The White Bison

Dear Mr. President,

Two articles in today’s paper have given me Hope. A white bison was born last month in Connecticut. Connecticut, of all places! White bison are rare, considered sacred by Native Americans, and portend an extremely auspicious event. And the Green Party’s presidential candidate is Jill Stein, a physician who got into politics years ago because she was frustrated with the social and environmental roots of disease. As she says, “… politics is the mother of all illnesses.” The Green Party’s platform is called The Green New Deal that, unlike you, will deal with global warming, financial inequity, regulation of Wall Street and a real solution to healthcare. The Green New Deal is aimed at transitioning the country to a green economy by investing about the same amount you gave the Banksters of Wall Street to bail them out. Only this time the money will be invested in America to create an estimated 25 million new jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign (and domestic) oil, and eliminate the need for future oil wars. The Green New Deal also guarantees a halt to foreclosures and evictions, tuition-free public education through college, Medicare for all, and an end to corporate domination of democracy. Pretty impressive. What we thought you were going to do and didn’t. I know her chances are close to zero; your people and Mitt’s people will make sure she doesn’t participate in the debates or get followed by the major media, but I want you to know this is not a protest vote. I’m not throwing my money or my vote away; I’m supporting and voting for someone I believe will actually do what they say they’ll do. Unlike you. Oh, her running mate, Cheri Honkalas, a one time homeless single mom, is a national anti-poverty advocate who has worked for 30 years with the poor, those people you and Mitt don’t see, don’t hear, and don’t care about. You may win again in November, Mr. President, but you’re not getting my vote. I’m looking to the Greens to deliver us from evil, from the nightmare of the past 11 years, from the nightmare of war without end, from the nightmare of presidents who ignore the law, the Constitution and human rights, who lie without hesitation and murder without regret. Who knows, maybe that white bison is a portent of things to come. Maybe in November the American people will be angry enough and disgusted enough to give someone with a true sense of democracy and justice a chance to right what is wrong and get us back on track. I sure Hope so.

Winning the War on Terror

Dear Mr. President,

Since 9/11 I don’t fly if I don’t have to because flying is such a hassle now. However, a family emergency required it. With only a small carryon, I zipped through security outbound but not on the return. The usual routine: my bag on the conveyor belt, shoes and watch off, empty my pockets. But I’m informed I also have to take off my belt. That’s different. On to the metal detector. Too late I realize it’s not a metal detector but a body scanner. Still, an agent pats me down before letting me proceed. As I retrieve my belongings I notice a half dozen agents around the X-ray machine, an air of excitement but also a certain gravitas, and realize, since I’m the only passenger in sight, it’s my bag they’re discussing. A young man wearing latex gloves and a blue TSA uniform with military-style epaulettes informs me that he has to run my bag through the X-ray again. More agents cluster around the machine. Finally, the young man says he has to go through my bag. “Is there anything in it I should be aware of?” Nope. He empties it and carefully inspects each item; the same with my toilet kit. When finished, he brings everything to me and asks if I’d like help repacking. No. “Sorry Sir, I have to confiscate this,” and holds up my near-empty tube of toothpaste. “Why?” I ask. “It’s over the limit.” “Why didn’t they confiscate it in San Francisco on the way up?” “SFO has contractors, not TSA.” “What’s your limit for toothpaste?” “3 ounces.” “But there’s obviously less than 3 ounces in that tube.” “We go by capacity and the tube says 8.2 ounces.” He clutches the tube to his chest like a hard-won trophy. “What a total waste this is,” and I wave my arm at the entire security apparatus, the dozen or so agents standing around with nothing to do. He stares at me then walks away. As I repack my bag, I notice the corkscrew I couldn’t find in my toilet kit. It strikes me, Mr. President, that scenes like this go on every day at airports all over the country; mindless drones manning security checkpoints, not a lick of common sense, just follow orders and rules like good little Nazis. How many terrorists are caught at these checkpoints, anyway? The shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the crazies that rant and rage, all subdued not by TSA agents but by fellow passengers. Our illegal wars have come home and we are prisoners of fear and paranoia held hostage by phantom threats and plots. Our freedoms erode and our lives constrict. Al Qaeda has won the War on Terror.

