I Need A President Again

From Truthout - I doubt you'll find a laundry list as thorough and as passionate as this one.

I Need a President - Again
By John Cory
t r u t h o u t

I first wrote "I Need a President" during the disastrous end of the 2000 Election. I ended my piece with these words: "Yes, I need a president. But I must wait for now."

The time of waiting is over.

I need a President who does not believe in suppressing votes as he clings to a warped sense of his own entitlement to power. I need a President who does not fear the voice of the people. Not the President of a sanitized America-by-invitation-only, but a President of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I need a President who recognizes that America is a member of the world community and not its master. I need a President who faces the world with a welcoming hand, not a closed fist. A man who embraces questions, and not the coercive rule of unchallenged reign.

I need a President who believes science is a tool for healing and not just a profitable device for the creation of Smart Bombs and Weapons of Mass Destruction. I need a President who sees that stem cell research benefits not only the diseased but also the soldiers with spinal cord wounds and brain trauma inflicted in their service to America.

I need a President for whom "liberal education" is not a partisan pejorative but rather the old-fashioned definition of a balanced and well-rounded education, an education not of political bent, but of the beauty and diversity of life's great treasures. I need a President who sees education as a right, and not a privilege only for those who can afford to buy knowledge.

I need a President whose environmental policy is not only for the wilderness, but also applies to the workplace.

I need a President who understands that family health should never be dependent on family wealth.

I need a President who knows well that secrecy is a cancer on democracy. I want a President who has overcome the fear of battle, not by sending others into combat, but by standing face-to-face against the ravages of war and bringing honor home to the fight for peace and open government.

I need a President who understands that if money is free-speech, the middle class and poor will never have a voice in today's corporate politics; that the dreams of Main Street America will be smothered by the greed of K Street lobbyists and their financial owners.

I need a President who recognizes that corporate crime should not be a reward system for crooked CEOs, while punishing workers with financial ruin. I need a President for whom accountability is not a bookkeeping technique that ensures increased stock value at the cost of American jobs.

I need a President who knows that God is not spelled G-O-P.

I need a President who recognizes the requirement for checks and balances on government, not checkpoints on citizens.

I need a President for whom liberty is not a license to plunder budget surpluses for the benefit of wealthy campaign donors. I need a President, not a corporate puppet, or a panderer to the bigotry of puritanical zealots and self-righteous hypocrites.

America needs a President to whom freedom is not a focus group slogan, tested as justification for the lethal lies of a manufactured war. Not a President who finds humor in the deaths of soldiers in order to get a laugh from the dining room divas of corporate Media.

America needs a President, not a saint without human error. America needs a President who recognizes his own fallibility and rises to the need for change.

America needs a President whose compassion is without label or restriction, who lifts the poor and ignored without making himself tall by standing on the dead and downtrodden. A President who does not limit the colors of America to red, white and blue, but includes each and every variation that weaves the whole fabric of this richly textured nation.

America deserves a President, not an owner.

I deserve a President, not George Bush.
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John Cory is a Vietnam veteran. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with V device, 1969 - 1970.