Appreciation thread for Pres. Jimmy Carter's vision - If only they had listened!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_energy_crisis

On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter outlined his plans to reduce oil imports and improve energy efficiency in his "Crisis of Confidence" speech (sometimes known as the "malaise" speech)<10>..and encouraged citizens to do what they could to reduce their use of energy. He had already installed solar power panels on the roof of the White House and a wood-burning stove in the living quarters. However, the panels were removed in 1986, reportedly for roof maintenance, during the administration of his successor, Ronald Reagan, and were never replaced.<12>

Carter's speech argued the oil crisis was "the moral equivalent of war". Several months later, in January 1980, Carter issued the Carter Doctrine, which declared that any interference with U.S. oil interests in the Persian Gulf would be considered an attack on the vital interests of the United States.<13> Additionally, as part of his administration's efforts at deregulation, Carter proposed removing price controls that had been imposed in the administration of Richard Nixon before the 1973 crisis. Carter agreed to remove price controls in phases; they were finally dismantled in 1981 under Reagan.<14>Carter also said he would impose a windfall profit tax on oil companies.<15> While the regulated price of domestic oil was kept to $6 a barrel, the world market price was $30.<15>

In 1980, the U.S. Government established the Synthetic Fuels Corporation to produce an alternative to imported fossil fuels.

.........

What might have been sadly is not but I for one will never forget that President Carter tried to get us on the right path!

Therefore he had to be eliminated by character assassination - carried out as much by Dems as by Republicans.

K&R

removed from the Presidential campaign. nt

:thumbsup:

The people removed him, your paranoia notwithstanding.

Because no one ever criticized him for being ineffectual or sort of lost internationally. Oh and that October Surprise arms for hostages combo platter? Never apparantly happened. And all those Reagan Democrats (who would later go on to form the DLC) that was just a party game they were playing.


Seriously man, it wasn't really a conspiracy, it wasn't that organized. But there were a lot of people that didn't want Carter and they all did their best, independently, to get rid of him.

"any interference with U.S. oil interests in the Persian Gulf would be considered an attack on the vital interests of the United States"

This pretty much covers the first Gulf War.

Bush the Elder wimped and tried to build a coalition just to push Saddam out of Kuwait, as if it were an issue of territory and sovereignty.

Meanwhile, Carter basically said right there that we'll go to war if our oil interests are threatened.

Republicans are the wimps.

to be kept prisoner for an additional 3 months after their release was arranged until after the election and the inaugeration of that Fucker Reagan. Both of those men should be in prison or shot for that alone and that was the least of their crimes.

There are not many examples that are better these days, of just how conservative our media is in general, than the terrible treatment this president, Jimmy Carter, has gotten. Had we started down the trail, and accelerated, we'd be hitting 20 percent renewables by now. Instead, mired in oil and coal money, and wars without end, pointless wars for oil, we're stuck in the past, deeply in debt, and no better than we were, in fact much worse off, than in the Carter years.

Iran-Contra does not exist.

He also wanted to bring us up to date with the rest of the world in using the metric system, but that was another thing his idiot successor derailed. Here is a map of where it is and is not used today:

I think he will be looked at more favorably as the years go by!

they sell pints of beer, their roads have distances and speeds in miles and miles per hour, they weigh things in pounds and in stone, they do sell gasoline in litres though.....

but the glasses are actually 500ml and so are the cans. Read the fine print.

The UK is officially metric and everyone there I know is fluent in metric.

When my folks built their house. We did a lot of the work ourselves and insulated the heck out of it, plus double pane windows. The inspector said we were overdoing on the insulation and sealing the walls are 6" or 8" thick.

Dad had an oil boiler installed then promptly got a wood stove and equipped it with a water tank and we burned wood and cycled the hot water from the wood stove to heat the whole place. He had also ditched the gas guzzler Plymouth Coronet 440 for a VW 412 (32 mpg instead of 10mpg). The wood was reject from the paper mill he worked for as it was not suitable for one or another reason.

I lived in rentals in cities for most of my adult life so there was not a lot I could do to places that I lived in other than insulated curtains and such.
We now we are in the country and plan to take our home off grid and off fossil fuels. We are making some strides. Things are at a standstill at the moment because of health and budget. We have made big cuts in power consumption and heating oil.

I vaguely remember watching Mr Carters' speech on tv, but do remember the message that we need to get our ducks in a row and change power sources instead of waiting until stuff falls in the fire.

just where we would be today if he had won in 1980. I so wish some dem would actually stand up for him when they say 'another Jimmy Carter', we should be so lucky to have another Jimmy Carter and it should be a complement not an insult as they have made it. Think of where we could be today, free of the Middle East oil we would be leaders in the world and not be talking about deficit cutting by cutting Social Security.

What business message to promote to people after Vietnam and Watergate?

Austerity and sacrifice to get out of the dead-end oil energy business promoted by a nuclear scientist?

Or, Some dumb and senile actor strutting our cheap oil economy might patriotically across the globe: winners?

The media exploitation of love of money over common sense and a sustainable future. We, the people, lost our shirts, and perhaps the planet by this MIC-cheap oil propaganda.

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/car0bio-1

A President of Peace:

.......Jimmy Carter was educated in the Plains public schools, and studied at Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology before entering the United States Naval Academy. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy in 1946. Shortly after graduation, he married Rosalynn Smith of Plains, Georgia.

After serving on conventional submarines in both the Atlantic and Pacific, Carter joined the Navy's pioneering nuclear submarine program. After graduate studies in nuclear physics at Union College in Schenectady, New York, Carter was selected by Admiral Hyman Rickover to serve as engineering officer of the Sea Wolf, America's second nuclear submarine.

(more at link)

luckily france had a left wing president a Socialist, François Mitterrand, from 1981 to 1995.

Carter is a good man, probably the most honest president we ever had. But right wingers love to trash him. They blame him for everything happening in the late 70s, when he inherited those problems, most of which were the result of the Vietnam War and corporate price fixing. When Carter was president it was almost impossible to buy a house unless your monthly payments were 1/4th of your take home pay or less. That was the standard rule back then. But when Reagan came in all that changed. An increase of variable mortgages swept across the nation and lending rules were relaxed so much people began to buy houses they couldn't afford. In Texas there was a huge battle to allow 2nd mortgages on people's homes. Banks won and once property owners could get 2nd and 3rd mortgages on their homes foreclosures started to skyrocket, a conservative wet dream.

When Reagan came into office he scrapped all of Carter's energy plans and because of Reagan we are 30 years behind where we could have been with regards to energy independence. President Obama has a golden opportunity to declare war on conventional energy and take our country in a different direction, a greener and more self sufficient direction. But will he seize this opportunity, or will he just let the oil industry continue to shape his policy? President Obama could be a great president. But he needs to start representing the people of this country and not the corrupt corporate leaders. If Obama continues down the path he has set for himself he is definitely going to be a one term president and 30 years down the road conservatives still be laughing at him.

President Obama, wake up! Start representing the PEOPLE. I didn't work a year on your campaign so you would sell out to corporations. I worked tirelessly for you to have you change the status quo of corruption and corporate rule in our country.

the Nation at the time WAS the most "hopeful" and optimistic that I've ever experienced. Despite the OPEC gas crisis and inflation, everyone I knew-parents, teachers, fellow students-felt that we were moving toward something better. We were all in it together, everyone I knew was anti-war, pro environmental protection, pro education, pro labor....if you've ever been to Disney's EPCOT and seen the visions of the future that were planned in 1978 and built in 1979 inside "spaceship earth" you'll have a sense of what many of us expected back then; a peaceful, egalitarian, clean, green future where people lived fairly modestly and efficiently. Not at all like what's come to pass. We're already decades behind other Nations like Denmark-and even South Africa, which has it's first high speed rail system! We're locked into Reagan's vision for America, which was nothing like Carter's. Predatory Capitalism, eternal war, a massive wage gap, sky high unemployment and a collapsing ecosystem. Obama named Reagan as one of his favorite US Presidents, not Carter. And it shows. :-(

Anyone with any knowledge of Reagan knew Reagan was a corporate prostitute who savagely attacked the poor and middle class. That does say a lot about Obama and even how he feels about other people. I consider Reagan as one of the 5 worse presidents. GW Bush was the worst. Even Nixon, who I knew was evil from day one, is infinitely better than Reagan. Nixon wouldn't even be allowed in today's republican party because of his policies.

