Can anyone remember a period of worse local-to-national government than we have now? Anniston’s City Council has become so embarrassing that every morning I hesitate to look at the front page of The Anniston Star. If these were kids on the school playground, the principal would have suspended them a long time ago. On the state level, the lawmakers on Goat Hill have poured out a deluge of backward, self-destructive laws. It is arguably the worst Legislature since Reconstruction. We will all continue to pay for their brash mistakes for a long time to come.
In Washington, the most dysfunctional Congress in memory is virtually paralyzed in the midst of the worst recession in 70 years. Locked in political strangleholds, it ignores the desperate pleas of the people for economic help. Politically speaking, we should all breathe a deep sigh of relief that we made it through 2011.
We the people do not have to put up with this sorry state of our representative government. America is still a democracy. And, 2012 is an election year. There is another old saying, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. If we re-elect these clowns, incompetents or worse in the coming year, we will have only ourselves to blame.
We the people must seize the moment, seize the vote and seize our City Council, Legislature and Congress. They belong to us. We deserve better.
Ron Caldwell
Jacksonville
