How We Are Hungry

Dear David Plouffe,

I want you to send out a list of general goals as part of an annual or biannual agenda. I already see that a large amount of blame is going around on Capitol Hill. Before we can even get started, the people who are supposed to be giving this country direction are trying to take as little blame for the failures of government while assigning as much as they can to former colleagues. We cannot stomach any more of this domino demagoguery.

You asked us for money. You asked us for sweat and for faith and for our talents. You helped President Obama run one of the most exciting and proficient campaigns this country has ever seen. You inspired many of us not to respond to naysayers with insults and ire but with a method of information and finesse. The nation is forgetting this lesson too soon.

The time for gloating and conspiring and fear-mongering must be set aside until a real and advisable direction is set. Firing and having officials resign doesn't get rid of the problem. It just advances the news cycle. We are hungry for more of the good political discourse and real connections we made within our surrounding communities. If the people we've elected need reminding that they work for us whether we voted for them or not, we can show them how little effective they are when they put themselves above their station and their constituency.

I believe that what we need to do in this country is teach our leaders how to talk to us, the People. We have a task not easily achieved or that expects uniform results, but I see Republicans trying to blame a Democratic Congress while Democrats are blaming a Republican filibustering minority. They are trying to expose hypocrisy when most of those points are frame-up jobs part of the daily Congressional agenda. This machinery of politics goes unnoticed because many Americans lead very busy and crowded lives. The over three million people who gave to Obama's campaign are telling you that we can make room for a little more.

Set a national agenda for those cities and towns where grassroots organizations meaning to continue making politics real can all work in tandem. We can be strong locally, but if all our local work is being done in unison, we can effect a more permanent progress in American citizenship and strength. We both need and accept as many brilliant and talented Republican, Independent, Libertarian, and unaffiliated compatriots who do not share our politics to make this journey with us.

Website of the Office of the President of the United States, Change.gov


out of the desert,
Dan Duque