Al Gore: The Myth
Al Gore, fresh from his triple crown, an Oscar, an Emmy and a Nobel Political Statement Prize, is riding high in the hearts of the left. Right? Not exactly. Alexander Cockburn from The Nation absolutely destroys Al Gore, the myth, by exposing Al Gore, the shill and hack. It is as amusing as it is ugly.
Already the hysteria about anthropogenic global warming stoked by Al Gore and the Big Lie gang writing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's press releases has done enormous damage to vital environmental cleanup, sidetracking attention and money from work on sewers, toxic waste sites, filthy smokestacks–not to mention the vast disaster of agricultural pollution. Two other consequences of the hysteria will be deadly. Biofuels will steal the meals of the Third World poor and put them in First World gas tanks. Nuclear power is the hysteria's prime beneficiary. As Peter Montague describes it in our current CounterPunch newsletter, "The long-awaited and much-advertised 'nuclear renaissance' actually got under way this fall." NRG Energy, a New Jersey company, applied for a license to build two nuclear power plants in Bay City, Texas–the first formal application for such a license in thirty years.
NRG can confidently await the green light for two reasons. Using the fakery over the supposed effects of man-made greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, the nuclear industry successfully lobbied to pass the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which provides four different kinds of subsidies for atomic power plants. The other shoe promptly dropped with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's sweeping revision of its procedures, drastically attenuating the approval process for new plants. As nuclear plants start to sprout like toadstools across the landscape, it is certainly appropriate to lay a large measure of the blame on Al Gore, who has been a shill for the nuclear industry ever since he came of age as a political harlot for the Oak Ridge Nuclear Laboratory in his home state of Tennessee.
For a Man of Peace, Gore has plenty of blood on his CV. Looking back through the 1980s, we find that on every relevant issue, whether it was supporting the contras or Reagan's bombing of Libya in 1986, shilling for the Pentagon's latest weapons systems, voting for nerve gas or backing the Reagan/Bush position on NATO deployments in Europe, Gore's hawkishness was unflagging. In the course of his career he voted for the neutron bomb, the B-2 bomber, the Trident II missile, the MX missile and the Midgetman. He also backed the mini-Star Wars plan. The defense contractors always loved Al, the same way the nuclear plant manufacturers do today.
Obviously, Cockburn and I don't see eye-to-eye on a number of issues. But the willful myopia of the left to Al Gore's true history - and true intentions - is absurd. Cockburn destroys the camouflage and exposes the massive hypocrite that Gore really is.
Energy, Environment, Junk Science, Left Wing | Gaius Saturday, 20 October , 2007
By Alain, Sunday, 21 October , 2007 @ 8:50 am
Yes , I completely agree with you about the fact that Al Gore is not clean at all in the area of environment preservation and proctection
As you know , he as well owns a lot of tabacco plantation that makes the fortune of his family. Can we say that developing the tobacco business is in line with Environment Protection ? … I doubt it ….
I really do not understand these people dealing with Nobel Prize attribution do not look into that before giving him this nobel price ….
Now on the other hand , if he really wants to protect the environment , why not … as you can make mistakes in the past and change as well … as I always sais Better Late Than Never … If it is the case, we need people like him to promote and support the battle to protect the environment for the next years to come