-Caveat Lector- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Dump Gore: Just look at his record Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 22:37:09 -0500 (CDT) From: Michael Eisenscher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Organization: ? To: undisclosed-recipients:; Hello friends and family, colleagues and comrades, I have just a few thoughts to share with you this week about Nader, followed by a one-page article about Gore's record as environmentalist. At present, Nader is still to be excluded from the Presidential Debates. The two-headed, one-party, business government yet reigns. Popular culture in the U.S., and the media, believe -- or anyway regularly declare -- that Americans are satisfied with bipartisan political culture: the left is dead because no one cares about it. No one is interested in the wacky ideas of a few anti-American, anti-religious, anti-family extremists. Americans are all too busy, and too happy, pursuing the consumption of commodities, and occasionally leisure time, to devote any energy to all those nagging little problems that leftists keep harping on: mass poverty, corporate control of politics and culture, pollution and war. Not to worry: the experts are on the job, corporations are reforming themselves to eliminate pollution and reduce the exploitation of child and other foreign laborers, the economy is booming. We've never been wealthier or better off! The proof of all this, of course, is precisely that people keep voting for Democrats and Republicans. (Well, the few who vote, anyway.) After all, we live in a democracy. If people were dissatisfied with the status quo, we'd vote the bums out. Hence, the importance of voting for Ralph. If all of us who are tempted by Nader, who dislike Gore but fear Bush, were to vote for Nader, if he receives enough support to make it into the debates -- or even to win matching funds from the government -- then it becomes just a bit more difficult to pretend that everything is all right, to ignore the voices of criticism and the proposals of alternatives. If on the other hand, we succumb to the veil of two lessers, then we are effectively disappeared, the critique of really existing capitalism is erased, and we head just a bit closer to the 21st century version of 1984, dominated by corporate Big Brother. We might take a lesson from Odysseus: he escaped the Sirens only because he was prevented from responding to them, while his crew were protected from hearing their songs. As environmental hero David Brower says, "It's time to start standing up for what we stand on." Best wishes to all, Blair The article below was written after Gore won the primary, but the main points are definitely still relevant for those tempted by Nader but afraid of Bush. A bit more detail is provided here about the many ways Gore has betrayed his environmental and populist rhetoric. ____________________________________________________ April 17, 2000, In These Times How To Deal with Gore: Dump him -- just look at his record By Jeffrey St. Clair So, Al Gore's the man. This is hardly breaking news. The competition from Bill Bradley, who ran the most somnambulant campaign since John Glenn's sleepwalk in 1988, wasn't exactly bracing. Even so, Gore didn't escape unscathed. The plodding Bradley drew blood from an unexpected flank: Gore's reputation as an honest broker. Bradley exposed Gore as a political transvestite, a lifelong conservative Democrat, who only adopts the mantle of liberalism when it's convenient (such as in Democratic primaries). He reeled off a litany of Gore flip-flops on abortion, gun control, tobacco, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, affirmative action, welfare reform and civil rights. This was, Bradley tried to remind people, the man who in his sleazy 1988 campaign race-baited Jesse Jackson and first raised the specter of Willie Horton against Michael Dukakis. Many observers were caught off-guard when Bradley also ridiculed Gore's reputation as an environmentalist. The corporate press, lethargic as ever, snickered. "Attacking Gore on the environment is like questioning Mother Teresa's faith," said Jonathan Alter, Newsweek's chief talking head. But just as Christopher Hitchens showed that the Virgin of Calcutta was no saint, so too did Bradley have the goods on Gore -- if any one would have bothered to look. In the 1992 campaign, Gore used the environment as a sledgehammer against Bush and Quayle. One issue raised over and over was a hazardous waste incinerator slated for East Liverpool, Ohio, which Gore vowed to block. But within months of taking office, the EPA, run by former Gore stiffer Carol Browner, reversed course and issued a permit for the deadly plant. This stunning betrayal was a sign of things to come. It was swiftly followed by capitulations on the Everglades, ancient forests, fuel efficiency standards, pesticides in foods, wetland protection, oil development in AIaska and the Gulf of Mexico, subsidies for nuclear power, organic food standards and ozone-depleting chemicals. And on and on. Connoisseurs of Gore's career aren't shocked by any of this. His voting record on environmental matters during his tenure in the House and Senate was mediocre by any standard and downright miserly when compared to his fellow Democrats. Gore, ever ready with an excuse, puts the blame on his home state of Tennessee, which he suggests was somewhat backward in environmental matters. But the people who know Gore best say he was rarely if ever there for them on pressing matters on the homefront, ranging from strip-mining to radioactive contamination at Oak Ridge to the pollution of the Pigeon River by Champion International. "More often than not, Al Gore sided with the polluters against the people," says Maddy Cochrane. a longtime environmental organizer in Chattanooga. "Gore follows the money." When confronted with the zigzagging pattern of his positions on these matters, Gore becomes petulant, putting on a wounded expression. Moments after he learned that Friends of the Earth had endorsed Bradley, Gore was on the phone to the CEOs of the other big green groups, claiming that he had been personally hurt by the decision. The ploy worked. Within days, executives from the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council issued statements vouching for Gore's green bona fides and chiding Friends of the Earth for its political heterodoxy. The move by the big groups to provide cover for Gore dismays America's premier green, David Brower. "Environmentalists and progressives cannot endorse rhetoric and that's the greenest thing we have seen from the vice president," says Brower, chairman of Earth Island Institute. Gore hopes to pin the responsibility for the lame record of the last eight years on Clinton. But it won't sell. Clinton was indifferent to environmental issues and gave Gore free rein on green matters. The Gore team ran the show from the beginning. Aside from Browner, Katie McGinty, another Gore Senate aide, headed the powerful Council on Environmental Quality until last year. Former Gore staffers were also at the Department of Energy, the Commerce Department and the Office of Management and Budget. Gore intimate Tom Wirth, the former senator from Colorado, served as assistant secretary of state for the environment, where he spearheaded the outrageous move to loosen protections for dolphins from industrial tuna-fishing fleets. Then there's George Frampton. who became assistant secretary of interior, resigned in 1997, served for a year as Gore's lawyer during the campaign finance scandal, then went back to work in the administration in McGinty's old position at the CEQ. The vice president himself has been caught red-handed on several occasions going to bat for corporations against the interests of environmentalists. A little-reported example is Gore's fervent efforts on behalf of Monsanto, the St. Louis-based chemical ,giant. The vice president made a series of forceful calls to heads of state. including the leaders of Ireland and France. stressing his opposition to moves by the European Union to ban import of genetically engineered seeds and food products. The lesson of Al Gore's political career is that he is a craven opportunist, not an ideologue. He gravitates toward the side that offers him the greatest advantage. Now that Bradley has been vanquished and the key progressive constituencies already sewn up, watch Gore start his natural migration back to the right, stiff-arming blacks, working people and greens all the way. By the time he gets to Los Angeles in August, he'll be reading from the DLC pro-business playbook once again. The environmentalists could throw a monkey-wrench in Gore's plans by massing their support behind Ralph Nader's run on the Green Party ticket, making it clear that they did so mainly because Gore was AWOL on the environment when it counted most. Nader won't win, but he could garner just enough votes to make Gore lose key states such as California. New York and Washington. Inflicting this kind of political pain is the only sure way to get Gore's attention. As Brower says: "It's time to start standing up for what we stand on." -- ________________________ Blair Alpert-Sandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________ You can subscribe to Solidarity4Ever by sending a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and unsubscribe by sending an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is a read-only list, but if you have an item you want posted, send it to the list moderator at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, who will determine whether it is appropriate for redistribution. You can temporarily suspend delivery by sending a request to the same address. Notify the moderator at the time you want delivery resumed. You can also manage this function yourself by going to the list at <www.igc.topica.com/lists/Solidarity4Ever. ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics --=====================_1922820==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" <html> <font face="Palatino" size=4>Hello friends and family, colleagues and comrades,<br> <br> I have just a few thoughts to share with you this week about Nader, followed by a one-page article about Gore's record as environmentalist.