Dear Obama Administration.....

It's time for the President to walk the walk.....

No one wants the Obama administration to succeed more than my family and I.   You and I have never met, but please trust me for the time it takes to read the following.

President Obama has a historic opportunity to step up and be a hero…or else fiddle while Rome burns.  The silence is deafening from the White House on the Radical Right's attacks on labor, education and democracy.  This is your time to shine, Mr. President.  Americans are aching to follow a strong leader who has a straight and undiluted charge.

We are at the crossroads of democracy.  You must address, and American people cannot ignore, the question:  Who owns the government?  The people of America, or Koch brothers, Exxon-Mobil, Comcast-NBC-GE, etc.?

The irony is painful that as you are soft-selling "education reform" and taking a White House PR show on the road, public education in American is being dismantled.  You realize that collective bargaining is being taken away, and you are unmoved, but do you understand that collateral bills that hit teachers in a vicious and twisted way are also in play? 

In Tennessee, for example, the retired teachers' pension fund is about to be unfunded.  In another bill, if a teacher is behind on his or her student loan payment, her license will be taken away.  Reminds me of debtor's prison.  If she cannot work, how is it that she will be better able to pay her loan?   In the future, who in her right mind will choose to be a teacher?  The Republicans call this "education reform."  Do you?

More broadly, this is a flat-out attack on democracy and regular Americans.  The Radical Right's goal is no less than the full destruction of the United States government, down to the defense department, and the privateering of everything else.  Only Wall Street's metrics, not public interest, will be served then. 

We will be a plutocracy, and democracy will have died on your watch.  Unless you become the bold leader we voted for.  Unless you seize the day by leading the millions of regular Americans who poll overwhelmingly wanting public education, health care, workers' rights, open Internet, a fair chance to make it and protection of human dignity.  You know---the things that make us uniquely American.

You spoke out for democratic principles when Egyptians were protesting an oppressive ruler.   Why can you not speak out for democracy when our home turf is under a full-tilt assault that is no less than an outright war on regular Americans?

.   The Radical Right's long-range business plan calls for the working and poverty classes to pay up to Corporate Wealth while funding is cut off for the Common Wealth.   That's not my America.  Is it yours?

Meanwhile, it is unbelievable that of all the smart people in the White House, you insist on reinforcing the Republicans' framing and playing on their court.  Never speak the words "spend" or "deficit" or "cut."  The Rs own those words and that fake issue.  When you talk about this, you are playing every game on the road.  It should be the opposite.  No one cares about deficits, as Cheney said, except if they can beat up Democrats with it and, better yet, if the President takes the bait and acts guilty.

Please seize this opportunity, for the sake of your administration, for the sake of the country, for the sake of democracy.  Go on prime time TV tonight and talk not only about teachers and unions and workers' rights, but point out in no uncertain terms how their well-financed (Koch Oil, Citizens United, Crossroads, etc.) full-court press aims to destroy the middle class; to eschew history and return us to the 1930s, and to roll back all progress America has made since FDR.  Ask Americans, "How will you like being Mexico?"

Announce you are going to Madison tomorrow, then many more state houses where Republican bills would enable corporations to contribute to candidates, where workers' rights are being stripped, where public education is being crushed and where caveat emptor will replace consumer protections. 

As so-called tort reform and malpractice reform handcuff the judicial "free market" of judges and juries from awarding meaningful damages, the giant corporations will be excused from safety testing and product trials as the maximum damages will cost less than safety, even if a few people die in real-time "consumer testing." 

Ask the American people:  Do you want large corporations who pay no taxes and send jobs overseas in charge of your life…..or do you want empowered self-government by the people?  Do you want your elected officials to be bought and paid for by the Fortune 500 and the wealthy and powerful, or do you want your representatives to put you first?

You promised during your campaign to "walk the picket lines" if necessary.  It is necessary.  We have faith, Mr. President, that you hold the same principles you espoused in 2008.  This is your job to do.  No one else can.  Take the offensive.  Lead the walk, Mr. President.