Ain't this a great world? Dow ruins the water, killing tens of thousands, while making tens of billions, then goes into the water purification business to fix the water they ruined and make tens of billions more.

Gore is a capitalist dick, profiting on the problems he didn't fix while in office.

When Gore ran for president, I did a little research on his political life and work which left me wondering, seriously, how progressives could have put him up on such a high pedestal.

The League of Conservation Voters gave Gore a 64% lifetime rating. In my grade book, 64% is a "D" grade. Compare that with John Kerry's high 90s score - not that I'm a huge fan of Kerry either. These men come from from very different political environments which could be the reason for the huge difference.

Gore had been a proponent of nuclear power plants, which he says now, qualitatively, he's opposed to. I came across something from a nuclear industry website, a description of of a talk Gore gave in Washington state in the late 80s, early 90s, which ended in a standing ovation. I wish I had saved it because I can't find it now.

You can read Jeffrey St. Clair's book, "Al Gore: A User's Manual" and his piece in CounterPunch, "Al Gore: Origins of a Hypocrite."

And if you haven't already seen this, go to the "Snopes" site and read "A tale of Two Houses."

Doesn't he have some financial interest in cap and trade?

"It sure is great to see DOW CHEMICAL sponsoring Life Earth events in 150 cities today, isn't it, Honey?"

"Sure is, Poochie, but keep in mind this is a marketing device coming from DOW's advertising & public relations consultants. It's a petty cash expenditure to enhance DOW's image to the public. Period. The corporation cannot spend too much on these items since it would interfere with quarterly profit. That would put the corporate policy makers in the hen-house and could place risk on their staggering compensation. So, yes, it's nice DOW wrote a check from petty cash for Life Earth events in 150 cities today, but, remember: corporations -- like DOW -- are the problem, not the solution."

Gore is complicit in crimes against humnaity in Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Serbia, Kosovo, Colombia, Palestine, and elsewhere; so, of course he took money from DOW. The preliminaries for 9/11 were planned under Clinton/Gore. His rebranding himself was always artificial, helping to create yet another Wedge Issue despite its reality.

Gore never fooled me that's why I voted for Nader in 2000 when I lived in Naples, Florida. The fraud couldn't even carry his own home state. Not to mention that 2 million registered Democrats voted for Bush that year. But Democrats, as dishonest as always, blamed Nader for Bush's "victory".

A Gore presidency with Lieberman as VP would've been the same business as usual that we're witnessing now with the Uncle Tom occupying the White House, the same war crimes, torture, massive giveaways to Wall Street, capitulation to Health Insurers, etc., repeated backstabbing of the American worker... so is anyone surprised by Gore taking cash from Dow Chemical?

How much money is it costing to sponsor 150 Live Earth shows? why is this money not being used for Bhopal? I relly mran it. 25,000 dead people is an awful lot. Plus the continuing cancers and birth defects. When they have done right by Bhopal they cn go back their
pr projects.

In Gore's supposed devotion to the environment there has always been a vast rift between stirring proclamation and legislative reality. Back in the late 1970s two of the hottest environmental battles concerned the Clinch River Breeder Reactor and the Tellico Dam, both within the purview of the TVA. As planned, the Clinch River reactor not only was a $3 billion boondoggle of the first water but was also destabilizing in terms of the arms race, since it was scheduled to produce weapons-grade plutonium. The Congressional battle over the planned reactor stretched from the mid-1970s to 1983, when, amid growing national disquiet about nuclear power, it went down to defeat.

