An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Dear Mr. President,

These are hard times for many maybe even most of our fellow countrymen/women. I know that you’re aware of it and I believe that you care about them, but we all need reminders, especially when we’re inundated with other serious, vital concerns.

Any reasonable person knows that you, and by extension the rest of us, inherited a helluva mess comparable in scope and difficulty only to a few other times in our nation’s history: our bloody birth as a country, our Civil War and the fight of our lives, WWII. The presidents who presided at those times also faced unprecedented perils, entrenched political obstacles, and challenges so great they came to define us as the country we are today; good and bad.

You inherited, by choice of course, a deluge of Herculean problems no person, well almost no one, would want to take on: two on-going wars and a Middle East in turmoil; two very dangerous nuclear hot-spots that must be addressed; an economy so destroyed and disabled it harkened to the Great Depression of the 30s; a global climate change crisis that will affect millions, probably billions of lives, and perhaps the life of the planet itself to sustain many of its species, and those are just a few of the top choices from column A. As said it’s a mystery as to why anyone would walk willingly into this fire, but for better or worse you were of the small number that volunteered.

This letter is not to serve as a report card or to praise or condemn how you’ve handled things. I have my opinions on those matters, but it’s not the thrust of what I want to say here.

What I want to bring your attention back to is that your, our, country is hurting. Think a Katrina-like situation that has struck practically every state in the union. This country is drowning in a sea of unemployment, lost homes, healthcare cost bankruptcies, credit interest bankruptcies and legal usury that has so stunned the once burgeoning middle class as to threaten its very existence. What was once the pride of our economic machine is and has been dwindling since the supply-side, free market, deregulation banner waving gurus came on the scene. And because of the Wall Street and banking industry notorious misdeeds the threat to our middle class economic stability is exacerbated and could prove fatal.

This country is hurting, Mr. President, and it’s fearful, angry and confused. Yes it was of paramount importance to immediately address the deadly virus that threatened our and a good part of the world’s economies. It was questionable as to how to go about it, but decisions by your predecessor and you were made, and it seems at least for now that the fiscal patient is out of the ICU and in the recovery room, albeit on life support.

But it’s not enough to stabilize the banks and certain giant investment corporations, because as a result of their failures and immoral activities tens of millions of people are suffering or face imminent economic demise. People are fearful and angry and rightly so. This dire situation has to be addressed and it has to happen now.

Healthcare reform is very important and healthcare must be made affordable for everyone, but even passing a strong bill with a Medicare-like option is not going to put people back to work, and it’s not going to stop home foreclosures. Only jobs and programs that create huge numbers of jobs will alleviate the enormous suffering and get this country back on safe economic ground.

You were left to deal with two wars and you say that one of them is a necessity. Maybe yes, maybe no, but the reality is neither country, Iraq or Afghanistan or for that matter any country in the Middle East poses an imminent threat to this nation’s security. Every dollar spent fighting the war in Afghanistan or maintaining a large troop presence in Iraq is money not spent toward putting people to work. Every dollar spent pursuing so-called U.S. interests in the Middle East is money not going into education. Have you seen the conditions in our schools, Mr. President? Are you aware that district hospitals in rural areas are closing apace because of lack of funding? Are the hundreds of billions being spent on U.S. foreign interests more important than the educations of the nation’s children or the medical centers that serve tens of thousands throughout the country?

There are great, pressing problems before us Mr. President, but I maintain that, except for addressing the healthcare crisis, nothing is more important than turning our energies and resources toward getting vast numbers of people employed, and once that’s done government can start to address a minimum wage that reflects reality and whereby people will be able to afford healthcare, higher education for their kids and decent housing.

The wars can wait. As far as I’m concerned they’re a monstrous waste of money and lives, but that’s only as the writer sees it. But the people without jobs, the people who can’t afford healthcare or to help their kids advance through good schools and higher education, these people can’t wait. First things first, sir.

Turn the economy around by getting people back to work. You don’t offer a hungry person rhetoric or rationales for a better healthcare system – as important as that is it’s not food. Food first. Your nation needs jobs first and help not losing their homes. Put the resources, i.e., money, there. Feed those needs first, Mr. Obama, and the rest will fall into place.

Will Shonbrun, Sonoma, CA