KERRY speech on War on Terror makes me wish he was president

[yurbud]

Kerry said exactly what I have been waiting for Democrats to say that our dependence on oil is behind the War on Terror, and changing our energy policy is crucial to our national security--and it will cut down on the tax dollars and troop deaths spent oppressing people to control their oil.

I have been a consistent doubter of John Kerry here, but remarkably, he addressed this pretty clearly and shows he has a long term agenda that won't involve more wars for oil last week at the Council on Foreign Relations:

Real Security in a Post-9/11 World: Remarks by Senator John Kerry

December 8, 2005
New York, New York

And ultimately, that means we must liberate ourselves from (sic\and) the Middle East itself from the tyranny of dependence on petroleum, which has frustrated every impulse towards modernization in the region, while giving its regimes the resources to avoid choices and hold on to power.

We have to understand that the hostility to America and to our values that feeds the jihadist threat is the product of many decades of repressed debate within the Middle East. We’ve become the convenient excuse for the failures of rulers, and a convenient target for the frustrations of the ruled. And frankly, we’ve made that possible by signaling Arab regimes that we don’t much care what they do so long as they keep pumping the oil and keep the price low. That attitude has to end, not only end, it must be reversed.

Energy independence is not a pie-in-the-sky concept. It’s not just a dream. It’s a domestic priority for our country, obviously, but is much more. It is essential to our national security, because our reliance on their oil limits our ability to move them towards the needed reforms and actually props up decaying and sometimes corrupt regimes, including those that support terrorist groups.

Any long-term strategy for winning the war on terror therefore must include a much more determined effort to reduce our dependence on petroleum. So many opportunities, stunning opportunities, stare us in the face. But none, not even in this recent energy bill, have been seized with the urgency that our security demands.

These efforts also have to be international in nature, linked to the rapid emergence of new technologies, in order to ensure that economies like China and India don’t just replace us as the enabler of Middle East autocrats...

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9390/

I urge you to send this to your Congressman and senators and ask them to act on an agenda like this.

[w13rd0]

1. Bush's speeches on Iraq...

...make me wish that Kerry were president even more.

On edit: I wish Kerry had made this point more during the campaign. It's something everyone should have known about (and many of us did), but wasn't even mentioned in the media. The world, and most of this nation, even the ignorant, are aware of the costs and dangers of climate change; hybrid cars are still harder to get due to demand than the Xbox 360 this holiday season; we all know ALL TOO WELL that the money we pump into our cars, some of it goes overseas to fund people that hate us. All things the "people" really could have latched on to...

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

We can't survive another three years of Bush's catastrophic mistakes that take THREE YEARS to admit or recognize. Bush took THREE YEARS to admit to a mistake we ALL KNEW he made. How SAD is that?

[yurbud]

2. sometimes Dems make it hard to remember they can think

and say something coherent.

They often commit the opposite sin of the GOP. Instead of using fear and browbeating, they pretend that all is sunshine and daisies, and are just as vapid as Republicans.

This is the real deal here.

[yurbud]

3. Every time someone asks a Dem about Iraq, this should be their answer

[DoBotherMe]

6. He did, and he reiterated it

along the campaign trail. But the country wasn't paying attention.
http://www.johnkerry.com/plan/

[w13rd0]

7. Yeah....

...I know, but my caveat was that second part... and the media covered it

So if you weren't already sold on Kerry, and thus attended a rally or went to his website, you were unlikely to know about his statements regarding this. The GOP appeals to emotions with 10 word soundbites, but Democrats are trying to convey solutions, which generally takes more than 10 seconds. And of course, if anyone approached anything close to a slogan that conveyed the sentiment ("Every time you fill your tank, another terrorist gets an AK-47."), it'd get drowned out as some Republican feigned outrage.

[blm]

11. True - and the media has also turned the ability to consider all sides of

any issue into a liability.

There is no way the old PBS political discussion shows playing on nostalgia TV could ever occur in this media atmosphere.


What a shame.

[DoBotherMe]

12. "Republican feigned outrage"

Why should any Democrat be afraid of that. I say let's go with your campaign slogan, and to hell with the consequences!:evilgrin:

[w13rd0]

23. I don't think they should be afraid of it...

...but more often than not, a little feigned outrage is all that's required for some to back down...which may be why some aren't trusted with the nation's fate. Don't let a little bullshit outrage back you down from speaking the truth...

