This letter was written and sent to my two senators, congressman and president…
Dear Senator(Congressman, President, etc…),
There really wasn’t any topic to put this under, I suppose ‘Government Affairs’ will have to suffice. What do you think to yourself or say to your staffers, friends and colleagues when you see the project voter turn out for this fall? What to you do to justify the apathy and dejection those numbers represent?
I myself no longer try to explain what is happening in this country, it all seems so… futile. The state of our Union is such that it leads to not only thoughts of political suicide but personal as well. How is that possible? How is it that the machinations of the rich and powerful in this nation can drive an individual to contemplate the extinguishment of his own life? What alternatives are left us, the powerless? I have no voice in Washington. I have no voice in Sacramento. The only message that I have recourse to that might have the chance of sparking interest, debate, discussion, anything really is to take my own life. This is a depressing thought.
I do not flatter myself into believing that my position or thoughts are unique to myself. I know that there are many others like me who wish to make their wills known but have recourse to only this most radical form of protest. Even more depressing and tragic is the realization that my suicide would do nothing. That it would affect nothing in our nation. If the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi’s does not perturb the consciousness of our Nation what will the death of a single person do?
I am powerless and if I am mistaken and some small power is still within my grasp its presence has been hidden. Poor both intellectually and materially I can do nothing within the system of government to create change. Outside of it in the civil world the government has so shaped the laws that here to I am powerless. Falling ever more into debt and despair as I struggle wholeheartedly to realize even the smallest portion of the american dream I only fail.
Who do I blame? I blame myself for not being able to affect the change s I so wish this nation to make, to make it a more equitable and fair democracy to further push the dream of our founders. But, I also blame you and your fellow congressmen and senators. I blame the President of these United States. I blame the system of courts. You have failed in your duties, miserably so. And finally I blame my fellow citizens for turning their backs on their neighbors, their brothers and sisters.
Dejectedly,
Jonathon Howard
