WORST CASE SCENARIO:
GORE WINS NOBEL PRIZE

Now, just to jog your memory, y'all:

Environmental Leaders Announce The Formation of Environmentalists Against Gore

WASHINGTON - July 21 2000 - Sixty-one environmental leaders from 18 states announced today the formation of ENVIRONMENTALISTS AGAINST GORE, and urged people who care about protecting America's environment to listen to their conscience and vote for anyone but Democratic candidate Al Gore.

"Gore is getting the endorsement of some national environmental groups only because they are so afraid of George Bush, and so intimidated by the Gore campaign's where-else-can-you-go attitude," said Tim Hermach, one of the organizers of Environmentalists Against Gore.

"Vice President Gore has a long record of making campaign promises about protecting America's natural heritage and then breaking his promise every time one of his political supporters wants to do something that would damage or destroy our forests, rivers, and streams, oceans, even our National Parks," Hermach added.

"If George W. Bush wins the election, then at least we could expect the national environmental community to really fight for tougher pollution enforcement and genuine protection of our living life-support system," said David Brower, another founder of Environmentalists Against Gore. "From Alaska to the Everglades, New Jersey to California, the Vice President talks about being an environmentalist, but he's sold out American citizens, workers, taxpayers and the environment more times than we can count. He sides with clear-cutting timber barons, big sugar, big oil and real estate speculators over forests and watersheds, parks and wildlife. And we lose those fights because when Al Gore sells out, national environmental groups come to his aide, claiming the problem lies somewhere else, with Congress or federal agencies. But we all know the buck stops at the White House."

All the environmental leaders supporting the organization released this statement:

"Many of our members support Ralph Nader, and others believe that even having George W. Bush in the White House, under the eye of an energized environmental community, will lead to better protection for nature and wildlife than we can expect from Al Gore. We've seen Gore turn his back on the people of Appalachia while mountains and streams are illegally destroyed by strip miners. We've seen Gore talk about the importance of preserving our forest heritage while refusing to stop cutting it down. He is increasing the logging of what's left of our publicly owned native and old-growth national forests and monuments as we speak. Al Gore talks about the catastrophic threat of global warming, yet shows very little leadership to stop it. We've seen him talk about fighting sprawl while he's promoting sleazy real estate deals that would move industrial jobs away from urban Miami onto farmland between two National Parks. We've heard him lecture the world about preserving nature in the tropics when he is encouraging the big sugar plantations to continue polluting our own Everglades. We've read candidate Gore's press releases about protecting our beaches from offshore drilling, and then watched Vice President Gore say it is none of his business if his own Administration promotes offshore drilling in Florida, California, and Alaska. We've watched Gore pretend not to know about it when his own White House staff and the federal agencies turn the Endangered Species Act into a tool for extinction. And just this week we watched Al Gore refuse to advocate breaching of four Snake River dams rejecting the recommendations of scientists and federal agencies. We believe that people, nature and wildlife, in the United States and in the world, will be better protected if we return to an honest national debate about the role of the environment in our lives and economy, instead of the cynical orchestrated charade Vice President Gore is engaged in."

1) We can't get what we want by voting for what we don't want.

2) We can't win by submitting to fear of imagined Republican actions.

3) We can no longer condone or reward the long and established record of dishonesty, smoke & mirrors, shell games and betrayal.

4) We can't get good & honest people to run if we repeatedly fail to support the ones that do.

5) We demand Fair & Open Debates - and honest politicians.

6) We demand that People and the Public Interest receive the importance now given to corporate cash and political supporters.

7) We realize that false friends can often do more harm than known adversaries.

Voting Our Principles & Hopes, Not Our Fears.

http://www.commondreams.org/news2000/0721-01.htm