Dear Mr. President

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Dear Mr. President:

Regarding the talk you gave on your New Global Warming policies:

I read the talk and was most encouraged about a number of its aspects. I thought it was a rational approach to the realities of the issues. It lays out an adult path, one that recognizes the value of a time graduated well thought out path of reconstruction and solid movement into the future as opposed to the typical adolescent demands of some of our brothers on the "left" for overnight changes to issues decades, if not centuries, in the making, and our brothers on the right who see any change as the end of the world.

It was reasonable. It made "common" sense. It was not obscured with a bunch of technical data.

I thought, well, anyone who can read will be able to see what is being said here. Then over the next couple of days I read the commentaries of individuals who have their commentaries published in various media outlets. For the most part I could not believe that they had read and were writing about the same speech I read.

One can dismiss a lot of the obvious sophistry the intent of which is destroy   reasonableness while generating fear and chaos. But whether supporting or attacking the ideas you presented most of the observations seemed to simply not get it.

Paul Krugman was the only one I read that even came close to getting it  when he observed that your comment to “Invest. Divest. Remind folks there’s no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth.” ....was simple good sense: We really can invest in new energy sources, divest from old sources, and actually make the economy stronger. So let’s do it."

However, even this remark fails to see the key concept that you presented while addressing the Keystone pipeline in what was an aside. "But I do want to be clear: Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward. It’s relevant."

Fully realizing that "climate" is a global thing, a condition of nature that knows nothing about our separative national boundaries or nations, this comment outlines and raises to a very significant position that "our national interest" is not a separate exclusive thing but that it involves a global consideration and that the passing or not of this project would be judged on that indisputable fact.  I thought that since you had so obviously bookmarked this concept, it would be easily seen. But apparently not.

This is the clearest statement I have seen that you have made regarding service to the Common Good and General Welfare as being the principles and key determiners for the creation and passage not just for a pipe line but for any legislation. It may be that this position is so unheard of in our present world governments that it was simply not seen.

I am hoping to see many more such statements coming from your administration. This would indeed be change we could not just believe in but celebrate and work for.

lots of love

-tom

The Ancient and Well Honed Art of Betrayal

The young man's name is Edward Snowden. Mr. Snowden caused classified documents about the United States of America's government surveillance program to be  brought into the light of the Common Good. Mr. Snowden has been labeled as a traitor by John Boehner, Michele Bachmann, Dick Cheney and a large number of not so well known individuals who have access to our public media. Basically, a traitor is a person who violates his or her allegiance to and betrays their country or who, in a breach of trust, delivers his or her country to an enemy.

The issues that are being conveniently over looked by the above mentioned individuals in this bit of sophistic labeling are what allegiances to, betrayal of one's country, and delivering one's country to the enemies actually mean. The program that Mr. Snowden revealed is illegal. It is a huge violation of several of the Principles of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Mr. Snowden's loyalty and allegiance to his country impelled him to serve it, to protect it from its enemies.

He discovered that a group of individuals acting completely outside of the bounds of our Constitution had decided that their views on our national and international security outweighed any restrictions that our Constitution placed on what they saw as necessary to protect us. Acting completely outside of well known Constitutional guarantees against exactly what they did, they unlawfully created a gigantic system that used billions of tax payers' dollars to literally spy on us. In the name of protecting us from the kinds of subterfuge, criminality, terror, and lies that those who would undo democracy and liberty for everyone in the world have always employed, they knowingly violated one of our most sacred liberties.

A quick look at Humanity's history over the past few thousand years will reveal that this kind of sophistry has always been employed by those who would enslave us. The people who employ this kind of sophistry, if they consider it at all, may actually believe that they know what is best for us. They cannot trust the people to understand and take appropriate action. They believe that their superior vision of what is best for us justifies their violation of a sacred trust. They remain ignorant of the fact that the rejection of this attitude by the people was one of the primary drivers of the creation of this country and a huge step in the freeing of humanity from the grip of the elite few.

It is exactly this kind of blinding arrogance that drives traitors.  It is simple hubris that impels individuals to place themselves above others and in so doing to separate themselves from others, and to consider themselves to be above the Law. They do not see that their actions betray their allegiance to the basic tenants of our constitution which they claim to be protecting.

So, if we want to go on a traitor hunt, it would more be more effective to look for the nest that is spawning these insidious programs, than to try to crucify yet another person who had the courage to see a wrong and try to make it right.

Incidentally, by far, ancient nations and powers, just like human beings, crumble, not from some outside  power or force, but from an inner kind of insidious corruption.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Dear Mr. President.

As I was about to post this to you, I received your response to an earlier letter. Your response outlines all of the legislative actions that your administration is doing and has done. These are all great and good actions. They all deal with serious effects, and are quite necessary in the short term. What I am addressing in the following letter is a different kind of issue. I think we need to recognize and start to deal with the causes of these drastic effects. Until we do, we will be engaged in trying to patch up a ship that is surely sinking around us.

This morning I received a note from Campaign for America's Future which informed me that the Congress has cut funding for Meals on Wheels, another leak in that boat. This program is a wonderful example of how to use our money, that is the tax payer's money, to support the Common Good and the General Welfare. I am pretty sure that both you and the First Lady are well aware of this program, as am I. My experience came from the fact that it kept my mother fed for a couple of years.

