Nobody was happier than I when you were elected president. I wept tears of joy in the moment when you had secured the election, and once again watching your inauguration. I couldn’t help but think of all the tragic history in the United States that was brightened by the glorious light of your election.
And I thought about how the federal government – the same government that now you head – did a great deal to make your election possible. Your predecessor Abraham Lincoln fought a war to make possible the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves stolen from the Africa of which you are a proud son. Your predecessors John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson strove hard to break down the horrible walls of racial segregation. I took part in the Civil Rights movement, and it was the preaching of Dr. Martin Luther King that spurred me to enter the ordained pastoral ministry.
Remember, Mr. President, that it was the federal government that intervened in a “municipal decision” in Alabama, forcing local authorities to admit Black students to their schools. If it hadn’t been for that action, your excellent education, including a degree from Harvard University, might never have been possible.
So why, Mr. President, do you say as regards the horrible brutality of local police forces toward peaceful citizens engaged in the Occupy movement in New York City, Oakland, Atlanta, on the campus of the University of California at Davis, among other places, that “every municipality has to make its own decision about how to handle” these situations?
Why are you passively avoiding taking responsibility for the fact that your Department of Homeland Security, your Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others of your federal agencies coordinated these vicious crackdowns on your nonviolent citizens?
No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” if their decision is to ignore the United States Constitution, which you, sir, are sworn to uphold and protect!
No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when police forget their pledge to serve and protect the people, and attack your citizens.
No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when police officers wearing more protective equipment than your soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq attack your defenseless citizens with truncheon, tear gas, and sound cannon.
No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when an honorable retired captain of the Philadelphia Police Department, in uniform, is arrested and handcuffed.
No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when elderly women in their 80s, your citizens, sir, are tear-gassed.
No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when honorable veterans of your armed forces, the armed forces of which you are commander-in-chief, volunteer to serve and protect your citizens from those police officers who have forgotten their pledge.
No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when those honorable veterans of your Marines and Army - veterans of the wars you sent them to fight in - are so brutally attacked by thugs in uniform that they must be taken to the emergency room in danger of losing their lives!
When the municipalities fail in their responsibility to protect the rights of your citizens, it is your job to do so, sir!
You, sir, by failing to do the right thing, are guilty by omission or commission of allowing – indeed, approving and supporting – these outrages!
There are statesmen and stateswomen, who do the right thing, no matter what the cost to their political careers. And there are politicians, who dance away from the issues, who mouth platitudes like “it is up to the municipalities to make their own decisions”, in order to protect their political backsides.
Remember the Emancipation Proclamation. Remember the Atlanta Schools intervention. Some of your predecessors in office had the spine to do the right thing. Some of your predecessors in office were statesmen.
And bear in mind that your loyal citizens are calling on you – not the municipalities, but you and your government – to heed their voices!
They are begging you, sir, to establish a single-payer universal health care citizens for all of your citizens!
They are begging you, sir, to do a complete overhaul of the election system to get rid of the electoral college, to put a serious cap on lobbyists and PACs and gerrymandering!
They are begging you, sir, to end these endless oil wars, in which the children of our poor families are sent to kill the children of poor families in Iraq and Afghanistan - and, so it seems, soon Iran.
They are begging you, sir, to negotiate a serious peace deal between Israel and Palestine, and to tell the Chinese to get their genocidal hands off Tibet!
They are begging you, sir, to restructure the tax code so the ultra-wealthy 1% pays its appropriate share of taxes!
They are begging you, sir, to declare that corporations are not people and money is not speech!
I speak with some emotion, because I am one of your citizens, moreover one of those who joyfully voted for you – and yet I cannot afford to live any longer in the United States. I was working six jobs and still could not keep up with my financial obligations. My health was being ruined. I had to make the choice to live in a Third World country, where I can still afford – barely – to eat and put a roof over my head. My small, unassuming house in the United States I have had to abandon. My family, including my precious children and my very elderly parents, I will probably never see again.
And my story is nowhere near as tragic as some I have heard as a (now retired) pastor.
Mr. President, do you remember saying this, on 28 January of this year?
"I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere."
This is your word, Mr. President. But apparently the United States will stand up for these universal rights everywhere except in the United States.
You, sir, are failing your people, the people who put their trust in you by electing you, in two ways – you are ignoring their desperate pleas to correct the horrible wrongs in your federal government, and their desperate pleas to stop these police forces from using brutal force to deny the rights of assembly and free speech enshrined in the very Constitution that you are sworn to uphold and protect.
Do so, Mr. President. Do so quickly, because I fear there will soon be a bloodbath from coast to coast as these thugs in uniform beat down on a peaceful movement striving to get your attention - or, I fear, a revolution aimed at bringing about these changes by less peaceful means. I shudder at both of these horrifying possibilities, but they grow more possible every day, sir.
It can be done peacefully and lawfully – or not. It is your choice.
For the love of God, Mr. President, be a statesman, not a politician.
Respectfully submitted,
The Rev. JAMES DAVID AUDLIN
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