Day 350- Old photographs

Dear Mr. President,

Today I brought in one of my Senior portraits to show one of my coworkers who'd asked to see what I looked like with dreadlocks. A trip down memory lane always is good for a laugh, (especially when recalling my 18-year-old self's somewhat eccentric fashion sense.) This week, reflecting as I have been on the very different paths so many of my friends from those days have taken, I can't help but wonder if the girl with the purple dreads and the pink satin thrift-store dress over bell-bottom jeans would be happy with the way she's turned out. My wardrobe is certainly more subdued, my hair less exciting, but would she be ok knowing what I've become? What I've failed to become? I may not miss much about being 18, but she had a faith in herself and in her own ability to achieve that's been lost in the years since this picture was taken, and today I miss that faith tremendously.

I've been struggling lately to remind myself that lives and accomplishments can't (and shouldn't) be held up for comparison. The decisions that have led me to my current state may haunt me in the evident joy of those who chose the alternate path, but I cannot evaluate my life against those of my peers. Our circumstances and struggles and goals are very different. It is ultimately the ways I've disappointed my own hopes, and not the ways the my life and accomplishments fail to measure up to those of my friends, that really bother me.

Do you feel like you've lived up to the goals you set for your Presidency? While it may be just as unfair to compare your own achievements to those of previous Presidents, this context is used by media pundits and fellow politicians alike to lend context to your achievements and shortcomings. This may be even more unfair than judging my own life against other 24-year-olds, as
we've come of age in the same era while your predecessors had very different social, congressional and economic situations. I reject the comparisons to Presidents Clinton, Carter and Bush (I & II) but I do wonder about the ways you've disappointed your own hopes and expectations. Today's tax compromise cannot feel like you'd imagined running the country would feel when you were campaigning.

I'm probably just projecting my own soul-searching onto you, but I think that such an ugly political defeat would have to make you reflect on the things you said you'd do once you got to the White House. I wish I had something cheerful or comforting to say, but I can only hope that both of us find the strength to face our reflections tomorrow morning. Our accomplishments, past and to come, mean nothing without it. And, be it because of the judgement of old photographs or the way we suffer in comparison to others, I think that there is some good, some hope, so long as we maintain the honesty necessary to feel our disappointment in ourselves.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 343- Tax cuts, bandwagons and war drums

Dear Mr. President,

OK, I get it already. Lots of prominent leaders across the political spectrum have come out in support of your tax cut compromise with the Republicans. I mean lots. And releasing their endorsements one at a time in separate press releases was pretty funny. Gail Collins pointed out that liberal Democrats have been asking you to get mad for a while, and now we're complaining that you finally got mad- at us. And you have every right to be mad, I suppose, as none of us were mad enough to show up on election day and give you a congress that might have your back (though, to be entirely fair, you might have found better ways to spend the primary season than propping up every tired blue-dog with a pulse.) For all of my suggestions that you either refuse tax cuts for the rich or refuse tax cuts for all of us, I wasn't the one responsible for negotiating the compromise (and I won't be the one responsible for negotiating the next 2 years worth of legislation through congress.) You made a call and now you're standing by it.

Collins, in her opinion piece, laments those on the left still landing hard from their fall off of the Obama bandwagon, while smugly declaring her own fall is off of the "line in the sand bandwagon". I suppose I might also be accused of letting my loyalty to you as a person & my membership in the cult of personality surrounding you conflict with my true bleeding-heart liberalism. As many who supported you in 2008 walk away, disappointed, decrying the whole bandwagon mentality, I wish I could join them. Maybe it's a mark of an inferior mind to need a higher authority to place my faith in, but I haven't still haven't heard a better alternative. Should the anti-bandwagon crowd offer me another leader, or convince me that we don't need one, maybe that will change. For now, while I often think that you're wrong, but I'd never trust myself to do your job better.

In all of the outrage about tax rates and the inexplicable failing of the cloture motion to repeal DADT, I was getting more fed up with congress than with you. To add to all of this, the House has passed legislation preventing any Guantanamo Bay detainees from being brought to domestic prisons. Today has not done much for my rapidly dwindling faith in the American people and those we elect to represent us.

