It has been sad to watch your Party tearing itself to shreds in an internal conflict, at a moment when your opponents in the Republican Party are united behind a strident follower of the worst and most dangerous Bushite doctrines.

Your last Democratic President, who pretended that he was just a philandering buffoon, was a disaster; he never did anything to break the power of the great corporate bosses or any of the other special interest groups who have no desire whatever to change the home political backdrop. Quite apart from that, his actions on the international scene caused thousands of deaths, particularly among children who were deprived of food and medical care. A child is a child, wherever he or she may live, and should be loved. During his reign, Mr Clinton’s wife gained much sympathy as a victim of his more dubious personal activities, She has subsequently made massive efforts, and spent huge sums, in the hope of becoming your candidate in the present election. However her record is that she made no more than ineffectual gestures towards the idea of giving you a decent and respectable health-care system, which is one of the minimum requirements to justify any state's claim to be modern and civilised.

You now seem (at last) to have a single candidate, even though he does not, from my outsider's point of view, measure up to the full requirements of the job. But he does, at least, appear a welcome change after the previous four Presidents, each of whom was or is a disaster mostly from being totally unable to act in your interests due to the need to satisfy the greedy desires of his backers. The administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and George W. Bush constitute a long chain of highly flawed incompetence in protecting your country from its enemies, both internal and external. This goes some way towards explaining the losses suffered around the world by your armed forces.

For all of us foreigners, the crude bullying tactics of these successive régimes have created a feeling of deep irritation and hostility towards your country. But the vast majority of you have probably never been outside your frontiers to taste this. On our part, we have no wish to rule you and control your institutions, although your rulers show a constant craving to control ours. Furthermore, we do not wish to become your servants or slaves, but we would love to be your allies in doing good in the world. Also, we resent your leaders claiming to be in favour of freedom and democracy at the same time as they are trying to crush both of these great values in countries far from your shores, as well as in others much closer to you.

Please vote in November for the candidate who will work for world peace, of which justice is an essential prior condition. And make sure that he has enough freedom to manoeuvre within your political system to avoid the special interest lobbying groups whose reputation for corruption has wrecked your national image. You, as individual human beings, should not have to face international dislike, and even hatred, just because your rulers have impossible imperialistic ambitions.

Above all, do not fail to vote, since you have a duty to yourselves, to your country, and to the world to end the ambitions of those who would only be the successors in stupidity of the present régime, and of its recent predecessors.

Those of you who have any religious links should reflect deeply within your conscience as to what is right and just. Forget any preconceived notions that arise from all the propaganda which is constantly being showered on you by false prophets whose only claim to fame is that they can attract the gullible into their super-churches (thereby gaining huge sums of money). Money (or Mammon as I, in my old-fashioned way, often still call it) can, where properly controlled, be very useful as a means of helping to bring about the best possible future for yourselves and for your country. But it is a hideous and extremely harsh master when it controls everything, including ruling your own lives.

I am well aware of the vulgar insults which your tyrannical rulers used against our country when, in 2003, we refused to enter the ill-conceived (and undoubtedly criminal) war to grab Iraq's petroleum reserves in the sole interest of corporate bosses who had no intention of letting ordinary citizens share in their gains. Despite this, I, as a simple French citizen, dare to ask each and every one of you to look back to a time when your country had leaders who approved of our national motto of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Liberty, Equality and Brotherly Love) and to hope that you will work towards a decent future for yourselves and for the rest of humanity. 

Yours very sincerely,

Robert Thompson