From: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com (abolition-usa-digest) To: abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: abolition-usa-digest V1 #394 Reply-To: abolition-usa-digest Sender: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk abolition-usa-digest Monday, October 23 2000 Volume 01 : Number 394 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 13:47:27 -0400 From: ASlater Subject: (abolition-usa) Nuclear Power is Sustainable, says Clinton Clinton Administration's Reliance on Nuclear Energy Becomes More Apparent Nuclear Energy Institute October 10, 2000-The Clinton Administration's reliance on nuclear energy as a tool to combat the threat of global warming became clearer in recent days. "Nuclear energy is clean and should be part of the country' s energy mix to combat global climate change," Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said October 4 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, McGraw-Hill reported in the trade publication Nucleonics Week that the U.S. government will prevent nuclear power from being excluded from projects qualifying for carbon emissions reduction credit under the Kyoto Protocol. U.S. officials told the publication that the State Department "will make sure" that efforts by the majority of members in the European Union (EU) and some developing countries to exclude nuclear power from qualifying for the protocol' s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) will fail. The United States is strongly supported by Canada, China, and Japan, Nucleonics Week said. The 167 million metric tons of carbon emissions avoided by nuclear energy in 1999 was equivalent to removing 97 million cars and trucks from America's highways. The Council of Economics Advisors estimated that if the United States relied on international emissions trading for compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, the cost for carbon would range from $14 to $25 per metric ton. At $25 per ton, the carbon emissions avoided in 1999 alone would have been worth $3.5 billion. At least some renewable energy advocates concur with the Administration' s view of nuclear energy. Solar Industries Association Executive Director Scott Sklar said in a presentation at NEI last week that nuclear energy and solar energy are complementary because they are not in direct competition for customers choosing emission-free electricity. He raised the possibility that greater synergies can be developed between solar and nuclear energy. Specifically, Sklar cited the large land areas around nuclear plant sites and suggested that companies could use solar units to power non-plant facilities like visitor centers. Nuclear energy, undoubtedly, will be among the topics discussed during final negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism rules to be held in The Hague, Netherlands, in late November. Copyright c 2000 Nuclear Energy Institute. All rights reserved. **** - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 16:03:21 -0400 From: ASlater Subject: (abolition-usa) Fwd: [manhattangreens] Hitler or Mussolini -- The Lesser of 2 Evils is Still Evil >>To: nygreen@egroups.com >From: "mitchelcohen@mindspring.com" > >Check out this absolutely right-on article, from the San Francisco >Examiner, Tuesday, October 17, 2000 > >Lesser Of 2 Evils Is Still Evil >by Harley Sorensen > >If Benito Mussolini were a Democrat running for president of the United >States against Adolf Hitler, a Republican, who would you vote for... >assuming that Ralph Nader was the Green Party candidate? > >Easy choice, according to Examiner columnist Stephanie Salter and her >joined-at-the-hip buddy, Bernie Ward, of KGO Talk Radio. You'd hold your >nose and vote for Mussolini, the lesser of the two major-party evils. > >That's peculiar, because anyone with a scintilla of intelligence knows that >Ralph Nader, a true patriot who has already done more to serve his country >than perhaps any person alive today, is the only candidate even remotely >capable of leading us out of the undemocratic morass that Washington has >become. You would think a man like that would be a shoo-in. > >You'd think that freedom-loving liberals and conservatives alike would rush >to the Nader camp. Given the choices we have, you'd think that even the >sappiest of all political thinkers, the Libertarians, would be campaigning >for Nader and dying to vote for him. > >You'd think on Nov. 7 it'd be Nader by a landslide, leaving those tired old >machine politicians so far in the dust they'd be invisible to the naked >eye. > >But Nader doesn't stand a chance, they say. Of course he's the best, but we >have to be practical, they say. A vote for Nader, say the liberals, is a >vote for George W. Bush. Although Mussolini/Gore would be bad for the >country, they say, Hitler/Bush would be disastrous. > >One wonders: If Mussolini and Hitler were the major party candidates, and >God were the Green Party guy, would folks like Salter and Ward still urge >you to vote for Mussolini/Gore... because God is down in the polls? > >Psst! Hey, Buddy! Don't vote for that