Help workers, not plutocrats

As one of your earliest supporters, I have become progressively more disillusioned with the contrast between the ideals you espoused before you were elected and your performance since your election.

I believe you are well-intentioned, but your compromising on every issue before the battle begins (for example, health care reform) is frustrating your base supporters to the point of despair. Your predecessor never had anywhere near the mandate you received, yet — unfortunately — he got nearly everything he wanted.

Despite Republican efforts to paint you as a socialist and your policies as extreme left, in fact your policies and initiatives are actually right of center and right of most Americans.

Your policies should be directed toward benefiting the middle class, working class and the many disadvantaged in our country, rather than the plutocrats.

Right the wrong against Hawaii

More than 100 years ago, our last reigning monarch, Queen Liliuokalani, entrusted the U.S. president with the responsibility to restore her to the throne and right the wrong that was done by the U.S. troops’ invasion of this neutral nation-state. That responsibility has been inherited and neglected by every U.S. president since Grover Cleveland.

What will you choose to do? Will your name be added to a list of negligent U.S. presidents, or will you do what is right for the people and the land of which you are so proud?

Support broader language skills

I applaud your efforts to increase American students’ competencies in science and math, not only for their own education but to compete in a global marketplace.

I also suggest encouraging the learning and teaching of second or even third language skills as early as elementary school, if not preschool. Language and culture are synonymous. Learning both will increase our students’ competitiveness in the global marketplace and encourage greater cultural competency and tolerance, and can also help to slow down or reverse language extinction in indigenous communities.

Take next step with health care

Thank you so much for getting the health care passed. It has given me and many people I know some peace of mind.

I hope that in your second term you can get a single-payer system through, because it is barbaric to profit from sick people.

And perhaps you can bring U.S. Sen. John McCain to Hawaii to learn about the Polynesian Voyaging Society and all the wonderful cultural and educational things it does. The society doesn’t do anything close to giving rides to tourists.

Wean Hawaii from military

Hawaii seems ill-served by the outsized military expenditures here. It might seem a victimless crime — many Hawaii residents welcome the military and soldiers want to be stationed here. But Hawaii deserves more. It needs the benefits of a locally sustainable economy. Making the state a military garrison doesn’t serve that end. In fact, the whole country would benefit from a pared-down defense budget.

I hope your administration will work with our new governor to shift federal support for Hawaii away from the military and toward expenditures that will nurture the special spirit that is Hawaii.

Help our kupuna and our children

First, let me wish you and your family Mele Kalikimaka and Hauoli Makahiki Hou. Thanks for coming home and showing the waste-of-time birthers where you really come from.

My wish is that you don’t let our retirement funds and our kupuna’s care go down the drain. I also pray that Mrs. Obama care not only for children’s health but for their education as well.

Also, please consider enhanced sentencing for child abusers and child predators.

Hang in there, sir. You’re awesome to me, even if you are a Punahou grad and I’m a proud Ram from Radford!