Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

With real unemployment near 20%, wages falling, prices rising and people losing their  pensions, their homes and their Hope, you should worry not only about your re-election chances but the future of America itself. Revolutions do not occur when people have enough, only when they suffer privation and injustice and we are fast approaching that point. While the wealthy see economic recovery, the rest of us see a bleak future. In the 1980s, the Reagan Revolution started the greatest transfer of wealth in history from the middle and lower classes to the wealthy and that trend continues to this day. Thanks to Reagonomics, we have gone from a creditor to a debtor nation, the rich have accumulated more and more of the nation’s wealth and the gap between the haves and the have-nots has widened. The current budget battle has brought all this into sharp relief with the Republicans attacking government and social programs with greater ferocity than ever before, refusing to give ground on taxes, demanding the elimination of Medicare and pushing us into default on the national debt. None of it a surprise. What was surprising, however, was your proposal to reduce Social Security benefits as well as Medicare and Medicaid and shred what’s left of the social contract. The problem isn’t a lack of wealth but that too much is in the hands of too few and we spend what’s left in the wrong way: on unjustified immoral wars; on inequitable, unaffordable tax cuts for millionaires; and on billion dollar bailouts for banks and corporations whose incompetent greedy leaders have brought financial chaos and ruin to the economy but whose bloated paychecks and obscene bonuses continue uninterrupted thanks to the U.S. Taxpayer and friends in high places. Those of us on Social Security, meanwhile, haven’t had an increase in two years while the price of food and fuel, utilities and other essentials continue to rise. The average wage continues to fall, the lack of jobs is a crisis and the lack of healthcare a national disgrace. And you’ve gone right along with the misguided Republican ideology and their distorted view of capitalism. You’ve given up single-payer healthcare, extended Bush’s tax cuts for millionaires and continued to finance war on the nation’s credit card. The difference between you and Bush the Lesser is only a matter of degree, not substance. Yours is not a record to be proud of, Mr. President. It is shameful. It is un-American; at least the America I grew up in.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Just received your email letter responding to my concerns about your double-dealing Republicrat budget proposal for 2012. Like your previous letters, this one avoids specifics and is filled with political clichés and platitudes. Nary a mention what’s going on behind those closed doors. “…we have to live within our means so we can invest in our future,” you said. Mr. President, unless “we” invest in America there will be no future. We need jobs and only government can provide them through massive public works projects that will revitalize America’s infrastructure and the economy. We need to bail out states in financial distress, cities that are going bankrupt and people who are losing their pensions and homes. What we DON’T need are more failed Republican ideas of smaller government, eviscerated social programs, bailouts for banks and tax cuts for millionaires. The budget crisis requires only three things: stop the wars, raise taxes and a single-payer health care system that contains both health and care, that’s regulated and efficient, not the chaotic, substandard money-grubbing industry that now masquerades as healthcare, a national disgrace.

Recently I was in Pasadena and visited your alma mater, Occidental College. I tried to visualize what you must have been thinking when you were there as a student, your attitudes and dreams at that time, if you already had the idea that one day you’d be sitting in the White House pulling the levers of power. You were and are a smart guy, Mr. President, capable of so much. But like most politicians, you’ve been seduced by the corrupting influence of power, deserted your vision of a better America and turned your back on those of us who aren’t wealthy or powerful. How else to explain your rightward tilt, your  willingness to cave in to every Republican demand, your continuation of war, your persecution of government whistle-blowers, your attack on Social Security, pensions and government workers, and your willingness to extend tax cuts for millionaires. $13+ billion a month on war, Guantanamo still open, Bradley Manning still locked up for exposing war crimes by the U.S military, the Patriot Act’s ongoing erosion of freedoms…. It’s a sorry state of affairs we’ve come to. You didn’t bring us here, but you’re doing nothing to get us out of it. You had an opportunity to be a really special president but you are just another politician, disappointing so many of us who voted for you in 2008. Never again.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Hope. Change. Trust. Believability. All four missing in action on your watch. Even Paul Krugman, an early supporter, has given up on you. As he said in yesterday’s column, “It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right.” But this is not a new phenomena. Last December, for example, you not only extended the Bush tax cuts, you out-Republicaned the Republicans with an unasked-for bonus of an extra $5 million exemption on estate taxes and a 35% cap on the tax rate for anything above that amount. Also last year you helped create an expanded deduction for corporate jets. But this year, well, this year’s grandstand play to out-Republican the Republicans by proposing reduced benefits for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is in a category by itself. This one really breaks the back of the social contract. And not only is this consistent with your past actions but consistent with your style of secrecy and double-dealing behind closed doors. “We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing” you said Thursday. True. But what we can’t afford is continuous wars and tax cuts for the rich. It’s the Bush tax cuts, the ones you extended, combined with more than $1 trillion in unjustified immoral wars that are the cause of the deficit, not Social Security or other social programs. What seems to be forgotten in all this is that Social Security was, and still is, I believe, a separate trust fund which Congress has raided over the years and now considers part of the general fund. Krugman points out that you’ve adopted all the fallacies of the Republican rightwingnuts’ rhetoric as truth, even though reality clearly points to the failure of those ideas. You cannot de-fund social programs for the poor and the elderly in order to fund wars. You cannot continue to take from the poor and middle class to give to the rich. It is immoral, it is unconscionable. This is not equality or democracy, Mr. President. We are becoming a nation of haves and have-nots with the gulf becoming wider each day. Once again the jobless rate increases (officially 9.2% in June, unofficially, 16.7%) the number of new jobs is near zero, the rich get richer and the poor get more desperate. And in your flip-flopping and broken promises, your actions that put a lie to your rhetoric, you dishonor yourself and your country. And we are all the poorer for it.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Your announcement last night that the U.S. has largely achieved its goals in Afghanistan sounds like an echo from the past. 1973. When we pulled out of another disastrous, unwinnable war of choice–Vietnam. What have we accomplished in Afghanistan? Or Iraq? Pakistan? Yemen? Death, destruction, chaos, corruption, injustice. Declare victory and announce a pullout of 10,000 troops by the end of the year. Mr. President, while you may think it’s a bold policy shift, it doesn’t take much analysis to realize this is just eyewash. 10,000 troops is 10% of the 100,000 troops there now. That’s $1 billion a month in savings. That means we’ll still be spending more than $12 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan. This we’re supposed to cheer? This war will continue into 2014 and beyond and the costs will continue to come due for generations. In 2008, We the People, elected a man who promised Hope and Change, and instead we got a passive president who’s more concerned with image than accomplishments. Three years on, We the People are still waiting for a leader who will change things for the better in America. A leader who will end these disastrous wars, who will end the support of brutal and corrupt dictators, who will end the persecution of American patriots who blow the whistle on corruption, lies and deceit in government, a leader who will invest $100 million in job programs for America rather than Kandahar, who will spend $10 billion a month to fix what is broken in America rather than creating mayhem and violence 10,000 miles away. Mr. President, we elected you because you promised real change. You promised single-payer healthcare, an end to the influence of lobbyists in Washington, an end to wars of choice, an end to Guantanamo, an end to injustice and inequality. You have delivered on none of it. Instead, you have given us more of the same and we do not want more of the same. We want a leader with new ideas and new policies, not someone who sifts through the failed policies of the past. What we want is our own Arab Spring. A recent poll by the Washington Post, shows you trailing Mitt Romney by 3 percentage points. I’d say if you don’t do something pretty dramatic to show real leadership and real change for America, to show you actually believe in something and are willing to fight for it with everything you’ve got, your goose is cooked in 2012. And, unfortunately, so is ours. You have a moral duty, Mr. President, and you’re running out of time.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

I no longer find deceit and outright lies from you and your administration shocking. On the contrary, I have come to expect it. The latest example of this is the number of combat missions flown by American forces in Libya, combat missions that you and your minions in the Pentagon have tried to hide, dismiss, obfuscate. But there it is in the New York Times this morning, about 60 bombing runs and 30 remotely-controlled drone strikes since April when the U.S. supposedly handed over operations to NATO. No matter that you overruled the Pentagon and Justice Department legal experts and declared we were not engaged in hostilities in Libya, the unleashing of bombs and missiles in a foreign country is a hostile act. What surprises me though, is how you can defend such evil and still live with yourself and how far you have retreated from your promise to end this insanity and bring back the rule of law and justice, restore human rights, and do away with abuses. Or have you always been this way? Were you just playing a role to gain power? Have you always hungered for power at any cost and been willing to do whatever it takes to keep it? In either case it makes me sick that I allowed myself to be conned into voting for you, the man of Hope who gave such fine speeches, a man of lofty ideals and moral integrity who then made mockery of campaign promises and quickly turned into a Republicrat, a defender of the rich and powerful against the poor and powerless, and a warmonger to boot. In pursuing war instead of peace, you abandon the best interests of America for the false glory of a war-president; you squander the nation’s treasure on unjustified wars of choice instead of using it for the good of the nation, the people, the world. At the conclusion of the Conference of Mayors yesterday a resolution was passed calling for an end to these disastrous wars, to bring the money home “to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy and reduce the federal debt.” Those of us who voted for you in 2008, thought that’s what we were voting for, but as in Libya, you lied, dissembled, presented a false face and we are all the poorer for it. Instead of Hope and Change, you have given us more of the same: inequality, injustice and war. We are a nation descending into irrelevance in every way except violence. Welcome to ObamAmerica.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Once again there’s money for war but not peace. I rarely agree with Republicans, but John Boehner is right: $10 million a day to bomb Libya and kill Qaddafi is a hostile action that has lasted more than 60 days without congressional approval, a violation of the War Powers Act. Your top legal advisors deem it a hostile action but you overrule and ignore their counsel, hell-bent to what, show your macho credentials? Are you counting coup? You got bin Laden’s scalp, now you want to add Qaddafi’s? At what cost? Add Libya’s $10 million a day to $427 million a day for Iraq and Afghanistan, $8 million a day to arm Israel and Egypt, another $8 million for Pakistan, and who knows how many million a day for covert operations and drone strikes in Yemen and other countries you don’t want us to know about and we’re talking serious money here, around $500 million a day to kill and destroy while here at home millions are unemployed and underemployed, our roads crumble, our education system continues to degrade, the quality of our healthcare is a national disgrace, no money to fix anything, and the “War on Terror” is funded on the U.S. taxpayer’s credit card, war on the kill now, pay later plan. But we’re already paying, Mr. President. We’re paying for it in broken lives and shattered dreams. And we’re paying for it in a malevolence that seeps into every aspect of American society; a mean-spiritedness that has no regard for humanity or the future or the consequences of our acts, that honors and extols violence and denigrates empathy for our fellow man, that hardens our hearts to the plight of the disenfranchised and powerless. Power corrupts, Mr. President, and you have fallen victim. War is evil, it victimizes us all. Ten years of misguided wars for what? We are no safer than we were on 9/11, and the world is not a better place; there is more misery, more hatred, more enmity now than ever, and for America, the wars have been a disaster; they have corroded our spirit, our morality, our sense of right and wrong. A trillion dollars on wars based on deception and lies. A trillion dollars that could have brought so much good has instead brought misery and hatred. You were elected in reaction to these wars, on the promise of ending them, but you have been seduced by power and become a warmonger like your predecessor. There is no honor in war and violence, Mr. President, but you persist. You continue to betray yourself and America and bring shame on us all.

Monday, June 06, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Why is it that we can find money for war but not peace? Ten years of war in Afghanistan, eight in Iraq, and no end in sight. The "War on Terror" against phantoms grinds on, expands, takes on a life of its own. Not much has changed since your pledge to end unjustified wars and abide by the rule of law. No one’s held accountable–unless you’re a low ranking scapegoat–for the lies that got us into this in the first place or the officially sanctioned torture and renditions, the disregard of human life and human rights and the Constitution. Guantanamo’s still open, the war in Afghanistan's been expanded, drone strikes increased in Pakistan, Yemen and who knows where else, 120 Tomahawk missiles, at a million bucks a pop, launched against Libya … endless war, endless fear, endless destruction. More than a trillion dollars spent on war while we’ve descended into a financial crisis of historic proportions: real unemployment over 15%, pensions, benefits and services cut, homes foreclosed, states broke, cities broke and politicians paralyzed, locked in ideological battles that benefits no one. There’s a correlation here, Mr. President, between the cost of war and the fiscal crisis at home. More than a trillion dollars spent on war in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years and we’re still spending $13 billion a month to kill, maim and destroy. That’s $427,397,260 a day. $427 million a day! That’s mindboggling. That’s disgusting and I want no part of it. Not in my name, Mr. President. These wars are hideous and unjustified and they’re sapping not only our treasury, but our morality, our sense of right and wrong, our very souls. War corrupts everyone and creates hatred and enmity that will last for generations. I don’t want another one of my tax dollars spent on war. I want my tax dollars spent on schools and healthcare and infrastructure. Let’s stop the war and spend $427 million a day to fix America. Let’s stop being the world’s number one terrorist nation. Let’s find money for peace, not war.