Congratulations USA!

 This is a very unusual entry for me.
I was initially very cynical about the choices presented to voters in this election, but as the day drew closer I saw one campaign doing something I had never seen before in American politics:  talking to us like adults.  They made it clear from the slogans to the volunteer and internet organizing efforts that the people are the true source of power and change.

Whatever the reasons we all have reason to celebrate today.   The people are just a little bit more sophisticated, more mature and smarter than many of us believed, and perhaps we are moving towards being just a little bit less racist, though there is plenty of distance to go.


And unlike the previous administration, who isolated themselves from the voices of the people, the new incoming one is asking us from the beginning to share our visions for a new America.

The link to send in your ideas and dreams for change is here.

Please consider writing in your thoughts to the new administration, your hopes and dreams to our new President elect.   In whatever areas you agree or disagree with his stated policies so far, please let him know.  This new team is asking for our input and we must give it.   It is not the president who determines the nature of our society, it is the people and we must always provide the public pressure that politicians need to support them in finding the courage to do what is right.

here is the letter I just wrote to our incoming President Barack Obama 



My vision for this country has been greatly uplifted by the awesome power of the grassroots movement led by the youth of America to finally bring to the White House a statesman, a scholar, a civil rights attorney, a community organizer and a president who put the people first in his campaign for the first time in our history. To me this is just as historic as the long overdue breaking of the glass ceiling in Washington politics for African Americans, also a very moving moment. This historic moment is moving all Americans, even on the right to embrace our new beloved President... (I weep with joy as I write these words without irony for the first time in my life) and there has never been a more opportune moment to enact our greatest and most democratic aspirations. The time is now for a green new deal and our new president elect has promised this. It should be done with the fearless ambition of FDR and no delay can be countenanced. This is the will of the vast majority of the people of the United States and the world. The time is now to declare a new peace agenda for the United States and our President elect has done that. But we must apply the same logic to all corners of the world, not just to the unpopular wars. We cannot achieve peace by trading one war for another. The universal health care agenda must move forward and I hope and trust that the people will push for an even more bold approach than the admirable and progressive one proposed by the new incoming administration. Health care is a right, and our country will be so much stronger when our people are healthier and stronger. One of the most grave crimes of the previous administration was the violation of the constitutional rights and fundamental human rights of people at home and abroad, what ultimately must be judged as the trampling of the dignity and rights of all people, as we were asked to silently endorse kidnapping, murder, and the most extreme and outrageous forms of torture seen in modern times. This new vision of America must stand as a beacon against torture and for human and civil rights. The first step must be the restoration of our own constitution, because our bill of rights is the core of our value as a nation claiming a special destiny in the world. Ultimately this vision for a new America must include returning the power to the people, and giving up much of the new executive power seized illegally and immorally by the previous administration. I believe most of us will be sympathetic if this is the final priority of this new administration rather than the first priority, but this too cannot be forgotten. As vital as it is for our new President to make bold and fearless fundamental change in our system and national policy, in the end he must also surrender back some of the power of the executive branch seized by his predecessor. This final step will be difficult, but we must become the change we wish to see in the world, and the fragile flower of democracy must be watered by the hundreds of millions of raindrops of re-empowered citizens if it is to grow. America and the world rejoices in this moment. This is not the time to become timid. It is inspiring to see the calm, measured rational approach to governing take hold, and we all hope and pray it will be matched by a bold realization of the dreams that lit our way to this victory. Dreams of a more open, more peaceful, more ecologically intelligent, more healthy, more efficient, more fair and more just United States of America