January 29. 2009
by Philip A Farruggio

Dear Mr. President Elect,

Happy New Year from one who honestly did not vote for you. Yet, I both respect and admire you for all you have accomplished in this life..... So far! Thus, the reasoning behind my new campaign of ' Letters to Obama ' . I have the hope that , with proper encouragement, you can become another Lincolnesque or FDR like leader. They too inherited office in extremely difficult times, with more problems than usual for an elected leader. They too had many varied ' interest groups ' at their door. Yet, all in all, factoring in the mistakes they made, they still accomplished so much to save our republic ..... Literally!

I consider myself, humbly, as one who sees problems and then offers solutions, not just angry dissent. Yes, I do dissent and stand up and speak out. For almost four years, I joined other patriotic neighbors of mine, and we stood on the street corners of our town. Our voices spoke out to end the occupation of Iraq and hold your predecessor and his crew accountable for the crimes they committed. We still feel the same way, with all due respect to you and your Democratic leadership. As my pal, lifetime union and civil rights activist Walt would exclaim: ' Nuff said! '

Mr. President Elect, you are facing the most terrible crisis our nation has had since the Great Depression. I realize that you are not a magician. You cannot simply wave a wand and make it all go away. Yet, I am going to focus, in this letter to you, on a few things you can and should do to begin the process of saving this republic from economic ruin.

A) The housing and finance market bubble bursts were not the main factors in this economic collapse we now experience. The main factor was the $ 700 Billion to One Trillion ( according to different estimates ) spent on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It depleted terribly needed funds from our treasury, transferring them to crony donors of the Bush crew AKA the Military Industrial Complex . This is the group that Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address of 1961. These funds went to the war making industries and no bid contractors for the con job of first destroying a nation and then rebuilding it. As you know, the $ 700 plus billion could have been spent here at home to keep our local and state governments viable. This would see funds for infrastructure, health care, first responders and on and on..... You get my drift.

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Point B) We have over 700 military installations in over 100 different countries, as I write this. Do your own accounting and see how much these bases cost our budget each year. Simply put, Mr. President Elect: On simply financial terms, we cannot afford them anymore. You won't have to debate anyone on the moral and political grounds that these bases should not be there anymore. After all, how many citizens of those over 100 countries have to tell us: ' We don't want your military in our backyard! '

Solution A and B ) Tell the Congress and the American public that we desperately must save money as a nation now. Thus, we need to get out of Iraq ( $ 80 to 100 billion a month in funding ) and start closing those bases worldwide and bringing our people and equipment home. Think of how much money we would save? Think of how that budgeting could be used to help save our cities, save our taxpayers, save the housing market? It is a ' Win Win ' solution. Oh yes, the only losers would be the companies that made tens of billions each on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and on keeping those bases operating worldwide.

For those who will criticize such a bold move, allow me to give the rebuttal. We have the largest and most technologically advanced Navy in the history of this planet. It would still be out there, patrolling the open seas. We have the most advanced high tech satellite system. We do not need bases all over the world for our defense. That was not the intention for those bases. Well, if so, then why not just end this madness and help to tone down the anger our military presence causes the rest of the world? We do have allies, do we not? They have armies and navies and air forces in their own countries. They do not need us there to protect them.

I close this first letter to you with a quote from the fine writer, playwright and activist Harold Pinter, for your consideration. He said this on December 7, 2005:

" I believe that, despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching and unswerving fierce intellectual determination as citizens to define the real truths about lives and our societies is a crucial obligation...... It is in fact mandatory! If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us: a dignity of man! "

Yours truly,

Philip A Farruggio

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Philip A Farruggio [send him email] is a free lance columnist, small businessman and activist. Since the 2000 elections, he has had over 90 columns posted on various websites and in many newspaper op-ed sections. To review some which have been shown, just google his name.

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