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| Biggs: Blasting of Gore is no great surprise Gretchen Biggs, For the Camera Sunday, November 4, 2007 After receiving a shared Nobel Peace Prize for his work promoting awareness about global climate change, Al Gore has attracted an utterly undeserved and unprecedented level of vitriol and bombast. Much of the post-award coverage focused on questioning or mocking the connection between Gore's work and "peace." Some elements of the media have relentlessly ridiculed him, beginning with his bid for the presidency eight years ago and continuing even as he has gained international attention and achieved the status of a true world leader with his climate work. Perhaps the large amount of fervent hostility he attracts is in itself the highest measure of his success and of the gravity of his message. After all, "a pin doesn't draw down lightning," as one of my favorite authors writes. The assaults on Gore originate with the powerful entrenched interests who feel threatened by his message. That message is deliberately twisted and misrepresented in the media. And how ironic that the scorn and contempt America heaps upon him intensifies as his international acclaim grows. Yet, this is always the fate of Cassandras and visionaries. Not for nothing does the New Testament admonish us over and over that "a prophet is without honor (some translations say 'never recognized') in his own country." This is not strictly true, of course; Al Gore has received honors in this country. His film "An Inconvenient Truth" received two Academy Awards and one Emmy Award and has been recognized as a crucial contribution towards education about climate change. But after all, the man was deprived by political shenanigans and by the Supreme Court of the presidency he rightly won. One can not be "dishonored" and "unrecognized" much more than that. There is nothing about Gore that is off limits to criticism. His suits are ugly, he foolishly relies on the counsel of women, he eats too much, he's humorless, he hasn't sufficiently linked global warming with the animal agriculture industry, his facts are questionable, he's not well spoken, his awards have all come from leftist liberals, he has sometimes accepted rides on private jets, and the one shouted the loudest and the longest: his house is too big. Since when did a man have to be utterly beyond reproach (and who among us is?) before he could speak up about something of vital importance? Why do even self-proclaimed environmentalists continue to harp on Gore's too large carbon footprint instead of getting behind him and supporting him with all they're worth? If Al Gore were not doing very significant work — work thus threatening to the backward-looking captains of industry and their collaborators and propagandists, the "Lords of Yesterday" — he would not be attracting so much criticism. He would simply be marginalized and forgotten. But quite the opposite has happened, and as he continues to speak the truth about the looming danger of climate change, he is an increasing target of animosity from the entrenched powers-that-be. The previous emphasis on ridicule is lately giving way to harsher criticism, but nevertheless for the simple reason that he is right and his detractors are wrong, I believe Gore will have the last laugh. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." At least Gore is in good company. True leaders of all stripes have not only been unrecognized and unappreciated by their contemporaries, but also vilified and maligned and even persecuted before ultimately taking their place in history and being vindicated by time and events. A few well-known modern examples are Winston Churchill, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Think too of Socrates, Copernicus, Luther, Galileo and Newton, not to mention Jesus. And all these people, with their very different messages and methods, have promoted world peace because they stood for truth in its many forms. Peace does not include only the cessation of wars, it also includes the preservation of life: all life, all of nature, and the serenity of all living beings, a serenity that is hard to come by when our collective future existence is jeopardized. Al Gore's mission is about uniting all of humanity in the common cause of keeping our planet habitable for ourselves and the other species who share it with us. There could hardly be a higher calling or a mission more in tune with promoting a true and lasting peace for all the inhabitants of the Earth. Al Gore is, as Frank Lloyd Wright stated about his own life's work, "on the side of Nature" and "Nature will always prevail." Those who resent his accolades are simply stubborn hold-outs of a paradigm that simply must give way: that we can consume and pollute endlessly without consequence. One can only hope that all the flak Gore has to dodge will toughen him for his work ahead. And if he's willing to increase the flak exponentially, maybe he can still be persuaded to enter the presidential race for 2008. There is a strong movement afoot to accomplish that end. If you're interested, visit draftgore.com. |