<br> <br> At present, Nader is still to be excluded from the Presidential Debates. The two-headed, one-party, business government yet reigns. Popular culture in the U.S., and the media, believe -- or anyway regularly declare -- that Americans are satisfied with bipartisan political culture: the left is dead because no one cares about it. No one is interested in the wacky ideas of a few anti-American, anti-religious, anti-family extremists. Americans are all too busy, and too happy, pursuing the consumption of commodities, and occasionally leisure time, to devote any energy to all those nagging little problems that leftists keep harping on: mass poverty, corporate control of politics and culture, pollution and war. Not to worry: the experts are on the job, corporations are reforming themselves to eliminate pollution and reduce the exploitation of child and other foreign laborers, the economy is booming. We've never been wealthier or better off!<br> <br> The proof of all this, of course, is precisely that people keep voting for Democrats and Republicans. (Well, the few who vote, anyway.) After all, we live in a democracy. If people were dissatisfied with the status quo, we'd vote the bums out. Hence, the importance of voting for Ralph. If all of us who are tempted by Nader, who dislike Gore but fear Bush, were to vote for Nader, if he receives enough support to make it into the debates -- or even to win matching funds from the government -- then it becomes just a bit more difficult to pretend that everything is all right, to ignore the voices of criticism and the proposals of alternatives. If on the other hand, we succumb to the veil of two lessers, then we are effectively disappeared, the critique of really existing capitalism is erased, and we head just a bit closer to the 21st century version of<i> 1984</i>, dominated by corporate Big Brother.<br> <br> We might take a lesson from Odysseus: he escaped the Sirens only because he was prevented from responding to them, while his crew were protected from hearing their songs. As environmental hero David Brower says, "It's time to start standing up for what we stand on."<br> <br> Best wishes to all,<br> <br> Blair<br> <br> The article below was written after Gore won the primary, but the main points are definitely still relevant for those tempted by Nader but afraid of Bush. A bit more detail is provided here about the many ways Gore has betrayed his environmental and populist rhetoric.<br> <br> ____________________________________________________<br> <br> April 17, 2000,<i> In These Times<br> <br> </i>How To Deal with Gore: Dump him -- just look at his record<br> <br> By Jeffrey St. Clair<br> <br> So, Al Gore's the man. This is hardly breaking news.<br> <br> The competition from Bill Bradley, who ran the most somnambulant campaign since John Glenn's sleepwalk in 1988, wasn't exactly bracing. Even so, Gore didn't escape unscathed. The plodding Bradley drew blood from an unexpected flank: Gore's reputation as an honest broker. Bradley exposed Gore as a political transvestite, a lifelong conservative Democrat, who only adopts the mantle of liberalism when it's convenient (such as in Democratic primaries). He reeled off a litany of Gore flip-flops on abortion, gun control, tobacco, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, affirmative action, welfare reform and civil rights. This was, Bradley tried to remind people, the man who in his sleazy 1988 campaign race-baited Jesse Jackson and first raised the specter of Willie Horton against Michael Dukakis.<br> <br> Many observers were caught off-guard when Bradley also ridiculed Gore's reputation as an environmentalist. The corporate press, lethargic as ever, snickered. "Attacking Gore on the environment is like questioning Mother Teresa's faith," said Jonathan Alter, Newsweek's chief talking head. But just as Christopher Hitchens showed that the Virgin of Calcutta was no saint, so too did Bradley have the goods on Gore -- if any one would have bothered to look.<br> <br> In the 1992 campaign, Gore used the environment as a sledgehammer against Bush and Quayle. One issue raised over and over was a hazardous waste incinerator slated for East Liverpool, Ohio, which Gore vowed to block. But within months of taking office, the EPA, run by former Gore stiffer Carol Browner, reversed course and issued a permit for the deadly plant. This stunning betrayal was a sign of things to come. It was swiftly followed by capitulations on the Everglades, ancient forests, fuel efficiency standards, pesticides in foods, wetland protection, oil development in AIaska and the Gulf of Mexico, subsidies for nuclear power, organic food standards and ozone-depleting chemicals. And on and on.