Letter to Mr. Obama

My letter to President-elect Obama.

Dear Mr. Obama, 

The difficulty in expressing the joy I felt at watching you win the United States Presidential Election is due not in small part to the myriad dimensions the event represents for me. To describe your win as a watershed in American history, I believe, is an understatement. You have accomplished, Mr.Obama, what many as recently as a few years ago said could not be done. You are the first in a line of 44 presidents to be black and that alone gives cause to rejoice. However, it is not the color of your skin that impresses me most but rather the substance of your ideas, delivered with an eloquence I have not heard since JFK. 

The country you will soon preside over, Mr. Obama, is still the most powerful militarily and economically. However, as I observe America from a distance, I shiver at the similarity with the waning years of the Roman empire as described by Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The American Dream is dissolving rapidly into the American Nightmare. 

While corporations and their captains reap dazzling profits, your citizens are struggling under an unsustainable burden of debt. While your medical technologies are the best in the world, your citizens are among the unhealthiest among developed countries. While Americans are subject to the near constant white noise of pharmaceutical advertising, their life expectancy continues to decline. While your farms yield enviable quantities of high quality food, your children are increasingly obese. 

Your country, once a beacon of high ideals, is quickly losing its position as a role model for the world. You spy on your citizens and torture your enemies. You put your sons in harm's way under fabricated pretenses. You sully your good name with extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Grahib. Your greatest athletes are cheating and your high school students are emulating them. 

While your greatest universities are still admired, your citizens are sinking into unreason. Fundamentalism and magical thinking are rife. Americans know less and less about science while the rest of the developed world is experiencing an enlightenment. Some of your leaders believe the world is 6,000 years old and that sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice. Many Americans cannot point out a foreign country on a map and could not care less. When asked, a significant number of your citizens are unsure as to whether the Earth revolves around the Sun or vice versa; Galileo Galilei would gasp. 

Mr. Obama, your country needs you. The challenges ahead are great. You must find a way to return America to a nation of dreams and opportunities. You must have as a goal the health and welfare of your citizens rather than the corporation. You must create conditions that allow the light of science to penetrate the shadow that is now upon you. 

Mr. Obama, the world needs America to lead the way. America must spread the democratic ideals so entrenched in its Constitution not by force but by example. The world needs you to lead on environmental issues. I believe, Mr. Obama, that you are the quintessence of the American dream. You must now place a steady hand on the tiller and gently alter the course of your once great nation. If you succeed, the world will surely follow. 

Good luck Mr. President-elect. 

Joseph Froncioni

Comments

[Frank]

Mr. Obama is actually not black; he's half-white. And, um, he's a globalist, so he could care less about the USA.

Prove I'm wrong!

[Marcel]

Very well written letter. Yesterday I asked the question where the US Government gets the money from and the answer was a shock for me:
1. China
2. Japan
3. Russia
When I see this list then I ask myself where does this lead the western civilization to when we borrow money from these countries? What will happen if they say "pay back now"? Another scenario might be that the the chinese will save (buy) the big 3 in Detroit and they're no more US companies. I'm not living in the US but what happened to Iceland? Is this country becoming a russsian province?
So there are huge economic challenges for Mr. Hope.

[liz]

Very interesting comments, though at times a little harsh as a congratulatory letter. The sentences I find particularly biting and might be removed without changing the spirit of your argument are the following "spy on your citizens and torture your enemies. You put your sons in harm's way under fabricated pretenses...Your greatest athletes are cheating and your high school students are emulating them."

Also, because Mr. Obama represents the hope of us all, as citizens of the world, I believe we all need to join in to help him achieve the hopes and dreams we put on his shoulders. We are our brothers' keeper and we are mutually responsible for putting the world back together again. But this time, when we put the world back together, it must look different. We must think collectively about what we do to the global economy, the global environment, global social structures, etc., etc. We can no longer think on small scales. Like JFK said, look not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Now, we have to ask, what can I do for the world.