MY GRATITUDE TRULY KNOWS NO BOUNDS - Democratic Underground

NanceGreggs

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Sun Jun-18-06 07:56 PM
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MY GRATITUDE TRULY KNOWS NO BOUNDS

Edited on Sun Jun-18-06 08:56 PM by NanceGreggs

My Gratitude Truly Knows No Bounds
(An Open Letter to the US Senate & the House of Representatives)

By Nancy Greggs

Dear Elected Representatives:

As the nation readies itself for the traditional Fourth of July celebrations, I feel this is an appropriate time to thank you for your service to our country and the citizens who elected you to your respective offices.

In a true spirit of bipartisanship, I am addressing myself to both Democrats and Republicans, as both parties have contributed to the current state of the nation.

With all you have done over the past few years, it is difficult to know where to begin, or how to express the gratitude felt not only by myself, but a vast portion of the citizenry.

I would like to start by thanking you for your total lack of vigilance in protecting the Constitution, and the rights and freedoms it was meant to ensure. Your ability to look the other way while the president has usurped powers that are not rightfully his is appreciated, in the fullest sense of the word.

Thank you all so much for allowing United States citizens to be wire-tapped, and otherwise spied upon like criminals. A special note of thanks goes out to all of you who have consistently supported the Patriot Act, which has stripped us of rights and freedoms that have traditionally been our birthright, i.e. trivialities such as due process of law, legal representation when accused, a fair and speedy trial, and all of the other nonsense that you have diligently dispensed with on our behalf.

Thank you for allowing this Administration to spend not only our current tax dollars with complete abandon, but the tax dollars of future generations who will have to pay off the enormous debt you have allowed to accrue, while at the same time granting tax breaks and subsidies to those individuals and corporations who need them the least at the expense of hard-working Americans.

Thank you for not only permitting, but encouraging the outsourcing of American jobs to cheaper labor markets, and for not bothering yourselves with the consequences of same. I cannot speak for the people who now have those jobs in countries like China, but I am sure they are grateful that you have not let things like inhumane working conditions sway you from the goal of enriching the bottom lines of US corporations at their expense.

Surely no one can ignore your staunch support of things like the Bankruptcy Law, or the new Medicare Drug Program, which lines the pockets of financial institutions and pharmaceutical companies to the detriment of the most vulnerable amongst us, the working class poor, the sick and the elderly. Most assuredly, you must all sleep well at night knowing what you have accomplished.

What US citizen would not join me in a deafening round of applause for your position on the War in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom, the War on Terror, or whatever it is being called this week)? From your failure to question the initial “intelligence” you were offered to your current stance on sending our soldiers into combat without the proper equipment or direction, you have shown incredible fortitude in ignoring the common sense attitude that your constituents would have expected. Kudos to all concerned for the shock-and-awe of it all!

And let’s not forget the fact that you have gutted our veteran’s pensions and benefits, and sent even the sickest and most psychologically damaged among them back into battle time and time again. Well done – yes, well done. I am confident there is a special place in the afterlife for each of you.

Thank you also for not bogging down the governmental process with calls for investigations into no-bid contracts that have cost the taxpayers millions of dollars without an iota of accountability on the part of those who were handed those contracts, or queries into the millions of taxpayer dollars that have mysteriously ‘gone missing’ in the fog of war. Believe me, a grateful nation salutes you for instead debating the more important issues of the day like flag-burning and gay marriage. You all must be so proud, and justifiably so!

A special tip of Uncle Sam’s hat is more than appropriate to each and every one of you for not being drawn into discussions nor debate concerning the pitfalls of hackable electronic voting machines, voter suppression, the purging of legitimate voters from the rolls, or the like. I am thankful you have realized that with all of the challenges presently facing our democracy, the concept of fair elections is but a nuisance to be deferred to another day.

To all of you who are on-the-take (whether presently under investigation, serving prison time, or waiting to be caught and indicted), I am grateful for your willingness to sell your fellow citizens out for financial gain. It is that kind of Yankee Doodle entrepreneurial spirit that separates you from the dummies who have attempted to do the right thing throughout their political careers, and I am sure an entire nation holds you in the esteem you so undoubtedly deserve.

I know that many of you will be appropriately unwilling to accept responsibility, and the accompanying accolades, for many of the things that have happened ‘on your watch’, so to speak. I do not deign to speak for all Americans, but I am confident that my fellow citizens share my gratitude for your total abandonment of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, as well as those who have slipped below the poverty line during your tenure in office, the children who go to bed hungry thanks to your gutting of social programs, and the children who will go uneducated as a result of your failure to fund educational institutions.

As though the accomplishments I have outlined above were not enough to thank you for, there is the one issue that is, for me, the most outstanding of all you have done: the issue of torture. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for allowing the “quaintness” of the Geneva Conventions to be abandoned. Surely all of us must realize that if you are going to hold out our beloved country as a model of a Good Christian Nation, that title would have little meaning without the use of torture, without rendition, without the secret prisons you have allowed to be utilized the world over.

I am confident that the parents, siblings and spouses of our brave fighting men and women in the Middle East are thrilled to know that their loved ones are made safer and more secure, should they fall into enemy hands, by the fact you have allowed these outdated rules of conduct in wartime to be summarily dismissed.

As for the fact that you have participated in the squandering of the goodwill we once had around the world, the distancing of our traditional international allies, and have managed to garner the enmity of millions of people all over the globe, I cannot begin to express what I am feeling. Your behavior in this regard has been mind-boggling, to say the least.

As we near the 4th of July, I think it is important and appropriate that all American citizens come together, regardless of political affiliation, to celebrate the tattered remnants of our democracy.

So a heartfelt thanks to all of you. You’re doing a heck of a job!

One Truly Astounded Citizen,
Nancy Greggs