Open letter to our representatives

morgandawn and I are sending this via regular mail to California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, as well as our local Congressman Mike Honda. I'm under no illusion concerning a reply, but I have to hope that similar letters are on their way all over the country to our elected officials.

If you don't know how to contact your national representatives, try these two links:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Dear Senator / Congressperson:

It pains me to see such daily debacle and travesty in Washington. I was too young to personally experience the Nixon era, however this year seems as bad or worse now. What have we become as a country that I am afraid and ashamed to see each new revelation?

Party politics should be meaningless here. Party affiliation must not become the compass of moral relativism and situational ethics. When have we last expected to hear, and actually heard, nuanced debate, not artificially polarized talking points?

But where are we now?
• An economy supported by crushing consumer debt.
• Ruinous undeclared wars under false pretenses.
• Badly eroded checks and balances between the three branches.
• Insanely powerful corporations with more privileges and fewer duties than any human.
• An unseemly fascination with reducing personal freedoms in all spheres.
• The suspicion, mistrust and even hatred of the international community.
• A professional, citizen-soldier army bleeding daily with no rational military objective.
• Abysmal voter turnout compared to other countries.
• War criminals brazenly operating in positions of power, both here and with some of our allies.
• Openly operated torture chambers.
• 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prison population.
• Scandalously high infant mortality rate.

I could go on. Yet we are not directing our vast resources and political will towards solving these problems here or abroad. What are our government's priorities? What principles shaped the actions necessary to put us here now? Why should any citizen or resident want to support the government that has made today an abhorrent nightmare at the expense of everything we hold dear?

I am deeply ashamed of what America stands for now. Ignore the words, the justifications and excuses; look at what we actually do today. It's wasteful, stupid and even criminal.

I speak and vote my conscience, with care to respect basic human needs. I wish I could say I had faith in sufficient of our political representatives to do the same. America has a population of almost 300 million, and a GDP of about $12.5 trillion. What could we not accomplish had we but the will to direct ourselves responsibly. That's your job now; make a difference serving the people, our country and our founding principles, or move on.