Gore...beyond GoPPig nonsense

Enemy of the People - Al Gore or George Bush?
Review of An Inconvenient Truth by Bob Burnett

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It’s unlikely that the producers of the documentary An Inconvenient Truth thought that they were producing a sequel to Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. But it’s impossible to see this 96-minute film about Al Gore’s single-handed fight to educate America about the dangers of global climate change and not wonder how different things would be if he had won in 2000. It’s hard to forget how close that presidential contest was, the fact that millions of Americans decided that they trusted George Bush more than “wonk man;” that the dark forces of Karl Rove managed to label Al “an enemy of the people.”

Of course, in the alternate universe where Gore won the 2000 election, 9/11 probably would have happened. But we probably wouldn’t have diluted the war on terror by attacking Iraq or crippled our economy by taking on a mountain of debt. And Gore certainly would have recognized the danger posed by Hurricane Katrina. One thing for sure, George Bush wouldn’t have gone on the road, night after night, to show Americans his elaborate multi-media pitch about the evils of global warming.

Most of us remember the 2000 presidential election ending with a disputed Florida vote count, where the Supreme Court ultimately determined the results. But the fact is that George Bush was close to Gore in the popular vote, because millions of Americans liked and trusted Dubya. Under the direction of the Machiavellian Karl Rove, the Bush campaign did a number on Al Gore. A lot of voters were put off by his personality. Americans bought the Bush campaign’s claim that Gore was a liar; that he had boasted of inventing the Internet. On November 7, 2000, many Americans voted for George Bush believing that he was a “good Christian man,” who would usher in “an era responsibility.”

Sensing that it wasn’t “hanging chads” that had defeated him, Gore left the political stage. But he didn’t give up. After taking some time off, he returned to his original, heart-felt message, “Our ability to live on planet earth is at stake.”

Gore’s story parallels that of the protagonist in one of Henrik Ibsen’s most famous plays, An Enemy of the People. Dr. Thomas Stockman discovers that environmental pollution threatens the municipal baths at his small Norwegian community, a health resort. He thinks that if he tells the townspeople the truth, they will believe him and take remedial action. Instead, his fellow citizens brand Stockman “an enemy of the people,” because they are afraid of the economic consequences of his news. They harass him and his family, but Stockman doesn’t leave town. At the end of the play, he declares, “The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.”

After the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore never left town either. He embarked on a one-man crusade to wake up America to the perils of global climate change, a subject he’d been interested in since his college days. He put together a multi-media presentation and schlepped it back and forth across the US. Gradually the presentation got better and attracted more attention. Eventually it became the subject of the movie that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

While well worth seeing, the documentary has problems. It’s too long. How many times do we need to see Gore walking through airports or sitting in hotel rooms staring soulfully at his laptop computer? And it doesn’t give viewers enough to do. Al refers them to www.climatecrisis.net , but he could have shown them what’s being accomplished in green cities such as Curitiba, Brazil. And Gore misses an opportunity to lobby for collective action, the formation of a public-private partnership to address global warming.

Moreover, An Inconvenient Truth can’t decide what it is. Is it an information-oriented documentary about the dangers of global climate change, where Gore does the voice over? Is it a semi-biographical film about Al reinventing himself? Or is it a soft political film implying that the US made a big mistake ditching the wonk man for that cheeky Dubya?

Ultimately this is a film about the redemption of Al Gore. How he found moral clarity by standing alone. How Al became a modern Paul Revere traipsing through the US shouting, “Disaster is coming.”

In the process public perception changed and America grew fond of Gore’s wonkishness. He’s no longer labeled “an enemy of the people.” In fact, in some quarters he’s become a kind of folk hero. There are whispers that if Hillary Clinton falters, wonk man might be drafted as the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2008.

There’s been a reversal of fortune. Americans are waking up to discover that they made a bad mistake electing George Bush. That he can’t be trusted and isn’t even that likeable. That Dubya not only doesn’t have a plan to solve America’s problems, he doesn’t even recognize most of them. Rather than usher in an era of responsibility, he’s championed an era of unbridled self-interest and shortsighted public policies. After five and a half years, it’s Bush who’s become the enemy of the people.

On June 2nd An Inconvenient Truth opens nationwide.

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and Quaker actvist. He is particularly interested in progressive morality and writes frequently on the ethical aspects of political and social issues.