Майк гравий

Майк гравий
Гравий в 2008 году
Сенатор США от Аляски
В офисе 3 января 1969 г. - 3 января 1981 года
Preceded by	Ernest Gruening
Succeeded by	Frank H. Murkowski
3rd Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives
In office January 25, 1965 – January 22, 1967
Preceded by	Bruce Kendall
Succeeded by	Bill Boardman
Member of the Alaska House of Representatives from the 8th district
In office January 23, 1963 – January 22, 1967
Preceded by	John S. Hellenthal
Succeeded by	Michael F. Beirne
Personal details
Born	Maurice Robert Gravel (1930-05-13)May 13, 1930 Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	June 26, 2021(2021-06-26) (aged 91) Seaside, California, U.S.
Resting place	Arlington National Cemetery
Political party	Democratic (before 2008, 2010–2021)
Other political affiliations	Libertarian (2008–2010)
Spouses	Rita Martin ​ ​ (m. 1959; div. 1981)​ Whitney Stewart ​ (m. 1984)​
Children	2
Education	Columbia University (BS)
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1951–1954
Rank	First Lieutenant

Морис Роберт " Майк " гравий ( / ɡ r ə ˈ v ɛ l / grə- vell ; 13 мая 1930 г.- 26 июня 2021 г.) был американским политиком и писателем, представлявшим Аляску в Сенате Соединенных Штатов с 1969 по 1981 год как член Демократической партии . Он баллотировался на пост президента дважды в 2008 и 2020 годах .

Родившийся и выросший в Спрингфилде, штат Массачусетс , француз-канадскими родителями-иммигрантами, Гравл переехал на Аляску в конце 1950-х годов, став застройщиком недвижимости и вступив в политику. Он служил в Палате представителей Аляски с 1963 по 1967 год, а также стал спикером Дома Аляски . Гравий был избран в Сенат США в 1968 году.

Как сенатор, гравий стал национально известным своими сильными, но неудачными, попытками положить конец проекту во время войны во Вьетнаме и за то, что он внесла документы Пентагона в публичную запись в 1971 году. Он провел неудачную кампанию за выдвижение Демократической партии в 1972 году. Для президента Соединенных Штатов сыграл решающую роль в получении одобрения Конгресса для Транс-Аласки вице - , а затем Первичные выборы в 1980 году .

An advocate of direct democracy and the National Initiative, Gravel staged a run for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States. His campaign failed to gain support, and in March 2008, he left the Democratic Party and joined the Libertarian Party to compete unsuccessfully for its presidential nomination and the inclusion of the National Initiative into the Libertarian Platform. He ran for president as a Democrat again in the 2020 election, in a campaign that ended four months after it began. Two years before his death, Gravel and his campaign staff founded the progressive think tank The Gravel Institute.

Early life, military service, education

Gravel was born on May 13, 1930, in Springfield, Massachusetts, one of five children of French-Canadian immigrant parents, Alphonse and Marie (née Bourassa) Gravel. His parents were part of the Quebec diaspora, and he was raised in a working-class neighborhood during the Great Depression, speaking only French until he was seven years old. Calling him "Mike" from an early age, his father valued work above all else, while his mother stressed the importance of education.

Gravel was educated in parochial schools as a Roman Catholic. There he struggled, due to what he later said was undiagnosed dyslexia, and was left back in third grade. He completed elementary school in 1945 and his class voted him "most charming personality". A summer job as a soda jerk led to Gravel handing out campaign fliers for local candidates on his boss's behalf; Gravel was immediately impressed with "the awesomeness of political office".

Gravel then boarded at Assumption Preparatory School in Worcester, Massachusetts, where his performance was initially mediocre. By Gravel's telling, in the summer of 1948 he intended to volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces during the 1947–1949 Palestine war, but Alexandra Tolstaya told him to return to school. There an English teacher, the Assumptionist Edgar Bourque, gave him personal attention, improving Gravel's language skills and instructing him in public speaking. Gravel's grades improved measurably in his final year and he graduated in 1949. His sister, Marguerite, became a Holy Cross nun, but Gravel himself struggled with the Catholic faith. He studied for one year at Assumption College, a Catholic school in Worcester, then transferred for his sophomore year to American International College in Springfield. Journalist I. F. Stone and philosopher Bertrand Russell strongly influenced Gravel in their willingness to challenge assumptions and oppose social convention and political authority.

Around May 1951, Gravel saw that he was about to be drafted and instead enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three-year term so that he could get into the Counterintelligence Corps. After basic training and counterintelligence school at Fort Holabird in Maryland and in South Carolina, he went to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. While he expected to be sent off to the Korean War when he graduated as a second lieutenant in early 1952, he was instead assigned to Stuttgart, West Germany, as a Special Adjutant in the Army's Communications Intelligence Service. In Germany, Gravel conducted surveillance operations on civilians and paid off spies. After about a year, he transferred to Orléans, France, where his French language abilities (if not his French-Canadian accent) allowed him to infiltrate French communist rallies. He worked as a Special Agent in the Counterintelligence Corps until 1954, eventually becoming a first lieutenant.

Following his discharge, Gravel entered the Columbia University School of General Studies in New York City, where he studied economics and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1956. He moved to New York "flat broke" and supported himself by working as a bar boy in a hotel, driving a taxicab, and working in the investment bond department at Bankers Trust. During this time he left the Roman Catholic faith.

Move to Alaska

Gravel opened a small ground-floor real estate office on the north side (left) of Third Avenue in downtown Anchorage (center), opposite the Anchorage Westward (now Hilton Anchorage) Hotel (right). The Chugach Mountains are in the distance.

Gravel "decided to become a pioneer in a faraway place," and moved to pre-statehood Alaska in August 1956, without funds or a job, looking for a place where someone without social or political connections could be a viable candidate for public office. Alaska's voting age of 19, less than most other states' 21, played a role in his decision, as did its newness and cooler climate. Broke when he arrived, he immediately found work in real estate sales until winter arrived. Gravel then was employed as a brakeman for the Alaska Railroad, working the snow-clearing train on the Anchorage-to-Fairbanks run. Subsequently, he opened a small real estate brokerage in Anchorage (the Territory of Alaska not requiring a license) and saved enough so as not to have to work the railroad again. The firm was named the M. R. Gravel Real Estate Company. Gravel joined the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and continued a sporadic relationship with the movement throughout his life.

Seeing Alaska as a wide-open place with no political establishment or entrenched interests, Gravel quickly became part of the civic scene there. By October 1957, he was a Division Chairman for Anchorage for the Democratic Central Committee in the territory, and by June 1958, he was president of the Alaska Young Democrats organization. He also became active in the United States Junior Chamber (Jaycees), and by early 1958, his duties included handing out awards for farmer of the year.

By early 1958, Gravel was running as Democratic Party primary candidate for a Third Division seat in House of Representatives of the territorial legislature. (This was one of the four administrative divisions into which Alaska was sectioned at the time.) Under the slogan "Gravel, the Roadbed to Prosperity", he lost. At the same time, he was also an advocate for Alaskan statehood.

Gravel went on a 44-state national speaking tour concerning tax reform in 1959, sponsored by the Jaycees, often dressing for events as Paul Revere. Gravel was selected from some two thousand applications for this position. The tour received a good amount of local newspaper coverage at its various stops, with Gravel's first name sometimes given as Mike and other times as Maurice. The tour's general message was an urging of "lower taxes, more efficiency in government and a system of taxation moderate at all levels of income". At several stops Gravel stated that the "tide of socialism" had to be stopped. He elaborated at another stop, "It is part of our Jaycee creed that economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise. We really want to see that free enterprise become our inheritance." The tour was scheduled to conclude in Washington D.C., on Tax Day, April 15, with petition signatures accumulated for reform to be presented to U.S. lawmakers: dressed as Revere, Gravel rode with the petition to the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

The tour over, Gravel married Rita Jeannette Martin at the First Methodist Church of Anchorage on April 29, 1959. She was a native of Montana who had attended Billings Business College before moving to Alaska two years prior and becoming a secretary in the office of the Anchorage city manager. She had also been named Anchorage's "Miss Fur Rendezvous" of 1958. They had two children, Martin Anthony Gravel and Lynne Denise Gravel, born c. 1960 and 1962 respectively.

