Dear Mr. President

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you for your letter.

I know that presently we are looking at the "entitlement" programs, Medicare and Social Security.

As are many of the quiet folks from whom you will hear nothing because they are used to not being heard and have been discouraged by the cruel, demeaning and heartless language that the "entitled" people use to describe the vast millions of others who have worked as much as they possibly could to have a decent life and raise good children, I am very concerned about the "looking" that is happening.

While I may not have a "seat at the table", I do have a voice and a heart and the experience of having lived one of those lives myself and I know where of I speak.

The entire concept of entitlement has been spun so that it makes those who are the beneficiaries of these programs seem unworthy. You know that this effort to label the common people as inferior and less than, started long ago. It was the base that supported the concept of serfs and Royalty or the mob and the Entitled--Kings, Queens, Dukes, Duchesses and other people of Quality--to actually treat people as property for centuries.

Our Revolution but a big hole in that delusion, but then we had to sort of reinforce it with the Civil War.

However, I clearly recall the reappearance of that lie in this country. It occurred with the launch of Ronald Reagan's offensive, Reaganomics. Among other things this carefully planned assault on Democracy whipped up hatred and resentment toward common people (another phrase whose meaning has been changed from "that which appears most often" to "something very much less than special".) and changed the image/meaning of welfare, specifically a program called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC),  from something that the people with hearts do for the common good and general welfare of a country, into a scheme for lazy and worthless people to get benefits like food stamps and cash aid--that barley came close to the poverty levels--at the expense of good hard working, mostly white, people.

The self appointed Entitled people, those individuals who have aligned themselves against "more taxes" and want to cut "social programs" have no use whatsoever for the common good or the general welfare. They have everything they could possibly want, let alone need.  Because they have exclusive ownership of these resources, they see themselves as entitled to them. They deserve them because they have worked hard for them.

They assume, or pretend to assume, to justify their entitlement, that anyone who works hard will have what they have. The fact that one does not have is proof that one does not work hard, or are somehow otherwise undeserving. These assumptions, ancient, ingrained delusions in the human psyche, are the source of most of the suffering on the planet.

I want to encourage you stand firm on the two programs, Medicare and Social Security.

   

These two programs are a major part of the bedrock of our concept of government of for and by the people which supports and grows the Common  Good and the General Welfare. They are indeed entitlement programs. That is they support the people who are entitled to receive the benefits from them.

Our entitlement rises from the fact the these programs are Laws of the People. They are Of The People; they were legislated into existence By the People. They were meant to support the Common Good, and they are, therefore, For The People. In addition, they are paid for By the People through self legislated taxes to support the Common Good and the General Welfare of the Nation.

This is Democracy, government of for and by the people.

The People elected you. You are running our government. This fraction of our brothers and sisters who are still lost in the illusion of a separative reality where might makes right need for us to stand strong so that they can see their way out of that cave, that morass which in truth has at one time or another engulfed us all.

The Common Good and the General Welfare has to embrace everybody.

I can see that we are on the same page, because I really resonated with his quote from your letter. "Despite all our differences, we are one American family, and our country is at its best when we accept our obligations to one another and to future generations.  While we have faced great hardship, we know that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come."

lots of love

-tom