Letter to the Delegates

by M. D. Friedman

We want America back!

We want America to follow the American Dream.

No more poor fighting rich men’s wars.

If someone really must go, send the big CEO’s.

Then leave them there. They’ll find someone to bring them coffee.

We don’t care about the Iranian bomb.

Too many have died in the crusade

against weapons of mass destruction.

We are not worried about a terrorist

following us home like a rabid dog.

We are not afraid of your boogie man bombers.

We only fear our mistakes,

we’re afraid the bombs we have dropped on babies

will hail back down on us like smoking guns.

We want to fight the good war,

the war against stupidity and cruelty.

There is never a justification for torture.

We want America back!

We want to see Obama face off McCain

in a nationally televised slam.

We want gays to run the military

and a lesbian marriage on the White House lawn.

We want to build homes for the homeless

that have not been marinated in formaldehyde,

to help disaster victims even if they are not rich and white.

We don’t want to hear people saying someone half black is racist,

when it’s the one that’s all white we should worry about.

What does George’s “W.” really stand for anyway?

We want America back! (We want it all back.)

We want our jobs to realize

we work to live not live to work.

We need time to play, and our kids

need time to just be kids.

We want it make it hard to get married and easy to get divorced.

We want to make blind patriotism illegal

and to legalize marijuana.

We want good music in the groceries stores

and art on the walls of Walmart.

We want a national holiday for Allen Ginsberg’s birthday.

We want schools that are not

brain numbing factories

where our kids can learn what they care about.

We want to pay our teachers like baseball players.

We want to give awards to parents

who both speak and listen to their teenagers.

We want free college and healthcare.

We want hospitals

that treat humans not just disease.

We want to retire early and securely.

We want Jimi Hendrix music

in our Senior Centers.

We want America back!

We want to live in community.

We want to understand and respect

our neighbors across the street

and all across the globe.

We want to tear down the walls on our border

and welcome the hard working immigrants

that have always made America great.

We want to learn new languages,

embrace new cultures

and be seen as a partner not a bully.

We want to feed the hungry

no matter where they live

or what color they are.

We believe in human rights

for all people

even if they don’t have oil.

We want America back!

We want all Exxon employees to walk to work,

Clear channel to never play the same song twice,

Procter & Gamble to worry more about cancer than profit,

General Mills to make their food sacred.

Take the money we pay farmers not to plant

and help them to learn sustainable farming

with respect for the earth.

We want to let the trees grow

and give land back to the animals.

We want our Native Americans to manage our national forests.

We don’t want to drill the last of our wilderness.

We want the power of the wind

and the sun and the oceans.

We want rivers we can drink out of

and cities we can walk in.

We want one rider SUVs banned from all public highways.

We want the oil companies to give back

the money they are stealing from us.

We want electric cars not tax rebates.

We want America back! (We want it all back.)

We want a real democracy,

where voters pick the candidates.

We want to elect our president

by national popular vote.

Ban all campaign ads.

Use the money to register more voters,

to run more candidates.

We need a president who leads

with hope instead of fear,

who can speak the truth

in complete sentences

and can pronounce words

longer than one syllable.

We need a president that understands we want America back!