Dear Mr. President,
I listened to your speech last week at Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network's 20th anniversary dinner, talking among friends and close supporters. This was an annual African American dinner, a very important one. While I know that any Democrat would have fulfilled their promise to come back if they had won the '08 election, I also know the significance, and the special burden it poses on you, as the first African American President, at the same time.
Still, I woke up the next day feeling uneasy, not because you didn't take issues of direct significance to the black community head-on -- like the fact that one in three black children go to jail once in their lifetime or that black people have an unemployment rate double the amount of white people -- but because nowhere in your deep and thoughtful remarks did you talk about the elephant in the room that affects ALL Americans, irrespective of color: the growing ranks of poor Americans, Americans struggling not just to meet their mortgage payments but to eat, sleep under a roof, educate their kids and pay their basic bills.
As a passionate advocate of yours since I joined your campaign in 2008, there is something you need to hear: in trying to soar above party politics, you risk forgetting your most important commitment to inclusion and empowerment. As you prepare for your speech to the nation tomorrow night, I write this letter to you as a friend and strong advocate.
The rich are already at the table, as are the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party and the unions, the business interests and the moneyed interests. The poor can't afford for you to forget about them, and you cannot afford it either. Of all Americans, the poor are not just the real victims of this recession; they are the victims of a thirty year campaign of smear and neglect, to strengthen the rich on the backs of the rest of America in the dim and ultimately futile fantasy that the rich getting richer will somehow "trickle down."
Well, it hasn't trickled down. While middle class wages have declined in the face of unparalleled wealth and technology creation since the 1980's, the poverty rate in our country is the highest it has been in 51 years. That takes us to the early 1960's. Shame on all of us who otherwise take pride in the achievements of this rich and powerful nation.
If you don't put the poor at the heart of your policies for the next two years, with the interests aligned in favor of the rich, too many of the middle class will join them in their suffering. That is the "trickle up" of poverty that has impoverished nations with unfair concentrations of wealth at the top. That is what destroys great nations.
After the devastating financial meltdown of 2008 -- which came from the orgy of gambling by the richest among us -- and the generational recession that it wrought and now the agenda of cuts on the backs of the neediest in America, we are the precipice of losing the very fabric that makes us strong.
A few months ago, I was sitting in the church pew during the beautiful celebration of the life of one of my heroes, and one of yours, Kennedy's adviser and architect of so many policies of inclusion and empowerment, the great Sargent Shriver. It was Sargent Shriver who influenced and encouraged President Lyndon B. Johnson to declare a war on poverty in America in 1964.
The service for Mr. Shriver was deeply moving, yet there was a noticeable absence. The First Lady, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, Oprah, Bono, Gov. Schwarzenegger and too many other celebrities, politicians and well-wishers to mention were all there, and you were around the corner at the White House. We needed you there to seize that moment to renew Mr. Shriver's dream and address our nation with a stirring speech reminding us of your campaign vows and life-long commitment to fight a war on the illness of poverty that afflicts our country, and that more and more Americans are falling into.
If we do not attack this problem with the same zeal with which we are talking about the national debt, the narrative in Washington will continue going in the direction of more misery and more poverty on the horizon, more needless suffering, young minds lost and greatness denied. Why? Because we've let the moneyed interests that gambled with the economy and came to you for bailouts paint the narrative that the poor, not they, are to blame.
By your own admission, you were too busy "getting stuff done" to paint the narrative of the transformative presidents of both parties you respect so much. Where is that narrative now? Why don't Independents and Democrats and even thoughtful Republicans buy into the amazing accomplishments of your term so far: saving the economy, managing two wars you didn't get us into, health care reform, financial reform? Because the heart of your story is missing the hard crushing reality facing everyday Americans who could not only NOT afford the $1,000 to come to the National Action Network dinner, but had to wonder about the $2.50 subway ride uptown. The heart of your story is "the other America," the one that either is or is just about to be, poor. It may not poll well today but that is only because there is more to leading than "getting stuff done." And you are the only one who can lead.
When we talk about cutting, if we don't talk about reversing the unfair Bush tax cuts on people like me who get richer, it seems, just by breathing, if YOU don't personally challenge America day in and day out for a more balanced economy between rich and poor, between fair and unfair educational outcomes, and in favor of basic services while reforming entitlements, you risk the very passion that you will need -- in your constituents and in your own deeply compassionate heart -- to win today, forget the future.
My businesses have always benefited from giving a voice to those outside the mainstream who, through their creativity could change and then transform America: rappers, comedians, poets, designers, people who need a bank account, bloggers who use this very website on which this letter is posted, GlobalGrind.com, to talk to a new America, one that is multi-racial, tech-smart, inclusive and deeply compassionate. I have benefited from never wavering from my mission of giving a voice to those communities. You can't afford not to.
We have tough times ahead. Perilous times. Treacherous times. But it has to start with the victims, the poor, paying the least and the rich, who did so incredibly well, paying the lion's share of the hard sacrifices ahead. And for that fight, I will be at your side morning, noon and night.
Your Friend,
Russell Simmons
Follow Russell Simmons on Twitter: www.twitter.com/unclerush
When what you don't have isn't just medical care or a stable economy, it's this constant frisson of watching the edges of the ice floe melt, you've got voters who are simply not going to put you back in office.
