Why haven't the Democrats pushed energy independence ?

[screembloodymurder]

Energy conservation should be an integral part of a sane defense policy. Conserving gasoline takes money out of the hands of our "enemies", it's good for the environment, it reduces our trade deficit, it supports the troops, it's patriotic. Democrats are being accused of having no policies, no ideas. Conserving fuel is a no brainer and it's one area where the American public is willing to sacrifice. Sacrifice makes sense when it's your dollar you're saving. Support the troops and reduce your waistline, walk!

[Mass]

1. Eventually, you could look at what the Democrats have been pushing

Energy independence was one of the main point in Kerry's platform in 04 and is now integral part of the DNC platform as well as the DSCC and DCCC platform.

May be you want to get informed more fully?

[Catch22Dem]

4. I think your post proves the point

If the original poster, with over 2200 posts here on DU isn't fully aware of this, how aware are the rubes in the general public going to be?

[Mass]

6. Yes, but the problem is not that they are not pushing that

They are.

The problem is that the media is not relaying these issues until there is a catastrophy. How can we solve the pb?

[HootieMcBoob]

7. True but...

you'd never know it. Instead of being snarky you should take from this post that the general public doesn't have a clue about this. How often did Kerry talk about energy independence? It should be one of the top goals that is hammered daily. But the general public never hears about it. It's one of those things that everyone wants to hear someone, some party, some leader get out in front of.

[Mass]

10. A lot - All his speeches about security and energy.

However, these parts were not covered by the media.

Now, the question is: how do you get the media to speak about that.

Talking about Kerry, for example, his two last speeches about security had an integral part about that. It was barely covered by the media.

Same thing for Gore, or Clark. The media focus on the particular of the subject of the day: Iraq, NSA wiretaps, ... and never get to the subjects that are so important because they offer solutions to these questions.

[screembloodymurder]

22. That's my point.

It's the alternative to war and it should be our platform.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. I think Gore was proposing a 25-year project like Apollo or the Manhattan

Project to get to energy Independence

[Mass]

11. The Apollo project, you're right - Gore and Kerry both proposed that

(and I did not mean to forget Gore. He is also a leader on these issues).

http://www.apolloalliance.org/strategy_center/a_bold_energy_and_jobs_policy/ten_point_plan.cfm

[BlueEyedSon]

15. I didnt realize the idea was to recycle the name(from the man-on-the-moon)

effort....

[HootieMcBoob]

Carter had us heading in the right direction back in the 70's

But Reagan came in and completely reversed everything. Many of the problems we face today are due to Republican short sightedness and their being in the pants of the energy industry. This administration has taken the whole thing to its inevitable end point, the whole group of them is made up of the energy industry.

If the Democratic Party had any sense they would pound this. And, it's not because of the media. If they wanted to anytime they are on a Sunday morning talk show they could bring up this issue and their ideas. If they wanted to every time someone is interviewed on a cable news show or a radio show they could bring this issue up. They could be emailing us about it and putting ads in newspapers. There are tons of issues like this that everyone can get behind them on that would clearly contrast with the policies of the Republicans but they can't get their shit together to do it. Ironically, some people might even get the idea now that Republicans have the better ideas on this issue because Bush recently said "America is addicted to oil".

[fed-up]

18. Ads in papers are a great idea, that's how Dems can get issues out-even

though the papers are "Red".

[karynnj]

31. Bush, uh wasn't the first to say America is addicted to oil

Kerry used that and similar phrases in every speech in 2004. And he was not the first either. Bush's whole alternative energy jargon borrowed heavily from Kerry. The difference is Kerry meant it.

[kerrygoddess]

28. Remarks by Senator John Kerry - A New Manhattan Project: 06/13/2003

Remarks by Senator John Kerry - A New Manhattan Project
Location: Cedar Rapids, IA
Date: 06/13/2003

In the summer of 1942, the scars of Pearl Harbor were still fresh. The day of infamy was a recent memory and Americans stood ready to win the war. Planes and tanks had to be built at a record pace, strategies conceived, battles planned, and young Americans dispatched to frontlines across the Earth. And Franklin Roosevelt knew that to meet the threat we faced from fascism, we had to do something else as well: marshal America’s most brilliant minds and innovative technology.

The initiative he created was called the Manhattan Project because its first offices were at 90 Church Street in New York City.

On September 11th, 2001 - one block away from that site - the World Trade Center was brought down in another sudden, sneak attack, the most brutal and deadly attack America has ever known. The federal office building at 90 Church Street was damaged but still stands.

