I've been on Kos for years, reading constantly, commenting occasionally, but I've never felt the need to post a diary until this moment. Since I'm basically an unknown quantity on this site I think I have all of one followers - and she's my girlfriend.
I just sent the following Email to John Boehner; I doubt it will ever reach his eyes, or get a scant second or two of attention from one of his staffers (or any of my fellow Kossaks)... but I had to put something on the record, and this is it:
Dear Representative Boehner,
The fate of the United States of America is – literally – in your hands.
If the Republican Party – if you - refuse to allow a full vote on a ‘clean’ funding resolution:
- The American dollar will no longer be looked at as the world’s most reliable currency;
- Other countries will begin the invest their money elsewhere;
- An economic disaster may lead to a US – and possibly a worldwide - depression, costing tens of thousands of people their jobs, their homes and their life savings (including the retirement funds that together with my Social Security Check are keeping me from being homeless);
- The United States of America will cease to be the world’s leading economy, and we will lose the respect of other nations this country earned over the last two-plus centuries.
Do you really want the weight of this horrific series of events on your shoulders, events that it may take the US decades to recover from, if at all?
For the good of our country, our Constitution, you must allow a full House vote on a resolution to keep the U.S. from becoming a ‘deadbeat’ nation.
I realize this may cost you your leadership position as Speaker of the House, but it is time for you to become a modern-day ‘profile in courage,’ kin to the courageous statesmen that John F. Kennedy wrote so eloquently about long ago. You must stand up to the nihilists in your party who simply do not care (or perhaps look forward to) the chaos our nation will be plunged into.
There will be colleges, foundations and ‘think tanks’ that will welcome you to their ranks, and give you the opportunity to continue to speak out on the challenges America faces. But now I beg you, I plead, I pray you will ‘do the right thing’ for the sake of all of us.
Sincerely..