Gravel ran without avail for the City Council in Anchorage in 1960. During this time, he had become a successful real estate agent; after the 1960 election, he became a property developer in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Anchorage. After a partner ran into financial difficulty, however, the project went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Gravel was forced out in 1962.

State legislator

The chambers of the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Alaska State Capitol.

With the support of Alaska wholesale grocer Barney Gottstein and supermarket builder Larry Carr, Gravel ran for the Alaska House of Representatives representing Anchorage in 1962, initially assigned the 10th and then 8th districts. Alaska had very crowded primaries that year: Gravel was one of 33 Democrats, along with 21 Republicans, who were running for the chance to compete for the 14 House seats allocated to the 8th district. Gravel made it through the primary, and in November eight Republicans and six Democrats were elected to the House from the district, with Gravel finishing eighth overall and third among with Democrats, with 8,174 votes. Gottstein became Gravel's main financial backer during most of his subsequent campaigns.

Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives from January 28, 1963, to January 22, 1967, winning reelection in 1964. In his first term, he served as a minority member on two House committees: Commerce, and Labor and Management. He co-authored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. Gravel was the chief architect of the law that created a regional high school system for rural Alaska; this allowed Alaska Natives to attend schools near where they lived instead of having to go to schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the lower 48 states.

During the half-years that the legislature was not in session, Gravel resumed his real estate work. With Gottstein and Carr's backing, he became quite successful as a property developer on the Kenai Peninsula.

During 1965 and 1966, he served as the Speaker of the House, surprising observers by winning that post. Gravel convinced former Speaker Warren A. Taylor to not try for the position against him by promising Taylor chairmanship of the Rules Committee, then reneged on the promise. Gravel denied later press charges that he had promised but not delivered on other committee chairmanships. As Speaker he antagonized fellow lawmakers by imposing his will on the legislature's committees and feuded with Alaska State Senate president Robert J. McNealy.

Gravel did not run for reelection in 1966, instead choosing to run for Alaska's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, losing the primary to four-term incumbent Democrat Ralph Rivers by 1,300 votes and splitting the Democratic Party in the process. Rivers lost the general election that year to Republican state Senator Howard Pollock. Following this defeat, Gravel returned to the real estate business in Anchorage.

U.S. Senator

Election to Senate in 1968

In 1968, Gravel ran against 81-year-old incumbent Democratic United States Senator Ernest Gruening, a popular former governor of the Alaska Territory who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood, for his party's nomination to the U.S. Senate. Gravel's campaign was primarily based on his youth and telegenic appearance rather than issue differences. He hired Joseph Napolitan, the first self-described political consultant, in late 1966. They spent over a year and a half planning a short, nine-day primary election campaign that featured the slogans "Alaska first" and "Let's do something about the state we're in", the distribution of a collection of essays titled Jobs and More Jobs, and the creation of a half-hour, well-produced, glamorized biographical film of Gravel, A Man for Alaska. The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska, and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds of Alaska Native villages. The heavy showings quickly reversed a 2–to–1 Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead. Gravel visited many remote villages by seaplane and showed a thorough understanding of the needs of the bush country and the fishing and oil industries.

Gravel also benefited from maintaining a deliberately ambiguous posture about Vietnam policy. Gruening had been one of only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and his opposition to President Lyndon B. Johnson's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate; according to Gravel, "all I had to do was stand up and not deal with the subject, and people would assume that I was to the right of Ernest Gruening, when in point of fact I was to the left of him". In A Man for Alaska, Gravel argued that "the liberals" would come to West Germany's defense if it was attacked, and that they "should apply the same rule to Asians". During the campaign he also claimed that he was "more in the mainstream of American thought on Vietnam" than Gruening, despite the fact that he had written to Gruening to praise his antiwar stance four years earlier. Decades later, Gravel conceded that "I said what I said [about Vietnam] to advance my career."

Gravel beat Gruening in the primary by about 2,000 votes. Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers. In the general election, Gravel faced Republican Elmer E. Rasmuson, a banker and former mayor of Anchorage. College students in the state implored Gruening to run a write-in campaign as an Independent, but legal battles prevented him from getting approval for it until only two weeks were left. A late appearance by anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy did not offset Gruening's lack of funds and endorsements; meanwhile, Gravel and Rasmuson both saturated local media with their filmed biographies. On November 5, 1968, Gravel won the general election with 45 percent of the vote to Rasmuson's 37 percent and Gruening's 18 percent.

Senate assignments and style

When Gravel joined the U.S. Senate in January 1969, he requested and received a seat on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, which had direct relevance to Alaskan issues. He also got a spot on the Public Works Committee, which he held throughout his time in the Senate. Finally, he was a member of the Select Committee on Small Business. In 1971, he became chair of the Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, and by 1973 he was chair of its Subcommittee on Water Resources, then later its Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution. Gravel was also initially named to the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations. By 1973, Gravel was off the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and the Select Small Business Committee and instead a member of the Finance Committee, and by 1977, he was chair of that body's Subcommittee on Energy and Foundations. By 1973 he had also been on the ad hoc Special Committee to Study Secret and Confidential Government Documents.

By his own admission, Gravel was too new and "too abrasive" to be effective in the Senate by the usual means of seniority-based committee assignments or negotiating deals with other senators, and was sometimes seen as arrogant or a nuisance by the more senior and tradition-oriented members. Gravel relied on attention-getting gestures to achieve what he wanted, hoping national exposure would force other senators to listen to him. But even senators who agreed with him on issues considered his methods to be showboating.

As part of this approach, Gravel voted with Southern Democrats to keep the Senate filibuster rule in place, and accordingly supported Russell Long and Robert Byrd but opposed Ted Kennedy in Senate leadership battles. In retrospective assessment, University of Alaska Anchorage history professor Stephen Haycox said, "Loose cannon is a good description of Gravel's Senate career. He was an off-the-wall guy, and you weren't really ever sure what he would do."

Nuclear issues and the Cold War

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defense was in the process of performing tests for the nuclear warhead for the Spartan anti-ballistic missile. Two tests, the "Milrow" and "Cannikin" tests, were planned, involving the detonation of nuclear bombs under Amchitka Island in Alaska. The Milrow test would be a one-megaton calibration exercise for the second and larger five-megaton Cannikin test, which would measure the effectiveness of the warhead. Gravel opposed the tests. Before the Milrow test took place in October 1969, he wrote that there were significant risks of earthquakes and other adverse consequences and called for an independent national commission on nuclear and seismic safety; he then made a personal appeal to President Richard Nixon to stop the test.

After Milrow was conducted, there was continued pressure on the part of environmental groups against going forward with the Cannikin test, while the Federation of American Scientists claimed that the warhead being tested was already obsolete. In May 1971, Gravel sent a letter to U.S. Atomic Energy Commission hearings held in Anchorage in which he said the risk of the test was not worth taking. Eventually a group not involving Gravel took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an injunction against it, and the Cannikin test took place as scheduled in November 1971. Gravel had failed to stop the tests (notwithstanding his later claims during his 2008 presidential campaign).

In 1971, Gravel voted against the Nixon administration's proposed anti-ballistic missile system, the Safeguard Program, having previously vacillated over the issue, suggesting that he might be willing to support it in exchange for federal lands in Alaska being opened up for private oil drilling. His vote alienated Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, who had raised funds for Gravel's primary campaign.

Nuclear power was considered an environmentally clean alternative for commercial generation of electricity and was part of a popular national policy for the peaceful use of atomic energy in the 1950s and 1960s. Gravel publicly opposed this policy; besides the dangers of nuclear testing, he was a vocal critic of the Atomic Energy Commission, which oversaw American nuclear efforts, and of the powerful United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which had a stranglehold on nuclear policy and which Gravel tried to circumvent. In 1971, Gravel sponsored a bill to impose a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction and to make power utilities liable for any nuclear accidents; in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums. By 1974, Gravel was allied with Ralph Nader's organization in opposing nuclear power.