To this generation, September 11th was our December, 7th - and it calls for a response equally profound - not just in armed force, although that is essential - but in the imagination, the daring and the sense of exploration that define America at its best.
Terrorism is the new Fascism, the new Communism, the new totalitarianism - a grave and global threat to our values and our way of life. We can defeat it; we must defeat it; and we will defeat it; but we need more than hard words and powerful weaponry. In a different direction, in a different way, we need to reach as high as Roosevelt reached - with a new national initiative on the scale of the Manhattan Project to harness our thinking and our technology - this time, not to create a new kind of bomb, but to develop new forms of energy that will at long last make America more energy independent.

So I have come here today to set out a strategy for greater energy independence - so that within a decade, this nation will no longer have to rely on Mideast oil. And in achieving that new form of freedom for America, we can at the same time clean the environment and create new jobs for half a million Americans.

With sixty-five percent of the world’s oil reserves in Middle East, our over-reliance on oil presents a real threat to national security. We can unleash the spirit of American ingenuity to meet this challenge. My strategy calls for new investments in research, new incentives for companies and consumers, new partnership across the old dividing lines, and higher standards of energy efficiency for both business and government to meet. We can create Americans jobs and confront the dangers to our environment at the same time as we make this nation safer, stronger, and more secure.

MORE - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?page_id=2353

[karynnj]

33. This speech really addresses everything the op wanted

[blm]

34. Which is exactly why corporate media IGNORES serious Dem proposals

on ANY issue. They can't afford for the public to get the common sense aspects, so they give lots of airtime instead to criminal actions by groups like ELF to stereotype the left's environmental positions.

[MostlyLurks]

13. While that may be true...

It's also true that the Democratic leadership has failed to consistently emphasize this aspect of the platform. Kerry's plan got lost in the midst of his anti-War rhetoric. While I agreed with the statement he made re: the war, he failed to use it, consistently, as a springboard to policy beyond the war. While he continually told the voters how he'd handle the war, the troops, etc he never then branched out to say "furthermore, my enery policy will divorce us from middle east oil, ensuring..." blah blah blah.

As the OP pointed out, eneregy independence could be used as an issue in arguments of nat'l security, future technology and economic health. But the leadership never uses it as such. Because the war has dominated the US consciousness for 3+ years now, they've had no luck whatsoever in getting this message out.

I think this is one of THE crucial issues Democrats face in the next decade or so: learning how to connect issues with ideas, as Lakoff says. We seem to think that simply having an energy policy is good enough. In fact, we need to learn how to take the policy and talk about it in a way that connects to the American voter, appealing to "values".

For example, instead of simply saying "we gots to get the monkey off our back", we need to appeal to the American sense of pride: "Japanese car manufacturers are ahead of us in the field of alternative fuel. In the coming decades, this country has to be weaned from dependence on fossil fuels. I want that to be possible because of the work of American scientists. I want those technologies to create American jobs. I want those technologies to be under the hood of American cars."

The Democrats just aren't very good at this kind of unified message delivery - they all want to go off in their own little direction, explaining the policy in their own terms, which makes it seem as if there's no unified voice. That's going to continue to be a problem until the Democratic leadership puts all the big players in a room and tells them it's time to start playing a team game, or they risk being benched.

Mostly

[screembloodymurder]

25. Excellent post.

Thanks for articulating my thoughts.

[screembloodymurder]

21. Kerry is old news. We need to force it down the throat of the public.

We haven't gotten the message out and that's why Bush was able to grab the issue in his SOTU address.

[kerrygoddess]

30. I beg to differ...

Much of what Bush talked about in the SOTU regarding Energy Independence was garnered from Kerry campaign speeches.

Read Kerry's response to the SOTU:

John Kerry Responds to State of the Union Address: Bush “Described a Fantasyland”
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1822

Kerry has been a forerunner on this issue, he's not old news, he continues to push this constantly.

[Mass]

29. A few among many speeches on this subject in the two last years.

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?page_id=99

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2277

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=273&topic_id=76853&mesg_id=76881

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=273&topic_id=76853&mesg_id=76883

And many others.

You can find many on the same subject by Gore, Clark, and others.

So the issue is really: how to make that heard by people.

[Catch22Dem]

2. I've wondered the same thing for many years

Your post makes perfect sense. Some democrats do have official stances and even policy papers on the matter. Kerry had a good paper on it. Clark also had a good paper on it. I'm certain there are others, but those are the ones I've read. More Dems in positions of authority need to get these out front though.

