A letter to Obama from Louisiana

From the Facebook Page Along the Bayou
MY LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT
Dear Barak Obama,

Many great American people gave their lives for you to be where you are. Just like they so strongly believed in equality, we believe in culture and heritage. You may think that this is way off, and totally not the same. Americans fighting for their equal rights, to be treated the same, can not be compared to people losing their culture. To us as Southern Louisianian's it is. Just like everyone else in America, we have certain things that we love in our hometown. New Yorkers love Times Square, people who live in San Fransico love the Golden Gate, it is their trademark, but more than that, it is personal to them. Tell me how these fishermen who have worked their whole lives off of these waters and made an honest living, will be the same. BP has taken their right to freedom of the land they have fished and hunted on. My community is like no other in America. We would be nothing without our marsh, bayous, and gulf. These things are literally a part of our everyday life. Apparently this is not important enough to you as the American President, and I understand when you or other people don't see what we see in this small place, and why it matters so much. It is here that generations of our families came home from war, wars that America asked them to fight for our freedom. Now, that freedom that they fought for, has been taken from us. It is a matter of my Civil Rights as an American, that you treat me equally. My son's freedom of choice has now been taken from him. He can not do what his father and 4 generations before him has done. He has no choice. He had a dream, a dream of becoming a full time Charter Fisherman. That is gone as of now and will be gone forever if something is not done immediately. Our love of these swamps and bayous are beyond explanation. How can you explain what you see as the President when you look at the American Flag or American Soldiers. Love, Pride, Beauty, Amazement, Glory, Passion, there is so much we see about our culture. We look at that oil spewing out of that pipe and its like watching a loved one die. This thing that other people see as just water, is what we need to live our lives. Lives that revolve around this water that is being taken away from us by the second. You have an obligation to protect us from any form of harm, well Mr. Obama, here it is. Someone has dropped a bomb right in the middle of our Times Square. When "topkill" failed it was like watching the second plane crash into the Towers all over again. As we watch BP try and fail it deminishes our hope. We feel just as if this is 911 all over again. You tell us this is war and we need to fight, we will be there. Yes, we would give our lives for our children to have this gift. We needed leadership and you failed us. You sent us into war with our hands tied and we have to listen to the enemy. I firmly believed that you have nothing to lose in this situation, but the respect of the American People. You have not come forward to take control of a situation that is fatal to many American people. TOXIC dispersants are still being used, even after the EPA told them to stop. You still have done nothing about this. You are the American President, you are the leader of the American People. You control these lands and anything in it. Need I remind you, Martin Luther King had a dream and died for it. You as the first black president had an obligation to be better, to bring respect back to the presidency. I think that dream has now ended in dissappointment the same way my son's has.

Sincerely,
A Heartbroken Dreamless American