The Legacy of a True Patriot
Mike Gravel’s legacy is that of courage and fighting to improve the country he served.
This week the United States of America lost one of its greatest senators, that is Mike Gravel. Now Mike Gravel may be a rather unknown figure to many Americans in this day and age largely because he hadn’t served in the US Senate since 1980 and he ran two unsuccessful runs for president. His most recent White House bid was a rather obscure bid for president. However, Gravel’s track record as a Senator and Speaker of the House in Alaska helped change America for the better and it is important to know how Gravel improves the country. So let's analyze the record of Unites States Senator Mike Gravel.
Background
Maurice Robert Gravel was born May 13th, 1930 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Gravel enlisted in the military in 1951 where he was stationed in West Germany for a time. Then was was stationed in France as a Special Agent in the Counterintelligence Corps to conduct surveilence on communist groups in France. Gravel was promoted to first lieutenant. Eventually Gravel was honorably discharaged and pursued an education at Colombia University School of General Studies before he moved to Alaska and purused a career in Politics advocating for Alaska’s statehood. Shortly after Alaska statehood was enacted Gravel would run for the Alaska House of Repressentives.
Alaska House of Repressentatives and the Speakership
In 1962, Mike Gravel was elected to the Alaska House of Repressentatives of Alaska’s eighth state district as a Democrat. There Gravel would use his position to promote civil rights and equality. Gravel created Alaska’s Commission for Human Rights which enforces the Alaska Human Rights Law. The Commission’s job is to prevent and eliminate discrimination in Alaska. Gravel also created Alaska’s regional high school program which allowed Native Americans in Alaska to attend Alaska public schools instead relying on the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for public education. In 1965, Mike Gravel was elected Speaker of Alaska’s House of Repressentatives. As Speaker, Gravel was instrumental in Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend program which helped poor Alaskans improve their economic standings. This was Alaska’s universal basic income program that Gravel created. Gravel didn’t seek reelection and left office in 1967.
The US Senate
In 1968, Mike Gravel was elected to the US Senate as a Democrat repressenting Alaska. Gravel was a vocal critic of nuclear testing in the Senate. He was instramentall in ending nuclear testing in the pacific. He sponsored legislation that created a guaranteed minimim income that entitled poor families 6300$ a year. He also voted for a work bonus program which entitled poor families with dependent children paying Social Security taxes or Railroad Retirement taxes a non-taxable bonus that amounted to 10% of their wages. Gravel also worked to extend Social Security to federal employees. He also worked on campaign finance reform legislation which capped large donations, media spending, and individual candidate spending. Now Gravel wans’t a perfect person, he voted to give right-wing Democrats like Robert Byrd leadership positions in the Senate instead of Ted Kennedy. He voted to maintain the filibuster. Gravel also voted to place an ultraconservative justice, Clement Hemsworth, on the Supreme Court. He also was a strong defender of the fossil fuel industry and helped to create Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. Gravel eventually evolved on environmental issues as evident in his presidential runs. However, what Gravel is most notable for his advocacy for peace and ending the Vietnam war. Gravel was fierce critic of President Richard Nixon’s Vietnam policy. Gravel was staunchly opposed to the draft and sought to end it. Gravel’s most notable act as a Senator came in 1971 when he read the Pentagon Papers on the floor of the US Senate.
In 1971, Pentagon Whistleblower and American Hero Daniel Ellsberg released sections of the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force most commonly known as the Pentagon Papers to New York Times Neil Sheehan. The Pentagon Papers were a series of documents that proved that the US Government had been lying to the American people about Vietnam. These leaks provoked outrage in the general public and sparked more opposition to the war efforts. This prompted President Nixon to to try and suppress the leaks and weaponize the Espionage Act against the leakers and journalists printing the papers. On June 29th, 1971 Senator Gravel read the Pentagon Papers before the US Senate to ensure that they were on the record. Gravel read 4,100 pages out the 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers documents before entering the entirety of the documents into the official Congressional record. Gravel stopped reading the papers at 1:00 AM because he couldn’t hold back his emotions because of how upsetting he found the leaks. This act of courage by Gravel would go on to end the Vietnam War and the draft. This proved just how heroic of a Senator Gravel was that he would go before the US Senate to read documents and that would result in ending an unjust war. The news organization Beacon Press would release all of the documents to the press following Gravel’s speach and 2011 the Pentagon Papers were declasified by the governement. Unfortunately, Gravel would lose his Senate reelection bid in 1980 during a primary a leave office the following year after serving two terms.
