Dear President Obama,
I just received the letter below, so obviously you have not been reading my letters to you.
—————————————
Stephen –
Last year, millions of Americans came together for a great purpose.
Folks like you assembled a grassroots movement that shocked the political establishment and changed the course of our nation. When Washington insiders counted us out, we put it all on the line and changed our democracy from the bottom up. But that’s not why we did it.
The pundits told us it was impossible — that the donations working people could afford and the hours volunteers could give would never loosen the vise grip of big money and powerful special interests. We proved them wrong. But as important as that was, that’s not why we did it.
Today, spiraling health care costs are pushing our families and businesses to the brink of ruin, while millions of Americans go without the care they desperately need. Fixing this broken system will be enormously difficult. But we can succeed. The chance to make fundamental change like this in people’s daily lives — that is why we did it.
The campaign to pass real health care reform in 2009 is the biggest test of our movement since the election. Once again, victory is far from certain. Our opposition will be fierce, and they have been down this road before. To prevail, we must once more build a coast-to-coast operation ready to knock on doors, deploy volunteers, get out the facts, and show the world how real change happens in America.
And just like before, I cannot do it without your support.
So I’m asking you to remember all that you gave over the last two years to get us here — all the time, resources, and faith you invested as a down payment to earn us our place at this crossroads in history. All that you’ve done has led up to this — and whether or not our country takes the next crucial step depends on what you do right now.
Will you donate whatever you can afford to support the campaign for real health care reform in 2009?
It doesn’t matter how much you can give, as long as you give what you can. Millions of families on the brink are counting on us to do just that. I know we can deliver.
Thank you, so much, for getting us this far. And thank you for standing up once again to take us the rest of the way.
Sincerely,
President Barack Obama
—————————————
We the People worked hard to get you elected, it is true. We got you elected because were tired of endless wars, lies and double-talk. We were tired of seeing our own tax money being given to rapacious billionaires so they would not lose by their endless gambling on the market and their manipulations.
We the People had hope that you would restore the Constitution and Bill of Rights to us after their having been shredded for the preceding eight years.
We the People listened to your rhetoric about “more openness in government.” About closing Guantanamo and restoring habeas corpus. About healing the economy and getting more jobs; jobs for those who had lost theirs through outsourcing and downright theft and malfeasance by the big corporations and cartels. About getting rid of the draconian laws passed by the previous regime; the mis-named Patriot act and its many descendants, the Military Commissions Act, etc.
What have we seen since you got into office? You have plenty of money to widen the wars in the Middle East; Plenty of money to increase surveillance of your own people; Plenty of money to bail out the Banksters and Wall Street gamblers.
I like many others got my share of the great bailout, a one time payment of $250. So did my wife. That $500 is our share of the several $trillion given away to the Banksters with no accounting, no checks and balances. The request to audit the Fed was ignored with contempt for apparently they are above the law, as is the Cheney/Bush Gang, the torturers, those who authorized the torture and gulags that are a stain on what used to be the honor of our nation. Yet, those things still go on, aided and abetted by you and your administration. Apparently the rubber-stamp Reichstag called Congress that has functioned so well during the past eight years is still in the pocket of the rich and powerful.
Apparently none of this is the business of We the People, who are just here, apparently, to provide the cannon fodder for your wars for oil.
Every patriot who fights the occupier and the oppressor of his country is deemed a “terrorist,” while every village we raze by remote controlled drones and hellfire missiles is just an “act of war” and the dead are just more “collateral damage.”
Reading between the lines, it seems that we are going to “save” the Middle East if we have to kill every man, woman and child to do it. And, of course, if we do that, we get the oil and the pipeline routes, etc., by default, and nobody can gripe for they will have been given the “peace and freedom” of the grave.
Now, you have the chutzpah to ask We the People to sacrifice, to send you money? Ask your Bankster and gambler friends, after all, you gave them our tax money and that of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. This enabled some of them, after being on the brink of annihilation, to proudly post the highest profits in their history. Surely they can pop a piggy bank or two for you.
