1) The Sierra Cub
Drawn from the Guardian", at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2216777,00.html
December 3, 2002.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Sierra Club is threatening to disband its
southern Utah chapter for speaking out against the Bush administration's
push toward war with Iraq.
The San Francisco-based 700,000-member environmental organization said
its 175-member Glen Canyon chapter violated Sierra Club policy in publicly
taking its own stand on the issue. In November, the national organization's
board of directors approved a resolution in favor of stripping Iraq of
its weapons of mass destruction. It said: "The Sierra Club is concerned
about the global dangers presented by possible Iraqi aggression and about
the dire environmental consequences of war."
At the same time, the national organization warned that Sierra Club
policy "does not authorize individual
members, leaders or club entities to take public positions on military
conflicts as they arise."
The Glen Canyon chapter's leaders decried that as a "gag order" and
issued a news release Nov. 26 asserting their right to speak out. Glen
Canyon vice chairman Patrick Diehl said in the news release: "The present
administration has declared its intention to achieve total military dominance
of the entire world. We believe that such ambitions will produce a state
of perpetual war, undoing whatever protection of the environment that conservation
groups may have so far achieved." In response, Sierra Club executive director
Carl Pope threatened to dismiss the four Glen Canyon officers. In a recent
e-mail, Pope said: "I would leave dissolving the group as a means of last
resort if acting against individuals who won't adhere to club policy fails
to resolve the situation."
The Glen Canyon chapter was formed in 2000 and supports the draining
of Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona line and the banning of cattle grazing
on public land."