] This was a large collection of secret government documents and studies pertaining to the Vietnam War, which former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg had made unauthorized copies of and was determined to make public. [43] Ellsberg had for a year and a half approached members of Congress such as William Fulbright, George McGovern, Charles Mathias, and Pete McCloskey about publishing the documents, on the grounds that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution would give congressional members immunity from prosection, but all had refused. [44] Instead, Ellsberg gave the documents to The Times. The U.S. Justice Department immediately tried to halt publication, on the grounds that the information revealed within the papers harmed the national interest. [43] Within the next two weeks, a federal court injunction halted publication in The Times; The Washington Post and several other newspapers began publishing parts of the documents, with some of them also being halted by injunctions; and the whole matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court for arguments. [43] Looking for an alternate publication mechanism, Ellsberg returned to his idea of having a member of Congress read them, and chose Gravel based on the latter's efforts against the draft; [5] Gravel agreed where previously others had not. Ellsberg arranged for the papers to be given to Gravel on June 26 [5] via an intermediary; [45] Gravel used his counter-intelligence experience to chose a midnight transfer in front of the Mayflower Hotel in the center of Washington. [46] On the night of June 29, 1971, Gravel attempted to read the papers on the floor of the Senate as part of his filibuster against the draft, but was thwarted when no quorum could be formed. [47] Gravel instead convened a session of the Buildings and Grounds subcommittee that he chaired, and began reading from the papers with the press in attendance, [47] omitting supporting documents that he felt might compromise national security, [48] and declaring "It is my constitutional obligation to protect the security of the people by fostering the free flow of information absolutely essential to their democratic decision-making." [48] He read until 1 a.m., until with tears and sobs he said that he could no longer physically continue, [48] the previous three nights of sleeplessness and fear about the future having taken their toll. [5] Gravel ended the session by inserting 4,100 pages of the Papers into the Congressional Record of his subcommittee. [43] [18] The following day, the Supreme Court's New York Times Co. v. United States decision ruled in favor of the newspapers [43] and publication in The Times and others resumed. In July 1971 Bantam Books published an inexpensive paperback edition of the papers containing the material The Times had published. [49]
Gravel too wanted to privately publish the portion of the papers he had read into the record, believing that "immediate disclosure of the contents of these papers will change the policy that supports the war." [45] After being turned down by many commercial publishers, [45] on August 4 he reached agreement with Beacon Press, [50] the publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association of whom Gravel was a member. [18] Announced on August 17 [49] and published on October 22, 1971, [45] this four-volume, relatively expensive set [49] became the "Senator Gravel Edition", which studies from Cornell University and the Annenberg Center for Communication have labeled as the most complete edition of the Pentagon Papers to be published. [51] [52] The "Gravel Edition" was edited and annotated by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and included an additional volume of analytical articles on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn. [52] Beacon Press then was subjected to a FBI investigation; [46] an outgrowth of this was the Gravel v. United States court case, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled upon in June 1972; [46] it held that the Speech or Debate Clause did grant immunity to Gravel for his reading the papers in his subcommittee, did grant some immunity to Gravel's congressional aide, but granted no immunity to Beacon Press in relation to their publishing the same papers. [53]
The events of 1971 changed Gravel in the months following from an obscure freshman senator in a far corner of the country to a nationally-visible political figure. [18] He became a sought-after speaking on the college circuit as well as at political fundraisers, [18] opportunities he welcomed as lectures were "the one honest way a Senator has to supplement his income." [18] The Democratic candidates for the 1972 presidential election sought out his endorsement. [18] In January 1972 Gravel did endorse Maine Senator Ed Muskie, [54] hoping his endorsement would help Muskie with the party's left wing and in the ethnic French-Canadian areas in first primary state New Hampshire [18] (which Muskie would indeed win, but not convincingly and his campaign faltered soon thereafter). ....
... Political positions
Mike Gravel with campaign finance reform activist and friend Ethel Granny D Haddock
- Main article: Political positions of Mike Gravel
Gravel has stated that he is an advocate for "a national, universal single-payer not-for-profit health care system" in the United States which would utilize vouchers and enable citizens to choose their own doctor. [85] He has proposed to index veteran health care entitlements to take full account of increases in the costs of care and medicine. [85] He supports a drug policy that legalizes and regulates all drugs, treating drug abuse as a medical issue, rather than a criminal matter. [86] Gravel favors a guest worker program, [85] supports the FairTax proposal that calls for eliminating the IRS and the income tax and replacing it with a progressive national sales tax of 23 percent on newly manufactured items and services, retaining progressivity via all taxes on spending up to the poverty level being refunded to every household. [85] Gravel has advocated that carbon energy should be taxed to provide the funding for a global effort to bring together the world's scientific and engineering communities to develop energy alternatives to significantly reduce the world’s energy dependence on carbon. [85] Gravel in principle does not object to the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research purposes. He is avowedly pro-choice on the issue of abortion and women's reproductive rights. He supports constitutional amendments towards direct democracy.
