12 October 2009

Good morning Mr. President,

I listened to the speech you gave to the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday evening sir. As always, Mr. Obama, your words were powerful and comforting and inspiring. And I was especially glad to hear you call on citizens to “organize and agitate” in their efforts to hold all politicians accountable, including you.

So to that point, how is it that you can continue to ask for patience on so many critical policy issues to which time and precedent are already having catastrophic impact? We are losing American citizens, death loses Mr. President, to war, to health care for profit and to hate crimes today. Not in the ideal future sir. Not in the near future sir. Right now.

I would encourage you to emphasize less, Mr. Obama, your articulate calls to action directed to others, we’re already at full speed. Instead Mr. President I encourage you to call yourself to action sir. You can reverse Ask Don’t Tell now. You can decrease troops in Afghanistan now sir. You can stand up and insist we start over on health care reform right now sir. Do not sign these terrible bills with their horrible consequences; more profit for the wealthy and continued inaccessible health care for the disenfranchised.

We, the majority of citizens in this country, already recognize that the 49 million dollars contributed to the current Senate finance committee members by the health insurance industry makes that group the antithesis to what you promised us in terms of gathering ‘apt designers’ of health care reform. Could you please, sir, today, right now, write yourself a speech that addresses that point, post it on YouTube and actually listen to yourself, actually get yourself organizing and agitating. We could really use your help.

With respect and determination,
Linda Rohan, ARNP

cc:
citizens
Rep Jim Mcermott
Mr. David Loud
Senator Patty Murray
Senator Maria Cantwell
Senator Max Baucus

We’ve been waiting decades for a win, and the HRC has not delivered. Where do we go to get accountability?

Our first clue should be the HRC’s “=” symbol, which should be “≥” .

I was just reading what Wikipedia has to say about Obama’s actions to date with respect to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in their general review of DADT. And his actions sure look Seriously Cynical to me. While claiming that he lacks the power to repeal DADT himself, he has blocked every effort on the part of progressive Democrats in Congress to introduce amendments to Defense appropriation bills to prevent investigations of suspected gay service men and women under DADT. At the same time Obama’s “Justice” Department has repeatedly defended DADT in Federal court–going so far as to argue that service men and women should not be allowed even to have their individual cases reviewed in court! Contrast that two-faced Presidential behavior with Harry Truman’s truly courageous desegregation of the US Armed Forces by executive order on July 26, 1948–in the midst of a Presidential campaign he was expected to lose–and against the adamant opposition of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and most of Congress at that. Just because fair-minded Harry (who was my dad’s haberdasher before getting into politics) thought racial desegregation of the Armed Forces was THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Can you believe such a thing? Truman split the Democratic party down the middle; lost the south to the “Dixiecrats:” and enraged the whole Defense Department against him–in the midst of a tight election no less–because the man saw black servicemen being lynched all over the south for the sole “crime” acting “uppity” after coming back from fighting in World War II. So he decided it was time to put the power of the Presidency on the line in the fight for racial equality–no matter what it cost him personally–because IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO! And Obama pretends he doesn’t have the Presidential power??? “Give ‘em Hell!” Harry would have called that a hand job!

I just got another email telling me to call my representatives because victory is at hand for the Weiner amendment. If I had a representative who could vote I would very much want them to vote for the Weiner amendment but I dismiss the email because I think the person writing it is attempting to deceive me, or terribly naive and either way I shouldn’t trust them in the future. I would have more respect for them if they said “we need to keep fighting for this no matter what happens.”

don’t blame you; that email was very wrong.

probably similar to my reaction when i see some nonsense along the lines of “the po is like medicare” or “the po will compete to keep insurance companies honest” or “the po will compete to lower healthcare costs.”

imo, deceptive/misleading statements are not acceptable.

And like Jane’s post, about as clear and straight forward to the truth as you can get.

Enuff of the orgs that joined the villagers in the veal pen.

Change now. Not further assimilation and neutering.

Great comment. Thanks.

I’m straight, but I lost a few dear friends to AIDS in the 80′ around the Bay Area before I moved out in ’88. I thought that hurt, but I could never, and not now, ever feel the pain the LGBT community must have felt or now feel for that loss. An entire generation, wiped out, block after block around the Bay Area, around the USA.

And The Band Played (Plays) On.

Hats off and hands on heart for Randy Schilts.

And to you, for your losses.

Thanks again, for your comment.

SF Peninsula, ’63-’88.

I have a really hard time understanding your posts sometimes because they lack punctuation. I value what you have to say, but I struggle to understand it.

Would it be possible for you to take a minute more in your posts and include the necessary commas and periods? I’d really, really appreciate it.

Thank you.

http://whitenoiseinsanity.com/2008/01/24/john-aravosis-of-americablog-is-a-right-wing-asshat/

Here’s the transgendered post he did that basically said to the transgendered, “We’ve got our attention….you get your own!”:

http://www.americablog.com/2007/10/transgender-fiasco.html