I didn't know anything about Senator Gravel, and what is amazing, is that this guy has this history, and even though he is running for President, the MSM hasn't mentioned it, that I have seen. And I think that after reading this, I will vote for him in the primary. And yes, I know he's not going to win. But I want him to have my vote.
This is him talking about the day he fillibustered the draft, by reading the then, only partially published (and only within days) Pentagon Papers, which he got from Elsburg. At the time, the FBI and the Nixon white house was going nuts, enjoining the NY Times, and on a manhunt for the papers. It's an amazing story. I'm only posting a very partial piece of it:
Senator Gravel: "It gets better than that. I read for an hour. Now, here again, I’m dyslexic, but there’s no way on God’s green earth I’m going to read -- but I’m reading it. Now, keep in mind I hadn’t slept for about three or four days. And so, I’m reading, and I break out sobbing. It’s about 12:00 at night, and I am sobbing, and I can’t get control of myself. Here’s what was going through my head. A journalist on one of the networks the next morning: “Well, this was a bizarre occurrence the night before. You know, Gravel was very bizarre. He cried.” And so, what I was sobbing over -- I had been to Walter Reed a month or more before to walk around, and I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take it emotionally to look at the wounded. And so, I can handle macro-problems, but not micro-, and so, lo and behold, I kept saying to myself, “My god! I love my country. My country is committing immoral acts. We’re killing human beings. There’s no reason for it.” And I’m sobbing, and as I’m dyslexic, I’m reading rote. You know, I couldn’t follow the words in front of me. So Rothstein comes up to me. He says -- and the understatement of the year -- he says, “Senator, I think you’ve lost it.”
And so -- and I keep sobbing, and then he goes back, and I try to get a hold of myself, and I can’t. And so he comes back. He says, “Senator, why don’t you put it in the record.” And then I sobered up immediately and said, “Oh, yes. I got power. I’m the chairman of this committee. So I move and ask unanimous consent to put all these papers that I was going to read into record, to put them into record automatically.” Bang! They’re in the record. That’s how it officially got into the record of the United States of America."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/02/1331255
This is him talking about the day he fillibustered the draft, by reading the then, only partially published (and only within days) Pentagon Papers, which he got from Elsburg. At the time, the FBI and the Nixon white house was going nuts, enjoining the NY Times, and on a manhunt for the papers. It's an amazing story. I'm only posting a very partial piece of it:
Senator Gravel: "It gets better than that. I read for an hour. Now, here again, I’m dyslexic, but there’s no way on God’s green earth I’m going to read -- but I’m reading it. Now, keep in mind I hadn’t slept for about three or four days. And so, I’m reading, and I break out sobbing. It’s about 12:00 at night, and I am sobbing, and I can’t get control of myself. Here’s what was going through my head. A journalist on one of the networks the next morning: “Well, this was a bizarre occurrence the night before. You know, Gravel was very bizarre. He cried.” And so, what I was sobbing over -- I had been to Walter Reed a month or more before to walk around, and I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take it emotionally to look at the wounded. And so, I can handle macro-problems, but not micro-, and so, lo and behold, I kept saying to myself, “My god! I love my country. My country is committing immoral acts. We’re killing human beings. There’s no reason for it.” And I’m sobbing, and as I’m dyslexic, I’m reading rote. You know, I couldn’t follow the words in front of me. So Rothstein comes up to me. He says -- and the understatement of the year -- he says, “Senator, I think you’ve lost it.”
And so -- and I keep sobbing, and then he goes back, and I try to get a hold of myself, and I can’t. And so he comes back. He says, “Senator, why don’t you put it in the record.” And then I sobered up immediately and said, “Oh, yes. I got power. I’m the chairman of this committee. So I move and ask unanimous consent to put all these papers that I was going to read into record, to put them into record automatically.” Bang! They’re in the record. That’s how it officially got into the record of the United States of America."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/02/1331255