God guy. Seriously. > >He doesn't stand a chance. You've seen the polls; he's out of it. Vote for >Mr. Mussolini. Sure, he's not great, but he's better than that Hitler guy. >And he'll make the trains run on time. He promised. > >We are being urged by the leaders of both parties, but particularly the >Democrats, to put our principles aside and cast our vote for expediency. > >There isn't one Democrat in 50 who really likes Albert Gore Jr. We tend to >forget how he got where he is. If you remember 1992, Gore was defeated in >the primaries by Bill Clinton, then picked from the dung heap by Clinton to >join a winning team. > >Nothing that has happened in the last eight years makes Gore any more >attractive than he was when he got beat in 1992. He was nominated by the >Democrats this year only out of some distorted sense of courtesy. Lacking a >royal family, we Americans have taken to creating our own royalty, the sons >of successful people, or hangers-on like Al Gore. > >I've defended Gore in this space against the spurious attacks leveled >against him by Republicans, but, charming as he may be in private, he's a >pandering fool in public. Why he talks in public like an oversized >ventroliquist's dummy is anybody's guess, but his is not the sort of >conduct that inspires my confidence. > >George W. Bush, on the other hand, brings to the table these fine >qualities: He's no longer a drunk, he's no longer a cokehead, he doesn't >chase women any more, he's got a lot of money and his father is a bitter >failed president who eagerly seeks "revenge" against Bill Clinton. > >Bush has an advantage over Gore in that he's a tough guy, willing to fight >any man who dares tread on him or his. Mind you, Bush would do the tough >talking and hire someone else to do the actual fighting, but you get the >point. Talk like a tough guy and you'll win the support of 90 per cent of >the Joe Six-Packs in America. > >Voting for either of these buffoons when Ralph Nader is running is an act >of immorality for most of us. If you're a millionaire looking for a tax >break, then of course George W. Bush is your man. If you're a Democratic >Party hack looking for advancement, then of course Al Gore is your man. > >But if you're an honest, decent, loyal American who believes in the >principles of democracy, you have no moral choice: you must vote for Ralph >Nader. > >You must vote for the one person dedicated to destroying, not preserving, >the stranglehold monied interests have over the rest of us. > >Our cable television bills are too high. Our cellular phone bills are way >too high. Our Internet access charges are too high. Our utility bills are >too high. We pay too much for sugar. We pay too much for milk. We pay too >much to go to the movies. We certainly pay too much for housing, >spectacularly so in the Bay Area. You and I pay way too much for too many >products that should be relatively cheap. > >What that means is that we have to work too many hours for the stuff we >need or want. We are, in a sense, held in economic slavery. > >Why is that? What is there in the Constitution that says you and I have to >work a little harder and make do with a little less so that guys like Bill >Gates and Larry Ellison can become mega-billionaires? > >The Democrat Party, under Bill Clinton, has done nothing to correct the >inequities in our economic system. Those inequities have grown over the >past eight years and will continue to grow under Al Gore. > >If George W. Bush becomes our next president, it's Katie bar the door! The >gentle push the Democrats have given us toward economic perdition will >become a nosedive. > >If democracy is ever to be restored to our country through the ballot, we >must make our voices heard. If we consistently vote for more of the same, >we will continue to get more of the same. We can cry and whine all we want, >but nothing will change unless we show character and determination at the >ballot box. > >Voting for the lesser evil is, by definition, voting for evil. > > >-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> >eGroups eLerts >It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! >http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/5/_/421112/_/972071484/ >---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> > >To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: >manhattangreens-unsubscribe@eGroups.com > - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 09:03:02 -0400 From: "david rush" Subject: (abolition-usa) Kakwort virus The kakwort virus was on my machine, and it came from an abolition caucus message . A fix is available at http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/wscript.kakworm.fix.html David Rush - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 15:51:35 -0700 From: Joan Russow Subject: (abolition-usa) Canadian Election Peace Issues Dear Peace Groups A Canadian election was called today and will take place November 27th. As the federal leader of the Green Party of Canada, I will be advocating the following issues: 1. Nato - Canada's withdrawal 2. Nato - Disbanding 3. Ending the circulation and berthing of nuclear powered and enabled vessels 4. the closing of Nanoose Test Range on Vancouver Island 5. the phasing out of civil nuclear energy, coupled with a fair and just time-bound transition plan for affected workers and communities 6. the prohibition of the transfer of plutonium in the form of MOX from the US and Russia for use in Candu reactors, 7. to ban the sale of Candu reactors 8. to link civil nuclear energy with the development of nuclear arms 9. to support the abolition 2000 initiative 10. to work to recognize the Security Council as an affirmative action program for nuclear powers and to transfer its powers to the General Assembly 11. to reduce the Canadian Defence budget by 50% and transfer the savings to health and the environment 12. to work towards a culture of peace and away from the "cult of war" 13. the banning of uranium mining Incidentally, we are still looking for candidates for the Green Party in some ridings. Joan Russow. - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 06:28:03 -0400 From: "Ellen.Thomas" Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews 00/10/23 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements (radwaste; analysis Gore/Lieberman) Washington Times Daybook, October 23, 2000, Agence France Presse=20 http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-20001023212342.htm 8 a.m. =97 Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds the 28th Water Reactor Safety meeting. Location: Bethesda Marriott Hotel, 5151 Pooks Hill Road, Bethesda. Contact: 301/415-6437. 10 a.m. =97 Environmental Protection Agency holds a meeting of the= national advisory committee for acute exposure guideline levels for hazardous substances. Location: Rooms 6332-6336, Nassif Building, Transportation Department Headquarters, 400 Seventh St. SW. Contact: 202/554-1404. 1:30 p.m. =97 Energy Department holds a meeting of the federal energy management advisory committee. Location: Loews L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, 480 L'Enfant Plaza SW. Contact: 202/586-3507. Media freedom briefing =97 8:30 a.m. =97 Radio Free Europe/ Radio= Liberty holds a briefing on "Media Freedom under Putin." The speaker is Sergei Grigoriants, Glasnost Public Foundation and director of the Glasnost-North Caucasus Information Center. Location: 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW. Contact: 202/457-6949. Ecuador discussion =97 9 a.m. =97 The National Press Club holds a= Morning Newsmaker news conference featuring a discussion on "Ecuador's National Security and Implications of Plan Colombia." The speaker is Heinz Moeller, foreign minister of Ecuador. Location: National Press Club, 14th and F= streets NW. Contact: 202/662-7593. Colombia discussion =97 12:30 p.m. =97 The Johns Hopkins University= Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) holds a discussion on "Colombia's Communities of Peace: Non-Violent Resistance in the Midst of= War." The speaker is Andrew Miller, Amnesty International's acting advocacy= director for Latin America and the Caribbean. Location: Room 417, Nitze Building,= SAIS, 1740 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Contact: 202/663-5626. - -- PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES - - George W. Bush -=20 http://www.GeorgeWBush.com - http://64.92.133.170/Calendar.asp This week Bush travels to nine states in 17 cities which have a combined 140 electoral votes. His trip will cover 6,153 miles. Monday: Kansas City, Missouri, Des Moines, Iowa, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Tuesday: Illinois, Tennessee, and Florida. Wednesday: Florida. Thursday: Pennsylvania and Michigan. Friday: he visits several Michigan cities via bus. - - Al Gore - New Orleans LA http://www.algore2000.com/ - - Ralph Nader -=20 http://www.votenader.org/campaignevents.html Monday, October 23, Palo Alto, CA 7:00pm - 10:00pm - Speech, Memorial Stadium, Stanford University - -- ANNOUNCEMENTS -- - - Public Comment Sought:=20 Radioactive Soil from Nuclear Plants May be Sold to Homes, Farms October 19, 2000 (ENS) - A controversial plan that would allow nuclear power plant operators to market their radiologically contaminated soils to construction companies, farmers, golf courses and other commercial entities= is moving closer to reality. After a 14 month literature search, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has selected 56 documents with which to define "realistic reuse scenarios" for the many tons of contaminated soils currently piled up= at nation's nuclear power plants. According to the NRC, the nuclear power industry's stockpile of low level contaminated soils could be safely used for a number of private and public endeavors, such as home landscaping projects, athletic fields, and playgrounds. The 56 documents selected in the literature search, which were= culled from a collection of some two million scientific articles, academic publications and industry reports, will be used to characterize the impacts that the recycled contaminated soils would have on public health and the environment. Specifically, the NRC hopes to use the documents to analyze the "exposure pathways" that will result from each soil reuse scenario. For example, the NRC will use the documents to analyze the exposure pathways in= a "suburban scenario," where recycled nuclear power plant soils are used as backfill around a domestic residence. The exposure pathways resulting from any given soil reuse scenario would vary according to the activities of the people living area, the NRC notes.