This is a private publication for Senator Barack Obama. If you aren’t really Barack Obama, please don’t be offended if I just ignore you and focus exclusively on the Senator. I’m not being rude, it’s just that I have a few things he might want to hear right about now, and I am not certain anyone else is going to tell him this stuff. Right about now, I’m guessing that he’s finding himself somehow just a bit too deeply embedded in the political machine for even his own liking. Right about now, he needs to hear other… options.
Image via Wikipedia
Kennedys
Man, I have really been hard on you these past few days. I’m sorry for that in a way, but you probably needed it. You expected the backlash, but you might not have realized what it was gonna feel like being looked at as part of the evil machine. You’ve done a pretty good job lately, these past few months. You overcame the Clinton machine way back when the DNC decided not to use Michigan and Florida. I figured you’d be fairly quiet for awhile, but with the Reverend and all, you couldn’t. Still, it was diversionary and you didn’t have to really take a stand on anything.
You’re like a Kennedy, you know? You have these good looks and charisma that people just want to believe in. Except maybe it’s a bit easier to understand what you’re saying. I was really young, but I remember that I couldn’t understand much of what John F said. Maybe that’s why I liked his brother Robert so much. Robert’s accent was tempered somehow, more down to earth. Like yours. You have a really good presence on the videos and television. That, and the casual way you present yourself to us, makes it easy for us to like you. You look like a good guy, and we want you to be a good guy.
But are you, really? I’m sure, after studying your history as an Illinois Senator until now, that once again, your thoughts have turned to that question by themselves. I don’t think you need any goading from the web, or your staff, or your phones or your emails. I think that in the quietest parts of your soul, this weekend you are wondering who you are, all by yourself. There have been a few times you have questioned yourself on that very question. Sometimes you don’t like the answers so much, but mostly because you know that you could have made a real change for the better, but didn’t fight enough for it. You console yourself with the word, compromise.
And some of those things were legitimate compromises. You were right to make those decisions. A few of them… well, we’ll hope that they weren’t that important, in the end.
The Real Issue
The bill before the Senate is a bad thing, and you know this. This so called ‘compromise’ is a literal sell-out of the 4th Amendment, bought with promises of cash for domestic programs, surreptitiously added to the Iraq War Spending bill. The Democrats have assigned a value to the 4th Amendment, sold our guaranteed rights for a few million dollars. You know this is just wrong. It’s not just the retroactive immunity. The real issue, and you know this, is the removal of adequate Judicial restraint and oversight. This telecom thing is a smokescreen, and in the larger scheme of things, totally irrelevant. What is at issue here is the removal of the Judicial from the 3 Branch system of government.
That is a really big deal, Barack, and you know it. That’s why you are still trying to figure out what you could do about it. But you feel backed into a corner. The entire Democratic ‘leadership’ is behind this bill. If you do anything to upset them, you might find yourself on the receiving end of a very hostile convention very soon. All those Superdelegates can do whatever the hell they want to, and there’s still enough of them to vote Hillary as the next candidate.
You ever watch Star Trek, Barack? You like Kirk or Picard better? I’m betting you’re a Picard kinda guy. He was always looking for options. He never believed he was backed into a corner. Somewhat as a result, he never was. There was always an option which turned out to be the right way to go. The option where Picard always won. If you’re looking for options, I’ve got an idea for you.
Organize
Organize the filibuster. I know it sounds crazy and on the surface, appears to be political suicide, but hear me out. Look at that title up there again. That means something. I know Wordout’s not on your reading list, so let me quote an article published here lately:
We are the American Republic. We are The People. If we choose you, no amount of money or might will stand in our way. All you have to do is: Be One Of Us.
After I published that I realized something: It’s still true. If we get behind you, that so-called Democratic leadership will have to get behind us. They really will have no choice. If they go against us, we will vote them out. The only thing is, there has to be enough of us. These days, enough means almost all of us. Is it possible? To get say, 80% of all voting Americans behind one man? I think it is.
I think it is because it’s possible to get that many against one man. Look at GW Bush’ approval ratings. Over 80% think he’s doing a lousy job. That means over 80% are against him. Right now, there’s a poll somewhere saying how many would vote for you versus McCain. It’s probably a good predictor of how the election would go. Wouldn’t it be nice to see your ratings consistently over 80%? You need to give people a real tangible reason, something they can point to. You need to do something.
If you organize this filibuster, you’ll be following through on statements you made in the past. Never undestimate what that means to us ‘normal’ Americans. We expect politicians to bend and sway in the political breeze, but when a promise is made, we do remember. Following through on this will show every voting person in America that you will not succumb to political pressures or ‘politics as usual’. I believe you’ve made a statement to the effect that politics as usual has to change. This would be your chance to push that point.
You Know The Rules – Make A Ruckus!
Nope, it won’t be a popular thing to do on the hill. As a matter of fact, my guess is that they’ll try to make sure you can’t do it at all. But you should do it anyway. You know the rules. Number 22, isn’t it? To avoid cloture, all you need is 41 Senators to either abstain from voting or voting against it. Now, these guys aren’t wanting to get on the bad side of the Democratic leadership any more than you are. You’ll have to convince them that it’s worth it. You’ll have some support going in, from Senators who already publicly oppose the bill. I know, there aren’t many, but they are there, and they will be hoping for this.
You’ll need to generate that grassroots support you’re always talking about. These guys are holding their breath, Barack. Your supporters are really counting on you. I know, because there’s more than a few in my family alone. They just know, in their hearts, that you are going to be the man we can trust to make America back into what it was. They are counting on you, and if you ask them to get behind you on this thing, they will not stop short of marching on Washington itself. They are that intense about you, Barack. I am not exaggerating.
Make a real public statement. Put it on your website, right on the front page. Call a news conference and release the statement to the mainstream media outlets. Make it a defining moment in this campaign. Make it a defining moment in the life of the Republic. Like I said at the end of one of my posts here: Be an American. Make a ruckus. The so called Democrat ‘leadership’ is counting on the fact that most Americans don’t understand the bill but are attracted to the money for the domestic programs. Those are the two hinges of their statements. They are counting on the American majority to not notice at all. Expose it.
Imagine All The People
That’s right, expose it. Get out there on Fox News and CNN and the AP and Reuters and everywhere on the web and explain exactly what this bill is trying to do. Explain it simply, without talking down to us, and we will understand. And we will see it as the last straw for the Bushie way of thinking and anyone else who thinks that way. We will get mad. We will get very, very mad. But not at you. You will be the man who told us the truth. You will be the man who stood up for us against the political machine. You will be exactly who you have said you are, and we will love you.
I mean that literally. We will love you for being true to us. We will demand you. Every commentator on the news services, every political blogger out here, all of us will support you. Every person you meet on the street. The congressional leadership will have no choice but to fall in step with you. It may seem to some that we have come so far down this road of tyranny that our votes no longer matter, and that may be. I don’t think we’ve gone quite that far, though. An overwhelming majority cannot yet be ignored.
Imagine it, you would be causing quite a ruckus on the floor of the Senate. Filibustering a bill when you could be out campaigning? That’s unheard of! And what the hell would you talk about there, if you were pressed into it? Well, gee, I guess you could just stand there with a laptop in front of you, reading a feed of all the political blogs who’ll be posting support for you. Or you could tap into the twitter feed your staff set up and read tweets from your supporters. I’d bet most of them would be in support of the filibuster, all in 140 characters or less. Until twitter went down, anyway.
That would be your style, what we’ve come to hope for and expect from you. You’ve used the web and its technology to penetrate deep into the heart of America. Use it now to bring the voice of America to the Senate floor. Use it to show the Senate, actually, the whole world, that we, the people, are behind you all the way. You think American Idol has an audience? Organize this filibuster in a really over-the-top, public way, and CSPAN will have the highest ratings in its history. Everyone in America will be watching, and we’ll all be behind you if you’ll just do it, Mr. President.
Anyway, I’m Jon, just trying to help.
King Saud With FDR in 1945Image via WikipediaAutostart Sunday 
