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Title: Al Gore: A User's Manual by Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair, Jeffrey St Clair ISBN: 1-85984-803-6 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: September, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A good biography of a cheap politician
Comment: Find out in this book how Al Gore while vice president helped companies loot millions of acres of our forests, fastened the extinction of the spotted owl, blocked efforts to make companies pay more than little or no royalty fees to loot taxpayer owned resources, helped increase contractor fraud at the Pentagon, helped strengthen the racist and civil liberties destroying criminal justice system, supported drilling off the coast of Mexico and in the National Petroleum reserve in Alaska, supported stripping mining, especially that of the mountain top removal variety, supported the setting of emissions standards well below that of the Kyoto protocol which were never met, helped George W. pollute Texas by his support of Nafta, helped strengthen fossil fuel producers, helped weaken Affirmative action in government, supported the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, supported what will perhaps one day be the destruction of the U'wa people in Colombia through his very extensive relationship with Occidental Petroleum and support for the death squad government there, supported Monsanto's crusade to dump genitically modified foods on Europe, presided over an economy of stagnant and declining wages and greater insecurity for American workers. The list can go on and on.
They give a good outline of Gore's congressional career. They portray him as pro-gun (not too different than Mr. Cockburn's views of course), pro-tabacoo, pro-Reaganite arms buildup (he was a prime mober for the midgetman missle), a consisten support of the Jesse Helms line on the homosexual question, someone who while occasionally roaring against the more blatant corporate criminals turned a blind eye to the radiation tests that gave children leukemia ( killing at least one) at the Oak Ridge nuclear lab in Tennesse and helped establish a precedent by getting a waiver on the Endagered species act against the snail darter species for a worthless dam that only benefited construction and cement magnates. In the 88' campaign he campaigned as right wing demagogue because that is what Patrick Caddell, the pollster, told him what the "silent majority" were looking for. Actually a not insubstantial part of that group was inclined to support Jesse Jackson and Gore did very badly in the primaries but not before travelling to New York for the party elite to help ruin Jackson's canidacy along with the demagogue Ed Koch.
The section on Tipper's crusade against obscene lyrics is rather amusing--the supposed Gore family encounter with the music of Prince which originally spurred Tipper on her crusade and Gore praising the music of Frank Zappa during a senate hearing.
The authors could have done a little less of the "tell-all stuff"==e.g. how policy was supposedly made and interactions in the white house e.g. Bob Woodward's account of Clinton's alleged reaction to having to break his campaign promises and support Alan Greenspan's neoliberalism--and expanded on some of the more important issues. They say absolutely nothing about a very important issue, about Gore's working to pressure African countries, paritcularly South Africa, into complying with drug company patents which block countries from producing genereic AIDs drugs at very substantially lower cost. They repeat the canard about Gore claiming he invented the internet, that he and Tipper were the inspiration for "Love Story" and so on.
But overall this book is so much more substantive than the book put out by Cockburn's former friend Christopher Hitchens. The latter's book was fawned over by the likes of Chris Mathews, David Horowitz and Larry Klayment of Judicial Watch. Rush Limbaugh called Hitchens, a self-declared hardcore socialist, "our favorite liberal." The authors have gotten no such attention and that is very telling.
Rating: 1
Summary: Stink, Stank, Stunk
Comment: I can't believe that I read this book from cover to cover. The very subject of Al Gore, his dishonestness, and his complete lack of integrity, is enough to make one give up their belief in the validity of the American government system.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Loser's Manual
Comment: Cockburn and St. Clair did what none of the other books on Gore dared to do: critique the prince of Tennessee from the left. They show how Gore betrayed labor, coddled the big telecommunications firms, sold himself to the defense and nuclear industry, stabbed blacks in the back by supporting tax credits for racist schools and by pushing to destroy the federal welfare system and flip-flopped on abortion. They even reveal how Gore ran away from his pledges to protect the environment. All in pursuit of his sole, all-consumming ambition: to win the White House whatever the cost. Ultimately, Gore was defeated by the very forces he had turned his back on: greens, trade unionists and peace activists. In that sense, St. Clair and Cockburn's book can be seen as a Loser's Manual. Amazon's offering it at a great discount. It's also a fine investment, since if there's one thing we know about Gore it's that he'll be back.
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Title: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken ISBN: 0525947647 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 29 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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