In support of this novel idea, the candidate should be committed to severing the financial connection between lobbyists and elected officials. Until this is accomplished, we cannot call our system of government democratic, or even republican. Until this is accomplished the only things that get done are the things lobbyists want done, like buying more bombs and missiles and cutting back on education and healthcare

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Note: In 2007 I sent this to the major dailies and NPR. Don't know if anybody ran it. I'm posting it here, now, because after more than a decade and a half, I think it should have been sent again around October this year.

To the Editor:

The number of candidates for President keeps growing, and news about how much money each has accumulated for the most expensive elected office in history leave us in shock and awe. Since nobody has asked, I would like to explain what I am looking for in a President. I might add that my qualifications may seem unrealistic and naive to some people. I stand by them anyway. I am sick of being told what is impossible. That's easy. Possibility is what takes some backbone.

First of all, the candidate must not say, "we should run this government like a business." Government exists to do necessary things that do not make profits, and benefit everybody. It should NEVER be "run like a business." Businesses are anti-democratic in the extreme, by their very definition. There is nothing wrong with business, but it must be kept very distinct from government. This is the entire point of the Bill of Rights. Have you read it lately? Which ones are still operating?

In support of this novel idea, the candidate should be committed to severing the financial connection between lobbyists and elected officials. Until this is accomplished, we cannot call our system of government democratic, or even republican. Until this is accomplished the only things that get done are the things lobbyists want done, like buying more bombs and missiles and cutting back on education and healthcare and environmental responsibility and gutting regulations on banks, polluting industries, strip mines, clearcutting logging operations (in public lands!), insurance companies, the drug industry; and the consolidation of our vital news media into one or two infotainment empires selling beer and SUV's. If we want to educate children to be more than ignorant sheep, we have to build "gaming" casinos to tax addicted slot machine zombies for the last of their money? No way! No way my kid's education relies on the misery of others!

The candidate should be straight about America's economic foreign policies. Current practice is to force poor countries to sell out all their resources at a loss to American corporations, and then lend them money to exploit these same resources, build hydroelectric dams and genetically-altered seed-grains, and train new heavily-armed police forces, stipulating that only American contractors may be paid to implement this "economic revitalization". The result is burgeoning slum-cities without social services or viable local economies, and enormous profits for American corporations. None of this has anything to do with spreading democracy or freedom in the world. It has everything to do with fomenting outrage, unrest and violence.

The candidate should state clearly a commitment to get our people out of the Middle East and let the locals sort themselves out as best they can. Nothing could possibly produce more violence and chaos than an American presence. We do not follow trouble, it follows us wherever we go, and then gets worse and worse. It is time to stop it. Just stop it.

The candidate should have a domestic program for addressing the myriad issues that have been abandoned or worse here in America, such as homelessness, sustainable jobs, a living wage and healthcare for every person living here, the staggering environmental damage still being perpetrated unabated in the name of short-term profits, the deteriorating education system, the interstate transport system, and that's just the beginning.

Perhaps our returning troops could lend a hand with some of that, as they recover from the extreme psychological damage most have been subjected to by over-extended tours for which they were under-equipped and under-trained.

Hint: contracting out the work of rebuilding the South Coast to Halliburton and their friends is not going to do it. This is what Federal programs are really for, administered centrally, and transparently, by all three Branches of government. America owes New Orleans and the South Coast real, comprehensive restitution for having abandoned her so completely before, during and after the Katrina disaster. "Mistakes were made" is too lame for America. Take another look: the Administration committed a major crime against humanity in the conduct of - well, everything it did about Katrina.

The candidate should talk straight to us about sacrifice. Our American lifestyle has been destructive, both to the Earth and to ourselves and our families. We need to look carefully at what we really need, and whether it MIGHT be causing the world to overheat or not, and dump the things that are contributing to impending catastrophe. Making that process profitable to private contractors is a hare-brained idea and should never be considered. We need a government that can do it without fatcats skimming the top, the bottom and the middle.

The candidate should understand, and articulate for the rest of us, that this great nation can feed, house, employ and care for the health of everybody living here (yes, even "illegal" people, who have all been forced into their lives of "crime" by bankrupt policies driven by corporate greed!), without most of us even noticing the expense. Certainly we could be doing this for a fraction of what the mythological "GWOT" has cost so far. Have we noticed that expense? Have we even been asked to notice it? No: we've been told to look the other way, go shopping, be afraid. Well, we're not afraid. We're just disgusted.

What it will really cost, what an honest and transparent government that works for us, the real people, will really cost, is this: it will cost those gigantic corporations the outrageous tax breaks and subsidies and monopolies we have allowed our government to give away to those war-profiteers and energy opportunists who have been exploiting poverty the world over, degrading our environment, and sending our jobs overseas, not to mention our troops. What it will really cost is the bloated "private" contractors who sell us everything necessary to destroy life on Earth, and then blackmail us into war after war in the name of economic "security." This is the cancer on our nation, and it must go. It will not go without a very brutal fight, as seems obvious, but if it does not go, there is real reason to fear for humanity itself.

What it will cost is standing up and being responsible for the people we elect, to make sure they follow through on their promises to us. The world is sorely in need of an America that helps people, instead of destroying their economies, their environments and their lives in pursuit of corporate profits. We need an America that cares about it's neighbors, not about their skin color their oil reserves or their nuclear weapons stockpiles, but how their kids are doing, now the old folks are getting along, and whether they'd like to set up some renewable agriculture and industry for their own use, for a change.

But poor America, walking the streets in a cheap party dress, addicted to war-profit crack, sunk in despair of ever seeing a friendly face again! The really naive thing about my list is the assumption that we can change things by operating our broken, bankrupt and thoroughly corrupted system, but I say we still can, if we really want to. It is not too late. What have we got to lose? What have we still got to lose?

Maybe I should take a hint from how little has changed. In a way I have. The focus of my work now is farther upstream. There are questions going not just unanswered but unasked, like: why is the Internet run for profit on our extracted personal data? And, since governing business is any government's raison d'être, why not run a government like a government, instead of trying to run it "like a business"? And, what exactly is the most powerful empire in history so afraid of (if it's really that powerful)?

Authors Website: https://attentionage.com

Authors Bio:

I'm an old Pogo fan. For some unknown reason I persist in outrage at Feudalism, as if human beings can do much better than this. Our old ways of life are obsolete and are killing us. Will the human race wake up in time? Stay tuned...