Obama: You Can Only Steal from the People For So Long ...

Like many people, I am so very disappointed in President Obama. He’s just not listening to the Peacemaker inside of him (shouting to come out!) -- but who is he listening to? Definitely not former President Eisenhower.

“I hate war,” said Dwight Eisenhower, “as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

He also said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”

-- Using that quote from Pres. Eisenhower is how Bob Herbert started his column called “A Tragic Mistake” in today’s New York Times. It’s a very good essay. I recommend it to you.

Then there is Michael Moore’s letter to Obama. I recommend that you read that one too, dear Reader.

Mr. President, I’m just so disappointed -- even while I also held the thought that you were a centrist politician, nowhere near a progressive, really. Disappointed that you don't have the courage of your convictions. Or ... maybe you're just too tired for another fight. It’s been said recently that you are looking very very tired.

Plus, I guess you’re worrying about your re-election. In that sense, you are like every other politician. I guess that’s why I’m so disappointed. Because, even though you are not progressive, I thought you were different than other politicians.

War. It steals from us, the people. It has been bringing us down for a long time. Have we paid off the Vietnam War yet?

How can we pay for yet another war? And I mean in every sense of the word “pay.”

To many of us, we believe that this country is going the way of the Roman Empire ... the British Empire. Maybe that’s as it should be. We’ve had more than our fair share for a long time.

And, you, my president (for I did vote for you) ... you are going the way of all those other presidents who don’t know what regular folks’ lives are like. We are terrified. We are terrified for our children and our grandchildren. WAR STEALS FROM THE PEOPLE. It was that radical person, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would have said that. You can only steal from the people for so long.

Plus, Mr. President, I think it was really weasly of you to give your address at West Point. Why didn’t you come to Oakland, California, where I live, and give it here? Weasly. Can’t take the heat, eh? Come and look into the faces of regular folks, and the homeless and unemployed, and tell them that we will be making more bombs and armaments -- that’s how we’ll be spending our limited amount of money. Not on our beloved children who deserve the best education -- they too -- all of them -- deserve an “elite” education. (See this great article about all children deserving an elite education.)

A tragic mistake for all of us. You can only steal from the people for so long. It's always us regular folks who suffer, though, from the tragic mistakes of our arrogant leaders.

Stumble It!