Saturday, April 08, 2006

Letter to Senator Joseph Biden

Senator Biden -

I watched your recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, and was quite impressed. Although I am not familiar with your politics or record (ok, I basically knew your name and face - that's about it), I will certainly be looking into them now. Not only were you knowledgable, and pretty funny, but you managed to explain complex issues in fairly simple ways (without making it feel like you were lecturing a particularly slow learner).

Most impressive, to me, was the fact that you understood what so many other politicians seem completely unaware of: People want to help; they're just waiting for someone to tell them HOW.

There are a million ways to contribute to society; a million different causes and campaigns where people can (& should) be volunteering their time, skills, &/or money. And that's part of the problem - There are so many things that need to be fixed, it's hard to figure out where to start.

But if our leaders were saying "Listen, we're at war. It may not be a war we wanted, or a war that we all agree with, but we're there. HERE's what we should be doing to support our soldiers." or "The environment is in big trouble here, people. I don't think you realize that there is so much more YOU as an individual can be doing to help solve the problem. We need your help: do XYZ, and we'll start turning this thing around - for all of us."

A lack of trust in our current leaders is also a major issue, because Bush could ask for the cooperation of our nation, but I'm not sure that we'd all follow him. We need leaders who are strong, trustworthy, intelligent and willing to both listen to & lead the people of our country.

I hope that you are just this kind of a leader, and look forward to learning more about you and your stand on issues that are vital to our country and our world.

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