= =20 For example, if people within a suburban reuse scenario engaged in gardening activities, the exposure pathways could include inhalation,= ingestion of vegetables or fruits, inadvertent ingestion of soil, and external= exposure, the NRC points out. In order to evaluate the potential overall impact of reusing the= power plant soils, the NRC will analyze several scenarios to determine a "critical group." The NRC defines a critical group as a group of individuals= reasonably expected to receive the greatest exposure to residual radioactivity for any applicable set of circumstances. The dose of radiation received by the average member of the critical group will then be used to determine whether limitations are required so= that soil reuse will be controlled in a way that is protective of public health= and the environment, according to the NRC. The 56 documents that were culled from more than two million during= the literature search will provide valuable information in setting those parameters, the NRC maintains. Some of the document titles selected include: * "Hazardous soils to be used in paving mix."=20 * "Large scale adobe brick manufacturing in New Mexico."=20 * "Methodology to estimate the amount and particle size of soil ingested by children: implications for exposure assessment at waste sites."=20 * "Ash: A valuable resource."=20 * "Building with adobe brick."=20 * "Probabilistic prediction of exposures to arsenic contaminated residential soil."=20 * "Technical basis for establishing environmentally acceptable endpoints in contaminated soils."=20 * "We're in the soils business, remember!" A key element of the project was to have a team of outside experts review the results of the literature search, the NRC emphasized. According= to the NRC, the role of the outside experts was to alert the agency to concepts= or information overlooked in the literature search. One of the independent reviewers, Carlo Long Casler, did make such= an alert to the NRC. Casler, who is affiliated with the Arid Lands Information Center at the University of Arizona, asked the NRC to review Russian= documents pertaining to the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.= Casler also suggested that the NRC analyze Japanese documents pertaining to the= long term health effects of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki some 55 years ago. The NCR, in a report released earlier this summer, concluded that= the environmental and health impacts of those cases were not relevant to the question of reusing radiologically contaminated soil from U.S. nuclear power plants. "The unintentional exposure hazard from the high-level radiation= that occurred in the cases Ms. Casler mentioned is significantly different from= the anticipated exposure derived from soils intentionally released from NRC-regulated locations," the NRC stated in its report. That's not good enough for Diane D'Arrigo of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. D'Arrigo, like many environmentalists, takes issue with the NRC's plan to release low level radioactive materials from regulatory standards. "The goal should be to isolate radioactive materials and prevent exposures, not to deliberately expose people by allowing radioactive= materials into regular daily commerce, D'Arrigo said. "If it's contaminated from= nuclear power and the fuel chain, then it should be treated as a waste and= isolated." The NRC has already set radiation benchmarks that nuclear power= plants must meet before they can be decommissioned. Now, the NRC is trying to set standards that would allow individual aspects of the plants to be released= from regulatory control prior to a shutdown. In addition to contaminated soils, these standards would apply to metals, concrete and equipment used at= nuclear power plants. Like many environmentalists, D'Arrigo is not convinced that the= NRC's standards will be protective. "When the whole motivation behind it is to allow radioactive= materials to be released from regulatory control, we can't have a lot of hope that= these are really going to be objective or comprehensive or realistic," she said. The NRC will take public comments on its report on human interaction with reused soils until November 17. The document can be viewed on line at: [26]http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NUREGS/SR1725/index.html Comments can be submitted by email to: [27] tjn@nrc.gov, or by fax to: 301-415-5385. - - Quick on the Trigger=20 Are you prepared for Gore's foreign policy? By William D. Hartung - November 2000, The Progressive Liberal columnists such as Anthony Lewis of The New York Times, E.J. Dionne= of The Washington Post, and Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker have done contortions to demonstrate that yes, Virginia, there are significant differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties. They then argue= that Ralph Nader, honorable man though he may be, should put aside his quixotic quest for the Presidency before he risks throwing the election to George W. Bush.