'Where Were the Filibusters?' Gravel Asks

WASHINGTON, June 12 - On the eve of the "Take Back America Conference" in Washington, D.C. former United States Senator Mike Gravel, Democratic candidate for President of the United States, who, in 1971, staged a five month filibuster to end the draft, wrote an article published in "The Wayne Madsen Report.Com" (waynemadsendc@hotmail.com) entitled "HOW TO TAKE BACK AMERICA". The Senator said, "It is fine and right for Democrats and others to criticize, for example, the mismanagement by President Bush of his War on Iraq, but where were the filibusters in the face of obvious distortions and selective presentation of intelligence? Why did the Republican majorities and many of my fellow Democrats accept uncritically the intelligence fed to them while year after year fully funding the War?"

Senator Gravel in the Spring and Summer of 2002, appeared on several MSNBC shows during the run up to the Invasion of Iraq, where he asserted his opposition to the war while declaring that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction and that the Iraqi Government posed no threat to the United States. The Senator asked, "Where were the opposition to the War in 2002 and who stood up then to publicly oppose the President on national television? Where was the release of vital information during the rush to war on the House or Senate floor? What have our elected representatives done since to stop the war they have acquiesced in ever since?" The Senator continued," Americans may rightly wonder, after this abdication of responsibility, whether either party, or any branch of the existing government has the courage to handle the task of deciding issues of war and peace as well as the critical domestic challenges the nation faces."

Gravel noted that the same observation applies to the progressive agenda on domestic policy. Given the Administration's Rubik Cube like reform for its indecipherable Medicare Prescription Drug Plan or its tragically ruinous response to the Katrina disaster, the vast price in the form of mounting debt and deficits imposed by Mr. Bush's spend and spend and make wars policy that have also caused the price of gasoline to skyrocket and the choke hold that well funded interests have on policy debates from energy to social security, does anyone think that the kind of necessary fundamental change will pass through the Senate Finance Committee or rouse the Congress to action?

The Senator concluded, "The only way for Americans to take back America is for Americans to change its nation's politics and government, i.e. for Americans to take back some of its initial law making power they are implicitly granted in the Constitution, in both the Preamble and Article VII. That means a process of National Initiative, under which the people can propose and vote on laws directly at the federal level -– as they do in half the states and most cities and towns today. As the Federalist observed, 'The people can never willfully betray their own interests but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people.' If our Democracy is to flourish then we must let the people decide."

Listen to Senator Gravel on the Peter B Collins Show at http:1240talkcity.com/events/ and KSAC 1240 AM 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.