Postcards to the Next President

When Terry Talbott-McCall at down at my desk in Flagstaff, Ariz., she took a few minutes to compose herself. "Bring our children home," she said clearly and emphatically as she fought back tears. "This is a failed war and our children have paid too huge a cost..." She signed her postcard to the next president "just one mother."

Talbott-McCall was the 295th person to participate this year in my traveling public art project "I Wish to Say," in which I set up an office -- complete with a manual typewriter -- and invite passersby to dictate postcards to the next president. I type the messages verbatim on a blank 4x6 index card, while photographer Dhanraj Emanuel takes a portrait of each participant.

The "I Wish to Say" office will be set up in sites across the country through Election Day and the postcards will be sent to the next president -- whoever that might be -- after the inauguration in 2009. The next events will be held at Bryant Park in New York City on May 19th and 20th. After that, the show travels to Chicago on June 7th and 8th.

The 2008 tour follows two extensive public letter-writing tours in 2004 and 2006, when I invited people to dictate postcards to President Bush.

As in 2006, the war remains one of the top concerns -- especially for college students.

Salisbury University (Maryland) student Kevin Eder, said:

"I have friends in Iraq that I don't want brought home in body bags!" said Lindsay Simpson at the State University of New York in Fredonia.

Chelsea Ulloa at St. Mary's College in Moraga, Calif., said: "Please don't let my boyfriend get deployed."

Veterans I met on past tours were often reluctant to speak about the war, but this year all the veterans I met had something they were eager to communicate to the next president.

One family, with two members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan shared:

"I want you to know the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is going really well for the civilian contractors," said an OEF vet in San Francisco. "If you would pay the military as much as you are paying them you wouldn't' have to worry about looking for volunteers."

"Send the Marines home!" said Tai Ly, a former Marine from San Jose, Calif., who served in Iraq.

One after another, people from New York to California have shared their stories and experiences as they sat at my desk and composed their messages to the next president. The experience has been compared to a therapy session and many participants find the simple act of dictating a message to the next president highly emotional.

When talking about the economy or health care -- two of the other top concerns this year -- the postcards are often quite personal:

A supporter of Obama, Patricia Flores of Oakland, Calif. Conveyed:

Constance Fuller, a student at Coconino Community College in Flagstaff, Ariz., shared her concerns about health care: "I have spinal bifida and even though I'm under my parent's plan it scares me to see how many people are having difficulty paying for health insurance," she said. "What are you going to do to help the people here -- the voters -- because I feel that's being neglected."

Who knows if the next president will read all this mail when it lands at the White House -- but we're hoping he or she will.

Many of the cards and photos are posted at www.iwishtosay.blogspot.com and an exhibition of the cards and photos is planned at the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum in Chicago from mid-November through January.

Comments

[apoyo]

Dear Mr President,

Can we try for world peace one more time?

[Mojane]

Dear Sheryl Oring,

Here's my postcard to you. What a fantastic project you've created, one I hope never ends. Someone from President Obama's office will read them when he is in the WH. I doubt, however, that anyone in GWB's office ever read them and, if they did, just shined them on. Here's my postcard:

Dear President Obama:

Will your administration be able to deal with the Pentagon and its vast tentacles? and the thousands in its employ, contractors and military personnel? You have us, the people, on your side and hopefully will have a true Democratic majority in the Senate to support you, but there is always that military-industrial-government-Wall Street complex that wants Big Daddy to keep the cash rolling their way. I like Dennis Kusinich's proposal for a Department of Peace that could absorb thousands from the War Departments to new careers.

Sincerely,
MJ, Tucson, AZ

[AnneOlivia]

My postcard would read:

Dear President Obama,

Please continue to tell the truth to the American people, even if the truth is difficult and/or unpleasant to hear. We need to hear it.

Also keep telling us how we can help make the changes (which we so desperately need) happen. It's our country too!

Thank you.

[BlueFan]

I've checked this blog for the last several hours, and am astounded that no one has bothered to respond.

What is so very telling (not from the non-responses) is what the majority of what I've read from people have wished for. Help, relief, pleas that someone is listening to what their message is, hope, fear, sorrow, sadness - every emotion possible is expressed. Even more so, I only recall three messages that seem to emphasize "keep on keeping on" the last 7 1/2 years of bullshit under this administration.

These messages, to me, are as touching and heart rendering as the messages posted on the blog written by the Senator from Vermont (whose name escapes me at the moment). People pouring their hearts out to cyber space - hoping and praying that someone will hear their pleas, heed their calls, and get our country back to where it used to be prior the the disaster we can call George Bush.