The term "Blue Sky Thinking" has emerged to describe wide-open, un-bridled brainstorming by think tanks that are not restrained by any limits to possibilities. This method has in recent years been applied mainly to military strategy and weapons technology to come up with new ways to utilize global life and new technological advances in knowledge, not to improve global life, but to destroy it and to feed goals of empire, to create wealth for a privileged few and achieve total dominion over other nations.
What has man come to? Or perhaps more appropriately, why hasn't the evolution of man's nature and that of civilization evolved at the same rate as technology?
I like to fantasize about that pivotal moment in world history, December 11, 2000, when a politically and ideologically motivated US Supreme Court decided to usurp democracy and our constitution and award the presidency to George W Bush over Al Gore. This decision, that there was insufficient time to establish standards for a new recount that would meet Florida's deadline for certifying electors, was hastily made by a court whose conservative partisan members were eager to seize the reins of power for those who supported their ideals. If true justice was their goal they could have easily ruled to allow a full and accurate recount of votes that proves, as we now know and all evidence supports, Al Gore was the duly elected president and not George W Bush. By this act, flatly, the US Supreme Court has become corrupt and has failed our nation.
My "blue sky thinking" about Al Gore allows that, as President and in the face of security concerns over a possible terrorist attack in this country, President Gore, within a short time of taking office, would have instituted the recommendations of the 1996 Gore Commission Report on airline security that were torpedoed by lobbyists for the airline industry and the politically partisan Republican controlled congress. (See http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4532for details.)
Under consideration in this commission report were all facets of security measures, many since enacted including secure cabin doors, that would have in all likelihood prevented the 9/11 terrorist attack. There is no doubt in my mind that Gore, who was angered by the defeat of his commission's report as a result of the partisan fighting and resistance by the airline industry, would have worked to immediately established those security measures had he been allowed to take office. Also, I feel Gore would have acted immediately upon the intelligence regarding a high likelihood of a terrorist attack that Bush and the neo-cons ignored.
The condition of and exacerbation of the terrorist threat in today's world is what the Bush administration, the corporate lobbyists and the Democrat vs. Republican partisan wars have wrought on America and the world. The conflict in the middle east caused by the American preemptive invasion of another sovereign nation, and all the world fallout from America's aggression, would not have existed had Gore become president. Who knows what other positive results may have ensued under Gore's leadership?
There is no question that Gore would have relentlessly addressed the careless destruction of the world's environment and global warming. He would have inspired this nation to direct our nation's focus on energy self-sufficiency and development of new technologies to safeguard the environment. These efforts would have created new industries and new jobs, not only here but in other nations as well. His passion for protecting the earth would have caused Gore to quickly realize the ill-effects of free trade agreements that sacrifice human rights, the environment, and the economic and social welfare of the people of those nations these agreements are purportedly designed to benefit.
The truth is, free trade agreements only help one small segment of the world's people, those who control corporate wealth. Although Gore may have been a no-limits free trade junky at one time, I doubt he is now. Even as he supported free trade he only supported free trade agreements that included non-breachable environmental and workers rights protections.
In a Gore presidency all the billions and billions of dollars Bush has thrown at Afghanistan and Iraq and eventually end up swelling the bank accounts of a corrupt bunch of wealthy war profiteers would have instead been pumped into our failing education system and used to develop a national healthcare system. They would have been used for securing our borders and ports and for building up our infrastructure and our manufacturing industry. They would have been used to shore up social security and Medicare.
Because Gore would have focused us on climate change and the destructive weather patterns caused by global warming, the destruction of our coastal cities by devastating category 5 hurricanes would have been anticipated.
I can "blue sky" a flood wall around New Orleans as a result of a Gore presidency that would have prevented the catastrophe that will follow Bush into history along with chaos in the middle east and all the other problems created as a result of failed policies, inept decision-making, and the misdirected and failed leadership of his administration. Under Gore those same billions of dollars, a huge amount unaccounted for, would have been spread between the working class of this nation and the world and not stolen or unethically gained by those whose only goals are more wealth and power over others at the expense and suffering of all the world's people.
The results of a Gore presidency can only be imagined in face of the chaos and destruction of the current fanatics in power. Those who oppose Gore can imagine otherwise - but how can they imagine anything worse than what is now reality? Even those drunk on patriotism, Christianity and the illusions of divine and manifest destiny must have lucid moments when they realize the truth and see clearly that it's the worship of corporate systems, globalization and capitalism run amok that is destroying America, that is driving us toward bankruptcy and driving the entire world to the brink of economic and environmental disaster.
It's ironic the term "blue sky thinking" is being used describe efforts to further destroy our world and fill our skies with death and toxic particulate matter. Perhaps that thought process should be better termed "gray sky thinking".
Regardless, I am convinced that "blue sky thinking" would have been utilized in a totally different way if Al Gore had been allowed to take office on Jan 20, 2001.
Blue Sky Thinking under Gore would have been an effort to assure that future generations would continue to enjoy blue skies and live in a world of relative peace and harmony. A world where science and un-bridled, innovative thinking would have been used to create a better world, one where the environment was clean and life-invigorating. An environment where nations worked together in common cause to protect our earth and its people - not to figure out new ways to make war and destroy the planet - and God's most precious of all gifts - life! In the words of Tom Engelhardt, "Wouldn't it be nice, though, if official blue-sky thinking didn't always mean mobilizing finances, scientists, corporations, and even the animal kingdom in the service of global death. Wouldn't it be nice to "blue sky" just a tad about life?"
Under my "blue sky" Al Gore becomes our next president and begins the monumental task of returning this world to a sustainable environmental balance, economic stability and a semblance of sanity and peace.
Gary
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