Maybe less talking to ourselves and more to the Obama Transition Team.
There doesn’t seem to be any ongoing campaign to encourage informed citizens to write, fax, and call the Obama Transition Team. This is too bad, because the Obama Transition Team web site itself is calling for just that, namely, for people to write and tell the team what they, the people, want done or feel needs to be done, starting from January 20th onward. Progressive mail could work as a counterweight against pressure from the establishment's industrial-military-complex.
E-mail can be sent to the president-elect's transition team. Just click on
The Obama-Biden Transition Team e-mail page
http://change.gov/page/content/contact/
To illustrate with a sample text, below is a message sent in today by yours truly regarding our listening to Obama interviewed on Meet The Press, December 7, 2008:
Dear Obama Transition Team:
Suggest that President Obama might find a way to apologize for the CIA overthrow of Mosaddeq, for it’s undemocratically arranging the installation of the Shah as King, and its having trained the Shah's secret police in torture techniques. Perhaps, also confess that when Iranian students occupied our embassy, arrested all those inside and wished to prosecute some for crimes against their country, U.S. officials and American media reacted with an anger and outrage that did not take into consideration the anger and outrage of Iranian citizens. Perhaps concede that the American anger and outrage was a bit self-righteous.
Iran had never done anything to merit such violent interference in their nation's affairs by the CIA, so Iranian anger toward America was a natural reaction. Iranians saw their students' actions as heroic and justified, as did many people around the world, including Americans who disapprove of covert and violent anti-democratic and criminal CIA activity in almost every vulnerable third world nation.
By apologizing for CIA activity, the incoming president could in one fell swoop both indicate a change in America's behavior toward the nations of the former colonialized world that have never really escaped continued economic exploitation by the governments of the industrialized countries, AND by doing so be seen to be seeking U.S. public opinion support for reining in the CIA's power to distablize countries for short sighted investment opportunities.
Maybe, merely allowing the Iranians know that Americans are deeply sorry for U.S. policies and actions that helped Saddam Hussein invade Iran and murder hundreds of thousands of Iranians during the Carter and Reagan administrations, would be a starter for setting a warmer tone during the U.S.-Iran high level meetings Obama has promised to initiate.
Would like to further suggest that members of the Obama team could put themselves in the place of Iranians listening to the President-elect on “Meet the Press” sternly admonishing the Iranian government for going ahead with building nuclear plants and for supporting terrorist abroad - of course without mentioning U.S. crimes against Iran. Must have sounded hypocritical to Iranians who have suffered a million loved ones as casualties during the U.S. supported 1980-1988 Iraq invasion and war, and who know the bitter history of America blocking democracy in back in 1953.
Thirdly, President-elect Obama on Meet the Press, calling for Russia "to adhere to international norms of behavior” made this listener blanche, as Barak Obama himself has long criticized the United States war on Iraq as not having been normal behavior. Indeed that phrase sounded like a joke to anyone who has seen Michael Moore's film "Bowling for Columbine", or Oliver Stone’s "JFK", both of which contain a graphic laundry list of U.S. crimes against humanity. U.S. invasions and occupations without declarations of war have long come to be part of the "international norms of behavior."
Most importantly, may the advisors to the next president keep in mind that when Barak Obama made these stiff statements about Iranian and the Russian leadership, a lot of us progressives and dissidents heard the tough remarks as having been meant to assuage the more belligerent and right wing part of his American audience, and hopefully not meant to be taken seriously by Iranians and Russians listeners.
Lastly, please remember that there are many millions who agree with Reverend. Jeremiah Wright damning America for its foreign crimes - in order to make America’s blessings more deserved.
Let Obama not be afraid to say the truth about past U.S. criminal acts. Not many years ago, a U.S. president apologized to Mexico for the unjust American war which took nearly half its territory. The apology barely made a media managed ripple of attention at home, but the apology gained some modicum of respect for the intentions of the president who offered it.
At the Obama team’s service,
supportively, jay janson
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Prospective writers of suggestions to the Obama Biden Presidential Transition Team may also receive a rather encouraging auto-reply as did a previous e-mail recently sent:
"Subject: Thank you for your message re: Carter Terror on Afghanistan
Dear Jay Janson,
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