The last week of September, in a demonstration of just how desperate the Oregon Gore Campaign is as the tight race between Ivy League scions winds up, Oregonians were treated to a shrill, condescending visit by Gore's longtime environmental flak, Katie McGinty. Appearing in Portland and Eugene, McGinty, and a covey of captive, foundation-paid "Environmentalists for Gore," spent hours reduced to inflating fears of George W. Bush, virtually ignoring or greenwashing the foul Clinton/Gore record on the environment and other issues.

A string of grassroots environmental activists spoke up for full protection of our tenuously surviving Ancient Forests and for a Gore Campaign position, one way or the other, on breaching Snake River dams for the sake of salmon.

Many decried the fact that one-out-of-six old growth trees that still existed when Clinton and Gore came to office are now stumps -- trees that were off limits to the chainsaws under Bush, Sr. Said trees were cut only after the politically motivated, ecologically unsound Clinton Forest Plan was duly endorsed by the same foundation "greens" who now wish us to scare us into believing that a Bush, Jr., victory will "spell the end for Oregon's forest ecosystems."

In Eugene, McGinty shouted that George W. Bush would appoint justices "like Scalia and Thomas" who would "seek to undermine Roe v Wade," ignoring that Senator Al Gore voted FOR Justice Scalia and that his running mate Joe Leiberman sponsored Justice Thomas. Gore, who claims "I've always supported a woman's right to choose," actually holds an 84 per cent positive rating from National Right to Life due to his many Congressional votes against choice.

Equally out of touch on the forests, a frustrated, unintentionally telling McGinty stated, "We don't understand. The Heritage Forests folks told us that our Roadless Initiative was acceptable enough for Northwest environmentalists both ecologically AND POLITICALLY" (emphasis added).

Talk about self-serving, full circle nonsense. The captive foundation-paid greens went to the stage-managed 1993 Forest Summit and colluded in the resumption of old growth logging. Now, we have the derivative Heritage Forests Campaign, a do-nothing, foundation front group designed to turn out the Democrat vote, regardless of any content. The ephemeral Roadless Initiative has yet to save one tree, one acre. It is a mere promise of MAYBE not building roads in existing roadless areas of over 5000 acres. The carpetbaggers running Heritage Forests say this is "acceptable" to Northwesterners, yet the unimplemented initiative EXEMPTS the NW forests and it really provides little in the way of protection anywhere. Clinton, himself, has said it would lower the overall cutting of public forests, "by less than 2 percent."

Here's a top ten list of what real grass roots environmentalists of the NW and elsewhere want from Gore, if they are to give their vote, sans nose-holding, if at all:

-- Use executive powers to designate all remaining undammed rivers in Oregon/Washington/Idaho as Wild and Scenic;

-- Place a moratorium on federal land exchanges, including the current proposed Steens Mountain swap whereby ranchers will get ten acres of public land for every one acre they trade;

-- Halt US government support of the Makah whale hunt;

-- End subsidies for nuclear power;

-- End commercial logging on federal lands -- a corporate welfare practice that provides less that 3% of total wood fiber cut nationally yet costs the Treasury over $1 billion per year;

-- Veto the Sen. Wyden-sponsored "County Payments Bill" which continues the counties dependence on the federal dole -- i.e. stump money;

-- Breach snake river dams -- an issue Gore won't even take a public stand on;

-- Update spotted owl and marbled murrelet as endangered species, acknowledging that the spotted owls are declining faster under the Clinton plan (some 8% per year) than they were BEFORE Al Gore "end(ed) the standoff" over their fate;

-- Place a moratorium on Endangered Species Act-side-stepping Habitat Conservation Plans (HCP), favorite Gore tactics which have sprouted up like new Starbucks in Clintontime;

-- Place a moratorium on offshore oil drilling AND rescind the Gore-sponsored transfer of the National Petroleum Reserve to Occidental Oil, a move that will greatly enhance Gore's over $500,000 in Oxy stock.

-- Place a moratorium on oil exploration/leasing in the Nat. Petroleum Reserve-Alaska;

The creation of Foundation-funded, Democrat-sycophant "green" groups may have worked in the past, but it's now "fool me twice, shame on me" time. Without a record worthy of standing on, Gore now relies on fear inflation solely. A message that, "Bush will be worse" just doesn't hold up given the real record of Al Gore. He really will do and say anything to get elected.

Michael Donnelly of Salem was active in the Opal Creek campaign and Jeffrey St. Clair of Oregon City is the author of "Al Gore: A User's Manual."

Copyright 2000 Oregon Live

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