This letter, as with the others which I have written this week and two of which I will add below, is ostensibly for the purpose of requesting employment with your campaign, as I do believe that it has the potential to fundamentally alter the dynamics of the Democratic Primary and the direction of the Democratic Party as well.
But as with my other "Open Letters" which I intended, and this is the fourth and final one I had hoped to write, my greater purpose for writing it is to point out things which I feel need to be addressed since it is unlikely to be effective in procuring employment with any of the candidates I have written to. These letters are more about pointing out things which I feel need to be said which are not being addressed sufficiently publicly.
With the first, the "Open Letter" to President Trump less than a week ago, I addressed my greatest concern was with his being under the threat of potential removal from office, others might use that situation to "mouse-trap" him into a potential war with Iran. However, events have shown that to be both prescient, and far off the mark at the same time.
My concerns that we were beginning to become trapped on unalterable course for an upcoming conflict with Iran this spring were suddenly shared by many others around the world, with the death by drone of General Quassim Suleimani at the airport in Baghdad.
But rather than President Trump being pushed in this direction by someone the likes of John Bolton, the President himself proudly took credit for this course of action which most believe is likely to start an all-out greater war in the Middle-East soon. And that that road which we are suddenly already traveling upon, has no easy off ramps ahead.
Why I considered this letter important enough to write has little to do with your campaign, or if you become President or not. It is the effect that someone of your standing, and considerable fortune, might have on determining how the Democratic Party faces not only the events of 2020, but what direction decisions made now will affect the viability of American Democracy in the future.
I mentioned in the letter to President Trump that a prolonged "perpetual" Impeachment process is having a damaging effect which is far worse that just another "Constitutional Crisis." It is far more potentially damaging than even that term justifies.
When President Trump won his victory over his primary opponents, he was able to eventually have a profound, and sometimes disturbing, effect over the whole of the Republican Party. Though hardly a Conservative, nor a Republican until he ran, he was able to make, after a relatively short period of time, the Republican Party "his" party and bent its views to match his own platform or stated views.
In an age when party platforms are usually only empty rhetoric meant simply to mobilize their "bases" and once in power, become quickly forgotten, this was both a good sign and a dangerous sign. It was a good sign in that for once, a party became defined in a large part by the stated policy goals it had publicized before the election.
It was disturbing to many because of what those goals were, which were highly unpalatable to some, and that they came about because one person alone was so greatly able to remake the party along his own lines or image of what he thought it should be.
Fascism came to mind to many. To some that was because of the party goals were themselves, but to others, because they saw in it what they perceived to be a cult-like following, Trumpism.
That the Executive Branch has been far outgrowing its Constitutional framework during the 21st Century has been known and recognized by many in both parties. They have alternately only expressed such concerns greatly when the Executive Branch was in the other party's control. But those dangers still persist no matter which party is currently in control of the White House.
Many of your fellow candidates in the Democratic Primary elections have their own paths to the White House, but none of them has the ability to put their stamp on the Democratic Party should they win as your candidacy does.
A few of them stand a chance of becoming the Democratic Nominee, in addition to your own chances, but once in office they would be beholden to the same interests that so doomed the Democratic Party, not only in the Presidential race in 2016, but also at the same time to the largest loss nationwide in even your lifetime.
While a rebound in the Democratic Party's fortunes in 2018 was inevitable, it fell short because to many they still did not see the need to change course. And with many of the candidates in 2020, they also do not recognize the need to change greatly.
I had mentioned in the letter below to Trump that to many, including the often-quoted Senator Warren, that a win by your self-funded campaign would be "buying" yourself the nomination, and that I considered that to be a valid criticism. But I contrasted that in opposition to that, given the nature of our very much compromised political system, many of the other candidates would be "bought" themselves.
Your lack of being beholden to campaign donors, especially the elite, gives you a chance to be independent in how you deal both with your campaign and your eventual Presidency should you wish to continue and should you prevail.
As with Trump being able to remake the Republican agenda to greatly mirror his own, you and possibly you alone among the other contenders to the Democratic Nomination for President, have that same ability to guide the Democratic Party to adhere to your aims and not to the aims of your funders, but solely to your voters.
That is scary I will admit, that two individuals could have so great an influence over the politics of the entire country. The system of governing the United States of America as it was set up in the late 1700's was never supposed to operate this way but it has evolved to make this a highly possible reality going into 2020 and beyond. It is disturbing but it has its upside as well.
As I mentioned in both previous "Open Letters" below, my interests and studies over many years at University has been of foreign policy. I have usually not worried about my own safety or ability to find work, but of dying due to stupid decisions by arrogant and hubris-filled politicians and their advisors triggering a war which could not be easily contained, this has repeatedly occurred to me to be a possible eventuality over much of my lifetime.
In the letter to Trump I stated that it is very likely that such a potential war with Iran is our current greatest threat which would lead to such a greater region-wide war. And to some, that path has seemingly not only been not considered best to be avoided, they prefer that we head in such a direction, and are pleased by the fact that it may be becoming inevitable. Though my letter may never be acknowledged or be read, I am glad that I felt it worth writing before such events began to take greater shape yesterday.
As much as I mentioned that such a war with Iran was the most likely threat to regional and world stability, in the "Open Letter" to the campaign of Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, I stated that an even greater crisis than our now impending war with Iran, was the conflict and civil war going on in the Ukraine which had more than a little causation on the Impeachment of President Trump, which may have influenced the desirability for his Cabinet to have consented to actions almost certain to provoke war with Iran now.
I stated in 2007 that I felt then President Bush was coming under pressure to begin a conflict with Iran when suddenly the House came under control of the Democrats that year, and he was facing his own prospects for impeachment. There are many similarities to what each President was facing in regards to possible impeachment each time the House came under control of the opposing party, with calls for impeachment immediate, both in 2007 and again in 2019. It never happened in 2007, but it did in 2019.
Events in the Ukraine may have been more precipitous to Trump's impeachment than even has been made public. That may sound like an odd statement, because the actual impeachment was stated to have occurred due to events in response to his actions regarding the Ukraine. But the background and history of the Ukraine since 2014 also were determining factors.
Prior to those events in the Ukraine in 2014, it was the Democratic Party which desired better relations with Russia, and the Republican Party which was mocked as being rabidly Anti-Russian. As recently as 2012, Republican Nominee Mitch Romney was lambasted as being out of touch with reality when he stated our greatest concern, and even enemy, was Putin and Russia. This was laughed off as living in a Cold War past, and Mitch had little grasp of modern day international relations.