POTUS Runs
Mike Gravel would go on to run for President of the United States twice, both times running on a progressive platform. His first bid was in 2008 running as Democrat. Gravel’s platform included ending the war on drugs citing how it disproportionately imprisons people of color. Gravel also ran on a pro-LGBTQ platform and called for the repeals of both the Defense of Marriage Act and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” As mentioned earlier, Gravel’s views on environmental issues evolved since he was a Senator. In 2008, Gravel ran on imposing a carbon tax on fossil fuel emissions to help curb the effects of climate change. He also opposed drilling in the Arctic something he supported as Senator. Gravel also supported making colleges free for students and a single-payer healthcare system. However, the centerpiece of Mike Gravel’s 2008 campaign was his anti-war messege which he hammered away on. See Gravel didn’t initially run to win the nomination, Gravel ran to raise awareness about America’s forever wars. Gravel would go on to actively persue the nomination because he felt he was the best option to end America’s wars in the Middle East.
Once Gravel realized he didn’t stand a chance at obtaining the Democratic nomination, he dropped out of the primary and persued the Libertarian nomination. Gravel kept most of the platform he had during the Democratic Primary, but he changed his tax plan and adopted the FAIR Tax. Gravel was scrutinized by Libertarians for being too liberal for the Libertarian Party, so Gravel adopted a libertarian tax plan. However, it wasn’t enough to win over Libertarian voters and Gravel lost the Libertarian primary to Bob Burr. Gravel would continue to promote his ideas afterwards and didn’t run for office again until 2020 when he ran for president again as a Democrat.
In 2020, a pair of teenagers named David Oks and Henry Williams learned about Mike Gravel through the podcast Chapo Trap House. They reached out to Gravel and asked if he was interested in running for president to raise awareness about America’s forever wars. Gravel agreed to run at the age of 89 as a messege candidate. These teenagers ran Gravel’s campaign and managed Gravel’s social media accounts. Gravel’s platform was mostly the same as his 2008 platform, but it included many news planks to adjust with the new political climate in 2020. Gravel called for reperations for not just decendednts of slavery, but also for victims of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Gravel also called for the complete abolition of the American drone program something none of the other candidates even considered. Gravel’s platform was arguably the most progressive of any candidates, unfortunately his candidacy didn’t garner enough attention in 2020 to enter the debate stage.
The Gravel campaign had hope to get enough money and poll high enough to at least enter the first two presidential debates in the Democratic primary. The DNC had set the rules so that candidates who crossed the donor threshold of 65k dollars and polled above 1% could enter the presidential debates. Gravel met both thresholds and was excluded from the debates anyway. After the second debate, Mike Gravel suspended his campaign and endorsed Bernie Sanders and campaigned for him. Gravel would use his contributions to start the Gravel Institute and donate the rest to helping the people in Flint, Michigan.
Continued Activism
After Gravel left office in 1981, he continued to speak truth to power. Gravel would give lectures to college students about his ideals. He was a strong voice for the anti-war movement. Gravel founded the The Democracy Foundation which promoted direct democracy and voting rights for all Americans. Gravel wanted to ensure that the people remained involved in the political process. Gravel had been an outspoken critic of the CIA torture program and called for the complete shutdown of their black site prisons. When the torture report was released, Mike Gravel urged that Mark Udall read the report into the Congressional record. Gravel knew that this was important information that the American people had a right to know. Udall did put the report into the Congressional record, but didn’t read it aloud in the Senate. As mentioned earlier, Gravel used money from his campaign to help clean the water in Flint, Michigan. He also used another sum of money to create the Gravel Institute which was branded as the leftwing Parger University. The Gravel Institute’s mission was to debunk the missinformation put out by PragerU. That is what they’re doing now. Gravel will still have a positive impact on society through the Gravel Institute following his passing.
So in the end Mike Gravel may not have been one of the most popular politicians in America, but his lagacy will continue to have a positive impact on American society. It is important to learn about Gravel’s history as a politician and an activist. The man was true statesman who actually served his country with honor.