My own time has been selfishly consumed with a struggle to finish my final papers for class, study for my exams, and maintain something that resembles sanity closely enough to keep my boss from worrying about me. I can't fix the economy, I can't get basic equality for gay and lesbian Americans and I can't close down Guantanamo bay. I jumped on your bandwagon in the first place because you said that you could. And while my frustration might be more deserved by several members of congress and those who didn't find the time to vote in the midterm elections, unfortunately you're the one I picked for a pen pal. We can't possibly be losing the fight on this many fronts at once.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

PS

The only thing that's bolstered my spirits today is the news that Suheir Hammad, one of my favorite poets, will be speaking at a TED conference soon. They published the text of her poem "What I will" and I thought I'd send it along to you.


What I Will
by Suheir Hammad

I will not
dance to your war
drum. I will
not lend my soul nor
my bones to your war
drum. I will
not dance to your
beating. I know that beat.
It is lifeless. I know
intimately that skin
you are hitting. It
was alive once
hunted stolen
stretched. I will
not dance to your drummed
up war. I will not pop
spin beak for you. I
will not hate for you or
even hate you. I will
not kill for you. Especially
I will not die
for you. I will not mourn
the dead with murder nor
suicide. I will not side
with you nor dance to bombs
because everyone else is
dancing. Everyone can be
wrong. Life is a right not
collateral or casual. I
will not forget where
I come from. I
will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved
near and our chanting
will be dancing. Our
humming will be drumming. I
will not be played. I
will not lend my name
nor my rhythm to your
beat. I will dance
and resist and dance and
persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than
death. Your war drum ain’t
louder than this breath.

Day 340- A bad compromise

Dear Mr. President,

I'm sure you'll be getting no small amount of hell from the left over the tax-cuts-for-unemployment deal you made today with Republican leadership. I won't add to it. Not because I don't think this was a show of weakness, a terrible decision given the economic climate and a bad political move to boot, but because I wasn't in the room.

I actually wasn't in any number of rooms, as I'm sure this negotiation took place over many days on many levels in many, many rooms. I don't know what was said, what was offered and what was threatened. I can say I'd have done it differently, but I don't know, for sure, that my solution would have worked any better than yours.

I won't add to the criticism, I will say only this; I am disappointed. I feel let down, I feel ignored, I feel as though you caved in to demands you might have stood up to. I, and other liberals who voted for you, are owed an explanation. Who are we to hold accountable? What blue-dog democrats backed down? What possible justification do so-called fiscally responsible Republicans have for this massive increase to the deficit? Where were we beaten and where were we just too afraid to fight back?

It's been a long week for me, already, and it's only just Monday. Taking a break from finals week madness, I tried to follow some of the reactions to this deal. The usual name calling is all around, as is plenty of voter's remorse and more than one "I told you so" from fellow liberals. One comment came from a man whose unemployment insurance is going to be extended because of this deal, and all he had to offer was gratitude.

Maybe it's because I'm tired, maybe it's because I can accept the limits of my own knowledge, or maybe it was the gratitude of this man, but I just can't share in the fury on the left tonight. It was a bad deal, a bad day. All I can do is tell myself that tomorrow will be better.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 333- The Freeze

Dear Mr, President,

When I began my time at Borders the company had a policy to evaluate employees on a yearly basis and to give out a modest raise based on that evaluation. (While we were discouraged from discussing the amount of these raises, word has a way of getting around. The last year that they were in place, raises were about $.03-.11/hr.) While there were always grumblings about the meanness of size of these wage increases, they could not begin to rival the uproar that taking them away entirely created. Citing very real financial troubles, the company chose to cut costs by cutting any merit increases for employees. I'd been in management positions before and after this decision and I noticed a distinct increase in apathy that I couldn't find the heart to condemn. The face of our company was not the executives who still lived with 6-figure incomes and yearly bonuses, but the employees who were making near-minimum wage and seeing cost of living increase while pay stagnated and benefits were slashed. Clearly, Borders has not presented a particularly happy face to the public ever since.

