WWGHD? Made Some Simple Connections, I Think

Already today, so many things. Woke up happy at the sound of kitten and children romping through the house (thumpa thumpa squeal! squeal!) and read, with interest, the latest comments. Wrote a thank-you note to Ricky for coming to my rescue (thanks Barak, too) because while I am quite interested in politics, my brand of politics tends to be more on the philosophical rather than the "I have the super secret information and here's an article supporting me" front. Maybe it's emotional in content; or perhaps a woman talking about politics will always be called "emotional." But let's not dwell any longer on those questions.

Instead! I am dwelling briefly on a forwarded email from my hapless friend with the orange-county-style Republican parents, who sometimes forwards these missives to us, her friends, in a "Can I Get a Witness!?" manner.

This one asked the offhand question: "Where would we have been if Gore had been president!" a question meant to be rhetorical, implying "Oh dear lord, with a big fat liberal at the helm we'd all be Islamic and forced to marry people of the same sex by now!" (Dibs on Catherine Zeta-Jones, I say...)

I have often thought of that particular question. What would Gore have done? (WWGHD?)

With his interest in the environment (the place where we live, you'll recall) I can imagine a response something along the lines of a more direct correlation between cause and effect. Where did the "terrorists" come from? They came from Saudi Arabia. What is our connection with Saudi?

Oil.

We put refined oil into our cars. We depend on oil to support our infrastructure in such an intricate way that we can't really imagine life without it. In fact, the thought of life without it scares the bejeepers out of us. Will we be reduced to some kind of stone-age looting and pillaging? Will Bibles lie in smoldering piles in every intersection? Will we have to marry people of the same sex?!

I imagine that Gore would have had the nuts to address this connection to the "terrorists" head-on, and to draw it into the public discourse. He might even have been able to take on the oil lobby, since he wasn't actually IN the oil lobby in the first place, or count on members of same to be best men for his children's weddings and such. Certainly I imagine that he wouldn't have used the general fear and collective Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to advance the interests of the oil lobby.

Nope, I can picture Gore making a connection between our own oil usage, and the savage anger of a disenfranchised and brainwashed group of religious fundamentalists who are, well, "resentful" is one word for what they see as a life-threatening intrusion on their culture and society.

Perhaps by now we'd see a reassessment of our priorities as a nation, in terms of our energy usage. Perhaps we could have channeled some of our collective shock and surge in patriotism (remember the blood drives?) into a Plan. A Plan like building trolleys in medium to large cities with little or no good public transportation (Bakersfield. Las Vegas. Phoenix. Heck, Deadwood City, my own burg.) A plan to investigate hybrid fuels and alternative sources of energy to heat houses.

We might, in other words, have found a way to strengthen the people we are at our best: innovative, forward-thinking, filled with trust and optimism, yes, perhaps naive. Perhaps we wouldn't be spending all of our collective energy making excuses for the knee-jerk violence and doubletalk of an administration with no earthly idea of the beauty of the system that put them in power in the first place.

Comments

[Barak]

Well, first off, Gore would have noticed that Richard Clark's hair was on fire and scheduled a few national security meetings about threats of terrorism. He would have noticed the PDB indicating that Al Qaeda was planning attacks. He would have beefed up security in airports around the country and those 15 or so of the highjackers that were slowed down getting onto airplanes would have been slowed down even more and perhaps stopped from getting onto airplanes saving about 3000 lives and the New York skyline. The economy would have turned around and we would be living in continued blissful relative ignorance of the threat that al Qaeda is to America and the world. Saddam Hussein would still be in power in Iraq. UN inspectors would still be poking around looking for signs of WMD and not finding any. The Iraqi soccer team would lose early and often in the Olympics and come home to be tortured by Uday Hussein. No Afghan women would have run the 100m.

Assuming the added security measures were not enough to prevent the attacks of 9/11, Gore would have likely organized an international coalition to invade Afghanistan. The occupation would have remained in force in Afghanistan until bin Laden was found and captured.

As you suggested, Gore would have noticed that 15 of the hijackers were Saudi and connected the event with oil. There would have been a huge Manhattan Project style effort to wean us from oil and get us onto renewable energy.

We would have parlayed the popularity we enjoyed after 9/11 into international diplomatic power. Attention would have been paid to the Israelis and the Palestinians and both sides would have been shamed into meeting at a conference table and a peace process would have been underway.

He would have convinced the Port Authority of New York to decide on a design for the replacement to the WTC as rapidly as possible and there would be a construction project the pace of which has never been seen. It would have been expensive, perhaps $2 billion, boosting the New York economy.

Security around the country would have been beefed up. We would have spent billions on non-intrusive cargo inspection technology and the techniques of securing the ports would have been revolutionized. The police and fire departments and national guards around the country would have been beefed up through a recruiting campaign that stressed security and emergency response. (Right now the ranks of the National Guard are being decimated because people in the Guard are not willing to spend 18 months overseas at a time, and the Guard is Bush's solution to troop shortages.)

We would not have invaded Iraq saving hundreds of billions of dollars, over a thousand american lives, and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives. Saddam would still be in power and his sons would still be alive and wreaking havok on Iraqis.

Taxes would be a little higher, especially for the richest 1% of the population.

And we would all be forced into gay marriages.

[gbreez]

I could live with that. 8-)

[pam]

I like your portrayal of four years under Gore, Barak. Don't forget, 'Would never have come up with the deceptive "tax relief" concept, whereby we borrow heavily from Korea and China to fund a tax break that ensures the president's popularity at home.'

Also, let the record show, I'm on board with the gay marriage thing.