Letter to Boone Pickens
Boone,
Preface: This email will take you two minutes to read. I considered editing it to about 40 seconds, but feel it important that you see how I come to the conclusion before I deliver a message I believe important to this movement you've helped birth. I've spend years of my life towards the same goal. Please indulge us with the couple minutes and read all of this.
First, I'll thank you for the efforts you've put forth, and the liberty you've allowed in discussing alternative energy solutions on your forum. I've never felt at all compromised in my ability to disagree with your concepts or to discuss something other than NG. That's noble, and you earn much respect from me by doing so.
Now on this email (the one we received asking for more support after the appointments to Energy): For the past two years, We The People have been bombarded on all sides and interests. The Obama campaign itself has proven relentless in asking for contributions of time, energy, money and associates (not necessarily in that order.) I finally unsubscribed from nearly all of their emails a couple weeks back because I was simply fed up, in over the gills, with being badgered to give "just a little more" money, while they acknowledge that we're in worsening economic circumstance. If it were a friend, I'd have had to question whether they really cared about ME at all, or if I was just a source of funds to tap. Since they don't know me well (though I, too, have spoken with the P.E. a few times now,) I already know the answer to that question. They may care about The People but the individual.... not so much.
Now this from you, and I'm left wondering why. I write for a living. Every day, I put up pieces on new and different aspects of alternative energy, from sources like solar, wind and hydro, to gadgets, to vehicles, politics, laws, movements and selections, and international examples -- both those to watch out for and those to use as example. And through it all, I see a country that has already paid attention. They may not have signed on directly to the Pickens Plan, but most who are willing to do so, they already "get" that things have got to change.
A far bigger threat is the lax attitude many will have now that gas is cheap(er) again. While it's good that prices are down, because the world really needs that economic break, we both know that many will take it as a sign that the sky is NOT falling in, and go right back to the reckless consumption. I'm sure that the oil producers of the world are only so upset that the prices are down so far. Sure, it's painful to lose 75 percent of your price on a crop. But they also know that if it had remained high at the pumps, they'd have forced our hand into electric cars, and would soon not need them at all. Better the $40 a barrel that you CAN have than the $120 a barrel that swiftly leads to no sales.
Finally, we come to the crux of this email:
With such solid appointees by Obama, and his clear and obvious intent, why do we "need' to be growing this army of yours? Where is the imperative? Obama was paying attention all along. This is obvious from his choices. The man is no fool. Even in supporting a hybrid rather than proposing all electric plug-in cars, he showed wisdom on two fronts: Firstly, that Americans want extended potentials, even if they nearly never leave their cities, and secondly that the government will continue to need gas tax revenues as we transition away from fossil fuels altogether. So why is it that you're here, after a long campaign to select the POTUS, and the efforts to get the Pickens "army" to one million, with urgent request to do more, to add 500 more, ___ more, ___ more... I'm writing you as herald of the news you seem to have missed: We've had enough, we're up to our gills, in being pushed and prodded and asked for ANYTHING more from anyone.
Many of us are strapped for the holidays, and many more are justifiably concerned about a grim outlook for the days to come. It IS going to get worse before it gets better, and people are going to suffer. I'll risk seeming dramatic and say that some are going to die over all of this before it is over. Though I understand what you're trying to accomplish, this is not the time to hit people up for ANYTHING more.
I strongly urge you to take a different approach. Give people some prompting for celebration. The appointment of Dr. Chu should be seen as a huge victory, and your "army" (sorry, I served, so this is a little annoying a use of the term) should be hooting and hollering the way that Chicagoans and the rest of the nation were seen to do on the night of of November 4th. Let them have their celebration. Encourage them to do so. Your army is tired, hungry, besieged. They've kept up morale because they believe in the cause far more strongly than most believe in being in Iraq, (and because they're not actually being shot at by live rounds or bombed by mortar all night long.) But you're about to lose their confidence. You're starting to sound like every other leader who has pushed and prodded and begged and demanded for "just" ___ more.
More than allowing celebration, encourage it. Put up a list of all of the things that have been accomplished in a very short relative timeframe, and let them bask in that a bit. THEN put the new goals (if you really believe we need them) up as part of the long-term strategy, and ask them to rally to that cause. Make this a new initiative, a new operation in the war, if you will. But don't badger your troops for any more service, not via clicks, whistles, or dollars, with a relatively dim Christmas just 10 days away.
I wish us all the very best.
Peace and Creation,
JT
cc: My Pickens Page, perhaps other of my online presences.
"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void."
--Marbury vs. Madison
"Optimists refuse to acknowledge reality. Idealists remind us that it isn’t fixed." - Susan Neiman
"It's not who you are underneath, It's what you do that defines you." -- C. Nolan/D. Goyer
“The Europeans see offshore wind turbines as sentinels,” Mandelstam told me, “protecting them from energy domination by foreign powers. When you put that against a few winter days of seeing turbines on the beach as you walk your dog, I think that’s a very easy trade-off.”
"The opposite of War is not Peace. It's Creation." -- Jon Larson
Preface: This email will take you two minutes to read. I considered editing it to about 40 seconds, but feel it important that you see how I come to the conclusion before I deliver a message I believe important to this movement you've helped birth. I've spend years of my life towards the same goal. Please indulge us with the couple minutes and read all of this.
First, I'll thank you for the efforts you've put forth, and the liberty you've allowed in discussing alternative energy solutions on your forum. I've never felt at all compromised in my ability to disagree with your concepts or to discuss something other than NG. That's noble, and you earn much respect from me by doing so.
Now on this email (the one we received asking for more support after the appointments to Energy): For the past two years, We The People have been bombarded on all sides and interests. The Obama campaign itself has proven relentless in asking for contributions of time, energy, money and associates (not necessarily in that order.) I finally unsubscribed from nearly all of their emails a couple weeks back because I was simply fed up, in over the gills, with being badgered to give "just a little more" money, while they acknowledge that we're in worsening economic circumstance. If it were a friend, I'd have had to question whether they really cared about ME at all, or if I was just a source of funds to tap. Since they don't know me well (though I, too, have spoken with the P.E. a few times now,) I already know the answer to that question. They may care about The People but the individual.... not so much.
Now this from you, and I'm left wondering why. I write for a living. Every day, I put up pieces on new and different aspects of alternative energy, from sources like solar, wind and hydro, to gadgets, to vehicles, politics, laws, movements and selections, and international examples -- both those to watch out for and those to use as example. And through it all, I see a country that has already paid attention. They may not have signed on directly to the Pickens Plan, but most who are willing to do so, they already "get" that things have got to change.
A far bigger threat is the lax attitude many will have now that gas is cheap(er) again. While it's good that prices are down, because the world really needs that economic break, we both know that many will take it as a sign that the sky is NOT falling in, and go right back to the reckless consumption. I'm sure that the oil producers of the world are only so upset that the prices are down so far. Sure, it's painful to lose 75 percent of your price on a crop. But they also know that if it had remained high at the pumps, they'd have forced our hand into electric cars, and would soon not need them at all. Better the $40 a barrel that you CAN have than the $120 a barrel that swiftly leads to no sales.
Finally, we come to the crux of this email:
With such solid appointees by Obama, and his clear and obvious intent, why do we "need' to be growing this army of yours? Where is the imperative? Obama was paying attention all along. This is obvious from his choices. The man is no fool. Even in supporting a hybrid rather than proposing all electric plug-in cars, he showed wisdom on two fronts: Firstly, that Americans want extended potentials, even if they nearly never leave their cities, and secondly that the government will continue to need gas tax revenues as we transition away from fossil fuels altogether. So why is it that you're here, after a long campaign to select the POTUS, and the efforts to get the Pickens "army" to one million, with urgent request to do more, to add 500 more, ___ more, ___ more... I'm writing you as herald of the news you seem to have missed: We've had enough, we're up to our gills, in being pushed and prodded and asked for ANYTHING more from anyone.
Many of us are strapped for the holidays, and many more are justifiably concerned about a grim outlook for the days to come. It IS going to get worse before it gets better, and people are going to suffer. I'll risk seeming dramatic and say that some are going to die over all of this before it is over. Though I understand what you're trying to accomplish, this is not the time to hit people up for ANYTHING more.
I strongly urge you to take a different approach. Give people some prompting for celebration. The appointment of Dr. Chu should be seen as a huge victory, and your "army" (sorry, I served, so this is a little annoying a use of the term) should be hooting and hollering the way that Chicagoans and the rest of the nation were seen to do on the night of of November 4th. Let them have their celebration. Encourage them to do so. Your army is tired, hungry, besieged. They've kept up morale because they believe in the cause far more strongly than most believe in being in Iraq, (and because they're not actually being shot at by live rounds or bombed by mortar all night long.) But you're about to lose their confidence. You're starting to sound like every other leader who has pushed and prodded and begged and demanded for "just" ___ more.
More than allowing celebration, encourage it. Put up a list of all of the things that have been accomplished in a very short relative timeframe, and let them bask in that a bit. THEN put the new goals (if you really believe we need them) up as part of the long-term strategy, and ask them to rally to that cause. Make this a new initiative, a new operation in the war, if you will. But don't badger your troops for any more service, not via clicks, whistles, or dollars, with a relatively dim Christmas just 10 days away.
I wish us all the very best.
Peace and Creation,
JT
cc: My Pickens Page, perhaps other of my online presences.
"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void."
--Marbury vs. Madison
"Optimists refuse to acknowledge reality. Idealists remind us that it isn’t fixed." - Susan Neiman
"It's not who you are underneath, It's what you do that defines you." -- C. Nolan/D. Goyer
“The Europeans see offshore wind turbines as sentinels,” Mandelstam told me, “protecting them from energy domination by foreign powers. When you put that against a few winter days of seeing turbines on the beach as you walk your dog, I think that’s a very easy trade-off.”
"The opposite of War is not Peace. It's Creation." -- Jon Larson
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