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WALKING ON THIN ICE

A Real Letter from Me to You

July 20, 2011 1 Comment

I attended a moveon.org meeting last weekend about the “American Dream” movement they are building. Although associated with Democrats, I think this movement also encompasses progressive ideals. Everyone in the room was concerned about sustainability, the environment, peace, universal health care, good work, etc. Several people were very discouraged with some of the things President Obama has done, so there was a lot of conscientiousness and self-examination in the room.

Here’s some bit of news about the Gang of Six in the Senate: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/20-4

They are trying to raise taxes on us and cut taxes on the rich, and cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But we aren’t going to let them.

For young people reading this, these things might seem like things that don’t immediately matter or that it is useless, but they do, and there is hope that we can change things. I’ve seen the standard of living deteriorate and expectations deteriorate significantly over the past ten years. It is not unreasonable to see this turn around and become healthier. We have the resources and talent to turn things around. I had the pleasure of seeing a Democrat in Wisconsin get reelected last night after having made phone calls to do this; I’ve seen us raise over a million signatures for putting Ohio’s anti-collective bargaining SB-5 bill on the ballot so we can overturn it when we only needed to raise 230,000… I have been involved in these campaigns and it does help and it does matter.

One of the action items of last week’s meeting moveon.org is to find five friends who will also participate in the movement to a small or large extent. As we are in such a time of flux, I think this is an important opportunity for people to engage and thus am providing this information with the thought that you’ll consider this and participate if you can. You can sign up for some information here: http://ourfuture.org/blog (newsletter signup on the right column of the screen.)

I understand that we live in a fast-paced society, but I think in this time of flux it is especially important to help ensure programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

I think also we’d seen a kind of deterioration in community life over the past twenty years, and now people are rebuilding community with local food movements, poetry, music… and activism is another way to rebuild and heal and socialize. I think that many have felt apathetic, estranged and horrified by the insanity of some of the stuff going on in the political realm. A way through this is to step into it and be part of healing via activism.

Lady

Letter to Senator Portman

April 26, 2011 2 Comments

Dear Senator Portman,

I am writing to express my support of cutting the defense budget rather than cutting social programs, especially Social Security and Medicare.

We rely on Social Security and Medicare–all my husband’s life, he had to find work as a contractor and hence never could afford health insurance. It was such a relief to us when he finally got on Medicare. Indeed, we had to pay for cancer treatment completely out of pocket and it wiped out much of our savings. My husband has been in severe pain for years, and now he can finally get the hip replacement he needs because he is finally on Medicare.

That such a system is being considered for cuts, even if the cuts would happen in the future and to younger people, is something that hits close to home. We’d like these benefits to be available for all people.

The defense budget of the United States is greater than that of the defense budgets of all the other nations of the world combined. This is a prime area for cutting. Please invest the defense budget in our own infrastructure and U.S. citizens’ health and wealth instead of defense.

Thank you!

Senator Portman can be contacted here: http://portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-form and his toll-free phone number in Columbus is 1-800-205-6446.