An Open Letter to Barack Obama
Posted on February 7th, 2010 by Kathrine Woods
Dear President Obama,
A year ago today, you were sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. I am sure that you would be the first to acknowledge that you did not accomplish this feat alone, but with the support of millions of progressives who were dismayed by the warmongering of the previous administration. Without a doubt, this was a great contributing factor to the success of your campaign.
I was not among your supporters, Mr. President, but it was hard not to feel inspired by the millions of young people and progressives who were energized by your campaign because you advocated peaceful diplomacy and reaching out to other nations. You achieved one of the highest honors the world can confer when you won the Nobel Peace Prize. I wish with all my heart that I could congratulate you, Mr. President, but I can’t do that in good conscience. Here we are a year later and many of us are asking, What is that you have done for peace, President Obama?
Your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently announced that U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan could rise to as high as 60,000 over the next 12 to 18 months. And it appears that you plan to leave a residual force in Iraq of 35,000 to 50,000 troops. The United Nations recently reported that civilian causalities in Afghanistan have risen to the highest number yet. Yet, you have expanded the use of drones and taken your war to heavily populated areas in Pakistan/Afghanistan. Is this your idea of peaceful diplomacy, Mr. President?
Mr. President, please tell me, What have you done for working men and women in this country? You recently ushered in a health care bill that is an out-and-out gift to the insurance industry. I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me, considering how industry lobbyists have contributed heavily to Democrats on key committees. And you have sanctioned a 1.7 billion dollar bailout for big banks and corporations. None of it is going to education or to help ordinary working Americans.
For all this, you effectively tapped into the hopes and aspirations of millions of progressives who longed for a more peaceful world and a new way of doing business. I know this because I have read many of their letters to you over the past year, most of which you will never read. But there is one letter that I hope you will read and contemplate as thoughtfully as you now peruse Lincoln’s letters and biography. This, the most significant missive, was written when you were just a boy, long before you ever contemplated becoming president of the United States. That would be the speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Riverside Church in New York City in 1967: Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence. I hope with all my heart that you will consider this speech carefully and reflect deeply on how our violent foreign policy impoverishes us as a nation, undermining the ideals of liberty, justice and equality that we espouse. You have often evoked Dr. King’s memory in your speeches, but did you ever stop to contemplate how radical his message actually was? I wonder. In case you missed it, here’s what Dr. King said:
“We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls ‘enemy,’ for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
“Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, ‘This is not just.’
“A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, ‘This way of settling differences is not just.’ This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Mr. President, in the words of Dr. King, “War is not the answer.” Thank you.
Sincerely,
Lisa Pelletier
No Comments »
Filed under: Health insurance plan
