Open Letter to Bill Gates

You have the forum, please use it. Thanks

Photo by Mat Honan. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

Dear Bill,
For some time I have been contemplating this letter. It has been difficult for me to address you in the way I do here for I deeply respect and admire all you have done for me and for the world we live in. It is no small feat that you accomplished when you set out with Microsoft to computerize and help connect the world. I often wonder if you know or realize the immensity of your endeavors. It boggles the mind.

I am writing this letter because I know you are a good American, I know you love this country and our way of life as much as any of us. I also know you have contributed of your time, thought and assets to improving our way of life. I know you are not afraid to face a crowd or an audience. I know you are a creditable speaker and writer. I know you cherish your private life and prefer to stay away from the mundane, the superlative and sensationalism. Here too, I respect you and your desires. I will try to make the gist of this letter as non-encroaching on your privacy as possible. Please forgive me if I must be blunt.

Many of us, and I include you, have stood by and watched our nation divide itself into fractions of itself. We know things are not right. We know that we overlook what is happening at our national level because we are good Americans and we don't want to cause further dissent, fear and anger. We have allowed a few to run away with our dream. We have allowed corruption, greed and lust for power to overtake much of our system of government. We can blame the Democrats and we can blame the Republicans but the true guilt lies within every American who has stood where we are and done nothing.

Bill, there comes a time when it is a matter of survival. That time is now. We are beyond the time when we could hope for some self correcting mechanism within our system to make things better. It isn't going to happen unless good Americans stand up, take action and force a return to an America we can all be proud of. An America that is respected if not admired. The time we have remaining to do this is limited.

You can see it coming, can't you? I am going to ask you to contribute more than you already have. We all must if we are to be able to live with our conscience tomorrow. You know your strengths, you know where you could best address our national problems. You know what you are capable of. Would you please come help those of us who have recognized the coming struggle to return to sanity and, for want of a better word, normalcy.

You can sit back and say to yourself, "Who is the old fogey that keeps saying he knows this and he knows that about me? Where does he get off addressing me in the way he does? What makes him think he can get me involved when I have plenty to do and no real human need to do anything except what I want?" Well, I take this liberty because I want all of us to get together and clean up our mess. Our mess. We let it happen.

This letter to you is the first in what I hope will become a growing number of open letters from a growing number of Americans. I would like to see every American write a letter to whoever they feel has the power, the influence and the assets necessary to make changes, who can call for and obtain results from those who, quite frankly, are raping our country by usurping and abusing the powers of representation and authority that the American people have given them. I address you first because I feel you may be, in my humble opinion, the strongest American we have available. Somewhere, way down the line, I may address an open letter to the President but there are many more important people to get to before him.

If you have already done much that I ask and I am not aware of it, please excuse me. I have been busy doing my share to the best of my ability. That kind of gives me tunnel vision. I can only see the work to be done, the finished tasks escape me.

An Admirer Who Asks Too Much

Thanks for reading this.

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