Ladies and
Gentlemen of the 113th Congress:
I am writing
to you as a stay-at-home parent, loved and loving wife, and proud daughter
of this great nation.
I am writing
to you carrying all my hopes, all my best intentions cupped in the palms of my
careful hands, offering them to you, here.
I am writing
to you, hoping that you will please
be the leaders and human souls that you were elected to be. Please, be the
intelligent, discerning, skillful
representatives of the people—a sacred task—that you absolutely must be. You
all fought tooth and nail to do this job. So please, I beg of you, do it.
We are
starting to actively sink. I have to assume that Congress is so busy—as you
should be—that you’ve managed to overlook what’s actually happening before your
very eyes. You have now veered way, way
off course. We have placed our ultimate trust in you, and you’re taking us off
the edge of a cliff. Though the shutdown is certainly the most obvious reason
for this letter, it is only the most recent display in a long string of
increasingly irresponsible choices on the part of Congress.
Your current approach isn’t working. It’s
time for a course correction.
You have to
learn to compromise. Truly compromise.
It’s not a dirty word (I’m looking at you, far-Right and far-Left). Your ideals
may be important, but your tactics are terrible and shockingly inefficient. Why
do you think you’re all so frustrated? Compromise takes strength, dignity,
humility, and intelligence. When you refuse to really collaborate and
compromise, you look like you have none of these characteristics.
My
generation’s future was mortgaged a long time ago, and we are now working that
debt off for our parents, for you. Fine. That happens sometimes.
Many are
still trying to stick fingers in their ears and hum a happy tune about the true
severity of our environmental situation. Fine. The ball is rolling now, so I
suppose there’s no crying over spilt milk.
Decades of
education decisions driven by people who don’t fully understand education, or the
realities of our dynamic world, have effectively dumbed down a chunk of the
population to the point that they’re now unable to tell if something is good
for them or not. Fine. Good thing I’m a teacher.
As far as
the iceberg of how you have and are failing the American people, this is just
the tip. But now, you are in an epic game of Chicken? How lovely for you, but
while you’re spouting platitudes, complaining about the media, and puffing up your
chests like cocks about to peck at each other, people are going hungry and
actually dying as a result of your ineptitude, your self-sustaining culture of
dysfunction. As the only people who can really prevent this suffering from
happening, choosing to do otherwise is immoral, if not treasonous.
As a body,
you are becoming increasingly irrelevant in many minds. You are becoming the
self-serving obstacle that must be overcome, instead of the agent of the people
that our children should be able to look up to. This is true for conservatives
and liberals alike, so stop pointing fingers.
It isn’t one
person or entity. It’s something so small and yet so powerful. Choices.
The problem
is the accumulation of your individual choices. Most of you have made playing
the game to win your main objective. You hardly bother with well-considered
rhetoric anymore. As a mother, I would be humiliated if my children behaved the
way the United States Congress does--on a daily basis--on the national stage no
less!
You say and
do things you don’t really mean, you prioritize re-election and furthering your
party’s agenda over doing your job, and you practically call yourselves noble
while doing it.
You’re all
so hungry and desperate to survive and climb the ladder, that you have become
nearly ineffectual—both sides. You are actually shutting down the government
machine simply because feelings are hurt, cliques are frustrated, and you don’t
like the way the pieces have fallen on the board recently. Pull it
together, people.
And all of
this is so easy to fix. MAKE BETTER
CHOICES. That’s it; simple as that. Make one character-driven choice today.
Think before you speak and choose to do differently than you normally do. Don’t
stretch the truth to get what you want, maybe say no to a deal that screws your
constituents a little in the short-term for some imagined good in the
long-term.
At any
moment you’re thinking of using an “us versus them” mentality, just stop. That
is the sign you’re doing it wrong. Take 30 seconds to pause and really consider
with whom you’re aligning yourself and why. AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS
HOLY stop thinking of yourself as a member of your party or ideological
community, and start thinking of yourself as a multifaceted human being.
You are all
there to collaborate on solutions to the problems—big and small—of nearly 317
million people. Stop wasting energy fighting each other; learn to be reasonable
people.
None of you
run the risk of going hungry, ever, in your daily lives. Everyday your decisions
can strip food from people’s tables or even strip them of their lives. But you
are always exempt from that. You should be thankful,
not cocky and borderline heartless about this fact. You should feel how good it
is to not waste hours of your day working for basic physical survival, and you
should want to share that with more people now.
You have that power.
You have the
power to expect more from your colleagues. You have the power to vote
differently than you’re being told. You have the power to organize and stand up
as a group to say No, we will not bicker
any longer. We will sit down, take our wins and losses with grace, and do good
work. If you stop trying simply to survive, the rest of us can too.
I think then
you may start truly focusing on the big problems—hunger, terrible education
inequality, violence, real public
safety. Right now, you are bickering to a halt over the wrong things.
Though
there are outspoken exceptions among you who are fighting the good fight, by
the nature of how things are, you all live and die with the group. Either
change that, or change the group.
Regain your
good sense, start making new allies, and do good work together. Go
out there and be a person, be a friend, be a real role model on how to work
together. Don’t let utter absurdity completely take over.
Please, do
differently starting now. Compromise,
learn when to move on, and start trying to really walk in the shoes of those
you’re suppose to be working for. If you genuinely do these things, I’m certain
you’ll figure it out from there.
Sending my greatest
hopes for you all,
Kristin
Cerda
Berkeley,
California
