An Open Letter To President Emanuel

President Rahm Emanuel, 10 Seconds After Taking Oath Of Office, Jan. 20, 2009
Thumbing Nose At Everyone To His Left. American Youth Scowls In Dismay.

I wake up some mornings hating me too.
– President Rahm Emanuel

Dear President Emanuel,
Let me begin by saying I’m pleased you’re lucid some mornings. I hope you read this letter on one of those mornings. I hope it awakens you with the cold certainty of a window left open to the blizzard.

Like nearly everyone else, I placed hope in you; it was a cautious hope, a hope borne of knowing no other hope existed. We needed you to be almost perfect, so that you might rescue us from almost perfect ruin. Heck, I even turned my cautious hope into a song. Went a little like this… Soup_And_Songs

Well, I’m not very happy with the vocal, or the bass. Or the mix. Guit turned out okay. I’ll redo it later… but I digress. What I was talking about, see, is that just getting rid of the Bush crime family (for now?) doesn’t “make it better.” It just creates a space where we can do other things which will make it better. But if you’re against us, President Emanuel, we are all lost. You’re supposed to save us. You’re the only one with the powers of the Oval Office. If you didn’t want to use those powers for the hope of freedom in America and human survival in the Universe…why did you even want the job?

Say, did you know you have a doppelgänger? There’s a guy I know. He’s on the City Council in my town, and has a swell website. Looks a bit like you. Well… actually, he’s better looking. Doesn’t have that film of crazy leaking around his eyeballs from too much bile in the brain. I think it’s because principled people like my man Gordon there don’t lie awake, losing hour after hour of restorative sleep, thinking of ways to grind and humiliate those who’ve trusted them. When you have principles, President Emanuel, you get to dream.

Gawd, I wish Gordon had your job. Anyway… Oh, I know you’re asking “Why does that liberal retard keep calling me President Emanuel? Barack Obama is President!” Really? You mean he allows you to call your best allies bad names, slurring mentally challenged people into the bargain, and you apologize to them, but as far as liberals go, you let it stand… and he lets you?
Maybe Barack is the beard, and you are the real personality. When the Obama administration knocks back one appletini too many, isn’t yours the voice we hear?

Howard Zinn died only a few days ago, almost simultaneously with The Nation hitting the stands with the article in which Zinn was one of those asked to pass a brief judgment on your progress: Obama At One. A very shortened version:

I wasn’t terribly disappointed because I didn’t expect that much. (snip) On healthcare, for example, he starts out with a compromise, and when you start out with a compromise, you end with a compromise of a compromise…(snip) he’s not advancing the cause of constitutional rights very far. (snip) Obama is going to be a mediocre president–which means, in our time, a dangerous president–unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.

I can hear you now: “Hallelujah! That Commie retard is dead, dead, dead!” You may as well say “Hail Moloch, my conscience is dead, dead, dead!” Howard Zinn cared about the People, you know, those People on that piece of parchment that doesn’t say anything about corporations. The one your boss is supposed to be an expert on? The one your corporate overlords won’t let you follow? And what of those People who do try to push you in a better direction? You call them “f3ckng retarded” and the next thing we know, that ourobouric marionette Sarah Palin is calling for you to get fired!

See? See what you did? You made me sorta agree with Sarah Palin. What kind of mephitic bubo are you?

See, now that’s how you call people names.

Look, I don’t care about the name calling. It’s the attitude and actions behind it that matter. Here’s my test:

• Will people care about this in a thousand years (assuming there are any people left to care?) If yes, then it’s important.  If no, it’s not important and should not be treated as if it were.

The name-calling isn’t important. Nobody will care in a thousand years. I’m going after you because of the things people- the People- will care about, things you’ve neglected or even scorned and sabotaged. You’ve wasted a year of unparalleled opportunity at a fulcrum of history.

A year in which our future as a self-governing free people has been undermined by corporate moles eating the Constitution from within. I refer specifically to the five crooks on the Supreme Court, but not only to them. Have you even tried to undo the torture regime, the wiretap regime, the rendition regime, the no-habeas regime? You haven’t even fired the Bush appointees who railroaded an innocent Democrat, Governor Don Siegelman, to federal prison!

A year in which the United States lost even more ground to its real foreign foes: its false friends in places like Beijing and Riyadh who somehow have more influence in US governance than the People here do. Remember those People? Do you think it was the People’s idea to send their jobs to China?

A year in which you gave only lip service to doing anything about man-made global warming, which may turn the Amazon into a desert.

That last one, at least, People will care about in a thousand years. Look, I know you have a Machiavellian itch that just has to get scratched. But couldn’t you at least put it to good? Isn’t that what you led us to expect? I have a suggestion for you. It’s sneaky and mean and you’d be a hero to the People if you pulled it off. You could do it in a matter of days. Here’s what you do:

1. Accept that the Republicans don’t want you to achieve anything. Gird yourself to pull some of the crap they pulled when they rammed  the Medicare Part D scam down our throats. You won’t even have to be that crooked. But you do have to be mean. Behind closed doors, promise to destroy any Dem who won’t help. Even Reid and Pelosi.
2. Send the health care bill to reconciliation. Screw the GOP. Everything they say and do is in bad faith.
3. While the bill is being diddled behind closed doors, insert the following language where nobody will notice and ram the whole thing through for President Obama to sign the very next day:
   

   Funding Stabilization And Eligibility Clarification Clause

   As it is necessary to secure funding in a way that creates no unfunded federal mandate, this bill requires that eligibility for services will be clarified as follows: all United States citizens shall be eligible for Medicare benefits, to cover 100% of such medical and dental services, appliances and prescriptions as their doctors advise. All non-citizens in the United States or its possessions will receive such emergency and immunization services free of charge as doctors deem necessary to guard against epidemics or other public health problems. Non-citizens may however receive other medical services and be billed for such at the rate US citizens would pay in Great Britain. Medicare will negotiate best drug prices consistent with safety. All procedures, care, drugs and appliances judged medically appropriate by the patient’s doctor will be covered. Funding Stabilization will be achieved by taxing all personal income, corporate income, and capital gains income in excess of three million dollars ($3,000,000.00) per year at the highest marginal United States income tax rate for 1960, the last year of the Presidency of Dwight David Eisenhower, Republican.
   All provisions of this Clause take effect upon signing by the President, and this Clause supercedes and renders void all other parts of this Bill.

4. As soon as that signature is dry, wave that sucker around on teevee and tell everyone in America how you got them their healthcare for free. See the spirit of the Inauguration reappear overnight. Go crowdsurfing.

There you go. That’s a damned good idea, right there. Not a world-saver, but a good warm-up. And you know how I know it’s a good idea?

You’ll ignore it.

Sincerely, Tom Buckner, Citizen