In January 2020, after the White House was vacated by the prior President who, despite protestations, was not re-elected, I wrote you a letter, offering a warm welcome to you as the next President of the United States. For many of us who saw the U.S. moving headlong into a form of quasi-fascism at that time, your arrival also provided a real sigh of relief.
Strangely and unexpectedly, though, it looks like another form of quasi-fascism is sneaking up on us, this time originated not by the right-wing Republicans but by the left-wing Democrats in the form of medical mandates (in blatant violation of the Nuremberg Code?) and the encroachment of financial controls, AI, surveillance, cookies and bank-based digital currencies. I call it “fascism with a smiley face”. It is portrayed almost convincingly as “for our own good”. But completely controlling it is, replete with plans for detention centers and more for those who are not in accord with their version of “public health”.
Freedom is becoming marginalized in our ever-increasing, surveillance-rich, data-collecting world, where fewer people question government agencies and the press. Instead of being a much-needed check on the government is now giving it a “Get out of Jail” card on the larger Monopoly board of life.
Our voice demanding an end to war is completely dismissed by Congress and by you. Our demand that the carbon footprint be reduced by shifting to renewables is discussed, and some actions are taken, true, but then you green-lighted The Willow Project in Alaska, which will destroy indigenous communities and wildlife and pollute the entire region. Americans exercising their God-given right to care for our own health based on our own choices is ridiculed when we don’t follow the recommendations of the government, which government is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pfizer and Moderna.
That’s not freedom. This is a form of fascism with terrible historical antecedents.
Mr. President, what has happened?
I wrote that welcome-to-the-White House letter in January 2021 with the hope that you would do a better job than your predecessor with respect to creating a greener, renewable energy-based economy, help to achieve greater economic opportunity for those who are most in need and that you would facilitate greater peace, cooperation and prosperity at home and around the world.
That hope, Mr. President, has been not completely but largely dashed. I hate to say it, but at this point, with all due respect, I feel that you have helped to exacerbate many of the issues facing us instead of resolving them, both at home and abroad. With your permission, I’ll engage in “straight talk”.
You have further militarized the planet and alienated key players by which you’ve changed the geo-political map to the detriment of our country. I don’t know how you can’t see it, but through the proxy war with Russia, China and Russia are closer than ever. Iran and Saudi Arabia have had the wisdom, brokered not by the U.S. but by China, to kiss and make up after a 30-year divorce. BRICS is laying more bricks and fencing the U.S. and the USD out. You are busy being angry with Iran, Russia, China and even “ally” Saudi Arabia.
The international scene is currently nothing short of disastrous. U.S. foreign policy, little more than either a knee-jerk reaction or a total control game from behind the scenes, has failed. The world is moving on and we’re left in the ring with our boxing gloves on, almost all alone.
We are closer to economic collapse (with banks failing again, mostly undisclosed) while you seem to be toying with putting into place the puzzle pieces that could lead `to WWIII. Strong comments? You betcha.
A blind person, however, could see this, yet media offers a veneer, a buffed and polished view of reality so people keep tuning in and buying things.
The Glass-Steagall Act, which worked marvelously in 1933 forward in regulating banks, protecting depositors and minimizing risk and fraud until it was canceled by President Clinton due to the bank’s lobbying pressure, did a really good job. Some say that the 2008 collapse would never have happened had Glass-Steagall remained in place. Its replacement, Dodd-Frank, was a superficial facsimile and even that has since been diluted due to lobbying pressure. Again, another example of “Congress-for-Hire”.
Apparently, so is the White House.
Upon gazing upon the expenditures per military base and per fighter jet, submarine, tank and all manner of weapons, we would ask: what is this all about? Whose agenda is this serving? How many children here in the U.S. and abroad can we feed with that money? How much goodwill could we instead create between people and nations by providing seeds, hoes, roofs, solar and water?
It is very obviously not The People’s agenda being served but private interests. These expenditures are, in turn, ‘sold’ to the American Public as being for their own security and national interest. This is truly one of the finest sales jobs I have ever witnessed. All salesmen everywhere should get a lesson.
The question real leaders ask of themselves is: How can we really serve the best good of The People?
Look at the maneuvers you are authorizing around the world to counter China in Asia, counter Russia in Ukraine and on. Is this the way to settle disputes, or could they really be done over tea? We both know the answer: with willing parties, they can be settled over babka and tea.