[HootieMcBoob]

3. Because it makes too much sense

If it makes perfect sense, is obvious to all and is a sure winner the one thing you can be guaranteed is that the Democratic party will be completely blind to it.

[abluelady]

5. Why aren't the Dems pushing anything??? eom

[BlueEyedSon]

8. Because they are on the corporate dole like everyone else in congress?

[zbdent]

12. Gore did, and was ridiculed

Why promote this BS?

[Minnesota Libra]

14. They need to make their share of that oil money too....wind, sun.....

.....doesn't have much potential for ongoing profits.:shrug:

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. It will when the cheap oil runs out. Then the vultures will jump on those

resources and will find a way to gouge us. The vultures won't completely engage in the development of alternative energy sources until the last drop of cheap oil has been extracted, though. Gotta get the remaining profits from cheap oil first.

[MadHound]

17. Because most Democratic leaders, including Gore

Are as much in the pockets of Big Oil as the 'Pugs are. In fact Gore was so much into the pockets of BP Oil that he was willing to throw away nearly 600,000 votes in Florida in order to continue to push off shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

This is simply another example of the two party, same corporate master system of government that we currently live under. This is also another good reason for all of us to push hard for nationwide publicly funded elections. The only way we're going to see real change in this country, the kind of change that we all want and need, is to take corporate money out of our elections and out of our government. Publicly funded elections is the only way to achieve these goals.

Until these changes take place, we're going to continue to see little difference in the positions taken by both Republican and Democratic politicians. Both parties have been bought and paid for by corporate America, and they will both continue to dance to the corporate tune. Take away that corporate money out of elections and our government, and we'll restore government of the people, by the people and for the people back to the people.

[HereSince1628]

19. Yes the wind is blowing out of that direction again.

Conservation is all well and good, and wasting energy is, well, a waste, but IMHO conservation is a hedge not a remedy. Conservation without a real move to alternative production is much less than half of a solution.

And yes, sure, conservation easy politically. Unfortunately, political ease is a large part of the problem.

You are absolutely correct that conservation can be motivated by high consumer cost (which no one is suggesting be controlled--although the energy corp's are making a killing with record profits while many families are driven into petropoverty with energy costs exceeding 15% of their monthly incomes). So yes, it's easy politically to drive the poor to conserve energy because of their motivation to solve personal financial reasons (or in ol'Lousianne/Texan parlance)keep from freezing in the dark. It's hard, much harder to increase national energy production to a level that insures reasonable cost (less than 10% of a Walmart greeter's monthly income). Since consumers will make the choice to freeze or eat quite without any politically risky legislative initiatives why do any legislation?

Corporations have in the past, do now and will greatly object in the future to being pushed by government into the costs of investment in safe, clean energy production measures. They aren't going to get involved until they must do so to keep making profits and even so they will beg through their K-Street connections for corporate welfare to do it rather than investing those record profits into future alternative production capacity.

The increased energy production solutions must address politically difficult decisions that will bring many advocacy groups into conflict. It doesn't matter if it's putting up wind-farms, getting high percentage ethanol/biofuels fuels, gasoline from coal, or nuclear power. All the methods that will increase production capacity are going to meet some political resistance from some quarter.

The DC-politicians with their risk averse political advisorship aren't going to go into those shark infested waters. It's so much easier to meet fewer days, take more CON-D's, lunch and dine with lobbiests, and limit committee talk to cutting taxes, selling off national assets, regulating a woman's womb, steroid use in major league baseball, etc.

[zeemike]

20. And the answer is

Simple and practical
If they say too much they will get less or no money from the lobbyist who are spending that money to insure more consumption not less.
No money no job as a Representative of the people.

[screembloodymurder]

24. The reason I posted is

I just watched a neo-con make it a Republican proposal. If we can't get our issues in front of the people, we don't have any platform. Had we been pushing this issue at every opportunity, we'd own it. They wouldn't be able to get on CNBC and claim it.

[kerrygoddess]

32. We do own it

And they can make the claims but they have a lousy record on this issue - always have, always will. If you want to concede them a victory on this because of one proposal, I feel sorry.

I can give you link after link, after link of Kerry talking about this at every opportunity. He's the forerunner on this issue and always has been.

[Marie26]

23. Rich oil companies = $$$ campaign contributions

Wouldn't want to kill the golden goose.

[sable302]

26. I think that they already do

It seems to be a major part of what Democrats like to promote these days (at least since the Jimmy Carter days)

[seabeyond]

27. they do. i have heard them. are you not listening, cause repug

controlled legislation is not listening too. yet still, i hear the dems continually push it. almost, if not everytime, i hear a democrat speak