[jillan]

9. You're so right.

Kerry has been saying this for a long, long time.

Now that the nation and even the msm is listening, can we have a do-over???

[yurbud]

16. He should have put this front and center--all the chips on BLACK

This is the root of our problem in that area of the world, and everything else is secondary.

If he said this front and center, it would be harder for the press to ignore.

[Ezlivin]

4. Well, President Carter laid it on the table and look where that got him

and us.

It's all well and good to be logical, rational and sane, but we are now living in the land of faith.

Even now people are clinging to their cargo cult belief in the power of technology to save us from our energy problems.

[yurbud]

25. well, you are right. But I'd still rather have reality in the debate

[emulatorloo]

5. kick and nominating n/t

[blm]

8. Much of this was said during the campaign - media editted most of it out.

You had to have been at his speeches and rallies, or caught them on Cspan, because there was no way the corporate media would discuss any of the issues as Kerry did.

[oblivious]

10. Winning the war on terror, blah blah.

God I'm tired of that Bush line.

Also, what does this mean: And frankly, we’ve made that possible by signaling Arab regimes that we don’t much care what they do

The US invaded a country killing over 100,000 people because they didn't like what the government was doing!!!!! And ok, Iran is not Arab, but the US has been signalling so hard that it's threatening war.

To me, he's just spouting nonsense.

[blm]

13. He's talking about Saudi Arabia - they have a horrible human rights record

and foster alot of the fundamentalism through their policy of not funding education for all, so many of the poor end up in extremist fundie schools.

[oblivious]

15. OK, go to the next sentence. What does that mean?

"That attitude has to end, not only end, it must be reversed."

What does he want the US to do? Criticise Saudi Arabia's human rights record more? As if SA cares. Stop buying their oil? As if someone else won't buy it. Attack? Tried that. Didn't work so well.

It's all just nonsense to me. But obviously people like it, so it works I guess.

[LSK]

21. yes, stop buying it

Develop alternative fuels. Get off all foreign oil. If someone else buys it, its their problem. The "terrorists" will go after them wont they??

Howard Dean has been saying exactly the same thing for years.

I think the $500billion we WASTED in Iraq could have gone a long way towards biofuels and alternative energies.

[yurbud]

26. half a trillion could buy a hell of a lot of windmills, rebuild rail...

and on and on

[yurbud]

18. you left out the crucial end of sentence: as long as oil flows cheap

...so long as they keep pumping the oil and keep the price low.

You're right, but we didn't care about Saddam's human rights record,imaginary ties with al Qaeda, or WMD. We cared about his oil policy. Sanctions were coming off and France and Russia had the contracts to pump it. And Saddam was selling in Euros which undermined the dollar.

Not incidentally, Iran is starting an oil exchange trading in Euros at exactly the time Israel has set as their deadline for attacking Iran's reactors.

Kerry was actually being kind to our foreign policy history. We preferred dictators because they were more reliable about doing what our oil companies wanted.

But his half truth on that is still better than the zero percent content we get on Middle East policy most of the time.

[Stevepol]

14. He WOULD be president if he'd made a war on Diebold as well.

[yurbud]

17. no argument there.

[Supersedeas]

19. tyranny of dependence on petroleum -- image * uttering these words

[rosesaylavee]

20. Too many syllables for *

He prefers words of one or no more than two syllables that he state one at a time:

Terra
Plan
Pickles
Nucleer
Turdblossom


:)

[yurbud]

24. he would read whatever is on the teleprompter

[globalvillage]

22. There's audio.

It's worth a listen.
I can't grasp how any thinking person doesn't get him. This is absolutely clear and very well thought out.
Now, how to get my mom to turn off Rush and listen to this for an hour instead?

http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/video//2005/12-8-05_Kerry.mp3

[yurbud]

27. His one problem is he can't summarize and come up with good talking points

That is probably the crucial communication skill today and the Democrats still get an F in it.

The are at least figuring out the short part, but they haven't got that the short has to actually have CONTENT and with some clear ACTION and GOAL--not bullshit drivel like "we need a success strategy."

For a talking point to be effective it should have some kind of edge or conflict which seems to be kryptonite to most Democrats.

[yurbud]

28. SIMPLE illustration of Democrat problem with framing

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5605969&mesg_id=5605969