Letter: A letter to the first lady

Dear first lady Michelle Obama,

Ben Franklin said those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

I heard on Twitter you closed Aspen airspace with your return to Aspen for the fifth President’s Day in a row. Never one to pass up a free ski vacation with perks, huh? Rumor has it that you listed your kids as “staff” so that you didn’t have to reimburse the $57,000 Air Force cost for the regular coach fare. And your “kill list”/National Defense Authorization Act-loving husband went golfing instead of skiing with you and his daughters? (The National Defense Authorization Act makes protest (a First Amendment right) a felony in the presence of Secret Service. The American Civil Liberties Union believes the law is unconstitutional.)

The last time Joe Biden was here, he trapped a bunch of us in the hardware store waiting for his 40-car motorcade to come from Glenwood Springs. Just so you know, closing airports and roads with your ancient Roman parade games just makes us little people chuckle here in the Wild West.

My neighbor, a Goldman Sachs bigwig, had a private fundraiser for Hillary and then refused to pay the sheriff for the extra requested security. As did Hillary. Both made front-page news here, whereas I tried to have a meeting for the guy railing about billionaires and giant corporations, and the limousine-liberal city of Aspen threatened me.

The difference between Bernie Sanders and people like your husband and Ted Cruz (whose connections and loans to Goldman Sachs are legendary) is honesty. Bernie’s anger at the political capture of the system by the corporations owned by your “best friends” and hosts is genuine.

The comedy show known as Aspen Skiing Co. was in the paper last week for more labor violations yet again (coercion, illegal surveillance) (“Labor board probes claims against Skico,” The Aspen Times, Feb. 11). Last time, the Denver Post reported on Skico’s minimum-wage violations (“Aspen Skiing Co. to pay $109,000 to settle federal wage and hour case,” Feb. 24, 2014).

That bears repeating: Your hosts-billionaires who are both managing directors at Skico got busted for minimum-wage violations.

Their puppet, your husband, promised us change. Instead, we got endless war (more bomb sales for your hosts’ General Dynamics) and crony capitalism (bailouts and meaningless fines for cheating by your hosts’ Wall Street JPMorgan Chase).

Do you see why we need a political revolution?

Lee Mulcahy

Aspen