Sunday, April 21, 2013

Dear Mr. President,

Following up on my letter of April 11, I will be brief.

It seems that many folks are into ringing the Nuclear Option bell. You can be sure that those bell ringers are interested in equality and liberty for all.

I  have noted, however, that some of our semi-liberal brothers and sisters are not up for the N.O. They are actually afraid that the retrogressive mentalities in the Congress will stick a bunch of regressive amendments on to a bill.

Surly you realize that these folks would not be retrogressors if they did not do this. It's part of the field. It's what we have to deal with in a democracy. It's freedom of speech.

The need to have 60 votes to pass a bill, however, is a clear blockage of free speech. If we want free speech, it has to be free for everyone, even our regressive brothers and sisters. Eliminating these bed rock freedoms from our democratic way of life is the agenda of retrogression. Their Ann Rand fixations would return, or regress us to the 15th Century where only one person, the king had these rights.

I have lived and observed long enough to be fairly certain that Life, in fact, does imitate Art. So in the best Shakespearean traditions, I assume you are playing a deep game that will lure the repressors into some sort of cul-de-sac where liberty and justice for all will carry the day. I cannot complain about that, and I am willing to hold that as a possibility. I actually get that "from the beginning they struggled. From the beginning we conquered." It is historically documentable.

I know all about standing steady in the light. Still, what information we are able to access, makes  us a bit nervous. We understand that the so called "daily briefings", press releases, and Sunday blather shows, are a matter of moving rooks and bishops around.

A little subtle foreshadowing would be helpful. Rather than waiting 50 years or so for the events to be fed back to us in a drama, it would be good to have a Greek Chorus that comes forward in-between scenes ,so to speak, to give us the low down now and then.

An occasional offhand comment concerning your heart focus on the indestructibility of our government as a government of, for, and by the people would be encouraging, as well as enlightening to the "insiders".

I'm just saying.

lots of love

-tom

Dear Mr. President

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Dear Mr. President.

I am writing today as one of the "nut cakes" Chris Matthews and Dana Milbank referred to on Hardball last night. Their commentary and attitudes toward the "old timers", (the players of 50 years ago, like Senator Sanders, "the finest Vermont Senator ever to be born in Brooklyn" who perhaps was relevant in 68 and 69, but who now is just out for "old timers night.",) was yet another window in to how narrow is the  vision of the  "insiders" those who are insulated and out of touch with the lives that real people are living every day. It is hard to see that reality when one is looking through a $5,000,000 a year income.

These two  followed J. Carney who, obviously following instructions, wasted a lot of time saying what we already knew about your programs. He finally did point out your position of being willing to compromise and seek consensus but not move without that compromise.

 As I said in my letter of April 7, I understand and appreciate this line of approach. What is troubling is that the budget areas which you seek to use to find consensus are the very areas of  life we fought and died by the millions to create a Government of, for, and by the people to establish and protect.

These are the areas of our Common Good and our General Welfare. I am thinking not just of Social Security and Medicare, but all of the programs including the protections for suffrage,  the Union programs, the principle of free education for every person, veterans benefits, which paid for my degrees.

You know these programs well. They have been labeled "social programs" and made to appear that they are for the benefit of the lazy, stupid, and old, because the wealthy do not need and do not want any of them. You understand, no doubt, the price people paid often in blood to get those programs in place. These are not bargaining chips any more than free speech or equality under the Law are a bargaining chips.

To find consensus requires Goodwill on both sides. This frequency is not remotely apparent in the individuals whom you are facing on this field. You have at your back the love and will of a huge part of the people, not only of these United States but of the Common People of the world. If we are to be a model of government of, for, and by the people we need to act that way. The bargaining away of the issues on gun control was not necessary. We do not have to give away those things for which we so painfully struggled to gain for all of our brothers and sisters.

This present  struggle is not going on so obviously on the dense physical plane as was the struggle in which the planet was engaged in the last two world wars; however, the stakes, liberty and justice for all, are virtually the same.  It is time to use the so called nuclear option. What we have gained is not for sale or trade.

lots of love

-tom

Dear Mr. President

Sunday, April 07, 2013

Dear Mr. President

I am writing today as one of the beneficiaries of Social Security. I would refer you to my letter of March 6th in which I tried to make clear the difference between the so called "entitlement" programs in the United States of America and the Entitled Class of Americans.

Briefly, the beneficiaries of  the entitlement programs such as Social Security are "entitled" to monthly payments because they worked and paid into a program for a required number of years... In my case about 30. Lots of this work was done as members of the armed services in combat. Lots more of it was done in jobs of heavy labor at low wages.

The "Entitled Class" assume that they are entitled because they have wealth. They are entitled to the wealth they have mainly because they have it. They have wealth largely because someone else worked for it, and they received the so called "profits" from other's labor because they were entitled to it.

If those of us who do not have wealth were entitled then, obviously, we would have it.

So, I have read the available data on your proposal re Social Security. I appreciate your reasons, and I appreciate that you are trying to build consensus. However, we know in this world, or should know from bitter experiences like allowing slavery to remain in our Constitution, that consensus requires a genuine urge on the part of all parties to create a better world for all of mankind.

This proposal is "politics of the usual kind". This kind of "consensus" does not work. The erosion of our democratic ideals all across the board over the last 35  years speaks very loudly to this fact.

There has to be a better way, and I think that you can find and implement it.

lots of love

-tom