Six months before U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's July 1971 secret mission to the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Gravel introduced legislation to recognize and normalize relations with the P.R.C., including a proposal for unity talks between the P.R.C. and the Republic of China (Taiwan) regarding the Chinese seat on the U.N. Security Council. He reiterated his position in favor of recognition, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971.

Vietnam War, the draft, and the Pentagon Papers

Although he did not campaign against the Vietnam War during his first Senate campaign, by the end of 1970, Gravel was speaking out against United States policy in southeast Asia: in December of that year he persuaded William Fulbright to join him in a spontaneous two-day filibuster against a $155 million military aid package to Cambodia's Khmer Republic government in the Cambodian Civil War.

President Richard Nixon had campaigned in 1968 on a promise to end the U.S. military draft, a decision endorsed by the February 1970 report of the Gates Commission. The existing draft law was scheduled to conclude at the end of June 1971, and the Senate faced a contentious debate about whether to extend it as the Vietnam War continued. The Nixon administration announced in February 1971 that it wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, after which the draft would end; Army planners had already been operating under the assumption of a two-year extension, after which an all-volunteer force would be in place. Skeptics such as Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Stennis thought this unrealistic and wanted a four-year extension, but the two-year proposal is what went forward in Congress. By early May 1971, Gravel had indicated his intention to filibuster the draft renewal legislation, halting conscription and thereby bringing U.S. involvement in the war to a rapid end. During this period he also supported efforts to mobilize and influence public opinion against the war, endorsing the "Vietnam War Out Now" rallies in Washington D.C. and San Francisco on April 24, 1971, and financing a broadcast campaign by the antiwar group War No More with a personal loan. In June 1972, he escorted a group of over 100 antiwar protesters, including psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, actress Candice Bergen, theater producer and director Joseph Papp, and pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, into the United States Capitol Building; the group was arrested after blocking a hallway outside the Senate chamber.

By June 1971, some Democratic senators opposed to the war wanted to limit the renewal to a one-year extension, while others wanted to end it immediately; Gravel reiterated that he was one of the latter, saying, "It's a senseless war, and one way to do away with it is to do away with the draft." A Senate vote on June 4 indicated majority support for the two-year extension. On June 18 Gravel announced again his intention to counteract that by filibustering the renewal legislation, defending the practice against those who associated it only with blocking civil rights legislation. The first filibuster attempt failed on June 23 when, by three votes, the Senate voted cloture for only the fifth time since 1927.

Protracted negotiations took place over House conference negotiations on the bill, revolving in large part around Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield's eventually unsuccessful amendment to tie renewal to a troop withdrawal timetable from Vietnam; during this time the draft law expired and no more were conscripted. On August 5, the Nixon administration pleaded for a renewal before the Senate went on recess, but Gravel blocked Stennis's attempt to limit debate, and no vote was held. Finally on September 21, 1971, the Senate invoked cloture over Gravel's second filibuster attempt by one vote, and then passed the two-year draft extension. Gravel's attempts to stop the draft had failed (notwithstanding Gravel's later claims that he had stopped or shortened the draft, taken at face value in some media reports, during his 2008 presidential campaign).

Meanwhile, on June 13, 1971, The New York Times began printing large portions of the Pentagon Papers. The papers were a large collection of secret government documents and studies pertaining to the Vietnam War, of which former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg had made unauthorized copies and was determined to make public. Ellsberg had for a year and a half approached members of Congress – such as William Fulbright, George McGovern, Charles Mathias, and Pete McCloskey – about publishing the documents, on the grounds that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution would give congressional members immunity from prosecution, but all had refused. Instead, Ellsberg allowed Times reporter Neil Sheehan to take notes of the Papers, but Sheehan disobeyed, copying them and taking the copies by plane to Washington, then New York, for organization and publication.

The U.S. Justice Department immediately tried to halt publication, on the grounds that the information revealed within the papers harmed the national interest. Within the next two weeks, a federal court injunction halted publication in the Times; The Washington Post and several other newspapers began publishing parts of the documents, with some of them also being halted by injunctions; and the whole matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court for arguments. Looking for an alternate publication mechanism, Ellsberg returned to his idea of having a member of Congress read them, and chose Gravel based on the latter's efforts against the draft; Gravel agreed where previously others had not. Ellsberg arranged for the papers to be given to Gravel on June 26 via an intermediary, Post editor Ben Bagdikian. Gravel used his counter-intelligence experience to choose a midnight transfer in front of the Mayflower Hotel in the center of Washington, D.C.

Over the next several days, Gravel (who was dyslexic) was assisted by his congressional office staff in reading and analyzing the report. Worried his home might be raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gravel smuggled the report (which filled two large suitcases) into his congressional office, which was then guarded by disabled Vietnam veterans.

On the night of June 29, 1971, Gravel attempted to read the papers on the floor of the Senate as part of his filibuster against the draft, but was thwarted when no quorum could be formed. Gravel instead convened a session of the Buildings and Grounds subcommittee that he chaired. He got New York Congressman John G. Dow to testify that the war had soaked up funding for public buildings, thus making discussion of the war relevant to the committee. He began reading from the papers with the press in attendance, omitting supporting documents that he felt might compromise national security, and declaring, "It is my constitutional obligation to protect the security of the people by fostering the free flow of information absolutely essential to their democratic decision-making."

He read until 1 a.m., culminating by saying "Arms are being severed. Metal is clashing through human bodies because of the public policy this government and all its branches continue to support." Then with tears and sobs he said that he could no longer physically continue, the previous three nights of sleeplessness and fear about the future having taken their toll. Gravel ended the session by, with no other senators present, establishing unanimous consent to insert 4,100 pages of the Papers into the Congressional Record of his subcommittee. The following day, the Supreme Court's New York Times Co. v. United States decision ruled in favor of the newspapers and publication in the Times and others resumed. In July 1971, Bantam Books published an inexpensive paperback edition of the papers containing the material the Times had published.

Gravel, too, wanted to privately publish the portion of the papers he had read into the record, believing that "immediate disclosure of the contents of these papers will change the policy that supports the war". After being turned down by many commercial publishers, on August 4, he reached agreement with Beacon Press, the publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association, of which Gravel was a member. Announced on August 17 and published on October 22, 1971, this four-volume, relatively expensive set became the "Senator Gravel Edition", which studies from Cornell University and the Annenberg Center for Communication have labeled as the most complete edition of the Pentagon Papers to be published. The "Gravel Edition" was edited and annotated by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and included an additional volume of analytical articles on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn. Beacon Press then was subjected to an FBI investigation; an outgrowth of this was the Gravel v. United States court case, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled upon in June 1972; in a 5-to-4 decision it held that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution did grant immunity to Gravel for his reading the papers in his subcommittee; did grant some immunity to Gravel's congressional aide, but compelled the aide to testify before a grand jury about matters not directly related to the legislative process; and granted no immunity to Beacon Press in relation to their publishing the same papers.

The events of 1971 changed Gravel in the following months from an obscure freshman senator to a nationally visible political figure. He became a sought-after speaker on the college circuit as well as at political fundraisers, opportunities he welcomed as lectures were "the one honest way a Senator has to supplement his income". The Democratic candidates for the 1972 presidential election sought his endorsement. In January 1972, Gravel endorsed Maine Senator Ed Muskie, hoping that his support would help Muskie with the party's left wing and in ethnic French-Canadian areas during the first primary contest in New Hampshire (Muskie won, but not overwhelmingly, and his campaign faltered soon after). In April 1972, Gravel appeared on all three networks' nightly newscasts to decry the Nixon administration's reliance on Vietnamization by making reference to the secret National Security Study Memorandum 1 document, which stated it would take 8–13 years for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam to defend South Vietnam. Gravel made excerpts from the study public, but senators Robert P. Griffin and William B. Saxbe blocked his attempt to read NSSM 1 into the Congressional Record.

Domestic policy

In 1970, Gravel co-sponsored legislation to establish a guaranteed minimum income, entitling poor families to up to $6,300 a year (the equivalent of $42,000 in 2019 after adjustment for inflation). He subsequently voted for a "work bonus" program, which would have entitled low-income working families with dependent children if they were paying Social Security or Railroad Retirement taxes to a non-taxable bonus of up to 10 percent of their wages.

In 1969, Gravel was the only Democratic Senator outside of the South to vote for Nixon's Supreme Court nominee Clement Haynsworth. The following year, Gravel opposed Nixon's next pick, G. Harrold Carswell.

Run for vice president in 1972

Gravel actively campaigned for the office of Vice President of the United States during the 1972 presidential election, announcing on June 2, 1972, over a month before the 1972 Democratic National Convention began, that he was interested in the nomination should the choice be opened up to convention delegates. Toward this end he began soliciting delegates for their support. He was not alone in this effort, as former Governor of Massachusetts Endicott Peabody had been running a quixotic campaign for the same post since the prior year. Likely presidential nominee George McGovern was in fact already considering the unusual move of naming three or four acceptable vice-presidential candidates and letting the delegates choose.

On the convention's final day, July 14, 1972, McGovern selected and announced Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his vice-presidential choice. Eagleton was unknown to many delegates and the choice seemed to smack of traditional ticket balancing considerations. Thus there were delegates willing to look elsewhere. Gravel was nominated by Bettye Fahrenkamp, the Democratic National Committeewoman from Alaska. He then seconded his own nomination, breaking down in tears at his own words and maybe trying to withdraw his nomination. In any case he won 226 delegate votes, coming in third behind Eagleton and Frances "Sissy" Farenthold of Texas, in chaotic balloting that included several other candidates.

Gravel attracted some attention for his efforts: writer Norman Mailer said he "provided considerable excitement" and was "good-looking enough to have played leads in B-films", while Rolling Stone correspondent Hunter S. Thompson said Gravel "probably said a few things that might have been worth hearing, under different circumstances". Yet the process was doubly disastrous for the Democrats. In the time consumed by nominating and seconding and all the vice-presidential candidates' speeches, the attention of the delegates on the floor was lost and McGovern's speech was pushed to 3:30 a.m. The haste with which Eagleton was selected led to surprise when his past mental health treatments were revealed; he withdrew from the ticket soon after the convention, to be replaced by Sargent Shriver.

Reelection to Senate in 1974

Several years earlier, Alaska politicians had speculated that Gravel would have a hard time getting both renominated and elected when his first term expired, given that he was originally elected without a base party organization and tended to focus on national rather than local issues.

Nonetheless, Gravel was reelected to the Senate in 1974, with 58 percent of the vote. His Republican opponent, State Senator C. R. Lewis, was a national officer of the John Birch Society, and earned 42 percent of the vote.

Second term

In 1975, Gravel introduced an amendment to cut the number of troops overseas by 200,000, but it was defeated on a voice vote.

In September 1975, Gravel was named as one of several Congressional Advisers to the Seventh Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which met to discuss problems related to economic development and international economic cooperation.

In June 1976, Gravel was the focus of a federal investigation into allegations that he was involved in a sex-for-vote arrangement. Congressional staff clerk Elizabeth Ray (who had already been involved in a sex scandal that led to the downfall of Representative Wayne Hays) said that in August 1972 she had sex with Gravel aboard a houseboat on the Potomac River, under the instruction of Representative Kenneth J. Gray, her boss at the time. Gray allegedly wanted to secure Gravel's support for further funding for construction of the National Visitor Center in Washington, a troubled project that was under the jurisdiction of subcommittees that both members chaired. Another Congressional staffer said she witnessed the boat encounter, but Gravel said at the time that he had never met either of the women. Gravel and Gray strongly denied that they had made any arrangement regarding legislation, and neither was ever charged with any wrongdoing. Decades later, Gravel wrote that he had indeed had sex with Ray, but had not changed any votes because of it.

Gravel and his main financial backer, Gottstein, had a falling out in 1978, during the Congressional debate over whether to allow a controversial sale of U.S. F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia. An ardent backer of Israel, Gottstein opposed the sale and asked Gravel to vote against it. But Gravel not only voted for it but made an emotional speech attacking the anti-sale campaign. Gravel wrote in 2008 that it was the only time Gottstein had ever asked him for a favor, and the rupture resulted in their never speaking to each other again.

Alaskan issues

Gravel (second from left) watches President Richard Nixon sign the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act in 1973

By 1971, Gravel was urging construction of the much-argued Trans-Alaska pipeline, addressing environmental concerns by saying that the pipeline's builders and operators should have "total and absolute" responsibility for any consequent environmental damage. Two years later, the debate over the pipeline came to a crux, with The New York Times describing it as "environmentalists [in] a holy war with the major oil companies". In February 1973, the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the issuance of permits for construction; Gravel and fellow Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens reacted by urging Congress to pass legislation overturning the court's decision. Environmentalists opposed to the pipeline, such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club then sought to use the recently passed National Environmental Policy Act to their advantage; Gravel designed an amendment to the pipeline bill that would immunize the pipeline from any further court challenges under that law, and thus speed its construction. Passage of the amendment became the key battle regarding the pipeline. On July 17, 1973, in what the New York Times termed a "nip-and-tuck roll-call", the Gravel amendment was approved, as a 49–49 tie was broken in favor by Vice President Spiro Agnew. The actual bill enabling the pipeline then passed easily; Gravel had triumphed in what became perhaps his most lasting accomplishment as a senator.

Senator Gravel in 1973

In opposition to the Alaskan fishing industry, Gravel advocated American participation in the formation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. For two years he opposed legislation that established a 200-mile (320 km) Exclusive Economic Zone for marine resources. He was one of only 19 senators to vote against Senate approval for the expanded zone in 1976, saying it would undermine the U.S. position in Law of the Sea negotiations and that nations arbitrarily extending their fishing rights limits would "produce anarchy of the seas". The legislation was passed, and the United States has signed but never ratified the Law of the Sea treaty.

Gravel accumulated a complicated record on Indian affairs during his time in the Senate. During his first year in the Senate Gravel urged abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, criticizing the agency for the pace of development of schools in Alaska, its paternalistic attitudes and the culturally inappropriate nature of its education, and advocating greater shared decision-making between the federal government and native communities in Alaska. Later, his views changed; in the early 1970s Gravel supported a demonstration project that established links between Alaskan villages and the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for medical diagnostic communications. Gravel helped secure a private grant to facilitate the first Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1977, attended by Inuit representatives from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. These conferences now also include representatives from Russia. In 1977, Gravel helped lead an effort to have the U.S. Interior Department rename Mount McKinley to Denali; this eventually led to Denali National Park being so named. Subsequently, Gravel proposed a never-built "Denali City" development above the Tokositna River near the mountain, to consist of a giant Teflon dome enclosing hotels, golf courses, condominiums, and commercial buildings. A related idea of his to build a high-speed rail line to Denali also failed to gain traction.

A key, emotional issue in the state at the time was "locking up Alaska", making reference to allocation of its vast, mostly uninhabited land. President Jimmy Carter desired to put large portions of this land under federal protection against development, a move that some Alaskans vociferously opposed. In 1978 Gravel blocked passage, via procedural delays such as walking out of House–Senate conference committee meetings, of a complex bill which represented a compromise on land use policy. The bill would have put some of Alaska's vast federal land holdings under state control while preserving other portions for federal parks and refuges; the blocking action earned Gravel the enmity of fellow Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who had supported the compromise. In 1980, a new lands bill came up for consideration, that was less favorable to Alaskan interests and more liked by environmentalists; it set aside 127,000,000 acres (510,000 km²) of Alaska's 375,000,000 acres (1,520,000 km²) for national parks, conservation areas, and other restricted federal uses. Gravel blocked it, as not ensuring enough future development in the state. A new compromise version of the 1980 bill came forward, which reduced the land set aside to 104,000,000 acres (420,000 km²). Representing Alaskan interests, Gravel tried to stop the bill, including by filibuster. But the Senate voted for cloture and passed the bill. Frustrated, Gravel said, "the legislation denies Alaska its rights as a state, and denies the U.S. crucial strategic resources," and opined that the Senate was "a little bit like a tank of barracudas". Nonetheless, the bill, known as the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, was signed by President Carter shortly before leaving the White House, and led to millions of acres being set aside in the state for national parks, wildlife refuges, and other kinds of areas under protection.

