Saturday, August 6, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

This is my final letter to you. Yesterday’s letter was an epiphany. While writing it, I finally understood who you were and everything fell into place, all your deals, capitulations and broken promises. You’re not inept or weak or immature; you’re smoother than most with your smooth talk and false sincerity, a Machiavellian politician, cunning, amoral, without scruples or conscience, dangerous. You were a Trojan horse, Mr. President, posing as friend, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. We believed you, embraced you, elected you. We brought that Trojan horse inside the gates and once inside, you turned on us and wreaked havoc. You knew right from the start, didn’t you? How long ago? Back in your college days walking the streets of Eagle Rock? When you got to Harvard and rubbed shoulders with the scions of wealth and power? Or was it when you learned about backroom deals and machine politics in Chicago? Whenever it was, you learned your lessons well, Mr. President. Learned patience and how to lie with conviction, learned to wear that mask of thoughtfulness and compromise while hiding your real agenda, and learned how to take advantage without remorse, to do whatever it takes. You plotted and planned and sold yourself as the best hope for America, a Saviour who would lead us back to the Promised Land, but it was all an illusion, the cynical manipulation of a people desperate for change and a better future, and as soon as that Trojan horse was brought inside, out trooped the Old Guard, the power brokers and the wealthy elite and it’s business as usual in America: tyranny over democracy, secrecy over transparency and repression over freedom. You are ruthless and without mercy, you order assassinations, brutalize those who expose the truth, promote wars of aggression, and ignore laws that restrict you. Most ominous of all, however, is your use of the CIA as your secret army, easily turned into your own private security force in case you need one. You have betrayed us, Mr. President, fooled us and conned us with your slick lies and sleight-of-hand. You’re a trickster and you’re as dangerous to democracy as anyone has ever been. Many are in denial of the truth but many of us aren’t and we are angry, disgusted and sick as we watch you tilt toward Fascism. Letters to you are futile cries in the wilderness and so, Mr. President, I’m done writing and I’m done with you. The future looks bleak from out here. God help us one and all. We’ll need it.