I don't know what criteria Obama used to evaluate Reagan but I consider Reagan to be a failure on every level. Out of all the great presidents we've had it is nothing short of alarming for Obama to even utter Reagan in a positive light.

But as I watch what Obama has been doing, or not doing, I can now see why he would pick Reagan. And it's very disappointing because Obama could have been a hero of the people by now if he only chose to represent them instead of giving in to the right wing and corrupt corporations. The list of progessive causes looks like a long and winding gravesite with each one killed or crippled by Obama's disregard for the people and his abandonment of his own campaign promises. It's very sad to see so much hope dying a slow death as Obama steadily succumbs to the evil forces of corrupt corporations.

I often think of Carter when I make that right turn when the light is red. I wonder who in his administration thought of that...a tweak to save energy.


Do younger people realize that being allowed to turn right when the light is red was a Jimmy Carter thing? :)

into simply doom and gloom...if there were a way to reach the general population wihtout this filter, we might actually truly live in a democracy.

thank you for the 411

He got scorn because the majority of adults like being talked down to like they are children. the majority of adults do not know how to think like adults. perhaps a third of us adults actually like to be treated as adults, the other 2 thirds prefer to be treated as sheep. The milgrim study showed us this decades ago....

Reagan was all about not asking Americans to "sacrifice" for their future. (Funny how the GOP keeps harping about spending dangers for "our children and grandchildren" when they really had an opportunity to provide for a better economic future they ridiculed it.) Jimmy Carter is the single most decent person in politics in America. I did not agree with everything he did but I sure admire him for his principles and steadfastness in trying to do the right thing for all people. I think his biggest mistake was proving safe-haven for the Shah (whom he really didn't like but tried to be a humane voice for him.) That caused the hostage situation...which was a hugely exaggerated issue for the right. It made a natural and all-time enemy of a nation that never attacked another nation and whose people genuinely like America and are really among the most decent people in the world. Some of their politicians have lost there way but the Iranian people are lovely people. I know many and have visited their communities and religious services. I went to college with several and they were all about returning to Iran to make it a more modern and democratic nation. Everyone of them returned to Iran and I have contact with three of them.

He was the most honest president we ever had. I also admire him more than all the presidents in my life. If everyone could be as charitable, caring, loving, intelligent and visionary as he was our country would be so much better off. President Carter, or 'Jimmy' to me, is in my top 10 of people I would love to meet and talk with. Or be privilaged enough to be considered his friend.

"I want to make it clear, if there is ever a conflict (between environmental quality and economic growth) I will go for beauty, clean air, water and landscape".


Thank you, Jimmy.



(Probably this statement is not macho enough in today's political climate)

It would be a trillion $$$ prison!

but I am a thirty one year old who votes on the left, and that is certainly not cool, cool people vote for "drill baby drill" and are right wing, greedy and self centered, it is only us losers that care about trees and such.

and Jimmy Carter was by far the best president I have ever had in the USA.

Carter was the best, imho..

Best US President of my life time!

And he was demonized for far too long. It's good to see him being appreciated again.

. . . I hope it's not too late for us to act on your vision.

:patriot:

Let's be fair about this. Nixon called for energy independence by 1980 and started Project Independence.

Do you have any questions as to why he had to be taken down?

Nixon was more liberal than 95 percent of Dems today.

That's all.

He was also early on fully embedded in the pockets of Big Oil.

Good thread. I've really admired this man even through the perplexing and long lasting veil of hate that covers his legacy.

Thanks for trying, Jimmy!

Oh, yes I K&R this!

Oh, yes I K&R this!

instead of giving this guy another term.

I hope he is doing well.

Anyone have an update?

-p

directed at him for daring to say we should wear a sweater indoors and lower the thermostat.

I still remember vividly how the newspapers engineered his loss by printing the number of days of the hostage crisis every day in the newspaper's headline. Imagine if we did that with war dead these days.

he was hated, he was mocked. I loved him and I will always have him as my greatest memories of what a president could and should be. A moral leader as well as a power and influence wielder.

Even at the age 0f 10~14, he made such a strong impression on me.

K&R for one of the best we ever put in there.

* In 1974 with 36.1% of oil from foreign sources, President Richard Nixon said, “At the end of this decade, in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need.”