In 1978 Gravel authored and secured the passage into federal law of the General Stock Ownership Corporation, that became Subchapter U of the Tax Code under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. This gave states the ability to create corporations that would invest in for-profit enterprises, with all citizens within the state owning shares in the corporation. Gravel's attempt to convince the Alaska state legislature to create such a corporation failed, as did a 1980 state ballot initiative towards the same end, but nevertheless the creation of the General Stock Ownership Corporation in federal law turned out to be significant in the development of binary economics.

Loss of Senate seat in 1980

Main article: 1980 United States Senate election in Alaska

Gravel in 1980

In 1980, Gravel was challenged for the Democratic Party's nomination by State Representative Clark Gruening, the grandson of the man Gravel had defeated in a primary 12 years earlier. One of Gruening's supporters was Gravel's former backer Gottstein. Several factors made Gravel vulnerable. As an insurgent candidate in 1968, Gravel had never established a firm party base. Not liking to hunt or fish, he was also always culturally suspect in the state.

The primary campaign was bitterly fought. A group of Democrats, including future governor Steve Cowper, led the campaign against Gravel, with Gravel's actions in respect to the 1978 and 1980 Alaskan lands bills a major issue. This was especially so given that the 1980 bill's dénouement happened but a week before the primary. The sources of Gravel's campaign funds, some of which Gravel readily acknowledged came from political action committees outside the state, also became an issue in the contest. Gruening had pledged that he would not take special interest group money, but Gravel said that Gruening was "dishonest" in accepting individual contributors from Jewish donors living outside the state because to him such contributors comprised "a special interest group ... that seeks to influence the foreign policy of the U.S."

Gruening decisively won the primary with about 55 percent of the vote to Gravel's 44 percent. Gravel later conceded that by the time of his defeat, he had alienated "almost every constituency in Alaska". Another factor may have been Alaska's blanket primary system of the time, which allowed unlimited voting across party lines and from its many independents; Republicans believed Gruening would be an easier candidate to defeat in the general election.

Gruening lost the general election to Republican banker Frank Murkowski. Gravel was the last Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress for 28 years.

Career after leaving the Senate

Of his 1980 defeat, Gravel later recalled: "I had lost my career. I lost my marriage. I was in the doldrums for ten years after my defeat," and "Nobody wanted to hire me for anything important. I felt like I was worthless. I didn't know what I could do." By his own later description, Gravel was a womanizer, and had an affair while in the Senate, and he and his wife Rita separated in December 1980. They filed for divorce in September 1981; she later received all of his Senate pension income.

During the 1980s, Gravel was a real estate developer in Anchorage and Kenai, Alaska, a consultant, and a stockbroker. One of his real estate ventures, a condominium business, was forced to declare bankruptcy and a lawsuit ensued. In 1986, Gravel worked in partnership with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets to buy losses that financially troubled Alaska Native Corporations could not take as tax deductions and sell them to large national companies looking for tax write-offs. Gravel also learned computer programming at some point but never practiced it.

In 1984, Gravel married his second wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, who had been an administrative assistant for U.S. Senator from New York Jacob Javits.

Return to politics

Mike and Whitney Gravel with their dog Ginger

In 1989, Gravel reentered politics. He founded and led The Democracy Foundation, which promotes direct democracy. He established the Philadelphia II corporation, which seeks to replicate the original 1787 Constitutional Convention and have a Second Constitutional Convention to bring about direct democracy Gravel led an effort to get a United States Constitutional amendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives. He argued that Americans are able to legislate responsibly, and that the Act and Amendment in the National Initiative would allow American citizens to become "law makers". However such efforts met with little success.

In 2001, Gravel became director of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, where he admired institute co-founder Gregory Fossedal's work on direct democracy in Switzerland. By 2004, Gravel had become chair of the institute, and Fossedal (who in turn was a director of the Democracy Foundation) gave the introduction at Gravel's presidential announcement.

In 2003, Gravel gave a speech on direct democracy at a conference hosted by the American Free Press. The event was cosponsored by The Barnes Review, a journal that endorses Holocaust denial. After some controversy over his appearance, Gravel apologized, saying he did not realize the group's ties. Gravel said repeatedly that he did not share the group's views on the Holocaust, stating, "You better believe I know that six million Jews were killed. [The Barnes Review publishers] are nutty as loons if they don't think it happened". The group invited Gravel to speak again, but he declined.

Mike and Whitney Gravel lived in Arlington County, Virginia, until 2010, and then resided in Burlingame, California. They have the two grown children from his first marriage, Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier, and four grandchildren. Whitney Gravel's income sustained the couple from 1998 on. In the 2000s, Gravel had poor health, requiring three surgeries in 2003 for back pain and neuropathy. Due to unreimbursed medical expenses and debts from his political causes, he declared personal bankruptcy in 2004. He began taking a salary from the non-profit organizations for which he was working; much of that income was lent to his presidential campaign. In 2007, he declared that he had "zero net worth".

2008 presidential campaign

Main article: Mike Gravel 2008 presidential campaign

Democratic Party primaries

Mike Gravel at the launch of his presidential campaign in April 2006

At the start of 2006, Gravel decided the best way he could promote direct democracy and the National Initiative was to run for president. On April 17, 2006, Gravel became the first candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, announcing his run in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Short on campaign cash, he took public transportation to get to his announcement. (Gravel called for public financing of elections.) Other principal Gravel positions were the FairTax, as well as withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days and a single payer national health care system.

Gravel had opposed the Iraq War, and President George W. Bush's rationale for it, from the beginning, and in 2006 said that U.S. troops in Iraq, as in Vietnam, had "died in vain". He also favored a regional peace initiative, as well as reparation payments for Iraqis. Gravel also called for a "U.S. corporate withdrawal from Iraq", with reconstruction contracts held by U.S. companies to be turned over to Iraqi firms.

Gravel campaigned almost full-time in New Hampshire, the first primary state, following his announcement. Opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination showed Gravel with 1 percent or less support. By the end of March 2007, Gravel's campaign had less than $500 in cash on hand against debts of nearly $90,000.

Gravel (far left) at an August 2007 candidates' forum; frontrunners Edwards, Clinton, and Obama are to the immediate right of the moderator

Because of his time in the Senate, Gravel was invited to many of the early Democratic presidential debates. During the initial one at South Carolina State University on April 26, 2007, he suggested a bill requiring the president to withdraw from Iraq on pain of criminal penalties. He also advocated positions such as opposing preemptive nuclear war. He stated that the Iraq War had the effect of creating more terrorists and that the "war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis". Regarding his fellow candidates, he said, "I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me – they frighten me." In one such exchange, Gravel said, "Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?" to which Obama responded, "I'm not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike, I promise."

Media stories said that Gravel was responsible for much of whatever "heat" and "flashpoints" had taken place during the Democratic debates. Gravel gained considerable publicity by shaking up the normally staid multiple-candidate format; The New York Times' media critic said that what Gravel had done was "steal a debate with outrageous, curmudgeonly statements". The Internet was a benefit: a YouTube video of his responses in the debate was viewed more than 225,892 times, ranking seventeenth in most views for week and first among news and politics clips; his name became the fifteenth most searched-for in the blogosphere; and his website garnered more traffic than those of frontrunners Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards. Gravel appeared on the popular Colbert Report on television on May 2, and his campaign and career were profiled in national publications such as Salon. Two wordless, Warholesque campaign videos, "Rock" and "Fire", were released on YouTube in late May and became hits, and eventually gained over 760,000 and 185,000 views respectively. "Rock", in turn, was given airtime during an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Some thirty-five years after he first achieved the national spotlight, he had found it again.

Усилия по сбору средств Гравии в течение первых трех кварталов 2007 года

All this did not improve his performance in the polls; a May 2007 CNN poll showed him with less than 0.5 percent support among Democrats. Gravel was in the next several debates, in one case after CNN reversed a decision to exclude him. Like some of the other second-tier candidates, Gravel did not get as much time as the leaders; during the June 2, 2007, New Hampshire debate, which lasted two hours, he was asked 10 questions and allowed to speak for five minutes and 37 seconds.

