I have a Dream. The dream is that the unemployed without extended benefits answered the call and allowed their voices be heard by sending emails to every Senator that voted “No” on extending unemployment insurance benefits over the last month and a half. The dream is that the Senators, after returning from recess, hearing the plight of the unemployed from their hometown people, after getting 2 million emails, came to their senses and stopped the rhetoric and passed the extended unemployment benefits bill. It is a dream that can become a reality. Nothing says a person can’t contact a Senator from another state and implore them to vote in the national interest instead of along party lines. People can change their minds. This dream needs to become a reality.
In a recent article “Links to Senators that Voted Nay” ( http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5574394/2010_unemployment_extension_links_to.html?cat=9 ) I posted links to the “Nay” Senator’s websites in hopes that the unemployed, along with their family members and neighbors, would email these Senators and beseech them to reconsider their vote on this issue. We need to send the message of not just vote “Yes” for extensions, but to vote “Hell Yes!”
The damage has already been done to many of the individuals affected by a loss of benefits for as long as 6 weeks. People already in anguish and feeling hopeless have, to put it simply, been further terrorized by the malicious inaction of the Senate and the Republican Senators in particular. The party of “No” for a Senator on this matter will soon garner the voter of “No” in their re-election. I have heard the honest distress and inconsolable rage of people commenting on this issue. They will not forget, and they will surely never forgive what your “No” vote has done to them. Voting “Hell Yes” now is your only hope for even being considered for re-election later. We will sell our votes to the next highest bidder that can produce new jobs for us and those who help see us through these rough times. Our loyalty to you only goes as far as your loyalty to us. You are treating us like whores, and for this we cannot forget, nor forgive.
Of the Senators up for re-election in November, 19 of 34 are Republican. As the Senate reconvenes today, I urge all of us unemployed to email all Senators that voted “No”, and in particular, the Senator’s up for re-election in November (Bennett/UT, Bond/MO, Brownback/KS, Bunning/KY, Burr/NC, Colburn/OK, Crapo/ID, DeMint/SC, Grassley/IA, Gregg/NH, Isakson/GA, LeMieux/FL, Lincoln/AR, McCain/AZ, Murkowski/AK, Shelby/AL, Thune/SD, Vitter/LA, Voinovich/OH).
All that is needed is for just ONE vote to turn from nay to yea. Target the Senators that are up for re-election first as they will fear our wrath the most. Please unemployed and other concerned citizens; do not sit on your hands like these Senators have. Turn your “No” into a “Hell Yes.” “Hell Yes” I will do this. “Hell Yes” this must get done. “Hell Yes” I’ll email them. For these Senators only seem to understand that “it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease!” There is no beauty in being a yes man, but there is a certain beauty in saying “Hell Yes!”
