Al Gore: ‘Our Democracy Has Been Hacked’

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Speaking to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show this week, former Vice-President Al Gore said:

Our democracy has been hacked. It’s been taken over. It no longer operates the way our founders intended it to, because of anonymous donors, big money, corporations as people, might makes right. The lobbyists and special interests are now in control. They can’t do anything without begging permission from the powerful special interests and it is time that we take our democracy back and it can be done.

Gore also offered a few interesting words about capitalism in the 1/30/2013 clip from The Daily Show which is posted below. In a lengthier conversation on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this week, posted below as well, Gore also discusses the deadly costs of the uncontrolled dumping of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and the ravaging effects its having on our planet, criticism of his sale of Current TV to the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera, and he goes on to say that “both capitalism and democracy have been hacked”…

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Al Gore: ‘Our Democracy Has Been Hacked’

20 Comments

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20 Responses

  1. 3)
    lmk said on 2/2/2013 @ 8:50am PT: [Permalink]

    And I’m thinking traitor Joe Lieberman, who keeps rather odd political company with both parties, yet in a decidedly non-bipartisan manner. Put more simply: Al was tied (bound?) politically to an amoral VP with a rather murky agenda and significant pull in both parties. Al never had a chance; Joe was to be his Dick Cheney. The neocons have their tentacles everywhere.

  2. 4)
    Elliott said on 2/2/2013 @ 10:00am PT: [Permalink]

    We live in a plutocracy that is so steely, the only way it can be broken is by revolution.

    The plutocracy is the reason the little guy can never, ever get what s/he wants from our government, but corporations can become people in the blink of an eye.

    The plutocrats are the reason we have a moderate republican in the White House. There is no Democratic Party: It’s been hacked and infiltrated so thoroughly that it doesn’t exist any longer. How else do you explain the likes of Max Baucus, Harry Reid, and all the other senators who turned their backs on filibuster reform? How else do you explain Gore and Kerry high-tailing it out of the picture during their so-called “losses” in their presidential runs?

    The plutocrats get what the plutocrats want. They feed us misinformation and lies through a media which more closely resembles the slick quarterly corporate “news” sent to employees than true newspapers and news networks.

    We’re in trouble in the USA, but the turn to corporatism has been so subtle and metered, few have noticed. Most of us still imagine we live in the land of the free and brave, and we still imagine the Big Guy In the Sky “blesses” us with squatting rights on the whole world.

    Hope has been hacked, too, Mr. Gore…is that covered in your book?

  3. 5)
    WingnutSteve said on 2/2/2013 @ 11:42am PT: [Permalink]

    Moderate Republican in the White House? Holy crap Elliot do you really believe what you type?

    They turned their back on filibuster reform because they didn’t want to have to answer to the voters for legislation they don’t support. And because this past election taught us that “blame Republicans for your own failed policies” is an effective way to campaign.

  4. 6)
    matt carmody said on 2/2/2013 @ 11:48am PT: [Permalink]

    Gore is a duplicitous politician as they all are. Nothing would have been different if he had had the balls and intent to challenge the results of the supreme court’s unconstitutional intrusion into the election in 2000.
    You think he’d be a champion for freedom of speech? Have you forgotten PMRC, the effort to ban certain types of music? The lies to residents of Ohio about planning to curtail toxic emissions if he and Bubba were elected? He’s in the pocket of every corporate entity that has been screwing America for generations.
    Al Gore is a phony who moves only when told to move. And the US policy towards Israel wouldn’t be different at all.
    Al Gore had a chance to stand up for America in 2000 and he walked away with his tail between his legs. He’s a liar and a coward. The Left in this country would be better served finding itself another messiah because it ain’t Al Gore.

  5. 7)
    WingnutSteve said on 2/2/2013 @ 12:00pm PT: [Permalink]

    BTW, “Corporations as people” also includes unions. They were huge players in the past election including the PACs. Especially in California where the unions, with the unchecked democrat majorities in both houses” now completely control the state. I say no to ANY money going to campaigns, no to ANY PACs, should be 100% publicly funded. Doing that would fix the vast majority of problems in our political toilet bowl…

  6. 8)
    Elliott said on 2/2/2013 @ 12:04pm PT: [Permalink]

    Did you lose your bookmark to Raw Story? That’s where the real cash is made on weekends, not here.

  7. 9)
    WingnutSteve said on 2/2/2013 @ 12:09pm PT: [Permalink]

    I guess you’re right. I keep checking my bank balance but it doesn’t seem to be increasing at all.

    Actually, I thought I could engage someone whom I disagree with in conversation. My bad.

  8. Avatar photo
    10)
    Ernest A. Canning said on 2/2/2013 @ 5:21pm PT: [Permalink]

    Unfortunate that even 13 years later, as Gore uses the word “hacked,” he fails to mention our e-voting systems or the fact that during the 2000 election, a Volusia County op-scan system reported that Gore received a NEGATIVE 16,000 votes.

    Now I do understand that, however unlikely, it would be possible for a ZERO vote total, but I simply do not understand how one obtains a NEGATIVE vote.

