How About A Pickens/Gore/MoveOn Alliance?

I've posted this elsewhere, too. But I think it's worth repeating. Earlier today, I received an email from the folks at MoveOn.org calling attention to Al Gore's vision for America to produce "100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years."

Gore, like T. Boone Pickens, points to our disproportionate dependence on carbon-based fuels as the common thread linking our economic, environmental and national security crises. He notes that "enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to...meet 100 percent of US electricity demand," and also emphasizes the value of harnessing energy in our solar corridor.

It would seem that Pickens and Gore have a common position on energy. And it's a position that isn't gaining enough traction in the media. MoveOn lamented that Gore's speech was mostly ignored and pleaded with members to help spread the word.

I cannot help but think: Why not work together?

Both camps have interests that are fundamentally the same. Pickens and Gore want an energy policy that achieves a significant reduction in our reliance on foreign oil while moving us solidly in the direction of clean and renewable power. If this is to become something of a national mission, it would certainly help for the Pickens Plan to have wide-ranging bipartisan support. What better way to establish this than an alliance with Al Gore and MoveOn?

Moreover, there's the additional benefit of gaining access to MoveOn's substantial mailing list.

Just a thought.

Tags: activism, alliances, bipartisan, pickens, plan

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robert Biddinger on July 26, 2008 at 12:53pm: I completely agree.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Donald McFarland on July 26, 2008 at 1:22pm: When MoveOn moves in, I move out!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paul B. Rowell, Jr. on July 26, 2008 at 2:57pm: I like Pickens Plan but I can't really trust Al Gore. Look at his home on the internet and tell me what he is doing behind the sceens to make America an independant country from Arab Oil. The cost of daily A/C for his home when He is There!, is astronomical! Mine is getting bad and I am a middle income American for Mississippi. So don't ask me to help AL GORE! or follow him on a wild goose chase.

Pickens needs to distance himself from Al Gore and go on the Southern Texan Trail and he will get support from all southern states and we can become energy independant. Then the North will follow. After all, if we did not have Sugar, how would everyone be so Sweet? and Cotton, or everyone would have to go Naked.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Hank Kelly on July 26, 2008 at 3:35pm: Mr. D'Souza,

You have a great suggestion. But read the posts, there's about as much chance of the preponderance of these members accepting a Gore/Pickens alliance as there is seeing Dick Cheney lay a hot wet one on Michael Moore.

How can you ever form a consensus? The mere mention of Al Gore drives these members into spasms of venom spewing hatred, as any reference to anything liberal or environmentally protective.

At the risk of being targeted for attack let me quote Barack Obama. He admonished partisans this way: "We cannot beleive that democrats have a monopoly on good ideas, we must be willing to listen even to those who may oppose us."

Now I beleive the sun shines on both the righteous and the wicked. Michelle and Mr Keating make great points. For one, this movement would be greatly diminished if we let it be hijacked by either right or left wing extremists. It should be politics free. Michelle is willing to set aside her general distaste for all things Republican. Why can't the righties extend the same courtesy? Be more willing to listen, be less quick to condemn.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by American in the D.R. on July 26, 2008 at 3:46pm: Posted above with last line added.
Darlena,

I see that you have changed a few things. The American flag is not behind you anymore. The link to a certain site supported by a very well know Washington politician is missing. Sorry, but I find your Politics are very “in me face” with just about every post you make proving it.

I respect Mr. Pickens and Mr. Gore (does he still have the title of Mr. Vice President?) Neither of these men have supported any political party during their recent releases. I hope that they both keep it that way.

I’m sure that they know about each other and would have no problem taking a call from the other.

As for MoveOn; right into politics. I don’t think that would do much to bring people together. Quite the contrary.

Just my opinion.