When I read about your decision to freeze wages for Federal Employees I was deeply unsettled. This strategy was not particularly effective for Borders, and I don't imagine it will be the miracle that deficit-concerned Americans are looking for when applied to Federal employees. Why is it that Federal employees can be forced to pay the the price of our deficit, but taxing the rich at pre-Bush-administration levels is tantamount to class warfare?

Also, while it may be crass to consider something as tangible as peoples' livelihoods a negotiating point, but it seems like poor political strategy to order this freeze without getting some concession or promise in return, like the expiration of Bush tax-cuts or the extension of unemployment benefits.

At Borders, while the employees grew unhappy, the wage freeze did little to solve the company's financial problems. Layoffs came next, and still the company struggles. I may have little expertise in economic matters, but I witnessed firsthand the way that punishing the anonymous laborers for the mistakes of the wealthy executives destroyed a company that once led the industry in the way it treated its employees. I would hate to see the same thing happen to our country. Yes, economic times are tough and we will all suffer the consequences of this, but those who are weathering the storm with the least inconvenience- the rich- will not be the ones to restore our economic stability. Recovery will come from the poor and especially from the middle class. Further inhibiting their buying power is only going to make things worse.

I understand you have tough choices to make and this was certainly not a decision you made lightly. I will keep faith in your good intentions and in the wisdom of your decisions, and hope that you find the courage to make sure that the burden of this recession is borne equally by the wealthiest Americans.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 310- Another poker metaphor

I got a message this week I can't respond to. For all of my internal conflict over the decision to respond or not to, I know the right thing to do. But, in another life, with a different past, I know what I would say. And so, what I cannot say elsewhere I will say here.

Dear Mr. President,

On the day after election day, I started to hear a phrase tossed around to explain the disappointment with your Presidency and the Democrats' abysmal midterm performance. "Playing the cards they were dealt", the refrain insisted, indicating that a bad economy, high unemployment, or any number of political cards were the reason Democrats lost. As a poker player this metaphor rang falsely from the moment I heard it.

Because any card player worth their weight knows you don't play the cards you're dealt; you play the man across the table.

When Democrats lost this election it didn't feel, to me, like a problem with our cards versus theirs. Our positions, our issues, our records were better. We just got outplayed. Now, hearing, already, about compromises on the Bush tax cuts feel like the same tired tactics that have failed all legislative session long. Republicans are excellent poker players. They indicate a willingness to compromise, Democrats foolishly believe them and make concessions (and often lose the support of their base in the process,) and Republicans hold the line until they get what they want or no one gets anything at all. You'll push the definition of middle class to $500k a year or $1 million a year, and Republicans will ask for more. In the end, if you're very, very lucky, you'll get tax cuts renewed only on those making less than $5 million a year, but in all likelihood, they will be completely renewed.

Out-playing the Republicans now that they control the House means ignoring the cards we've been dealt. Ask for a bill renewing the tax cuts only for those making $250k or less or threaten to let them all expire. And veto anything in the middle. Raise or fold. Do not check. Do not call. Raise or fold. Forget about the polls, the media narrative, the conventional wisdom, and whatever other cards you think you've been dealt. Look at the man across the table. The question is not "is his hand stronger?" The question is always "can I convince him that his hand is weaker?"

Maybe gambling is not the most noble profession. And you might make the argument that governing is not a game, that people's lives and livelihoods are at stake. Ask any poker player going all-in with this week's grocery money- higher stakes require you to play well, not to play cautiously. The stakes are high. Forget the cards you were dealt and your moral objections to the way the game is played. Look at the (in this case, very orange) man across the table.

Mr. President, I think that your noble belief in bipartisanship is admirable. But I think it has to be on your terms. I also suspect you're a much better politician than you're willing to let on. You're facing two years of bleeding political capitol every round you lose until election day, or going all-in right now with these tax cuts.

The lesson here is that no one can control the cards they're dealt. Poker is, superficially, a game of luck. The reason that some people win the world series and others lose their lunch money is that good players learn to leverage what they can control; their own reactions, perceptions, confrontation. Good players know the cards change but the man across the table stays the same.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey