Author Topic: Dear Mr. President  (Read 3396 times)

Offline YaadPyar

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Dear Mr. President
« on: July 11, 2006, 10:12:56 am »
"Dear Mr. President"
(PINK, featuring the Indigo Girls)

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me

Would You?
"Vice, Virtue. It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully." (Harold & Maude - 1971)

Offline JT

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2006, 10:43:40 am »
Great lyrics.  I think many of us would like to ask him that.

Offline YaadPyar

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2006, 07:09:24 pm »
Great lyrics.  I think many of us would like to ask him that.


I thought the exact same thing!  "I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly."

There's a reason people don't trust politics, governments, politicians...they are so disconnected from humanity...
"Vice, Virtue. It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully." (Harold & Maude - 1971)

Offline David In Indy

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2006, 07:29:30 pm »
"Dear Mr. President"
(PINK, featuring the Indigo Girls)

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me

Would You?

No. He'd never take a walk with us.

I think nearly all of us have some things we'd like to say to President Bush..... >:(

But... he would never take a walk with us. He doesn't care. :(

He only cares about himself. >:(

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Offline fernly

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2006, 08:12:15 pm »
No. He'd never take a walk with us.

I think nearly all of us have some things we'd like to say to President Bush..... >:(

But... he would never take a walk with us. He doesn't care. :(

He only cares about himself. >:(


Like you all said....
(The following is an old article, but it's not as if Mr. Bush has evolved any since then..)


"Who cares what you think?"

By Bill Hangley Jr.

March 19, 2004  |  It has been almost three years since I spoke with the president of the United States, and I still get mail about it.

It was July 4, 2001, and we were both at one of those things that the late historian Daniel Boorstin would have labeled a "pseudo event": a church picnic in Philadelphia, designed to help promote George W. Bush's faith-based policies. Because I had serious misgivings about the president's performance to that point, my own involvement in the whole operation had left me feeling a bit like a pseudo person, so when I had the chance to shake Bush's hand, I said, "Mr. President, I hope you only serve one term. I'm very disappointed in your work so far."


His smiling response was swift: "Who cares what you think?"

In retrospect, it's an excellent question. I made a list, and it's pretty short: My family cares what I think. My friends care. My various employers have cared at various times, as have a generous handful of teachers and mentors. But that's about it. In the big picture, I'm nobody from nowhere, and the marketplace for my ideas is pretty slim.


 A president, of course, is in the opposite position. Everybody cares what he thinks. Huge numbers of people devote themselves to shaping his thoughts and putting them into action. Most of my thoughts evaporate in conversation. His change lives around the globe. So I can understand the pleasure that flashed in his eye when he spoke to me. Mine was an easy lob; his was a smashing return.

But it was an unexpected return, to say the least, and as soon as our handshake was done, I stepped away and pulled out my notebook to write it down. This he noticed, and I heard him call out. I turned to see him 10 or 12 feet farther down the handshake line, craning his neck above the crowd -- he's shorter than I had expected -- and looking right at me, asking, "Who do you write for?"

Maybe he thought I was a renegade journalist; the press corps was expressly forbidden to interview people or mingle with the crowd. Or maybe he just wanted to know who was responsible for me, since nobody could get into the picnic unless they were with one of the organizing groups. But I wasn't trying to speak for anybody, and I certainly wasn't trying to goad a story out of him, so I stammered that I wasn't with anybody. As people started to notice, he grinned again and drawled, "Make sure you get it right."

The entire exchange probably took less than a minute. I slipped back into the crowd and he moved on, shaking hands and clapping backs, a powerful man at ease on a beautiful summer day.

And that would have been that, if it wasn't for the Internet. The next day, I sent a casual e-mail to about 20 friends, telling the tale and suggesting that "Who Cares What You Think" would look great on T-shirts. Within days, the story had been forwarded all over the world. Hundreds of people wrote back to thank me, or call me names, or find out if the story was true. It leaked into the press in various guises, but at my (now former) employer's request I never went on the record with it, and I never made T-shirts. Reporters asked the White House about it, but the best they got was what spokesman Scott McClellan told the New York Daily News: "I don't think I'm going to dignify something so ridiculous with a response."

But three years later, the e-mails are still coming in, and what they've always told me is that neither Bush's supporters nor his detractors find the story ridiculous at all. Bush-lovers hear an unflinching, confident leader putting a rude whiner in his place. Bush-haters hear a blinkered aristocrat callously dismissing an aggrieved constituent. Both sides, though, have always tended to agree that this sounds like the real Bush. Three subsequent years of uncompromising politics can only have hardened their convictions.

And now, as November approaches, I have to thank the president for pointing me toward exactly the right question. The voters won't go to the polls thinking only of war or taxes or moral clarity. They'll be asking themselves, "Does Bush care what I think?"



on the mountain flying in the euphoric, bitter air

Offline YaadPyar

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2006, 08:40:48 pm »
Nice story Fernly.  I believe it to be 100% true.  It's a shame that power and virtue are so incompatible in our world these days.
"Vice, Virtue. It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully." (Harold & Maude - 1971)

Offline David

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2006, 08:54:57 pm »
It is a real shame that you must be ultra rich to be President.   None of these guys has any concept of what it means to work and struggle for a living.    The last President who cared about the working man was Jimmy Carter.   But because he was a inexperienced and a nice guy, Washington ate him up and spit him out.

Social Security?  Medicare?   They should be ashamed of themselves for turning their backs on our Senior citizens.   But what do they care?   All of them get great retirement benefits and massive pensions.  Not that they need any of them.   They are all rich from their fat salaries,  investments in companies that they did business with when in office, plus fat donations from "Paid Lobbyist".

Big business is encouraged to outsource our jobs to China and Mexico.    60% of all working class has no medical insurance.   Most big companies only hire part time to avoid giving out insurance or pensions.   And those who have good jobs with insurance and a pension, get laid off before they can ever reach that point.

Yup, thanks to guys like George W, the American Dream is just that.   A dream.   :'(

Offline Amber

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2006, 01:24:27 am »
Amazing lyrics and amazing article.  It's everything that's wrong with politics and leadership today.  There really needs to be a grassroots movement of your everyday "normal" non-rich citizens running for office.  It doesn't matter which party you stand with, or whether you stand with one at all - it's always hard to see a "leader" in someone who has never experienced even one second of your life - working for money, climbing career ladders, struggling to raise your children, dealing with pollution in your town, figting for civil rights - whatever it is you are doing.  Hardly any of today's politicians have experienced this and it makes it hard for us to look up to them and it makes it hard for them to have any credence.  Maybe one day it will change ... maybe.
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Offline David In Indy

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2006, 01:40:34 am »
It is a real shame that you must be ultra rich to be President.   None of these guys has any concept of what it means to work and struggle for a living.    The last President who cared about the working man was Jimmy Carter.   But because he was a inexperienced and a nice guy, Washington ate him up and spit him out.

Social Security?  Medicare?   They should be ashamed of themselves for turning their backs on our Senior citizens.   But what do they care?   All of them get great retirement benefits and massive pensions.  Not that they need any of them.   They are all rich from their fat salaries,  investments in companies that they did business with when in office, plus fat donations from "Paid Lobbyist".

Big business is encouraged to outsource our jobs to China and Mexico.    60% of all working class has no medical insurance.   Most big companies only hire part time to avoid giving out insurance or pensions.   And those who have good jobs with insurance and a pension, get laid off before they can ever reach that point.

Yup, thanks to guys like George W, the American Dream is just that.   A dream.   :'(

You're right David. It is JUST A DREAM.

A pipe dream.

And President Bush couldn't care less.

I read that message fernly posted just above yours. It doesn't surprise me at all. Not at all.  >:(

Does President Bush care that my Medical Insurance costs me nearly 20% of my paycheck  (and this is BEFORE taxes)?  Probably not.

Does he care that dozens of innocent Iraqis are being slaughtered every day because of this illegal war? Of course not.

Does he care that over 2,500 of our American men and women and hundreds of coalition men and women have been killed because of his war? I doubt it.

Does he care that Americans are now hated in every country of the world (including here in the U.S.) and this hate continues to grow every day? Of course he doesn't.

Does he care that he is denying rights and privileges to to millions of Americans simply because of HIS religious beliefs? He doesn't care.

Does he care that millions of Americans are living on the streets (and millions of others are one paycheck from it) while he continues his facist and greedy grip on his country and the rest of the world? Nope!

Does he care that he is refusing rights to several of my close friends who have been together for 20 years or more simply because he feels it is neccessary to "protect the sactity of marriage"? He couldn't care less.

Does he care that the poorer in the U.S. continue to get poorer while the rich continue to get rich because of his policies? It probably never crosses his mind.

Does he care that our unfair American Foreign Policy has oppressed billions of people around the world? No, he doesn't care.

Does he care that Congress has done next to NOTHING this year, and in spite of this, felt compelled to give themselves ANOTHER raise, while denying a simple increase in the minimum wage to millions of working Americans? We all know he doesn't care.

I am not a very political person, and I will be the first to admit I know very little about it.

But I know what I know.....

And I know Mr. Bush doesn't give a shit about us. >:(  
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Offline Bucky

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Re: Dear Mr. President
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2006, 02:04:42 am »
Folks there is something we can do about Bush's unlimited power this November and that is to help vote his party out of control in Congress.  If his party loses control of the House of Representatives which they could because all of the House members are up for re-election in November at least he couldn't do as much damage to the disenfranchised and the minorities that he is doing now.  The Iraq war just keeps on dragging on and on, he wanted wanted to privatize Social Security and Medicare and the elderly be damned was his philosophy as his parents are very wealthy.

Also his social conservative base(conservative Christians) just keep screaming that we are going to hell and the hate groups keep on growing and we have never done anything to these people.  They hate us because we exist. While the opposition party may not be our best friends they are a whole lot better than the President's party. It is the only way we can limit his power to rule over this country unconditionally.  I am not trying to be political  but what I said about the Congressional elections this November makes sense.