* In 1975 with 36.1% of oil from foreign sources, President Gerald Ford said, “We must reduce oil imports by one million barrels per day by the end of this year and by two million barrels per day by the end of 1977.”

* In 1979 with 40.5% of oil from foreign sources, President Jimmy Carter said, “Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 – never.”

* In 1981 with 43.6% of oil from foreign sources, President Ronald Reagan said, “While conservation is worthy in itself, the best answer is to try to make us independent of outside sources to the greatest extent possible for our energy.”

* In 1992 with 47.2% of oil from foreign sources, President George Bush said, “When our administration developed our national energy strategy, three principles guided our policy: reducing our dependence on foreign oil…”

* In 1995 with 49.8% of oil from foreign sources, President Bill Clinton said, “The nation’s growing reliance on imports of oil…threatens the nation’s security… will continue efforts to…enhance domestic energy production.”

* In 2006 with 65.5% of oil from foreign sources, President George W. Bush said, “Breakthroughs…will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.”

* In 2009 with 66.2% of oil from foreign sources, President Barack Obama said, “It will be the policy of my administration to reverse our dependence on foreign oil while building a new energy economy that will create millions of jobs.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/The-Daily-Reckoning/2010/0430/A-history-of-false-starts-for-US-energy-independence

K&R

Since about that time, I have said that the best way that we can get the monkey off our back will be a painful one, but we must do it. We are like junkies who need our fix or petroleum, and the drug dealers keep raising the price. This cannot go on much longer. We have to do the right thing.

I wish you had been listened to, our country would be so much better off.

out if we had started back then. Now I am not sure we have time to work most of them out before things really fall apart.

Thank you, Jimmy Carter. Actually, I suspect he will be proved by history to have been one of our greatest presidents and the victim of crimes against the American people by his Republican adversaries.

:thumbsup:

We live in a Nation where the majority Idolize Ronald Reagan, while Deriding Jimmy Carter.

Kind of says it all right there, don't it??

Let me know I would be happy to contribute.

Only President in my 61 years that I can still look at and smile. What they did to him was nothing short of criminal - not that it matters here apparently - crime has paid pretty well til this nasty little oil leak.

And I think it's Obama's turn to put those solar panels back up - both literally and figuratively.

If only as a small and significant protest to the destruction initiated by Reagan.

the last one who wasn't a corporate sellout - he actually cared about the american people, not the mega-rich, not huge corporations. :patriot:

yes I know this...

And Mr. President usually visionaries are proven well after the fact.

Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on April 18, 1977:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html

Every American should read that speech and then wonder why we ignored Carter and his recommendations for thirty years.

They laughed at you, Mr. President, but you were right - and history will remember it that way.

:kick:

He didn't play Congress' game and suffered for it.

He continues to be proved right and visionary. From energy to the middle east to the economy.

He has spent his time, like Herbert Hoover(who, except for that President time, was an outstanding American), making up for a presidency that was deemed a failure. Unlike Hoover historians will look back and wonder "Why did we not listen to this guy?"

Just ask Carter or Dean or Kucinich to name a few. We favor the Shock and Awe types that wear mandatory flag pins and have no problem with White Phosphorus, pre-emptive strikes, hired mercenaries and secret torture planes.

weren't glib, shallow, vapid and ignorant, Carter would have been reelected.

The only fight I can remember my parents ever having was over Reagan vs. Carter. My dad could not believe my mother would vote for a Californian actor over a Georgian farmer. The fight lasted quite some time and neither of my parents ever discussed politics afterword. Admittedly, living and growing up in Hamilton County, IN; my father never again voted for a Democrat.

Thank you Mr. Carter. I was too young to vote for you at the time, but I did support you.

I wish we had more like you.

about 30 miles from Plains. I voted for President Carter in every race he ever entered. He was probably the most noble person to grace the White House in my lifetime. His treatment, to date, by historians and talking heads is a tragedy.

for him twice.

Thank you for the wonderful tribute, long past due. And I'm proud to say that I voted for him, too. :patriot:

Remember when he wore sweaters in the White House, to encourage energy conservation? My Dad, who was manager of the local utility, did the same thing, back in the day... :toast:

I'll never forget that speech. If only they had listened.

So ahead of his time. So ridiculed for being so.

History proved him right.