For example, I certainly don’t think McCain or Obama is ever going to stop the pillage of our public lands that has all but ruined so many of our rivers and old-growth forests in the Northwest. They won’t end the brutal practices of mountain top removal in Appalachia or cyanide heap Ieaching mining on Western Shoshone land in Nevada and elsewhere. They both support the lie of “clean coal.” Neither will end the horribly disastrous and poisonous war inflicted upon Iraq. I also don’t believe for a second that any of the major candidates is going to get tough on corporate polluters or the Pentagon’s toxic habits. Obama may poke fun at SUV drivers while campaigning in a state like Oregon, but you won’t see the guy calling an end to subsidies that are handed out to oil companies. Yet, here we have Obama and McCain out-greening each other as they gallop along the campaign trail. It’s all for show. Environmental issues are becoming pretty popular these days, so the candidates are jumping on the green-washed bandwagon. How soon environmentalists forget what happened back in 1992 when Clinton and Gore stormed the White House. Many believed it was going to be a new day for the movement, overturning the twelve long years of Republican wrath. But instead we got NAFTA, which undermined so many of our environmental statutes, and the Salvage Rider, which opened our ancient forests to ravenous clear-cutting. That’s to name just two of the more egregious policies.
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