Dear President Obama,
We need your help again. I know you already saved us from the global financial meltdown, you saved our auto industry, made it possible to have insurance, made it legal to be married to the person you love. What else? Goodness, you’ve helped so much, especially compared to how things could have been without you. Thank you! But we need you now, I’m sorry to say, even more than ever.
Our nation is very sick. The symptoms of our illness are so obvious, and you are as aware of them as anyone. The power of industry is greater than the power of the people, as evidenced by the brutal and morally reprehensible bulldozing and steamrolling through sacred tribal lands for the DAPL, and the over-militarization of our police forces in general to protect corporate interests. It is clear that a strong majority of Americans would support your declaring an immediate halt to that pipeline, but you really can’t do anything now, can you?
You want to stop that pipeline, and you would have stopped it weeks ago, but you know what would happen. The people who dislike (hate) you and everything you try to do would become enlivened, and the people who support you would become happier and more thankful; and you know happy, thankful people are much less likely to vote than angry people. You don’t want to do anything important or powerful this close to the election. You (rightly) know that the most important thing for the health of our nation is to, firstly, keep Mr. Trump from the presidency (which is life or death for us all), but then to turn the senate back to democratic control, which can perhaps set our very ill judicial system back in order. This turnover of the senate requires the reasonable and hopeful among us to vote, up and down ballot. You also think that if the supreme court can get one, two, or three liberal (or even moderate) new members, our country will be on the right path soon enough.
But I don’t think we can wait for the two or three new jurists. The power of corporations to buy congressmen and senators is so overwhelming, I don’t think President Hillary will get a chance in the two years she will have before the next elections (when she will likely suffer electorally as most presidents do) to get any meaningful legislation passed. Congressmen and senators who are loudest at attacking regulation, who are most effective at making government fail, receive the greatest financial rewards (legally!), and due to how their districts are drawn, will not likely be risking defeat.
This is our need. After the election (if not sooner), please say the obvious again and again and everywhere: we are in the last months of our democracy. You certainly see this. Please say it. Voting already barely matters, since most people have been convinced (by the mouthpieces of corporations and the corporate media) that corruption (corporate control) has already won. If voting actually still matters, this election might be the last time it does.
I know this is asking you to risk your life. Seriously, like you haven’t been doing that already! If you actually say the truth about the near total corporate control of congress and the judiciary, you will be so much more likely to be targeted by our military industrial complex, as our dear President Eisenhower warned. I am so sorry to ask you to do this. But who else can say what needs to be said, who else but you? President Hillary will have to work with these people to get things done. You, in your final two months, could open the way for her. I don’t know how you ended up in this position, but we all need you there to do this thing for us all.
Perhaps it is already too late. Who knows? But you (I hope!) and I do know that without a change to our laws, to our constitution, now, corporations will gain the final hold over both houses of congress for good, and this bulldozing and steamrolling over the people, over our expressed will, over the country’s morality, will then be unstoppable. These dear tribal nations, our environment, people of color, our food industry, our health, our oceans, all will be second to corporate profits. Please help!
—with much love and respect,
Jack Bresette-Mills
Austin, Texas