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10 July 2007

dumb, naive, crappy, ignorant letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- but better than the letter you don't write

Nancy Pelosi is a Democratic congresswoman from San Francisco, and, by election of her fellow Democrats who took control of Congress in January 2007, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

I just sent her this e-mail.

Will it do any good?

Surprise! It will.

If 10,000 Americans e-mail similar sentiments to her this month, it will mean a hell of a lot more to her than if 10,000 Americans just throw up their hands in despair and don't write her at all.


This isn't a great letter.

But it's a lot better than every letter that never got written and never got sent.

If you want the Iraq War to end, go to

http://www.speaker.gov/contact/

and write to her. Tell her exactly how you feel about the war. Tell her how you feel about impeaching President Bush. Tell her exactly how you feel about a Democratic leadership in Congress that has its mind on other things, and can't get its ass in gear to stop the Iraq War.

Don't send her a copy-and-paste Stop The War message from moveon.org .

Your own original words -- imperfectly spelled, oddly phrased and punctuated -- are a far more powerful and effective message than automated boilerplate.

Will she read my letter? Will she read your letter? Almost certainly not.

But she has a staff that reads these, counts them, and tells her several times a week how many Stop The War e-mails poured into her office -- and how many were originals, not mass-mailing clones.

She's an elected politician who has to run for office every two years. She notices these letters the way you notice if there's air to breathe.

Cindy Sheehan just announced that if the Iraq War doesn't end soon, she's going to run against Nancy Pelosi for her seat in Congress in 2008. When national politics gets this hot and furious, she could win. Join Cindy Sheehan in telling Nancy Pelosi: Stop The War, or find another job.

Voter despair, hopelessness, apathy and cynicism -- "Nothing I do will make any difference" -- are a politician's free ride to comatose uselessness and corruption.

Voter anger, disgust, outrage and lots of Loud, Rude Noise are the raw material of rapid, positive, life-saving change.

Make this person work for the salary you pay her. Add your original e-mail to turn up the heat and crank up the pressure on her to Stop The War.

Send Vleeptron a copy of what you wrote, and I'll be happy to post every one of them.

==============

U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington DC

Dear Speaker Pelosi,

I am a Vietnam-era Army veteran.

Stop the Iraq War. Remove all American soldiers and marines from combat risk and bring them home in less than six months.

While our soldiers and marines are being killed, wounded and maimed, any Congressional activity that falls short of an end to this disastrous and shameful scoundrels' war is just empty political theater and carnival.

Your promise that impeachment is "not on the table" convinces me you have political priorities more important than the safety of my neighbors' children in uniform.

The threat of impeaching Richard Nixon ended the Vietnam War. The threat of impeaching President Bush is the only tool Democrats and your Republican and Independent colleagues have to end the Iraq War.

Stop this war. Save our troops, restore the strength and capability of our military.

Robert Merkin

SP5 US Army 1969-1971

Army Commendation Medal

1 comment:

James J. Olson said...

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

The time is now. Impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and bring an end to the Iraq War.

It has become clear to America, and to the world, that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the President's blind pursuit of them are leading us over the edge of a cliff. We have given away most if not all of our national credibility on foreign policy issues. We are now known internationally as a country that tortures, attacks countries unprovokedly, We are viewed now as a threat to international peace, rather than the source of it. We have lost the trust of the international community.

The President and his Administration have shown that they value politics above human dignity, business above human rights, and ideology above all else. This is not the way to govern America. They, like you, serve at the consent of the governed; and we want this war to stop.

No more politics, no more nuance. The time is now.

Bring our troops home, bring an end to this Administrations war, and to try to salvage what is left of our American ability to do good in the world.

You hold that authority. Impeach the President and Vice President. They have lied to us repeatedly; I am sure there is a big, fat file sitting on the corner of your desk that details every whopper the President has told us. Every time he utters one of his lies, he violates the Constitutional trust we place in him; which is a high crime.

You must, as Speaker of the House, the Legislative Branch of our Government, hold the Executive Branch accountable for the lies, the illegal wars, and the senseless, unnecessary deaths they have caused. America can get along for the next couple of years while we struggle with the spectacle of Impeachment proceedings. To fail to do so, you abrogate your own Constitutional responsibility.

Please, the time is now.

The Rev. James J. Olson (Lt., USNR ret.)
Boston, MA