Even in 2016, nearly every one of the "Mighty Midgets" who were mainstream Republican contenders for the Presidency repeated both the importance of expanding or maintaining the wars in the Middle East, and the demonization of Russia and Putin personally. The Democratic Nominee even famously was calling him the "New Hitler."
Having studied International Relations since 1987, and the new dynamics with Russia specifically under Putin's leadership in 2004-2005, I can think of no more disturbing turn in world politics and danger to the future than the breakdown of relations between the United States and Russia. The new Cold War, is not all that cold because of what is going on in the Ukraine and Syria, and is far more dangerous than the old "business-as-profitably-usual" prior Cold War.
Trump was able to pour cold water all over the Republican Party's desires to make Putin our "New Hitler" much to the chagrin of much of the old-guard of the party and the Neo-Conservative press. The Neo-cons simply switched back to the Democratic Party even more than they had done under the previous Obama Administration.
Because of Trump's pro-detente rhetoric, not born out by his actions, drove much of the prior leadership of the Republican Party to become Never-Trumpers and talked about working with the Democrats to impeach him, even before he was sworn into office.
Many of President Trump's policies I find greatly disturbing personally, in addition to his Iranian policies which are being born out in damning clarity in this first week of 2020. However, his wish for getting back to whatever may pass for a normal dialogue with Russia, was one of his more sane approaches to foreign policy.
He was able to personally make that desire, one which brought great derision from the Republican Party at the time, into a greater reality more-so than any other Republican candidate for the nomination ever could have achieved. And they certainly were not interested in running on such a platform to try to "make nice" and establish and renew dialog with Russia, even under Putin.
While Tulsi Gabbard has strongly spoken up on a need to try to get back to the negotiating table and lessen tensions with Russia, which could result in an even more catastrophic war than our potentially now-near conflict with Iran, she is unlikely to win the nomination.
And even if she were to somehow find a path to the nomination, she would be unlikely to turn the mass of the Democratic Party to unite behind this need for greater dialogue with Russia. If anything, the "Leadership" of the Democratic Party has been taking to calling her a "Putin Puppet" or "Russian Asset" or dupe as Hillary Clinton did openly in an interview.
Your positions on Russia have been more moderate, and have been little discussed. However they are promising. Your campaign has signaled a wish to get back to discussing Nuclear Arms Control in regards to the Ballistic Missile treaty about to lapse.
And you publicly previously came out against lethal arms being sent to Ukraine which you stated would only exacerbate and destabilize the situation. Your views were in-line with the recent Obama Administration and were normal within the Democratic Party of 2016. Unfortunately they are not as much so with the Democratic Party of 2017, or today.
I see hope not only that you could win the nomination as others could, but I see hope in what could come after that. What type of future the Democratic Party may have beyond 2020 may be beyond any one individual, but your election and even your candidacy may help to steer them back to recognizing that diplomacy is of primary importance, far more important than reactionary militarism, regardless of which party is sitting in the White House.
These discussions and need for bipartisan consensus behind meaningful negotiations with Russia and China, and ending wars that have no exit strategies, needs to be imposed as quickly as possible on the increasingly irrational and extremist views of the Democratic Party in regards to foreign policy. Being Anti-Trump on all issues may be a way to win an election but also it's a greater way to ruin our country and any chances for peace.
Those behind steering the Democratic Party currently do not mind this alarming direction. The new Cold War for many is the promise of steady and ever increasing profitability. But such runaway defense spending is what doomed the USSR and would likely have just as profound a negative effect on our own country as well.
These are the main points I wished to make, and I hope that they find their way to someone who might be able to understand their importance to the upcoming events in this most pivotable of years.
It is not so greatly the importance merely of this election, in the face of more and greater ongoing wars than the elections past. Its importance lies in that this may be our one last best chance to turn to another direction before events prescribe us to a most unpleasant course, and we lose control to those events completely.
World or region-wide wars are more likely now than ever before, yet our "news" organizations barely recognize what is almost upon us. By my studies, I have been aware that because we have not been taking enough precautions to avoid this situation, our road ahead is now an extremely dangerous one.
Our main adversaries have been my whole life, and most likely will remain, to be Russia and China, but those countries can be met with dialogue as well as preparing for the worst-case scenarios militarily.
But the current crisis that is upon us comes not just from those long understood rivals, but from our own inability to check our powers and use them wisely. The greatest dialogue America has to have is with its media, which is now putting aside their dislike of Trump to cheer this risk of a potentially catastrophic war.
A light must be shown on how we can best deal with a system that puts those most likely to steer us wrong into power, no matter the party or ideological labels attached to them.
Many have said, the 2020 election is no time for moderates, and in many ways, that may be true. But a sane foreign policy, should ever we get back to one, requires moderation because extremism and posturing make dialogue impossible and war inevitable.
I pray that this is not our only option for the future. I pray that this chapter has not fully been written. But that first draft has already been prepared and your candidacy may be the last chance to reject it and come up with a better one.
Thank you to anyone who may have read this. Please forward it to the person or persons who may be most able to gain from these few, hopefully reasonable, points which need to be understood if we are to back away from this abyss we unintentionally helped create.
Jared DuBois
Former U.S. Senate Intern
Former Student of International Relations and U.S. Political Science and U.S. Policy
Former Student of European Integration and Russia Studies including Media
Former Student of Transitional Economic and Political Development of the former USSR
Former Student of Border Conflicts in Post-Soviet States including "Frozen" conflicts
Former Graduate Student of Political Sociology
Former Employee of the County of Maui
Former Candidate for the Hawaii State Senate
Current US Citizen residing in the US
Open Letter to US Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii
As with my previous "Open Letter" to US President Donald Trump, I will begin this as a request for aiding in your endeavor. Also as with my previous letter, that is just my opening lesser reason for writing this letter. My greater purpose is to offer what little perspective I may have beforehand since it is unlikely that I would be hired, though I will cover why I might hope that, however unlikely, aiding your run would be something I would greatly wish to do.
At the end I offer up advice on how to approach the Iowa Caucuses.
I have never volunteered to help a campaign before this week despite being active in politics and the study of Political Science and elections at University since 1987. We are entering a different era in politics, a more divided era of less reasoned debate and more emotional responses, and a more critical time for our democracy.
I did spend a semester as an Intern for a U.S. Senator which for me was an introduction to the reality of how things really in work in politics, which was a good perspective to gain, because what is taught in University sometimes does not address the everyday reality of how politics works in practice compared to in theory.
As with my previous letter to President Trump, which I am including below, I will begin by stating that I cannot fully understand why you chose to make your run for the White House anymore than I can say I understand why he did.
