Hello, Mr. President!

In his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of people in Chicago's Grant Park, President-elect Barack Obama said, "I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."

Peace and Justice activists seem to be taking him at his word, with a proliferation of online petitions aimed at pushing an Obama administration in a more progressive and peaceful direction.

Just Foreign Policy has a customizable e-letter which can be used to ask our new President to:

• Negotiate an agreement with the Iraqi government for the complete and timely withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, as the Iraqi government has demanded
• Establish real diplomacy with Iran, beginning with the establishment of US diplomatic representation in Iran.
• Make a fresh start on US efforts to help resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict and take seriously U.S. policy against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
• End the embargo against Cuba and establish dialogue with Cuba's government.
• Move quickly to repair relations with Bolivia and Venezuela, negotiating the return of ambassadors.
• Put military spending on the table for cuts and consider Rep. Barney Frank's proposal for a 25% cut in military spending.

The possibility that Obama might select Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers as his own Treasury Secretary has also triggered a quick response. As chief economist for the World Bank, Summers authored a controversial memo arguing that the bank should actively encourage the dumping of toxic waste in developing countries, particularly "under-populated countries in Africa," which Summers described as "under-polluted." Summers added that public outrage over the heightened rates of cancer caused by his proposed dumping would be mitigated by the fact that poor people in developing countries rarely live long enough to develop cancer. Summers was also responsible for much of the deregulation of Wall Street that led to the current financial crisis.

And finally, Bonnie Block, past Chair of WNPJ, has some words for President-Elect Obama, printed recently in the Madison Capital Times:

Dear Mr. President:

I'm not going to congratulate you on being elected, because you will be taking office during what is a dark and difficult time for America. Major changes are needed, and here's what I hope you will do.

I hope you will act in a way that begins to restore trust in government as an instrument for the common good rather than for the special interests that fund campaigns and run Wall Street.

I hope that you won't lie to us -- about the reasons for going to war or about the changes that we must make to halt global warming or about the fact that unbridled capitalism has failed because its focus is on getting more instead of having enough.

I hope you will cut the military spending that now takes almost half of our federal budget, and instead use diplomacy and development assistance to create a more peaceful world. As Jeannette Rankin, the first woman member of Congress, said, "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." Iraq is a textbook example.

I hope you will act to bring about economic justice so that the top 10 percent of Americans no longer own 70 percent of the wealth. We need social investment, fair taxation and living wages -- not bailouts for the super rich.

I hope you will work to restore America's good name by being a constructive member of the United Nations, by honoring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by supporting the Millennium Development Goals to alleviate the poverty of the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day.

I hope you will not pander to our fears or scapegoat any group for the difficult straits we're in. Help us become global citizens who will live with compassion for this fragile "third planet from the sun."

I hope you will appeal to our better nature so that together we can make the dream of our founders for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" a reality for everyone, not just a privileged few.

Bonnie Block
President, Dane County Chapter of the United Nations Association