Gore was a fanatic defender of the reactor, the most ardent of all in the Tennessee House delegation. When the Republicans briefly captured the Senate in 1981 the senior senator from Tennessee, Howard Baker, became majority leader and made protection of the Clinch River project one of his prime tasks. He and Gore kept the fight going until the end. Arkansas's Senator Dale Bumpers gave an entertaining account in a speech in 1997: "I remember in 1981, Republicans took over this place and Howard Baker, the senator from Tennessee and one of the finest men ever to serve in this body, became majority leader. I was trying to keep any additional nuclear plants from being licensed--and it was not a tough chore. A lot of people had made up their minds at that point that the nuclear option was not a good one. I fought for about four years to kill the Clinch River Breeder. But I was up against the majority leader. And as everybody here knows, as the old revenuer said, when they announced United States versus Jones, he turned to his lawyer and said, "Them don't sound like very fair odds to me." And it was not very fair odds to go up against the majority leader on the Clinch River Breeder, which was going to be built in his beloved Tennessee. Howard Baker could always just pull out that one extra vote he needed. The vote was always close, but you are majority leader, you know, you can just call somebody over and say, 'I need your vote', and you usually get it. Finally, one year I was ahead by about six or seven votes as the votes were being cast, and I think Senator Baker decided that he was done for, and he turned everybody loose that had committed to him who did not really like the idea of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor and only voted for it to accommodate him. He turned them loose, and I think we won that day by about 70 to 30. Happily, that was the end of the Clinch River Breeder."

The Little Tennessee was one of the few wild rivers left in the state unmolested by the TVA. The dam wasn't needed for flood control and wouldn't generate power. All it would do was store water and divert it to another dam nearby. The recreation benefits were negative, since the Little Tennessee was a famous trout stream and popular with canoeists. In fact, the only purposes of the dam were to line the pockets of the cement producers and construction nabobs of Tennessee.

Shocked that the Act could threaten huge pork barrel projects, the very lifeblood of Congress, the legislators set up the so-called God Squad, which would pass judgement on species-endangering schemes, using cost-benefit analysis as the standard. In the case of the snail darter the God Squad, led by economist Charles Schultze, did its homework. "Here is a project that is 95 percent complete", Schultze concluded, "and if one takes just the cost of finishing it against the benefits, it doesn't pay."

The fight over the snail darter was fierce and bitter because the stakes were so high. If the pro-dam forces could win a waiver of the Endangered Species Act here, then such a waiver would inevitably be the first of many. Gore was among the leaders in the effort to get this waiver, and in the end Congress exempted the dam from compliance and overturned the Supreme Court's injunction. As the defenders of the snail darter predicted, the path to destruction of the Endangered Species Act now lay open, and first down that path had been none other than Al Gore.

After he and the other pork-barrelers got the vote that exempted the dam, Gore announced triumphantly, "It was unfortunate that the controversy over the snail darter was used to delay completion of the dam after it was virtually finished. I am glad the Congress has now ended this controversy once and for all."

The way American politics works, it took a reputed environmentalist to destroy America's best environmental law. In l98l there wasn't a major environmental group in the country that didn't bugle its frantic alarums at the approach of the Reaganauts and that Beelzebub of the greens, James Watt, Reagan's Interior Secretary. The Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, National Audubon, the Natural Resources Defense Council, all raised millions of dollars on the spectre of Watt and the havoc he would wreak on environmental regulations. In fact, the pathetic and maladroit Watt never stood a chance. He set back the cause of environmental pillage by at least a decade.

But when Watt was gone and Reagan was gone and Bush was gone, the Democratic "greens" came back to power, and they accomplished triumphs that the Republicans had never dared dream possible. Gore, who had reinvented himself as an environmentalist largely on the basis of Earth in the Balance, was embraced by the Big Green organizations. They used his entirely mythical green credentials as a way of getting their membership to overlook Bill Clinton's own adversarial relationship with nature while he was governor of Arkansas.

How's that for a resumé of inconvenient truths?

A few more inconvenient truths about Al Gore:

Gore’s support for truly clean alternative fuels has never matched his promises. Instead of fighting for expanded solar energy and conservation budgets, he and Clinton wasted over one billion dollars in a giveaway to GM, Ford and Chrysler for a clean energy project that never produced even a single prototype. Taxpayer subsidies to fossil fuel and atomic power companies continue unabated. He cannot even make solar energy a major forward vision of his campaign.