23 июля 2007 года В течение президентских дебатов CNN-Youtube Гравел ответил на аплодисменты аудитории, когда он жаловался на отсутствие эфирного времени и сказал: «Спасибо. До сих пор это было справедливо?» Хулители начали сравнивать его с «капризным дядей, который живет на чердаке». Или «злой старик, который, казалось, просто хотел стать здравомыслящим». Политолог Беркли Дэвид Терс обнаружил, что модератор Джордж Стефанопулос направил примерно пять процентов своих вопросов на гравий; В опросе, спрашивающем, кто сделал все возможное в дебатах, Гэвел занял седьмое место среди восьми кандидатов. Национальные опросы соперников по выдвижению демократов продолжали показывать гравий с одним процентом или нулевым процентом. К концу третьего квартала 2007 года у Грэвела было около 17 500 долларов наличными, собравшись в общей сложности около 380 000 долл. США во время избирательного цикла 2008 года, и продолжал провести кампанию с закусочной с минимальным персоналом.

Гравий в Манчестере, штат Нью -Гемпшир , 6 января 2008 года, за два дня до начальных первичных выступлений штата

Начиная с 30 октября 2007 года, филадельфийского мероприятия, гравий был исключен из большинства дебатов, когда спонсоры дебатов или Национальный комитет Демократической партии заявили, что кампания Гравии не проводила сбор средств, опросы или местные организационные пороговые значения. За исключение Филадельфии гравия обвинила корпоративную цензуру со стороны владельца спонсора и предполагаемого военно-промышленного комплекса члена General Electric для его исключения и установил контр-сборы и дебаты против видеоэкрана на небольшом расстоянии, Но он потерял самую простую рекламу. В ответ сторонники организовали « дни массовых пожертвований », чтобы попытаться помочь кампании набрать импульс и средства, например, 5 декабря 2007 года, годовщина отмены запрета .

Гравий не конкурировал в начальном голосовании 2008 года, на собраниях Айовы , но все еще подвергался ложному отчету от MSNBC , что он вытащил из гонки после этого. Гравий сосредоточил свое внимание на втором голосовании 2008 года, в Нью -Гемпшире . В начале января Мать Джонс» репортер « Джеймс Риджуэй снимал интервью и последовала за гравием в Нью -Гемпшире, в котором гравия проходит интервью по телефону Нил Конан для NPR's Talk of the Nation . Он получил около 400 голосов из примерно 280 000 актерских изделий в Нью -Гемпшире, или 0,14 процента, Прежде чем взять отпуск, чтобы улучшить его здоровье. Он возобновил кампанию, но не стал лучшим в последующих штатах. К концу января 2008 года Хиллари Клинтон, Барак Обама и Гравел были единственными оставшимися демократами из первоначальных дебатов, которые все еще работают; Гравел пообещал остаться в президентской кампании до ноября. 11 марта 2008 года гравия продолжала оставаться в демократической гонке, но дополнительно одобрил кандидата от партии зеленых на пост президента Джесси Джонсон , Сказав, что он хочет помочь Джонсону победить против соперников Партии зеленых Синтии МакКинни и Ральфа Надера . К концу марта Гравел почти не имел сбора средств и был только в голосовании в одном из следующих десяти демократических первичных веков.

Переключиться на либертарианскую партию

Гравий (второй слева) участвует в дебатах кандидатов на Национальном конгрессе Либертарианской партии 2008 года (от него остался возможный победитель Барр)

25 марта 2008 года Гравей объявил, что покинет демократов и присоединится к либертарианской партии , Сказать: «Мои либертарианские взгляды, а также моя сильная позиция против войны, военный промышленный комплекс и американский империализм, кажется, не терпит элиты Демократической партии, которые не связаны со средними американцами; элиты, которые отвергают расширение прав и возможностей американца Граждане, которых я предложил Демократической партии в начале этой президентской кампании с национальной инициативой по демократии ». На следующий день гравий вошел в гонку за выдвижение в президенты 2008 года , Сказав, что он будет работать в качестве стороннего кандидата на все время, за исключением того, что он нуждался в общественном разобщении, которое произошло в предыдущих демократических дебатах. Первоначальное представление Гравея о беге в качестве кандидата от фьюжн с другими сторонами было встречено с скептицизмом.

Как либертарианский кандидат, гравий столкнулся с сопротивлением его прошлой поддержке крупных правительственных инициатив и его неортодоксальных позициях вокруг прямой демократии. Тем не менее, он получил больше поддержки, чем он был в качестве демократа, заняв второе и третье место в двух апреля 2008 года . В ходе голосования 25 мая на Либертарианском национальном конгрессе в Денвере 2008 года Гравел финишировал четвертым из восьми кандидатов на первоначальном голосовании, с 71 голосом из общего числа 618; Он тянул бывшего конгрессмена и возможного победителя Боба Барра , автора Мэри Руварт и бизнесмена Уэйн Аллин Рут . Позиция гравия впоследствии не улучшилась, и он был исключен в четвертом голосовании. После этого он заявил: «Я только что закончил свою политическую карьеру», но он пообещал продолжать продвигать свои позиции в качестве писателя и лектора.

2008 -Early 2019

Гравий, говорящий о национальной инициативе в Университете штата Болл в феврале 2010 года

В июне 2008 года гравия одобрила инициативу из голосования 9/11 в Нью -Йорке, заявив, что эта мера создаст «гражданскую комиссию, а не государственную комиссию» с властью в суд против высших должностных лиц США, чтобы «провести истинное расследование относительно того, что произошло» относительно сентября 11 атак . Позже он сказал: «Люди, находящиеся в правительстве и за его пределами, наверняка, наверняка участвовали в явно известных преступниках этого подлого. На терроре следует тщательно расследовать, что не было сделано и которое правительство избегает решения ».

В августе 2008 года Гравел говорил с толпой сторонников Сами аль-Ариан (который два года назад признал себя виновным и был приговорен к тюремному заключению за обвинение в сговоре с помощью палестинского исламского джихада , « специально обозначенной террористов ») Когда его поймали на пленку, в котором говорилось о прокуроре аль-Ариан: «Узнай, где он живет, узнай, где его дети ходят в школу, узнай, где находится его офис: пикети Смотрите его. Гравий был подвергнут критике за то, что потенциально участвовала детей прокурора, а семья Аль-Ариан дезавуировала чувства.

Грайв защищал губернатора Аляски Сары Пэйлин после того, как она была выбрана в качестве кандидата в президенты от республиканцев в сентябре 2008 года. предсказал, что расследование « войска » о том, неправильно ли она уволила государственного чиновника, «выйдет в ее пользу». Гравий ясно дал понять, что он не будет поддерживать или голосовать за Маккейн -Палин или Обаму -Бил на всеобщих выборах. В следующем году Гравел сказал, что политика Пэйлина была «ужасной, но это не отвлекает от того факта, что она очень талантливый человек». Он предсказал, что Пэйлин будет баллотироваться на пост президента в 2012 году и что «она удивит многих людей». Пэйлин не бежал, но прогноз Гравела о «военнослужащем» был точным, так как Пэйлин не нарушил законы об этике.

В 2013 году, по приглашению Хамеда Гашгави, секретаря по международным делам 3 -й Международной конференции по голливудству в Тегеране , Иран , Гравел принял участие в этом мероприятии в качестве иранского правительства - Организованную анти -голливудскую конференцию. Гравел отметил, что на конференции приняли участие «различные элементы крайностей», но сказали, что необходимо обсудить, как американская киноиндустрия изображала Иран, чтобы предотвратить «безумную войну» между двумя странами.

В мае 2013 года Гэвел был одним из нескольких бывших членов Конгресса, который принял 20 000 долларов США от исследовательской группы Paradigm, адвокационной группы для раскрытия НЛО , в рамках того, что они называли гражданским слушанием по раскрытию, по образцу слушаний в Конгрессе, касающиеся предполагаемых нас Правительственное подавление доказательств, касающихся НЛО . Гравий сказал: «Что -то контролирует планету, и они очень осторожно следят за ней, потому что мы очень воинственная планета». И «с чем мы здесь сталкиваемся, так это то, что в областях средств массовой информации и правительстве тоже попытка маргинализировать и высмеивать людей, которые обладают конкретными знаниями».

