Something to consider: When I was barely an adolescent I had a dream that I’ve carried with me all my life–

I found myself on a warm sunny, seemingly summer day. I was outside. As I looked down into the valley in front of my parents’ house, I watched water flood the valley and become a sea that nearly reached me some 400 feet above.

Then, I watched people, dead people who walked slowly, like zombies from a B horror movie into this new sea. They disappeared. Finally, a very young child–a boy, perhaps, followed them into the sea. He was different, however–not a ”zombie”, not dead like they were.

I watched as the water engulfed him and he disappeared.

Then, suddenly, he reappeared. He walked back out of the water and all the people who had marched into the sea as the living dead, returned alive and ”healed”.

I then ran back into our house and as I passed from room to room I noticed a calendar on the wall. I do not recall the month (but July does stick in my mind), but I very clearly saw the year: 2011.

I’ve told everyone who might believe that dreams can be portentous about this dream. I had it ONLY ONCE when I was twelve years old. I have never forgotten it–it is part of me.

I realize that dreams are rarely, if ever, ”literal”–so I’ve come to believe that it is a metaphor or a symbolic representation of what might occur.

However, at the time of my dream there was ”no such thing” as ”global warming”–at least not in my pre-adolescent world. There was no such thing as melting polar icecaps, disastrous weather caused by increased ocean temperatures, or greenhouse effects. Neither were there tsunamis and nuclear reactor meltdowns which can irradiate entire populations of people changing them from healthy to the ”living dead”.

I’ve spent my life trying to figure out what the message was in this dream. I may not ever really know. However, one thing I do know–that I feel in my bones–is this: It is 2011. I’m watching and seeing things happen which do frighten me, but do not surprise me. I see what is happening around the world and here in our own country. And I know that my dream was a warning, a preparation, for the upheaval that is here, now.

All of the dire warnings about 2012, I think are misguided. Yes, I understand that the Mayan calendar speaks of 2012–that Nostradamus made some reference to it, and so on. But, I carry another year with me. One that isn’t in the prophecies or touted in popular culture. It is this year. And we’re already seeing how that is unfolding.

Let’s hope it was just the dream of an adolescent and everything that happens is nothing more than coincidence.

Dear President Obama:

Rather than impose ”austerity measures” on the middle and working classes, start taxing corporations and the wealthy. This will generate revenue to pay for the social services and education governors are so busily whacking away on.

You said recently, “I believe that everybody should be prepared to give up something in order to solve our budget challenges. I think most public servants agree with that. Democrats and Republicans agree with that.”

If you believe these words, Mr. Obama, than that means EVERYBODY, the wealthy elites and corporations have used and abused taxpayer money and costly infrastructure to benefit themselves, only to be rewarded with lower taxes and budgetary measures that would ensure they collect more wealth while teachers, safety and health professionals and all labor suffer from cuts in wages, services, safety nets, inflation and rising energy costs. Where is the fairness in this, Mr. Obama?

History demonstrates that when the top 5% paid up to 91% in taxes, our economy and society prospered. There was revenue available for the government to promote public works and to build infrastructure. You cannot do that on the backs of the poor and working class. In less than a decade there will be no middle class if policies continue as they are.

Democrats are just as culpable as Republicans for taking our nation toward the brink of a neo-feudal corporatocracy. If that is ”the plan,” then it is succeeding very well. I can only hope that most career politicians are not that maniacal or devious. Our democracy depends on a degree of compassion and understanding about the real issues that common citizens face. Telling us to ”buck up” while you hobnob with the economic elite and allow the continued obscene ”incentive” bonuses to be paid to CEOs along with greater tax breaks and continued deregulation just doesn’t settle well, especially when teachers such as myself are told we do not deserve even a living wage as ”incentive” to excel. If we can accept the premise that the American people must fork over tax dollars to support the best and brightest in the financial world (people who, by the way, caused our economic disaster, not teachers or public workers, mind you), then why does it not apply to those of us in the public sector? Does our career choice, one that facilitates progress in a meaningful way, fail to merit even a fair, living-wage for doing our part to ensure our future? Mr. Obama, teachers and public workers, unlike the CEOs of the financial fiefdoms, do not ask for ”incentives” other than knowing that we have done the best we can given the circumstances many of us work in. We only ask for what is our due–fair pay for services rendered. To suggest (through silence, non-committal and even admonishment toward public workers) that somehow we are ”greedy” because we ask for a decent living for our work (as everyone has the right to do) misdirects attention away from the greed and very real crimes committed by Wall Street onto the shoulders of the public sector, and hence the People.

There will be revolution if the government continues down this road. Wisconsin is only the beginning. People will eventually have enough of both the insanity of the Tea Party/Theocratic Republicans, and the stubborn lack of resolve and support of the Democrats.

Good faith, Mr. Obama, means making some POLITICALLY unpopular decisions–it means sucking it up and telling the banks and corporations they, too, must make sacrifices, must PAY their share without tax shelters and loopholes. That the wealthiest 2-5% must also PAY for the advantages they’ve gained or inherited from our country’s resources, infrastructure and labor.

You might believe that Wall Street is ”the economy”, but it is not. We, the People, would do very well, perhaps even better, without Wall Street and their band of thieves. We, the People, are the actual Producers. It is through our labor that the wealthy and the corporations maintain their wealth. THEY are the MOOCHERS (to invoke the neo-conservative ”saint” Ayn Rand). Their capital might purchase buildings and stadiums, but without our labor, these facilities are empty, worthless shells.

Mr. President, and Congresspeople. PLEASE defend the American PEOPLE: Cut military spending in half, stop our two TRILLION DOLLAR wars AND propose tax increases on the wealthy, remove tax shelters and loopholes on corporations and REGULATE, REGULATE, REGULATE. If a ”reduced deficit” is such a political necessity (which really it is not at all economically speaking), then collect revenue where you can actually get it. Taxing the wealthy will NOT, contrary to popular punditry, reduce jobs. In fact, it will MAKE jobs. The wealthy currently have NO INCENTIVE to create jobs as is evidenced during the past decade of excessive tax cuts and wealth redistribution to the top 1-2%.

Do your job! Not for the corporations, the financial institutions or the lobbyists. Do your job for US, the People who elected you in the hope that you were something new and different…not the same dishonest, corrupt, malleable politician you seem to have become.

Sincerely,

A Citizen who does not have a Corporate Lobby to pay for her way into the White House.