{"id":76312,"date":"2011-12-21T15:16:43","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T20:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/76312\/letter-barackobama-com\/"},"modified":"2011-12-21T15:16:43","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T20:16:43","slug":"letter-barackobama-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/76312\/letter-barackobama-com\/","title":{"rendered":"My Letter To BarackObama.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been getting constant emails with everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Obama’s bodyguard telling me that I need to send $3 to Obama’s campaign in a chance to have dinner with Obama. \u00a0Today I finally had enough and hit the “unsubscribe” button. \u00a0Not that I even remember subscribing in the first place. \u00a0I guess that’s what happens when you do tons of petitions. \u00a0Anyway, here’s what I had to say when they asked me why I was unsubscribing:<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

To begin with, like most Americans that I know, I’m broke.\u00a0 I have absolutely no money to donate to Obama’s campaign.\u00a0 Especially nothing that would compare to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he’s receiving from lobbyists this year.<\/font><\/p>\n

To send repeated emails to jobless and impoverished Americans asking them to donate to Obama’s campaign in exchange for a chance to have dinner with him is a slap in the face.\u00a0 Come on!\u00a0 I couldn’t even afford the decent clothes that would be required for me to attend a dinner like that, much less get myself to Washington.\u00a0 Even if I was being flown to Washington (all expenses paid) I couldn’t afford the gas or the parking fees to make it to an airport.<\/font><\/p>\n

I know life is much different in Washington, where money flows rather freely and politicians have golden medical plans.\u00a0 I know it’s probably very easy to become disconnected from the hardships that most normal Americans are going through right now.\u00a0 It would serve Obama’s campaign well to at least pretend to understand that dinner with Barack and Michelle is a total alien priority to families whose first and foremost concern is keeping the heat on and food in their children’s stomachs.<\/font><\/p>\n

If I did have any extra money laying around, I’d be saving that money for myself and my family.\u00a0 Considering president Obama has caved to Republican demands to slowly dismantle the social safety net and environmental safeguards over and over and over, we will need that money.\u00a0 Whether it will be spent on health issues due to fallout from the BP oilspill, the Keystone XL pipeline, lax water quality, or from the all-out assault on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.<\/font><\/p>\n

I can no longer\u00a0politically support\u00a0a president who meets behind closed doors\u00a0in order to appease the demands of\u00a0uncompromising Republicans.\u00a0 I can no longer ally myself politically with a politician who extended The Patriot Act and stands prepared to sign the NDAA into law (which allows for the indefinite detention of American citizens).\u00a0 Nor can I endorse a politician that actively attacks medical marijuana dispensaries after campaigning on the promise that these facilities and the terminally ill patients that depend upon them would be left alone by his administration.<\/font><\/p>\n

In closing, I’d like to offer a few ideas for your fundraising efforts that might put your efforts into a better light with your suffering voter base.\u00a0 Instead of running a $3 lottery for a chance to have dinner with the president, perhaps you could run a $3 lottery for a chance to have a voter’s electricity bill paid up to date.\u00a0 Or perhaps free groceries for a month.\u00a0 I’m sure both of these suggestions would be comparable in price to a few plates of food at one of those fancy dinners in Washington, so it’s not like you ‘d be losing any of that precious campaign money.<\/font><\/p>\n

Or even better yet, how about a lottery for a salaried job with a fully paid benefits package!\u00a0 I know a ton of people that would cough up way more than $3 for an opportunity like that.<\/font><\/p>\n

The point is, we’re suffering here.\u00a0 The American people are seriously suffering and your offer for a chance to eat cake with the King is a slap in the face of our hardships.\u00a0 Instead of raising money to buy commercial time, the Obama administration should have been keeping his campaign promises and defending us from Republican attacks on our personal liberties, health,\u00a0and financial wellbeing.<\/font><\/p>\n

Win votes with results.\u00a0 Win votes by keeping your promises.\u00a0 Win votes by actively going to bat for the little man.\u00a0 Win votes by not labeling us all as possible future terror suspects that deserve nothing better than indefinite detention.\u00a0 Do that, and I will vote for Obama, otherwise I’ll be voting for Rocky with the Justice Party.\u00a0 You’ve got until next November to make it happen.\u00a0 Good luck.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m too progressive for my shirt. So progressive, it hurts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1428],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}