Northeast Democratic Club: Letter to the Editors

Letter to the Editors

By Hollis Stewart, NEDC Club Member

I haven't made any of NE Democrats meetings for the past three months but I intend to get regular soon. I believe the online newsletter is one of the most informative items that I receive and I like the hard copy, too. However I must also stress that the inaction of most of the Dems in House/Senate still distress me because I think they have been too willing to court GOPs instead of just not bringing war funding to a vote. It is too painful to forget that the GOP majorities during Clinton's terms just refused to move legislation that they didn't want -- they basically said f**k the citizenry and put partisanship first. Now, we have majorities and the support of the citizenry but we are letting conservative, pro-big business, pro-war, congresspersons and senators define the issues and stall action to end this debacle in Iraq and Washington that threatens our constitutional way of life.

I am not a conspiracy theorist but I believe that the actions on the wall since the conservatives came into power in the 1990s up to the present demonstrate an intent to subvert: freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the separation of church and state, freedom of association and the right to petition for the rectification of grievances and an absolutely racist/nativist program to divide the people of our country and foster hate and violence. As a veteran of the civil rights movement and anti-war movement since 1955 to the present, it disturbs me to see that after all this time the GOP still sees fit to play the hate card against "illegal aliens" and their supporters, gays and lesbians, and all "minorities" through the destruction of affirmative action programs and programs made to alleviate poverty. It is as though the government is only supposed to govern on behalf of the top 1/2 to 1% of the population and press the rest of us to pay the costs. It is sort of like smoking cigarettes: you pay the tobacco companies to kill you. In this case, we are paying our own government to carry out actions detrimental to the needs of the people of the country to have and enjoy a decent life without hate, killing, malnutrition, absent medical care, and on and on.

With the war in Iraq we are paying double and treble or more the costs and the rich and the corporate interests make a nice profit thank you. No one asks, not even the Democrats, "What is our so called national interest in Iraq?" If it is not oil, then what? Is our national interest being subordinated to the national interest of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the UAE, or? We could buy the damned oil cheaper than the price we are paying through the bloodshed of our military, the bloodshed of the Iraqis (which is not going to make them love us for damned sure), and our national treasury that is squandered while our unmet needs for a national medical service are denied, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are left to flounder (except for the business -- read CASINO and mafia interests -- interests), the infrastructure of the nation is decaying and think of how many jobs repairing all that would require. While these things seem to be separate problems they are not: all require money and resources. We need to get out of Iraq and use our money here and we need to progressively tax the rich and the corporations and make that top few percent of our citizenry who are immensely wealthy pay their fare share for the benefits that they enjoy of living in this country.

One of the problems we have is that too many wealthy Americans (both Dems and GOPs), and most people in Congress are wealthier than the average citizens, truly believe in the myth of the American Century and believe that we have a right to rule the world as an imperialist power and consequently end up supporting the occupation of Iraq so that we can control that oil pool and use it strategically against OPEC and our “enemies” while supporting the "good life" at home, whomever the hell the enemies are. All empires have floundered sooner or later and the result has been privation and humiliation for the citizenry left to live in the defeated "center of the universe". In confounding 'alkida', an actually enemy, with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea and making attacks all over the map so to speak we make ourselves into a symbol of irrational aggression and oppression.

Just a few thoughts.

Keep up the good work.

Hollis Stewart

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