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Hawkins on Al Gore and Global Warming
Syracuse Post-Standard
Political Notebook
Friday, September 15, 2006
By Fred Pierce |
Meanwhile, outside the theater...
Al Gore, the former vice president who almost beat George Bush in the 2000 presidential race, talked more about pollution than politics during his speech at Syracuse’s Landmark Theatre Thursday evening.
The crowded sidewalk in front of the historic downtown building, however, was full of politicking.
Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate running against Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton, circulated among the eclectic crowd of college kids in sneakers and aging baby-boomers in comfortable shoes, quietly introducing himself and handing out leaflets promoting both his candidacy and his plan to fight global warming.
Hawkins would divert $300 million in federal dollars annually from U.S. military spending to fund a global public works program focused on renewable energy.
That’s the kind of thing the administration of Bill Clinton – of which both Gore and Hillary Clinton were a part – should have done, Hawkins said.
“Maybe he’s changed, but he was a hypocrite when he was vice president, no doubt,” Hawkins said of Gore. “He ran as an environmentalist, but instead he “reinvented government” and cut federal funding for the kind of regulatory oversight we need.”
Who else was pushing a political agenda as the lines of ticket holders crept down South Salina Street and through the theater doors?
* Activists with the Syracuse Peace Council distributed the latest issue of “The Shared Times,” a one-page green leaflet blasting the Bush Administration for cutting federal money for clean water projects while pouring billions of dollars into the Iraq War.
* The Raging Grannies, a choir of 1960s-era activist women dressed as suffragists, banged a tambourine and sang patriotic songs with altered lyrics that reflected their opposition to the Iraq War.
* Members of the Sierra Club distributed literature on the impact that methane pollution from large agricultural industries contribute to global warming and passed out color brochures of animal processing plants that urged folks worried about animal cruelty to eat less meat.
* A member of the Syracuse Cultural Workers passed out postcards that listed two dozen ways individuals could help the environment. Suggestions ranged from avoiding restaurant drive-throughs and using clotheslines to dry laundry to not believing what oil and auto companies say.
* Longtime local activist Austin Paulnack, now a coordinator with MoveOn.org, carried a large American flag and handed out slips of paper urging people to fight the burning of mercury-filled light bulbs in Onondaga County’s incinerator.
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 *Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
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