=20 But in the field that I know best--U.S. foreign and military policy--it's= no easy matter to make a "lesser of two evils" argument for the Gore-Lieberman ticket. On many of the issues that progressives care about most--curbing= pro-corporate trade agreements, stopping the flow of U.S. arms and training to corrupt and abusive regimes in Colombia and Indonesia, ending the deadly civilian= sanctions against Iraq, reducing the nation's grotesque $311 billion military= budget--the differences between the standard-bearers of the two major parties range from subtle to nonexistent. Peace Action, the nation's largest grassroots peace group, highlights six issues in its latest 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). Gore's stances are decidedly against the positions= of most progressive organizations and activists. On only one issue, "Support treaty to ban nuclear testing," is Gore in favor and Bush opposed. By= contrast, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader supports the progressive position on all= six of the issues identified by Peace Action. On missile defense, there may be another important difference emerging. The Clinton-Gore Administration's recent decision to put its provocative= National Missile Defense program on hold--enunciated by the President in a September= 1 address to incoming students at Georgetown University and heartily seconded= by Vice President Gore--opens at least the possibility that a Gore-Lieberman Administration could get back on track toward implementing additional= post-Cold War nuclear arms reductions. Compared with George W. Bush's pledge to move= full speed ahead with a multitiered, open-ended missile defense plan that could= be even more costly and provocative than Ronald Reagan's original Star Wars vision, Gore's position looks pretty damned good. For some, this may be enough to cast their lot with the Democratic ticket.= But the rest of us may want to take a closer look at the records of Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman before we make up our minds. The Presidential ticket of Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman represents the ascendancy of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), a conservative= current within the Democratic Party that helped catapult Bill Clinton and Al Gore= onto the national scene with a corporate-friendly, pro-military, fiscally conservative agenda that was designed to put the party's allegedly ultra-liberal, "McGovernite" past behind it (see John Nichols's story,= "Behind the DLC Takeover," in the October issue of The Progressive). While the DLC virtually gave birth to Al Gore as a Presidential candidate, it has also= been central to the rise of Lieberman, who has served as the organization's= chairman for the past five years. It was Al Gore who first tested the DLC's pro-military themes in his= hapless Presidential campaign of 1988, when he was one of a cast of relatively= unknown and inexperienced Democratic Presidential contenders referred to derisively= by some commentators as the "seven dwarfs." I remember scratching my head when= I attended the Presidential debate held at Manhattan's Javits Convention= Center in the spring of that year and learned that one of Gore's distinguishing characteristics was that he was the only Democratic candidate who had= endorsed Ronald Reagan's 1983 invasion of Grenada--that great and glorious victory in which it was decisively proven that U.S. Marines in helicopter gunships are mightier than Cuban construction workers armed with shovels. While the Grenada case was an extreme example of Gore's eagerness to= endorse the use of military force as a way of demonstrating that he was a "different kind of Democrat," it is consistent with many of the positions he has taken since that time. In an April 1988 speech to the New York Democratic= Committee, Gore suggested that "because of their dovish foreign policy views, the nomination of Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis or the Reverend= Jesse Jackson would gravely jeopardize Democratic chances of regaining the White House," according to Robert Shogan of the Los Angeles Times. Among the= issues Gore chastised his Democratic rivals for were their failure to endorse Jimmy Carter's decision to put nuclear-armed Pershing missiles in Germany to= reduce our mythical "window of vulnerability" to nuclear attack by Moscow and their unwillingness to support Ronald Reagan's decision to provide U.S. military escorts to Kuwaiti tankers moving through the Persian Gulf. Gore was an early and consistent supporter of using force in the Persian= Gulf. In 1991, he and Lieberman were two of only ten Democrats in the Senate