Speech in Boston today. Connecting the dots

I see today's speech at Faneuil Hall as being in line with two other speeches the Senator has given in recent months and each leads to the other. He has been quite consistent and has laid out logical plans to deal with America's need to be energy independent, to stop propping up corrupt foreign governments for the sake of the oil money and to begin to free America from this occupation in Iraq that only harms our moral standing both at home and in the world.

Sen. Kerry gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Dec of 2005 that dealt with the Middle East and America's history of funding regimes in that area that are repressive and corrupt. The Senator spoke about how America has not dealt honestly or effectively with Middle Eastern regimes because we are addicted to the oil that they produce and we can't change the regimes without the threat of those countries shutting off the oil supply. There are many countries in the Persian Gulf who can offer little to their own people in terms of job growth or political freedom because the nations themselves are stagnating under a system that exists merely to reinforce the present power strucutre.

In the last two months, Sen. Kerry has given quite a few speeches, both at home in Boston and in Wahsington DC that have dealt with the need for the US to begin to pull troops out of the conflict in Iraq. The Senator has called for implementing a specific timetable that calls for troops to begin to withdraw from that country and calls for the Iraqi government to step up and begin to take over the security for Iraq. Kerry has mentioned that the only solution for Iraq is a political solution that draws the Iraqi factions, Sunni, Shiite and Kurds to negotiate an end to the stalemate that prevents them from forming a unity movement. The Americans can't force this solution on the Iraqis and our presence in Iraq might actually be preventing this process from going forth.

Today, Sen. Kerry put down the intermediate plank in this process. His talk about energy recognizes that America is addicted to foreign oil. This is both a national security problem and an issue of internal American significance. This country has to begin to take both ends of this problem seriously. We have to recognize that our addiction to fossil fuels is a threat to our own security and that we can be held captive to the whims of foreign governments if we don't begin to move away from te oil economy. We also have to begin to revitalize American industry and move forward with solutions to our envirnomental problems with innovative and creative solutions that will also bring about mmore good jobs for Americans.

Sen. Kerry identified energy independence as both a national and international issue and successful tied the resolution of the War in Iraq with a long-term goal that will help the planet to deal with the looming disasters caused by global warming. In Kerry's vision, we must understand that all these things are linked and that providing for our own energy needs frees us to confront other nations without the crippling dependence on despotic regimes that we now face. We can do good, both for America and for the repressed regimes of people around the world if we listen to him.

The one thing that I read repeatedly is war hawks whining that Democrats, or those more to the Left, don't care about spreading democracy. But, in fact, we've always had a tradition for encouraging countries to become democratic, but NEVER invaded a country simply for that goal. John Kerry's reasoning is that oil corrupts, and makes democracy next to impossible to take root as a result of that corruption and despotism that follows. I think we're seeing that now in Iraq. Take away the oil fields of Kirkuk and in the South, and would the Sunnis REALLY have been as motivated to launch an insurgency?

I also think that JK's approach to encouraging democracy is more along the lines of the Europeans. Take Ukraine. Despite Bush's ballyhooed "democracy is flowering across the globe" rhetoric, I think we have to give more credit to the Europeans than the Americans, although we were indeed involved. The Europeans offered a possibility of EU membership in exchange for if the country made democratic reforms. EU membership has a lot of benefits, and so the country elected Yushenko (sp?). But what distinguishes Kerry from the Europeans is an American moralism and vision that the cynical Europeans often scoff at the Americans for possessing.

I like it, Tay. I like it a lot.

I was just thinking about the good Senator's significant speeches and his line of reasoning on Iraq and on energy independence. No one else has this deep and this consistent a position. We are in Iraq because of oil. The Middle East is unstable because it is resisting reform. That resistance is fed by huge sums of money derived from oil. America must break it's oil addiction. Not only will this strengthen the environment, but it will strengthen national security.

All the speeches form a thematic whole. I love this.

Does the oil play a role as it relates to their extreme ideology? That's the part I STILL cannot fathom. Why somebody would go that extreme and then blow themselves up. I suppose money from oil revenues donated by rich Arabs in the ME could finance the terrorist groups, but we also saw how poppy was financing the Taliban. So drugs are also a problem. But if you look at Great Britain or Holland or any very liberal democratic country in Europe, they ALSO are struggling with Islamic extremism. And they have everything they need - well, maybe not respect from the natives - but that still doesn't explain going off the deep end blowing yourself up in a subway station or trying to sever a film maker's head off because you didn't like his movie. That's nuts, and what Kerry has talked about is the war within Islam and their struggle with modernity. But, you know, as a Westerner I don't really have the time to wait 100 years for an Islamic reformation to happen -- I want that viral extremist ideology to go out of fashion and and I want it out of fashion now!

There are a lot of poorer people in that Middle East and in the greater world. They are not experiencing any prospects for a better life, for a job or for any other the other things that the West enjoys. The West can either help the Islamic nations to realize their potential or stand as an obstacle in the way. The oil money does nothing to bring about reform, it serves to keep repressive and corrupt regimes in power.

Resistance to oppression doesn't go away. It can take a positive or a negative course. Bin Laden is the negative course. He tells people that their troubles will go away if they back-pedal to a theocratic state. He explains that the Islamic people have been betrayed by their leaders and that in order for Islam to become a pre-eminent force again in the world, adherents have to revert to a purer and more autocratic form of the religion. (Ahm, we have a corallary in the Christian churches here in America. A very strong corallary, btw. America will be great if it only adopts the Bible as the way. The theocratic state should be more in control than the secular state. Sigh! Isn't that part of what the culture wars in America are about, which path should we take?) Religion is one of the most powerful motivating forces human being can have. It can compel devotion to a level that accounts for these suicide bombings and mass murders. Sigh! There is a powerful incentive to view failure as something 'done to you' by those who side with a 'great satan.'

Sen. Kerry is trying to side with the positive forces in the Islamic world that want peaceful reform and don't want a society formed on religious grounds. He has identified what the US is doing to retard the growth of democratic movement and how those forces of repression are funded through oil money. The US and other Western nations must begin to become part of the solution. They have to ween themselves off of dependence on fossil fuels. This will have the added benefit of taking money away from repressive and cruel regimes. Growth toward freedom and democracy might then assume the path it was on before we made our 'deals with the devil' in the late 40's.

Kerry is, of course, correct on this. I was just struck by the depth of what he has been saying in his speeches and how they all add up. No one else on the national stage, no one, is articulating this in this depth and with this kind of clarity. He really is tying all the threads together.

Think about how women and doctors who felt when we were having bombings and arsons almost monthly. Most of us didn't have to think about what it's like to live under that kind of threat every day. What kind of going off the deep end stuff is that, and yet we still don't call those religious extremist groups homegrown terrorists. In fact, Randall Terry is running for FL State Senate and has been endorsed by Dobson. That's not a lot different than if the Saudi's made bin laden a political official. It's all religious extremism as a response to cultural changes that give people personal freedom outside their religious doctrines. Mix in some anti-government conspiracy theories and you've got a cult for every outcast in any given country. I don't think the causes are that complicated, although I've got no idea what the solution is.

http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/violence/history_extreme.asp

Secular state versus the chosen nation. We do have homegrown terrorists who want to force their beliefs and wsorldviews down the throats of others. They perceive the world as 'moral or not moral' and that's that. The Founders rejected a solidly religious underpinning for America and put out a bill of rights specifically to guard against the terrors associated with extremism. Sigh! This is the eternal American argument as much as it is an argument anywhere else in the world.

extremist problems. Now that the extremists run the GOP, violence against abortion clinics are down!!

I actually know a thing or two about Christianist violence (Andrew Sullivan came up with that term and I like -- they're not Christians, they're Christianists, just like Islamists). A friend of mine was in the Olympic Park when Eric Rudolph set off his bomb. My friend was not injured, but you should have heard my mother calling me early the next morning telling me I couldn't go to any other Olympic events. Me and my friends said screw that noise -- terrorists aren't going to scare us from celebrating the Olympics. Of course, when we returned to the Olympic Park, there was military everywhere so it wasn't exactly the same as before. I also went to a rock concert at a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta that Eric Rudolph bombed -- a friend of ours' band was playing there, so we went but were frisked and checked out for bombs. Glad that motherf***er was caught.

But I don't know how any of you feel but I'm not particularly pleased with this "democratic solution" to the Christianist problem -- they're less violent now but they're trying to take our rights away (not to mention our TV shows), so I have no idea what is best in the ME. Iraqi women are now being forced to wear the veil -- how has democracy helped them?

I think between OKC and Atlanta, our extremists scared themselves. Kind of like the people who quit the minutemen when they started hearing their racist talk. Those people will push and push until they do something crazy too. And no matter how many times it happens, those who fuel this stuff with their crazy talk will just move on to the next hot button issue without a care in the world.

