A responsible ethic depends on an honest assessment of the context - Chris Hedges, speaking at Bowdoin, 2009-02-10

Dear President Obama,

I write about cufflinks, Mr. President.

I know it's a small matter, Mr. President. Cufflinks. Imagine, the likes of me lecturing you on cufflinks! But those you wear are way too much. They scream class, sellout and "You Sucker!" every time they flash. I don't think that's the effect you want.

I'm sure some of your friends like the show and flair and the in-your-face arrogance. And I know enough psychology to understand many Americans like being ridden.

But my dad wouldn't like your cufflinks. My dad, 10th Mountain, Italy, lived on Mount Washington in the winter as part of his "training". My dad - a stockbroker, a geologist who never graduated from Brown - helped start the first mutual funds, Manhattan Fund, Fidelity - but quit the business because banks were taking over. Because banks determined the system but could not be determined. My dad - white, New England, Congregationalist - who taught me the wonderful first principle: "Always root for the underdog".[3]

My Dad wouldn't see you as the underdog, but more as some corrupt IMF stooge from Africa.[2] The cufflinks, he'd say.

My dad met my mom in Switzerland, skiing near the Matterhorn. She couldn't speak English and he knew no German, Italian, Switzer Deutsch, Romansh or French. Her deal was we children be brought up Catholic. Liberation Catholic, as it turned out. So I can parse the difference between Hope, False Hope and the light at the end of the tunnel that's a Taser warming up.

Sorry if I digress. It's that deceitful Hope thing of yours.

You, sir, Mr. President, suck. Big time. Far worse than I could have imagined. And it's taken hardly two weeks for me to get there.

Bear in mind, I didn't vote for you or work for you. I reminded my Democrat Caucus that "No, Obama will not bring the troops home" and "No, Hillary will not institute single payer". I had no delusions; after all, I pay attention. I reminded my Democrat Caucus of the dashing figure you cut patting The Wall for Israel. Stunning!

Both the teams you and Hillary mustered were as fabulously adamant as misinformed. I was fascinated. It turned me mean. I had to rub their noses in the truth. Because after a while, denial stinks and I can't sleep in it. As my friend Paul, the moderator, noted, "Chris, as usual, not mincing words."[4]

That you succeeded so well at mobilizing the misinformed counts as a tactical victory for your respective campaign operations. Congratulations, Mr. President, you won.

Don't get me wrong, Mr. President. It's great to have a black man as President. Just as it was great to have a black man as Secretary of State. And then a black woman. Even the Iraqis know that.

Will you, Mr. President, Sir, follow Colin Powell's fine example and fill the role of the equal opportunity color blind carpetbagger?[15] How do I weigh shit that deep?

Brother Malcolm, Harry Belafonte - yeah, the lemon tree man - uncounted others, they opened up the road for you and you sold out that entire heritage. That you are black is entirely relevant.

Tell me I'm out of line. Tell me I don't have the right to consider what my personal heros might say. Tell me you don't stand on their shoulders and piss on us all. Two weeks, you bastard.

"A black Ronald Reagan," Crow says. "Bad nest. Bad nest."

"The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world."[9]

A heritage that's entirely relevant to me as a white man, a heritage that includes a black and white Freedom Trail, a black and white Freedom Trail that runs through Maine, over the Maine State Pier. The same pier to which white sea captains ferried escaping black slaves as part of the Freedom Trail. There's much talk in Portland Maine about selling the Maine State Pier to a private developer to build a luxury hotel.

Of cufflinks and The Man I sing, Mr. President.

The statute of limitations is running out on the Bush/Cheney FISA violations. Violations you let slide. Mr President, can you spell "complicit"?

It was kind of you to shut down Gitmo. You recognized the problem too much light causes for a policy of rendition and torture. Now men, women and children will rot in shackles in the bilges of CIA chartered rustbucket freighters in undisclosed secret locations perhaps somewhere off the Horn of Africa.

Amazing Grace. Entirely relevant.

Bygones be bygones.
Let it go.
Move forward.
Onward Christian soldiers.

Crow stutter sputters "C O M P L I C I T".

I know. I know. I know. Your path is not the path Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney or Dennis Kucinich would have chosen. I don't know about Ron Paul. I don't know about John McCain or Sarah Palin. I know Joe Biden - Bankruptcy Bill Joe - would fail.

Mr. President, you serve your constituency well - the bankers, the hedge fund Democrats, the military-industrial-congressional complex. The think tanks and the companies that build the tanks and fund the think tanks. Another tactical victory for your campaign operation.

But you have already failed this country.[12]

After all, beyond FISA. beyond Gitmo, where does ripping off all generations into the infinite future so your banker and hedge fund buddies can pocket every dollar and every crumb - and every future dollar and future crumb - on the planet rank?[8]

$1T, $2T, $4T, $10T - I've lost count. Incredible. Your economic team is the same team that broke the system. Your economic advisors are the same economic advisors that covered up the destruction.

