8/15/03
Dear Democratic National Committee,Howard Dean, John Kerry, et al,
I am writing because although I have been disappointed in the Democratic Party in recent years, yet I believe that there may be some hope. In fact, the Democrats may be the only hope the people have in the 2004 election. I am old enough to remember when corporate interests did not run this country, a time when one man’s vote really counted for something. I am disappointed when I look at donations received by politicians on congress.org and see the same greedy corporations sponsoring Democrats and Republicans with huge donations. Corporations whose CEOs write themselves multimillion dollar bonuses while their workers, who do the actual production struggle to make ends meet. I know it takes money to run a campaign, but politicians aren’t elected by money alone, they are ultimately elected by people. People like me. Of course that may change in the next election, if HAVA passes the way the Republicans have it now.
If it does we all lose. Well maybe you guys don’t. You can continue to line your pockets with corporate donations and live your nice cushy lives until the oil runs out or the planet is to toxic to sustain life. These are pivotal times we’re living in and you are the guys who can turn it around. Stop worrying about keeping up with the Republicans and do the right thing. The people will follow.
The American Way is supposed to be about people getting what they need, an honest days work for an honest days pay, people being able to spend time with and educate their kids. It’s not about bigger profits for a select few, while in working class families both parents have to work 50+ hours a week just to pay the bills. It’s hard to bring up your kids when you’re either working or too tired to give them the quality time they so richly deserve. Small wonder our kids are running in the streets or shooting up their schools. Small wonder many of them can’t read, spell or do simple math by the time the graduate high school. Their parents are too tired to help them with their homework!
The American Way is not about getting more, more, more, and whoever dies with the most toys wins, it’s about everybody having enough. Contrary to what the "religion" of economics teaches us, all resources are finite (including money) and should be shared, not squandered by a fortunate few.
Well, I’m here to tell you, from what I see around me most people aren’t getting enough! I think we all know who’s getting more than enough.
Another thing that irks me is congressional pensions. $15,000 a month seems excessive, half that seems more appropriate. After all that would be $90,000 a year, twice what most families make. I also think that social security should be paid out of that. It’s only fair, especially with all this talk about how the SS system is going broke
What about a law requiring that employers give at least 4 weeks paid vacation per year?
They do that in Europe and it seems to work for them. Rested workers are more productive. Yeah, the corporations will bitch about it being unfair but you know what?
If they all have to do it, it doesn’t get any fairer than that.
What about national heaththcare? Most of the other civilized countries in the world have it, and have figured out how to make it work. We’re supposed to be the best and the brightest people in the world, yet we don’t take care of our own.
This country was founded by "We the People" not "We the Corporations". They have been sucking us dry for long enough. We work for them, buy their products, get spoon fed their propaganda through the media, give them federal aid, finance them with subsidies from our hard earned tax dollars and then give them tax breaks. Now they’ve taken over a good portion if not all of the government with their campaign contributions, PACs, and influence peddling. Many of the small business owners like myself are barely scraping by or going out of business. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart and Sears get huge tax incentives and end up paying little more in taxes than I do. They suck millions out of our community and give little in return. You know what that is? It’s Fascism pure and simple. It sure as hell ain’t democracy.
Hard questions need to be asked, and they demand hard answers. My question to you is, will you have the courage and fortitude to help "We the people" take this country back?. Are you really for progressive change or will you continue to bury your heads in the sand and go with the status quo? I wouldn’t go with the status quo if I were you, because most people seem to be pretty fed up with it. What do you suppose would happen if they all decided to stop paying their taxes?
As I see it this is what this country needs:
Impeach President Bush and vice President Cheney. They have done nothing but lie and get others to take the blame ever since they got into office (notice I didn’t say, "were elected"). There are definite conflicts of interest with Haliburton, the Carlyle Group and other corporations that could be exploited. This business of WMD in Iraq is more than enough grounds for impeachment. What are you waiting for?.You’ve already got some Republicans coming around. I’m sure if you dug deep enough you would find negligence, if not complicity in 9/11.The Republicans impeached Bill Clinton on far less. The longer you delay the weaker the Democrats look in the public’s eye. Bush is also publicly very rude and spiteful, not good qualities in a leader. Remember him calling the leader of North Korea a "pigmy" or how about "Bring ‘em on". The man is a walking foreign policy disaster. He really makes it embarrassing to be an American.
Limit corporate influence in government. To be honest I’m not exactly sure how to do this. It probably wouldn’t be fair to say no corporate PACs. But you could not allow corporate campaign contributions or contributions by PACs. Or you could take those contributions and put them in a central fund for all the political campaigns to use. Public campaign financing what a concept! Which brings us to...
Campaign finance reform to the tune of; all or most of the contributions made to political campaigns running for office to go to a central fund to be used by all the campaigns. Do not allow candidates to spend their own money on their campaigns. This way the best man might actually win. The focus of the candidates could change from raising money, to the issues and actually reaching out to their constituents.
Someone could run for office based on their ability to deal with the issues and
moral character rather than their ability to raise money.
(You’re gonna just love this!)Change over to a parliamentary political system, rather than our current two party system. This way people could align themselves with a political party that addressed their individual needs rather than just choosing the lesser of two evils as so many of us do now. More might actually get done in Washington. All of the other democracies in the world do this. There must be a good reason for it! We, here in the United States are the prototype democracy. Having made a few prototypes in my time I know that prototypes never perform to the fullest potential of the original design. Prototypes are always improved upon by experience gained from operation under actual conditions. Well, we’ve been testing the prototype for a couple of hundred years now and many improvements have been made. However, the concept of a two party system is flawed, and outdated. It does not represent the people of the United States.
On a more personal note: How about reviewing the copyright laws regarding works for hire? It seems that any musical work produced is considered a "work for hire"and remains property of the publisher in perpetuity. Yet written works are licensed by the author for the term of the contract, at which time the rights revert back to the author. Why is this not the same for authors of music? Why are the rights to my music, not available to my family after my death as with other authors?
The time has come to rock the boat. Are you up for it? I know that many, many of the American People are. This letter will be posted on the world wide web at:
http://smokinherbband.bravepages.com/welcome/political/index.html
as will your replies.
Thank you for your time. Let’s Rock!(the boat)
Best Regards,
Michael Bloomer Prop.
Thread City Music
754 Main St.
Willimantic, CT 06226
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