>Ithaca Today http://ithacatoday.com/ August 27, 2000
>
>A Vote for Gore is a Vote for Bush
>
>by Paul Glover
>
>During his U.S. Senate career (1985-93), Al Gore voted to approve
>conservative anti-abortion justice Scalia to the Supreme Court. At heart
>a "pro-lifer," Gore received an 84 percent approval rating from the
>National Right to Life Committee for anti-abortion votes he cast while
>in the House (1977-85). By contrast, the National Abortion and
>Reproductive Rights Action League rated Gore's House career decidedly
>anti-choice. Among the 30 votes the group scored against Gore was his
>"yea" in 1984 to define the word "person" under four existing civil
>rights laws to include "unborn children from the moment of conception."
>NARAL characterized that as a move toward an "all-out prohibition on
>abortion."
>
>This year, Gore has NARAL's endorsement only as a presumed lesser evil,
>because his "position has changed." Indeed, the abortion issue has seen
>many surprising turnarounds. The Senate's Democratic majority on the
>Judiciary Committee approved anti-abortion justice Clarence Thomas.
>Democratic President Clinton appointed anti-abortion justice Breyer,
>Democratic President John F. Kennedy appointed anti-abortion justice
>White, while Roe v. Wade was written by Republican President Nixon's
>appointee Blackmun, with concurrence of Nixon's appointee Burger.
>Republican President Bush appointed Souter, one of the most liberal
>current justices, who wrote the reaffirmation of Roe v. Wade in 1992.
>Republican President Eisenhower appointed liberals Brennan and Warren.
>Democratic President Truman appointed conservatives Burton, Vinson,
>Clark and Minton. And so on.
>
>Voters cannot be assured Gore will protect the Supreme Court. However,
>were Al Gore elected, you can be sure we'd have Executive endorsement of
>(or acquiescence to) GATT, NAFTA, WTO, death penalty, Star Wars, nuclear
>arsenal, arms sales, prison-industrial complex, "50,000 more police on
>our streets," fat cat elections and ever-greater lesser evils,
>clearcuts, mining of public land, oil spills (Occidental), Oil Wars,
>crackdown on legal protest, no national health plan, tax breaks for
>rich, higher taxes for middle class, welfare repeal, ever-more children
>in poverty, War on Drugs, union-busting, corporate-sponsored education,
>Iraq embargo, the School of the Americas.
>
>By now, Clinton's presidency should have taught progressive voters that
>a cute smile can mask bitterly conservative willingness, after
>elections, to sell out environmentalists, labor, middle-class taxpayers,
>small businesses, African-Americans, and women.
>
>Had progressives begun twenty years ago voting our own platforms
>(ecology, social justice, nonviolence, grassroots control) rather than
>fearing greater evils (which we got anyway), then today we'd have a
>strong electoral challenge to the devastation noted above.
>
>Your choice is not whether this devastation will continue, but whether
>it will continue with the Green Party established as a national party
>(needing 5% of total vote), with federal matching funds, helping to
>raise stronger challenges to corporate government.