penumbra

If Bush has his way

http://www.msnbc.com/news/951044.asp?0cv=CB10

debater10

If we had elected Gore...

In Putting People First, Clinton and Gore pledged to "crack down on environmental crime by holding companies and polluters responsible for their behavior. Corporations that deliberately violate environmental laws will pay the price�and polluters will go to jail where appropriate." Nice talk, but the gap between the rhetoric and the record is as wide as the Grand Canyon. According to a recent study by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, criminal prosecutions of environmental crimes have fallen sharply during the Clinton-Gore Administration. This reflects the administration's overall weak record in dealing with corporate crime. While low-level drug-use offenders serve lengthy sentences, those who systematically pollute our air and water go scot-free.


[The Clinton-Gore] administration is responsible for:

--The passage of the "salvage logging" rider that is causing the destruction of ancient public forests and critical watersheds.
--The signing of the Panama Declaration, which undermines protection or marine mammals including dolphins and whales.
--The continuation of the use of methyl bromide, a highly toxic pesticide known to destroy the Earth's ozone layer.
--The weakening if not the gutting, of the Endangered Species Act through administrative changes in its rules and regulations.
--The passage of NAFTA and GATT, international trade agreements that represent the biggest sellout of American workers in U.S. history and effectively remove environmental protections passed by Congress because any legislation deemed to "restrain free trade" can be declared illegal by international tribunals dominated by large scale corporate interests.
--The lowering of grazing fees on public land, despite promises by candidate Clinton to raise those fees. As a result, Clinton is subsidizing the cattle industry while overtaxing people and land.
--Continuing to subsidize the sugar industry in Florida, which is poisoning the Everglades and diverting large amounts of water needed by wildlife.
--Opening wildlife refuges to hunting and fishing by presidential decrees.
--Weakening the Safe Drinking Water Act by allowing increased levels of lead and arsenic in drinking water supplies.
--Reversing the ban on the production of and importation of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), which may cause more than 40,000 fatalities in the Great Lakes region alone.
--Increasing our dependence on Middle East Oil by breaking the promise to not allow the export of Alaskan oil.


Despite highly publicized promises in 1993, the Clinton administration has failed to curb pesticide use, according to a report issued by the Environmental Working Group, an environmental organization that focuses on agriculture.
"The track record of the Clinton-Gore administration on pesticides falls far, far short of the dramatic commitments that the administration announced with incredible fanfare five years ago," Ken Cook wrote in the foreword of his report "Same As It Ever Was."
In fact, Cook singled out Gore as the main cause of the failure of the administration's plan to cut pesticide use. "The pesticide lobby ... knew perfectly well the trouble organophosphate pesticides were in at EPA, by force of the chemicals' toxicity and children's exposure," he wrote, "they just didn't like what they knew about the direction of EPA's decision making. So they banged on Mr. Gore's door."


Despite his vaunted last minute trip to save the Kyoto treaty, Gore�s compromise committed the US to very small reductions in greenhouse gases, and has worked since to include nuclear power among the renewable energy source eligible for Clean Fuel credits under the treaty. These would allow the US to claim reductions supposedly made for the global good, while actually benefiting only the huge corporations that build nuclear power plants. It may sabotage the treaty in the eyes of Europe and small island nations (who will disappear if global warming isn�t stopped), but Al Gore only seems to care about how global climate change affects big corporate contributors.
Meanwhile, when the presidential debate touched on oil exploration, Gore �bravely� defends the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that focus groups have shown him he cannot give up. Under cover of that stand, though, he has opened up the Arctic National Petroleum Reserve, 2000 miles of southeastern Alaska coastline, and parts of the California coastline, not to mention selling off the Elk Hills Petroleum reserve to Occidental Oil, his family�s patron company, in the largest privatization in American government history. Now Gore seems poised to break another promise and allow drilling along the Florida coastline, which he has promised never to do. As long as it�s not ANWR, it�s likely at risk under a Gore administration.



