Dear Mr. President

 Dear Mr. President,

Do your weeks feel like they're far longer than they are?  This week felt like a month to me.  It wasn't a bad week either, really--just a full one.  I imagine most of your weeks feel like that.  I do hope they feel good and productive though, too--like you're moving forward and getting somewhere.

I guess the infrastructure bill is starting to rankle, but I don't know that you and your team have continued to make a strong case for it.  Maybe it's time to rethink your strategies and take more time with the people rather than Congress--especially since it seems like the GOP has some internal stuff to figure out right now.  They don't seem to have the ability to compromise, and I really think that's hurting your chances to move forward with other legislation.  It's time to stop looking for ways to compromise; those who oppose you aren't interested in doing any negotiating in good faith at this point.  They're too busy gearing up for election season.  So give up the idea of trying to get lawmakers to change and just talk to the people.  Many of us out here are interested in investing in more resilient, climate-forward projects that are going to set us up for the next one hundred years.  And we need to expand our broadband and internet capabilities while also shoring up their weaknesses.  We need to be building charging stations for all those new EV's that are coming online, and we need to get on with the business of reforming the tax code.

This past week I've been reading about how large companies and corporations--especially in the oil and gas industry, have been looking (and found) ways to bypass regulations in order to continue to line their and their investors' pockets with wealth.  But that wealth is a stolen thing--traded on the backs of our future health and well-being.  Instead of investing in ways to make things cleaner and better, they're paying lip-service to the idea while continuing with the old standard of business as usual.  Something else I read about dealt with the UN body that regulates maritime trade.  It's being run by people who stand to benefit from the decisions being made rather than by people who can take a more objective view.  They argue that having industry insiders in places of power helps to ensure that whatever decisions are made are feasible, but what I saw when I read that article was that they are creating roadblocks to change and progress because oftentimes those better choices are difficult and costly to implement.  We have a system whereby those who prosper from inaction are controlling the levers of change, and it just seems counter to everything the UN was meant to be.

Perhaps when governments and nations stop trying to placate businesses and start thinking about how industries are both benefitting and hurting their people--when they stop accepting donations to look the other way, and when they stop being beholden to lobbyists and making deals that only benefit their friends--maybe then people will start believing in government again.  But right now, it's kind of hard to see a brighter future, Mr. President.  I do keep trying, though; it's part of the reason I keep writing these letters--hoping that maybe these words will reach the eyes and ears of people who can and will make changes possible.

We said during the pandemic that coming back to doing things as we'd been doing them before wouldn't be acceptable.  You ran on the promise that we couldn't go back to business as usual.  And yet, here we are--business as usual.  Remind us of how you've changed things, Mr. President.  Remind us of why that change is necessary, and please reassure us that change is important if we ever intend to grow.  It's important for us all to feel like there's some hope moving forward--left, right, and otherwise alike.

Lately I've been seeing a lot of articles that involve opinions that are vastly different from my own.  I don't know if the media is trying to help us find some common ground among our divides or if they're merely making the differences more apparent.  What I do know is that it's important to know and understand the communities we serve; it's important to listen to even the voices that the majority of people don't care about or want to hear from.  I'm not always good at that, Sir.  I can't imagine a lot of people are.  But if we only serve our friends, what good are we really doing in the world?

I went to a macro social work conference this week, and on that first day there was a keynote speaker whom I wish I had heard about and known more about.  Her name is Fania Davis, and she's endured, lived through, and is recovering from a lot of personal trauma.  But something that she did at the beginning of the talk really registered with me.  She invited us to say in the chat where we were from, and also to acknowledge the people who lived here before us--Native Americans.  I didn't know who held this land before it became California and part of the United States, and so I googled it, because suddenly I was curious.

This was a way to invite the ancestors and the people of the land to be a part of the work we were doing that day--to become a part of the conversation.  It was a way to remember them and to honor them--to honor those who came before us in this world.  It was also an invitation to find peace with the wrongs that were done by our own ancestors, by theirs to other tribes, and by us now to their ancestors still living here who have to live with the knowledge that their land was taken from them.  In a way, I think it was meant to remind us of our vulnerabilities, to acknowledge them, and to seek help in overcoming them with those around us.  It was a really powerful moment, too--to remember those links to the past so that we could become better grounded in the present, ready to do the healing work that is foundational to all social work.

I mention this because at the beginning of the week, I noticed that you and the White House did something that created a bit of peace in the hearts of many native tribes--you suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  One of the tribe chiefs said that it made him feel as though the voices of his people were being heard.  Do you know how important that is, Mr. President?  For people to be seen--to be heard--to be made to feel as though they have a voice, that they matter in this world--that is a very powerful thing to be able to do for a person--for a people.  Please keep doing that, Sir.  It's important work.

As for your meetings coming up, don't bother with the ones where leaders aren't actually committed to change and moving forward.  I mean that you shouldn't try to negotiate with them in good faith if they aren't willing to do the same.  Listen, try to understand their perspective, and see if there are ways to heal the rifts that exist between all nations; but let's not pretend we're friends when we're not.  Let's not let them be the only voice speaking out about wrong-doings.  And sure--let's acknowledge where they're right about our own crap, but let's also tell the stories of how we're working to make things right.  Are they doing the same?  Far too often, and for propogandist reasons, other countries want to point out the deficiencies in others to hide their own.  And while I wish we didn't have to point out deficiencies, how else are we expected to know when we're doing wrong?  How else can we seek change if we don't know what needs changing?  In either case, I know you've been at this for a good long while, but considered where your own blind spots exist, Mr. President, and maybe get some of our allies to help you look at things from other perspectives, too.  Most of all, though, make sure your own community of supporters is helping you to forge a better path forward.

I love this line from a recent opera I saw from White Snake Productions: allies talk AT you; communities support you.  The opera was about people we have incarcerated for life--or most of their lives.  That particular line came during a scene from a mother who was now out of jail talking to her daughter who was still in jail.  She was trying to put her life back together now that she was out on her own, and she was talking about how she missed the communities that she had built inside her incarceration--how difficult it was to find those now that she was out.  Granted that whole opera of Death by Life was incredible.  And I really hope more people get to see it--that opera companies will choose to make it a part of their repertoire.  It's a heart and soul wrenching look at what our prison systems have done and are doing to people.

And I guess that's everything for today, Mr. President.  Though I should add that I hope you consider giving more social workers the medal of honor.  A lot of the work they do is thankless, difficult, and at the same time important, affirming, and healing for the people that they serve.  It's not something I've seen a lot of--the media choosing to acknowledge war heroes and statesmen, but rarely just common folks who work tirelessly to raise all the boats in our United States of America.

Anyway, good luck in the coming week; I hope I get to see more good things come from the White House again , and please make sure your people are doing okay--not too overworked or overburdened, especially your Vice President.  You've put a lot on her plate.  Which reminds me--I know there are reasons for her not going to visit the border camps and such, but I do think it would be good for the public to see it--and even for those who are at the border to see it.  I know its a logistical nightmare, and it will stall some of the work going on there, but I also believe that you can't truly understand something through stories alone.  So,...ask her to consider it, please.

And with that, I will leave you to get back to work; I know you've got a lot to do, and I hope I gave you some encouragement and a little nudge here and there where it was needed.  Enjoy your Sunday, Sir.

~~ Jenni

United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dear Mr. President

Evan Vucci AP -- taken from USA Today

 

Dear Mr. President,

Congratulations on your first news conference this past Thursday.  I could tell that you felt pretty passionately about everything you talked about, and while CJR criticized the media there, saying they'd wasted the opportunity, I did find a few of them asked cogent questions--especially that fellow from Bloomberg.  Your comments to him about your time spent with China's leader, Xi Jinping, revealed to me that you understand the threats facing our own nation and the world from China--its leaders' ideals and policies.  That you're still willing to work with them where you can is frustrating to me, but completely cutting ourselves off from them is likely worse than at least continuing to try.

I need to get this off my chest before I move on, because it's really been bugging me.  The thing about Jamal Khashoggi still bothers me, and I suspect it bothers a lot of other reporters, too.  That the press is hostile with politicians comes as no surprise when their lives are dismissed in the interests of global politics and relationships.  There is plenty of evidence to tie his death back to the Crown Prince; and yet, after all this time, nothing has been done--or at least that's the impression I've gotten.  If it's a mistake in messaging, or a lost message (clearly left unconveyed, since it isn't being touted,) that would be one thing, and that's what I hope it is.  But if we've excused the killing of a reporter by people with whom we're doing business, that's not okay.  Not by any standard worth having, as far as I'm concerned.

Okay.  That said, I am looking forward to the infrastructure bill you're going to announce this week.  It sounds ambitious, which is something we definitely need right now.  I did happen to read something this weekend though that gave me pause, since it deals with biomass burning--the burning of wood pellets for energy.

