I saw a headline on Democracy Now’s website this morning that started ‘Obama cancels Putin summit...’ and thought for a hopeful second that it was going to continue ‘...because of his barbaric treatment of LGBT people in Russia.’
Sadly no, Obama is miffed at Putin giving asylum to Snowden, a man who has had to run for his life after telling the American people that their President is spying on them, much the same way as.... wait..... The KGB once did.
Oh Obama.
We had such high hopes.
Remember all the people gathered together, singing, crying, believing that a real change was going to come.
It seems like such a long time ago, doesn’t it?
It was eight months.
You promised us that business in the White House would not be business as usual.
Well, that’s a promise you’ve kept.
How many people have you killed so far?
Let’s make it easier and say just with drones?
Of course your reputation as a cold blooded killer was sealed the day you strode up to the camera like a gunslinger and announced, with steely-eyed relish, that you’d killed Osama Bin Laden, the boogeyman.
Not merely found, taken into custody, but taken out.
No more covert operations for you.
Not even Dub-Ya had those cojones.
It left you jonesing for more.
Who next?
Everyone, it seems.
Remember when you were a young idealistic senator in Chicago?
If someone back then blew the whistle on say illegal wire tapping, such as, let’s see, Watergate, would you have backed tracking the blower to the ends of the earth?
What’s the difference between 8 years of Bush and 8 years of Obama?
Things got a whole lot worse.
It’s not a joke.
Yes you showed a lot of promise but somehow you lost the plot, took the wrong turn, got in with the wrong crowd.
I hope that very soon, like tomorrow, you will wake up, look at Michele and your beautiful children, realize you have been such a fool, and start to do the things you have a huge mandate for.
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Close down Guantanamo immediately.
Set the detainees free, put them on the witness protection plan.
They are not going to hurt anyone.
It’s shameful.
Stop killing innocent people abroad and at home by (a) stopping all drone strikes and (b) taking some of the huge amounts of money away from the death squads, or the military as they prefer to be called, and feed the millions of people starving in America right now.
Ban guns, all of them.
I know, it’s so simple, it’s brilliant.
Imagine.
Pull out of Afghanistan.
You’ve destroyed so many lives over there, decimated so many families, that foul spot will not wash away, but you have the power to heal the misery right now.
Drastically, and I mean drastically, cut back the obscene amount of nuclear weapons you’ve got pointed around the world, and go for complete disarmament in your lifetime.
How much of a deterrent do you need?
Look, size really doesn’t matter.
Force the Olympic Committee to pull out of holding the winter games in Russia, don’t ask them or urge them, force them.
You’re the POTUS, you can do what the hell you like!
If you need more info on this read Stephen Fry’s letter to Cameron, or watch George Takei on youtube.
If ever there was a clear cut choice between right and wrong this is it.
Just do it, you’ll feel so much better.
If you must have a war, I know what you boys are like, then have it with the Corporations who are screwing it up for the rest of us, and really deal with Global Climate Change.
If you don’t then none of the above will matter anyhoo.
So, go on, give it a go.
Yes, the anally retentive around you will blow off so hard shit will literally fly out of them, but ignore them.
They’re idiots, and they’re wrong.
I know in your heart you are a good person and that when you were running in ’08 you really believed that you were going to make a change.
Well you did, but boy did you ever take a wrong turn.
Get up, stand up, we are in dire need for you to do what we hoped, make the world a better place, and yes, you can.
In 2012 the old world that Romney and his ilk propounded was roundly rejected.
You have the power, you have the brain, you have the choice.
Make it the right one before it’s too late, and do it now because the shit is inches away from the fan and there will be no turning back.
Julia Brightly
August 9, 2013