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Dear President Obama;
First, congratulations are in order. This was a long, difficult, often miserable campaign. Other than a blip where you clearly didn't want to be at a debate on your 20th anniversary (and who can blame you!) you did an amazing job of being President and being Candidate. Your victory was well deserved.
I am a constituent in the 16th district of California, represented by Zoe Lofgren. I proudly voted for both of you in the election. In fact, I feel incredibly lucky to be in Lofgren's district, because as a politician, I think Lofgren does a fantastic job of representing my views and she cares about a lot of issues that I also care about. It will be a sad day when she finally retires, but I am hopeful that won't be for at least another decade.
Despite proudly voting Democrat, I am not actually a Democrat. I identify independent, but I have voted the Democrat ticket pretty consistently since the mid-90s. But this has less to do with your party and more to do with the Republican party's transformation from a simple coalition of fiscal and social conservatives to a racist, xenophobic hate machine that continually isolates itself from everything and everyone else. I am constantly amazed that this tactic continues to work, and that people who are so completely willing to discount everyone else are able to achieve 48% of the vote. But that is the country we work in.
Now that you are President a second time, and your campaign is effectively over for good, I wanted to offer up my perspective and advice on what should happen in the next four years. As you can imagine, while there are many policies of yours that I completely agree with, there are a few things that you have done that I disagree with. I am hoping that you will address them.
As a constituent, these are the things I consider important that I feel you have to change:
1) Our foreign policy is currently wrong. Your administration is responsible for robotic assassinations, warrantless wire-tapping, and indefinite incarceration without charge. All of these things violate basic rights that I believe all human beings -- regardless of whether they are Citizens -- should have. I believe that policies that your administration currently maintains weaken us as a nation by continuing to espouse a self-superior attitude that leads to hubris. Looking at history, when the leaders of powerful countries succumb to hubris, the decline and fall of that nation is inevitable. We must be vigilant against this, and we must self-reflect as often as possible. I would encourage, nay, beg you to reconsider these foreign policies and to try to find better ways to execute our strategies.
2) When you were elected the first time, it was under the auspices of hope, change and bi-partisanship. In theory, I love the idea of bi-partisanship, and meeting in the middle, and getting things done. Unfortunately, the current makeup of the Republican party makes that impossible. In the last decade, Republican leaders who are willing to cooperate with Democrats are called traitors to the party or worse, and have been getting pushed out from the inside. Voters are left with awful choices. Several anti-woman senate candidates went down in flames, but the House is still full of people who seem to believe civil rights only truly apply to straight white men. I urge you to find Republicans that believe in America more than they believe in this tiny slice of America, and get their help. But for the rest of the party? There is no need to value in cooperating with them. Their agenda is not one that benefits our country. I believe this election did a good job of showing that the American people do not want close-minded candidates, but the gerrymandering systems in place for the House of Representatives have left a large number of these people still in control of the House. You must continue to remind the American people that these are extremists. They deny facts right up until they can no longer do so because the facts are going to kill them. They have been behaving destructively for years, and are likely to continue doing so. There are fiscal conservatives that you can reach across the aisle too, but if they insist on their way or the highway again, you need to bulldoze them. Control the conversation, control the tone, and cooperate where it is reasonable. But make it clear to them that unreasonable behavior will be met with the full power of the presidency.
3) In the early days, our military was run by the Department of War. As Americans were relatively isolationist, we renamed that the Department of Defense, on the grounds that calling it that made it clear that we were not going to take our military elsewhere and impose our will on people. But in the last 50 years, that is exactly what we've done. We've "defended" Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan. We have very little to show for the lives that we have sacrificed and the money we have spent. We must examine the Department of Defense. It is named that for a reason. We spend incredible amounts of money, and we spend the lives of patriots who sign up because they love and want to defend our country. But toppling petty dictators does not defend our country. We have avenged the World Trade Center about as best we can. We must exit Afghanistan. We must bring as much of our army home as possible. We need to let our soldiers rest, and we need to spend that money at home, instead. We have massive debt. We need to refocus our military and teach it to use its money wisely, not spend it like it grows on trees. Having the best military money can buy is of no value if we no longer have the money to buy it.
4) As President, you have the ability to shape what your party does in the Senate and the House. You're the one with the campaign infrastructure that they're going to need in 2016. You're the one with the mandate. You need to work closely with your own party to develop an agenda. You waffled on this in the last four years, I think because you wanted to try to be bi-partisan, but the Republicans would have none of it. You have the mandate now. Be strong. You don't have to be re-elected. Use your strength to make your agenda happen. Strengthen our country. There is still a long way to go on health insurance, gay marriage, and women's reproductive rights. Set your agenda early. Get your party on board. And then spend the next four years making it happen.
5) Don't you think the security theater of the TSA has gone on long enough? The invasions of privacy, the backscatter scanners that are both dangerous and non-functional? We can do better.
6) Copyright and patent laws really, really need to be overhauled. Copyrights are going on for far too long. Patent laws are ridiculous. Internet freedom is under constant attack. Media industry giants are losing their edge, because technology is changing how people consume their products. But instead of adapting to changing technology, they are trying to push laws that punish citizens and allow them to maintain monopolistic controls. I don't think all information wants to be free, and I think copyright laws are extremely important. But every time I see the message that copying a movie or a song carries fines that are more than a middle class person will make in a decade of work, I get the sense that corporations have successfully perverted the laws. Copyright violations are more punishable than violent crimes. This is imbalanced. Draconian copyright laws need to stop and be replaced by systems that reward content creators, not content distributors who are angry that they no longer control the distribution channels.
7) Finally, we are at a point where so much of our government is controlled by the super rich and the giant corporations that the very makeup of our society is coming apart. The rich get richer, while the middle class gets poorer. That gap between the two widens and the poor get left behind. Legally we consider corporations people, but we can't send corporations to jail for violating the law. These problems are hard to fix, but you can start by finding ways to reduce the rewards that Wall Street gets for playing games shuffling money around. The corporate system was initially designed to reward investment in companies who produce goods, but these days it rewards companies that can generate the most buzz. Wall Street is mostly professional gambling and they generate huge profits by burying money in ponzi schemes, and these have gotten so large that they threaten our entire economy every time they fail. Taxes and duties and fees can be imposed to make these games less attractive, and instead to encourage actual investment rather than bundling poor assets together.
President Obama, I am proud to call you President. I have more hope for your second administration than I had for your first, but that is because I believe that the lessons you learned in your first four years in office will give you a better sense of how to wield the reins of power.
Do America Proud, Mr. President!
EDIT:
There were supposed to be 8 points, but I couldn't remember them all!
8) Campaign finance is so far off the rails it's not even funny. Both campaigns spent billions of dollars. Locally run elections cause some polling places to run as smooth as an Aston Martin while others run like a badly abused 80s Gremlin. The influence of billionaire sponsors cannot be ignored. Both campaigns ended up with more money than they could usefully spend, and carpet-bombed the battleground states. The electoral college means that national candidate messages are tailored to what they think will win them battleground states, not what will win the general electorate. As a Californian, you don't need to be inclusive of me in your campaign because California is as likely to vote for a Republican candidate as an asteroid will come and wipe us all out. (Which is to say, there are very slim odds that either one could happen but the bettor would never go with it). We need a non-partisan election commission. We need stricter monetary controls on candidates. We need to erase the idea that money is speech and thus protected under the first amendment. All candidates should have the same ground rules. If for no other reason than because candidates are supposed to be beholden to voters, not sponsors.
First, congratulations are in order. This was a long, difficult, often miserable campaign. Other than a blip where you clearly didn't want to be at a debate on your 20th anniversary (and who can blame you!) you did an amazing job of being President and being Candidate. Your victory was well deserved.
I am a constituent in the 16th district of California, represented by Zoe Lofgren. I proudly voted for both of you in the election. In fact, I feel incredibly lucky to be in Lofgren's district, because as a politician, I think Lofgren does a fantastic job of representing my views and she cares about a lot of issues that I also care about. It will be a sad day when she finally retires, but I am hopeful that won't be for at least another decade.
Despite proudly voting Democrat, I am not actually a Democrat. I identify independent, but I have voted the Democrat ticket pretty consistently since the mid-90s. But this has less to do with your party and more to do with the Republican party's transformation from a simple coalition of fiscal and social conservatives to a racist, xenophobic hate machine that continually isolates itself from everything and everyone else. I am constantly amazed that this tactic continues to work, and that people who are so completely willing to discount everyone else are able to achieve 48% of the vote. But that is the country we work in.
Now that you are President a second time, and your campaign is effectively over for good, I wanted to offer up my perspective and advice on what should happen in the next four years. As you can imagine, while there are many policies of yours that I completely agree with, there are a few things that you have done that I disagree with. I am hoping that you will address them.
As a constituent, these are the things I consider important that I feel you have to change:
1) Our foreign policy is currently wrong. Your administration is responsible for robotic assassinations, warrantless wire-tapping, and indefinite incarceration without charge. All of these things violate basic rights that I believe all human beings -- regardless of whether they are Citizens -- should have. I believe that policies that your administration currently maintains weaken us as a nation by continuing to espouse a self-superior attitude that leads to hubris. Looking at history, when the leaders of powerful countries succumb to hubris, the decline and fall of that nation is inevitable. We must be vigilant against this, and we must self-reflect as often as possible. I would encourage, nay, beg you to reconsider these foreign policies and to try to find better ways to execute our strategies.
2) When you were elected the first time, it was under the auspices of hope, change and bi-partisanship. In theory, I love the idea of bi-partisanship, and meeting in the middle, and getting things done. Unfortunately, the current makeup of the Republican party makes that impossible. In the last decade, Republican leaders who are willing to cooperate with Democrats are called traitors to the party or worse, and have been getting pushed out from the inside. Voters are left with awful choices. Several anti-woman senate candidates went down in flames, but the House is still full of people who seem to believe civil rights only truly apply to straight white men. I urge you to find Republicans that believe in America more than they believe in this tiny slice of America, and get their help. But for the rest of the party? There is no need to value in cooperating with them. Their agenda is not one that benefits our country. I believe this election did a good job of showing that the American people do not want close-minded candidates, but the gerrymandering systems in place for the House of Representatives have left a large number of these people still in control of the House. You must continue to remind the American people that these are extremists. They deny facts right up until they can no longer do so because the facts are going to kill them. They have been behaving destructively for years, and are likely to continue doing so. There are fiscal conservatives that you can reach across the aisle too, but if they insist on their way or the highway again, you need to bulldoze them. Control the conversation, control the tone, and cooperate where it is reasonable. But make it clear to them that unreasonable behavior will be met with the full power of the presidency.