As it stands, I think there's some pretty wonky math being used to discuss carbon emissions and getting to a place where we're carbon neutral.  From what I read, for example, Europe, who uses the most biomass fuel, calls burning it carbon neutral because they only count the carbon used in the process to create the biomass, and not the burning of it--which doesn't make sense to me.  You can't count one part of the process and say that then the other doesn't count.  That's sort of ridiculous.  In either case, our country supplies a lot of that biomass for energy, and policies regarding it have been left for a few administrations to try and solve and been left in limbo.  Your administration has the chance to finally do something about that.

If you have read science fiction for a long time, you'll often read a common theme over and over again--doing things quickly for short term gains has a cost, but doing things right over the long term creates numerous advantages and gains.  Now, sometimes there just isn't time to do everything right, and you've got to go with what you've got.  But taking the time to do something right seems to be a reward in and of itself.  As an example, if you take the time to ensure that you're creating a bio-diverse and locally inhabited forest, you create an ecosystem that sustains more local wildlife and opportunities for species growth.  But if, say, you introduce plants into an ecosystem where they're not normally grown, they can become a problem--especially if there aren't natural predators that eat those plants or have uses for them.

That last happened in Africa when a non-native bush was brought into the savannahs to help preserve the area and its water.  It certainly helped at first, but over the long term, when a long rainy season happened, those bushes proliferated and started harming the local ecology--starving out local water sources and thereby killing much of the wildlife that lived there.  There weren't animals that fed on the plant, and so it became a problem.  There wasn't a proper balance maintained.

Time and time again we want to rush ahead and do the progressive things because we need to do them to save something--in the case of the climate, ourselves.  But we also need to remember that everything should have a balance.  Cutting down trees to make way for replanting of non-native species of trees that will, in time, just be harvested again for biomass fuel isn't creating more actual forest land, and the funky math we have of saying that it does create more forestland is disingenuous at best.  We need to look at the practices of the logging industry and its corporations and stop rewarding them for finding creative loopholes that allow them to get richer at the cost of losing natural forestlands and local trees and fauna and wildlife.  We have to stop pretending that if we count one part of a process it counts for all of it.  These practices need to stop, Mr. President.  Otherwise we're just making up lies to assuage our greed.

The sad part of that is that we're going to need to help out farmers who are doing those plantings for the payouts, otherwise they're going to lose what little insurance they have in the lands that they've bought and maintained for so long.  That is their family wealth in a lot of ways, and if we start doing the right thing, they're going to have make changes, too.

But I really do believe that if we start doing the right things, we're going to be rewarded for it in the long run.  One last thing on that before I move on: one of the biggest reasons for clearcutting in the world has to do with farming and food production.  This is something that we need to look into, much like some Asian countries are.  If we can find ways to cultivate food using less space, that's probably a good thing, and vertical growth (growing up instead of out,) might be one possible solution to this.  I don't know how viable it is, of course, but I do think it's something we should invest in researching.

Speaking of the climate, I read another article this week about geoengineering.  I hear they're going to be releasing chalk into the stratosphere sometime in July over Sweden to test the efficacy of it helping to cool our temperatures.  I don't know how I feel about these things, but I suppose since we haven't been able to curb our carbon emissions, we've got to try looking at other solutions.  On one hand, I'm excited to see what will happen, and on the other, I'm worried we might create yet another cascading set of problems.  So I guess we'll want to keep an eye on this, Sir.  And maybe prepare for any problems that might occur because of it--you know, put some scientists on the job considering the effects of these experiments.

I was excited to see what you did on Equal Pay Day--acknowledging that there are disparities that need to be addressed still and highlighting them.  I'm also looking forward to seeing what causes your wife chooses to endorse as First Lady of our country.  I've always loved the idea that while the President is doing the work of protecting the interests of the country, their spouse is working to preserve the heart and soul of it.  And since that is something that you ran on, I'm hoping that Mrs. Biden will be as excited and hopeful and giving as you have been and promote a cause that helps remind us of the goodness, kindness, and love that is at the heart of our America.

