Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [92]
Bill Clinton waited until the final days of his presidency to sign a raft of presidential decrees and regulations, many of which promised to improve our environment and create safer working conditions. It was the ultimate cynical move. Wait till the last 48 hours of your term to do the right thing, so that everyone will look back and think, now be was a good president. But Clinton knew these last minute orders would all fall under the hand of the new administration coming to power. He knew none of these orders would stand.
It was all about image.
Do you still believe Clinton removed arsenic from our water? Not only had he done nothing to protect us from drinking arsenic laced water for the last eight years—but the order he signed stipulated that the arsenic was not to be removed from the water “until 2004.” That’s right. Look it up. Clinton’s big environmental gesture in the last minutes of his term guaranteed that we’d be drinking the same levels of arsenic we’ve been drinking since 1942—the last time a REAL Democrat had the guts to stand up to the mining interests and reduce the levels of this poison. The Canadians and Europeans did it long ago. But Clinton ignored the law that required the EPA to reduce arsenic levels. That resulted in a lawsuit against the
Clinton administration by the Natural Resources Defense Council. In his last week Clinton finally caved in—but only after inserting language that would put off the change for four years. Thus Clinton made it official that we would all be drinking this poison during the entire Bush administration. Maybe he was doing us a favor.
And how about those carbon dioxide emission regulations Bush II overturned? Did I say “overturned”? Overturned what? All Bush did was maintain the Clinton status quo. He said, in essence, “I’m going to pollute the air at the very same levels Clinton did during his entire eight years, just as you’re going to drink the same arsenic in the water under my watch as you did under Clinton’s.”
And, like the built-in four-year delay in his arsenic reductions, Clinton’s orders on the toxic emissions; in his last days specified that they were not to be reduced immediately either. In midNovember, sensing the fate of the election, he called for strict regulations on four greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. Again, his words sounded nice, but if you looked past them you found the new levels wouldn’t be in place until 2010. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, no new regulation could be implemented for another ten to 15 years.
The list goes on and on. For eight years Clinton did NOTHING about carpal tunnel syndrome as it relates to OSHA regulations. Then, in the middle of pardoning some rich guys during his all-night Agonistes on January 19, he finally decided to do some good for all those women who sit at keyboards all day and who, with their crippled hands, went to the polls TWICE to make him their President.
Friends, you are being misled and hoodwinked by a bunch of professional “liberals” who did NOTHING themselves for eight years to clean up these messes—and who now can’t stop themselves from attacking people like Ralph Nader, who has devoted his entire life to every single one of these causes. What unmitigated gall! They blame Nader for giving us Bush? I blame THEM for being Bush! They suck off the same corporate teat, supporting things like NAFTA—which according to the Sierra Club has DOUBLED the pollution along the Mexican border where the American factories have moved.
Had Clinton done the job those of us who voted for him in 1992 expected him to do, we wouldn’t be in the trouble we’re in. Imagine if, on his first day in office over eight years ago, Clinton had ordered a reduction of arsenic in the drinking water—and all Americans had been drinking cleaner, safer water for the last eight years. Do you think there’s any