by Mike Gravel (U.S. Senate, 1969-81)

As a twenty-three year old Second Lieutenant, my first assignment in the Army was as a top-secret control officer for the Communications Intelligence Service in Germany, capable of classifying and declassifying government documents.

Senator Gravel - who was once a military intelligence official - speaks about the war on terror, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more.

Transcript below the fold.

Mike Gravel talks about The National Initiative on The Big Think.

Senator Mike Gravel will be attending the 6th annual DemocracyFest in Burlington, Vermont, July 17th - 19th.  Mike will give a talk on saturday evening.

Mike will present his current work in Korea and his work within the US on NI4D towards a national initiative to directly empower the people.

Many keen observers of our representative democracy comment again and again about our broken political system, especially because of the corrupting influence of money on our elected representatives.  Too often, the resulting public policy provides benefits to the corporate-military-industrial complex rather than enhancing the public interest.

During my many years in elective office, I saw the trade-offs and pay-offs (direct and indirect) that are common in the political arena.  I saw how

Introduction

We live in the best of times and the worst of times.

In the last century we have seen progress that has matched all the progress made since the beginning of civilization. Science has opened vistas of unimagined possibilities. The human life span has doubled, and researchers now know more about the causes and treatments of many diseases than ever before.  Expanding knowledge of the brain promises enhanced productivity during our senior years.

Advances in agriculture now guarantee the planet’s ability to adequately feed its inhabitants. Transportation and communications surpass the speed of sound. What took years of dangerous travel is now accomplished safely in hours and in seconds by holograms. We stand on the brink of addressing the age-old problem

Power to the People

Dear Friends:
 
I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for your support of my recent presidential candidacy and for your support for my public efforts in the past.

My electoral career spanned more than 50 years and 18 campaigns as a candidate.  Some of you will remember that, when I lost my Senate re-election in 1980, I was disillusioned with representative government. But I continued my interest in and study of public policy and of the problems of human governance, eventually finding others who shared my goal of improving our broken representative democracy.
 

Dear Friends,
 
We want to thank you for the support and dedication that has sustained us throughout Mike's campaign.  On Sunday, May 25th, Mike knew that his career in politics would either continue through November or end at the Libertarian convention.  Though Mike's career in active politics is now over, we know his message does not end here. 

Official campaign statement for immediate release:

I congratulate the California Supreme Court for recognizing a self-evident truth: Marriage is a fundamental constitutional right that ALL Americans share! Anything short of marriage equality means second-class citizenship for gays and lesbians. Obama, Clinton and McCain choose to deny this truth but California just made their obstinate opposition much more difficult.

Friends & Supporters, 

Libertarians will select their presidential candidate at their National Convention in Denver at the end of this month.  We have been working tirelessly to secure the nomination. We Libertarians have an outside chance of winning the general election.  My political career has taught me that anything is possible, particularly when the nation is headed for a perfect storm.   

Last week, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and almost everyone else in the Washington establishment including the State Department have condemned and criticized Jimmy Carter for his latest attempt to make the world a safer place. Far from deserving all the cheap shots, Jimmy Carter should be praised for meeting with Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas.

The White House and the Democratic Senate are caught up in a cynical game of who blinks first when it comes to making appointments to head the Federal Election Commission, said Senator Mike Gravel during a campaign stop at Cornell University in upstate New York. The FEC is the federal agency tasked with enforcing campaign laws and investigating violations.

I wanted to update you on my latest plans before news gets out. Today, I am announcing my plan to join the Libertarian Party, because the Democratic Party no longer represents my vision for our great country. I wanted my supporters to get this news first, because you have been the ones who have kept my campaign alive since I first declared my candidacy on April 17, 2006.

One of the major goals of my presidential campaign has always been to empower you, the voter, through the enactment of the National Initiative for Democracy. The National Initiative will equip the people with the central power of government – lawmaking – and citizens in every government jurisdiction of the United States would then become a new check in our system of Checks and Balances, which was originally designed to control the abuse of power.

You can now order copies of Mike's newly revised book Citizen Power on-line at Citizen-power.us. If you are interested in knowing all about Mike's vision, pick up a copy today. Some choice excerpts follow after the jump.