But I do hope with your run, as with his, that it was caused and is continuing for the reasons you and your staff have put out for the country to see, that you understand the challenges which are confronting our country, and that you think you are in a position to better address these challenges and crisis events ongoing, and those potentially lying ahead, than our current leadership is now struggling to do.
Even though it is unlikely this letter will be read and considered, I would not have bothered to write it to you, or to your office staff, if I did not believe your stated goals were the most important to be addressed at this time.
You have taken bold, yet commonsense positions, which are unfortunately for the United States and the World, being shunned by the political establishment, most media pundits, and the greater media at large.
You have not only continued your candidacy despite these strong headwinds, but you have even said that you will forfeit running for re-election for your safe House seat representing my Congressional District to give your Presidential run your highest possible attention, while still representing your constituents.
I have studied every Presidential Election in University and out, since the 1988 election. Evidence has shown it to be difficult to run for two offices at the same time. Though since as I said, yours is a "safe" seat, I have no doubt that you could have done both, running to keep your US House seat at the same time as continuing your run for the Presidency, simultaneously better than most others could do, and have kept your current job as a fallback option.
And yet you have chosen willingly to give that up to better focus on your Democratic Primary run because you have stated that you believe that is it more important. I agree with that assessment regardless of how well you do in the primaries. Your being there and what you are saying is important, needs to be heard, and needs to be taken more seriously than the media currently cares to do.
Your struggle with getting your messages out, which often run contrary to what the Democratic Party as a whole wishes to say or have heard, has been an uphill climb for your campaign to say the least. But without great obstacles to be overcome, great leaders are not created. Unfortunately we are in a time which requires whoever leads the United States to be someone who can surmount unlikely and often unfair circumstances.
I have watched your campaign since its beginning. Not every stand you have taken has been a vote-getter and that is refreshing. Now with the challenges this country faces, we need leadership that does not always look to opinion polls or focus groups before determining what stands they will take on controversial issues which are further dividing our great country.
We need leaders who the public believes make their decisions based on them actually believing in the things which they are saying, and we need to know what those beliefs are before voting for them. We do not need leaders who have no beliefs of their own, who will change their tune whenever the political winds start to blow in from a different direction.
Obviously we need leadership that will also listen to the public they are supposed to represent, and to change their course when it is proven wrong, and not be so obstinate that they lack the ability to change when change is required, when their initial approaches prove to possibly be in error. We need leaders who aren't obsessed with saving face, but will own up to their mistakes quickly and check their egos at the door.
Your boldest stands, most of which I agree with, have not won you the admiration of the Democratic Party establishment. And your calling out of previous errors and mistakes of the Party, for their refusing to look deeply at what went wrong in the past, and truly move on and learn from them, as your experience has shown, they did not get the message. Unfortunately many candidates are repeating the same mistakes, the same themes, the same messages, and are showing the same tone-deafness that they showed in 2016.
Change needs to be more than just a political catch-phrase or slogan. Change is what we need now more than ever, and of the current crop of Presidential Candidates, I believe your candidacy represents best showcasing a new departure for the Democratic Party to put aside the obsession with winning and any cost, no matter the rightward drift. It needs to get back to its core values, representing the voiceless, the poor, the homeless, the middle class, and the people struggling to make ends meet.
The Democratic Party used to be more than just the other half of the War Party. It used to stand for diplomacy, was hesitant to support military action unless only when the case for its use was proven and the objective justified. Only your candidacy has done more than just provide hollow lip-service to "supporting our troops".
You have given voice to the silenced voice of the former less-warlike rank and file of the State Department, who used to see war, not as a choice, but only as the last case option due to its devastating consequences, which our arm-chair warrior pundits and many politicians see it instead as almost like a video game.
You know that that mistaken perception of war is wrong from your experiences in Iraq and that it is dangerous for those to be the prevailing opinions of political establishment you deal with in Washington.
While Senator Sanders and others have done a better job than major candidates in the past to mobilize the Democratic Party to finally at least verbally address our ever increasing in numbers lower-middle class citizens, falling from the long shrinking regular middle class, many have ceased to believe that the Democrats still remember them when year after year, those words were failed to be translated into meaningful programs to help them, as they continued to fall into worsening economic despair in ever increasing numbers.
That was the opening which President Trump was able to translate into votes. He used Senator Sanders' populist messages in his own campaign, and the voters responded to Trump as they did to Sanders. People who have studied or worked in politics obviously thought that Sanders was more genuine in expressing this concern because it was a center-piece of his character and of his political record from its beginning.
If the Democratic Party establishment had not been so obsessed with preventing Sanders from getting a fair shake with the voters in 2016, working against his campaign behind the scenes as has been exposed but seemingly to no avail, I believe we would be living under President Sanders first term as President.
Unfortunately the Democratic Party establishment not only did not let that happen, they have shown little acknowledgement that they "got the message" of what voters were trying to say, and thus Trump has a much greater chance for re-election than if they were seemingly showing true understanding of the mistakes they made in 2016. Too often it seems they are intent on repeating those mistakes again in 2020.
Because my studies were greatly internationally based, mostly on Russia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet countries as well as the EU, I tend to see foreign policy as more important. People need to eat, they deserve jobs, they deserve an economy which takes care of its people, and the people of America certainly deserve better than they have or ever will get from their political establishment and wag-the-dog media. They have long deserved an Economic Bill of Rights that F.D.R. wanted to make a reality.
But to thrive, they first need to survive. That is why I viewed dealing with the foreign threats this country faces as being even more important than economic issues. At a certain point, like now, too many homeless and too worsening a situation for the lower and middle class public becomes a security issue as well.
Obviously it is one that would have to be addressed not with violence, but with aid, the kind of aid we offer to other countries, but not often enough to our own citizens. We need a Marshall Plan for America, if only to stand strong enough to stand up to foreign challengers like Russia and China.
As someone who has studied our main adversaries, Russia and China, not only their governments but also their people and their languages, it is worrisome that the middle ground of debate in the US is rapidly shrinking to almost nothing, and that "middle ground" is the heart and soul of foreign policy, at least ideally. America's foreign service has been repeatedly damaged for decades by successive Democratic and Republican administrations eroding the necessity for our foreign policies, and our wars, to be both legal and just.
