I recently watched Mike Gravel on the MoveOn.org Town Hall: Climate Change. Mike Gravel's policy suggestions were the most novel and perhaps the most innovative. They do not fit within the orthodoxy of key policies that are being constructed in regard to climate change.
I recently watched Mike Gravel on the MoveOn.org Town Hall: Climate Change. Mike Gravel's policy suggestions were the most novel and perhaps the most innovative. They do not fit within the orthodoxy of key policies that are being constructed in regard to climate change. This is perhaps why the League of Conservation Voters handout on "Where the Candidates Currently Stand: Positions on Key Global Warming Policies," states that Gravel has "no articulated position" on all but one of the key policies. This strikes one as just more marginalization of candidates who dare to touch the third rail by established liberal groups. Gravel seeks to do more than just make changes to the legal framework of carbon emissions, which is important but not all that should be done.
Gravel advocates nuclear fusion, which he says China is leading the way on. He also says that the US should meet the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards of Europe, which are at about 43 mpg I believe, higher than the other Democratic candidates short-term goals but lower than Dodd and Richardson's long-term goals. Though the League of Conservation Voters handout says that Mike Gravel has "no articulated position" on this fuel efficiency issue, which is either a gross oversight on their part or an outright lie in order to politically minimize Gravel’s policy platform.
Gravel has an unwavering focus on hard economic reality, saying:
"I would hope, now we could do some subsidies for that, which would be for basic scientific effort, but as far as trying to subsidize various industries and give them incentives, boy, just let energy rise to a higher level. Its simple economics, the higher the price goes, the more people who come in and look for alternatives."
(http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2749&id=10780-7845643-XOzXbn&t=9)
I find this candor to be his greatest asset as a policymaker, and this is probably his greatest liability as a political candidate. To speak truth to power is but an elementary academic exercise, because those in power already know the truth. To speak truth to the uninitiated populace from the corridors of power is extremely unconventional in our corporate-conformist public sphere essentially controlled by corporate media.
Gravel’s is most candid on the issues of subsidization and moving the corporate-political consensus from the mainstream. He basically says that it is naïve to think one can divorce corporate imposition from political interests. The Washingtonian constituency of K Street lobbyists will do everything in their power to not allow complete independence from the corporate agenda. Mike Gravel unapologetically says he will, "end those subsidies," and let the free market work.
His suggested policy of a modification of the nation's internal revenue accounting system to transfer our country from a consumer culture to a thrift culture is an unconventional approach but a necessary one given the state of our free market economy, which can operate at excess levels of carbon emission even if the government modifies its policies by, say, creating carbon caps. Gravel just doesn’t come out and demand that the government impose itself on the operations of a free market bound by price structures and not law and order (thank you Reagan administration). But, since Gravel is such a proponent of the free market, why is Wall Street not lauding him as a free market candidate. It’s very simple, the Wall Street establishment doesn’t want a truly free market, they want a protected private profiteering system.