I wrote this letter to John Edwards when he announced his campaign; I never did receive
his answer to the issues I raise in this letter. This was well before he announced that his wife's
cancer had recurred, and we all wish her and the Edwards' family the most grace and strength
through the coming months and years.
Ed.
An Open Letter to Senator Edwards
Dear Senator Edwards;
Forgive me if I got the honorific wrong; I watched you today on Meet the Press with Mr. Russert;
there was much that you said which I liked. You have a quite clear vision of the Medicare/caid and
social security problem, and you are putting them in the right order.
The other problems which this country faces are if anything more complex and more costly. I will try
to be brief, and if you would like further thoughts on any of the subjects I will be glad to do that.
In no order of importance, because these three problems are all associated with each other;
Energy.
This is a much more urgent problem than people give it credit for. I understand that people at your
level do recognize the problem even more acutely; to be honest, in the circles which I travel in it is
not seen as such. There is a basic assumption by the people of this country that the flow of oil will
never stop. This is wrong.
We both know the consequences of a meltdown in the mid-east, though - it is the dire
circumstances which no one mentions on the air.
The cessation of the flow of crude would collapse our economy, and it is growing more likely with
every passing day. You spoke with some urgency on this matter - it is not that the democrats want to
shoot down the President's strategy; it is as you put it that if this is the so called 'last chance', we
had better make sure the effort is worthy of the name. The president's is not.
However, the basic unacknowledged problem is our dependence upon foreign oil. This must stop,
and it is the surest way in the long run to eliminate the terrorist problem. It is in no small part the
civilized world's meddling in the mid-east which has helped retard the growth of the countries there;
if we can move into the new century and begin to supplant this monopoly, that will be the best long
range strategy to diminishing the threat of these people.
It is impossible to for me to believe that we cannot crack this problem; I do believe that whatever
country tries the hardest ands solves this dilemma first will be the predominant economic force in
the coming century, and the proposals I see so far are mere window dressing compared to what
needs to be done. As you said, the times demand actual, real world truth. A Manhattan style project
is needed to tackle this problem, and a basic telling of the seriousness of it to the American public.
The sacrifices will be great, and across the board and it will still take ten to fifteen years at a
minimum, but it can be done.
The second item is the drug war; this is in large part an unseen anchor on America; it diverts our
treasure into the hand of criminal organizations, if fosters disrespect and fear of the law and it clogs
our justice system with non predatory criminals.
Just like alcohol prohibition, there is only one way to solve these problems short of becoming a
dictatorship - and that is legalization.
If you live in a drug producing nation, the problems are not unseen at all. From Mexico to any drug
producing nation in Central and South America you will see the same - massive corruption and a
system of government and police that are controlled by illegal drug gangs. Once again, our policies
on this problem have led to these ancillary problems.
One of the reasons that people come here illegally is because their own countries are so
inadequate in meeting the people's needs; yet if we legalized the drug trade, the people in the
producing nations would be able to keep a much larger percentage of the wealth that the product
brings. It is impossible for any illegal system of distribution to compete with a legal system; it would
take some years, but there would be an instant effect on the economies of those nations who would
deal with us on a legal basis, including Afghanistan. The heroin trade is there; it fuels the taliban
and has completely corrupted the legal Afghan government, and it is a crop that been historically
grown in that area for thousands of years. At times it has been made illegal by various people, but
at some point everyone knows it will be legal again. As with all drugs, the trade can be regulated
and taxed, or its distribution can be handed over to organized criminals.
And, in the end there is the basic idea of freedom - seemingly the least of the reasons to legalize
drugs, it is in fact the most important. The government has the right to regulate the sale of drugs, but
almost all drugs are plants - and some are completely unaltered plants. The government does not
have the right to tell anyone they cannot grow a plant; and yet we spent more than 36 billion dollars
last year, and arrested huge amounts of people - all to no end. The drug war must come to a
sensible conclusion.
The last item spills over into the other two problems discussed above, and that is the influence of
money and power over policy. I realize that you cannot extinguish such things completely, but the
trends in our nation are not hard to trace over the last thirty years. The problems are not in the end
that hard to get a grip on, and yet nothing has been done. This is the true crime; it is corruption
which is built in to the system lockstep - nothing so obvious as a bag of money or a yacht on the
Potomac, and far more dangerous to our long range health.
The beginning of this century will be the same as many other - the problems are there to see, and
the solutions are also as easy to see if much harder to implement. As with any large social
problems, if it takes thirty or forty years to develop the problem it will not be able to be fixed
overnight - we will be lucky if these things can be fixed in a decade.
The longer we put off these fixes, however, the longer it will take them to take effect, and the more
time we will lose. We are in a race, and from some of the things you say I believe that you know that.
You are in a unique position - aware of the system, and yet not really part of it. Someone will be the
first candidate of a major party to address these issues with the proper sense of truth and urgency -
I can only pray that it will be before disaster strikes; I can only pray that it will be in this next election
cycle, and that you will have the vision to do it.
his answer to the issues I raise in this letter. This was well before he announced that his wife's
cancer had recurred, and we all wish her and the Edwards' family the most grace and strength
through the coming months and years.
