Honor our dead, break the silence

Memorial Day is a day in which our nation honors those who gave their lives in military service to our country so that we could remain a free people. But what are those freedoms and where is the assurance that they remain intact for us?

We all have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights are protected in the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, otherwise known as the Bill of Rights. It is the Constitution to which all who enter military service swear an oath to support and defend against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. What has made being an American so attractive to so many for so long is that our sovereignty, ultimate political power, resides in we the people ourselves and not in the government. Our founding fathers gave to us a republic, a representative democracy where the rights of the minority are no less than those of the majority. Those serving in our government, including the President, are our employees and are accountable to the people and to the Constitution, the supreme law of the land.

Since the release of the Downing Street Memo in 2005, there has been much more testimony and evidence documenting the intentional lies told by the Bush administration to justify an unprovoked war on Iraq. 4,300 U.S. troops and over one million Iraqi civilians have died in Iraq based on those lies and they continue to die now under the command of President Obama.

Some Americans have yet to accept that our government knowingly sent 4,300 patriotic young Americans to their deaths on a lie. They choose not to look at the evidence in favor of hiding behind the false patriotism or personal convenience of willful ignorance, all while the administration to which they give their blind and unquestioning support, be it Bush or Obama, continues to this day to send young Americans to die for a lie in Iraq.

Six years later our troops are still dying in Iraq for the war profiteers while domestic enemies here at home destroy our Constitution on our watch. Should our representatives in Congress continue to not hold the Bush and Obama administrations accountable for their crimes, it is then we the people who are to blame for not actively and publicly demanding it. There comes a time when our silence is betrayal, and that time has long since come in relation to Iraq.

Honor our dead by breaking the silence concerning the overall atrocity which is the U.S. occupation of Iraq and demand that those in our government who are responsible be held to account according to the law. Bring our troops home now and let's take care of them when they get here.

Philip C. Restino Jr.

co-chair, Central Florida Veterans for Peace

Bailed out companies are shipping American jobs overseas

Thousands of American jobs are being shipped overseas by Bank of America and Merrill Lynch financial corporations even though taxpayers' dollars are used to rescue them from annihilation. Shipping jobs overseas is done while thumbing their noses at the American people and the Obama administration.

Bank of America accepted money from the American public, laid off American workers, and then hired thousands of new workers in India. BOA cut 30,000 workers and is planning a layoff of another 30,000 in the U.S.

We the people are incurring an $11.7 trillion national debt with a high percentage of the debt used to bail out 'too big to fail' corporations. Bank of America and Merrill Lynch are prominent in the 'bail out-by-taxpayer-handout' scenario.

Political leaders have not addressed the emergency nature of net job loss overseas with emphasis on bailed out, financially controllable corporations. President Obama did say (he) 'wants to wait until 2011 to institute the new tax laws so the recession will have receded, or hopefully have ended'.

From 2011 to 2018 the administration says it can save $103 billion. Again, ignoring the emergency of net American job loss overseas by bailed out corporations. This is happening now, not in 2011 or later.

When we the people begin to accept reality many questions will be asked if it is not too late. Who is responsible for streamlining laws allowing American jobs to be shipped overseas by taxpayer bailed out corporations? What happened to the tax base that supports the Nation? Then, an extreme question, why are 'we the people' allowing this to happen at our expense, and our children's expense and their children?

Paul R. McCauley

Ormond Beach

Crist should stay focused on Florida

In his youth, I guess he missed this lesson.

As a youngster, I was taught that until I had completed a project, I was not to begin another venture.

That's why I'm completely baffled as to why Governor Charlie Crist is aiming to become our next senator.

I think that Florida has enough unsolved problems to make his job as governor feel incomplete, and I'm truly mystified as to why he's compelled to focus his attention on Washington D.C. instead of Florida.

With our public school system struggling to stay alive and drastic cuts in the social services that we Floridians depend on, I cannot believe that Charlie Crist feels accomplished enough in his job as governor to set his sights on the next level of government, and I find the action irresponsible.

If you think that he's been a good governor, I remind you how the state's budget resulted in several local schools closing.

Do we honestly want such mismanagement to occur at the national level? Personally, such a thought sends chills up my spine.

Jennifer A. Luznar

Samsula

Stop the foolishness

I am 86 years old, a conservative, and I am just wondering is there anyone up there in Washington, D.C. who can call a halt to the craziness going on?

My heavens. Every day I read again and again that they are bailing out somebody else.

Are they really trying to completely bring America to its feet, so some radical nation can take us over?

We need voices up there who will stand up to this "change" artist we now have in the White House.

Those congressmen and women have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too.

Are they just afraid of losing their fat jobs, insurance and retirement packages that very few of us are privileged to get when we retire?

When they stand there and applaud and glorify this man, all the while knowing they are securing their futures, and not ours, do they realize it will affect their families along with ours?

To admit they passed the stimulus package without even reading it, is where I draw the line. Can they read? Please someone come to the average American's aid and stop this foolishness.

Lois V. Tipton

New Smyrna Beach