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after hearing what this book says... i dont think he is.. have you read it? what do you think?
Al Gore: A User's Manual
Alexander Cockburn,Jeffrey St. Clair /
Required Reading for Liberals
Bloomington (IN) Independent By Steve Higgs
Ever hear the one about Al Gore, the newsman, whose investigative reporting "landed some people in jail?" How about the one about Al Gore's reinvention as an anti-smoking crusader following his sister's death from lung cancer? About Al Gore the friend of labor? Al Gore the environmentalist?
These and dozens of other rib ticklers about the life and times and career of the Tennessee politician who could be president are chronicled in Al Gore: A User's Manual, co-written by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn. They will convince you that Al Gore is indeed a man for the times, the perfect symbol of America's latest Gilded Age. They expose Al Gore for what he is: a shameless political sycophant. "Al Gore distills in his single person the disrepair of liberalism in America today, and almost every unalluring feature of the Democratic Party," the authors declare in the book's first sentence. Over the next 272 pages, St. Clair and Cockburn make that case in convincing, painstaking detail. campaign.
St. Clair's Hoosier Roots: An Indianapolis native, St. Clair is known to many in Indiana as the founder of the forest protection group ForestWatch, which he organized in 1985 in response to a U.S. Forest Service plan for off-road vehicle trails in Brown County near the isolated ridge-top cabin he, wife Kim and family called home. Throughout the Hoosier struggle, St. Clair earned a reputation as a tenacious, unyielding defender of the forest's environmental integrity. He went to work for the Hoosier Environmental Council and wrote the Conservationist Alternative, which became the foundation of the ecofriendly management plan that has guided Hoosier management activities since the early 1990s. St. Clair moved to Oregon in 1990 to work with forest economist Randal O'Toole, editing a newsletter called "Forestwatch." When the two split in 1993, St. Clair started a newsletter called "Wild Forest Review," an early preparation for writing Al Gore: A User's Manual. "Wild Forest Review's" debut coincided with the early years of the Clinton-Gore administration when mainstream environmental groups were positively giddy at the prospect of a Gore vice presidency. Early in 1993, Clinton and Gore came to the Northwest and convened a summit on ancient forest logging and the spotted owl. Their proposed solution, known as Option 9, was among the initial issues covered in "Wild Forest Review." St. Clair was among the first ecojournalists to recognize that environmentalists who embraced Clinton-Gore were abandoning their principles. "Eventually, the national environmental groups were coerced into supporting Option 9, which ensured that old growth forests would be logged for the next 50 years," St. Clair said from his home in Oregon City near Portland. "During the Bush years, these people saw the logging of old growth forests as a crime. Under Clinton and Gore, they saw it as political expediency."
I agree that al gore is not a perfect candidate...i also think the alternative, george w, is a step in the wrong direction. i think gore could be better...his tendency to strech the truth makes me wonder why he does so, but i think these streches usually are regarding topics of little significance, in my opinion, such as exactly when he visited a flood scene and with whome, or if people actually went to jail or not. examples of gore's embelishments are disturbing, but i think they are also blown out of proportion by republicans and the press. some of these comments, such as the i invented the internet one, are not exactly what gore claimed...he never claimed to invent the internet...he just claimed to have been a leader in the effort to fund it's creation, which may or may not be exactly the truth, but who cares?
gore, while flawed, is at least saying he is commited to protecting the planet...he supports the development of cleaner technologies, he is for renewable energy, he is against polluters, and he favors protecting natural areas...maybe these are stretches, but regardless it is better than what bush represents, which is continued reliance on oil, oil drilling in alaska's protected areas, and very little attention to environmental issues in general. check out sierraclub's votor education guides... http://www.sierraclub.org/voter_education/president/voterguide.asp http://www.sierraclub.org/voter_education/vice_president/
i am not endorsing gore (although he will get my vote)...but george w's ideas lack long term vision, and favor big business in my opinion. he probably does not know what sprawl is or why it is an issue. he does not strike me as someone to be respected any more than gore...he's the son of an oil man and ex president...he tried to run his own oil business but he failed...so now he should be president? bush represents the republican party's attempt to put one of their own in the white house...he is no hero and no friend to environmental concerns.
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