An
Open Letter
To The Obama Campaign
By Timothy V. Gatto
15 June,
2008
Countercurrents.org
This is directed to Barack Obama and the people that make up his campaign. The rhetoric from the campaign is that Senator Obama wants to be the President of all the American people. The tone of the campaign is that he wants to be the President of all the American people that blindly accept the current status quo. When I say this I’m talking about the people that blindly accept that this nation’s economy is based on the Military Industrial Complex. Our largest industries are manufacturing airplanes, helicopters, tanks, munitions and weapons of war.
These aren’t the only things that the American people accept as the status quo. The mainstream media that is owned and operated by the corporate entities that fund the majority of politicians campaigns and only let the majority of Americans hear the news tat they want them to hear. The same mainstream media that hyped the Iraqi War and fails to tell us when the government enacts measures to curtail our civil liberties. The same mainstream media that helps to select our candidates for office and keeps them from talking about the issues that many Americans are actually concerned about.
We heard your speech at AIPAC and we are supposed to believe that you seek to turn America back into a peace loving nation that respects International Law? We are supposed to blindly accept that Iran is major threat to Americans and support Israel like it’s our 51st State? What has Israel done for my family except to fund politicians that desire more intervention in the Middle-East? Don’t you realize that only 20% of Jewish-Americans donate to AIPAC and that the rest are predominantly Liberal Democrats? Why must you pander to the right? Is being President so important to you that you would sell your soul?
I write for the left in America. My articles have been headlined on most liberal-left websites. I am not a rich man, nor am I an influential politician. Still, more people probably read my articles that the columnists in the New York Times. I receive letters from people everyday that are sick at heart over what this nation has become. I hear about people that want a revolution to stop the excesses of America and its militaristic agenda for resources. Why are you not addressing these people? Don’t these disenfranchised people that feel that the government has usurped their authority and brought this great nation to economic ruin worth your attention? How long can we attempt to obtain Pax Americana? The majority of people in this nation do not wish empire. The majority of Americans want to rebuild our infrastructure and send our children to world-class schools so that they can compete in the 21st Century.
How can you remain silent while the current President rattles our sabers against Iran? How can you be silent while a courageous Congressman from your own party brings 35 Articles of Impeachment against the most outrageous criminal that ever sat in the Oval Office? This is a man that according to Lancet, is responsible for over one million two hundred thousand deaths of innocent Iraqi people! How can you remain silent when American Forces are operating inside Iran trying to overthrow their regime? How can you remain silent when this President authorizes the National Security Agency to wiretap every American citizen without a warrant? Where is your sense of right and wrong? You were a Constitutional scholar, where is your concern for the Constitution?
Our Constitution is in tatters. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 has been just about overturned in the Supreme Court. The Patriot Acts 1 & 2 are unjustified. The John Warner Defense Act (The re-vamped Insurrection Act) that usurps Posse Comitatus is unconscionable. The Presidential Directive 51 that is supposed to provide continuity of government in the event of a calamity is left for the President, not Congress, to decide. This, even though he won’t let Congress see it! Where is your outrage at the 1100 signing statements that lets this President ignore the laws that Congress passes?
We went to the polls in 2006 and tried to put a stop to these abuses of the Neo-Cons in our government. We installed a Democratic House and Senate and still the abuse of government continued. We understand how corporate entities provide you and your ilk with campaign funds. You may win this election by remaining in what you and your “advisors” believe is the “center”. You probably will. I would just like to make it perfectly clear to you that while you may have the hearts and minds of those that don’t think, or those that consider you “the lesser of two evils”, you are not winning the hearts and minds of those that see America going down a long dark road. Maybe you would want to consider that the next time you dream of the White House and the power of the Presidency. Think about this the next time you threaten another nation.
