Dear Mr Putin,
I have yet to meet with you personally in a face to face conversation, but here I give you the benefit of the doubt as one of the remaining sane leaders on Planet Earth.
We live in perilous times, and it is imperative at this juncture that WE, as Human Beings who are ALL members of the Human Family, recognize the nature of OUR discontent, and exactly where – and who that discontent stems from.
If a problem is to be solved, it is necessary to first understand WHAT or WHOM is causing the problem, and what necessary steps need to be taken to resolve the issue at hand.
The purpose of this letter is first to promote goodwill and solidarity between the good people of Russia and the good people of the usa, and issue a call for solidarity between the good people of Russia and...
Politics
Dear President Jonathan:
I want to congratulate you for surviving your checkered tenure as the President of our dear country, Nigeria. Six years are truly arduously long for anyone to steer the ship, which ferries the largest concentration of Black people on planet earth across the nebulous ocean of ethnic jingoism, unscrupulous agitations, melancholic spurting for inclusion or belligerent cry of marginalization, and, most importantly, bellicose vituperation for probity, accountability, and simple sanity in the polity under your executive watch.
I have had to look up all these fancy words in the dictionary to understand what newspapers and other commentators have been saying about you in the last four years that I have been seriously reading all the major newspapers of Nigeria on a...
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Dear Mr President,
America is a fascinating society. It is a nation of nations: the world in miniature. Every continent, culture and civilisation is represented within your ranks.
In our unipolar world, non-alignment is no more the policy option of Third World countries who feared the collision or collusion of the two competing superpowers. Rather, it should be what characterises American foreign policy. Because if the US sides with one belligerent player in a regional conflict, not only does it unnecessarily alienate and antagonise all the other countries in the area but it also offends and ghettoises a domestic component of its own national and social fabric. A recent poll showed that 66 per cent of the American public wanted the US to be a neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian...
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Dear Melanie
Congratulations on your appointment as permanent secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government. Your career across government gives you the best possible experience on which to draw, and you have the best wishes of the local government sector as you come into the job.
As you enter the department, I’m sure you are aware that there is no magic bullet or easy solution to the many challenges that it faces. After five years of deficit reduction and austerity many local government functions have been cut to such a degree that DCLG often seems to have little to do other than observe the reduction in activity. This means that now more than ever we need realism, transparency and pragmatism to be the watchwords of the department.
Councils are facing more...
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Dear Friends,
This has been a difficult and sombre week in Canada. We were all shocked by the terrible and violent events in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and in our nation’s capital, and we are united in mourning the deaths of two Canadian soldiers. We will not forget them and join with the Muslim community in sending our heartfelt condolences to their family and friends.
As we struggle to comprehend these terrible events, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Muslim brothers and sisters. We are all Canadian, and we have all been profoundly touched by this tragedy.
In the days and weeks to come, whether talking about protecting civilians in the Middle East, fighting racism and Islamophobia or ensuring rights are respected here at home, New Democrats can be counted on to stand up for human...
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Dear Party Leaders,
Whatever the outcome of today’s referendum about the future governance of Scotland, there seems to be a strong consensus that nothing will ever quite be the same again. People in Scotland have been granted their right to be heard and have used the opportunity to imagine all kinds of positive futures.
Alongside the official Yes and No campaigns, we have seen the growth of genuine grassroots movements, giving everyone a voice. Across the nation, people previously disengaged from formal politics have been passionately debating what matters to them – all because they have a decision to make in which their individual vote really will influence the outcome.
For many of these people, voting had previously become merely an exercise in democracy rather than true...
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Dear Prime Minister:
Many Americans love Canada and the specific benefits that have come to our country from our northern neighbor's many achievements (see Canada Firsts by Nader, Conacher and Milleron). Unfortunately, your latest proposed legislation -- the new anti-terrorism act -- is being described by leading Canadian civil liberties scholars as hazardous to Canadian democracy.
A central criticism was ably summarized in a February 2015 Globe and Mail editorial titled "Parliament Must Reject Harper's Secret Policeman Bill," to wit:
"Prime Minister Stephen Harper never tires of telling Canadians that we are at war with the Islamic State. Under the cloud of fear produced by his repeated hyperbole about the scope and nature of the threat, he now wants to turn our domestic spy agency...
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Arenas, Budgets and Pools! Oh My!
“That’s a pie crust promise. Easily made, easily broken,” said Mary Poppins. The arena debate in St. Catharines lends itself to that quote. I am referring to the promise of closing down the aging and crumbling Gatorade Garden City Complex. The proposed budget for 2015 was recently released. The city of St. Catharines is looking at a 3.99 percent increase which includes harsh cuts across the board. Do not worry, the decaying, vermin-infested, albeit beloved, Gatorade Garden City Jack Gatecliff Rex Stimers Arena, which costs you and me nearly $1,000,000 per year to operate, will remain open. City council instead will close five outdoor pools, the Canal Centre and Museum, the Fairview Golf Course and cancel vital repairs and improvements across the...
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Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
Thank you for coming to America. I am just a grandma from Goleta who can no longer stand idly by. I can see that the world today is a dangerous place and I fear for my children and grandchildren. It is apparent that we are on the brink of another World War, and yet, the U.S. is somnolent, lulled into an easy, yet unrestful sleep having been soothed by the deceptions of a narcissistic president who prefers to indulge in fantasies rather than lead, as you are doing. He has tarnished the reputation of our once great nation.
America has suffered more than its share of foolish ideologies and misguided leaders, but these times are different, with decisions that will not only change the future, but determine whether or not there is a future at all. That is why, as...
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Dear Comrades,
We write to express our solidarity with you in these trying times. Your country is burying a hundred or so dead, demonstrators and policemen, and hundreds more wounded are still in its hospitals. The specter of a civil war has not yet left Ukraine. While not the defeated party, most of you cannot partake in the joys of the victors. Euromaidan was hardly the ideal terrain for your struggle. Its contradictions divided you and those who did participate, were outsized by the Right Sector. We don’t say this in reproach: with a few exceptions such as the former Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey, the East European left is everywhere small, and everywhere divided over those strange but powerful social movement that have swept our countries in recent years, expressing the just...
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