The League of Conservation Voters Stands by Endorsement of Lieberman

[Emit]

Sierra Club remains undecided:

Better Off Ned?
Enviros are split over Lieberman vs. Lamont
By Amanda Griscom Little
01 Sep 2006

Progressives around the country cheered when Ned Lamont knocked out Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary last month, but some enviros held their applause.

Lieberman -- now running as an independent in an effort to hold onto his seat -- has, by most accounts, been a standout leader on environmental protection during his 18 years in the Senate. While longtime allies like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and fellow Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd are among the many high-profile Democrats backing Lamont, some leading greens are vowing not to leave Lieberman's side.

The League of Conservation Voters, which ranks Lieberman's lifetime voting record at 86 percent (one of the highest scores the group has tallied for a long-running congressional career), says it plans to stand by the endorsement of the senator it issued in March. "We've looked very carefully at his decision to run as an independent, and unanimously agreed to maintain our endorsement," said Tony Massaro, LCV's senior vice president for political affairs. "Not only do we support Sen. Lieberman, we've named him an environmental champion -- a title we give out very sparingly. His exceptional leadership should be supported no matter what party he belongs to."

The Sierra Club has not yet announced whether it will endorse Lieberman, but the group's spokesperson, David Willett, stressed that the senator's party affiliation will have no impact on the decision: "We endorse people, not parties."

~snip~

Dem's the Breaks

The Lieberman/Lamont contest raises questions about how closely aligned environmentalists are -- or should be -- with the Democratic Party.

~snip~

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, though, argues that it's bad long-term strategy for environmentalists to align themselves with one party. "Our job is to reward conviction, applaud leadership, and promote progress made in cleaning up the air and water and in preserving our wild lands and wildlife -- no matter which side of the aisle we find it on," he wrote in his blog in response to Krugman's broadside.

Whether the Sierra Club will endorse Lieberman -- and whether that will help the senator win the fight of his life -- remains to be seen.

http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2006/09/01/lieberman/index.html?source=muck

[David Dunham]

1. Scum

[nam78_two]

3. LCV is not scum-they are a good group/nt

[aquaman]

5. SCUM????

Yea the LCV is evil, true evil, damn them and the work that they do.

:sarcasm:

[nam78_two]

2. All things said and done

Liebermann's environmental record cannot be denied :-/

Ned should try and win the trust of the greens and woo them more specifically. That would help him a lot :bounce:

[Ravy]

4. Greens are running someone against him too.

I think he would be better reaching a bit more to the middle with his small business experience.

[nam78_two]

6. I meant Green as in enviro-Green not Green party

The Green party is running someone too? Jeebus....

[unschooler]

7. The problem w/ endorsing "people not parties" is that the leadership

comes from the parties. A green republican will still vote for Bill Frist for majority leader. And Bill won't allow the green bills to get far enough for "Sen. Green" to get a chance to vote on them.

[Emit]

8. Exactly!

And that The League of Conservation Voters cannot understand this is frustrating and defeating, IMHO. On a smaller level, I am out talking with registered voters frequently trying to get them to understand this concept -- especially voters who are undecided due to single issues. In one case, I know a guy who is extremely anti-war, pro-labor union, etc. and can't stand this administration. He's a registered Non-Partisan in our state and keeps calling to discuss whether he should support the Repubs instead of the Dem candidates for Senate and Congress because of his personal issues with immigration. I keep telling him, if he wants more of the same, vote Repub. He can't seem to get it through his head that the leadership comes from the parties not the candidate, especially once in office and especially for these Repubs.

[nam78_two]

11. Thats true/nt

[Peace Patriot]

12. Right you are, unschooler! How good is the Iraq war--and the

conflagration that the Bush junta is planning in the Middle East--and a $10 TRILLION deficit--and Corporate Rule--for the environment?

Not good. Not good at all.

I've seen the League and the Sierra Club at work in California for decades. They are why we've lost 95% of the redwood forest that was here 100 years ago. Over the last 2 1/2 decades we've lost 80% of the redwood forest volume on already depleted corporate-controlled lands in Mendocino. The very last of the ancient forest in Humboldt County is now under grave assault (where Julia Butterfly did a tree sit). The League and the Sierra Club preserve a tiny 6,000 acre portion of the forest (that is very small--amidst corporate holdings that run to 200,000-300,000 acres/each), and they think they've done their job. There's nothing left of the redwood forest--nothing! A few little strips of it here and there, in parks. They've become just like the Corporations. They imitate corporate behavior. They're into fundraising, and high salaries and perks. They've colluded with politicians, global corporate predators, the World Bank, and in the privatization of big timber plan review (anti-government, anti-public participation) locally and worldwide. Their rank and file are alienated and not heard.

So it's no surprise to me to see them colluding with Bushites. The leadership of these corporatized environment groups is out of control.

[nam78_two]

13. I agree with a lot of what you say

I would still hope that they aren't as corrupt as that just mostly incompetent and not very politically savvy....

Its very hard-from what little I have seen of grassroots efforts I have participated in-to get anything done:

Not that many people care about abstract environmental issues-and certainly not enough to have power against the big corporations and politicos.
Sometimes you end up settling for a small piece of land rather than lose everything :-/.
Its so hard to get anything sometimes....

Reminds of that scene in the movie "I heart Huckabee", where he is trying to get them to stop cutting down this forest for a mall, and they give him this little fenced off rock....

[Peace Patriot]

15. Oh, I've seen some pretty slick operators in the League, Sierra Club

and also Greenpeace (sad to say). It is not naivete. It's highly corporate-influenced, top-down organization--with the leaders now being global corporate players in various ways. If they poured all resources into TRANSPARENT elections (now we have Bushite corporations "counting" all our votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code...jeez!), they would do a lot more for the environment than their stupid "ratings" of RIGGED Congressional votes.

Do we want to give more tax breaks to Chevron and Exxon-Mobile? Easy "no' vote to earn credit with the Sierra Club, while Chevron and Exxon-Mobile shoot the price of gas up to $3.50/gal, and rake in the profits, and furthermore USE our government and our military to conduct a corporate oil war, with no one in Washington giving a goddam, and all of them--probably INCLUDING the Sierra Club leaders--drooling over their stock portfolios.

Such crap.

You want your country back? Bust the election theft machines--VOTE BY ABSENTEE BALLOT this November! We need a MASSIVE citizen revolt against Bushite-controlled electronic voting. This is the only thing that I can see that can start turning the tide. We have to get rid of these machines FIRST, restore TRANSPARENT vote counting, and start electing truly representative people. MASSIVE AB voting can force corrupt election officials to the table. That's what we must do.

[unschooler]

17. Vote by absentee ballot. That's a good idea. We should talk

that up in the red states w/ electronic voting.

I live in Oregon, and all of our voting is in hard copy and by mail, so we're all sort of absentee voters. It seems to work well, although there have been concerns about voter privacy within households.

[dusty64]

9. Yup and thats

why I've stopped donating to them, first time since '94. Not another dime till they pull their head outta their asses.

[ToeBot]

10. Case in point, Lincoln Chaffee, endorsed by the Sierra Club and Carl Pope,

is able to maintain a pro-environment voting record because the anti-environmentalists have a clear majority. He is free to appease his constituents without affecting the real republican agenda. And the Sierra Club rewards this sham with an endorsement. One would think that after so many decades, the environmental movement and its representative organizations would gain a little sophistication. Fine, endorse Lieberman, but don't be surprised when all his well intentioned votes amount to so much flatulence (or some other greenhouse gas).

[w4rma]

14. LIEberman is certainly not better on the environmnt than Lamont.

They should abstain from endorsing anyone. They should spend their resources on races with clear differences on the environment then.

Btw, LIE isn't very good on the environmnt, imho. Since he supports bigger and more expansive wars which are horrible to the environment.

[KingFlorez]

16. Oooh, how terrible of them!

:sarcasm: