Norma Sherry: Open Letter to the Democratic Party

Dear Democratic Party, what became of you? Once upon a time, in our father's time and grandfather's time, you were the party of conscience, the party that spoke for the working folk, the everyday folk. You were the party of FDR, JFK, Helen Gahagan Douglas, the actress turned representative who fought for anti-lynching bills, the powerful, Barbara Jordan, the eloquent, Adlai Stevenson, Dan Inouye and Sam Ervin, who set themselves apart in their stellar Watergate interrogations. Men and women who sought the ideals of equality and freedom for all. Men and women who embraced the principles of honor and justice. Representatives who yearned to give every citizen a first-rate education, a job of consequence with a livable wage, a life better than their fathers, and dreams fulfilled.

How is it that you dissolved into a body emulating and nearly indistinguishable from that of the Republican Party? When was it that you decided to depart from your lofty, caring, ethics? When was it that you became mute and heartless to the tribulations of the men and women who are the backbone of this country? When was it that you diminished your ideals and dissolved all semblance of honor? When was it that we ceased to have a legitimate two-party system? When was it that you deemed us ignorant, foolish children easily lead and more easily fooled?

Early on in the campaign to be president, it appeared as if the contender wasn't really trying. There were so many missed opportunities to say the right words, so many missed moments to render the opponent speechless. Was your heart truly in this fight or did you sell us a piece of unbuildable real estate? The minions believed you. Throngs of volunteers, with their hearts on their sleeves, fought the fight, made the calls, knocked on the doors, and prayed the prayers. Did you do the same? Did you, the power elite, organize the best fight you could? Did you, the leaders of the gang, articulate in one strong, coherent voice why the Democratic Party should lead this country - or was it that it no longer mattered? Is party affiliation a game for the folk that don't really matter anyhow?

Where was your voice when this president ripped our Bill of Rights to shreds? Where was your voice when this president in a single stroke of a pen made the enemy of the State, us - the object of his demented suspicions? Where was your voice when this president and his administration turned its wrath from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein? Where were you when he struck a mighty blow against a non-existent enemy with non-existent weapons of mass destruction? Where are you now as 1100 of our precious sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, lay slain for no good reason? Where are you as their draped bodies are hidden from view - as if not seeing would make it not so?

Where, dear democratic leaders, is your anger for an ever-growing indebtedness we'll not in our lifetimes recover? Where is your rage for the 42-million and growing families without medical protection? Where is your fury for the poor working men and women who had their jobs yanked from under them and sent to third-world lands so the rich imperial corporations could gain more massive wealth?

Where were you, dear democratic leaders, when speech became no longer free? Where were you when voices of dissent became crimes against the state? Where were you when war profiteering became business as usual? Where, oh where were you, as more of us each day become sick and homeless and lose our will to fight?

Where is your voice today as this president rapes our lands, destroys our air, infects our food? Are you there - or is it that you and he - and the likes of all of you who profess to only do the best for us, are all the same empty useless vessels?

Just a few days have passed since millions of us went to the polls thinking our voices would finally be heard. Again we bought the storybook ending. In our naiveté we believed that each of us counted. In the end, dear democratic leaders of a defunct party, you have proven that you have only one vision, the vision of personal greed and avarice. Clearly, you want only that which benefits you. No longer are you the party of our grandfathers and our grandfather's fathers.

If there is one thing that we have learned from you, and I hope we have learned well, it is entirely up to us to take back our liberty and justice for all.

Norma Sherry is co-founder of TogetherForeverChanging.org, an organization devoted to educating, stimulating, and igniting personal responsibility particularly with regards to our diminishing civil liberties. She is also an award-winning writer/producer and host of television program, The Norma Sherry Show, on WQXT-TV, Florida.

Email Norma: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

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