В декабре 2014 года GRAVE был объявлен новым генеральным директором Kush, компании, которая производит продукты, наполненные марихуаной для лекарственного и развлекательного использования, и дочерняя компания Cannabis Sativa, Inc. Он также стал независимым директором Cannabis Sativa.

Во время президентских праймериз Демократической партии 2016 года Гравел похвалил Берни Сандерса и его кампанию , сказав: «Берни - один из самых одаренных политиков, которых я когда -либо наблюдал. Он человек большой честности и очень умного». Гравел предсказал, что Сандерс будет избран президентом, но не сможет пройти свои ключевые реформы через Конгресс, и, таким образом, Сандерс и его сторонники должны поддержать некоторые предложения национальной инициативы.

В 2016 году Гравейн сказал, что в связи с нападениями 11 сентября : «Мы убили 58 000 американских военнослужащих в войне во Вьетнаме, и все, что они сделали, это было напрасно. Что так необычно в убийстве еще 3000, чтобы развить Grist для мельницы, чтобы расширить возможности в бесконечность военный промышленный комплекс? " И «В моей голове нет сомнений, что 11 сентября была внутренней работой». Замечания были позже дезавуированы даже сторонниками гравия.

К 2019 году гравий жил в Приморском, штат Калифорния . Он работал над книгой, в то время под названием « Человеческое управление» , о своей основной идее прямой демократии, о конституционной поправке в США по созданию «законодательного органа людей», которая обходила бы существующий Конгресс. Книга была опубликована в конце года автором Authorhouse под названием «Неспособность представительного правительства» и решение: законодательный орган народа .

2020 Президентская кампания

Основная статья: Mike Gravel 2020 Президентская кампания

19 марта 2019 года Гравии объявил, что рассматривает возможность бежать на демократических праймериз 2020 года . Он сказал: «Цель состоит не в том, чтобы победить, а в том, чтобы принести критику американского империализма на стадию демократических дебатов». с Был сформирован исследовательский комитет подачей заявления о организации в Федеральную избирательную комиссию в тот же день. Регистрация была идеей группы подростков, возглавляемой Дэвидом Оксом и Генри Уильямсом , вдохновленной подкастом Chapo House , и с согласия Гравела (после недели, потраченного на убедить его в достоинствах идеи), но без его участия. Заинтригован приверженностью группы усилиям его давних политических целей, Гравии (которому исполнится 90 лет, 8 месяцев в день инаугурации в 2021 году) сказал, что планирует встретиться с ними в апреле и обсудить бег Белого дома 2020 года . его жена. 2 апреля 2019 года гравия подала официальную работу на должность. Кампания назвала себя «#gravelanche».

Майк Гравий во время интервью в 2019 году

Первоначальной заявленной целью Гравела было просто квалификация на дебаты, получив необходимые 65 000 небольших доноров. Он отговорил людей от голосования за него и сказал, что его предпочтениями были Берни Сандерс и Тулси Габбард , оба из которых предпочитают неинтересованную внешнюю политику. Но 29 апреля кампания Грэвела заявила, что он баллотируется, чтобы победить, а не только для участия в дебатах. Однако в последующем интервью Гравел подчеркнул добродетель Сандерса и Габбарда в некотором порядке в качестве президентского билета. Подобные заявления заставили Vox называть гравий «Кандидат в президенты от демократов 2020 года». Журнал New York Times включал гравий в качестве примера в роста демократического социализма в Соединенных Штатах, также примером которых является гонка Сандерса 2016 года и выборы представителя Александрии Александрии Окасио-Корез : «Гравея] кампания представляет собой самую абсурдную форму законной Движение слева, которое чувствует мало обязанности перед Демократической партией ».

В июне 2019 года гравия рекламировала одобрение Мунтадера аль-Заиди , иракского журналиста, который в декабре 2008 года сделал заголовки после того, как бросил свои туфли в президента Джорджа Буша в знак протеста против войны в США в Ираке. Аль-Заиди поддержал гравий на основе его обещания улучшить политику Белого дома в отношении Ирака и Ближнего Востока.

13 июня 2019 года Демократическая партия объявила о 20 крупных кандидатах, которые квалифицировались на первые дебаты в конце этого месяца. Гравий был одним из четырех, кто пропустил (остальные были губернатором Монтаны Стив Баллок , представитель США Сет Моултон и Мирамар, Флорида, мэр Уэйн Мессам ). Гравий не смог получить необходимое количество пожертвований или набрать один процент или лучше в достаточном количестве опросов (многие опросы даже не включали его). Тем не менее, Гравел сказал, что он не бросится и попытается претендовать на июльские дебаты. В начале июля, однако, кампания Гравейла заявила, что она все еще остается в 10 000 взносов, за исключением порога на 65 000 доноров, и что она «приближается к своему выводу». Он требовал предложений о том, где пожертвовать от 100 000 до 150 000 долл. США оставшихся фондов кампании. Гравий добавил, что он всегда планировал прекратить кампанию, прежде чем подросткам, отвечающим за нее, необходимо вернуться в школу. Несколько дней спустя кампания стала первой, кто провел атаку против демократического лидера Джо Байдена , используя текст «Это лучшее, что может предложить наша партия?»

Кампания Гравела пересекла порог 65 000 доноров 12 июля 2019 года, встретившись с квалификационной оценкой для дебатов этого месяца. Но поскольку 20 других кандидатов, максимально разрешенный участие, уже соответствовали критерию опроса, который имеет приоритет над критерием донора, Гравий не был приглашен.

Кампания официально подошла к концу 6 августа 2019 года, и гравийный одобрил как Берни Сандерс , так и Тулси Габбард для президента. Кампания Гравела позже заявила в Твиттере, что они никогда не хотели победить, но видели кампанию как «тщательно демократический» проект и выразили честь в работе с гравием. Граув сказал, что он разделит оставшиеся фонды кампании между благотворительностью и новым аналитическим центром, который поддержит его идеи.

Гравезионный институт

Основная статья: Гравийный институт

Гравл использовал некоторые из средств, оставшихся из его президентской кампании 2020 года, чтобы основать одноименный прогрессивный аналитический центр под названием «Гравезионный институт» в 2019 году. Как отметил Vice Magazine, институт стремился сражаться с Прагеру с левой точки зрения. Запущенная в сентябре 2020 года, новая организация заявила, что «продолжит жизнь бывшего сенатора США Майка Гравира в борьбе за глобальный мир и демократию. Его миссия состоит в том, чтобы продвигать смелые и перспективные идеи о более мирном и эгалитарном мире, мир и построить надежное движение молодых людей, чтобы выиграть его ». В число участников института были Корнел Уэст и Славудж Жижек . Институт был в значительной степени сосредоточен на создании видео и веб -сайта. Последний из видео был снят в 2022 году; Сайт был закрыт в 2023 году из -за отсутствия оплаты.

Смерть

Гравел умер от множественной миеломы в своем доме в Приморском, штат Калифорния , 26 июня 2021 года в возрасте 91 года. В результате задержки в захоронениях, вызванных пандемией COVID-19 в Соединенных Штатах , позже гравий был похоронен 20 июня 2023 года на Национальном кладбище Арлингтон , где его кремированные останки были похоронены. В то время как по его просьбе не было дано военное захоронение, он не был предоставлен, поскольку он оставался стойким с его позицией против насилия.

Некролог New York Times для гравия охарактеризовал его как «беззастенчивого привлекательного», который впоследствии стал известен тем, что «монтажные президентские пробежки». Некролог в «Вашингтон -пост» был похож, заявив, что гравий был «демократом Аляски с талантом для театрального, который поднялся от безвестности к краткому известному», а затем «проводил Quixotic для президентства». « Анкоридж Daily News» цитирует гравий, в котором говорится о себе в 1989 году: «Я независимый парень. Грубый и готовый парень. Мои железы работают определенным образом, что заставляет меня встать, иногда глупо и сражаться. "

Политические позиции

Майк Гравел с активистом реформы финансирования кампании и подруга Этель " Бабушка Д " Хэддок

Алан Абрамовиц и Джеффри Аллан Сегал описали гравий как «индивидуального, если не эксцентричного, в Сенате». Его американцы за демократические действия «Либеральный коэффициент» баллы варьировались от 81 из 100 (1971) до 39 из 100 (1980), в среднем около 61. Его американские баллы консервативного союза варьировались от 0 из 100 (несколько лет, включая 1971 и 1972 годы) до 38 из 100 (1979), в среднем 14. Абрамовиц и Сегал отмечают, что самые низкие рейтинги GRAVE совпали с его двумя предложениями о переизбрании в Сенате, и по большей части его самые высокие рейтинги ACU следовали той же схеме.

В 1972 году, будучи молодым сенатором, Гравел опубликовал Citizen Power: народная платформа , манифест, в котором рассказывается о том, что Kirkus называется «популистской реформой [которая] обеспечит« сбалансированную политическую власть »между людьми, правительственными и деловыми интересами».

Вопросы гражданских прав

Что касается политики в области наркотиков, Гравий сказал в 2007 году, что он предпочитал декриминализацию и лечение зависимости как вопрос общественного здравоохранения. Во время своей кандидатуры в президенты в 2008 году он осудил войну с наркотиками как неудачу, заявив, что она «не сделала" ничего, кроме дикаря на наших внутренних городах и подвергал риска наших детей ". Гравел призвал к отмене смертной казни в своей книге «Сила гражданина» и придерживался этой должности во время своего президента в 2008 году. Он поддерживал права на аборт .

Во время кампании 2008 года гравий был сильным сторонником прав ЛГБТ . Он поддержал однополые браки и выступил против защите брака и политики военных американских военных Закона о . В 2008 году он написал, что «лишение геев и лесбиянок равных прав является аморальным».

Внешние политики и вопросы обороны

Позже Гравел назвал себя критиком американского империализма .

Гравий твердо выступил против военных действий США против Ирана и Сирии. Он выразил оппозицию лагерю задержания Гуантанамо , Закону о военных комиссиях 2006 года , использование пыток , неопределенного задержания и того, что он назвал «вопиющим невежеством» Женевской конвенции . В 2014 году Гравел призвал к выпуску полного отчета Комитета по разведке в Сенате о пытках ЦРУ .

Гравейл выступил против использования международных санкций в качестве политического инструмента и обвинил их против Ирака под руководством Саддама Хусейна в смерти полумиллиона детей в этой стране. В 2013 году Гравел сказал, что санкции против Ирана были «незаконными».

Во время своей кандидатуры в 2008 году Гравел призвал к сокращению военных расходов, по -разному сообщалось, 15 процентов или 50 процентов. Он призвал к сбережениям, чтобы увеличить расходы на государственное образование. Чтобы стимулировать международные ядерные усилия по нераспространению, Гравел призвал к одностороннему сокращению ядерного арсенала США .

В 2008 году Гравел раскритиковал решение спикера Палаты представителей Нэнси Пелоси не преследовать усилия по привлечению ответственности Джорджа Буша и попытки импичмента Дика Чейни , заявив, что Буш и Чейни совершили преступления и заслуживают «преследовать» в Гааге Полем В 2013 году он выразил презрение к президенту Обаме , назвав его «полным мошенничеством» и заявив, что как Буша, так и Обамы следует судить «за преступления и убийства, которые они совершили» в Международном суде . Гравий специально осудил Обаму за удары беспилотников в Пакистане и в других местах.

Экономика, иммиграция и окружающая среда

Во время своей кандидатуры в 2008 году гравий предпочитал схему Fairtax , которая отменила бы Службу внутренних доходов , исключил федеральный подоходный налог (который Гравив назвал «коррумпированным»),), и наложить национальный налог с продаж . В то время как гравий описал Fairtax как «прогрессивный», Другие критиковали это как «регрессивные», непропорционально принося пользу самым богатым американцам. Чтобы компенсировать новые налоги с продаж на основные товары, план Гравии предусматривал ежемесячные государственные скидки отдельным лицам и семьям. Во время своей кампании 2020 года гравий также высказался поддержку третьего законодательного органа, который даст людям прямой контроль над бюджетом, а также внедрение налога на стоимость земли .

Гравел выступил против Североамериканского соглашения о свободной торговле (НАФТА) во время своей кандидатуры в 2008 году, назвав его несправедливым и экономически вредным и нуждающимся в пересмотре. Гравий полагал, что НАФТА была «основной причиной» незаконной миграции в США Он предпочитал программу гостевого работника и «создание процедур натурализации, которые справедливо привели бы к юридическому статусу иммигрантов». В интервью 2007 года Гравии идентифицировали себя как «очень много глобалиста», который верил на открытые рынки и открытые границы и осудил козла отпущения недокументированных иммигрантов. Гравел также сказал, что он предпочитал устранение крышки на визах H1B .

Будучи сенатором из Аляски, гравий предпочитал бурение в Национальном заповеднике дикой природы Арктики , но выступил против него во время своей кампании 2008 года. В 2008 году гравия поддержал налог на углерод для борьбы с изменением климата .

Гравий выступил в пользу сетевого нейтралитета во время своей президентской кампании.

Образование и здравоохранение

Гравейл призвал к стоимости обучения в колледже, который несет федеральное правительство, а не студенты. В своей кампании 2008 года он назвал «без ребенка», который остался позади «неудачей» и призвал, чтобы это было «реформаточным и полностью финансируемым». Он выразил поддержку универсальному предварительному наступлению и расширению программы Head Start ; и выразил открытость чартерным школам и школьные ваучеры . Он также предложил продлить учебный день и учебный год и поддержал заслуги для учителей.

Гравий также призвал к государственно финансируемой универсальной медицинской помощи , чтобы заменить нынешнюю систему медицинского страхования, спонсируемой работодателем . Он поддержал «полное финансирование» системы VA . В 2007 году, когда его спросили о натуропатии , гомеопатии и иглоукалывании , Гравейл сказал, что он «очень значит» в пользу целостной медицинской помощи .

Награды и награды

В 2008 году Гравий получил Школу общих исследований в Колумбийском университете . первую ежегодную премию Isaac Asimov Lifetime Award

История избирателей

Основная статья: История избирателей Майка Гравии

Писания

• Гравий, Майк. Работа и больше рабочих мест . Mt. McKinley Publishers, 1968.
• Гравий, Майк. Citizen Power: народная платформа . Холт, Райнхарт и Уинстон , 1972. ISBN   0-03-091465-5 .
  • Пересмотренный и переизданный в качестве гражданской власти: мандат на перемены , Authorhouse , 2008. ISBN   1-4343-4315-4 .
• Гравий, Майк и Лаурия, Джо. Политическая одиссея: рост американского милитаризма и борьба одного человека, чтобы остановить его . Seven Stories Press , 2008. ISBN   1-58322-826-8 .
• Гравий, Майк и Эйзенбах, Дэвид . Королевщики: как средства массовой информации угрожают нашей безопасности и нашей демократии . Phoenix Books, 2008. ISBN   1-59777-586-X .
• Гравий, Майк. Голос Маверика: речи и сочинения сенатора Майка Гравела . Brandywine House, 2008.
• Гравий, Майк. Предисловие к отравленной власти: дело против атомных электростанций . Джон У. Гоффман и Артур Р. Тамплин, Родал Пресс, Inc., Эммаус, Пенсильвания, июнь 1971 года.
• Гравий, Майк. Неспособность репрезентативного правительства и решения: законодательный орган народа . Автор , 2020. ISBN   1-7283-3929-4

Ссылки

Общие ссылки

• Пентагон документы сенатора гравийного издания. Тол. Пять: Критические очерки . Бостон: Beacon Press, 1972. 341p. плюс 72p. Индекс к вып. Я - IV бумаг; Ноам Хомский, Говард Зинн, редакторы.
• Мориц, Чарльз, изд. (1973). Текущий биографический ежегодник 1972 года . Нью -Йорк: HW Wilson Company .

Внешние ссылки

• Mike Gravel Официальный сайт
• Конгресс Соединенных Штатов. «Майк Гравел (ID: G000388)» . Биографический каталог Конгресса Соединенных Штатов .
• Появления на C-Span
• Майк Гравел в Керли
• Гравезионный институт