Yesterday was SWAN Day -- Support Women Artists Now Day.  It makes me happy to know that often marginalized voices have a day to shine--especially when those voices often encourage the kinds of behavior that bring about unity instead of divisiveness.  It was exciting to see that there were two women nominated for Best Director at the Oscars this year, too.  I feel like maybe, hopefully, the message is starting to shine through--that women work just as hard at what they do as men, and that they deserve to be recognized equally, instead of being disparaged as somehow "less than."  It is one of the reasons that I'm so glad that we have Kamala Harris as our Vice-President.  And that you showcased the vibrant and beautiful poetry of Amanda Gorman at your inauguration.  Or that you chose to have a Native American woman as your Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland.    Seeing so many diverse people, and women, serving our country in such visible roles is exciting; it makes me feel like maybe the voice of our country will actually start reflecting the voice of the people in it.  And that's no small accomplishment, Mr. President.

Of course, I wouldn't mind seeing some disabled representation there, too, but I'll take what I can get for now.

As Winter fades and Spring starts to settle in here, there are going to be a lot of problems we're going to face, Sir.  We've already begun to see it with the recent mass shootings, and I'd like to offer some thoughts on that.

Taking away guns from people probably isn't the solution, and I know you've got a "holding gun manufacturers liable" bill in the works, but maybe it's time to really consider gun licensing.  The military, for example, doesn't allow people with disabilities or mental problems to join them, because they are operating dangerous technologies and handling sensitive information.  And we don't just let anyone drive a car in this country.  We make sure they know how to use and operate a car.  They take a test, and they are given a license that says they've passed those tests.  I think it's time that we created a gun license program to ensure that people who do own guns know how to use them safely, and properly store them and take care of them.  Many gun owners already know these things, but the idea at the beginning of our country was that militias would be ensuring these things on a local level--something we don't really have these days.

So if we want to keep the spirit of the framers alive--that ability for people to rise up against an unjust government if it becomes warranted, I feel like we also need to ensure that the ideal of the militia is maintained in some way, too.  National licensing isn't necessary, per se.  We could leave it up to the state governments to issue licenses and determine the criteria needed for obtaining one--how often they should be tested and renewed, etc.  We could offer national guidelines, of course, like the CDC does for health directives, but this takes away the stigma of the federal government having a national registry of licensed gun owners, for example.  Still, licensing would help, I think, to promote the safe use of guns.  That doesn't mean, of course, that we won't still have mass shootings, but it does mean we won't be giving licenses to people who aren't qualified to use guns.  Make federal funding contingent upon gun licensure programs in each state.

And look--I know my ideas are pretty simplistic, but I'm trying to compromise between ideologies that have made the gun debate an ongoing disaster for generations.  And we've tried banning things, and in some cases that has worked (like extended magazines, for instance.)  But it hasn't stopped the killings and the mass shootings.  And while there are some out there who don't care for guns at all, (I, myself, don't really care for them,) there are others who feel that part of America's identity is the freedom to own a gun.  I'm just trying to find a middle-ground, and I really think licenses and testing will help.  Leaving it in the hands of the states, to me, is important, since it was that idea of the state militia that was part of the wording of the Constitution in the right to keep and bear arms.  But requiring it for federal funding is also important to me, as it stipulates that we, as a nation, believe that responsible gun ownership is necessary to the continued preservation of it.  And I think that's something the framers of our country would approve of, too.

One last thing before I head off for today, Sir.  Have you met Katie Porter?  She's our House Representative here for our Orange County district, and she's amazing.  She's working hard for all of us, and she really cares about the people of this country and our district, too.  If you get a chance, please invite her over for a chat some time and hear her out.  I'm just...really impressed with her work ethic and her desire to do right by the American people.  I also love that she gets to give "Mom" looks to people who try to pretend like what they're saying isn't a lie.  I think, sometimes, we need more people like her in government.

And with that, I'll be going, Sir.  I hope you have a lovely second week of Spring, and please consider supporting that legislation about Daylight Savings Time.  The switching of the clocks, as amusing and time-honored a tradition as it is, needs to go.

Until next week, then, stay safe and keep moving forward.

~~ Jenni

P. S. So last week I mentioned that someone close to me had gotten COVID-19.  They are, thankfully, on the recovering end of it, and I am grateful for it more than I can express in words.  I guess I just wanted to share that--to let you know that things are better today than they were last week.  But also to remind people that the pandemic is still out there, and it's still happening.  The people I love were lucky; not everyone will be.  So please keep pushing the messages about masking, and washing hands, and being kind and respectful to our fellow human beings.  This isn't over yet, and we can't start acting like it is; or a lot more people might die.  And I wouldn't wish that agony, of losing a loved one, on anyone.