I must have forgot that one, got a link?
I must have forgot that one, got a link?
You betcha. I figured Gore describing himself as a Communist was worth bookmarking.
But I wanted to address something Al Gore said in last Tuesday's debate that was overlooked by all the other pontificating windbags.
"But look, Jim," Gore said as if he were having a dialogue with moderator Jim Lehrer, "the world is changing so rapidly, the way I see it, the world's getting much closer together. Like it or not, we are now -- the United States is now the natural leader of the world. All these other countries are looking to us."
Gore was explaining why the United States should not concern itself too much with how and why it commits military forces around the world.
"Now just because we cannot be involved everywhere, and shouldn't be, doesn't mean that we should shy away from going in anywhere."
This one bears repeating in my estimation.
"Now just because we cannot be involved everywhere, and shouldn't be, doesn't mean that we should shy away from going in anywhere."
Gore believes the U.S. should not shy away from sending troops anywhere, anytime. That's the man who is dangerously close to becoming president.
I think at the very moment those words came out of Gore's mouth, he realized he had said something that betrayed his actual opinions about the deployment of U.S. troops and the neo-imperialist approach of the Clinton-Gore era.
Notice where Gore went from there: "Now both of us are kind of, I guess, stating the other's position in a -- (laughs) -- in a maximalist, extreme way, but I think there is a difference here."
Gore was uneasy. He tried to make light of what he was saying. What caught my attention at the time I heard it was the word "maximalist." I hadn't heard that word in a long time. But I didn't know why. It seemed out of place. It seemed like a slip of the tongue.
Had Gore committed a Dan Quayle-style malapropism? No, actually, it was something much more interesting.
Here's the Websters Third International Dictionary entry for "maximalistic": "From maximaliste, fr. *maximal* + *iste* [-st]; intended as translation of Russian (bol'shevik) Bolshevik: One that believes in or advocates immediate and direct action to secure the whole of a program or set of goals; specifically, a socialist advocating the immediate seizure of power by revolutionary means as opposed to gradual achievement of limited aims [as by the process of parliamentary democracy]."
There you have it. I knew I had heard that word before, but not for some time. It must have been 20 or 30 years ago when I was studying communism. It's not a word in my vocabulary. And I doubt it's a word in the vocabulary of most Americans. But it is, interestingly, in the vocabulary of Al Gore.
That's right, Al Gore, who, from birth was in the hip pocket of oil-baron Armand Hammer, friend to Lenin, friend to Stalin, friend to every Russian tyrant who succeeded them. The same Hammer who funneled hard cash to the Communist Party USA. You might call him Maximalist Armand Hammer.
Al Gore was groomed to be president from boyhood by his father, a senator who was totally compromised by his relations with Hammer and the money he took from him, as well as Hammer himself, who took a personal interest in Al Gore Jr. when he became a congressman. Hammer, meanwhile, was Moscow's pipeline to the capitalist funds it always needed to keep the illusion of socialism alive.
I think the Manchurian Candidate goofed. I've heard of a Freudian slip, but, until now, I've never witnessed a Marxian slip.