I've ignored the Tea Party ever since I sat horrified in a town hall meeting and watched them trash the health bill meat to save their sorry butts. But disaffection is the product of disillusionment.
These people aren't stupid either. They can see the rich getting richer too. And they know that is being made possible by Obama prioritizing his promises to the rich before the ones he made to the rest of us.
We've gone full circle. Right back to an isolated, insulated clueless entitled President who has consistently favored the rich at the cost of the poor. After promising not to do that .
Waht does Obama expect? A standing ovation?
After eight years of Bush doing the exact same thing.
Face it. Obama is the friend of the rich at the cost of making an enemy of both the poor AND the middle class. That doesn't win elections.
Why is it that the neocon knuckleheads among us are forever trotting out the statistical outliers as 'proof' that we now live in that mythical 'post-racial; society?
What we have now are thieves and robbers working together with corporate pirates and Bankers
(who quite frankly, are well known historically to have little honor), and politicians ( Another well known nefarious group) in a well orchestrated scam. It is everything we feared could happen and the very thing our founding Fathers tried to prevent. But here we are.
The question is, What are we going to do about it?
I think the less violent the better but that would depend on the reaction of the elite?
The President only deals with domestic problems that Nobody else can solve!
The people or organizations that need to be scrutinized and judged are the ones that couldn't solve the problems in the first place. Not the last one you turn to for help!
When an individual or activist group calls out the President, I ask:
Have they ever written about contacting a local, state or national representatives or union leader?
Social Studies(elementary) Federal government has three parts.
Executive Branch(President)
President's JOB description; Commander-in-Chief, protect our nation from attack. Enforces the laws that Congress makes. Entertain foreign guests. Recognize foreign countries. Grant reprieves & pardons. Make treaties, nominate Cabinet, Supreme Court Justices, appoint Ambassadors (with the approval of the Senate). Veto bills, Sign bills. Talks with foreign countries. Make suggestions about new laws... (President cannot declare war, decide how federal money will be spent, interpret or make laws.)
That's some job description!
Legislative(Senate and House of Representatives)
The Legislative branch is called Congress. CONGRESS MAKES OUR LAWS! Congress has 2 parts. One part is called the Senate. 100 Senators(2 from each state). Other part is called the House of Representatives. There are 435 Representatives. The number of representatives each state gets is determined by its population. Representatives meet together to discuss ideas and decide if these ideas (bills) should become laws.
Judicial(Supreme Court & lower Courts)
The Judicial part; interpret laws according to the Constitution.
All roads lead to the Capital Building!(Congress)
Alan Grayson and Russ Finegold lost their seats, by being too progressive and alienating the moderate voters of their states. Once again, playing to the most purist of the party.
And today, when it is obvious who is standing in between the Republicans kicking grandma out of nursing homes, you progressive purist are still calling president Obama a sell out. Truly sad!
For better or for worse (I personally think for worse) over time the executive branch has bled into the other branches immensely. Everyone has to go to the president for final approval on funding for instance. So if you say, want to build a fitch hatchery in your state with federal funding, you might call the presidents office for a nod, which he them might imply to you that if you don't support a new defense contract to buy outdated bombers designed during the cold war, than your fitch hatcher might prove difficult. letting down your constituents, which will threaten your reelection.
None of this of course is on paper. your post just suffer from an incredible over simplification of the federal government.
Also... I think Mr Simons was referring to the president being a leader in rhetoric... not necessarily specifically on bills signed.
One of Obama's weaknesses is also one of his greatest strengths. He is brilliant. Brilliant people often feel as though everyone can see what they see. It is a complication in creating a narrative version of his presidency. I call this the endzone dance conundrum. If Dick Cheney and George Bush had achieved one tenth of the foreign policy success, one one hundreth of the domestic policy success of President Obama, they would have been spiking a football on the front lawn of the white house. Doing an endzone celebration complete with chest bumps and a moonwalk.
This President has refused to do that. In part, his desire to eschew the flashy celebration is because of personality but some of it is because of the deeper understanding that people are suffering. How do you celebrate a win with unemployment still at 9.7 percent? How do you tout social justice with LGBT discrimination unchecked? He assumed people would see/understand.
You see successes and all I see are failures.
Guess we are living in alternate realities.
I offer this in response. With the senate the way it is, and the number of blue dogs at the beginning of Obama's term getting anything at all was almost impossible. Anything. Almost impossible. I know people will tell you we had overwhelming majorities in the senate, but we didn't. We had Liberman, Drogan, Conrad, Byah, Lincoln, Landrieu, Nelson, Baccus, Tester, etc. We had 48 dem votes and we had to get the next 12. Every vote, bill, confirmation. Failure? Hardly.
Finally where is the logic. Progressives have created a meme that the President is either a coward, incompetent, or corrupt. The truth is that he has fought and won for a core set of agenda items that have real middle and long term value for the middle class and nation.
The health of a society is written on the faces of its Youth.
And your logic doesn't really stand. The War on Poverty is a failure because poverty has grown. So you could just as easily say that law enforcement is a failure when violent crime rises, therefore we should defund law enforcement! Hey they keep pumping water on the Fukajima reactor, but the reactors are still melting down, so let's STOP pumping water on it! Perhaps some of these social programs help contain or limit poverty but don't help stem the systemic causes. Perhaps these programs are a form of damage control. That's not a reason to stop them.
If it's a social "safety net" the idea is to mitigate harm, not prevent people from falling.