<br> Connoisseurs of Gore's career aren't shocked by any of this. His voting record on environmental matters during his tenure in the House and Senate was mediocre by any standard and downright miserly when compared to his fellow Democrats. Gore, ever ready with an excuse, puts the blame on his home state of Tennessee, which he suggests was somewhat backward in environmental matters. But the people who know Gore best say he was rarely if ever there for them on pressing matters on the homefront, ranging from strip-mining to radioactive contamination at Oak Ridge to the pollution of the Pigeon River by Champion International. "More often than not, Al Gore sided with the polluters against the people," says Maddy Cochrane. a longtime environmental organizer in Chattanooga. "Gore follows the money."<br> <br> When confronted with the zigzagging pattern of his positions on these matters, Gore becomes petulant, putting on a wounded expression. Moments after he learned that Friends of the Earth had endorsed Bradley, Gore was on the phone to the CEOs of the other big green groups, claiming that he had been personally hurt by the decision. The ploy worked. Within days, executives from the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council issued statements vouching for Gore's green bona fides and chiding Friends of the Earth for its political heterodoxy.<br> <br> The move by the big groups to provide cover for Gore dismays America's premier green, David Brower. "Environmentalists and progressives cannot endorse rhetoric and that's the greenest thing we have seen from the vice president," says Brower, chairman of Earth Island Institute.<br> <br> Gore hopes to pin the responsibility for the lame record of the last eight years on Clinton. But it won't sell. Clinton was indifferent to environmental issues and gave Gore free rein on green matters. The Gore team ran the show from the beginning. Aside from Browner, Katie McGinty, another Gore Senate aide, headed the powerful Council on Environmental Quality until last year. Former Gore staffers were also at the Department of Energy, the Commerce Department and the Office of Management and Budget. Gore intimate Tom Wirth, the former senator from Colorado, served as assistant secretary of state for the environment, where he spearheaded the outrageous move to loosen protections for dolphins from industrial tuna-fishing fleets. Then there's George Frampton. who became assistant secretary of interior, resigned in 1997, served for a year as Gore's lawyer during the campaign finance scandal, then went back to work in the administration in McGinty's old position at the CEQ.<br> <br> The vice president himself has been caught red-handed on several occasions going to bat for corporations against the interests of environmentalists. A little-reported example is Gore's fervent efforts on behalf of Monsanto, the St. Louis-based chemical ,giant. The vice president made a series of forceful calls to heads of state. including the leaders of Ireland and France. stressing his opposition to moves by the European Union to ban import of genetically engineered seeds and food products. The lesson of Al Gore's political career is that he is a craven opportunist, not an ideologue. He gravitates toward the side that offers him the greatest advantage. Now that Bradley has been vanquished and the key progressive constituencies already sewn up, watch Gore start his natural migration back to the right, stiff-arming blacks, working people and greens all the way. By the time he gets to Los Angeles in August, he'll be reading from the DLC pro-business playbook once again.<br> <br> The environmentalists could throw a monkey-wrench in Gore's plans by massing their support behind Ralph Nader's run on the Green Party ticket, making it clear that they did so mainly because Gore was AWOL on the environment when it counted most. Nader won't win, but he could garner just enough votes to make Gore lose key states such as California. New York and Washington. Inflicting this kind of political pain is the only sure way to get Gore's attention. As Brower says: "It's time to start standing up for what we stand on."<br> </font>-- <br> <br> ________________________<br> <br> Blair Alpert-Sandler<br> [EMAIL PROTECTED]<br> <br> <PRE>______________________________________________ You can subscribe to Solidarity4Ever by sending a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and unsubscribe by sending an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is a read-only list, but if you have an item you want posted, send it to the list moderator at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, who will determine whether it is appropriate for redistribution. You can temporarily suspend delivery by sending a request to the same address. Notify the moderator at the time you want delivery resumed. You can also manage this function yourself by going to the list at <www.igc.topica.com/lists/Solidarity4Ever.</PRE> <PRE>___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. <A HREF="http://www.topica.com/t/16">http://www.topica.com/t/16</A> Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics</PRE> </html> --=====================_1922820==_.ALT-- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