Russians as a people, and President Putin as person, have been demonized and vilified as nothing I have ever lived through since I wasn't born until the 1960's and missed the McCarthy era hysteria. A large reason for this enmity is due to the policies and actions of the Obama administration in the Ukraine. While the Democratic Party continues to ignore many of the mistakes of the Obama administration, there is little hope for the future if they turn to a hawkish candidate like they chose to run in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
When I returned to University in 2004, the Soviet Union was gone. In its place, 15 new states had already been born, each with their own extremely complex sense of identity, and each carrying the baggage and the horrific legacy of the Soviet Era in their own way. Russia has had to carry solely almost all of the blame for what was done during the time of the Soviet Union, though ALL of the new 15 states were both victims and contributors to that now deceased political entity.
Like many nations that existed for a long period in time, the Soviet Union produced good leaders and bad, and they came from all over the new 15 new countries existing now as independent nations for nearly 30 years. Josef Stalin himself came from what is now Georgia. Their histories are intertwined and in a sense, their senses of identity are intertwined.
And even worse in regards to the future, their borders were not clearly marked and were fluid because they were most often merely official demarcations and as invisible to most as the border between New York and Vermont. Now those new "Hard Borders" are matters of life and death and have plunged much of the region of the former USSR into chaos and bloodshed.
I have empathy for all those affected by the breakup and how 3 major societal upheavals converged to require drastic and unprecedented social change. Simultaneous political, economic, and social revolutions hit the entire region all at once. And as if that horrific perfect storm of changes and challenges to deal with were not bad enough, most of the regions economies collapsed nearly completely twice within a decade.
The worldwide financial collapse hit them again in 2008, as it hit the United States, but they had experience at having to regroup after suffering such setbacks repeatedly, and were able to recover more quickly than other countries because they were becoming adept at dealing with what such rapid-hitting financial challenges require, and becoming used to needing to have to change and adapt their economies quickly.
Though as I said, I have empathy for every one of those new 15 countries and the hardships they have had to face, I have had particular empathy for what the Ukraine has had to deal with over the last 100 years. Their suffering has been on a scale unimaginable to most of the West. It has often been a tale of going from one incomprehensible disaster and suffering, to another, but they have endured.
Though their country has great natural wealth, that wealth has rarely been used foremost for the benefit of its citizens. I can only really think of a few other countries which have been so routinely disenfranchising their own citizens. Democratic elections in such an environment were a minor miracle and instead of the United States aiding the Ukraine, as we like to portray, we have often pour gasoline on a fire which lead to vastly crippling meaningful democracy there.
In addition to looting by foreign powers over successive occupations, even in times of relative peace, like now (if one could call this "peace" when a new "Frozen Conflict" has been born this decade), they still had and have now rampant corruption and transfer of ownership and capital out of the country on massive scale. The Ukraine is periodically thrown into chaos, from outside forces and from inside forces, so that the country's wealth and resources can again be broken open, and again pockets filled, like breaking open a piñata at a cocktail party attended exclusively by the elite.
The breakup of the Soviet Union left many unresolved military conflicts like the Ukraine has suffered since 2014. The new "Hard" borders did not represent reality and people were suddenly left cut off from their own people and families on the other side, just like when the wall went up in Berlin. Many villages went from being within the majority within their own country to suddenly being a minority group in another country without even moving, without their consent, and without general concern for their opinions about it.
The Sudeten Germans left stranded in a new country without having actually moved anywhere, being told they now belonged to Poland, is but one historical example and that was cited often as one of main causes for the outbreak of World War II, when it was not resolved through negotiations. Borders matter. Borders can kill. Borders issues in a major way helped start World War II, and if not resolved, border issues like in the Ukraine may start World War III.
The Obama Administration greatly exacerbated a dangerous situation with their actions in 2014. As I said, I studied the Ukraine and was even going to write my master's thesis about their first "Colored Revolution" in 2004. It has never been a stable country, politically speaking, since independence, and an erroneous understanding of what "security" means lead the United States State Department, under Former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, to intentionally stick a crowbar into a crack and all hell broke loose.
I only mention this because the events within the Ukraine since 2014 created a more pronounced set of demarcation lines, lines of divisions, us vs. them, not only in the Ukraine but also in the United States.
Everything that lead to the Impeachment of Donald Trump began in, and are intertwined with, developments related to the recent history of events within the Ukraine of the last 6 years. And most of the things that eventually led to our own political instability of the last few months began as an off-shoot effect of a gravely mistaken policy, and bad decisions, made by the Obama Administration in 2014.
While some can call it wishy-washy, finding middle ground is the only way forward in diplomacy, Eventually the use of force has to wain or all remaining people will find themselves living in a police state for the rest of their lives. Finding middle ground is necessary for conflicts to EVER end.
Many in our increasingly Neo-Conservative rank and file State Department, spur finding middle ground, and fuel or prevent conflicts from ending. Unreasonable and unacceptable demands become the "starting point" to prevent negotiations and kill the chances to end the conflicts.
In any other era I have lived in, the crisis in the Ukraine would have been daily in the news, and not just when it affects our internal politics. There would have been task forces demanded by news organizations to be dispatched to the region to try to find a peaceful resolution.
Northern Ireland was more often in the news, but it did not pose as great a risk to regional and world security as the problems and conflicts in the Ukraine. This is one of the greatest issues of our time, and not because it has become inter-related to internal politics within the United States.
Now our presence is not welcomed in negotiations in various hot-spots because our leadership and diplomacy efforts no longer even try to see both sides. Resolutions are negotiated often in our absence even though the future actions of our country will make or break many of those future agreements. It is shameful we are no longer considered helpful for negotiations when we are considered a spoiler or obstacle to meaningful negotiation.
Peoples' sense of identity needs to be respected. People need to feel safe, secure, and respected within their own borders. We cannot afford to have a power keg in the Ukraine become in any way more like the Sudeten German issue, which was allowed to fester until it led to unthinkable devastation. Diplomacy is required, and creating a dialogue is essential for our shared future, not saber-rattling and ultimatums, which can lead to a longer and more deadly war.
Your desire to have greater dialogue with Russia is commendable. It is right when you say that its of the utmost importance, and it was right when Trump stressed its importance. But that can never happen given the current environment in Washington among the leadership of both political parties, and it cannot happen given the prevailing anti-Russian views put forth dominantly by the press, as if there is no other rational view to take. Russia is bad. Russia must be stopped. Whatever the cost. The end.
I don't have an overly positive view of the Russian Government, although as with the United States, the Russian people are not to blame for the policies of their leadership. But I also do not have an overly negative view.
Russia, as well as China, will always be adversaries whom we should be wary of, and we should be worried when they start to be seen by the rest of the world as more attractive examples of how to govern, especially given our current political meltdown. But whether they should be viewed as enemies, that is up to us as well as them.
