originally written for a local co-op. Printed in the September issue of the Food Conspiracy Newsletter, Tucson AZ

Al Gore is not a candidate for the environment. The carefully crafted image that portrays him as such may just be the best and most insidious greenwash of any election year to date.

A vote for Al Gore is a vote for genocide, big industry, and business as usual. Gore participates, as does Bush, in a partnership with industry conglomerates that increases corporate control over our lives and the lives of those across the globe.

A brief summary of the Clinton/Gore administration's record on trade, the environment, food production, and related issues:

- aggressively promoted the "fast track" of NAFTA, which has degraded the environment here and abroad in its pursuit of greater freedom for the movement of capital. Clinton and Gore also upheld the WTO and other "free" trade policies and bodies, and heavily supported permanent most-favored nation trade status for China, which is predicted to devastate China's environment. Additionally, it was NAFTA and IMF/Worldbank policies in Mexico, compounded with a US bailout to the tune of billions out of the US treasury, that precipitated the financial collapse in Mexico and the subsequent Zapatista uprising, not to mention contributing to the steady flow of immigrants across the border.

- support and enhancement of militarization of the border through "Joint Task-Force Six", a partnership of military, police, and immigration forces. Border militarization has increased the death of immigrants and devastated the environment of the border region, as well as creating an inroads for militarization of our communities.

- weakening of the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, and other environmental laws by pandering to industry and offering exemption after exemption. Gore's deep connections to the Timber and Oil industries are well documented -- Occidental Petroleum is the single largest contributor to Al Gore's campaign for president.

- Promotion of Genetically Engineered foods through turning a blind eye to industry/regulatory body connections (such as Monsanto employees working for the FDA) and "fast-tracking" of approval processes.

The GE issue is important not just because we as consumers are affected by it. The production and promotion of GE crops represents a movement by corporations (such as Monsanto and DuPont) to control the production of food, turning it into a monopoly and in the process destroying traditional local food production and biological diversity. The Clinton/Gore administration has presided over the explosion of GE foods, as GE foods have asserted their dominance on global markets in the past decade.

Al Gore owns between $500,000 and $1 million of stock in Occidental Petroleum. The U'wa people, a tribe of about 5,000 in Colombia, are currently facing off with Occidental Petroleum who is set to drill on their ancestral land. The U'wa, who believe that the earth is sacred and who depend on an intact ecosystem for their traditional way of life, have threatened to commit mass suicide by jumping off a cliff if Oxy drills there. Al Gore has remained silent on the issue, choosing to not exert his considerable influence within the company to avert these plans. If Gore gets elected this November, and if Occidental does continue with their plans to drill, blood will be on their hands. It is up to us to resist this and support the rights of indigenous peoples and prevent the destruction of yet another ecosystem. As you go to the polls this November (IF you choose to participate in the sham of the electoral process), vote your conscience. Voting for the lesser of two evils, as Ralph Nader said, still validates that evil. The time has come to confront the system and move towards radical change.

In LA, daily marches and rallies ranged in topic, some relating directly to Gore and the democrats while others addressed broader issues such as the death penalty, immigration policy, and welfare reform. As thousands of people from all backgrounds took to the streets daily, delegates to the convention arrived at the insulated Staples Center in air-conditioned buses, waved through gates of 12-foot perimeter fences and past rows of riot police. Delegates had little to no interaction with protesters, while corporate media used police as primarily sources for their slanted stories. That this represented American "Democracy", "rule of the people", seemed a cruel joke, while members of the party named after this concept were wined and dined by Raytheon, AT & T, Philip Morris, Pfizer, HMOs, Anhueser-Bush, and innumerable other corporate bodies who made up the democratic campaign contributors.

The media brownout that surrounded the protestors & their issues and the heavy police presence that permeated the week's events set the tone. While "news" was generated by reporters for media conglomerates drinking free Coors beer in the insulation of media lounges enclosed within the convention (in the lounge, a video screen showed what was happening on the convention floor), thousands of police maintained tight control over marches and gatherings of all sizes, while harassing and intimidating protestors to the point that downtown LA was a police state.

The demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention are on the crest of a wave of a series of events this past year that have rocked our society as we know it. In November tens of thousands descended on Seattle to protest the WTO, again in April to protest the IMF and World Bank, on Mayday across the globe, in Philadelphia against the Republicans, and most recently at the DNC in Los Angeles. Despite the media brownout, this movement is strong and growing. People are increasingly ready to confront a system that puts profit above people and the environment.

What may be lost in the big picture is that the issues of all of these protests, and the numerous issues brought out last week in Los Angels, are related. As awareness grows, connections between these seemingly separate issues also grow as people mobilize against the agenda of corporate power and turn to their communities to build resistance. What we are aiming at is a fundamental critique of the capitalist system that is pointing the earth to destruction and, ultimately, our own species to extinction.

What we face today is corporate rule. As deregulation and "free" trade become a primary goal of our government, we must see it for what it is: a system that puts money and power into the hands of few, at a great cost of suffering to people and the environment. The movement against the globalization of capital is growing -- labeled as "civil unrest" by the military-media complex, more and more people are becoming disillusioned by the lack of control over what they consume, the well-being of the environment in which they live, the increasingly limited possibilities available in the future -- in short, our own lives. As the gap between the haves and have-nots increases, this "unrest" will grow until the forces in power can no longer contain them.

The many of us who live the alternative we wish to see: through creating food and bike cooperatives, community gardens, cooperative living, squats and reclaiming public spaces, food not bombs, alternative energy and transportation, reducing our consumption, and relating directly and honestly to each other in a denial of authority and validation of individual freedom and responsibility, are creating the alternative future. The time has come to get serious about building community and autonomy in the movement.

The next big protest? In your home town. Enact resistance. Live the alternative. Let all of us build the movement: non-authoritarian, decentralized, learning from and depending on each other.