    What will it take for the MSM and political candidates victimized by e-voting to actually mention issues of election integrity and transparency?

    Or are they content to remain in their smugly ignorant Orwellian existence?

  9. 11)
    Ancient said on 2/3/2013 @ 12:37pm PT: [Permalink]

    I’m with you Ernie, How bout Al uses his bully pulpit to make all Americans aware of our hacked voting system! Someone with national clout needs to take that one small step for humankind!

  10. 13)
    Irwin Mainway said on 2/4/2013 @ 1:35am PT: [Permalink]

    What is truly amazing is that the takeover in 2000 was accomplished without Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court.

    S.D.O’C still bristles her boar back when asked about SCOTUS unilaterally installing Bush, with one decision just 5-4.

    Justice Thomas was bribed with at least $500,000 for the right decisions. His wife paid to lobby HIM is a damn BRIBE.

    The problem Gore fails to mention is that the Supreme Court still has completely undeserved respect among the populace and never has its integrity questioned by the media.

    What well known pundit has openly declared John Roberts should be impeached for PERJURY for his complete reversal on judicial activism in office compared to his sworn testimony to the Senate?

  11. 14)
    Robert said on 2/4/2013 @ 8:27am PT: [Permalink]

    Democracy Hacked? Who woulda thunk it?
    clearly al gore would and….
    Thanks Brad for all your good work.
    All best. 🙂
    Rob

  12. 15)
    Robert said on 2/4/2013 @ 8:37am PT: [Permalink]

    Democracy Hacked? Who woulda thunk it?
    clearly al gore would and….
    AnThanks Brad for all your good work.
    All best. 🙂
    Rob

  13. 16)
    Alan8 said on 2/4/2013 @ 10:02am PT: [Permalink]

    “Al Gore: ‘Our Democracy Has Been Hacked'”

    And he should know: He helped hack it!

    Gore was a key player in establishing the WTO (World Trade Organization) rules, which pervert OUR laws, making them secondary to corporate profits.

    Under the WTO, foreign corporations can sue the U.S. for laws that protect our workers, consumers,
    and the environment, if they THEORETICALLY threaten corporate profits.

    E.g. we can’t pass laws banning a carcinogen if it hurts the profits of a corporations.

    Gore is a pathetic corporate shill, like the rest of his corporate-shill party.

    Yet another reason I vote Green Party.

  14. 17)
    Larry Bergan said on 2/4/2013 @ 8:09pm PT: [Permalink]

    LMK:

    Yeah. Joe Lieberman turned out to be quite the turncoat. There had to be a better man/woman/pig to run with Gore.

    I was glad to see Gore verify one of the myths of the 2000 “election”. In fact, the first video included in my link to the Diane Rehm show at #1 has Diane asking a question which I think she knew the answer to. She asks Gore why he didn’t call for a statewide recount.

    Because I saw it with my own eyes – but only once -, Gore acknowledges the myth that right wingers disperse, making the case that he only wanted counties that favored him to be recounted in Florida. Gore, indeed, publicly, asked for a statewide recount.

    The third video on the Rehm link concerns the fact that 911 could have been prevented if laws Gore wanted while he was Vice President had been enacted.

    In the interview Gore says that after the Supreme Court decision, it would have taken an armed revolution to set things right, so he backed down. He may be right, but I don’t think it would be wrong for him to expose the minus 16,000 votes on the voting machine in Volusia County at this date.

  15. 18)
    DeafDumbBlind said on 2/7/2013 @ 8:05am PT: [Permalink]

    Why anyone with functioning brain cells believes anything coming out of Gore’s mouth is beyond all reckoning. Gore is as dirty as all of the neo-cons everyone here is griping about. Look into his background; groomed by Maurice Strong (U.N. communist from a long line of communists who found there way from Eastern Europe into China during the “cultural revolution” they helped to set-up) Unless you still don’t get it; it’s called Hegelian Dialectic..you control both sides which are seemingly at odds with one another and you obtain the synthesis you wanted in the first place –or divide and conquer–it’s the same thing. For starters see
    http://www.canadafreepress.com/...over031307.htm
    Better yet, go to cuttingthroughthematrix.com

  16. 19)
    Larry Bergan said on 2/7/2013 @ 7:27pm PT: [Permalink]

    DeafDumbBlind:

    Is that name from your father’s or your mother’s side?

    I have no intention of reading your links because the first one doesn’t work and the second one looks tacky as hell.

    It doesn’t matter if Al Gore is a communist or not, (which he isn’t – unless Stalin is your yardstick. He won the election, and in a democracy, that is important.

  17. 20)
    sophia said on 2/8/2013 @ 9:19pm PT: [Permalink]

    Al Gore lost (stomped on, destroyed, eviscerated, anihilated) my thin respect for him 13 years ago. He is and probably always was a sell-out. We need to rethink our governing structure from the ground up. Leaders seem to be great at leading this country over a cliff. Can we hit the reset button please, immediately after incarcerating the fools who have done this planet so much harm? Oh, and Al? Just stfu already. Stick a fork in it. You are DONE.

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