Syria-NO NO and NO!

Good morning Mr. President.

To be perfectly honest, there is nothing that you can say that will change my mind about planned limited strike intervention in the Syrian civil war.

There are not enough pictures of the dead bodies of children to affect my thinking on this subject, because as a country, we do not and never have had the moral ground on this issue. Our national war policies have always been dictated by money, not humanitarian concern for our brothers, and certainly not for our brothers' wives, women and children.

Past history has shown repeatedly that if the American masters of the universe can't turn a quick buck, then the American corporate puppets who claim to represent the people, turn a blind eye pretending that the problem belongs to someone else. And I am surprised that you, Mr. President, have joined the warmongering neocons that citizens voted out of office in 2008, resulting in your ascendency to the Oval Office. You said you would end these senseless global police actions, and I believed you. Instead, what I am seeing is a half assed attempt at promoting American Exceptionalism, as it is called these days, without naming it officially.

Your WWII analogy is an apples to oranges comparison that falls flat. We didn't enter WWII to save the countless Jews, Roma, and gay men and women swept up in that genocidal holocaust. History shows that America knew about the holocaust long before officially admitting it. We didn't end Jim Crow segregation because we cared about the rights of Black Americans, some of whom were in the process of dying for this country. The dead were collateral damage, in the very same way that the US now turns a blind eye toward modern day Israeli atrocities and apartheid routinely and regularly committed against the Palestinians by the descendants of that very holocaust.

The US totally ignored the genocide of Rwanda which still rages today, just as other than platitudes, the US chooses to ignore the genocide of black men and boys raging right here in America. A genocide camouflaged by talk of second amendment constitutional rights, that not even the killings of little white children in white suburbia USA, have been able to move the conversation forward.

Your tears for the 400 Syrian babies are not enough, Mr. President. In order to command the moral ground, you must cry for all of the children nationwide and worldwide, not just the ones who die where it is financially feasible to take a stand.

If news reports are correct, the US recently sold Saudi Arabia 60 billion dollars in bombs, guns and planes. Why not let them deal with the problems in their neighborhood. The Saudis are on record anyway as saying they will take care of Syria if America won't. Let's take them up on that offer. Our days of supplying all the weapons as well as rebuilding once the war is over, should end now. There is always the move toward peace and like the journey of a thousand miles, it begins with only one step. Why not take that one step now, Mr. President?

And what about Plan B, Mr. President? What do we do after the limited strikes are over? Do we arm the rebels, like we did in Afghanistan? Do we do another Iran-Contra trade thing? Do we work to overthrow another government, like in Iran and countless other Central and South American countries, again? Do we send in the troops, the boots on the ground, like in Vietnam or Iraq? Do we initiate another shaky cease fire like between the Koreas and then wait for it to blow up in our faces, again?

What do we do, Mr. President? What do we do while you pour our money down another sand hole by bombing to oblivion another Middle Eastern country, so that after strafing it into submission we can swoop in and build it up again, while our own cities go bankrupt, our schools disintegrate and our utilities and infrastructure fall into ruin.

Why do Americans have to die again, Mr. President because the rich want to make more money? Why are you so happy to appease them instead of showing concern for those who elected you? I say that because you have already implied that you will go against citizens' wishes and bomb anyway, should you lose the vote in Congress. You do have that power, thanks to George W Bush and the Patriot Act.

But even though your predecessor gave you the power, we the people put you in position to use that power, and we are asking you to work for us, for a change. We the people, don't want another senseless military action.

We want peace, Mr. President, a lasting end to the needless violence that goes on and on and on.

Be the change, that you promised us you are. The polls show that we've changed. Now it's your turn.

Respectfully,

Missiles into Syria on Dr. King's Day! President Obama, You Cannot be Serious!

Dear Mr. President.

I know you're a busy man, busier than usual, because you are preparing on this auspicious day, to step onto the foot path of the Drum Major for peace, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, on this the 50th anniversary of perhaps his greatest day. I understand that you will be joined by a host of celebrities and important people including two past presidents, Clinton and Carter, and I'm also hearing today that Oprah Winfrey will also take part in today's celebration among others.

Let me be blunt, Mr. President, I have a problem with today's commemoration. My problem being that everything scheduled to take place today could have and should have taken place this past Saturday (August 24^th) when the people could have attended and taken part. The first march was for the people. 50 years later what we have is a gathering for us, talking about jobs and economic freedom, which we still don't have, despite your promises, followed by a gathering of the glitterati, 4 days later on the exact date of the first march. Why two, celebrations separate and definitely not equal in place of the inclusive demonstrations orchestrated back in the day? Leaders bent over backward in order to show a united front, at least for that day and they pulled it off magnificently.

The excuse that I was given was that today August 28^th is the exact date of the MLK march, so it was important to be historically and completely correct. To which I say bull. We live in a country that has changed the dates on every single holiday and national commemoration with the exception of the 4^th of July and Christmas, for the sole purpose of giving people 3 day holiday weekends. It wasn't always like that. When I was in school, we celebrated Lincoln on his birthday. The same with Washington and even Dr. King. Now there is President's day, two for the price of one, and never on February 12^th (Lincoln)or the 22^nd (Washington).

I suspect politics is the main reason behind the scripted segregation. Politics and egos and for those reasons, we the people are once again left twisting in the wind. Some of us have long been tired of the symbolism of equality rather than the real deal. We refuse to sing another verse of “we shall overcome.” The passions kindled 50 years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial are now nothing more than cinders and ash.

Having a Black man in the White House, Mr. President, has never been enough. It was a start, we thought, to fulfillment of Dr. King's dream as spelled out all those years ago. However I guess nobody was really listening were they.

As you prepare to stand in for Dr. King and to talk about peace, equality, freedom and justice for we the people, the media is reporting that you are contemplating “limited retaliatory intervention” in Syria because their president reportedly gassed his innocent citizens while they slept.

You have said that a gas attack is where America draws the line in the sand. The NeoCons immediately started sabre rattling, beating on their shields, strapping on their boots ready to go to jump into another unending and senseless conflagration.

Mr. President you were elected President because we the people wanted change. We wanted an end to unending warfare where anonymous death rains down on faceless innocents. Based on your words and promises, the world awarded you the Nobel Peace Prize,  in hindsight very premature to say the least. In an effort to get out of Afghanistan, we have a drone war of your making. Now your regime is talking “ Limited Retaliatory Intervention' which is just another name for Revenge, and for what. The gas didn't kill over here. It killed in the midst of a civil war and we don't have a dog in this fight. The American people are tired, Mr. President.

We chose you to break the cycle. Someone, and I fear it is you, must stand up to the NeoCons both within and outside your administration. If our allies want to go, then let them go, they are not strangers to imperialism having created the imperialistic prototype a long long time ago. That's exactly why our country exists today. We can't nor are we obligated to continue to make the same mistakes over and over and over.

Today, as you stand in the place of Dr. Martin Luther King, a man who died violently while counseling others in nonviolence, there is no rationalization that you can dream up, that will convince me that the right thing to do is to send cruise missiles into the heart of yet another Middle Eastern country. Dr. King was vocally against the war in Vietnam ( another fruitless exercise in limited retaliatory intervention), and he would have been equally vocal against supporting any administration, including yours, so ready and willing to strike out when we're not even sure as a country, who the enemy really is.

The enemy is us, Mr. President. We need to heal ourselves before we attempt to heal others. Striking Syria is wrong and no way to remember Dr. King on his day.

