Friday, August 5, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

For months I’ve been trying to figure out who you are. A weak president? Incompetent? A lousy negotiator? I know you’re not stupid. You’re a very smart guy, you give a great speech now and then and you come across as sincere, well-meaning, and committed to equality, justice and fair play. But then I look at your track record and I see a president who has expanded the war in Afghanistan, bombed Libya, authorized drone strikes and Special Ops incursions by the CIA into Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, persecuted and prosecuted government whistleblowers, bailed out the insurance industry by abandoning single payer healthcare, abandoned the environment and global warming crises, authorized drilling in the Arctic by Royal Dutch Shell, handed Monsanto a blank check to market genetically modified corn, beets and soybeans, extended and increased tax cuts for millionaires and corporations and acceded to every Republican/Tea Party demand that came along, even put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the table for cuts. I could go on, but you get my drift. The conclusion I keep coming to is that you are a continuation of the Bush regime, a Trojan horse for big corporations and the rich, that you are a master manipulator, con artist and radical rightwinger. I believe you are without morals or principles and that you have no commitment to the restoration of democracy and the rule of law. You have continued to shred what little is left of the social contract and you pursue a foreign policy that casts America in the role of an aggressor nation, a terrorist state. Your flaunting of the War Powers Act regarding the ongoing bombing of Libya without justification and your use of the InJustice Department to shut down WikiLeaks and prosecute Thomas Drake on trumped up charges, and your defense of the military’s torture of Bradley Manning, refusing to allow UN investigators or even a U.S. congressman to visit him without “minders” is the mark of a despot. I have come to the conclusion that you are without morality or conscience, and that your only master is power. We the People have been hoodwinked, conned and rolled, and I pray you will be defeated in 2012. At least with a Republican in the White House, we know the enemy; it is far more dangerous to have him in our midst, unrecognized.