5 September 2009
Good morning Mr President,
Remember Chicago, Tuesday, 5 February 2008?
Here's a brief quotation of your message:
"On this day in February .... this time can be different .... it's different not because of me, it is different because of you .... Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
OK Mr President - we believed you.
We elected you.
Rahm Emanuel didn't get you to the White House, the Blue Dogs certainly didn't, and most certainly the teabaggers and birthers and Beckers and EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN member of Congress would have done almost anything to see you defeated.
Sir, you are President because of us. Because we believed.
Because leaders like Howard Dean had the audacity and the persistence to make a 50 State strategy reality.
We, Mr President, are indeed the ones we have been waiting for.
We, Mr President, are indeed the change we seek.
The change we seek .... well, Mr President ... the list is long in specifics but all those specifics distill to a few very simple principles:
- Health care is not a commodity;
- Torture is a crime;
- Spying on American citizens is an abomination;
- War of aggression is a crime;
- Greed should never be rewarded;
- Many fewer will hate us if we stop bombing them, stop demonizing them, stop enabling others to deny them their homeland, and start providing them food, clean water, and education.
Let's start with something Senator Kennedy paved the way for you to accomplish. Let's start with legislation that grants every American the CHOICE of Medicare.
What's it going to be Mr Obama - more talk, or actions that begin to be consistent with all the talk you did beginning with that "whisper in Springfield"?
What's it going to be Mr President?
You and I and everyone will know, on that Beltway night on 9 September 2009, Mr President.
Measure those words more carefully than any words you have ever written or spoken because not only will you not get to take them back they will determine what kind of America we all live in the days, weeks, months, years and decades after you speak them.
Yes. We. Did. -- Mr Obama - that is why you are President.
Now, let us see if what we did will actually bring meaningful, sustainable, honorable and empathetic change to all Americans and all those throughout the world whom still look to America for hope.
We are the change that we seek,
Bob
'This age, what does it demand of me?'