Some of his political leanings and convictions may also be gleaned from his 1972-published manifesto, Citizen Power.
Run for presidency 2008
At the start of 2006, Gravel decided the best way he could promote direct democracy and the National Initiative was to run for president. [11] On April 17, 2006, [87] Gravel became the first candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, announcing his run in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Short on campaign cash, he took public transportation to get to his announcement. [88] Other principal issues for Gravel were a progressive retail sales tax, which he saw as removing tax loopholes for the rich, relieving tax burdens on the middle class and the poor, and allowing abolition of the Internal Revenue Service; withdrawal from the war in Iraq within 120 days; a single payer national health care system; and term limits.
Gravel campaigned almost full time in New Hampshire, the first primary state, following his announcement. Prior to February 2007, opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination all showed Gravel with a 1% or less support level. He addressed the Democratic National Committee's Winter Convention in early February 2007 and was one of the participants in the Democratic Presidential Candidates forum in Carson City, Nevada later the same month. At the end of March 2007, Gravel's campaign had less than $500 in cash on hand against debts of nearly $90,000. [89]
Due to his time in the Senate, Gravel was invited to many of the Democratic debates. On April 26, 2007, he took part in the first Democratic presidential debate at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. During the debate he suggested a Democratic bill requiring the president to withdraw from Iraq on pain of criminal penalties. He also advocated positions such as opposing preemptive nuclear war. He stated that the Iraq War had the effect of creating more terrorists and that the "war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis." Regarding his fellow candidates, he said, "I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me — they frighten me." [90] Media stories said that Gravel was responsible for much of whatever "heat" and "flashpoints" had taken place. [91] [92] [90] Gravel gained considerable publicity by shaking up the normally staid multiple-candidate format; The New York Times' media critic said that what Gravel had done was "steal a debate with outrageous, curmudgeonly statements." [93] The powers of the Internet was a benefit: a YouTube video of his responses in the debate achieved in excess of 225,892 views, and honors such as #17 most views (for week), #7 top rated (for week), #23 top favorited (for week), #25 most discussed (for week), #4 most linked (for week), #1 most viewed - news and politics (for week), and #1 top rated - news and politics (for week); [94] his name became the 15th most searched-for in the blogosphere; [95] and his website garnered more traffic than those of frontrunners Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards. [11] Gravel appeared on the popular Colbert Report on May 3, [11] and his campaign and career was profiled in national publications such as Salon. [11] Some thirty-five years after he first achieved the national spotlight, he had found it again.
Gravel's fundraising efforts for the first three quarters of 2007.
However, it did not improve his performance in the polls; a May 2007 CNN poll showed him with less than 0.5 percent support among Democrats. [96] Gravel participated in the next several debates, in one case after CNN reversed a prior decision to exclude him. [97] Gravel, as with some of the other second-tier candidates, did not get as much time as the leaders; during the June 2, 2007New Hampshire debate, which lasted two hours, he was asked 10 questions and allowed to speak for five minutes and 37 seconds. [98] During the July 23, 2007CNN-YouTube presidential debate, Gravel responded to audience applause when he had complained of a lack of airtime and said: "Thank you. Has it been fair thus far?" [99] Detractors began to liken him to "the cranky uncle who lives in the attic." [100] In the ABC NewsDes Moines, Iowa debate of August 19, 2007, moderator George Stephanopoulos noted in his that Gravel polled a statistical zero percent support in the state, meaning less than 0.5% support, and then directed roughly five percent of his questions to Gravel; [101] in a poll asking who did the best in the debate, Gravel placed seventh among the eight candidates. [102] National opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination continued to show Gravel with one percent or zero percent numbers. By the end of the third-quarter 2007, Gravel had about $17,500 in cash on hand, had collected a total of about $380,000 so far during the 2008 election cycle, [103] and was continuing to run a threadbare campaign with minimal staff. [5]
Beginning with the October 30, 2007Philadelphia event, Gravel was excluded from most of the remaining Democratic debates, with the debate sponsors or the Democratic National Committee saying Gravel's campaign had not met fundraising, polling, or local campaign organizational thresholds. [104] [105] [106] For the Philadelphia exclusion, Gravel blamed corporate censorship on the part of sponsor owner and alleged military-industrial complex member General Electric for his exclusion [107] [108] and mounted a counter-gathering and debate against a video screen a short distance away, [109] but he had now lost his most ready access to visibility. In reaction, supporters have organized "mass donation days" to try to help the campaign gain momentum and necessary funds, such as on December 5, 2007, the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition. [110]
Gravel did not compete in the initial 2008 vote, the Iowa caucuses, [111] but was still subjected to a false report from MSNBC that he had pulled out of the race afterward. [112] Gravel did focus his attention on the second 2008 vote, the New Hampshire primary. There he received about 400 votes out of some 280,000 cast, or 0.14 percent, [113] before taking time off from campaigning to deal with health issues. [114]
[edit] References
