Al Gore, Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Others on "Where We're Going"

P.S.  I believe this is only in print right now, not online.  I picked up a copy and typed out the following highlights.

Al Gore
Q. "If you were a historian, how would you describe the Bush administration from that point of view?"
A. "They have done so much damage to the spirit of America, to the worldwide reputation of America, to the morale of our people, to the core belief that we're capable of managing our fears without sacrificing our freedom."

Q. "What do you think the Democratic Party ought to be standing for right now?"
A. "First and foremost, a definitive solution to the climate crisis.  I say with disappointment, they're nowhere close to that right now, but I think they will get there.  I know it sounds unrealistic right now, but there's going to be a grassroots uprising that results in the climate crisis rising to the top of the agenda."

Bono
Q. "What's changed?"
A. "So we're in the era of asymmetrical war.  The greatest army cannot protect you from hatred that gets busy and organized and has enough of an audience to protect it...Strangely, we have now entered a phase where being powerful and having the biggest nuclear arsenal leaves you completely defenseless.

"Now, let's flip that.  That could be a positive.  Because if for the first time in history, military capacity doesn't protect you, what would?  It would point us in the direction of prevention, rather than protection.  When I'm arguing for increased aid to Africa, I always say, 'Isn't it cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?'"

Bill Maher
Q. "What's your best-case scenario for the future?"
A. "First of all, some Democrat better win it in 2008.  Then that person should go for broke and say to the people, 'Now, I have to tell you the truth.  I couldn't do it when I was running, because you are a bunch of babies who can't take the truth, and you know damn well you wouldn't have voted for me if I said that.  But we're goin gto take these painful measures.'"

"The sad part of it is, the money is there to do almost anything we want.  It's not as if you'd have to raise taxes so much.  If you took the money being wasted on Iraq, corporate welfare and the drug war, you would have trillions of dollars to work with. That's the core of it.  Whoever is the next president has to get at this corporate state we've found ourselves living in."

George Clooney
Q. "How would you define the key issue in the years ahead?"
A. "There's really just one: energy.  It's everything.  It is the War on Terror, it's the environment.  We've all hitched our wagons to something that is finite and belongs to a lot of countries that aren't particularly stable.  Here's what we have right now: a fairly unstable Middle East that has a product we need, and we're willing to risk life and limb and our reputation around the world to ensure that we get it.  Anyone who says it's about our safety, you go, 'If we don't need their product, then we don't have any problem with safety.  They're not mad at us anymore if we're not over there.'"

Craig Ventner (Genetics Pioneer)
Q. "What are the biggest challenges facing the world?"
A. "It's not whether the Iranian president visits Ground Zero or whether Britney Spears is wearing panties or not.  And it doesn't have anything to do with the human genome. It's the fact that we're currently putting more than 30 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. And with the planet's population expected to rise by 3 billion people over the next forty-five years, C02 emissions could go up to 90 billion tons a year.  I'm an experimental scientist but that's not an experiment that I want to see happen.  People think they're going to solve everything by buying a few carbon credits so they can justify what they're doing, but we need fundamental solutions.  I think biology can provide a major part, if not the entire solution."

Paul Krugman
Q. "How do you think this time will be remembered forty years from now?"
A. "When we get the full story of what happened during the Bush years, it's going to be much worse than what we know now.  We're going to find even greater horrors and betrayals.  It will be looked back upon as a cross between the McCarthy era and the Nixon era.  It'll be, 'My God, who were these people and why did they have so much power?'"

Jane Goodall
Q. "Are you saying that modern life is unsustainable?"
A. "Yes, I am.  Most of us don't have to change hugely, but we've got to change. When people ask me, 'What can I do?' - I say, 'There's two things.  One, you must realize that, unlikely though it seems, your little life does make a difference, what you do each day.  And secondly, leading from that, people must learn a little bit more and think a little bit more about the consequences of the choices we make each day -- what we eat, where it comes from, how was it made, has it got chemical poisons in it, whether it involves the torture of animals."

Bruce Springsteen
Q. "How do you think this time will be remembered forty years from now?"
A. "Many parts of it will be remembered with the same degree of shame as the Japanese internment camps are remembered -- illegal wiretapping, rendition, the abuse of prisoners, cutting back our civil rights, no habeus corpus.  I don't think most people thought they'd ever see these things happen here.  And I don't believe those are things that strengthen us.  The moral authority to stand up and say, 'We are the Americans,' is invaluable.  It's been deeply damaged, and it's going to take quite a while to repair that damage, if we can."

"This will be remembered as a low point in American history -- as simple as that.  People are going to go, 'Was everyone sleeping?'  But people get frightened, and when they get frightened, they get crazy. You wonder where political hysteria can take you -- I think we've tasted some of that."

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