to= vote for the resolution authorizing the air war against Iraq. Lieberman also= called for the use of U.S. ground troops to drive Saddam Hussein from power,= despite the fact that such a move would have violated the U.N. resolution that had authorized U.S. intervention in the conflict. Lest we think his views have mellowed with age and experience, Gore has a section on his campaign web site entitled "Gore Backed Use of Military Force When Necessary to Protect U.S. Interests and Values," in which he proudly proclaims that he "argued strongly for punitive air strikes against the= Serbs," "supported air strikes and continuous patrolling of the no-fly zone to= contain Saddam Hussein," and "supported military retaliation against Osama Bin Laden for terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies in East Africa." (This= retaliation included the bombing of a building in the Sudan that was later determined to= be a pharmaceutical factory with no documented connection to Bin Laden.)=20 Look for a Gore and Lieberman Administration to be quick on the trigger= when it comes to launching air strikes on Washington's designated enemies of the moment. In this, they would continue the tradition of William Jefferson Clinton, who has used force overseas more often than any U.S. President of= the past two decades, including Ronald Reagan. And if you are hoping that Gore and Lieberman might deliver a peace= dividend, think again. During the Presidential debate in Boston on October 3, Gore proudly proclaimed that his ten-year Pentagon budget has "set aside more= than twice as much" as George W.'s for upgrading the military. Sadly for progressives, Gore's boast is true: He proposes to add $10 billion per year= to the Pentagon budget over the next decade, while Bush plans an increase of "only" $4.5 billion per year. Gore also went out of his way to criticize= Bush for "skipping the next generation of weapons," he said. "I think that's a= big mistake because I think we have to stay at the cutting edge." That means= Gore is in favor of funding costly, multibillion dollar weapons systems (for example, the F-22 or the Joint Strike Fighter) to replace current systems= that are already perfectly capable of defending the United States under all imaginable circumstances. It looks like the Pentagon and the weapons makers= can break out the champagne regardless of who wins in November. The people of Iraq, however, would have nothing to celebrate. Gore and Lieberman are not likely to have much sympathy for calls to end civilian sanctions on Iraq, despite strong evidence that ten years of sanctions have contributed to the unnecessary deaths of one million Iraqi civilians,= including the deaths of 4,500 children per month. Apparently, Gore and Lieberman's concern about the negative impact of the violent words and images visited= upon American children by the entertainment industry does not translate into sympathy for the deadly impact U.S.-led sanctions have had on Iraqi= children. In Al and Joe's moral universe, all children are decidedly not created= equal. The Clinton-Gore policy "does not aim to find an alternative to Hussein or= to arouse a democratic fervor in the people, but rather to continue the status quo, and in the process, test a few weapons to see how well they work, so= they can be marketed to other countries," says Representative Cynthia McKinney, Democrat of Georgia. "Unfortunately, innocent women and children are being killed along the way." On the issue of U.S.-Israeli relations, Al Gore is likely to be extremely reluctant to press Tel Aviv to rein in its military and police forces or to compromise on sensitive issues such as the status of Jerusalem. Gore's= longtime foreign policy adviser, Leon Fuerth, is the ultimate hardliner on Mideast affairs. When Gore ran for President in 1988, it was Fuerth who convinced= him to criticize Ronald Reagan from the right, slamming the Republican Administration for pressing then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to= trade land for peace. To make matters worse, one of Gore's current confidants on Mideast policy is New Republic editor-in-chief Martin Peretz. As Edward W.= Said has aptly noted of Peretz, "No one in American journalism is a more= unabashed hater and despiser of Arabs and Muslims, none more insulting, none more disparaging, none more reckless and ignorant." Gore and Lieberman can also be expected to block efforts at lifting the forty-year-old economic embargo against Cuba. As Vice President, Al Gore has carefully distanced himself from the Clinton Administration's modest steps toward relaxing economic and travel restrictions between the United States= and Cuba. On October 4, The New York Times asked Gore, "Would you press for the lifting of sanctions?" Gore answered: "No, no, I'm a hardliner on Castro."