We, the people, of the United States, are people. We have lives, feelings, emotions and needs. If you can’t recognize that, recognize that we are your taxpayers, the laborers and service providers by which rich business owners and corporations earn their massive wealth. There are other countries we could move to, but I think there are enough of us “chess pieces” to seize back control of our country. I’m not an anarchist; I love the idea of democracy. I think it stopped working for us when we, the people, got lazy and stopped caring about who was running our country and stealing our money. This isn’t even about getting out the vote anymore. The people are speaking up and telling the politicians that they don’t approve restricting our First Amendment rights of free speech by effectively dissolving public unions. Furthermore, our right to peaceably assemble has been hijacked by Wisconsin court order, preventing protesters from entering the public state Capitol, and Wisconsin’s laws about open meetings are being shoved aside by the closed door the Republicans there are operating behind now.

What did public employees do to deserve this? Nothing, except to belong to unions, which just so happen to be the biggest supporters of the Democratic Party. The Republican Party is playing the people of the country as game pieces against each other in a strategic move to cut the purse strings of the Democrats before the elections next year. Most people who vote Republican do so as conservatives, because of religious beliefs against things such as abortions and gay marriage and small government. What exactly is the Republican party doing to address those things? Nothing substantial, besides placating their voters with a few meager peace offerings and trite words and then using their majority votes to destroy our economy, remove our rights and threaten our children’s future by downgrading their quality of education at school and their quality of life at home where parents are increasingly short on money and high on stress.

Regarding to our failing democracy, why would the Republicans want to educate our children in the future, when informed voters are a dangerous concept to the Republican strategy to rob the poor to feed the rich?

Bethany Greiner

Emmons