Change![14]

It violates my dad's First Principle - "always root for the underdog" - that the American underclasses get sold out at the first opportunity by a black poseur. It shames me and disgusts me as a white privileged Yankee to see so many other white privileged Americans happy with the poseur.

The times of greatest distress are often the times of greatest dillusion, Hedges said last night [2009-02-10]. We can't cope with society unravelling.

We certainly can't cope with society unravelling when our politicians and media shill only for the corporations, when critical and serious voices are locked out, when the powerful treat the American people like infant thumb-suckers. You will get what you look for, Mr. President.

"Yellow Punch Buggy!" Crow whacks me with his bare umbrella-rib wing. "The Yellow Volkswagen Effect".

Which brings me to my humble recommendations.

1) It would be better you do nothing than what you do. $1T, $2T, $4T, $10T by the time this gets published. All that money borrowed from our children. Our generation has declared war on our own children; they should shoot us.[11]

2) Dogs once flew spaceships [10] better than you and your cohort. Get a dog. If you don't dare jail the crooks and thieves in Congress, send them on vacation and replace them with dogs. Kerry can be a great dane, Barney Frank a slobbery lab, Pelosi a wet lab, Conyers a dalmation, Lieberman a cur, Dennis a beagle. But most of the rest can be miniature cockapoos.

"For Every Congresscritter - a Shityou", Crow cackles.

3) Take a vacation yourself. Go home. Come on back once a month or so, make one of your speeches about Hope and Change and Moving Forward and Restoring America Again. Veto everything Congress passes. EVERYTHING. Without exception.

Whatever you do, Mr. President, makes matters worse because your ethics and values are not adequate for the context.

Yes, it would be nice if instead of your TALF [Tar and Lead Feather] program we could address social mobility and class directly and fundamentally. It would be nice if we could work out a new social compact. But I'm not going to suggest that, Mr. President, because you won't get it right. My generation, your generation, my parents' generation - they all need to die before the next generations - consigned to poverty by the likes of you - might be lucky enough to reform the social compact. We don't have the right, Mr. President, to screw them. And they do have the right - and the duty - Mr. President, to defend themselves by whatever means necessary against our screwing them.

It's not about "better", is it? It's about looting, plunder and class. Who wins and who pays the price. It's about what your peeps know "can't happen Democratically" - as a member of Maine Governor Baldacci's cabinet told me. Chile. Argentina. The Shock Doctrine.

History tells me this will come to violence. It already has.

Perhaps I object too much. After all, what could be more American, than to be suckered for a sellout.

So back to those cufflinks. I suppose - to get the economy moving again - you might require every American to purchase and wear Obama cufflinks. Your friends at Citibank can handle the loan program. Homeland Stazi can monitor compliance at every supermarket register. No cufflinks, no health care, no food, no employment. That will create jobs for every local police department and state Fusion center, compliance checks at every supermarket register, something for those returning Iraq vets to do.[13]

This will be a good thing for the black man. Cufflinks like the white man. But no, it would be better you do nothing.

Sincerely,

Christopher F. Miller

p.s. Mr. President, I hope I'm wrong.

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[1] When you run the background check on me you'll find I was an undistinguished student, MIT, BSAD '79.
[2] Dad was a stockbroker involved in starting the first mutual funds - Manhattan Fund and Fidelity. He knew plenty about bank balance sheets, income statements and the likes of the IMF. He left the business when the stench turned most foul.
[3] Even the Red Sox.
[4] I failed to come away with even a single delegate for Dennis. Not in that herd.
[5] Probably a 2004 price and we'd have to double that or more depending on how fast you have the Treasure and Fed printing money. Shackles with which you bind our children even as you banish them to a desert planet.
[6] Did you know the military training has upped the "willingness to kill" from 15% in WWII to near 95% now? Just what the United States needs - more highly trained killer vets on the street - both cops and homeless. Did you know an American is far more likely to be killed by a policeman than by any terrorist?
[8] http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
[9] http://www.malcolm-x.org/quotes.htm
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_You_Know_Is_Wrong
[11] I'll tell you something you won't do. Despite the fact that MIT's "Technology Review" declared the AK the most important breakthrough technology of the 20th century - despite the fact it's a more significant technology than the Internet and bigger than cell phones and text messaging - you won't issue one to every person 21 years of age and younger in the US. An AK for every citizen, immigrant and illegal alike, an AK and 500 rounds on the condition they promise not to shoot anyone 21 years of age and younger. Wouldn't that be spreading the best of modern technology universally? We oldsters are waging generational war on our own children, and I think it's past time to help out the underdog - even though it might not turn out so well for me. It's pretty cheap too. I think Tech Review said AK clones could be had for as little as $15.
[12] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ebea1b8-f794-11dd-81f7-000077b07658.html
[13] Chertoff - Americans will need RealID for every transaction - to get a job, bank account, health care, loan, etc....
[14] When you send me to the bilge, can I sleep on a shredded pile of of George Orwell's Collected Works?
[15] http://www.truthout.org/021609J?print

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