A Short Break

Taking a short break to visit with my brother who had a stroke, lend encouragement, be with him for a few days as he begins the slow recuperation process. I've not run out of steam or words, and there' no end of outrages every day. Thanks for reading. Check back in a few days.

The Rocket's Red Glare

Dear Mr. President,

The War on Terror, The War on Drugs, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, the covert wars, the list is endless. Some are history, some still rage and all of them are catastrophes for mankind. No war is ever really won and they all come at a terrible cost to both invaded and invader. Your War in Afghanistan costs $10 billion a month, the War in Iraq cost close to a trillion dollars, and no one knows how much your covert wars cost because that information is classified, an Official State Secret in the name of National Security. I read where it cost $11 billion last year just to keep information secret–and that doesn’t include the cost of the 17 spy agencies–“Classified Information.” Hold on a minute, here, Mr. President. $11 billion of We the People’s tax dollars each year to keep information from We the People? And we can’t know how much our covert wars and spy agencies spend every year because of National Security? Something’s really wrong with this picture. I read that the War on Drugs costs about $25 billion a year and that war’s been going on for 20 years and, even though no politician is about to admit it, that war is a total failure. Another half trillion bucks down the toilet, tens of thousands of lives lost, and no end in sight. No money for education or pensions or social services, but $25 billion a year for the War on Drugs, $10 billion a month for Afghanistan.… Like all wars, we’re fighting the wrong enemy, ignoring the obvious solutions to problems and paying for it with violence, injustice, and lasting enmity. You said once, referring to Bush’s illegal and unjustified invasion of Iraq, that you weren’t against all wars, just dumb wars. All wars are dumb wars, Mr. President, even your wars, a sickening waste. Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror, you covert wars, targeted assassinations, drone strikes–unimaginable misery for them and generations of hatred toward us. Stupid, illegal acts of aggression that go against American values, the rule of law and the human soul’s innate sense of right and wrong. On this 4^th of July I don’t see much to celebrate. Mired in wars, mired in debt, mired in hopelessness and with a war criminal president who claimed to be someone he was not, who betrayed us, who betrayed the Constitution, who betrayed human dignity. Not much to celebrate today, more sorrow than celebration in the rocket’s red glare, more shame than pride in the red, white and blue.

Kill List Tuesday

Dear Mr. President,

Today is Kill List Tuesday and I’m trying to imagine it. That huge windowless room in the basement of the West Wing, a group of somber bureaucrats seated in swivel leather chairs around the long polished conference table, each with a fat binder of this week’s “nominees”—mug shots, brief bios—discussing past sins, future threats, awaiting your final decision on each one. You sit at the center, John Brennan, your trusted adviser, your Rasputin, on your right, nodding approval at every decision, who will live and who will die. I try to imagine the imminent threat to the United States posed by a 17-year old girl or boy in Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia, what they have done or could do that warrants assassination, obliteration by a Hellfire missile. I cannot. What does it feel like to make these life-and-death decisions every Tuesday? Do you savor a warm glow of power? Do you feel like Zeus sitting atop Mt. Olympus hurling thunderbolts? Washington, D.C. is not Mt. Olympus, Mr. President, and you are not Zeus. Zeus was ruled by emotions. Zeus made mistakes and was tormented by them. You are, it is said, thoughtful, cool, aloof, detached, and I wonder if you are ever tormented. Do you ever try to imagine what it’s like on the other end of your decisions? Do you ever have qualms, doubts, guilt? You justify and rationalize all this in your lawyerly way with lawyerly words but is it enough to block out the images of violence done and the moral outrage of those whose mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins were just incinerated by an unseen, unknown and distant enemy? You are praised for taking personal responsibility for these grave decisions, for wrestling with the moral conundrums they pose, but I don’t see a moral conundrum here, Mr. President, I see a sick, twisted, logic that rationalizes murder, war crimes and crimes against humanity. I see an evil that violates our deepest belief in who we are, that tramples the values we held as a nation, that makes a mockery of justice and the rule of law. Your Kill Lists, your Targeted Assassinations and drone strikes do not make us safer; they breed more hatred and fear, and they poison our souls individually and collectively. I don’t share your values, your morality, your sense of justice. You are a war criminal and cold-blooded assassin who obeys no law but his own. But you are not above all law and one day your time will come and may God have mercy on your soul, for few others will.

