Summer 2003
"Well, President Gore has done what we all thought was impossible. Alot of happy people right now."
"Now Martha Stewart?! Goddamn it, I am not surprised. More and more financial fraud. Terrorists? Feh. These guys are the real problem."
"For people advocating for small government, there was a stink raised by the against removing the sodomy laws."
After months of debate, recounciliations and compromises, the miracle has occurred. The creation of the State of Palestine and their mutual co-existence and recognition with Israel. It took a lot of effort and even now, plenty of problems had remained. However, it took some out of the box thinking to resolve some of the issues. Israel would not have to be in charge of any of the refugee crisises, though in the event of an emergancy, they could hold some of the people there (and this issue was moe mainly brought up by thr growing tensions of Syria and Iraq, something they reluctantly agreed to.) Some prominent Israelites and groups did adopt Palestinian Arab refugee children to be raised as Israelis though. Palestine meanwhile would have to deal with American, Jordanian and Iranian forces reinforcing the peace for the time being, namely to ensure the elimination of radical groups. The process of withdrawal would be over a year and the various Israelis would be encouraged move or remain behind and become residents.
Israel meanwhile became more volatile in the populace over the people having to move back though the US and Europe have offered the would-be displaced Israelis some deals to move in. Meanwhile, Lebandon was browbeaten by its neighbors to provide greater humanitarian rights and opportunities to the Palestinian refugees. Saudi Arabia had refused to and Syria remained a time bomb for them, issues that were still being resolved. Some plans were being held for some nations to host Palestinian/Syrian refugees, included but not limtied to a few European nations, Turkey, the US and Canada. For now though, after three months of talks with the inclusion of Iran, near the end of August, the State of Palestine was born.
However, not all of it was positive news. The big question of Jerusalem remained the driving point of contention as neither side was willing to give it up and the debates on the fate of Jerusalem would continue on over the years.For the time being, Tel Aviv would serve as an impromptu capital for Israel while Palestine had to make due with Ramallah. The US had side-stepped the Jerusalem question for the time-being.
Beyond the lingering tensions with Israel, growing tensions existed between the Gore Administration and Saudi Arabia. The US subtlety blocked Saudi Arabian organizations and influences in Palestine, partly out of their issue with the Palestinian non-citizenship stance, but moreover, because of the US/Iran talks. Under Gore, the focus began shifting more toward the influence of the House of Saud and Wahhabism. It was brought up over in a conference by Al Gore when asked about Islam. Gore went on to explain on Wahhabism, its disdain by the orthodox Islam branches and mainstream Muslims as well as its corruptive influence. Al Gore went so far as to compare Wahhabism to the infamous Westboro Baptist Church in ideology and the only differences were Wahhabism's access to the millions in oil money and alliances with powerful groups to spread their twisted version of the faith over decades. He even asked the nation and especially Christians how they would feel if the world thought that all Christians were just like the Westboro Baptist Church followers.
To the mainstream, it caused many to be itnerested in the Westboro Baptist Church and Google searches rose. The reaction was of appropriate shock and horror along with self-reflection. While there was an unfortunate increase of anti-Muslim violence followign 9/11, it began dropping over time, but Gore's speech led to its sharpest decline. The WBC unsurprisingly were harsh in their stance, including Fred Phelps, which just cemented it. This led to the term of being a "Westboro Baptist wannabe" becoming an insult, used to decribe a religious reactionary, especially if also to accuse them of corrupting a faith. One of the oddest places it saw use was an Israel, as some of the adolescence used it to refer to some of the ultraorthodox rabbis there. On a lighter scale, the US encouraged Jordanian influence on Palestine with Gore later extending it to Iran as a show of good faith. The rest of the Middle East celeberated at the end of harsh times and while some of the compromises did not make them happy, it was still a time to breath a bit easier. Things could get better now. All but Saudi Arabia, who found themselves a bit colder with the US.
Meanwhile, back at home, the Americans were momentarily distracted from the issues abroad with surprising new news. The federal investigation into Martha Stewart and her broker brought more than a few laughs, but added yet another point of miscontention toward the wealthy and influencial for their financial chicanery. A couple of shootings and a pizza guy being used as a walking bomb also surprised the people and while the talks of issues abroad were brought up, it reminded people that more often than not, the true troublemakers looked like them.
Martha Stewart being indicted
Despite this, time and life goes on. The Gore Administration kept examining healthcare and contineud to examine how to continue to gently assist in the economy humming along. While green energy sources were being promoted, not much was going on in terms of real progress and change being made. But that would begin changing soon as Al Gore maintained further investigations into various groups and corporations while trying to find solutions. However, one fil kept bringing a smile to his eye. Within months, he would be ready for perhaps his grandest move yet since this within the Middle East. Meanwhile though, he heard from an intern about a new website called
Myspace. It was a very fascinating website, being used by the growing youth to communicate and socialize with one another. Gore had a panel for this sort of stuff on the net and while the dotcom bubble hurt, the Internet remained a powerful tool and one not to be ignored. Not the first of its kind, but Al Gore talked to his advisors and sought some form of promise within
Myspace. A special White House account was made onto
Myspace, something that got the attention over the folks running the place. Another larger impact within the pop culture was a new form of legislation. Since the surprising attention of the court case on the public domain, a new law was being formed to help address it. The
Public Domain Enhancement Act (
PDEA) was introduced. It was made with two aims on expanding the public domain. One was to move the cut-off date of public domain works from 1923 to 1948, allowing 25 years of American works to end the public domain. The arguments for it were to allow certain works to be brought into the public domain. Reasons for this was the lack of American-produced works in the public domain compared to European works and that it was a disservice on how many American classics had been relegated to obscruity over the years. The second one was moreover to allow copyrighted works which have been abandoned by their owners, orphaned works, to enter the public domain. Unsurprisigly, there was a fair bit of conflict and arguments, with various entertainment groups voicing their concerns. Others vouched for a registry of works that were in the public domain, but there was the advocation for expanding it, especially with some news groups referring to the "Mickey Mouse" aspect because of lobbying made by Disney. Others thought to change the years from 25 to 20 or even 15. Others just went to putting orphaned works into the public domain. Proponents have suggested that copyright holders may be motivated to oppose the PDEA by a competitive threat: a huge wave of abandoned works would spill into the public domain which could form the basis of new derived works that would compete commercially with established copyrighted works. This one struck a chord perhaps because of the growing suspicion over toward big businesses. Debate of the bill went into the Fall...