Welcome back to Washington

Our elected representatives will be returning to Washington this week. New folks will be sworn in, and the old-timers will likely be assessing what lies ahead with the change in leadership. George's beautifully written story about his trip to the drugstore got my juices flowing and I thought "Damn it, every one of our returning representatives...those whose sloth and fecklessness has ravaged this nation...ought to be getting lots of letters, faxs, emails and phone calls telling them to get off their lazy, partisan behinds and do something." (Brad Miller...not included here :)

Hence the following below the fold...which I plan to fax to all those described above. I'd be pleased if anything I say would seem worthy enough that you would use it to cut and paste and help craft your own letter...to be emailed or faxed...or for the content of a phone call to their office.

TO: NORTH CAROLINA’S CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
SUBJECT: WELCOME BACK TO WASHINGTON

Dear Elected Representatives from the great state of North Carolina.

While you’ve been home enjoying the holiday season the number of our loved ones who have died in Iraq surpassed the 3000 mark and scores more have been grievously wounded. More than 140,000 of OUR loved ones missed being home with their families because they are trying to bring stability to a historically fractious nation that you chose to invade based on lies and misinformation presented to you by our less than noble President.

Insanely, you are now discussing sending even more of our sons and daughters to try to fulfill the deluded dreams of George Bush. And, during this same time we flushed another $2 Billion or so down the toilet in Iraq. To add insult to injury, many thousands more people crossed our borders into our country without our permission or knowledge. You have chosen to do nothing.

While you slept in a warm bed over the holidays, enjoyed good food and drink, and the generous benefits provided you by “we the people,” 37 million of us continued to live in poverty and millions more live without health insurance...having to choose between paying for rent and food or to pay for a doctor’s office call or prescription medicines. And even though you’ve given yourselves generous raises over the past 9 years, you’ve seen fit not to increase the minimum wage so that the poorest among us could simply afford a full tank of gasoline on a day’s wages. You’ve chosen to do nothing.

You’ve chosen not to address our needs for a coherent energy policy freeing us from servitude to OPEC and other oil producing nations, failed to address the issues of fair trade versus free trade, and continued on a path guaranteeing the destruction of jobs here and our middle class. You’ve failed to address the illegal immigration crisis in our nation, also affecting jobs and wages, and given scant attention to preserving our environment, our national forests and parks, or to global warming.

All in all, you’ve presided over what may prove as the most calamitous period of our nation’s history...our government awash in corruption and feckless politicians, our Habeas Corpus rights and Posse Comitatus trampled, our national reputation irreparably sullied by legalized torture, and our future generations plunged into calamitous debt. All the while...we the people are dying...because our President lied to us. And you do nothing.

We deserve better...North Carolina and our nation. We expect you, during the next few months, to cooperate to undo the harm you have wrought on this nation. We expect and deserve your best effort. Welcome back to Washington. We’ll be watching.

Sincerely,