George,

While listening to President Obama speak, I waited hopefully for him to confront, not just describe, our huge national problems. Would he offer concrete steps towards solutions? Mention voting rights, sure, but will he try to liberate us and our elections from the overwhelming power of Wall Street, of corporations, and entities such as ALEC? Acknowledge growing poverty, but what encouragement has Obama for our nearly toothless labor unions and the hordes of minority workers who deserve a living wage? Or has squeezing more "productivity" out of the workforce while pouring more dollars into the pockets of the rich become our national goal?

What can the president do to cut drastically not only the appalling number of young African-American males imprisoned for minor drug offenses, but also the privatized, for-profit prisons themselves? He acknowledges the harm wrought by guns but will he push for dramatic reform and take on the gun lobbies, or just allow that campaign to atrophy? As he ponders the fate of the Keystone pipeline, will he remember his pledge to protect our environment and support clean energy, or will he fold before the dirty power of the oil and gas corporations? Please, President Obama, tell us.

I know that Obama faces intransigent, mean-spirited opposition, but I long for him to summon the spirit of FDR to express what I hope he inwardly believes about his foes and what they are doing to our country. Not just once, but again and again. In his overwhelming desire to please everyone, Obama has often yielded half his bargaining chips before debate even begins. It's long past time to trash those failed tactics. Enlist the American public, hungry for more than just inspiration, and push for a communitarian agenda.

Everyone remembers Martin Luther King's fight against racism and segregation. Almost everyone, including Barack Obama, sweeps under the table King's passionate sermons against war and economic imperialism. To forget them is to betray Dr. King.

Without action, rhetoric is hollow. I would dare President Obama to emulate MLK on all three fronts: racism, militarism, and economic imperialism.

Virginia Germino (Electronic mail, August 29, 2013)