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The speech was terrific, a rousing meditation on the history of the relationship between media and power, and of the obligation of the former to avoid seduction by the latter. Without notes, he spoke of the uniquely hypnotic power of television, and how the internet might alter what he described as “the information ecology”. He made reasonably seamless references to Julius Caesar, Thomas Paine, Martin Luther, Theodor Adorno, Napoleon, Jurgen Habermas, Upton Sinclair, Adam Smith and JK Galbraith. Gore particularly thumped the formula that Adorno – one of the Frankfurt School of German philosophers – had coined to explain the descent of his hitherto civilised nation into madness: “All questions of fact,” noted Adorno, “became questions of power.” I found myself writing some things down, not just because I knew I was meeting Gore the other side of lunch, but because I was intrigued and wanted to look something up later – not a reaction often inspired by speeches made by politicians, or even by speeches made by, as Gore characterised himself “a recovering politician”.
When Gore took questions from the floor, it was clear that a few of the audience had similar thoughts. Peter York, of this newspaper, asked why obvious intellect appeared to be an electoral disadvantage in America; Gore did the electorally intelligent thing and didn’t really answer. Another questioner asked Gore if George W Bush was as dumb as he looks......
When we sit down at CineWorld, I start off with a slightly less lofty cultural reference. I ask Gore if he reads the satirical newspaper The Onion.
“I’m an episodic reader,” he says....“My favourite was a front-page story, with a picture of me and Tipper, and the headline ‘Gores Enjoying Best Sex Of Their Lives’. My wife’s reaction was, ‘Who talked? How did they know?’”
...Gore calls the internet, “A rebellion, alive and well in some far-off galaxy connected to our own".
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/features/story.jsp?story=706006Asked about optimism, Gore said his is "based mainly in my belief that the political system can and will respond. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve watched American politics literally all my life, and I’ve seen lots of occasions on which it seemed that nothing was happening, nothing was changing, and then all of a sudden the country quietly crosses the tipping point, and before you know it, dramatic change takes place."
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