Or is it that you can’t because they already own you?
Millions of We the People had hoped for an end to the Bush years, a return to a Constitutional government and the rule of law. What have we seen? Bush Lite! And it is getting heavier every day. I greatly fear we are just getting Bushwhacked again.
So, Sir, my answer to you is No! No money, no sweat equity. Anything I have left to give will go for real change, to help my family, neighbors and community. Not just to provide small change for you and your Bankster friends.
Sadly and with Great Anger,
Steve and Adrienne Osborn
34 comments ↓
Another great letter, Steve – thank you for taking a stand.
Yea, no kidding. But hopefully we'll see more than just a few people here and there that say no to this kind of garbage. Where did the antiwar movement go anyway?
The antiwar movement disappeared when Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were each no longer in the running, *that* is where it went; of the Dems that were to vote on the $106 billion dollar war-funding bill, 221 – 32 voted *for* continuing the funding, continuing the war; the Republicans, contrariwise, voted 170-5 *against* the funding for the continued war – talk about a shocker!
So…the question begs asking…what the hell is going on??
damn great letter Steve .. I totally agree.. I use to get stuff from Obama and I think I got one of those too. I placed it in Spam.. cause I am not sending money to some flip flopper slave of his friends at the federal reserve and wall street and the bankers.. the real terriortists of USA are those who are traitors to the Constitution, The Bill of Rights and WE THE PEOPLE.
Excellent ouline Steve! The problem is that everyone is pre-occupied with bad economy and it is hard to find time to dig the truth between looking for a job and watching American Idol. Republicans and Democrats is the same party and have the same (well, almost) people behind the scene pilling strings and they are putting up a nice specticle in front of us – people of this country. Meanwhile our jobs sailing overseas, our health system is #37 from the top civilized countries, our bank CEO's rubbing us with bail out money, foreigners are taking away our lifestyle (and we can't do anything about it, our people are dying in foreign lands for nothing as one lesson learned 40 years never happend. What is next – will they TRY to take our guns away? This is a different country than it used to be 30 years ago and sadly, it seems as nobody noticed……
Excellent Steve.
Tweedle Dee supplanted Tweedle Dum and here we are in the same ole pickle barrel wondering how we got there.
Seems I remember someone saying we should be responsible for our actions. I think we should also be responsible for our inaction.
I've made my suggestion many times in the past.
I'm ready to hear other suggestions and might I say commitments?
If you want better Government, then force better Government.
It's called Independent party. A Coalition would have a viable chance especially now. Why not give it a try? Please don't tell me again it won't work unless you have a suggestion – any suggestion.
Cliff – you're right. Criminal A and criminal B is what we've got. My first recommendation is to stop voting for the major parties completely. This is something you've been trumpeting as well – and I'm right with you there.
While I don't believe that any independent party will actually succeed, I'm clearly quite supportive of anything but the big two. I'd also say that we need to start moving in the direction of non-violent resistance….not sure where to start, but I do see things happening around the country…..Real ID, Drug Laws, and other state level actions are direct resistance to federal laws.
That's right – 3-4 administrations, at least. Whether it's issues of war and peace, the economy, free speech or anything else, you never hear these people talking about where they get constitutional authority.
Because they don't.
Your positions are very understandable, and your insight commendable. I would like to think that we may do better to consider this glass a certain percent LESS EMPTY than it was before, and make the best of what is obviously NOT an incontrovertibly messianic presidency.
Indeed, I would like to think of this presidency as a bridge, with the weakness of being connected to the shore we wish to leave behind – while reaching out to the shore we wish to arrive at.
Our business would be to strengthen the opportunities for true change, and MAKE those who promise change deliver it, not by opposing their every move, but rather by working with them while constantly showing our disapproval of their not adequately living up to their promise.
Every dawn, we see how slowly but steadily the morning brightens. As it is never sudden, so it may be with leaders who seek to make fundamental changes – they may not always have as fundamental a vision or policy-set as the people that look to them, but it can become more so the more we realize that, in the end, leaders are only servants of the people's will.
We have an administration in the White House that has dared to promise so much. We need to now find ways of leading the leader (and responsiveness to the people must be the hallmark of true and great leadership) TOWARD the level and nature of change for which we elected him.
We may not get there with this particular term or even this presidency, but every step in the right direction counts. If we play our cards right, we may yet turn even a possibly pretended promise into a kept one.
Once again, thank you for your insightful and obviously patriotic article. I just want us to dig a bit deeper into the layers of strategic and tactical responses whereby We the People may yet outwit those who may be subverting the constitution of the great nation about which we are writing.
If one can work with opponents to accomplish good aims, surely one can find a way to work with at-least-nominal friends to do the same.
God Bless America., and Peace to all men of Goodwill, everywhere in the world.
I know exactly what's going on – a bunch of war criminals have been running this country for years! When are we going to say enough is enough?
Unfortunately, I don't think we will see change until we take to the streets in large numbers, just as we are seeing in Iran. I really don't believe that any president can withstand the pressures of the CIA, the powerful military forces, and all the other special interests that force him/her to back off his/her agenda and to sign on to theirs. Bucking the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the prominent military leadership is what got John Kennedy killed. The whole thing is sad because Obama has a young family and they are also at risk. Until we reign in the CIA and other special interests that love to go to war for oil and other bounty, we will never win. It is time for the youth and others to get out and work for a peaceful change. The turmoil in the 1960's was misguided in many respects, and often run from behind the scenes by various suspicious interests, but it did effect some very positive change. Maybe it's that time again.
We average Americans have no idea how badly we need oil, just to convert to a "Green Economy" We are so committed to oil in every way and it is so embedded and intertwined in every thing we do, that without it we die. An altruistic Obama, before the 'reality briefs' on becoming President, has had a mind-bending and obvious paradigm shift shoved harshly up jhis ass, and now faces the FED, the Israelites, the Banksters, the industrial/military complex, face -on, and sings a much different tune! Yes! you have a vote! no! it is not as influential as the vote at a shareholders meeting! By the laws of vulture capitalism, and incorporation, all other power aside, America ravages the world with the best military machine in history for spoils for the American people. Right now we pillage, spoil and murder for oil, leaving behind land mines anti-personnel mines, we are infamous the world over for ruining potential farm-land and enslaving nations this way! When we convert to fission-fires, we will ravage and despoil the earth in search of Uranium, and woe to any country with its deposits – they will soon drink coca-cola, and work for dollars in our slave camps! We are the Great Babylon of the bible, the Great Whore Nation of Revelations, We are the great destroyer of natural courses in the world, We drive SUV's while peasants of the world use walking sticks! We fill our daily plates with more ill-gotten food that the peasants of the world eat in a month! Before peace and normalcy can return to the world, the great riches of America must be first divided down more equitably among Americans – a totally anti-Capitalistic notion, and then to the world! Once tthis equalization occurs, and it takes centuries, Britain still hoards riches from Empire days, the world is a more peaceful less competitive place! China may force changes on the U.S.A. that will only hurt the common folk in the short run, but change the balance of riches , but this takes lifetimes, and Americans want to restore an imaginary , advertisement promoted idealistic "Status Quo" that never really existed by beating the political drum, buying gasoline burning cars and building McMansions w1th flush toilets, in a land that now owes so much money to China, that the Chinese Minister of Finance has complained, and University of Beijing students in China , on hearing Geithners nonsense P.R. bullshit ramble in his address to them (in English) laughed out loud, and snickered at him throughout his rampage! Funny, most of them spoke both English and Chinese, and were graduate students, Geithner, a relative mental midget, speaks only English! America is in an untenuous position, spending its last bit of political influence in a world soon to be dominated by 'Asian coalitions, and financed using the Chinese Yuan. The Arab oil interests follow the new dollar, the Yuan, and Israel will find itself loaded with depreciated dollars of no influence in the world! The Fed would do well to convert to the Yuan before the dollar devalues further, so it can play its smoke and mirrors game one more time with the Yankee Doodle proletariat, and then flee to another victim country to suck dry! Buy Asian cars next year – you have no chice, assholes, you have no choice!
Yes, we are ass holes for not understanding what money does to philisophical ideals of Democracy, Capitolism, Foreign Relations and even Familial Relations. Turn off Commercial TV, protest the educational degredation foisted on our children by Texas text books, and stop whinning to your neighbors and friends..take it to your local representatives..and admit that the history of Reganonics must be seen in the light of reality and not the lightless heat of Limbaugh and company.
Like I said on another post. We need a coup in this country to take back what is rightfully the people's…that I believe would be the only way this country will start to turn around. But, seeing as though there is no such thing as freedom in this country – living under the illusion that being able to vote gives you a choice doesn't count – people are unlikely to succeed. I mean, the system supports those in "power" and the wealthy. Us, the backbone of this country, are not important. Unfortunately, many, are willing to let a system that doesn't care about them make decisions pertaining to their lives. I for one, can't, in my right mind, support a government that pits the people against each other to fulfil their agenda. Obama is NOT my saviour, neither was Bush. And as a black woman, now living in America for close to 12 years, it saddens me to see how uncaring and unresponsive people are in this country. Unfortunately not many places on this planet are different…but, America, at some point, in the beginning had an idea about freedom, it was just never realised.
The idea of money is an illusion. The paper everyone uses to barter for goods is absolute rubbish! BS! to think that one time "paper" money essentially had value because it was tied to gold, and now it's just that, paper is sad. And to think people are sitting around worrying about this worthless paper, is sad. The US is not done circling the toilet and flushing itself into oblivion. It saddens me when I hear people say the economy is on the up and up. What rock are they living under? It will never get better since no one is willing to stand up and stop TALKING and actually ACT and take back this country from the hungry deceitful body of rule…America is finished since no one is willing to band together and pay attention to what truly matters. This is a culture/society doomed to fail, like all the others that got too big for their britches…
I am a person committed to peace. I cast a write-in vote, and when it came time to put my X in the Obama box, I simply could not do it. He had already changed his priorities–and they were not mine. I voted for Ralph Nader instead, a man who has stood by his principles without wavering, who promised single payer health insurance, freedom from the tyranny of corporations and a true voice in government. Neither party will allow the voters to decide the leadership of the people. both parties should be relegated to the ash heap of history and a new Independent Party should arise in their places. Back to the Constitution and
true freedom and genuine representation!
Thanks for your efforts. May they bear good fruit.
Makes me think of one of my favorite quotes – from John Quincy Adams:
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."
For those who are still interested in my last letter, asking Obama to follow the Constitution, I sent it certified, return receipt requested. I have received nothing! Apparently they are above the laws and regulations of the Postal Service at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, too.
B.O. was selected by the money interests. Ninety-nine percent of Americans never heard of him until he started running for president. When I first saw him on a youtube video in early 2007, I thought, Who is going to vote for this guy- he's got a a last name that sounds like Osama, a terrorist? I didn't care to listen to him because I didn't know anything about him- I still don't know much about him and he is our President. Here is a fun video to watch: Porn star Politics (not porn though
) Listen to the last woman's comments about B.O. not being an American:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/17d2dd6e53/porn-...
Thanx so much for saying so perfectly what i was feeling when I also recieved that e-mail- All I can say is Amen!
You do realize that the TARP program has already generated in excess of 1 Billion dollars in profit for the US taxpayer? If that continues as the bridge loans are repaid, the TARP program will continue to be profitable for the US taxpayer.
I think the people should stop relying so much on the government (so-called) and become more self reliant. The government we have are nothing but crooks so why is everyone paying so much attention to them ? Because they can't take of themselves, that's why. Good luck to all you co-dependents in the next few years- you're gonna need it.
Guys I would recommend you to have a look at the Gandhian Philosophy.His Non violent movement got the Brits out of what today is India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. (Only to be squandered by selfish minded politicos in all three). Never the less Gandhiji as he is commonly known could cause the empire to get out of the region with his SATYAGRAH'S (Satya = truth, Agraha = insistence). See if it can work for you guys.
Nik – great point. Non-violent resistance (and there's many ways to act on it) needs to be a powerful tool in this historic struggle for liberty.
Absolutely!!
I agree with you. However, I don't want to see the Republicans get back in power either. Although the President has some power to change things on his own, it's the Congress that makes the laws. The Republicans were in control of the Congress for 12 of the last 14 going on 15 years. I'm not pleased with some of the things that Obama has continued, but hell it's only been 6 months. He's got 31/2 more years. I'll try to hold my criticism for a while. If he doesn't do better with the economy or health care or bank regulation, that will probably help the Republican's to gain seats in 2010. I hope not! But I like you am watching and keeping tabs on pending legislation. I agree with some of the posts about an Independent Party, but it's going to take more than wishful thinking. It's going to take someone with the courage of their convictions to stand up to the status quo, and that's easier said than done. It is also going to take "We the People" to become a lot more involved in the political discourse in this country, rather than only being concerned in self interests. There are to many low informed, short of memory voters in this country.
I read your letter, and I agree with it in principle, but in all of the posts here I see not one word about how our children and grandchildren will be paying for what the "Saviour" and his croonies have done with the trillion dollars that will fix everything. Have all the jobs been restored. NOT A WORD ABOUT HOW THIS MONEY WILL BE PAID BACK……
Ohhh, Gawd! get over yourself. A bridge to the future…
What brainwashing facility do you belong to?
It's all Obamas fault?
Corporate America has been running full tilt since Raygun! Deregulate the banks, don't enforce immigration or any other law, Constitution? Quaint old and irrelevant!
Lobbyists are still the judges of the game, they paid for it.
What is your answer. Or are you just a complainer without answers too!
My wife's mother told her something when she was a little girl that has always stood her in good stead.
"When faced with a decision or choice, make sure your decision is one you can live with for the rest of your life."
The expedient decision, the instant gratification decision, the unconsidered decision, may well come back to bite you, and bite you hard!
My wife's mother told her something when she was a little girl that has always stood her in good stead.
"When faced with a decision or choice, make sure your decision is one you can live with for the rest of your life."
The expedient decision, the instant gratification decision, the unconsidered decision, may well come back to bite you, and bite you hard!
Socialism and Socialized health care is total tyranny. You'll live in hell and hope for heaven in a shortened and government controlled life.
The Democrats have revealed themselves for what they are the Democratic National Socialist Workers Party.
Obamunism is seizing the corporations you deride and seizing control of our energy, education and health sectors.
We need to roll back the entitlements and like it or not we need more companies competing in the private sector to provide what we are willing to pay for.
You said "if you want better government, then force better government…It's called Independent party: A Coalition would have a viable chance, especially now…"
ABSOLUTELY! I've had the same thoughts. I'm a registered Libertarian, and the Populist Party platform has a lot of similarities. The Constitutional Party platform also has a lot of similarlies. Are there others out there with the same basic similarities: Liberty, Non-Aggression, Equality Under the Law, Citizen Sovereignty, Accountability and Responsibility, and, most of all, adherence to the Constitution?
It should be possible to form a coalition of several of the independent parties with a platform utilizing the Constitution as its base, to put aside for now small differences and agree to just deal with saving our Country and our way of life.
Good letter Steven, it prompted me to write to the President also. I have been watching the Populist Party for years hoping it is the gress roots for a move to take back this country. A tall order, those with a strangehold on it are very powerfull and extremely motivated. Tough to match up to for those of us with day to day issues to contend to.
Leave a Comment