What Would Matt Do

Dear Mr. President,

I’m going to ask you to do something now. Listen. Not because I’m smarter than anyone else or because I’m more important. But because I’m not those things. I’m just a guy. Who thinks you might want be a better president than you have been so far. I’m sharing because as song goes, this land is your land, this land is my land.

First, please take over the BP operation right now. I don’t mean stop BP and bring in your own people, I mean use your executive power and take over the corporation, at least temporarily. Use the fact they are criminals and have committed crimes here and now. Or however you need to phrase it. If you can do it with banks, you can do it with oil companies. Use their resources properly, aimed to stem the damage and clean it honestly, not white wash it with chemicals that may be worse than the original spill. Make them start giving you the truth. Then form a council. Invite not CEOs of oil companies, but the most experienced engineers in the field, experts of oil rigs and plugging of leaks underwater, long time navy guys who know about deep pressure, environmentalists who’ve worked with oil spills before, and more. Don’t just talk to other countries, ask them to send their topmost experts. Then have them come up with solutions. All you have to do is ask, people will come help, again, at least temporarily. And the longer you wait, the more BP destroys livelihoods, environments and people.

Second, please start being serious about fixing our oil/coal addiction. I know big corporations with lots of money and power are aligned against that idea AND have funded your presidency. So what. Fight the power. There are many ways to approach this. I’m not an expert in these things. But you know what? Some people are. There are scientists that have great ideas to completely change the way our country runs and the energy it uses. Maybe you could form a council here too. A longer term bigger thing. A scientific council established for the betterment of the country. Hire them. Hire the best people in academics and in the industry. Pay them richly. You could hire then guys, pay them a couple of million each and it would cost less to have them for your whole presidency than it would to build one fighter plane. While you’re forming dream teams, the Ring of Fire guys would be great.

Third, and this ties into the above one, please employ the country. Yeah, politicians will complain. So what? If you use the council created above and get a plan to overall the entire energy grid and power our country off say the deserts in the south because the grid can now transfer energy anywhere…guess who can build that? Our people. You can train them, you can employ them, you can enable them. Not give a handout, put them to work for the betterment of all. People will come in droves. You will educate them in a field and empower them to provide for themselves. And they will love you for it. You’ll be fixing the country and helping the people. That’s just one way. There are so many different ways you could take the 10% of population of who a large amount actually want work and put them to working to change how our country works. With a real energy grid (not a magical one, other countries have done this), we could be off oil and coal and nuclear in 20 years maybe.

That’s not all, but that’s a start. Start thinking of the people. If you start acting from that place, from the place of what’s the best thing for the people, not for the other politicians or for just your voter base or for anything but the people, you’ll start making decisions that will make us love you…instead of just being happy your not as bad as the last guy. In less that’s all your looking to be, not as bad.

I hope this finds you and yours well, and I truly hope you listened. I voted for you. I didn’t believe your words, but I knew you’d be better than the alternatives. But a part of me was really hoping you were the man you gave speeches like. You can still be that man.

Thank you,

Matt