3) In the early days, our military was run by the Department of War. As Americans were relatively isolationist, we renamed that the Department of Defense, on the grounds that calling it that made it clear that we were not going to take our military elsewhere and impose our will on people. But in the last 50 years, that is exactly what we've done. We've "defended" Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan. We have very little to show for the lives that we have sacrificed and the money we have spent. We must examine the Department of Defense. It is named that for a reason. We spend incredible amounts of money, and we spend the lives of patriots who sign up because they love and want to defend our country. But toppling petty dictators does not defend our country. We have avenged the World Trade Center about as best we can. We must exit Afghanistan. We must bring as much of our army home as possible. We need to let our soldiers rest, and we need to spend that money at home, instead. We have massive debt. We need to refocus our military and teach it to use its money wisely, not spend it like it grows on trees. Having the best military money can buy is of no value if we no longer have the money to buy it.
4) As President, you have the ability to shape what your party does in the Senate and the House. You're the one with the campaign infrastructure that they're going to need in 2016. You're the one with the mandate. You need to work closely with your own party to develop an agenda. You waffled on this in the last four years, I think because you wanted to try to be bi-partisan, but the Republicans would have none of it. You have the mandate now. Be strong. You don't have to be re-elected. Use your strength to make your agenda happen. Strengthen our country. There is still a long way to go on health insurance, gay marriage, and women's reproductive rights. Set your agenda early. Get your party on board. And then spend the next four years making it happen.
5) Don't you think the security theater of the TSA has gone on long enough? The invasions of privacy, the backscatter scanners that are both dangerous and non-functional? We can do better.
6) Copyright and patent laws really, really need to be overhauled. Copyrights are going on for far too long. Patent laws are ridiculous. Internet freedom is under constant attack. Media industry giants are losing their edge, because technology is changing how people consume their products. But instead of adapting to changing technology, they are trying to push laws that punish citizens and allow them to maintain monopolistic controls. I don't think all information wants to be free, and I think copyright laws are extremely important. But every time I see the message that copying a movie or a song carries fines that are more than a middle class person will make in a decade of work, I get the sense that corporations have successfully perverted the laws. Copyright violations are more punishable than violent crimes. This is imbalanced. Draconian copyright laws need to stop and be replaced by systems that reward content creators, not content distributors who are angry that they no longer control the distribution channels.
7) Finally, we are at a point where so much of our government is controlled by the super rich and the giant corporations that the very makeup of our society is coming apart. The rich get richer, while the middle class gets poorer. That gap between the two widens and the poor get left behind. Legally we consider corporations people, but we can't send corporations to jail for violating the law. These problems are hard to fix, but you can start by finding ways to reduce the rewards that Wall Street gets for playing games shuffling money around. The corporate system was initially designed to reward investment in companies who produce goods, but these days it rewards companies that can generate the most buzz. Wall Street is mostly professional gambling and they generate huge profits by burying money in ponzi schemes, and these have gotten so large that they threaten our entire economy every time they fail. Taxes and duties and fees can be imposed to make these games less attractive, and instead to encourage actual investment rather than bundling poor assets together.
President Obama, I am proud to call you President. I have more hope for your second administration than I had for your first, but that is because I believe that the lessons you learned in your first four years in office will give you a better sense of how to wield the reins of power.
Do America Proud, Mr. President!
EDIT:
There were supposed to be 8 points, but I couldn't remember them all!
8) Campaign finance is so far off the rails it's not even funny. Both campaigns spent billions of dollars. Locally run elections cause some polling places to run as smooth as an Aston Martin while others run like a badly abused 80s Gremlin. The influence of billionaire sponsors cannot be ignored. Both campaigns ended up with more money than they could usefully spend, and carpet-bombed the battleground states. The electoral college means that national candidate messages are tailored to what they think will win them battleground states, not what will win the general electorate. As a Californian, you don't need to be inclusive of me in your campaign because California is as likely to vote for a Republican candidate as an asteroid will come and wipe us all out. (Which is to say, there are very slim odds that either one could happen but the bettor would never go with it). We need a non-partisan election commission. We need stricter monetary controls on candidates. We need to erase the idea that money is speech and thus protected under the first amendment. All candidates should have the same ground rules. If for no other reason than because candidates are supposed to be beholden to voters, not sponsors.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-11-07 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-07 09:02 pm (UTC)Just sayin, electing a "Democrat" does not a democracy make...
#progressiveagendanow #hello21stCentury
no subject
Date: 2012-11-07 10:48 pm (UTC)But don't hold your breath.