The wars in the Middle-East, unnecessary wars, have greatly compromised our capacity to deal with Russia's technological breakthroughs, significantly being as far ahead of us now in some fields more than at any other time since the 1950's. Hyper-sonic missiles is one example but there are significant others.
And these wars which we could have avoided through meaning early negotiations have overshadowed our need to retool our economy to deal with China ascent, inevitably transitioning to primacy.
Those are not easy facts for the cheerleaders who call us the "Indispensable Nation," as our politicians and press ceaselessly tell us we are, because that is what they want and sometimes demand that we believe. But it has little basis in reality.
The reality is that they are rising while we are falling. They are winning the battle of change and adaptation, and we are loosing it. The books of Chalmers Johnson called out our hubris by name, and we did not listen. We preferred the facade and the image of greatness while our adversaries worked on building the foundations of it.
The War on Terror, and the Wars in the Middle-East accomplished no security goals. Before the wars began, we had leaders securely in power in Iraq, in Libya, and in Syria, ready to make deals with us. But instead our leadership almost unanimously said no, you must go.
And after they went and millions were left dead or as refuges. We did not gain security. Their countries were left in tatters and their previously thriving cultures greatly wrecked as well. They certainly were not left better off and neither were we.
It did not help our economy in the long run. It did not help our readiness to deal with our real adversaries. It was a reason not just to loot their countries, but to loot our own treasury by our whole corrupted influence-peddling business-as-normal political culture.
And while the money is still flowing into funding these conflicts, they have used this flow to build a proverbial fortress to make sure these cancerous policies can never be changed, and ensure that the wars must never be ended anytime soon.
And by God if they have not done that exceedingly well, making changes of course and policy nearly impossible. Three new Presidents won office promising a turn away from militarism and two left office after 8 years leaving behind a bigger war machine, more ongoing wars whose ends are not clear or in sight. And they left a far bigger mess behind, making all of this become even more entrenched, and unable to be challenged or changed by their successors.
Your stated views and platform promise a move away from it, and the public might have been more responsive to it, because I too believe that they really do still want that kind of change. That desire for a change in our foreign policy is one of the largest reasons many anti-war liberals and independents overcame their dislike of Trump and voted for him as the lesser of two evils, in their opinion.
The Forever War climate is not an easy sell anymore, which is why the most powerful groups profiting from this disadvantageous climate need for it never to be seriously challenged in any meaningful way. That is the true reason for the hostility to your campaign. War has to remain the only option on the menu.
I think you have a chance in Iowa. Because it is a caucus state, surprises can happen there. Your best chance is to send someone to talk with traditional anti-war groups and Veterans. They are the ones you have an advantage with that none of the others running share. I would not send someone who is a super-fan. Sending a cheerleader for your campaign would not be helpful in any way. That is because they are already aware of your campaign, and unless their support there is completely under the radar, it is not strong enough to help as much as you will need to do there to remain viable.
You need to send someone who is skeptical of your campaign. Someone who already understands all the reasons that they may have for why they have not done as much to support your campaign, thus far, as you will need them to do come election day. Someone who can articulate the reservations of these groups, anti-war activists and Veterans, back to them, because they share or had shared those reservations, and then still make the case for why you MUST do well in Iowa for the causes they fight for, which you fight for, to have a chance to grow because they NEED to grow.
You don't need them to support you forever. You don't need to convince them that you are the best person to be President. That is not how Iowans vote. You need to convince them that you are fighting for a cause which they believe in too.
And you need to convince them that, at this point in time as they prepare to vote, that your cause is of utmost importance, and your dedication to fight for it to the end despite the jeers from the mainstream press, is what makes you different from the other candidates.
That is the message Iowa needs to send to the rest of the country, and they can understand that better than most electorates. They take their lead position seriously and like to make a statement with it.
You cannot do that yourself. But you have a chance to translate whatever remains of the true "resistance", those groups of patriots who know as you do, as Don Henley said better than most have since,
"That the road to Empire is a bloody human waste."
They have to be your voice on election day. They are out there, somewhere in Iowa, and you need to find them, not to win, but to continue to fight the good fight you have chosen take upon yourself.
Good-luck and Godspeed.
Mahalo and aloha.
Similar "Open Letter" addressed to Trump.
Ostensibly, the purpose of this letter is wanting to be considered to be hired for a position. I wish to use that to discuss not so much why I am the best person to hire for any given job, but to discuss things which I feel are the most important things going on at this time which I have a somewhat unique perspective on given my background, education, and experience. And I wish to share that perspective at this time when I think that it is important to do so.
First of all, before covering what I believe are the most important topics, knowing that though this is addressed to the President, it is unlikely to be given to the President, due to having been a US Senate Intern myself dealing with writing responses which never reached the Senator (which were then passed along and edited by higher ups). Few requests actually reach anyone of importance, even at that lower level.
Despite that I know that it would be unlikely for this to make it through all the stages required to reach the President, I wish to offer some words of praise, not to try to win favor, but simply because it is the right thing to do, before mentioning the greater reasons for deciding to write this letter.
The reception which you have received from Press, the Democratic Party, and the bureaucracy since winning the election in 2016, and the challenges you have faced because of that reception have been without precedent. I try not to psychoanalyze people, and your decision to walk into such a position is something both puzzling on one hand and potentially very courageous on the other.
While I cannot begin to say I understand it, I very much hope that it is because you see the challenges our country faces, and believe you are in a position to do what you feel needs most to be done, that is if you are able to prevail against those who wish to prevent that from happening.
I have studied government (listed below) for many years and understand that in a Democracy, it is important for different opposing groups to have representation and that the best course of action is often a compromise, though not always, and decisions made are best vetted by a thorough earnest debate among available possible courses of action.
Obviously, like any ideal, this is rarely manifested in reality or day to day actions. My own candidacy for State Senate in Hawaii, was to bring attention to the lack of this ideal or reality of a working democracy in existence in Hawaii due to the imbalance in the makeup of State Legislature in both branches. With a roughly 95% majority by the Democratic Party in both Houses in every legislative session, there is no real meaningful debate when each committee can simply rubber-stamp anything on a party-line vote with only token debate. Everything is often pre-decided well before going through the motions of having votes when the passage is never in doubt. It is always worked out in advance of voting.
There is much to be said toward having a real enough opposition, which actually represents opposing policies or views, so that one party or group cannot automatically prevail on every issue or people will begin to lose faith that their government is coming to decisions through a rigorous consideration of alternatives. Otherwise it often leads to corruption and what you have termed "The Swamp".
