Dear Candidate Romney,
I saw you. I saw your video.
I saw you speaking candidly and off the cuff about me. Don’t get me wrong, I know that you didn’t mention me by name or anything, but we both know you were talking about me.
I saw you. I saw your video.
I saw you speaking candidly and off the cuff about me. Don’t get me wrong, I know that you didn’t mention me by name or anything, but we both know you were talking about me.
When you were talking of 47% of
the population that is never going to vote for you because we are dependent victims
who lazily live on government programs like food stamps, I can’t help but take
personal offense. In fact, once you
decided to lump in in anybody who is never going to vote for you, you weren’t
just talking about me, but many people I love, and about 90% of the people I
know.
My children eat because of food stamps,
Mr. Romney. Now sir, I want you to
picture a Wyoming cowgirl, a mother, a fighter, a righteous, determined, god
loving woman; a Rocky Mountain Grizzly Bear Mamma that would make Sarah Palin’s
makeup wearing pit bull shudder. Picture
me staring you in the eyes as I ask you, “What business have you got talking
about me and mine like that?”
I am watching you run your Richie-rich
mouth on TV right now, with your little flag lapel pin over your heart. You brag that you will bring “12 million new
jobs and rising take home pay.” Quite
frankly, I have no reason to believe you or your failures in arithmetic. Even if you did manage such a feat, I’d point
to the 4.5 million job head start you had thanks to President Obama saving the nation
from the failed GOP policies you use as a platform, which nearly caused a
second great depression.
You said that you think that 47%
of Americans “think they are victims” and you even said it wasn’t your job to
worry about us.
First, I must argue you. I am not a victim. I have been beaten. I have been bullied. I have been raped. I have been addicted. I have been alone. I have been poor. I have been homeless. I have been sick and broken. I have chosen each and every single time to
stand up and pull myself and my family out of those circumstances. I beat every one of them without any riches to
aid me. I did that without any
inheritance, any gifted stocks or bonds, any loans, any rich family, or any
elevators for my cars. I did it because,
I am not a victim. I am an American. I am the Mom in Chief of my house and nothing
less than the very best that I can provide will do. I am the product of women who forded rivers
to fetch the mail after working a hard day’s labor on the Laramie high
plains. I am a force to be reckoned
with.
If you don’t believe me, you
could ask the doctor who has to take fluid from my spine on a regular basis to
preserve my ability to see due to a rare disease. If you don’t believe me you can ask our
Ambassador to China, Gary Locke, who personally invited me to a bill signing
when I helped Washington State legislate protection for children in schools
against bullying by sharing my own experiences.
If you don’t believe me, you can ask my children who have seen me
struggle but always, always, provide for them.
Any one of these people will tell you, that this American is not a
victim.
You call me entitled. I devote every day of my life to bettering
the planet I live in with no hope of profit.
I am sorry sir, but you calling me entitled is like the pot calling the
dove black. That isn’t going to
work. I challenge you to stand at my
side and let the American public judge, which of us is entitled. I spend every dime of mine and my husband’s
earned income as quickly as it comes in, right here in my town. Every dime I earn and spend stays in
America. I am the ultimate in job
creator. Who are you to challenge me?
You call me entitled. Every year on April 15th I am
certain that I have shown every cent that went through my pocket honestly. I dream of a day when I am well enough off to
pay taxes. I fantasize of the flourish
with which I will write my first check to the IRS. I would give any earthly belonging I have to
be self-sufficient enough to be able to pay it forward to the society that I
love. No, you cannot challenge me Mitt Romney. I challenge you- where are your tax returns?
I fought, I graduated at the top
of my class in college, and I pursued graduate studies. I took loans against myself, believing that
this would pay off, but then in 2009 something happened.
No, it wasn’t Barack Obama’s inauguration;
it was a sudden injury to my spine that ended up revealing not one but two
severe spinal diseases. . Since then I
have been unable to finish my studies or work.
I’d like to know, Mr. Romney; how many months of physical therapy, how
many of my surgeries, how many of my scars must I share to prove my devotion to
wanting to be better? How many of my
efforts must I submit before you’ll see me, an American Citizen, as worthy of
your worry? When you tell me to take
responsibility for myself, I ask you, what after that?
This evening, when you justified
your awful video, you said that you had said what you did because you were reassuring
your donators that you could win this election.
I’m sorry that you have to pander to your base like that. You seem to have sold out your soul. You have forgotten the eye of the needle with
that wealth you’ve got. You’ve left
behind Matthew 24:50. I hate to be the
one to tell ya buddy but -you are not the promised one. The promised one understands that the 47%
that you are talking about, they’re more than low wage workers and elderly
people who worked their whole lives and paid into the system, they are the 100%
that your God is concerned with when he said “Love thy neighbor.” You may pay a tithe with your wallet, but it’s
obvious you’ve neglected to tithe your heart.
My husband left for work at 7
am. It is now 9 pm and he won’t be home
again for two more hours from his second job today. I spent yesterday at the emergency room; I
have been waiting for two years for social security. I do not understand. How much more do we have to work to show you
that your call for jobs isn’t enough?
You must also be concerned for the whole nation, and whether we eat, and
whether we have medicine. You must care
if a hardworking, devoted family like mine is unable to survive after investing
their best efforts. How many jobs do you
expect every American to take? 3? 4?
You simply must stop and consider
those you dismiss as beneath you or you cannot be our leader. It is an unwritten but widely understood rule
of the presidency. I don’t know what
they taught you, when you were out there scalping businesses hard won on the
backs of people like that 47% you so rudely kick around, but in the real world –
we care when Americans suffer. We care
when you forget the young men and women who serve our nation by sacrificing
their lives. We care when Americans go
hungry. We care when Americans jobs are
sent overseas and rich men hide societal resources in offshore accounts. We care that we are being ripped off, even if
you find profit and power in our suffering, we still exist, we still care, and
we will still stand up.
See? You called me a victim, you called me
entitled, you called me a lot of other things in that video, but on every count
- you are wrong. Just by writing you
this letter, I’ve proven I am not your victim.
Just by living my life of hard and dutiful effort I have proven that I
am not entitled. In fact, I consider it
a duty as a citizen of this Great United States to shout loudly and proudly - “Mitt
Romney is not and never will be my president!”
I warn you Mr. Romney, the one
thing that I have not, and will not ever lose, is my voice. I will sound it each and every one of these
50 days until Barack Obama is reelected, we will vote with Compassion and
Wisdom, and Empathy and you sir, can keep your spite and your hate and your
rhetoric and see your way out.
Sincerely, Sarah Zacharias aka
The Bucking Jenny
~For more of my work please be sure to check my blog, my Facebook Page,
my Twitter Feed, and my
publication archives at OpenSalon.com
and AddictingInfo.org. Also, the days are counting down, click here
to register to vote in your area. The Bucking Jenny proudly supports
Obama/Biden 2012.
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