Dear Mr. Obama

Mari333

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed Jan-13-10 03:56 AM
Original message

Dear Mr. Obama

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Dear Mr. Obama,
It is late at night, I cannot sleep, and I decided to write you a letter.
I have been meaning to write you a letter for quite a while, but have been putting it off, waiting for some miracle to occur that might, just for a moment, stop me.
I have been waiting for something tangible to occur, anything, that might , just for a moment, make me smile.
Alas, my dear Mr. Obama, I can no longer wait. This is the first, and probably the last letter I will write to you in my lifetime.
It is a Hail Mary pass. It is a letter that will not be written all that well, because it is late, and I am tired.
Well, let me start my letter.
I am a woman who lives in the United States. I was born in Gary Indiana, in 1951. My father was a union man, a railroad engineer, and my mother was a housewife.
My dad worked every day, sometimes two shifts, to make ends meet. He had been a tailgunner in WW2 and suffered shell shock after the war. He flew missions over Italy.
I grew up in a family of 6 children, and we were not wealthy, nor were we poor. We always had food on our table, and a garden, and both of my parents worked very hard to make sure of that.
I grew up when there were small businesses in my hometown. Mom and Pop stores where you could go to buy your bread or milk, shoe repair shops, butcher shops and five and dime stores.
People had hope.
The men had come home from the wars ready to start over.
The GI bill provided them with work. We had been through a great depression, a great war, it was time to create a new vision of what the USA could be.

But, as with many nations throughout history, we chose poorly.
Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex.
We had a choice , after the war, to become a nation of peace and prosperity.
We , instead, chose to feed a war machine that to this day is destroying this country, and will continue to destroy it.

I grew up and watched the Joe McCarthy's of this world try to destroy the Constitution, and I grew up watching the Vietnam war unfold as the cold war gripped the nation.
I recall in great detail the never ending pounding of propaganda as we were warned of far off communists and evildoers who were ready to murder us in our beds .
I cringed under my desk at school, assured that nuclear bombs would hit us at anytime.

Of course, I did not know at the time, what propaganda was. I was a child. I did not realize that people like Goebbels and men of history have propped up and justified their wars using propaganda and outright lies to gain power, money, and prestige.

I suppose it took Vietnam to wake me up, and wake us all up, indeed, to the lies and deceit that we were listening to. The war machine of the United States, evidently, had been going on for quite some time, and did not want to give up it's lucrative holdings, business, chemical companies, defense contracts, and anything else that fed the coffers of those who demanded it.

Generals, commanders, and the powerful men who ran this machine were not going to give it up.
They sent memos to us about how wonderful the war was going in Vietnam, we heard the sound bytes and yet, thanks to a free and unfettered press, we were allowed to see the truth.

The outcry was immense. 58,000 young soldiers dead, for no reason whatsoever. 58,000 sons of mothers and fathers who went to a battle for nothing.

Well, Mr. Obama, here we are.

I am almost 60 years old, I am at the beginning of the end of my life in the United States.
I voted for you, now, ask me why.
Okay, I will tell you why.
When Mr Gore was handed his ass on a plate by the Supreme Court of the United States, and George Bush became president, I was on the front lines in DC protesting that.
When George Bush decided to invade Iraq, with his PNAC friends, I was on the front lines, right from the beginning, well read and well researched , knowing their intentions, knowing their need to secure the oil fields of Iraq to acquire lucrative contracts for large corporations.

Mr. Bush started a war, Mr. Obama, that was illegal, and he has yet to be investigated.

Mr. Bush allowed the United States to torture and hold people without due process, Mr. Obama, and his administration is not being investigated.

Mr. Obama, I watched when President Reagan destroyed the unions of this country. I watched when he lied through his teeth and told the U.S. public that huge tax breaks to corporations would mean more jobs for workers. Instead, corporations fled the country with their new money, and set up factories in China, Mexico, India, and anywhere else where they could find the cheapest labour possible.

I watched President Clinton accede to NAFTA, and further destroy the working class of the USA. I saw him accede to republican welfare to work programs, which were a disaster, and threw even more people into the streets then Reagan had done when he cut social services to the poor and dispossesed , creating a homeless problem we have to this day.

I watched as Clinton signed DOMA into law to deny civil rights to hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens.

So, why did I vote for you? Lets face it, Mr. Obama, George Bush did not set the bar very high.

I was marching, back in 1970, against the Vietnam war. I marched for civil rights, and for women's rights.

I guess my mistake was, and is, that I am an idealist. I wanted to believe that you and yours were intent upon rectifying the past . I wanted to believe, that, finally, the United States of America would actually become that peaceful and prosperous nation it could be.

Where everyone had a chance. Where people could form healthy strong unions, where corporations did not have a chance to sway politicians to vote in favour of their policies by showering them with gifts and money. Where children had access to free education, where people had access to a public option for health care, where gay folks could be considered free and EQUAL citizens of this country with the same rights as everyone else.

I had hoped we would not be a nation where our vision was to occupy other nations and force our power on them.

We are not stupid out here, Mr. Obama. Many of us are well aware of the Oil pipeline routes through Afghanistan, the need to secure those places to protect the flow of oil. We are very well aware that this is not at all a 'war on terror', as you and your predecessor put it.
We are not swayed by that line of propaganda, we heard that same drumbeat during Vietnam, and we are actually amazed that you think we would buy it now.

I watched my stepson go to Iraq, I saw it destroy his father. My husband died out of grief and sorrow knowing his son was there. He could not bear it.

I watch my grown children now, bright, intelligent young men and women who cannot find jobs to feed their family. I have dipped into my retirement savings to help them.

I have watched my friends, who cannot afford health insurance, suffer needlessly.

I do not think , Mr. Obama, you have a clue as to what is going on in the rest of the United States. I do not think that the politicians in the beltway of DC have ever tried to live on 7.25 an hour, or had to choose between medicine and food, or watched their children cry in hunger.

I have not seen you demand that corporations quit outsourcing jobs.

I have not seen you stand up and demand that George Bush and his administration be held accountable for what I consider war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

I have not seen you demand that lobbyists are thrown out of DC.

I have seen today you are asking for 33 billion dollars more for war, however.

I have seen you bail out Wall Street Banks and not demand an ounce of accountability from them, or demand regulations be placed on them.

I have actually not seen you do much of anything this year, except continue the same policies as the Bush administration, surrounded by many of his people, and a lot of DLC pundits who are beholden to corporations and the malfeseance surrounding them.

I really wanted to believe in you, Mr. Obama. I was foolish. I had a modicum of hope, anyway.

I am now at a point where, with what little time I have left in this United States I have called my home all these years, I am giving up on hope.

I wish I didnt have to, for the sake of my children, and my grandson.

I suppose, Mr. Obama, that hurts the worst.
That my grandson will have no hope in this country.

Thank you for listening, Mr. Obama. That is, if you ever get this letter.

Regards,

Mrs. B

You can speak for me ANYTIME!:kick: