DON'T JUST SIT THERE - TYPE SOMETHING!

NanceGreggs

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-03-06 08:49 PM
Original message

DON'T JUST SIT THERE - TYPE SOMETHING!

All of us at DU have certain issues that hit us in the gut. I realize that with everything going WRONG in the country right now, it's hard to hone-in on just one. But for me, the biggest issue is TORTURE.

This is the letter I have just sent to my senator, Chuck Schumer (D-New York). I hope it encourages my fellow DUers to send off angry missives to their elected reps, on this issue or whatever issue touches your heart, or causes your blood pressure to skyrocket ....

The Honorable Charles Schumer
313 Hart Senator Building
Washington. D.C. 20510

Mr. Schumer,

I realize that your time is valuable, so I will get right to the point.

The point is TORTURE, and the fact that our country is engaging in this practice, and has been for years under the Bush administration. As I write this letter, people are being tortured in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and in whatever ‘secret prisons’ our government has established around the world. And as an American citizen, they are being tortured in MY name.

I want this practice ended now – not when it is politically convenient, not when the latest polls disclose that this is a hot-button issue that can be exploited by one party or the other, not when international outrage reaches a pitch that can no longer be ignored. NOW!

I have watched in anger and frustration as my fellow citizens have had their jobs outsourced for the sake of bottom-line corporate profits. I have stood by, powerless, while the corruption of war-profiteering has become the norm. I have seen the citizenry of my once-proud nation held hostage by Big Pharma and Big Oil.

While all of these issues are important, there is nothing that outweighs the fact that my country has embarked on a path of conduct that renders its heretofore ‘moral highground’ as utter hypocrisy, not only in the eyes of its own citizens, but in the eyes of the world.

In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, we have not met the enemy, sir; we have become the enemy.

I am angry beyond words that you and other elected officials have not been front-and-center on this issue from day one, that you apparently do not share the utter outrage felt by millions of American citizens – because if any of you do share that anger, sir, it is the best-kept secret of the century.

This is not a bi-partisan issue; this is an American issue. I doubt you will find that the average Republican voter is any less angered by the present circumstances than the average Democrat.

I realize that the mainstream media, as innocuous as it has allowed itself to become, still holds sway over a vast portion of our nation. One word from you, from any Democrat or from any Republican in a public forum, could bring this issue to the forefront in a matter of one twenty-four-hour news cycle. But the only sound I presently hear on the subject is a deafening silence.

I have a son and a daughter, Mr. Schumer. I have never seen photographs from Abu Ghraib, or heard stories coming out of Gitmo, where I have not closed my eyes and imagined my own precious children being subjected to such treatment.

How do you think the mothers of those who are, at this very moment, being beaten, deprived of food and water, being put through excruciating pain and humiliation, feel? How quick do you think those mothers, those fathers, those neighbors and countrymen of the tortured will be to assist Americans in the years, nay decades, to come?

How quickly do you think YOU would forget your own child being tortured, Mr. Schumer? What feelings would you hold towards the nation that perpetrated such atrocities? If given the chance to thwart the goals of that nation or promote them, what choice would YOU make?

I am an American citizen, a native New Yorker who voted for you in the last election. I beseech you to tell me that my vote for what I perceived to be your integrity was not cast in vain.

Please do not insult my intelligence, nor my patriotism, by sending me one of your form letter responses, thanking me for my opinions and concern. YOU are my elected representative, and that means representing me, my fellow New Yorkers, and my fellow citizens. That is what you were elected to do; that is what you are being paid to do. So DO IT – I will accept nothing less.

If you find my tone to be vitriolic and uncompromising in its anger, I apologize for being, in view of the present circumstances, more courteous than is appropriate.

Yours Most Truly,
Nancy Greggs

P.S. You will note that this email is being followed by a registered letter to your office, in hopes that it will get some attention. I am not a wealthy person. Please be advised that the money I will spend in supporting my party in this all-important mid-term election year has now been diminished by the cost of sending this missive.

It is a sad day indeed when an American citizen has to waste their limited funds to plead with their senator to do HIS JOB, but I have been left with no other choice.