Mr. & Mrs. Candidate, where is the America I grew up in and what will you do to get me back there.

I grew up in a family that came from real poverty. The son of a sharecropper in south Alabama, who moved North after serving in the army in WWII with the dream of making a good living so that his family wouldn’t have the lack of opportunity that he had when he grew up.


Dad got a job in a factory and then worked in construction building the Niagara Mohawk power plant in Niagara Falls N.Y. after the factory closed down, and when the Niagara Mohawk project was finished he landed a job working for General Motors in Buffalo until he retired.


All the while he bought a house and sent me to college and helped me raise my family and retired to Florida in 1984 the American Dream fulfilled.


Now as I view this country I say what the hell has happened on my watch. Man am I going to have a lot of explaining to do to my sons.


I have always believed that America was the good guy the John Wayne, who drove the evil out and replaced it with decency and virtue.


In the 21st century we are witnessing the death of the America the good guy. We must take a view of the world and with it America the good and bad then view it with truth and reality. We must decide who we are going to become and what course we will take.


The founders gave all the free men of the time the right to vote and in time we freed a race of people from the bonds of slavery and gave women the right to participate in this grand experiment of constitutional democracy.


In accepting this, we say we trust our elected representatives to listen to what we say and trust the people who elected them. The people are not to be coerced and intimidated to have the right to dissent or agree with what our politician’s platforms are and that every vote should count for something.


As the politics of greed and fear begin to darken the horizon of our Nation, we trust each other less than in any time I have seen in my life and trust less the principles upon which this nation was founded.


Where Kennedy said ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country we have been taken over by the corporate greedheads that could care less what happens to this country or its people.


Where we once dreamed beyond the boundaries of fear and diversity we now wall up communities to keep diversity out. Instead of being able to demonstrate and dissent the current administration fences in protests miles away from where they will be and arrests people who wear Tee shirt with a dissenting message against current policy.


We used to subscribe the separation of church and state and now the current administration gives a litmus test for any one wanting to become a federal judge or political appointee.


The America I grew up in saw John Wayne protecting the weak farmer from the powerful rancher who cut off his water, now we have W protecting the war profiteers with no bid contracts and sweetheart deals. We protect foreign dictators from their people striving to start labor unions for a better way of life for their families. This is not my America.


It is time to return to a time where John Wayne will protect that struggling farmer, to a time where people who work hard will reap the fruit of their labor and where people will work toward the betterment of the citizens and its government alike.


Some will have us fear Islam and tell us that the terrorists are coming to get us while we lie in our beds. This is nonsense, we of course must remain vigilant, but to buckle to fear by turning against the principles that made this country great is losing the war to terrorism.


We need not become the Orwellian state as presented in the novel 1984. That is losing the war on terror. We must insist that this and any future government follows the rule of law that was handed down by our founders who paid the cost in blood to protect our rights as Americans. The constitution is more than just a “G#DAMN PIECE OF PAPER.”


Let us do what Jesus did and throw the money changers out of the temple of peace and justice. Let us reclaim that American dream that no matter where you come from you can grow up to be what ever you want if you are willing to work hard be honest.


Let us find a way to enact universal healthcare for every citizen it is not impossible every industrial country in the world does it.


Let us hold fast to what our founder’s vision of democracy was. Refusing to surrender our liberty and privacy to the fear mongers that want to subjugate our people and install a totalitarian regime.


Let us make sure that we teach our children how to think not just take tests. Let us teach them how to have a democracy that is full of an involved and educated citizenry.


Let us take back control of the media and prevent the control of the internet from the few to the many and promote diversity of ideas and views it is what made this country great.


Let us take back the vote, making sure each vote is verifiable and accessible for every citizen without intimidation, phone jamming or any other tactics that have become standard practice in our elections to deny the people to vote.


Let us take back control of our government with campaign reform and an independent body that has the power to investigate and prosecute those in our government who would line their pockets with money and do the bidding of the rich and powerful to the detriment of the country.


Democrat, Republican, Liberal or Conservative, Green or Libertarian. Let this country unite and stand not for a political party or even a socio economic group. Let us stand for the Ideals that made America great in the first place. Let us return to that America.


Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.