I do think that these two, WITHOUT THE POLICTICS, could do some very good things.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kenneth Guntkowski on July 26, 2008 at 8:39pm: Not a Gore fan, but this idea is brilliant! Let us not politicize this issue. Bring everyone on board. It's that important.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phil McQuillan on July 27, 2008 at 8:31pm: Hi

I noticed that every hour about ten or twenty new Discussions are started leaving older Discussions, no matter how useful they may be, off the main page everybody opens up to when they click on Forums > Discussions. There are however a couple of Featured Discussions that are always on top and never go away.

My intent in starting the Push The Plan: Cut & Paste Ideas is to prod as many "members" into action. Really useful action. I believe that is the defining purpose of the entire website Boone has set up. However, realizing that we are all procrastinators up to some point and that many of us may not write as convincingly as many others I started thinking of ways to enable ACTION. Talk is cheap but action pays a price in effort. Right now I'll bet that out of 86,000 or so members less than 6% have used the Invite feature and have written to both their Senators and Representative. And they probably never will. The aim should be to make it as easy as possible to really and truly get all members busy Pushing the Plan. That, and the fact that this Discussion will be lost in the avalanche of other discussions started every day is why I am asking you to please take the following request on up to National headquarters: please keep the Push the Plan: Cut & Paste Ideas always on top under Featured Discussions. It might help improve the rate at which members are truly inducted into the Army. If it doesn't get a lot of hits and results are questionable then bump it off with something more effective.

NEW DISCUSSION called PUSH THE PLAN: CUT & PASTE IDEAS

If you are typical or like me simply lazy, you haven't gone much beyond just being a “member” of the Pickens Plan website group. Which is to say, you are listed and counted as a member, get email updates from the site, may have contributed a few comments to discussions...and that's about it. Even if the Plan garners 1M “members” at this level of participation they will be of little use. Talk is cheap and so is posting to a discussion group! Here's what an army of supporters ought to do:

Urge everyone to PUSH the plan. Send emails to all your Contacts for example. The easiest way is to use the INVITE feature right on the Pickens website to contact everyone in your Address Book. Even better would be to use your own email program to send these important messages out, because many of the ones sent using the Pickens Plan website may simply end up in recipients Bulk mail folder. Its not going to do any good if it ends up there. The Plan website gives you the option of adding your own optional message to the Invite. Maybe some of you would like to provide us lazies with sample messages so we can just cut and paste the one we like best in. Its all about making it as easy as possible for the army to march I believe.

How about all the many calls we've heard to write letters (or emails) to our representatives, key figures in Congress and other notables? It's tough to overcome that initial inertia and actually start one, isn't it?
Besides the bother of finding their address and a venue there's the time and difficulty of composing a letter that makes good sense. Hell, we're not all Shakespeares are we? That's why at the very least there ought to be some good copy right here to browse through. I'm going to post what I used to bring the issues to the attention of my representatives below. Please use it at is, modify it or draw one up totally of your own making, but do it. Don't procrastinate a day longer.

SAMPLE (I used a lot of Pickens own words...)
Greetings!

America is in a hole and it's getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war. T. Boone Pickens has been an oil man all his life, but he now emphatically states that “this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.”

On January 20, 2009, a new President gets sworn in. Meanwhile, I aim to help convince Congress to make major changes towards cleaner, cheaper and domestic energy resources. As you are my Congressional representative from this district I want to begin my efforts with you.

To get these changes done, Boone needs our help. Check out the plan. If you think it's worth fighting for, please join the effort. Visit www.pickensplan.com and get fully informed.

Some people (cynics) say: "What's in it for Pickens"? Who cares! At 80 years old and a billionaire several times over it doesn't really matter how much his estate will be worth eventually, he's given more to charity than 1000 ordinary citizens. More importantly and a better question is, what's in it for US? Answer - our energy independence. Are you tired of seeing hard earned money sent over to our sworn enemies? Will it be painful to see our great country slip into 2nd place, then 3rd place, etc. in the world thanks to our short sighted addiction to oil? I'm sure it will be. Please get outraged and riled up and then please do something meaningful about it. I encourage you to meet with Mr. Pickens and begin to work together on the practical aspects of his plan.

