Thursday, December 22, 2016

A letter to my Congressmen and Representatives

I sent this letter recently to Senator Pat Toomey, Senator Bob Casey, State Representative Dave Reed, State Senator Don White, and Representative Bill Shuster. Yes, I am concerned about the upcoming Trump administration and what it represents. 

If anyone else actually reads this -- I would encourage you to speak out, too. 


My name is Marc Kloszewski from Indiana, PA.  I don’t normally write letters to congressmen or representatives, but with the Trump Presidency imminent, I wanted to express my grave concern at the direction of this country this country may be headed.  I’m not afraid of terrorists, I’m not afraid someone’s going to take my guns away, I’m not afraid of immigrants taking my job or killing me. What I’m concerned with are the priorities of a Donald Trump administration.

After a much-too-long election season, I overwhelmingly feel that in the end, this election has been stolen by Donald Trump, with the help of foreign governments, and moneyed interests worldwide through a combination of voter suppression, media coverage that emphasized style (and advertising dollars) over substance, and decades-long attacks on Hillary Clinton, whom I see as an imperfect but generally decent and competent public servant. Despite my original support of Bernie Sanders, I feel Secretary Clinton was by far the better candidate over Donald Trump to lead our country, and I’m willing to bet that you and many of your colleagues feel the same way.

I don’t have a lot of faith that anything will change the fact that Trump will be President come January 20th, or even that the highly likely possibility of impropriety, graft, and corruption related to the Trump campaign will be investigated to the fullest extent. There are too many people with agendas of their own that are doing their best to sweep things under the rug and to continue on, insisting that we should all “move on” and to leave all the ugliness of the campaign behind us.
I’ll tell you one thing, though. I know that when President Obama was elected in 2008, that Republicans gathered together with the intent of not giving Obama ANY victories, purely for the sake of holding on to power by any means necessary. That’s on the record from Mitch McConnell and others, as I’m sure you are well aware. I will never understand the hatred and greed that motivates these decisions. It’s actions like these that make people despise politicians, putting one’s own self-interest before moving this country forward.

It didn’t matter that we could have employed people to fix our crumbling infrastructure. It didn’t matter that we were on the verge of financial collapse. It doesn’t matter that our public schools should be improved instead of forcing a for-profit model on us. It doesn’t matter that businessmen and the lawmakers in their pockets want deregulation to the detriment of the health and safety of the American people. It doesn’t matter that the cost of healthcare and medicine is wildly out of control.  It doesn’t matter that we’re draining every last bit of fossil fuels out of the ground and pumping it into the atmosphere, warming the planet to levels where at this point we might not be able to recover, instead of prioritizing green solutions which other countries are implementing long before we can even get around to discussing them.

No, the only real goal for Obama’s opposition was to defeat him personally, and slander his name so voters will always feel that the other side is the enemy to be defeated, whatever it costs us. And meanwhile, the business of the country is perpetually ignored. If you’re not fighting against this kind of insanity, how do you all sleep at night? What are you there for, if not to move our country, our state and our communities forward?

Now, instead of the intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable man we have as President, we genuinely have a dangerous fool about to enter the White House, and I am certain that his inattention and inexperience to the monumental tasks at hand will lead him to making some very, very bad decisions, or through his appointees, whose agendas I am thoroughly convinced DO NOT represent the vast majority of people in this country, no matter if his supporters have fallen for Trump’s lies and obfuscations repeatedly.

You only need look at his cabinet choices to understand that they almost always run antithetical to the missions of their departments, that they prioritize the protection of moneyed interests, and favors for the world of business that Trump inhabits – and as a bonus, no doubt, a thumb in the eye of enlightened people who would “foolishly” hope to protect the working man, the fragile economy of this country, and the planet we all inhabit. The idea that he and his crew were able to convince enough Americans that this ill-equipped, immature bully should be our President is something I will never get over. Apparently too many of us were too busy being distracted by things that don’t matter, false flags like “having our guns taken away,” or “we need to build a wall,” the endless fascination with and dissection of Trump’s personality. What matters are policies – something barely discussed in the year-and-a-half of campaigning – instead of who can most effectively bring the other person down.

I’m a middle-aged man. I wasn’t happy when Reagan or both Bushes were elected, but I never have felt as worried for this country as I am at this point. The fact that so many Americans look to Donald Trump as someone who will “Make America Great Again” would be laughable if it weren’t so horrific.

Senator, this is where I hope you will be of good conscience and take a stand to educate your constituents and influence your colleagues to more than ever be vigilant in standing up for the rights of workers, women, and minorities. When you see legislation coming before you that puts our country on the wrong path, I pray that you will reject it and tirelessly advocate for better ways that help us ALL, instead of the privileged few.

I pray that you will also reject the temptations of money and power, and the people who promote these things above all. They are at the core of most of the ills this country faces, and soon we’ll be handing the reins over to the worst possible representatives whose only responsibilities are to themselves. I do not believe that Trump and his millionaire cronies care one whit about the lives of “ordinary” Americans who are struggling. If our country goes on a downward spiral, economically, environmentally, etc., I have an idea that the billionaires will be fine, but what about the rest of us?

What President Elect goes on a “victory tour” to cap off a hateful, divisive and uninformed campaign? What President Elect would have ever been given a pass on folding his adult children into an unethical and possibly illegal relationship between government and private enterprise? The level of possible malfeasance and the ultimate lowering of the Presidential standard is NOT NORMAL, and we should not accept it as such, or bend to the will of a few rich and influential people.

We need to put our citizens first, not corporations, and to reverse decisions such as Citizens United that claim that the more money you have, the more free speech you have. They are NOT equivalent.

We need to correct the disastrous path that climate change has brought upon us. I believe in science, and the idea that there are a lot of people smarter than me, and educated voices of reason should be paid attention to and respected, not maligned, ignored, or covered up.

We need to make education a priority, and with that, a path to bring back good paying jobs.

We need to take care of our elders by protecting things like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and to stop demonizing people who need a hand up via government assistance. Our country is too prosperous to represent the opinion of those who are mean-spirited, ungenerous and who seek to divide rather than unite. We’re better than this!!

We need to stop devoting endless resources and money in preparation for and execution of war, in a country whose military is already tremendously strong and better-funded than most, if not all countries. That money can be put to much better use by improving the lives of our citizens, right here at home.

We need to ensure that diverse voices in this country are heard, and to call out racism and bigotry when we see it. We need to support net neutrality, and keep that pipeline of free, unfiltered information on the internet and over the airwaves so that we don’t end up in a country where the only opinions we’re allowed to hear or read are ones that support corporate interests, or the 1 percent.

Common sense stuff, right? My earnest hope is that through your work that most of all, legislators can somehow see past the toxic partisanship and work towards the obvious common goals that all Americans share, and to fight against those who would suppress them or distract us all from what really matters, and that you’ll be on the front lines.

I wanted to speak out, with the confidence that millions of people feel similarly to my point of view. This country elected Donald Trump with a 3-million vote deficit on his part. He has no mandate, other than the people want “change.” I don’t think the people who voted for him realize what they’re truly supporting. I think we’ve been hoodwinked, and my wish is that every day your attention is to, now more than ever, be a check on this President.

I appreciate your time. Thank you for your hard work. 






No comments: