If I could ask the President one question...

If I could speak with the President, this is what I hope I would have the courage to say.


Tell me why I should vote, Mr. President. I have voted in every election I could. I believe it to be a privilege when so many in this world are denied it. But why should I vote?

I voted for you in the hope that your promises were real. I gave money to your campaign. The Presidency, Senate and House all in Democratic hands was a situation that I did not think would happen again. For the first time in years, I had a little optimism for this country.

Then it started to fall apart.

The banks continue to hold onto the money provided them by the people of this country. Instead of loaning money to help small businesses and ordinary people they raise fees and interest rates and pay out big salaries and bonuses while making ever higher profits. The banks were bailed out but American wasn’t. It was left to die a long, slow, painful death.

Long, destructive months of a healthcare reform battle where strong, immediate benefits for people in need now were negotiated away. Concessions were given enabling insurance companies to make many more billions in profits at the expense of millions of Americans. The public option was sacrificed for nothing in return.

The people responsible for taking this country into an illegal war were allowed to go their way with nary a wrist slap. The people, some of them the same that took us to war, who approved and even ordered the torture of prisoners were also allowed to get off without answering for their crimes.

Wall Street reform was watered down, giving the banks and financial institutions plenty of room to continue their greedy course with reckless abandon.
The energy policy was allowed to die in the wake of the BP oil spill. The death was so quiet and late in the night that it happened with little more than a moan.

Billions upon billions of dollars, so desperately needed here at home, continue to be poured into the pockets of wealthy and corrupt operators in Iraq and Afghanistan. As much as I dislike the fact we are there at all, we are there, but please do not stuff the pockets of the corrupt who do nothing to help.

Congress went home on vacation while the unemployed saw their unemployment insurance end, leaving millions to worry about feeding their children and keeping their homes.

The stimulus package was watered down so much that it only postponed what is now clearly the inevitable. The recession will become a depression. Again, barely a whimper was heard from the Democrats and the White House.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell still discriminates against a whole sector of the brave men and women of this country, forcing them to break the very oaths they took when they answered the call to serve.

The Deficit Commission has been packed with members that have long voiced their determination to dismantle Social Security. Co-chair Alan Simpson has no trouble publicly demonstrating his disgust with recipients because he knows that he is safe and secure in his position on the commission.

I now know with certainty that I, along with millions of other so-called middle class citizens in this country, do not matter. We are chaff before the wind. We have produced the grain and given it up to the rich land owners. Now we can be discarded. Now we are discarded.

Please tell me, Mr. President. Why should I bother to vote?