Another thing which prevents this is the bureaucracy itself. Changing government policy even when all involved know it is failing badly is often put off or worse, barely attempted because of the inertia of going against the grain of accepted traditions of how issues should be addressed, often going back years or decades.
The need for career employees and supposed "experts" who are put in by different parties or interest groups, meant to be "above politics" is real, yet these people can be the most partisan and cannot be removed from their jobs easily due to the assumption that they always will do their jobs in an objective non-partisan way. Again an ideal of how government works which has little basis in reality on how it works day-to-day.
I am writing this out of fear. Fear is a very good motivator though it can cloud one's judgement. I am writing, as I often have for 15 years now, that a new war will begin to be waged in the Middle-East, particularly against Iran. I am writing as I did well before John McCain gave his "Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb bomb Iran" quote/clip. I have had mixed opinions about the late Senator from Arizona.
Having worked for a Democratic Senator from what Republican's like to have called back then "The People's Republic of Massachusetts," when in Washington D.C. after my internship ended, I applied to only a handful of Republican Senators because I did not think those applications would get as much consideration. Two I remember applying to were McCain and Senator Bob Dole.
When I heard McCain's often played video clip, I heard a different interpretation of what he was saying than has commonly been construed. It sounded like he was mocking the idea that has often been prevalent in Washington, almost constantly, for decades. It is always coming up because certain people seeming cannot wait or are eager for such a war to occur, like your former National Security Advisor, John Bolton.
The decision to hire Mr. Bolton I have to admit, I considered among your most questionable appointments. The only silver lining I saw in it was that was not to the Secretary of State position. That being said, I would have loved (and I am sure hundreds of millions of people around the world would have been willing to buy tickets for it) to have seen the moment you canned his ass.
But my fear of a War with Iran suddenly becoming a reality is not based on someone like John Bolton suggesting it, or even manipulating it into happening leaving you no other option. A mouse-trapping you into War leaving you with no other options.
My fear is that the Impeachment Process which is at this point, hoped to be constant ongoing event by some in the House, is creating an instability which not only can lead to an "accidental war" but even more serious problems than that.
The insanity of the partisanship which is driving these events not only is de-legitimizing Congress and the Presidency among different groups in the country, but it is creating a power vacuum that the many Bolton-followers in the State Department may attempt to take advantage of.
I am sure you have seen indications of this in the testimony of some of the witnesses during the Impeachment Hearings. To describe some of these people's views as merely "partisan" is far too kind.
The reaction of many politicians and many theoretically non-partisan bureaucrats is so-knee jerk reactionary that more worrying than them expressing such things to obtain an objective, your removal from office, is that these expressed extreme views are how these people think about the world and the United State's place in it.
I have written before many times about the politicalization of the State Department almost becoming a second War Department to vie with the Defense Department. In some ways in the last few decades the State Department has been more eager to push for War than diplomacy or the pursuit of peaceful alternatives to war, often less costly financially in terms of dollars and respect, and always less costly on a human and humanitarian basis.
The reason I have been so fearful of a War with Iran is that I do not believe, as many in the former pre-neocon based State Department also would agree, that it is a war which can or could be easily contained. It would automatically trigger region-wide chaos before anyone could react, and could also go nuclear and involve a dangerous number of well-armed countries with various weapons of mass destruction.
Specifically, my fear is that once there is even a modest "limited-strike" upon Iran, often discussed as a positive option in the "Mainstream Media," it would be followed by a real or false-flag attack on an Israeli nuclear facility or reactor. Such civilian fallout and casualties would then be used to push for a nuclear strike within Iran. This is not wild speculation. This is a contingency which is often mentioned and considered as a viable, and to some, appropriate response.
One thing I do not have in common with most people experience-wise is having watched the major events of September 11th, 2001 while they were happening. Most of the last 20 years I have lived in Hawaii, and normally preferred to work late at night when it is cool enough not to run an air-conditioner (making it easier to concentrate), I did not go to sleep until just before the first plane hit a tower. The world I went to sleep seeing had little to do with the world I woke up to later the same day.
Though I was glued to reports of what had happened as the entire world was still doing, I saw the events as a future historian would, after the fact. Whatever hysteria the rest of the world, and especially the people of the United States were going through while I slept, that view I was spared.
But I woke up to watching clips of 3 very tall buildings falling at free-fall speed, completely symmetrically into their own footprints and being told the reason was because two of them were hit by airplanes.
The third one was never really addressed, and could not be, because if even airplanes could achieve that, and many are convinced they could, certainly even a major raging fire could not have caused the other building to fall like that, exactly like a controlled demolition. No fire no matter how severe, has, can, could ever cause a building to collapse all at once into its own footprint like that. And there was certainly no major raging fire present.
My point for mentioning this is not to have myself labelled as a "9/11 Truther", but to show my different perspective on what I was seeing. What I saw of far more importance was the events which came later, specifically the Anthrax Letters.
Former intrepid blogger and pseudo-journalist Glenn Greenwald went on for years before the Snowden leaks and retirement from investigative journalism, about how the most major contributing factor to the reasoning behind the need for the Patriot Act curtailing civil rights, somewhat of a mini-martial law or worse depending on how it is interpreted and used, was the Anthrax Letters. And he was amazed or expressed amazement at how that most significant of events, had become just a minor footnote in history. His reporting done at this time was among the most comprehensive reporting he did while a journalist.
What struck me was not how similar the Anthrax Letters were to a C.o.G. plan or operation, but that its component features and the way it played out were the base components of nearly EVERY of Continuity of Government plan to deal with shutting down the government in case of a National Emergency. Though not acknowledged now they included calls for clandestine attacks on the press and legislature to create support for emergency measures to be widely accepted by the general public.
In a nice and misleading way, this is now admitted that C.o.G. was implemented (though not including the Anthrax Letters as part of that), but the inherent idea of such plans (some of them) was to create a panic great enough which would force the press, legislature, and public to support a state of emergency.
Along with Project Northwoods, which involved a false-flag attack on our own airlines to create support for a war with Cuba, the government considers and plans an extraordinary number of really horrible things. When something happens to trigger one of them, it is or can be called an accident.
But having these plans around waiting to be used, makes them not really that accidental. That is just a dodge for accountability to a make horrific things happen, and those responsible fearing no career problems for themselves once they do.
Not just Glenn Greenwald, but also a number of real mainstream reporters mentioned that the legislation rushed through Congress in the aftermath of these attacks, the Patriot Act, was far too large and comprehensive to have been written so quickly after the events. The legislation called The Patriot Act, was something that existed on a proverbial shelf waiting to go off when something sufficient triggered it, as C.o.G. plans are.
And it was the hysteria in the press and Congress fearing for their own lives that was the primary reason or driving event, for their going along with such extreme measures, not the original events of 9/11. That the main cause of the just renewed Patriot Act had become a "footnote in history" is certainly better than the attempts to pin it on someone who was not responsible. But it is not good that with so many things done, we have to trust that what caused that to mistake (hopefully considered to be a mistake) happen was made less likely (hopefully) by an internal investigation and review of procedures.
My fear about an upcoming War with Iran is not based primarily on the effects of that war on the Iranian people, though that is obviously worth consideration, nor just the effects on our own military people and readiness to fight a far more unavoidable war should one occur simultaneously or shortly there after, if such a war would come to an end in an expedient time-frame. Given Afghanistan is a far smaller less populated and less militarily equipped country, and the war there is still going on a generation later, our longest war by far, there is no guarantee than one could say when such an endeavor against Iran might end.
What my fear about a War with Iran IS based on besides that it could trigger a larger region-wide war, and no country, not even the US, has the power to prevent that possibility from occurring one the conflict begins, is what types of C.o.G. plans and Patriot Act III & IV's are waiting patiently in the wings (or not so patiently because the Dick Cheney and John Boltons of the world know about them and even contributed to their existence or shape) for the chance to be taken off the shelf and be put into implementation.
That is the problem with thinking the unthinkable too often and putting the most paranoid and war-loving people in charge of planning for such contingencies because they are often done in secret with limited internal debate and direction from those not particularly invested in their implementation.
At some point they move from being a last-case scenario, to being something less unthinkable as time goes on. And eventually, become a profitable endeavor when done right and knowing in advance what industries and companies will be favored once they do go into effect.
When the hysteria over the Anthrax Letters occurred, Congress was in no position to make rational decisions. In the current divided nature of Congress, between the House and Senate, and between the Executive and Legislative Branches, the odds are that given such a crisis situation, the hawks still within the State Department and other branches of government will have a clear path to create and/or possible exacerbate any event that can lead to such escalation, war, or lessening of already heavily restricted civil rights and due process.
I know it is farcical almost to be talking about "due process" given how the
Impeachment went down. Both sides, and possibly even especially the Democrats, have been blinded by partisanship and an "ends justify the means" mentality, that there is little hope that they will be getting back to "business as usual" any time soon.
I have referred to this before as a potential Constitutional Crisis was others have, but it is far worse than that. What is dysfunctional governing now, is on the verge of becoming incapable of governing at all if not remedied in an expedient and timely fashion.
Of this I am sure you are aware, but the inertia of this situation is beginning to settle. What was done before, by everyone involved on both sides, is clearly not helping to bring it to and end.
I am well aware that the impeachment was "rushed" through before the customary review of your Executive Privilege claims to be adjudicated before the Supreme Court, and that lack of review was compounded by being itself a new impeachable offense. I mention this because the fact that this review was not done before the vote for Impeachment, many will not see the Supreme Court's arbitration as valid, especially those most worked up and emotional over this crisis.
I am using my circumstances to offer my assistance in whatever way I can in a non-political way. I had studied International Relations as well as the US Government for many years because I was hopeful after Graduate School (the first time around) to work in the State Department or Legislature to promote peaceful resolutions between our then largest adversaries, the Soviet Union and China.
The irony is that such peace talks are not needed with Russia and China, nearly so much as within the United States government itself. Our current relations with China, and especially Russia (the former USSR's main entity) which I have studied most of all, are difficult and extremely challenging, but far from irresolvable. They are ready to, as you would say, "make deals." More than ready even. Eager to get on with resolving these disputes.
Putin, who was in office when I first went back to University in the former Soviet Union 16 years ago, is still in office now. Like Iran waited for years under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to commit the United States to even discuss agreement while they were they were most eager to come to the table and discuss any possible resolution, so too has Russia been waiting. It was the US that put conditions on the talks that made even a discussion, let alone a potential for an agreement, with Iran to never be possible.
You did not approve of the eventual deal struck between Iran, the US, and other other signatories to that agreement, but it took until Secretary Kerry took over for the US to find the willingness to remove the intentional Boltonesque roadblocks to talks.
You have earned much often neglected praise for your success to begin serious talks with North Korea. Now that Bolton is out, hopefully those who remain who would impede successful negotiations will be less able to sabotage talks with preconditions as the unreasonable as the ones Iran had to deal with for years under Obama/Clinton's fake moves at securing a good and lasting agreement.
Putin had a very apt description of his attempts to work with the US, partially due to the false "Russiagate" accusations intended to make it difficult to impossible for you to successfully deal with the pressing issues between our nations. The term was that the US was "non-agreement capable".
I first heard use of the term after his administration and the Obama administration worked out an agreement to co-ordinate action in Eastern Syria, which was immediately terminated a day after the agreement by an "accidental" strike on a position which had been known long before, that they were in control over, and continually maintained a presence.
While this hyper-partisanship continues, this incapacity to negotiate with Russia without you being insinuated as being a "Putin Puppet" or "traitor" and other insane ramblings of the press which no other President has had to endure, not only assures an new Cold War, but risks a Hot War. My opinion is that it is already a hybrid-war due to economic sanctions and other flare ups.
The reason I think you should be given far more respect than you have gotten from the Press and Democrats is on the issues which are most important, negotiations, especially with Russia which you have championed from the very beginning of your campaign and Presidency.
Just as Putin's opinion of or country as being not capable of making agreements and sticking to them goes back to the Obama administration, so too does the Democrats aversion to dealing with Russia in a manner conductive to lessening tensions and producing results.
While I have been disturbed by your occasional "tough talk" about Iran and the abandoning of that Nuclear Agreement, it seems obvious if not self-evident that throughout Putin's long tenure as Russia's leader, when the heat is turned down on Russia, the rhetoric grows almost proportionately against Iran and vice-versa. This happened repeatedly under the Bush and Obama administrations. It is almost like the United States or those highest in government do not believe it's possible to be on positive terms with both at the same time.
If we were to go to war with Russia, it would be unthinkable and possibly fatal for not only civilization, but also possibly the death of our species no matter what our Dr. Strangeloves have envisioned for themselves in bunkers. So on that, for now we need the highest priority for us to become "agreement capable" with Russia. But war with Iran can also just as easily reach the same ending.