= He made that clear when he contradicted the U.S. Justice Department's position that Elian Gonzalez's father--not the rightwing Cuban American National Foundation and not the child's Miami-based cousins--should decide where the= boy would live. There is no rational explanation for Gore's embarrassing views= on Cuba other than his desire to pander to conservative Cuban exiles in Miami= in the hopes of stealing a few critical votes from the Republicans in Florida= come November. Meanwhile, Gore's running mate has an unblemished record of support for sustaining a tough embargo on Cuba. Lieberman's conservative stance on this issue dates back to his decision to embrace the Cuban American National Foundation and its late founder, Jorge Mas Canosa, during his first run for= the Senate against Republican moderate Lowell Weicker in 1988. In fact,= Republican Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney has a far more progressive stance on the Cuba embargo than Lieberman does. During an appearance on Meet the Press earlier this year, Cheney criticized the Helms-Burton Act. "Unilateral sanctions almost never work," Cheney said. "They are usually politically motivated, responding to a domestic constituency."=20 Both Gore and Lieberman are major league practitioners of the art of pork barrel politics, which they have pursued with special zeal in order to= protect the interests of major weapons contractors. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. companies have seized a dominant= position in the global arms market, controlling anywhere from one-third to one-half= of all international arms sales in any given year. In 1999, the last year for which full statistics are available, the Congressional Research Service estimates that the United States accounted for 54 percent of global weapons deliveries, more than all the other suppliers in the world combined. Clinton and Gore have helped promote the U.S. weapons industry at every turn,= following the credo enunciated by the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown at the 1993= Paris Air Show that "not only will we help you promote your products in the world market, but we will help you close the deal." Gore has actively involved himself in jawboning Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to buy American weaponry. He has paid special attention to helping Lockheed Martin "close the deal" on multibillion dollar sales of= eighty top-of-the-line F-16 fighter planes to the United Arab Emirates that will contain more advanced radar systems than those utilized on the U.S. Air= Force's own versions of the aircraft. Clinton and Gore's service to the arms= industry has not gone unrewarded: Bernard Schwartz, a former Lockheed Martin board member and the head of Loral Space and Communications, gave $601,000 in soft money to Democratic committees in the run-up to the 1996 Presidential= election, and he has nearly doubled that sum this time around, with $1.1 million in contributions to Democratic committees in the 1997-2000 time frame. As for Lieberman, he has done what every Connecticut Senator worth his salt has done for at least two generations: gone to bat for the state's arms manufacturers at every opportunity. He has resisted efforts by his= Democratic colleagues to cut funds for Lockheed Martin's F-22 combat aircraft, which at $200 million per copy is the most expensive fighter plane ever built. The engines for the aircraft are made in Hartford by the Pratt & Whitney= division of United Technologies. And he joined his home state colleague Christopher= Dodd in a shameless effort to get more Blackhawk helicopters--built in= Connecticut by United Technologies' Sikorsky unit--included in the Clinton= Administration's $1.3 billion aid package for Colombia instead of the cheaper Huey II, built= in Texas by Textron Bell. In a June 21 speech on the floor of the Senate, Lieberman openly shilled for Sikorsky, arguing that "the Blackhawks are= fast, they have tremendous capacity, and they are well suited for long-range operations. . . . While the Huey II is an improvement over the 1960s, it= does not have the same performance capabilities, including range, speed, lift, or survivability, at any altitude as does the Blackhawk." According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lieberman received $33,000= in campaign contributions from United Technologies and its employees in the= most recent election cycle. The one area where the subtle rhetorical differences between Gore and Bush could develop into strong, clear policy differences is in nuclear arms= control. In a statement supporting Clinton's decision to put missile defense on hold, Gore asserted: "As President, I would oppose the kinds of missile defenses= that would unnecessarily upset strategic stability and threaten to open the gates for a renewed arms race with Russia and a new arms race with China,= including both offensive and defensive weapons." But in typical Clinton fashion, Gore left open the prospect for deploying some kind of system. Still, Gore's recognition that pushing full speed ahead on National Missile Defense could spark a new nuclear arms race indicates that his thinking is light years ahead of Bush's on this issue (although it must be noted that Lieberman was one of a handful of early Democratic supporters of Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran's "Defend America Act," a jingoistic, pro-National Missile Defense proposal). To their credit, both Gore and Lieberman support= the Comprehensive Test Ban, an important next step in the global nuclear arms control regime, while Bush is adamantly opposed to any such agreement. The Clinton-Gore Administration is the only Administration since the Eisenhower era that has not negotiated a single significant nuclear arms control agreement. Indeed, virtually all of the progress in nuclear arms reductions achieved during the 1990s was pursuant to agreements reached= under the Administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Gore deserves some= credit for working closely with Russia to implement the reductions in nuclear= arsenals that were agreed to under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and more importantly, for persuading Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to abandon= their holdings of nuclear weapons after the break-up of the Soviet Union. And the Clinton-Gore Administration's on-again, off-again negotiations with North= Korea over capping its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs are starting= to bear fruit. But before we get too carried away with the superiority of the probable Gore-Lieberman positions on nuclear weapons issues, it should be noted that= the Clinton-Gore vision of a "limited" National Missile Defense system is inherently flawed in its own right. Thanks to intrepid investigative= research by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, we now know that Clinton's foreign policymakers tried to reassure their Russian counterparts that a limited missile defense system wouldn't threaten Moscow's nuclear deterrent by= telling the Russians simply to keep 1,000 or 2,000 nuclear warheads operative and on high-alert status at all times. That shows how far Clinton and Gore are from taking a step toward getting rid of nuclear weapons once and for all. Their missile defense plan--which is still a very real possibility, pending= Russian approval--would simply reinforce the notion that the two erstwhile Cold War adversaries should maintain large arsenals of nuclear overkill indefinitely. And by retaining hair-trigger alert status, Clinton and Gore increase the= risk of a rash decision that leads to nuclear war or an accidental launch based= on a computer foul-up or human error.=20 Whether Gore builds on the positive elements of his record on arms control= or falls back into playing politics with nuclear issues in an effort to show= he's "tougher" than Republicans will depend on how much pressure a Gore-Lieberman Administration receives from the public and arms control advocates in= Congress. At least as important as what happens in the voting booth in November will= be what progressives and liberals do in the event that Gore and Lieberman get elected. Will the Democratic base give them the benefit of the doubt, as happened for much of the Clinton-Gore term, or will progressives join with sympathetic members of Congress to vigorously and publicly oppose the most noxious elements of the Gore-Lieberman foreign policy agenda?=20 Most important of all will be the question of whether independent movements for peace and social justice, such as the growing coalition against pro-corporate globalization schemes, can alter the political climate of the country to the point where the two major parties will have no choice but to address the deeper issues that are largely being ignored in the current Presidential campaign. As you may recall, Clinton and Gore's unofficial theme song was Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow." This time around, a far better theme song for progressives would be The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." [William D. Hartung is the President's Fellow at the World Policy Institute= at the New School of Social Research and the military affairs adviser to= Foreign Policy in Focus, a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies.] ___________________________________________________ Today's News and Archives: http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm Submit URL/Article: mailto:NucNews@onelist.com OneList Archives: http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews (subscribe online) Other Excellent News-Collecting Sites - DOE Watch - http://www.egroups.com/group/doewatch Downwinders - http://www.egroups.com/group/downwinders Quick Route to U.S. Congress: http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm (Senators' Websites) http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html (Representatives' Websites) http://thomas.loc.gov/ (Pending Legislation - Search) Online Petition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons - http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html Subscribe to NucNews Briefs: mailto:prop1@prop1.org Distributed without payment for research and educational=20 purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107. - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. 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