Ed.
An Open Letter to Senator Edwards
Dear Senator Edwards;
Forgive me if I got the honorific wrong; I watched you today on Meet the Press with Mr. Russert;
there was much that you said which I liked. You have a quite clear vision of the Medicare/caid and
social security problem, and you are putting them in the right order.
The other problems which this country faces are if anything more complex and more costly. I will try
to be brief, and if you would like further thoughts on any of the subjects I will be glad to do that.
In no order of importance, because these three problems are all associated with each other;
Energy.
This is a much more urgent problem than people give it credit for. I understand that people at your
level do recognize the problem even more acutely; to be honest, in the circles which I travel in it is
not seen as such. There is a basic assumption by the people of this country that the flow of oil will
never stop. This is wrong.
We both know the consequences of a meltdown in the mid-east, though - it is the dire
circumstances which no one mentions on the air.
The cessation of the flow of crude would collapse our economy, and it is growing more likely with
every passing day. You spoke with some urgency on this matter - it is not that the democrats want to
shoot down the President's strategy; it is as you put it that if this is the so called 'last chance', we
had better make sure the effort is worthy of the name. The president's is not.
However, the basic unacknowledged problem is our dependence upon foreign oil. This must stop,
and it is the surest way in the long run to eliminate the terrorist problem. It is in no small part the
civilized world's meddling in the mid-east which has helped retard the growth of the countries there;
if we can move into the new century and begin to supplant this monopoly, that will be the best long
range strategy to diminishing the threat of these people.
It is impossible to for me to believe that we cannot crack this problem; I do believe that whatever
country tries the hardest ands solves this dilemma first will be the predominant economic force in
the coming century, and the proposals I see so far are mere window dressing compared to what
needs to be done. As you said, the times demand actual, real world truth. A Manhattan style project
is needed to tackle this problem, and a basic telling of the seriousness of it to the American public.
The sacrifices will be great, and across the board and it will still take ten to fifteen years at a
minimum, but it can be done.
The second item is the drug war; this is in large part an unseen anchor on America; it diverts our
treasure into the hand of criminal organizations, if fosters disrespect and fear of the law and it clogs
our justice system with non predatory criminals.
Just like alcohol prohibition, there is only one way to solve these problems short of becoming a
dictatorship - and that is legalization.
If you live in a drug producing nation, the problems are not unseen at all. From Mexico to any drug
producing nation in Central and South America you will see the same - massive corruption and a
system of government and police that are controlled by illegal drug gangs. Once again, our policies
on this problem have led to these ancillary problems.
One of the reasons that people come here illegally is because their own countries are so
inadequate in meeting the people's needs; yet if we legalized the drug trade, the people in the
producing nations would be able to keep a much larger percentage of the wealth that the product
brings. It is impossible for any illegal system of distribution to compete with a legal system; it would
take some years, but there would be an instant effect on the economies of those nations who would
deal with us on a legal basis, including Afghanistan. The heroin trade is there; it fuels the taliban
and has completely corrupted the legal Afghan government, and it is a crop that been historically
grown in that area for thousands of years. At times it has been made illegal by various people, but
at some point everyone knows it will be legal again. As with all drugs, the trade can be regulated
and taxed, or its distribution can be handed over to organized criminals.
And, in the end there is the basic idea of freedom - seemingly the least of the reasons to legalize
drugs, it is in fact the most important. The government has the right to regulate the sale of drugs, but
almost all drugs are plants - and some are completely unaltered plants. The government does not
have the right to tell anyone they cannot grow a plant; and yet we spent more than 36 billion dollars
last year, and arrested huge amounts of people - all to no end. The drug war must come to a
sensible conclusion.
The last item spills over into the other two problems discussed above, and that is the influence of
money and power over policy. I realize that you cannot extinguish such things completely, but the
trends in our nation are not hard to trace over the last thirty years. The problems are not in the end
that hard to get a grip on, and yet nothing has been done. This is the true crime; it is corruption
which is built in to the system lockstep - nothing so obvious as a bag of money or a yacht on the
Potomac, and far more dangerous to our long range health.
The beginning of this century will be the same as many other - the problems are there to see, and
the solutions are also as easy to see if much harder to implement. As with any large social
problems, if it takes thirty or forty years to develop the problem it will not be able to be fixed
overnight - we will be lucky if these things can be fixed in a decade.
The longer we put off these fixes, however, the longer it will take them to take effect, and the more
time we will lose. We are in a race, and from some of the things you say I believe that you know that.
You are in a unique position - aware of the system, and yet not really part of it. Someone will be the
first candidate of a major party to address these issues with the proper sense of truth and urgency -
I can only pray that it will be before disaster strikes; I can only pray that it will be in this next election
cycle, and that you will have the vision to do it.
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