Successful negotiations on resolving the crisis with Iran is just as important as dealing with Russia or China. Unfortunately, the progress you have made with North Korea in achieving a dialogue is not being replicated with Iran which is a greater potential flashpoint and extremely liable to go off suddenly, especially during this protracted standoff within Congress over Impeachment, which I admit you have little control over the matter at this point.
I have used this "request for employment" as a valid and real reason for pointing out these issues which I hope someone in your administration might see and share enough to have it forwarded up the line a bit to someone who can influence policy. The people who are talking about "perpetual impeachment" are doing vast harm to our government's credibility and ability to meet extreme crisis events quickly.
Because I know I would never be seriously considered, I at least was able to make these points here in writing because it would never be likely to be discussed in person. Hiring me, at least in any governmental capacity would go over and be akin to making Edward Snowden your Secretary of State or appointing Julian Assange Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
I am best remembered by what you, and Chalmers Johnson (excellent author, you should read his books) before you, termed the "deep state" as the one who tried to get political asylum in Sweden in the midst of the worst fighting of the Iraq War wanting to talk about the worst crimes the US ever did while also mentioning illegal things currently happening. And one could say I actually did that a bit.
I more or less backed off of doing that when the government admitted publicly to one of the points I made. Doing such was the only course of action I saw myself able to take to deal with what I was presented with, and hopefully that it would have been "passed on" up the line. Whether it worked or didn't, or how much or how many saw it, I have no idea. Obviously because of that I would never be trusted on National Security issues or get clearance for anything important. Though nothing ever came of it in terms of punishment against me, I am sure it did not go over well with some agencies.
However, as I am sure my current situation can attest, I have never been one to desire power, money, nor influence which would lead to gaining such things, and merely wished to be left alone to live and work in Hawaii. But since that is not likely to happen or be happening soon, that is why I am using that for the purpose of this, and two other letters offering my services.
This I felt was the most important letter to write because I do not wish primarily to work on a political campaign (the County of Maui can certify by means of prior testing that I do qualify to work as a Starter on a Golf course, the most unusual position I have tested for among the 20+ tests I took there and passed every one) but as an American and hopefully still considered a patriotic one, I would most eagerly like to help in whatever way possible to negotiate with our biggest dispute, and most dangerous one. That being of course the Congressional standoff currently ongoing. What little expertise I have is in regards to the European Union and the former Soviet Union states, including Russia, but I have studied US politics and policy as well.
Besides being one gifted in helping discover and bring attention to potential stumbling blocks to agreements, I like to think I can use that to attempt to talk sense enough to our own politicians and political class and help them check their considerable egos enough to treat our current impasse as seriously as they hopefully would rise to meet a world crisis. Because it is. And it is likely to trigger others.
As I said, I don't like to "psychoanalyze" people, but I am good when meeting people to begin to understand how they think and see things from their points of view. This has been helped when people realize I have no agenda of my own, nor any axe to grind, nor wish to promote myself or my interests in any way when being involved in such situations. No matter how bad they are or serious the circumstances might become, my only interest is seeing them resolved as quickly possible and in a way that has some staying power, some chance to take root long enough to be built upon later.
Upon your election I tweeted out that you met with my father once briefly for a business meeting, and that he would have been very pleased that you won. You won him over many years ago, but unfortunately he passed away in 2002. I only know of you as a person through him. He had nothing but praise and with all his interest and studying over decades of psychics and their predictions, he himself made a now irrefutable call when your name came up. "That man will be President one day, mark my words!"
I don't claim to be psychic, just a good read of people and sometimes a good judge of what potentially can happen. I knew when coming to Kauai what could possibly happen and how I could be boxed in and I let that happen, though I can easily show I did not completely create the circumstances I am in, as with the political asylum. They lead to predictable destinations and had potential other routes did not.
Like in Lithuania at the end of 2003 and Sweden at the end of 2005, I could either walk toward an unknown hoping to shake thing up a bit, or do nothing and let the situation around me deteriorate until I could, like most people, do nothing but resign myself to the idea that there is nothing I can do and just veg until the world comes to an end.
Unfortunately I, for whatever reason besides trying not to get involved in such matters, also have trained very hard for a very long time to be knowledgeable enough to put myself to use should eventual events ever require it, and if asked to do so.
On the chance that this may actually be read by its primary intended recipient, I have to agree on your assessment of Obama's Presidency, possibly for over different matters. For reasons that would not help me being perceived as trying to remain impartial between Democrats and Republicans, there are key moments where he dropped the facade and revealed his inner thinking if not his true character. You may know the type, who brag about their worst deeds in a way that they think no one will ever notice, because they think themselves so smart and others so dumb not enough to get it. It gives them a thrill.
The one I will mention came shortly after your election win in November 2016. On allegations possible Russian interference in the election, he said he would have mentioned it sooner but "didn't want to interfere" in the election. While that is still developing as far as how much such allegations were made for the purpose of swinging the election in favor of Clinton, and just how much he and his administration might have had been helping orchestrate or guide what became Russiagate in its infancy, it takes a certain type of person say he was only "holding back" because he didn't want to "interfere" with the election. History I believe or at least hope will judge the hypocrisy of that statement and others he made, for what they were.
I hope to write a similar letter as this and direct it to the campaign of Michael Bloomberg, not that I think that it would be read by him, but I see the potential for his candidacy to have a positive effect on the race on the Democratic side.
I don't know much about Bloomberg, or enough to know if he could or even would set the Democrats on a firmer, more sane footing. But he has more funds available and like you, he would not be so beholden to those who make donations.
The term is used derogatively, that he is trying to "buy" himself the nomination. And that is a reasonable concern for people to have. But the alternative is that anyone else, and some more than others, given the nature of our unlimited campaign spending system, will be "bought" themselves.
When asked by an instructor who formerly had a high position in the CIA and State Department what I thought of Putin, I had to think for a second because I wanted to give a good answer due to who was asking, and because it was an interesting question to try to get right. I said I thought he was ambitious, in that he wanted to be President and also be in charge of the country at the same time.
It may have sounded like a joke, though I was serious. Since I studied and was studying the effects of the transition to democracy in the former USSR, the hope that any of those states would have a leader who was not "bought" seemed like an impossible dream.
That is the true nature of why his support is so strong. People believe he can't be bought, and Putin likes to believe it himself. History may tell if it is written fairly, if that was so. But an "unbought" leadership is what Russia craves, and what I wish to God America not only would crave as much, but also expect it, and demand it.
Thank for your attention if you read this far.
Best wishes and sincere hopes you are able to realize those goals upon which we agree which I think are most important and the most neglected in the current US political environment.
