Letter to Harry Reid

I received a fund raising letter from Senator Harry Reid. I have the feeling that nothing will be fixed when the Democrats win back power.

Dear Senator Reid,
Let me thank you for calling the closed session to get some answers about the Plame affair. Better late than never as me old granny used to say.

I got your fund raising letter day before yesterday for the DSCC. I was tempted just to pitch it. However, that would mean that you wouldn't get the chance to hear what I had to say on the matter to explain why I'm not going to send you any money.

It is true enough that the present administration is into corruption up to its eyeballs, but that has been the case since the beginning with barely a mummer from the Democrats that I was ever able to pick out. Most of you guys voted to give Mr. Bush and company war powers without any significant debate or even checking of the facts. The excuse that the administration gave you misleading information doesn't cut bait with me. I, a backwoods country cook with no highfalutin education, was able to determine that there were no WMDs in Iraq just from what was available on the net and in the news. But even if there had been stockpiles of WMDs it would not be sufficient justification for the illegal war eagerly launched by Bush and company. Even so we had democrats falling all over themselves to support such criminal non-sense. This made no sense to me at the time, since Mr. Bush had no mandate. Indeed he wasn't even elected – another thing that democrats just caved to.

I haven't seen the Democrats make any significant moves against the injustice perpetrated against the people being held prisoner in Guantanamo Bay. These people need to be tried, or let go immediately and reparations made for the destruction of their lives. And as soon as possible those involved with this criminal detention need to be tried as well, even if all the prisoners turn out to be guilty of something besides fighting for what they believed in. In Northwood's lingo, "this is enough of this bullshit."

Yes, I agree with you that the American people deserve better than this present administration. So do the rest of the people in the world, especially at this time the Iraqis. I'm not convinced that the Democrats are the answer to that problem. I would be a bit more comfortable if guys like Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich were at the top of your policy making heap. Nevertheless, the Democrats have always been up to their necks in political shenanigans themselves, which is the main reason y'all don't point fingers at GOP corruption until even Fox news can't help but see it. I'm a combat veteran of Vietnam, another war plunged into on the basis of lies and nonsense policy, but that timelies and policies of the Democrats. Lying America into war is pretty much business as usual with the Federal Government. I'm pretty sick of it myself.

I certainly sympathize with your throw out the bums letter, but I worry that if successful, your campaign would displace "in your face bums" with more "circumspect bums", if you take my meaning. So if you really want my money and support you have to say something about what you are going to replace them with. Here are some things that need to be done:

1. Complete elimination of any form of gerrymandering. Congressional districts need to be formed as randomly as possible.


2. Stop Republican and Democratic collusion against new parties.


3. A national open meeting law along the lines of Wisconsin's open meeting law. The Federal Government has way too many secrets! Most government secrecy is about hiding Government corruption and stupidity, not national security.


4. Election reform that includes instant run off voting and absolutely no private funding, gifts or what ever! If a law maker takes so much as a pencil from a private party s/he should be considered guilty of corruption!


5. Laws that remove the status of personhood from corporations. Corporations are not people and do not deserve the rights of people. They certainly don't deserve the right to determine the course of government as they do.


6. Military reform that makes the military a citizen defense force for the defense of the physical homeland only, and cannot be used as diplomacy by other means.


7. Real participation in the United Nations.


8. Taxation according to means only.


9. Elimination of the bogus "War on Terror". Terror is real but no more dangerous to Americans than lightening. It certainly isn't dangerous enough to be worth the $100's of billions being spent on it that primarily go towards pissing more people off at Americans.

The list is by no means exhaustive, in my opinion at least, but if it was clear that the Democrats stood for these sorts of policies I would be more inclined to send you "the $50 or $75 or even more" as you asked.
Sincerely,Randen Pederson