Open Letter to the Senators of the United States

It is with great pride and a heavy heart that I write to you today.  I am proud of the United States of America's heritage and foundation based upon the Bill of Rights that give the American People the opportunity to speak their mind to their government and to ask their representatives to do that job which they were elected to do: represent the People.  It is with a heavy heart that I am writing today to discuss a topic which has eroded the American People's ability to have a real voice in their government and turned elections into little more than class warfare.

The Citizen's United vs. FEC ruling by the Supreme Court in 2010 in a divided 5-4 vote began allowing corporations to not only begin spending money through political broadcasts in an effort to promote their candidate of choice but allowed unfettered amounts of money to begin undermining the people's voice.  Corporations do not enjoy the right to vote, but they do enjoy the right to directly affect the outcome of elections by spending exorbitant amounts of money to spread their message more loudly and widely than any individual could hope to.  

Lobbyists that represent special interest groups are little more than shadow companies that stand between representatives and corporations with the sole purpose of funneling funds from corporations (for-profit and not-for-profit) to candidate's campaigns for election and reelection.  Done directly and without a middle man, this act would still be considered illegal in federal campaigns, but by allowing lobbyists to act on their behalf, it has become standard practice and perfectly acceptable to spend money on candidates and ask for political favors and consideration in return.

As of today, I do not accept that it is a foregone conclusion that my government is utterly lost to us.  I do not accept that you have all abandoned us completely in the lust for the almighty corporate dollar.   I believe that our first act as the People of the United States needs to be communication with our representatives in the United States Government.  I am writing you today in an effort to communicate to you, my Representative, my wishes as a member of your constituency.

It is time that you and your peers return the government to the hands of the American People and take it away from faceless corporations that have only one goal in mind: profit for the few on the backs of the many.

On Thursday, December 8, 2011, Sen. Sanders of Vermont introduce a bill to the Senate that would create an amendment to the Constitution to overturn the Citizens United ruling and put the power of governing back into the hands of those that you represent, instead of allowing corporations to continue to dominate our elections by funneling money into campaigns and political broadcasts in an effort to undermine the American People.

I am demanding that you, as a representative of the people, as one of MY representative, sponsor and support this bill with every ounce of your political influence. When a similar bill is introduced and passes in the House as well as the Senate, we can begin the process of letting the People retake their rightful place in a Government.  I would like to be able to say that MY representative is the one that began the process of removing corruptions from the United States Government and returned honor and respectability to those that represent the American People.

Please do not ignore those People you represent.  Approval ratings for both the House and the Senate are at an extreme low.  Recent surveys suggest that close to 80% of the American People, people that you and your peers represent feel that no one in Congress should be reelected.  This is an expression of our distaste for the way in which our government has quite literally been bought by corporations that are beholden to a small group of shareholders rather than the American People.

We cannot and will not continue to abide this corruption.  I am writing you today with the hope that you will reflect the opinion of your constituents and agree that this cannot continue.

-------------------------------------------------------

Feel free to use the above text to contact your Senator.

Find your Senators HERE

Educate Yourself & VOTE

Today, I was going to begin a series on the Bill of Rights. I wanted to talk about what rights we have, why we are in danger of losing some of them, and why it isn't one single presidential administration that is at fault for the erosion of our rights.

It ended up turning into a history lesson, however, and that's not what I wanted to do. Instead, I decided to explain why this is really our fault.

Complacency and laziness have turned a vast majority of the population into sheep. We go where we are told to go, we eat the grass we are led to, and we walk right into the fleecing rooms and the slaughter houses. We only have ourselves to blame; we actually elected the shepherds and asked them to do everything for us.

During the 2008 Presidential Election, we had a first that was very noteworthy. The Democratic Party had a woman and a black man competing for their party's nomination. That's great in some ways. In others....not so much. It's great because it opened doors that were closed for centuries in America. It began to look pretty ridiculous, however, when the media began talking to the general public.

I heard people say things like, "I am voting for Hillary because I am a woman too." or "I'm voting for Obama because it's time a black man was in office." WTF? What does that have to do with their stance on wars on foreign soil, foreign policy, human rights, states rights, or YOUR rights?

Voting for someone only because they have different genitalia or a different skin color from past Presidents or because you identify with their skin or genitals is just as ignorant as voting for someone just because they are a white male. This doesn't mean that either of these candidates would or will fail as a President. It means that failure or success isn't determined by how much of the spectrum of light is reflected from their skin or whether their reproductive organs are inside or outside their body.

We live in a Democratic Republic. We elect our officials democratically, and they get to make the laws that we have to abide by. It is not only vitally important that we know why we are voting for someone, but it is also important that we vote in the first place.

Voting is the single most important responsibility we have as citizens. It is the only true voice we have in our government, but less than 60% of eligible voters have voted in presidential elections in the last 40 years. The numbers only get worse when you drill down to the local elections in most cases.

If you don't like something an elected official has done or if you are tired of the two party system that has taken over, it is your responsibility to vote for someone else, and you should tell as many people as you can why you are doing it. Sitting in your house and bitching at the evening news isn't going to change anything. And you are right, your one vote isn't going to change anything either. That's why you have to get out there and participate, change people's minds, and win people to your side. But that's not what they want us to do.

They can be political parties, lobbyists, corporations, foreign governments, self-appointed spokespersons, and even criminal organizations. They want us to be complacent. They want us to feel that there is nothing we can do to change the status quo. They want us to spend our lives narcotized and apathetic. They want us to go to work every day, spend our money every week, and take the happy pills that keep us on the hamster wheel. They want us to stay put as just another cog in the machine that keeps churning out positive results for them. As long as we do nothing, the people we don't like running our country are going to continue running our country.

It isn't necessary to keep 100% of the population in the machine. Just like herd immunity with vaccines, you only need enough people in the machine to keep revolution from spreading. The machine is made up of the 40% that don't vote at all, the groups that vote down party lines without understanding the issues, the people that vote based solely on gender or race, and the people that think they are voting against someone else instead of for someone.

We have allowed ourselves to be swooned by promises of prosperity that no one can deliver but us. Then we sit on our hands and wonder where our reward is.

If you take anything at all from this article, I hope it is this:
1) Learn more about the candidates you could potentially be voting for.
2) Tell others what you have learned.
3) VOTE!
4) If you don't like the results, repeat steps 1, 2, & 3.

If we don't do these things, then we can only blame ourselves for what happens in this country.

-A.W.C.