Month: November 2017

The practice of contacting the government with your opinion has always consisted of contacting your Representative and Senators. Those would be the Representative for your congressional district and the Senators for your state. Don’t contact any others as they only want to hear from their constituents, the people that live and are eligible to vote in their area of representation.

However, we live in an environment of two sets of rules.

Congress, generally the Republicans in Congress, have been generating legislation and approving Presidential appointments that are detrimental to the people that they theoretically represent as well as everyone else.  “Theoretically represent” is used because they don’t represent the interest of people who vote for them. They represent the interest of the Donor Class.

The Representatives, the Senators, and both political parties solicit money nation wide from non-voters and voters who are not within their area of representation. Some of these constituents are corporations which claim to be people even though they cannot vote, Political Action Committees which are also not people, and the Donor Class as individuals regardless of whether they are within the legislator’s area of representation.

It is well past time to change the rules and change convention. If Congress can solicit funds from, and represent the interest of these non-voters, those who are not eligible to vote for an individual legislator must be able to voice an opinion on matters that affect them. The current convention allows them to solicit money from anywhere and from non-voters, therefore, contact with voters they are affecting, regardless of where they live, should be acceptable.

If you call Representatives of another district or Senators from another state, they may hang up on you. They don’t want to hear from you. That doesn’t prevent anyone from calling after hours and leaving a voice mail message.

However, if you email, fax, tweet, or mail your opinion, they will see the volume of comments even if they disregard them.

It is time to level the playing field and inundate the legislators who are actively dismantling the United States as we know it. Call and write all of them frequently.

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Thos

We have been involved in war in Afghanistan for 16 years

16 years –

It took 5 years (Dunkirk – VE Day) to take back North Africa and Europe from German Nazis / Italian Fascists. It took four years to take China, Philippines, several Pacific islands, and SE Asia from Japan (starting with virtually no navy). Korea was three years, declared a stalemate, and continues as a non-shooting (mostly) occupation for 64 years and counting. ‘Nam was 20 years. 16 years in Afghanistan also includes 16 years of constant US warfare elsewhere in the Middle-East with a little side excursion into Libya.

It is interesting to note that one of the weapons that the US military uses in endless war is named after one of the guys who took part in taking Europe in five years (Omar Bradley).

Now we have another we can’t…

We can’t help Puerto Rico because it is an island!

Let’s see, Guadalcanal is an island. The US figured how to get 60,000 soldiers and their supply chain to Guadalcanal in 1942.

Iwo Jima is an island. The US figured out how to get 110,000 soldiers and their supply chain to Iwo Jima in 1945.

Okinawa is an island. The US figured out how to get 541,000 soldiers and their supply chain to Okinawa in 1945.

In 1943-44, the US figured out how to move around a million soldiers, thousands or airplanes, trucks, tanks, and other various supplies to England, an Island. England is not only an island, it was an island blockaded by the German navy and air force.

Was there some sort of magical technology in use 73 years ago that does not exist today?

It seems that our current national leadership is not as smart as Roosevelt, Churchill, or Stalin (Russia took the biggest hits and had a substantial role in success). Current military leadership is not as smart as Eisenhower, Montgomery, Zhukov, et al., our “opponent” military leaders are a lot smarter than Rommel, Himmler, et al., or they continue these wars intentionally.

The same observation can  be made of assistance to Puerto Rico. Have we not assisted sufficiently because our current leaders can’t do it, or because our leaders don’t want to?

The answer is apparent to most of us, but it would be interesting to frame the question to the establishment in exactly that way. The excuse might be entertaining.

-30-

Thos