Respectfully yours,

An Open Letter to President Obama on the Matter of Assata Shakur

Dear Mr. President,

First of all, let me congratulate you on your massive re election win back in November. I voted for you and am proud to have done so. However, I am troubled by the recent act by your administration of placing Assata Shakur, the former Joanne Chesimard, on the most wanted domestic terrorist list. To be perfectly honest, one of my problems with you, Mr. President, is that I've never felt comfortable trusting you to handle the problems of Black America, and this move against Shakur illustrates my point.

Do you understand that this one act has the effect of retroactively criminalizing the very movement that made your ascent to the White House possible? Do you understand the historic stain that you have allowed your Justice Department to paint all over the Black community?

With one fell swoop you have labeled everyone, from Dr. Martin Luther King on down to me as a domestic terrorist, and proclaimed our demands for equality and freedom from Jim Crow back in the day as nothing more than acts of terrorism against the United States. We're not Terrorists, Mr. President. We are Americans. Americans who have routinely and systematically been excluded from the melting pot that America proclaims itself to be.

The announcement by the Police and Federal officials in New Jersey this week, called the continued hunt for Shakur an open wound dating back some 40 years. Well what about the open wounds inflicted by COINTELPRO on Black people, Mr. President. Shakur is a classic example of what this covert government agency inflicted on my people ( not sure if they're yours) during the 60's, 70's and 80's. There was no mention of governmental complicity during the news conference. Did you think that all of us who might remember had died off or maybe decided to stay quiet since we're older now?

We're older, Mr. President, but we haven't gone away, primarily because despite working our asses off to see you live in the White House, things haven't gotten any better for us in the past few years. Some of that is conservative bigoty, but much of it is you, Mr. President. We're still not living in full economic, non racist harmonic American equality. The American dream has yet to roll down my street. Not even with you in charge of the White House and your designate Eric Holder in control of the Just-us department. No I didn't misspell Justice, Mr. President. Real Black people know that it's always been Justice for them and Just-us for us.

I keep waiting for you to take a stand for Black people, Mr. President. I keep waiting for you to find some empathy for those who look like you look. You tell the world that you're minority. You make jokes about it. You get mad when someone says otherwise. And lord knows you take enough crap from even the minor masters of the universe for appearing to be Black.

Trouble is, Mr. President, you don't even feel Black to me. You've got the cool Black factor working. You do look good in your Ray Bans as you step out of your armored Escalade. But when it comes to deep down understanding, you are seriously lacking in knowledge, passion and feeling for what it is to be a Black man in America. Your election did not come close to making America post racial. How many times does some white guy have to question your intelligence before you get mad enough to realize that.

I just don't get how you and Eric Holder could miss the incredible symbolism attached to making Assata Shakur a domesticc terrorist. You may as well have gone to Angela Davis' house, kicked down her door, and slapped cuffs on her saying double jeopardy is no longer in force. Same difference.

Amid your fight for gays and lesbians and immigrants and Latinos, your administration just told all of Black America that we don't count, and that we never counted. Even if you really feel that way, I personally thought you were smarter than that. Hell, I've been waiting for five years for some sign that you were smarter than you appear. But then again, some of the dumbest people that I know personally are academic geniuses, sporting all the book learning in the world yet not a lick of common sense.

I personally thought that you were strong enough to resist the allure and overwhelming addiction of power that comes with the Oval Office. I was wrong, apparently. You're so into the power that you've chosen to make the power grab retroactive. Our civil liberties are being wiped out. Not by the man who created the law, but by the man, you, who succeeded him.

I keep waiting for you to shed tears for Black America, Mr. President, because it is disappearing before your eyes. I keep waiting for you to choke up over the very visible inequities still written into the social system that controls American lives.

But the act of making Assata Shakur a domestic terrorist most wanted means I'm going to be waiting a long time for real black understanding coming from the White House.

You already know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well it's a good thing you can't run for a third term, because I can't in all honesty support someone who continues to work against me and my community to its detriment. That is insanity and I'm promise you, I am not crazy. I know when to quit.

And I'm done....

Respectfully yours,