While many Americans were concerned about fascism in America as Trump sought to control the DOJ (funny, just as Netanyahu is trying to do right now in Israel…), ironically, you have also facilitated another form of fascism (though you would never call it that), this time coming from the Left, using the Covid Scare: a face mask on every face, calling it “public health”. Yes, of course. Children who can’t see their mother’s face and read her love, her approval or disapproval, and their breathing impaired with micro-fibers being inhaled all day long. Does that really sound like public health?
Anyone alive during WWII remembers the Nuremberg Code. Your mandates and those of the States violate this hard-fought-for code to keep anything like Nazi fascism from happening again.
When people are made to feel afraid, authorities can say or do anything. And they do.
You could say that these are outlandish statements, and I’d agree. Their outlandishness matches the actions being discussed, which the media has normalized. But that doesn’t make them normal. Or healthy.
Freedom in exercising what had been up to now, an individual’s own right to choose his/her own form of healthcare is a human right, not a decision of the government. Or if you were a black man in the U.S. who was part of the Tuskegee Study on Syphilis, you would completely question the legitimacy of all the Federal government’s so-called “health agencies”. There is a dark story here being covered up.
Culturally, this position of standing up for freedom in today’s America is associated with being Republican, and not just that, but right-wing. Hilarious!
Prizing freedom is being about as American and apple pie as it gets. It has nothing to do with political party affiliation. That’s how good media is in shaping public opinion.
I’ve been a registered Democrat my entire voting life and a hippie at that! I hold freedom as the highest priority and what has made America stand out among nations.
I stand with the Founding Fathers who warned us to avoid political parties—that they will be the death of the Republic. But that doesn’t stop anyone these days, does it? There’s too much money in them. Who cares what the Founding Fathers thought unless it can be made profitable? That’s not what Capitalism is about either.
The wrong side of history
I’m afraid, Mr. President, your geo-political, militaristically-based choices are placing you on the wrong side of history. It’s sad, lonely, and costly.
In some ways, many people are changing for the good. The consciousness and conscience of people are evolving. As a result, war is becoming less and less popular as a viable option, thankfully!
More people today don’t believe that war is worth the human, economic or even cost despite the propaganda politicians and media feed them.
Only old-world politicians who are still beholden to the Military Industrial Complex for their campaign funding pretend to believe that war is a viable solution to the world’s problems which are largely due to the unwieldy disparity between rich and poor.
They know there is no military solution in a world of nuclear arms, only diplomacy and increasing amicable trade and business serving the common good.
Apparently and sadly, it appears that you are one of the more beholden to the Military Industrial Complex than many. Please tell me that I am wrong!
People see that war as a money-and-power grab, a game of the rich playing with other, usually poor people’s and minority’s lives. People overall have come to see the truth in what General Smedley Butler said: “War is a racket”, what President General Eisenhower said about the “Military Industrial Complex” and what every day people have come to see.
One of the expressions of what I’m saying is the notable decrease in recruitment. Many fewer people are signing up for the armed forces despite the offers of education and other benefits they are promised. Parents don’t want to see their children coming home in body bags. Who can blame them?
People want peace through diplomacy, Mr. President, more intelligent, thoughtful and creative solutions to military conflict and war.
Get on the right side of history. It’s not too late. There’s a fresh ambience of peace spreading throughout the world. If the Saudis and Iranians can come to the table and hammer out their differences, anyone can.
Novel thinking for the rest of time
The idea of ‘competition between countries’ is also very “last century” and deserves to be left on the ash heap of history except in sports, healthy competition. I think it’s outdated and should be replaced with a more evolved sensibility that trust between parties can breed. Creating a world of peace, harmony and sustainability through mutual cooperation is the ticket to success. People know this to be true in their bones. Let’s shift the paradigm to one in which peace is the norm.
What is at stake with Global Warming, the changing weather patterns, the melting of the ice caps, and food and water insecurity on all continents, including in the U.S., is life-threatening in itself.
The last thing we should be doing is fighting wars and wasting our precious resources of people, money and time by competing with other nations when, with a touch of novel thinking, we could be collaborating, cooperating and building wealth between nations, building a middle class, evening out the severe economic disparities.
