To the President of the United States:

I as one citizen in this great country am very, very concerned at the politics that this country has come to. It was my understanding that this country was founded on the principals of the constitution and that our government was a government of the people, by the people and for the people. That the elected officials that the people elected by their votes on Election Day were sent to Washington to serve and represent the people from the various districts around the country.

However, when I sit and listen to the news and all the various talk on the news, I am amazed as to what this country has come to. You were elected as a new voice, for change, for transparency and for the people. You went to Washington representing yourself as not the “left wing” that the media presented you as but as a voice and a person for all the people of this country. But that is not what I am seeing.

I am seeing a man who speaks well but seems to shift the position from the middle to the left and back and back again. A man that stands up in front of the country wanting us to “accept” your health care plan when in fact there is no plan.

What you are attempting to do is to “sell your health care” “so called vision” to the people, when there is no plan at all. You stand before our country attempting to sell one of the three or four different versions that are floating around.

How do you expect the people of this country to accept such information that is written in language that requires one to be a lawyer to understand?

Why do you think that there are so many “interpretations” of the various items, because we the people know that the reason they were written the way they were, was so that they could be interpreted as Congress wanted them to be, after the fact.

We hear on the news night after night that it really does not matter what the people want, it does not matter that more than 50 percent of the country is upset, that Congress will show the people of this country that they will ram this health care reform down our throats with one or another legal maneuver so that they and the “unions” can have their way.

When I hear on the nightly news that if the Democrats don’t do it (pass the health care), then the unions will be sure to put those Democrats out of office. When in this country did the unions and the special interest in Washington control this country? When did politics become a game that you go to Washington to allow payoffs, greed and power to overrule the voices of the people?

I will tell you when–when we the people have allowed the powers in Washington to go unchecked.

I call to all citizens in this country to stand up in peace with our voices, with our votes and with our actions to get out now and to start making plans and lists to vote out these members of Congress that “We the people have allowed” to become full of greed and dishonesty. Are we going to allow the unions to decide who will and who will not be re-elected?

Have we lost all that our forefathers gave their lives for?

It is not too late to stand up one person at a time. It is not too late to speak out to our friends, to our neighbors and to our families. Our views do not have to all be the same, but I believe that in our hearts and souls and minds that we believe in a government of the people, by the people and for the people. I believe that we all value honesty, truth and the basic values of right and wrong.

I am of the generation born in the ’50s that grew up experiencing the many different changes in our world. It was a generation that saw mom and dad working one or two jobs to provide for their children and always trying to do the right thing. This was a generation that had fathers that went to war and came home and started families. Fathers that had lost brothers and friends in the war; as well as mothers that lost so many sons for the freedoms that we so many times take for granted.

Understand that I have always been the silent person, but no longer can I be quiet. I have worked hard all my life based on the work ethics that I learned from my parents. Ethics like being honest, keeping your word when you told someone something and always giving 100 percent at whatever you did. My parents like so many of your parents worked and owned their own business. They worked long hours always taking up the slack when employees didn’t show up for work. They never talked to their children about values—I remember very few talks—but what they did was show us day in and day out in the way that they lived their lives—in other words they taught by examples, the only way they knew.

Yes, my letter is to the president of the United States, but it is really to all the people in this great country that God has allowed to live here. In a country where we like no other country on the face of the earth have the freedoms of liberty and justice for all. We cannot sit idle any longer friends, we must unite and stand up. We must get on our knees and ask God to give us strength, courage and wisdom to stand for the things that this country was founded on. We must return to the spirit of unity that we all had after 9/11 and look to the future. We must not wavier, we must not be silent; we must stop making excuses for why “I cannot make any difference.” We can all join together and make our voices heard as one.

Sandy Neely,Just One CitizenBainbridge, Ga.