Finally on the energy issue, Gore agreed with George W. Bush to extend and further fund the “Clean Coal” subsidy, which wastes millions of dollars finding ways to clean up the burning of domestic coal, such as “sequestering” the resultant CO2 in sea beds or oil wells. Meanwhile it totally ignores all the environmental harm that comes from mining—including mountaintop removal in West Virginia and in his home state of Tennessee—and its resultant waste disposal. With all these fossils getting their way, it seems the Kyoto treaty is doomed.

For other resource extraction issues, the public good has been sold to highest bidders under the guise of conservation. The Administration set aside lands, not in National Parks, but rather in National Monuments that often can allow grazing, helicopter logging, and even hard rock mining. Logging has continued under this “earth-friendly” administration: Clinton-Gore signed the “salvage rider” that suspended the Endangered Species Act despite claiming they opposed it. Logging subsidies in the Tongass (Alaska) and White River (Colorado) have gone to corporate friends, and one in six old-growth trees that existed when they took office has been cut and sold for below cost. “Roadless areas” still have roads built with federal money, sometimes showing up in budgets as “stream enhancements.” The hands-off attitude toward corporate crooks reached its pinnacle in the backroom deal to protect Headwaters old-growth forest, which will lose 53,000 of its 60,000 acres, yet forces taxpayers to give $1.2 billion in cash and logging rights to Charles Hurwitz’s company, the S&L escapee which still owes Americans millions of dollars.

On toxics, Gore’s position was to wait years for risk assessments, then never release them if they look bad. Both administration terms have passed without the Clinton-Gore EPA’s dioxin reassessment being formally released, despite dioxin (the most potent carcinogen ever) being found in eggs, meat, and being dumped into the ocean. The administration signed away the Delaney Clause prohibited any cancer-causing pesticides or ingredients in food, a clause hated by the food industry.

The dangerous WTI hazardous waste incinerator was permitted by the Gore EPA, despite his promise in 1992 that it would not be granted. This endangers that community, including its elementary school 1100 feet away at the same altitude as the smokestack. Gore claimed the Bush administration allowed the first permit there, but Bush EPA head William Reilly has said he was advised by the Gore staff during the transition to go ahead with the trash burn permit. In any case, the owners of the plant gave thousands of dollars to the Democratic campaign fund—which obviously counts more to Gore than promises to the locals. That may be why, despite Gore having held the first hearing on Love Canal, the true hero of that fight, Lois Gibbs, has spurned Gore and is supporting the Green candidacy.

The Clinton-Gore administration also backtracked on its promise to implement “chlorine-free paper,” which would stop dioxin production in papermaking, when the chemical industry made the slightest squeal. Despite trumpeting the role of the US government as the biggest purchaser of paper in the country, the administration settled for “chlorine-dioxide” paper, thereby committing the government to continuing buying into the dioxin lifecycle. For two and a half years, Clinton-Gore have not responded to a coalition petition to the DEA to allow farmers to grow industrial hemp that could be used for paper that’s both chlorine-free and tree-free.

"...Dow is well positioned to provide breakthroughs and global initiatives that supply safer water to those in need."

they could have "provide[d] breakthroughs and global initiatives" before they made the water "unsafe"...

it's so disingenuous... now they see market opportunity in the problems they created...

it might fly a little better... if as part of this "imaging" campaign... they at least tried to go back and help those people already affected...

here's something i am already doing... REDUCE the number of chemicals in your life... from deodorants to fruit juices... THINK when you purchase... RESEARCH a little for alternatives... some things are easy... some things are not... including packaging...

but life without chemicals is not possible unless INDIVIDUALS FIRST stop buying everything they use and consume with them...

I, too, could go on and on about Al Gore's hypocrisy. If he were a true environmnetalist, he would be advocating a vegetarian diet, but, of course, he does not want to offend any large corporations, in this case, the meat and dairy industries.
When Gore was Vice-President, I took part in a Greenpeace demonstration against a hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. Clinton and Gore had promised, if elected, to shut it down. As far as I know, it is still spewing out pollution near an elementary school. At the demonstration, I, along with others, returned Gore's book, Earth in the Balance.
He is a monumental hypocrite.

Al Gore has made more than 32 million dollars since leaving the VP position in HEDGE FUNDS....anyone who knows anything about hedge funds knows that as an investor you have NO RIGHT TO KNOW HOW THE FUND IS MAKING YOU BIG MONEY ON HIGH RISK INVESTMENTS....I wouldn't doubt one moment that his millions were made from the preditor loans, big oil and other dirty fuel investments etc. Gore is about as environmental as Ruppert Murdock is.

Thanks for your posts, everyone. I remember the Bhopal tragedy...and was angry when I found out the U.S. pretty much refused to assist in holding Warren Anderson responsible for anything (latest info I found: The guy currently lives a life of ease in the Hamptons on Long Island with two other homes to run to as well).

That Al Gore would ignore the need for water contamination clean up there...and ignore Dow's ties to such a responsibility...all for the sake of promoting his "Live Earth" gigs...amazing. And eye opening.

Add to this the other info so many of you shared, and...yikes.

(All the crap is really rising to the surface now, isn't it? Which is good, actually. A major clean-out of the "Old Reality" is necessary....in order to move forward in a big way. And we ARE moving forward in a big way.)

P.S. Really appreciate anmltwk's comment re: going vegetarian as an environmental necessity and how he has skirted such for so many years. Though truly, how many well-known environmentalists are vegetarian/vegan? Just curious...(and for the record: vegetarian 25 years, vegan 12 years...)

NAFTA cleared the Senate by one vote. Al Gore was called in to perform his constitutional role as Senate President to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the treaty. Clinton and Gore, through Gore's tie-breaking vote, delivered what Bush I could only dream of. Thus began the precipitous hollowing-out of American manufacturing. The Clinton-Gore passion for "free" trade agreements such as NAFTA, the WTO, and GATT greatly accelerated the pace of exporting the American manufacturing base in ways that backers of their Republican predecessors could only dream of. The massive negative impact of these agreements on American workers was immediate, but was largely masked by the growth (both real and speculative) in the IT sector. It also took a few years for the full for the full intensity of the changes to be felt as the transition phased-in.

Democrats and progressives often complain that the transformation of the American economy to a third-world service economy accelerated under Bush II. While it is true that the Bush White House was disinterested in taking any action that would have preserved American jobs in a way that would cause even minor inconvenience to corporate elites, it is also true that most of the major structural damage was already done before Clinton-Gore left office.

This massive betrayal of labor by the Clinton-Gore team also had far reaching political consequences. It created a wide-spread (and well justified) feeling among the working and middle classes that Democrats had taken them for granted and that Republicans could be no worse. Disaffection among US labor groups and working Americans helped to usher in the Republican congress in 1994. Some labor groups, notably the Teamsters, went so far as to support Bush (not Nader) in 2000. As the effects of "free" trade undercut and disempowered American workers, the Democrats lost one of their most powerful and reliable traditional allies.

When Gore was running for president Peace Action, the nation's largest grassroots peace group, highlighted six issues in its Presidential voter guide. On five of these, Gore and Bush agree:

"Increase Pentagon spending" (Yes), "Spend $60 billion or more on 'Star Wars' anti-missile system" (Yes), "Give aid to Colombian army guilty of human rights violations" (Yes), "End sanctions on food and medicine to civilians in Iraq" (No), and "Require labor rights and environmental protections in all trade agreements" (No).

Here's more Gore.

GORE: We have to keep a weather eye toward Saddam Hussein because he’s taking advantage of this situation to once again make threats and he needs to understand that he’s not only dealing with Israel, he is dealing with us.

BUSH: The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it’s unraveling, let’s put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don’t know whether he’s developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be or there’s going to be a consequence, should I be the president.

Q: You could get him out of there?

BUSH: I’d like to, of course. But it’s going to be important to rebuild that coalition to keep the pressure on him.

Q: You feel that as a failure of the Clinton administration?

BUSH: I do.

GORE: We have maintained the sanctions. I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Some say they’re too weak to do it. But that’s what they said about those opposing Milosevic in Serbia.