Betrayal and a Cooked Goose

Dear Mr. President,

I may be wrong but I think your goose is cooked this November. I read today where the young people, the 18 to 24-year-olds who were so important in getting you elected in 2008, are not there this time. As one college student put it, politics is “Pointless.” They see your betrayals and they’ve lost faith in you and in their government. A lot of us have. We all know politicians lie, it’s one of the job requirements, but your whoppers were on a scale not seen in my lifetime and the disillusion that set in as the country continued on its downward spiral is breathtaking. You promised to end war and heal a country deeply wounded, but on election eve you abandoned it all and turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the not-rich and not-powerful. January 21, 2009 was business as usual, another smooth transition, another smooth betrayal of America. The kids, along with the rest of us, see a shrinking middle class, a vanishing democracy and a dysfunctional government. We see immoral war without end, the violation of American values, the Constitution and moral decency. We see hypocrisy, backroom deals and a ruling elite who cares not a fig for the common man. How can you blame 18-24 year-olds – and the rest of us – for abandoning you as you abandoned us? The excitement’s not there this time. There’s little to be excited about. On the one hand we have Mitt who, like the Supreme Court, thinks corporations are people, my friend, and on the other hand you, the master of the con, the flim-flam man, the wolf in sheep’s clothing. You’re in trouble with the young and a lot of us who aren’t so young and I’m thinking the only thing that might take you over the top is fear of Mitt in The White House. (But didn’t FDR say the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?) Personally, I wouldn’t vote for you for dog catcher, Mr. President. It would be immoral to vote for a war criminal and cold-blooded assassin. It would make me complicit in your criminal activity and I want nothing to do with that. I can’t vote for Mitt either, so it doesn’t leave much out there for me just like it doesn’t leave much for anyone. As that 19 year old student said: “I see lies and I hear lies … and I don’t believe anything. I think the party system is stupid.” Too true. The only thing I would add is that the party system isn’t so much stupid as indistinguishable. Both pander to the 1% and screw the 99%. It’s only a difference of degree. Although,you’re probably the more effective evil.

Intelligence Agencies

Dear Mr. President,

When I googled “Intelligence Agencies” I found 17 listed. Most I recognized—NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, etc.—but one, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, I had never heard of before. What do they do, I wondered, look for alien invaders? Their mission statement—“NGA provides timely, relevant, and accurate geospatial intelligence in support of national security”—is typical bland bureaucrat-speak. The only clue to what they do is “national security.” Digging further on their official government website, I began to understand that these are probably the people who control the spy satellites. “NGA helped track down al Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladin and shared insights with the special operations team that successfully stormed his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 1, 2011.” I also learned that James Clapper headed the Agency when it was formed in 2003. James Clapper! the guy who at times seems utterly clueless, the guy who claimed that we couldn’t find WMDs in Iraq because Saddam Hussein had shipped them all to Syria, the guy you nominated as the Director of the National Intellience in June 2010. OK, you probably had your reasons. But then I learned that in September 2011, the Geospatial Agency opened a brand new glitzy campus at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, a 2.4 million square foot complex with an atrium big enough to hold the Statue of Liberty, at a cost of $2.4 billion. Why is it there’s money for stuff with a “national security” tag but nothing for our crumbling infrastructure: roads, bridges and hundred year old water systems? Why is there money to bail out the Banksters of Wall Street but nothing to bail out bankrupt cities, desperate homeowners and depleted pension funds? Why can the Department of Homeland Security give $300,000 to the Montgomery County, Texas Sheriff’s Department to buy a drone armed with a Tazer, rubber bullets and bean bag cannon, but we have to cut classes in our community colleges and shutter libraries because there’s no money for that? And tell me, Mr. President, why are the budgets for all these Intelligence Agencies classified anyway? Their budgets are our tax dollars and we have a right to know how our money is spent. Why is it that in America the rich get richer and We the People get the shaft? You want to know why the American people are pissed off? Why we’ve lost faith in our government? Think about it, Mr. President. Things may be “just fine” if you’re part of the 1%, but not so good if you’re not.