I proudly voted for you because you were change I could believe in. You reminded me of JFK, a hero of mine during my years as a teen- ager. Like JFK, I believed that what you said came from the heart, and without knowing me personally you knew enough about me to make a difference, a difference that mattered.
You inherited some awful history left over from two men who believed in no one but their own selfish lives and who felt that the bottom line for the wealthy, the corporations, the greedy and the gluttonous was top priority. You ran for an office telling me that in becoming the president of the United States you would indeed be the president for as many and more and not for the few or fortunate. And I believed you, supported you and voted for you.
There is, I am sure, an agenda of a magnitude beyond belief, of ideas you wish to make into ideals. You inherited 2 wars, a recession, a country divided on what is constitutional what is American what is right and what is left. I am a student of American culture and American history and I realize that the promise is out there, and the reality of making change is sometime easier said then done.
But Mr. President, when it comes to civil rights, to human rights, when it comes to understanding right from wrong, taking time is taking up too much time and the present becomes the past and the unjust acts, remain untamed and untouched. Waiting does not allow the change you spoke of so proudly and personally to permeate. When you postpone any decision it sounds like political posturing. When you ignore the immediacy of change you become stale and stagnant. When you hem and haw, drag your feet, suppose and assume you derail democracy and you become too much consumed with due diligence and deny dignity.
How long will you wait to reclaim the Gulf from BP? When will you stop this corporation from dancing on the backs of Americans who live from pay check to pay check, who don't hassle over $750 million or $1 billion? When will you act as a leader and stop the bully from bulldozing the innocent, the people who don't have a cadre of lawyers, who don't receive perks from lobbyists, who don't fly on leer jets to pontificate about the environment only to retreat to some penthouse or estate?
How long will it take for you to stop the rhetoric and ruminations about equality for all Americans? When will you stand before America and say Don't Ask, Don't Tell is wrong, that denying gay marriage is wrong, that the LGBT community is not less than? When will fight for all of our rights instead of permitting homophobes to hide behind hypocritical religious dogma?
How can you tell places like Zimbabwe and Uganda that jailing Gays because of homosexual activity is wrong when in this country Gays don't have equal rights. As was the case in the 60's, with the Blacks, Mr. President, separate but equal based on nothing but fear, hate and loathing is NOT EQUAL.
How long will it take you find a plan for immigration in this country? How many more angry white fearful Americans will plot and plan their own lynching mobs and try to convince the cowards that the evil is others? How long will it take you to stop this casting of stones of those who don't look or sound like us? Who is the US we are supposed to be anyway?
President Obama, it was an honor to vote for you, support you. When you ran for President, there was no choice but to elect you to office. Now Sir, with all respect, you are turning into the lesser of two evils. I am so scared of the trauma and drama this country has permitted to take hold. I am worried that the stupid, the racist, the homophobes, the anarchists, the anti freedom brigades are gaining ground. Where has the leadership the promise, the change I so much saw in your abilities and talents gone to?
Enough of the grandstanding speeches, the forgotten promises, the cow towing to the lowest common denominators of bias and prejudice. Make a stand Mr. President, take back the leadership you so adeptly owned in your election. The longer you wait, the more the oil spills, the gay man and woman is denied, the true American is lost. Ignorance becomes king.
Haven't you waited long enough?
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