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ANH LÊ: OPEN LETTER TO DEMOCRATIC VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS

Senator Harris, I congratulate you on your selection by Joe Biden as his running mate for Vice President.  It is a winning ticket.

Senator Harris, my favorite choices included you,  U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Representative  Karen Bass,  Georgia State Representative Stacy Abrams, and U.S. Senator Cory Booker.

I think Joe Biden made the right decision and the best decision.

I think you bring to the ticket a distinguished record in government and public service.

Your background growing up as a child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father and your rich heritage represents the beautiful racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the people of this country.

Our country is ripe to have a woman as Vice President or President.

Your becoming the Vice President will not only make history, it will also usher in a new era for our nation and who wields power in the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and city halls.

I appreciate your commitment to the ideals of constitutional and democratic values, your hard work on behalf of the American people, and your passion.

I would give you the following advice:

• When you are elected Vice President, you and President Biden should be circumspect in how you approach issues and matters of how our nation conducts its foreign policy.

For example, our country must not invade another country or wage war overseas, as occurred when then Senator Biden voted to invade Iraq, a sovereign nation.

Our nation must conduct its foreign policy based on respect for the sovereignty of all nations.

We must also uphold our belief in the sanctity and sacredness of human life.

The killing of our fellow human beings should not be how our government conduct its foreign policy.  It is deeply immoral.  It is also against our nation's vested interests.

• Please work to achieve Universal Health Care for All Americans.  The time for it is overdue.

• We must confront and address the greatest existential crisis facing our nation and the international community, the Global Warming Crisis and Climate Change. Time is running out.  We must protect and preserve our Earth and leave a habitable planet for our children, our grandchildren, and all future generations.  They will ask of us, "What have we done to protect them?"

• As Vice President, you and President Biden must protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare.  They are not entitlement programs.  The American people have contributed to them through their hard work and their payroll contributions.

• I urge you as Vice President, and President Biden, not to be beholden to Wall Street, corporate interests, and the millionaires and billionaires.

Your jobs are to fight for and protect the lives of ordinary and hard working American men and women and their families, not to serve Wall Street.

• The top priorities in our nation include achieving racial equality, economic equality, employment opportunities and decent wages, educational equality, social justice and judicial reform, and voters' rights.

That means eradicating suppression of voters' rights wherever it exists.  This will require strong and effective leadership from you and President Biden along with legislation that addresses the deep cancer of racism in this country.

The days of the Jim Crow era are long past.  They are a dirty stain in our nation's history.

The deep racism still found in our nation and American society must be exorcised.

• As you already know, the current occupant of the White House and his administration will spew horrific misogyny, racism, and sexism toward you to try to derail and defeat you.

They will not be shy in showing their hatred of you, because to them, you are a woman and you are going to be our next Vice President with the possiblity of becoming the President of the United States of America.

Please remember what your mother said to you when you were a young girl and you didn't like something.  She said, "So what are you going to do about it?"

I know, and the American people know, that you know how to handle those contaminated with racism, misogyny, and sexism.  You have shown that.

• I appreciate your brilliance and eloquence during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, as well as when you speak on the Senate floor.

During the Judiciary Committee hearings, your questions to the Attorney General William Barr, gave him many opportunities to answer.  However, his evasiveness was glaring.  In the end, your laser sharp and incisive and piercing questions rendered him speechless.

A former district attorney and California State Attorney General rendering the U.S. Attorney General speechless, was on full display in front of the American people and quite a sight to behold.

The same thing occurred when you questioned Brett Kavanaugh.

In your speech in June on the Senate floor, both you and Senator Cory Booker called on the Senate to bring the Emmett Till anti-lynching bill to fruition, the bill already passed by the Senate but now held up by 1 Senator from the Southern state of Kentucky - - yes, an anti-lynching bill in 2020 still being held up.

We must outlaw lynching in our land.

• Senator Harris, please know that the American people will be with you and have your back as you campaign and fight for the American people.

As both you and Vice President Biden have stated, and as we the American people know so clearly already, this presidential election will be the battle to save the soul of our nation, to preserve our democracy and our nation, and to return to sanity in the governance of our nation.

• By the way, I know that you will do great during the vice presidential debate on October 7th.

Mike Pence is no match for you.

As usual, Pence will try to convey on TV an image of representing the folks of Middle America, an image of down-home simplicity and Midwestern goodness, and do his swaggering manly gestures.

That's all pretentiousness and disingenuousness on his part.

Pence  does not reflect nor represent how Midwesterners really are.  Midwesterners are genuine and authentic.  Midwestern values are, "Say what you mean, and mean what you say."

Senator Harris, you and Pence are just in different leagues.

Finally, Senator Harris, I, along with my fellow Americans across this vast land, look forward to November 3rd, when we will soon address you as "Vice President Kamala Harris."

Anh Lê is an independent journalist.

Copyright By Anh Lê August 12, 2020