The Senate delivered a very expensive and unneeded present to us on Christmas Eve. Despite the tens of thousands of phone calls and faxes to our representatives and despite the polls showing that the majority of Americans do not want government controlled health care our Senators in all their wisdom pass this bill strictly along party lines. What are we to do?
The people have marched on Washington, visited their representative’s offices, and inundated their congressman and senators with calls to no avail. Instead we have been given a “Christmas present” that we will be paying for even before we receive it. We have been given a gift that no one wanted but the givers, who are once again stealing from the American public. They are not only stealing our hard earned dollars but our freedoms as well. From my perspective our protesting and marching have only served to prove one thing that these legislators need to be replaced and replaced soon. They refuse to listen to the people who put them in office and therefore they must pay.
From now on I believe that the grassroots needs to stop wasting time writing letters, making phone calls, going to DC and marching on the offices of their representatives. It is time to start to organize and raise money to support conservative causes and candidates to replace the ones we have. It is time for the people who formed the tea parties to get involved at the local level to make sure that the right candidates are placed on the ballots each November. We are wasting our resources and energy protesting, our strongest form of dissent is the ballot and that is ultimately where we will win this battle. The grassroots are strong and both parties are afraid of what this movement could ultimately do, we have a chance to change the direction our country is taking. We must do this now, we cannot wait one more month or year, and it has to start today.
5 Comments
I think not…if we stop making calls, the Senate can always claim “the public has not voiced their opposition directly to us”. The real efforts need to be made to get those who agree with certain principles to stand up and become an “un-silent majority”, instead of simply sitting at home and complaining to themselves or their family.
Do you have health insurance?
Mark would you pay for a car for 4 years before you get to drive it ?
One more advantage to not having a home phone.
Having spent considerable time and money protesting in 2009, I have mixed feelings on our effectiveness. I didn’t expect Mr. Perriello to change his mind based on our protests. He is a liberal. It is a different world view. I hoped that by protesting and getting some press coverage that it would encourage others to become more politically active and connect to a network of like-minded folks. I think we have been successful with that. Protesting is like advertising. Everybody believes it has an effect but nobody can quantify the effect. We should keep the protest as a tool but not over use it.
It is apparent that that most of our representatives hold us in comtempt and I believe that they are underestimating our political power. I agree we need to work within the system. Change won’t happen overnight.