I recently finished Al Gore’s latest book, The Assault on Reason, which takes a critical view of the current state of US democratic system and the systematic abuse against it by megacorporations, special interest groups and the system’s own executive branch. This book follows the same story of a good idea abused and turning against the people it was created to help as “The Corporation” and “Discontents of Globalization”.

While I felt that Gore was repeating his main points on almost every page, I think he is fighting a good fight. It did, however, get a bit boring to read on every page at least four of the following: ”The guys behind the constitution were geniuses”, “US was based on the finest principles of democracy”, “Media giants’ oligopoly on television and newspapers hurt democracy”, “Internet has potential to revitalise democracy”, “George W. Bush’s administration is destroying democracy”, “Corporations going unchecked cause havoc, not only to environment but to the society in general”.

The book is extremely US-centric, but in my opinion the issues are worldwide, not only because US position as “the last superpower” has effects globally, but also that the problems Gore points out are popping up in other western democracies.

What was missing from the book was solutions to the problems he describes. It was nice to see the last chapter in “The Corporation” by Joel Bakan dedicated to his solutions to better corporate governance and responsibility. Gore did however bring himself strongly into the book and clearly says what’s his take on the issues. He refers to studies, interviews, news articels and, naturally to his own experience, which brings a nice personal tone to the book. Some might argue that this book is just his manifesto for his upcoming presidential campaign, but in my opinion, the voice in the book sounds more like a guy who’s over that now.

It was also a bit appaling to read how Gore painted saints out of the founders of United States and how the founding documents are sacred and works of genius. Gore also seems to have trusted the new Democratic majority in US to cause bigger changes in the way the country would be run than the recent history shows. What was odd was that Gore didn’t criticise the two-party system itself at all. He did, however point out other pecularities of the US legislative and judical branch. While he compared the current state of all three branches to what the “founders had visioned”, he doesn’t compare the US system to other countries. I think this is a big mistake, as I have hard time believing that the US democratic system is without peers – especially when Gore reminds that pretty much all other democracies are based on the ideas first put into practice in US.

As this is IT oriented blog, I think I should talk a bit more about Gore’s points about Internet and its relationship with democratic ideals. Gore quickly talks about the issue of “net neutrality” and shows that he knows what his talking about by pointing out that the issue is practically the same as the pratice of “nondiscrimination” telcos were forced to accept before.

Gore also believes that internet, unlike television he says only exists to sell stuff, is more like printing press in its availability involve people in discussion and reasoning of ideas. I’m not at all that optimistic, as it seems that pretty much everything on the web is supported by advertising. I agree that internet has the pontential for two-way communication that television lacks, but in my opinion, the media giants are doing their best to turn internet to yet another enterntainment channel. In this regard, it would be vital to keep the internet as free as possible, a point Gore talks about a couple of times, but in my opinion should’ve gone in more detail. In this way, this book was more like Joseph Stiglitz’s “Discontents of Globalization” without its sequel – again, Gore could’ve talked more about the problems’ solutions.

While reading the book, I was somehow reminded of the intro of Dune 2 – just that “spice” was replaced with “information”. For European Union citizens, this book shows what things we should look out for and fix in EU before they become widespread problems. For everyone, this book shows that democracy doesn’t work if the people feel disconnected from the decision-making. For readers of this blog, I hope this book shows that everyone needs to do his/her bit to keep Internet free and open. We can’t afford the Internet turn into a new television.