What passes as “business-as-usual” is the archetype of the “bully in the schoolyard”, and I think by now, we should be long past that way of interacting with our fellow human beings. It’s low-level and doesn’t deserve to be dignified.
Curiously, even in the game of hegemony that you are playing, you are losing on virtually every account. China just settled a long-time dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran, proposed a peace plan for Russia and Ukraine, and is now creating closer ties with France while you’re busy selling nuclear subs to Australia. I’m missing how this is constructive and for the common good.
The BRICS nations are building a gold-based economy, and the U.S. is sucking on lollipops getting a short-term, quarterly dividend sugar rush. There’s an IQ problem here. The U.S. doesn’t plan—it reacts.
Mr. Biden, you are spending an insane amount of our money on military armaments and continue to sell arms to other countries to build them up, all with the narrative that we have to protect ourselves and our “national interests”.
If you want to protect our national interests, great. Make peace everywhere and stop using the old world ‘carry a big stick’ as the basis of U.S. foreign policy. The world isn’t really a chess board that is black and white, win or lose.
We, humans, are one species psycho-biologically designed to help each other survive and thrive. Foreign policy should be about friendship, service and mutual benefit.
We are not a bunch of “special interests vying for attention”. We are distinct by language and culture, which makes us as a species all the more versatile, resilient and creatively intelligent.
We are not enemies of each other but co-creators.
For a moment, think Chinese & I don’t mean food!
On the international level, should you not be focusing more on the U.S. instead of trying to conquer the world? You can help other countries build infrastructure as the Chinese are. That’s constructive.
The Chinese play a long game, and you do not. Their 5-10,000 year history attests to that.
The U.S. mindset is all about short-term gain and “the hell” with the future—who cares? This is as immature as a policy gets.
Sadly, you are wasting our taxpayer dollars and spreading fear and ill will. Please stop.
The Chinese Peace Plan being reviewed by Russia and Ukraine is an example of a way to ‘make friends and make peace’ around the world.
China is currently replacing the U.S. as the main peace broker in the world because the U.S. has another agenda which isn’t peace but selling arms and hegemony. And we’re now paying dearly for it.
Rather than taking a stand for leadership, you are taking a backseat. The U.S. is quickly losing its Global standing under your Administration.
The geopolitical landscape is changing because, Mr. President, you keep playing the old game instead of truly making the world a better place. Arming it doesn’t make it better. It makes it more dangerous and erodes trust, which is the real building block of the future between nations, as you well know.
What the Chinese do internally to their own people, from surveillance to social credits to the Uyghurs is ghastly and horrific, though it appears to appeal to your friends at the World Economic Forum. Odd! How does that work? It is nothing short of disgraceful.
The Chinese government is not a role model except in some of its actions internationally. So much of the rest is reprehensible. The people are great, as are Americans. The problem is governments everywhere: seriously problematic.
Why have democratic liberals, once peaceniks, become war-mongers?
I am saddened that the Democratic Party has sunken to abysmal lows, marginalizing our freedoms, spending The People’s money like drunken sailors, and perpetrating a military presence around the world instead of a diplomatic presence with a goal and vision of peace and cooperation. Sadly, the Republican Party isn’t any better. Parties were not part of the body politic.
There is obviously ‘money on the table’ for every Republican and Democrat for their campaign coffers, and while billions are given to Ukraine of our tax dollars without any accountability, we have some 18,000,000 children who go to bed hungry every night.
How do you explain this Mr. President? Americans don’t know how you or any politician live with themselves. The justifications are superficial. You should stand up and do the right thing for America and then make peace with Russia, China, Syria, Yemen and the rest of the world.
Do you wonder why there are so many school and mass shootings in the U.S.? Surely, the reasons are many, not least of which is that the NRA virtually owns Congress, and military weapons are considered “just fine” for civilian use.
But what is in our control is what’s in our media and military actions: children see adults killing each other in a frightening number of TV shows and films. Add to this in real life, the use of weapons on city streets and in the ‘theaters of war’. We are teaching them that this madness is the norm.
It is as though there are no more ethical standards or common sense. Everything is “a right for the special interests” instead of “an obligation to do the right thing for the common good”.
The government, Mr. President, has ceased to be for and by the People. It has become for and by the multi-national Corporations who pay for the TV advertising for the candidates.
I urge you to recognize the divergence of government in service to the People, and your radical departure from the principle of freedom at home, and the freedom of other nations to do as they will as sovereign states. I urge you to recognize that militarization abroad and at home breeds more of the same everywhere.
Mr. President, we need you to speak and act as a model, not of war but of peace, and to do so now. Be in alignment with your faith—love your brothers, Russian, Chinese, Ethiopian, Palestinian, all.
May it be said that your ‘straight talk’ to PM Netanyahu, in my opinion, was a credit to you. He has run amok in Israel, and the Israeli People are outraged by his efforts to overhaul their justice system and, incidentally, protect himself from it as he is under indictment. It’s so transparent!
Why should we fund Israel-as-dictatorship billions per year when the P.M. speaks so peremptorily and disrespectfully to you, the hand that feeds him? He has been perpetuating apartheid against the Palestinians for a long time, and that is not a government we Americans want our hard-earned tax dollars going to.
The role of Catholicism & religion in ethical, moral decision-making
You are a practising Catholic. It can be so healthy and spiritually rewarding to be in a community of like-minded people with similar faith, which encourages integrity, love, compassion and well-being for all people. So how is declaring war or perpetuating wars, such as in Ukraine or Yemen, in alignment with your Catholic values, virtues and beliefs?
Isn’t lying Mr. President, deemed by the Catholic Church, a mortal sin and “intrinsically evil”? Just how exactly do you justify and rationalize these actions instead of the one peaceful action of insisting on an immediate, diplomatic solution to these military crises?
Instead, your Administration is “hell-bent”, or so it seems, on punishment and retribution, the exact opposite of what a good Catholic is taught to do. I am perplexed.
How does one embrace a religious teaching that one professes to hold dear to one’s heart but then turns around and refuses to negotiate peace but arms itself up to the gills seeking to dominate others at any expense? None of this Mr. President, makes sense to an average guy like myself, like most Americans, like most people everywhere.
Working toward reversing global warming
I am pleased that you have addressed some of the issues around Global Warming through legislation but horribly disappointed with respect to almost all else.
You shouldn’t be worrying about our cooking with natural gas—low on the totem pole. But you should be making sure that major new drilling is not commenced in Alaska, disrupting Native People’s communities, livelihoods and land. What contributes vastly to Greenhouse Gases and the destruction of eco-system habitat is approving The Willow Project. It advances Global Warming, not reversing it as your campaign promises said you’d do.
I keep referring to the current wars all over the planet. One of the reasons is that I have a funny aversion to people killing each other. Another major reason is that the volume of fuel used in maintaining wars and military bases is another top contributor to Global Warming.
Make peace and solve five major problems at once! Murder stops, money is saved which can be used for feeding children, less fuel is used and Global Warming is reduced. Fantastic! Tea and babka.
Idea: Stop the wars, reduce the number of bases, create a peacetime atmosphere around the world and you will have put a major dent in Greenhouse Gas production. Your legacy will be made.
A paradigm shift in thinking & acting
At this point, Mr. President, the Earth is telling us that there is no more time for us to mess around. There is no more time for small, self-interested thinking that focuses on this narrow, narcissistic perspective called “National Interest” when it is at the dire expense of almost all other people around the world and the ecosystem itself. She adapts—that’s her way, but we may perish.
A broader, more generous, kinder and more trusting view needs to be engaged literally immediately.
In short, we need real allies, not to fight wars but to build peace, which means providing infrastructure that includes food and water security. Of course, the Chinese have been building infrastructure for countries all over the world now for decades. We simply arm them with guns.
Which approach is the more amicable, eco-friendly, regenerative and sustainable?
The U.S., for the moment, is still in the driver’s seat worldwide, but this position is rapidly shifting, even with our long-term dictator friends like Saudi Arabia, who are already turning toward other, more sustainable, economically promising and peaceful alliances.
It’s time to champion not warfare but peacefare.
As said, an entire 180-degree shift is really being called for by our higher intelligence, and all people wish that you would stop perpetuating old-world thinking and embrace the new peace paradigm, which has collaboration and cooperation instead of competition at its core.
Please remember not to confuse the seeming complexity of a problem with the simplicity of the solution. Occam’s Razor is sharp and works.
Deep listening, empathy, altruistic speaking and babka and tea.
Thank you for listening.