Dec. 1st 2013 I emailed this letter to the local press and the GOP. Dear Republican lawmakers, Unfortunately we live in a time of short attention spans and very little knowledge of our own history. I think most of you are the products of what has become of the Republican Party, but have forgotten that today's party is far cry from what it was supposed to be. This started out with 30 citizens from Wisconsin in 1854 as a new alternative, progressive, liberal, conservative party, with it's first crowning achievement being the 1860 Presidential Election of Abraham Lincoln.
This new Republican President said, in his emancipation proclamation, that we could not truly be free unless we were all free. With that address, he helped push though the 13th amendment , making the Republican Party the party that fights against injustice. He also fought against secession and in winning the Civil War, kept this country united. After the war ended, he did not want the South to suffer ongoing reprisals and ordered reconstruction. We all know what happened on that fateful evening at Ford's Theater, but what no-one seems to realize is that on that night the Republican Party lost it's defacto father and leader. Much like parentless children looking for leadership and acceptance, and ending up in a gang and losing their way, so too did the Republican Party. The rich robber barons were waiting with open arms and for the next 40 years the Republican Party lost its way and became the party of the wealthy and greedy.
In the early 1900's another fateful bullet almost offset the 40 years of damage to the party by giving the Presidency to Theodore Roosevelt. Like a good uncle, he tried to remind the party what they were supposed to be. Conservatives, as in conservationists, by putting aside land for national parks and public lands for the use of the people of this country, for his generation and for generations to come, and out of reach of the greedy corporations. He also broke up the big monopolies, so that small businesses could compete equally. This was what the Republican Party was supposed be; progressive, liberal, with freedom for all and conservative, as in conserve and protect the country's resources and not be wasteful.
In the 1950's, after millions more bullets and two World Wars, the last great Republican President was elected, Dwight D. Eisenhower. After seeing the autobahn in Germany during the war, he recognized the military and commercial value of an interstate highway system. He promoted the investment spending needed to create the infrastructure that all of us use to this day for business and pleasure. Which he funded with military budgeted funds, by the way. But he also warned of the wasteful spending on the military industrial complex. As the general of all Allied forces, he had unique perspective and we should have listened to him. By the end of 2008, the U.S. had spent approximately $900 billion in direct costs on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of June 2011, the total cost of the wars was approximately $3.7 trillion. Our military budget for 2012 was $670 billion.
It has been over 60 years and trillions more bullets since Ike , and the Republican Party is so off course that he, Honest Abe and Uncle Teddy wouldn't even recognize it. Current Republican senators and congressmen consistently speak of secession, deny corporate pollution and global warming is real, talk of doing away with the government, consider selling off public lands, are for privatizing everything, and talk of changing the tax code to benefit the wealthy. They are pro big corporate monopolies, anti investment spending of any kind and are anti freedom for all.
As 2014's midterm elections are fast approaching, there is one last chance for someone to step up and lead this once great party back from the brink of perishing from this earth altogether as the Federalist and Whig parties once did. This person will have to be willing to stop being a corporate shill, stop listening to constituents that are misinformed without correcting and informing them, stop fighting for freedom for some instead of fighting to protect everyone's freedoms and rights, stop worrying about keeping their job and start doing their job. Sometimes the only way a person can truly represent the people and the corporations is to lead them somewhere they didn't want to go, but to insure the survival of both, shepherd them back to a time of shared prosperity. Great leaders are not always popular with their friends or enemies, but the right leadership always benefits both!
Oct. 15th 2013 This is a letter I emailed to both Congressman McCarthy and McKeon.
Dear Representative, I am very disappointed with you in particular, and with your fellow Republicans in the House in general. You all remind me of children that have inherited their parent's house, then stopped the maintenance on the yard and on top of that, stopped paying the mortgage to the point of foreclosure just to stop the person next door from having success selling his house just because you don't want him to succeed, and in so tanking the market and value of your own neighborhood and your own property. This does not sound like "country first" to me.
This is not the Republican Party of my father, or the party of Lincoln, and not the party of Teddy Roosevelt. This sounds to me like the party of special interests and corporate greed and I'm ashamed to be a part of it, as should you. So I implore you, to not be afraid to go against this party and speak out for the 800,000 workers, 3000 of which work in your backyard at Lockheed Martin, they are in jeopardy of losing their savings the longer this grandstanding goes on . They are waiting for you to show leadership and not ask for permanent concessions for temporary extensions. Use your power and influence as a long serving Congressman to lead your colleagues in the house to re-open the government and do away with the debt ceiling.
Remember, its not how much debt you have, but how good of a risk you are. All of us have mortgages on our houses that we could not pay off tomorrow. That does not mean we are all experiencing a debt crisis. Stop governing by ideological ideas and talking points and start governing for the good of the people. Remember, these same ideologues were saying the same thing about Social Security and it has proven to be the greatest government program ever conceived for the people and the elderly. So don't let history judge you like we now judge those Republicans from the 1930's, that caused their misguided beliefs on spending on social programs and the debt, to not see the White House for almost 20 years.
Every farmer knows, in order to produce a successful crop you must first buy the seeds, (investment spending) prepare the fields and plant the seeds, (infrastructure) tend to the fields, (education) irrigate, (feed the hungry) and finally harvest (send to market) to be put to work creating things greater than the some of their parts alone. If we do this, we will always get a bigger return investing in our own country and the youth of America, than if we just cut everything to the bone. We have come back from the brink before. History shows us how we did it , maybe some of the Republicans in Congress should pick up a biography of F.D.R. instead of Ayn Rand. There is always time to start doing the right thing and be on the right side of history.
Thank you-
Eric Parker Former Candidate for Congress, 23rd District
Vote for Parker to Protect Your Personal Rights and Freedoms.