A Letter of Thanks to President Obama

[MSchreader]

This was sent to President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, and e-mailed out to others, earlier today. -- Martin

Dear Mr. President,

It is with great interest that I and other members of our political party have followed the recent deliberations and decisions made by your administration, in conjunction with your colleagues in both houses of Congress. And after watching with intense fascination over the last few months, I felt it was necessary to register my sincere thanks for your work over that time.

After the ignominious end of the George W. Bush regime, which I and so many others believed was the product of an unconstitutional usurpation of power enabled by elements of your party who were more concerned about a “power-sharing” deal than the oath they took to uphold the Constitution, we were genuinely concerned about what the future held for us. You had garnered such a wide base of support in your electoral run; indeed, surprising numbers from my end of the political spectrum found themselves attracted to your message of “hope” and “change,” and were willing to hold their polemical fire in the face of the obviously historic implications of your election.

When we attempted to bring people down to earth and introduce them to your real agenda — best summed up by the Wall Street Journal the previous July, “Bush’s Third Term” — we were roundly criticized as “ultraleft,” “irresponsible” and even “racist.” In essence, we were told to take a long walk off a short pier. As you would expect, we did not oblige them.

In the last year, however, you have done a masterful job in proving our point. In fact, I don’t think we could have asked for a better performance from you in confirming our analysis and assessment.

I don’t need to go into detail about what you’ve done that has turned so many of your staunchest supporters into angry, demoralized and disgusted defectors. All I need to do is list the broken campaign promises, volte-faces and perceived betrayals: tossing out your withdrawal plan for Iraq in favor of the plan authored by the Bush regime; going along with the trillion-dollar bribe of Wall Street that did nothing to loosen up the credit markets; upholding Bush’s union-busting provisions of the GM and Chrysler bailouts; continuing the most anti-democratic provisions of the USA-PATRIOT Act and other “anti-terrorist” (read: anti-democratic) legislation; using the economic crisis to push through a second trillion-dollar bribe (the so-called “stimulus”) and pleading poverty when it comes to more concerted job-creation efforts; talking about the need for more regulation of banking and finance, then allowing the banks and Wall Street to set the terms of their own regulation; keeping tax cuts for the wealthy in place while shifting more taxes onto the backs of the poor through higher “sin” taxes; undermining and destroying what’s left of public education in cities like Detroit (as a model for other cities in the near future); working out a sweetheart deal to keep the Copenhagen climate change conference from adopting anything meaningful; doing nothing on “don’t ask, don’t tell” and opposing same-sex marriage; and so on.

The two latest decisions worked out by your administration, with the help of your colleagues in Congress — the “surge” in Afghanistan and health care “reform” — are merely icing on the corporatist cake you’ve been baking for a year. And again, I don’t really need to go into the details about it. It suffices for me to point out that you know you’ve really screwed up when even your most sycophantic supporters in the media have distanced themselves from your latest escapades.

Erudition can only take a person so far, Mr. President, and it appears you’ve reached the end of the line. Your speeches announcing the “surge” in Afghanistan and accepting the Nobel Peace Prize exposed both the political and prosaic limits of your writers and yourself. Sure, people watched these performances with great interest, but it was no longer with the doe-eyed admiration that your “More Perfect Union” speech generated. No, it was more like how people look at the aftermath of a car accident on the freeway.

But I will say it’s been quite a show, and all that I or my party can do is register our thanks. Like I said, we were worried that, with the end of the Bush regime, we had lost our single greatest recruiting tool: George W. Bush. But now that the “hope dope” is wearing off and people are seeing what you’re all about, you are filling the shoes of your predecessor quite well. You’re doing a heck of a job.

That said, I will not tell you to “keep up the good work,” because to do so would mean to wish more misery, anguish and demoralization on my working-class brothers and sisters. I also will not plead with you to change course, because I know that I would be wasting my time. I will only express my gratitude to you at making yourself a great recruiting tool for our party in this time of social instability, political illegitimacy and economic crisis.

We said you would be “Bush’s Third Term,” and you’ve proven us right. We said “‘Yes We Can’ … but He (You) Won’t,” and you’ve proven us right. If there is anyone who is deserving of our thanks, it is you, Mr. President. You’ve earned every bit of it.

With sincere regards,
Chairperson
Workers Party in America
http://www.workers-party.com/