Thank you for reading,

Philip McQuillan

I'm sure many of you can write much better than I can. Please post your letters HERE. Thank you.

BTW, returning to the subject of email Invitations to join the Plan as a member, I'd suggest using a subject line like this: What Phil's up to now, what Bobby's up to now, etc., you get the point – use your own name and your contacts will be sure to read it. Remember too that the Invite will reach more inboxes and less bulk mail folders if you send them from your own email account.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Richard Bibb on July 28, 2008 at 6:54pm: For all interested in this topic please consider my petition at:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/STAY08/index.html

You have to cut and paste because I am a moron and can't figure out how to make the link active.

For those who want to know waht they are being lead down the proverbial path for: It is a call for COngress to stay in session and deal with this instead of recessing as usual for the month of August - so many Fund Raisers don't ya know....

Here's to the Left and Right telling the parties to get it together or to get out.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phil McQuillan on July 28, 2008 at 10:04pm: Hello readers,

The Pickens Plan website would be a lot more productive if more people used the discussion Push The Plan: Cut & Paste Ideas found at http://push.pickensplan.com/forum/topic/show?id=2187034%3ATopic%3A4... (or something similar put up by National headquarters) - here's where they will be able to find a selection of Sample letters to Congressmen, sample personal Invites, etc.

Active members are encouraged to post their Sample letters here so that others have easy and user friendly access to them. Could I get some of you to post your letters on the Push The Plan: Cut & Paste Ideas discussion area? A much larger selection of ideas to choose from will benefit all of us. Please CONTRIBUTE something and I will make sure it is included in the list where it will stay always in the top section. In other words, Reply to the Discussion titled Push The Plan: Cut & Paste Ideas and I'll paste your sample letter in near the top where it will remain. Your cooperation will be a great help in "pushing" the Plan. Thank you, Phil; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by KENN DRESCHER on July 30, 2008 at 10:51am: I've been involved with Move On... (Don't trust 'em...)

I wouldn't recommend geting them involved as: Move On. If their Members join, GREAT!

MoveOn is presently supporting the Democrats. Although, Mr. Nader is the obvious,
and best choice to choose for President of the United States to perform this enormous task!

Have to hit the ground running, and perform immediate sweeping changes to cease negitive Man made Environmental Destruction.

Begin A REVERSAL OF THE CATOSTROIPIC Damage caused over the past 15 years!

GORE had his chance! He abdicated it to the Abscounder!
HE - should reach out to join this Movement! Instead he has his WE movement...
Not much Movement there.

As stated, Some1 needs to put there $'s where their Mouth's are. That's what it'll take.
I've fantastisied doing this for a long time now, but alsa, w/o options to do so.

I was Amazed when Mr Pickens announced this "Plan"! Has this Excellent WebSite!
Is garnishing support from the Grass Roots! It's happening!!!

VP Gore's WE Project is a nice gesture...

Move On needs to: Move On Out of the "Supporting Obama for President biz",
and start supporting the only rational, intelligent choice for Presedent:

MORE; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by everysandwich on August 6, 2008 at 4:10pm: I believe Mr. Pickens has met with or at least spoken at length with Mr. Gore. He's also spoken with Warren Buffet, I learned from the last video from Pickens. An alliance with Moveon to me, from a PR perspective is ill-advised, but it is encouraging to see a plan strong enough to make politics as usual sit in the back seat and shut the heck up.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Levi Coffelt on August 6, 2008 at 4:37pm: The beauty of this plan is that we don't need to align with either major political party. We can accomplish this through old fashioned American ingenuity and hard work. Drawing lines in the sand and aligning with either republicans or democrats (or greens or libertarians for that matter) just serves to alienate sections of the population. This is american, not political.; ▶ Reply to This