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Message From the National Coordinator, Editor
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| Write to me
at; williamgast@wesupportthevets.com meet me in St Louis Mr. President July 24,2003 The pressure is on July 18,2003 This week's progress May27,2003 where are they now? June 15,2003 Promises made, promises kept? June 2,2003
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July 18,2003 The pressure is on….
The letters and faxes continue to come into our office indicating that the $.50 check program is alive and well. As of this date, no one has received a letter back indicating that the check was going to be used for the intended purpose—first time I ever thought a congressman would not know what to do with found revenue.
I am in contact with several other organizations on the web that are conducting similar programs along with writing e-mail and sending faxes as well as phone calls to the Congressional Representatives office.
It is absolutely amazing to see the replies that come back from these elected officials. It’s almost to the point of being sad. Sad because they actually think that this country’s populace is still corresponding by chisels and stone. This is 2003—the age of the internet. You do not even have to be at your computer to get a message or read a web bulletin. Conversations and response opinions are instantaneous. What happens on a message board can be out to millions of people within minutes. A statement relating to proposed action on a legislative bill can be disseminated to action groups in a network and overnight thousands of people are aware of a legislator’s position on the issue.
Back to the replies. You would almost think that these came from the same database and the Congressman’s intern inserted your name in the “Dear Concerned Voter” area. They all sing from the same choir when it comes to the reason not to sign Marshall’s discharge petition. They claim that the discharge petition is not “proper legislative process, it undermines the leadership” etc, etc, blah blah blah. We want to remind these legislators that (yes) it does move legislation to the floor for vote-it moves it out of committee where it would die if not moved. We did some brief research on this “I never sign a discharge petition” statement. We reviewed six Republican Congressmen that made this statement and found four of the six had signed discharge petitions either earlier this year or within the last three years.
This is the kind of disingenuous malarkey that the American public needs to see exposed. Its ugly party politics and it doesn’t belong in our lives. The other “auto-responder statement” of the year is “I certainly have empathy for veteran’s issues and especially HR303 but as you are not in my Congressional district, I suggest you contact your representative and….” (Hello??) I’m sorry Congressman but you serve on a committee that affects my family, my lifestyle and my future. You may live on another planet but as long as your actions determine issues that are legislated or not legislated into laws that affect me, you will be held responsible.
This coming week we will initiate a new section here on wesupportthevets.com It will be letters to and replies from Congressmen that are attempting to explain why they have not signed the petition or moved the bill out of committee. How would you respond to a Congressman that said that he was “going to write Speaker Hastert, Representative Delay, and Representative Blunt requesting floor action on the concurrent receipt issue.”??? The people that he suggests writing to are the very same individuals that held HR303 in abeyance in the last session of Congress and kept it from floor vote!!
One last note of interest. I was discussing the effectiveness of these e-mail campaigns with an assistant director in a Congressional office yesterday. She asked how many people viewed our website and I responded with a number. I also informed her that there were three other organizations that were working with us on this issue. I keep thinking of her reply whenever I get overloaded with work to be done with this project. “Your numbers are significant. The combined hits and viewers reading your information may only be 320, 00 in the last forty five days, but if only 10% of them voted in a District, it could make a difference in the electoral outcome.”
Hmmmm, are you listening Congressman Bilirakis of Florida Congressional District nine???
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