Source: Presidential Debate at Wake Forest University Oct 11, 2000

Gore wanted to go FURTHER than just mere sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands!

Such is ungodly democracy, a most perfect fake morality, the best smoke screen for hiding excessive wealth the world has ever known.

For democracy is the most intelligent and wealthy 51% enslaving the 49% laboring class.

Al who?

Today we were walking in beautiful Prospect Park. (The park is leftover from the days when government set aside natural spaces strictly for the enjoyment of the public.) We saw a tent and bandstand being set up. There was a banner that said “Live Earth” in big letters. As we approached, we saw the word “Dow” in smaller letters on the banner. My reaction was involuntary revulsion, and I think I said “Dow? WTF”. Another group approached and someone said “I can’t believe it – Dow?”

I am a surprised the article didn't mention napalm. Dow Chemical developed napalm along with Harvard U and supplied it during the invasion of Vietnam. Napalm was dropped on civilians, including many children. You may have seen the pictures. (They are relics from a time in which it was legal and customary for the press to photograph our invasions.) If you haven’t seen the pictures, just Google “Vietnam napalm” for images.

Then there was Bhopal which sprayed insecticide on 25,000 people killing them as they slept in their beds. That is equivalent of 10 World Trade Centers or 1000 of the latest mining disaster. 125,000 people were injured as well. There was very little coverage in the US press. The chemical company fought attempts for compensation for the victims tooth and nail. The families of those killed got some paltry repayment. The injured had to struggle with medical care and earning a living largely on their own. The accident was soon forgotten in the US. I know “educated” people who had not heard of it. There was no permanent worldwide disruption and hullaballoo as there was after 911, no calls for changes to protect safety. The victims, after all, were not Americans.

Now Dow still continues to pollute rivers. As far as I know, they have never apologized for napalm or Bhopal.

There are lots of potential sponsors for a celebration of the earth. Why the organizers chose Dow is beyond comprehension. Choosing Dow to sponsor an earth day celebration is like choosing Farben to sponsor a Holocaust Remembrance or Blackwater to sponsor a Peace Fair. It is a clear signal of insincerity and lack of comprehension of the issues.

Lots of young people will probably attend the “Live Earth” celebrations because they care about the earth, and because there will be music. Most of them will have no idea of Dow’s role. They may come away with the impression that Dow is a nice company and will be a leader in the efforts to clean up and protect the earth. I hope that some of us will be there with a counter presence - educational material about what really has to be done about the environment, how urgent it is, and why Dow will probably not be part of the solution. Maybe we will have music too.

Joe

Ah, remember the Magic Christian. Everybody has their price. Hold your nose, wade in grabbing....

Al Gore, what an awful man! A coward, a hypocrite, and an imperialist (he openly called for the overthrow of the prime minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia in 1998, and he supported the maintenance of the military bases in Japan in 1997). Plainly disgusting.

Like the NAACP being funded by the Ku Klux Klan.

Dow should be roundly spanked for this. No doubt. Until they own up to their transgressions, they need to be exposed for what they are: Disaster capitalists and murdereres. Nonetheless, we will catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Give Al some credit for holding out an olive branch

I wonder where all the "damn Nader for keeping Gore from being the Pres." folks are, you would think they would show up to defend their hero. Guess you guys have done too much research to make their argument that Gore would have been ever so much better credible.

Good stuff guys!

Al Gore denies he is associated with the Live Earth Run for Water (although he helped set up Live Earth and he lists Live Earth as one of his projects on algore.com). The Independent has removed the article from its website and posted this rectification:

"In last Sunday's article "Gore takes cash for water campaign from chemical firm", we stated that Al Gore's environmental organisation had taken money from a chemical company for the Life Earth Water events taking place last week. Neither Al Gore nor his philanthropic organisation, the Alliance for Climate protection, are associated with, or sponsored, the Live Earths Water events that were the subject of our article". We apologise to Al Gore and his organisation for our error.
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/iiosi-letters-emails--online-postings-25-april-2010-1953558.html