Vice President Albert Gore Jr., stood on the White House lawn and talked in sweeping terms about ending the era of big government. He touted a list of recommendations formulated by the National Performance Review, an initiative Gore directed that he claimed streamlined the federal bureaucracy, cut unnecessary waste and helped make the government �work better and cost less.� Gore said that his report, delivered to President Clinton that day, would continue the drive to �reinvent government.�
Gore did not mention that his recommendations to the president included a plan to give oil companies access to thousands of acres of oil-rich, publicly owned land that the U.S. Navy has held as emergency reserves since 1912. Ever since the federal government earmarked the reserves for military emergencies, the oil industry had tried and failed to pry them away from the Navy.



In 1992, Candidate Gore pledged that the new administration would be a ferocious defender of America's vanishing wetlands. Yet with direct subsidies and lax EPA enforcement, the administration has encouraged the sugar industry to continue destroying the Everglades. Among the sugar daddies, Alfonso Fanjul and his Flo-Sun sugar empire in the Everglades have sweetened Clinton and Gore's various money pockets with more than $300,000 in contributions.
Also, despite Al's pledge, another 500 acres of sensitive New Jersey wetlands are set to be destroyed by an upscale shopping center and entertainment complex being built by the Mills Corp. Various federal agencies OPPOSED the construction, but the Council on Environmental Quality, which was closely affiliated with Vice President Gore, brokered the dirty deal for Mills Corp. Less than a week later, contributions totalling $43,000 came to the Gore 2000 campaign fund from the grateful folks at Mills.



And the list goes on... not as enviro-friendly as most were led to believe.

John Hancock

: ABC YAWN! seems to me their was a wide assed GOP House. Washington DC has for quite awhile been Corporate Head quarters.

John Hancock
__________________
"Fascism,should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini

dcwolf

Here's a good example of the difference between Bush's administration and centrists.
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/poli...al_warming.htm
Not so sure too many had faith in Gore as environmentally friendly, but Bush makes no attempt to hide his voracious appetite for raping every acre of wilderness he possibly can.

Farren

Tu quoque or not tu quoque? That is the question.

Loren Pechtel

I agree that Gore wasn't all that the Democrats aren't all that environmentally friendly--being so will get you crucified by the big money in the industries that want to rape the environment.

However, this is still a *BIG* difference than Bush. Clinton tried but the situation wouldn't let him do that much. Bush doesn't try.

Alonzo Fyfe

Bush et al. want to plow over the environment, but sometimes are forced by political considerations to leave pieces of it alone.

Gore et al. want to save the environment, but sometimes are forced by political considerations to give pieces of it up.

I think there is an important enough difference.

Arken

This whole deforestation plan is far more scary than a lot of people realize. Most archaeologists now agree that massive deforestation led to the downfall of the Mayan civilization. They cut down so many trees that it affected the weather pattern and caused a drought so long and so massive that their entire economy collapsed and countless people died of famine and disease.

Farren

Alonzo I wouldn't bother. debater10 just doesn't seem to get the fact that an attack on Bush's former political opponents is not a vindication of Bush policies.

debater10, if you want to have a discussion about the elected US president's hypothetical policies, rather start another thread.

Tu quoque, the "you, too" fallacy.

[edited because I realised my tone was a bit rude]

<Off Topic>

debater10, I'm aware that everyone jumped on you from the moment you started posting. Its not simply a kneejerk reaction from a bunch of "liberals". A lot of "liberals" on these fora were initially in favour of the war.

Before the invasion I recall having lengthy debates with some of the same people who will now argue against you. I even got told I 'despised the US and anything it does" a fair few times. The split was about 60% against/ 40% in favour back then.

I'm aware you're new on these boards so you're probably not aware of the immense amount of information that's been presented on both sides of the issue. A massive consensus is that the justifications for Bush's foreign adventure are almost non-existent. You're welcome to debate them but you'll find your opponents particularly well equipped to counter your arguments with a huge number of facts.

RE the Tu Quoque fallacy (the fallacy of "You, too!"). You'll also find that a lot of the posters here aren't "liberals" at all. For many of the socialists and libertarians here, the Democrats are just an alternative Republican party, and Tony Blairs "New Labour" is really Thatcher's Tories in disguise.

Arguing, "but Clinton/Gore" to people who consider said individuals lackies of corporate interests isn't going to register, although you might succeed in bating a few Democrats. Still, it doesn't actually constitute a defense of Bush's actions. I suggest you read through the page I linked to carefully, as most of the forumites here are well versed in logical fallacies.