Besides feeding our hungry elders with food that is actually good for them, there are a few other values of this program that are not apparent. It uses our money to employ people in a program that actually serves the Common Good and the General Welfare. It gives some elders, for example, those employed as drivers or delivery people in the program who are quite able bodied, something to do that serves the country.

Having met several of these folks, I was impressed by their sense of commitment, and their own personal appreciation to be able to do something that was worthwhile for others. The other thing that Meals on Wheels delivers that is of great value and costs nothing is the human interface. The persons who delivered the food to my mother were always able, happy even, to spend 5 minutes or so chatting with her.  I am pretty sure that most of our elders who are in these situations suffer far more from a lack of human inter change than they do from hunger.

But my reason for writing to you this morning is a bit larger than this one, wonderful human sustainable program. The elimination of this simple, effective and economically smart (Keeping people fed, usually keeps them out of emergency rooms and so forth.) program is a glaring example of how our money, that is taxpayers money, is disbursed in a way that actually guarantees the failure of our country as a self sustaining democracy where government of the people for the people and by the people, that is for the Common Good and the General welfare, is known to be the only way that such a country can exist.

It would easy to list the programs which support the Common Good and our future as a nation of enlightened people and those that support the hysterical paranoia which infects the minds of those small groups of individuals who control the wealth of the planet and who are terrified that some other group of billionaires is going to try to take it away from them. This dichotomy is so stark, so apparent... Billions for the paranoid delusions of a few. Billions so that more billions can be amassed and put in "off shore" accounts. How many personal homes, planes, ships, islands are enough?

And of course, we can afford nothing for even minimal food for our elders. We can be sure that the elders of the few are very well fed.

In reality, while awful, the damage to the fabric of our society, of our people, that the defunding of Meals on Wheels will cause is small in comparison to others. Realize the  harm, the long term devastation, wreaked on the systems by transferring hundreds of billions from programs that actually guarantee our future as a nation such as the education of all of our children. These funds, our funds, are being sent to other programs whose primary purpose, while cloaked in all kinds of fear generated and hate oriented sheep's clothing, is to, simply and plainly, transfer our common energy, our tax dollars into those off shore accounts.

So, I cannot imagine that you are not well aware of all of this, and I realize that you are the President rather than the king, and that you are well acquainted with the razor's edge. I have been pondering on what we, us and you, can do to right this glaring wrong which, we both know, is a not just a local U.S. issue but a planet wide problem for Humanity. What I get in my pondering as to the way forward is Light.

The exposure in clear simple facts, which are abundant, from you and your administration revealing the long hidden selfish agendas of the power elite will enlighten, and help to wake up those who are still sleeping in the canyons of comfort. When the facts or truth of the situation is put out there the people will get it. Light brings revelation and generates real change. It is magnetic, and it will draw out the kind of support and power from  the hundreds of millions of us who are aware of this situation. It will help people to speak up where ever they are and to act on whatever level they can.  After all, the Big Document says "We the People", not you the president.

One concrete thing that only both of you (I mean the First Lady) could do,  and that you are both masters at doing, is to come to us much more often and everywhere through our communications systems, just you two, not all of these people who nobody knows, but you who we do know, who we voted for, twice,  talking plain and clean about who we are, encourage us to stand up and demand what we want which is simply justice and freedom for ALL.

lots of love

-tom

Dear Mr. President

Sunday, June 02, 2013

Dear Mr. President:

I won't be able to attend your next press conference; however, I do have a rather serious question for you.

As you know, on May 21st, the Senate voted to block an  amendment to reinstate $4.1 billion for food stamps. I found this bit of data to be amazing. When I then saw  that 28 Democratic United States Senators, including individuals like Senators Feinstein, Franken, Hagan, Harkin, Klobuchar, McCaskill, and others, voted with the Republicans, I was stunned!

The question is simple. If feeding children, who are far and away the primary beneficiaries of the Food Stamp Program, is not a democratic boiler plate issue, what is? And if it is, why do you suppose these democrats voted against this amendment? What makes these individuals Democrats?

Votes like these are nothing but politics as usual. There can be no special interests when it comes to Democracy. The issues are morally clear as glass. The Common good and the General Welfare are the bed rock of government of for and by the people. No program that benefits one section of the people at the cost of another is sustainable. If a program does not serve the Common Good, it simply is not good for anyone. Good can come only from good. What's so hard about that?

I really think it is time to clean up the party, to expect democrats to be democrats. I am quite familiar with all the "complexity" of what one has to do to stay in office. The lessons of our long history are very clear on this issue. It is clear that when staying in office or, as President's Lincoln and Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin L. King, and countless other heroes down the annals of time remind us, even staying alive is more important than supporting the Common Good and the General Welfare, Humanity is going to lose, and lose again.

I do not see you as individually or personally responsible for this situation, and I do see you as making incredible efforts to improve the system. I think that there are enough conscious people in our country now that changing the conversation from the details of various programs to a discussion of the principles of democratic government would be a very powerful thing to do, and would help a lot to generate the kind of support you need. It would shift the focus of the discussion from effects to causes. It would put light on the motivation behind the programs of division and greed that are so destructive. And, as you know, light and revelation are cause and effect.

Now that we have world around, practically instant, communication with each other, sophistry is not as effective as it was. In fact sophistry, or spinning as we  say, is becoming painfully obvious. There is nothing that makes it so obvious as a clear plain message about the meaning and significance of the basic values upon which our government stands. The new generations get this. They are ready for it.

I'm just saying.

lots of love

-tom

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