Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Open letter to President Obama

Witnessing the election of the first African American president and a man I hope can bring REAL change to America and to it's politics was exciting and brought tears to my eyes. Watching this with my partner was heartwarming as I felt a huge weight lifted off of us as a couple. It has been very scary this last eight years with the Bush rhetoric of gay bashing and such. It has been scary not just because of that, but because of our overall loss of freedom in this country since 9/11.
I want to be safe just like everybody else. But I also want to be free to move about my country and travel abroad without worrying that I may be taken away at any moment for something I have done or said or for who I am. I want people to be free to immigrate to this country and for them not to worry that their religion or how they got here will cause them grief, physical pain and possibly detention.
I want to see jobs return to THIS country. Good jobs that anyone can get without going to college. I want EVERYBODY to have the opportunity to go to college if they choose, regardless of their ability to pay. I want to be able to not have to worry about my parents (who are retired) loosing their life savings in their IRA because of someone else's greed.
The ability to have clean air and clean water would be nice also. I would love it if someone would actually bring up the fact that hemp CAN save the world (not like that will happen) but it can be included in MY dream for renewable energy.
And so, I would like to remind President Obama of the things he said during his run for the presidency and that many of us do not take these things lightly. We want and expect him to live up to them. We want our government to work for us, for ALL the people not just rich white straight Americans.
If you feel the same, I urge you to write President Obama a letter, an email, or give him a phone call and let him know this the minute he gets into office, because he will have unbelievable pressure to do the opposite from lobbyists, special interests and even some of his advisors. He needs to hear from the people who elected him, even if you didn't vote for him (As I suspect some of you didn't. Maybe voting Nader or writing in Kucinich. I wish he could be our president. Which is fine. It's great in fact. I voted for Nader in 2000). He is your president, and the best chance we have right now to do something.
We need to hold him to his words and bring up some other things like Palestinian rights, and restructuring or getting rid of altogether the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, focusing on things like fair trade and actual relief with no strings attached.
I know these are lofty goals. And I know that it will most likely be business as usual. But I cannot sit back and not try when I have someone in office who might actually listen. At least I hope so. We shall see. I am sorry this is so long. If you have made it to the end, yes, this is the end. Thanks for listening. I hope you will take action and I truly hope that we can make a difference this time, and get the America and the world that we truly want and deserve. A world of true peace, understanding, hope and prosperity for EVERYONE NOT JUST AMERICANS.

You can go here to find out how to contact President Obama. When he is president that is:
White House, you can send the transition team a message right now at change.gov this is a place where you can send them a message directly right now.