The Political Voices of Women

Here is a guest post from community member Onedia Hayes Sylvest.

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Last November 26 as the race for nomination began in earnest I posted an Open Letter to the Candidates. I think it relevant that I now post it again with a few additions highlighted in bold.

Well, since it is here and easy to step onto, I am pulling out the soapbox this morning. This is an open letter to all the presidential candidates about what I want from my next president. Here it is not in priority order since I don’t want to make this too hard:

1. I want you to begin the withdrawal of troops from Iraq within the first 100 days of office and to provide medical care for the wounded and support for the reserve military to return to their civilian lives.
2. I want you to find a way for everyone in this country to have medical care !
3. I want you to find a way for everyone in this country to have affordable medications.
4. I want you to find a way for every young person to have access to higher education.
5. I want you to improve our schools and get our teachers better prepared and better paid.
6. I want you to find a way to ensure that the people who have entered a tacit agreement to turn over some of their earnings with the understanding that they would have a return as social security annuities will in fact get that return on investment.
7. I want you to behave as a Global CITIZEN rather than as the AUTOCRATIC PATRIARCH telling your global brothers and sisters how to run their countries.
8. I want you to strengthen our relationships with other countries and to broker agreements that will improve our security and our economy and that will reduce barriers and build alliances.
9. I want you to use more diplomacy in dealing with world issues and NOT rush to invade, conquer and quash.
10. I want you to be as concerned about what is happening in Burma and Darfur as Iraq and Iran.
11. I want you to refuse to build a WALL across our border and to develop a considered approach to immigration issues that is not fueled by fear, prejudice and narrow vision.
12. I want you to ensure that religious thought does not dictate decisions such as who may or may not enter into the civil contract of marriage. Such issues are for (of-age) individuals to decide not government.
13. I want you to reduce the availability of automatic weapons.
14. I want you to ensure our environment is protected.
15. I want you to use passion, vision and focus to develop and deploy real alternatives to fossil fuels as energy in this country. Kennedy took us to the moon in a decade … we can do the same to solve our energy problems.
16. I want you to sign the Kyoto agreement and to work diligently to reduce global warming.
17. I want you to immediately take appropriate action to improve our economy for the small towns, the working people and the small business owners of this country not simply for the big cities, the moguls and the financial houses.
18. I want you to be a person of integrity and intelligence and to surround yourself with passionate, dedicated people of equal intelligence and integrity.
19. I want you to do what you said you’d do while trying to get me to vote for you and to not use clever ways of speaking to avoid telling the truth about what you’re doing. (thanks Mary Ann of DSS)
20. I want you to lead us, inspire us, unite us, redefine us.
21. I want you to understand the need for and the way to build consensus when leading change.
22. I want you to promote harmony, to inspire pride and confidence, and to unite us.
23. I want you to protect the constitution and not erode the rights protected by the constitution!
24. I want some sane and reasonable regulations or restrictions on the financial community (or some creative and realistic solution) to restrain the overwhelming greed and corruption that brought us to our current dismal financial situation. I don’t have the answer but creative problem solving that does not simply put a band-aid on a headache can certainly be developed over the next four years. And while you are looking into that, how about reconsidering the federal stance on usury.
25. It is absolutely reprehensible that we as a nation continue to employ land mines in our warfare strategies.We need to change that! See references below.

The Ottawa Treaty or the Mine Ban Treaty, formally the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, bans completely all anti-personnel landmines (AP-mines). As of 2007, it has been signed/accessioned by 158 countries. Thirty-seven states, including the People’s Republic of China, India, Russia and the United States, are not party to the Convention. (Wikipedia)

Arms Control AssociationI KNOW. These are big expectations, but not unreasonable and they are the goals and expectations that will allow us to be a truly great and powerful nation.