Eventually they will push and push until they embarrass themselves, like they did with Terri Schiavo, and just burn themselves out.

I loved this speech!

Very nice job!

We know them in here, but they are not known in GD.

I really was thinking about this during the speech and on the trip home. Sen. Kerry really, really, really is wicked smaht. I am so proud to have him as my Senator. I would also be proud to see him promoted.

I'll tell you he blows me away, with his knowledge and passion to do what is right. I was hooting and hollering while listening to it. I can only imagine how it was to be there in person.

So how was the crowd and did you get to meet with the lovely Teresa?

The place wasn't packed, like it was in April, but it was a weekday. It was about 4/5ths full. The speech was very enthusiastically received, particularly some of the caustic and funny comments. That remark about Al Gore not only being elected but inaugurated brought the house down. (Great line.)

Sen. Kerry took his sweet time getting out of that building today. I think he shook hands with everyone on the bottom floor of the place and a good many people outside. I didn't get to see Teresa up close, but they surely knew we were there. (I did wave at Sen. Kerry and he waved back. Ahm, for what it's worth.)

There were a lot of tourists in the area who had a field day taking pictures of Kerry when he did emerge from the hall. Vek said she saw some Japanese tourists who about lost their minds at seeing JOHN KERRY in BOSTON (Why of all the places to find Sen. Kerry. Boston? Who'd a thunk it?) He came out and went to the side of the building. Vek, who was there, said he literally stopped traffic, as people applied their breaks, did a double-take, confirmed it was indeed the taller Sen from Mass and then got out of their cars for a better look. (This works if you are height-enhanced. People can see you over and above the crowd.) AHm, he was a show-stopper in Boston today. (See, we are not jaded and used to him. We do, however, have high expectations of and for him. He deserves that, as he is capable of a lot. An awful lot. )

After all. That's his home and that's his crowd. It's from a position of strength.

People really just stopped their car, and got out to look at him? I like the Japanese tourists -- hopefully, they got lots of pics!!

That is so cool. Next thing you know the RW lunatics will blame him for all the difficulties driving in Boston. Seriously, it's cool that he generates that kind of excitement in his home town. Nice that Boston showed him so much love today. He and Teresa looked happy. The picture of Kerry watching the cute little kid was sweet.

With a little help from her friend...

John Kerry Connects the Dots with his Speech on Energy Independence
Posted by Tay Tay
June 26th, 2006 @ 7:33 pm

I was in the audience today, as Senator John Kerry delivered a powerful speech at Faneuil Hall in Boston on what America needs to do to free itself from foreign oil dependence, combat global warming and climate change and push for more efficient energy usage in the U.S.

Before the speech we were treated to a young man from Vermont who came to read a letter he sent to the Senator recently. Jesse Rogers, all of 8 years old, sent Kerry a copy of Dr Suess’ The Lorax, because it’s a good book about the environment. Young Jesse certainly charmed the crowd.



The Senator delivered his speech before a large and receptive crowd that cheered his suggestions for actions that can be taken by the US Congress now to get the nation to adopt more fuel-efficient CAFE standards, increase the use of ethanol and other renewable fuels and put America on a course that truly recognizes the importance of energy independence.

Last December, Sen. Kerry delivered remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City that basically called on the United States to change it’s policy in the Middle East and to stop enabling regimes that repress their people and stop progressive growth in those governments in that region.

In April at Faneuil Hall, earlier this month at the Take Back America Conference, and then most recently on the floor of the Senate last week, Kerry has repeatedly called for the US to re-evaluate its course in the Iraq War and to recognize that we need a political and not a military solution in order to begin to end this occupation.

MORE, MORE PICS & LINKS TO PREVIOUS SPEECHES - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=3439

Sorry for going awol after posting the pics, but my cable went out for some time. However; it gave me a chance to re-read the speech and take it all in again.

Tying in security with energy independence and vice versa is logical, and after hearing Kerry lay it out in no uncertain terms it makes sense even to laypersons. His speech left no stone unturned and no question unanswered.
I am still in awe at the detail and precision of his proposal. He had already laid the groundwork for this proposal during the '04 election, but it is finetuned now, and even more relevant than ever in light of recent developments and reports on global warming.

Waiting now with bated breath to see when our good Senator will introduce his proposal in congress!