Monday, August 1, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

I received your July 21 letter today. It was apparently generated by a computer since it used the same phrases and sentences I’ve seen in previous mail from The White House. In spite of that however, I felt compelled to respond. In your letter, you (or your computer) state, “I am taking immediate steps that generate job creation and economic recovery and I am determined to make investments that lay a new foundation for real and lasting progress.” Nice words but your actions speak the opposite. The debt-ceiling legislation you appear willing to sign is anything but “a foundation for real and lasting progress.” This Republican lunacy is a disaster for the American economy and for the American people. It reduces government spending at a time when spending needs to be increased, it cuts social programs when the need is greatest and it does nothing to balance the budget or bring down the debt, both of which can be done only by de-funding war and raising taxes on the rich. There is not a penny in increased taxes on the bloated rich and you’ve accepted that. This bill is both job-killing and democracy-killing. Once again you’ve caved in to the extreme rightwinnuts, sold We the People down the river. I keep thinking about that statistic in my letter of July 21: the 400 richest Americans own more wealth than the 150 million poorest. That’s half the population of the U.S. of A., Mr. President. 400 people own more wealth than half the population! I find that shocking, appalling, disgusting, obscene. That’s not democracy; that’s oligarchy.

The other phrase in your letter that bothered me is, “I am making my Administration the most open and transparent in history.” That is patently false, Mr. President. Your backroom deals with Republicans, your persecution and prosecution of government whistleblowers who expose misdeeds, corruption and war crimes, your attempts to shut down the free flow of information and your authorization of secret wars conducted by the CIA give the lie to “open and transparent.” Suppression of information, oppression of whistleblowers, wars of aggression, sanctioned assassinations and unauthorized incursions into foreign countries with whom we are not at war are not the actions of a democracy but rather, the actions of a rogue state, a terrorist nation. There is no justification for war and especially not for your quasi-secret wars. We need a leader to restore democracy. We thought we elected one in 2008. We did not.