Warning: Rant ahead

Nov 11, 2005 21:39

This pisses me off: Veterans groups denied access to congressional veterans committee

Hello? How the hell are the committees supposed to know what's important to the veterans if they never get a chance to talk to them directly?

Oh, that's right. It doesn't matter. After all, they're just the people who served - underpaid, underappreciated and frequently at risk of their lives - to keep our nation free and protect the nation's interests. They're not rich. They (for the most part) are not CEOs of multibillion dollar companies. A lot of them are on disability or welfare - some of them, a lot of them, because of the effects of their service to our country.

There's damn few of them who donate more than $200/year to the political parties, because for most of them, that $200 is essential to get them the medicines they need to control their blood pressure or pay for heating oil in a cold Nebraska winter. But if you don't pay, then the politicians never lay eyes on you.

Unless you're a member of a veterans group. Or at least, that's how it was for decades, until this year, right before Veterans Day, House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer announced that there would be no more hearings for veterans with the committee created to protect their interest.

Speaking as the daughter, granddaughter, sister, and sister-in-law of veterans - I consider this a slap in the face to my family and all the other families who've suffered right alongside our soldiers, sailors, and airmen, as well as to my father, grandfather, mother, brother, and brothers-in-law.

As if I needed another reason to think that Washington is fucking us over.

EDIT: My letter to my representative:

I write today to ask you to speak to Representative Buyer, Chairman of the
House Veterans' Affairs Committee, urging him to restore the joint
hearings of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees to receive
the legislative programs of veterans’ service organizations. I also ask
that you contact the House Leadership and ask for their support to restore
these important hearings.

For decades now, these joint hearings have been held each year to allow
the elected leaders of veterans groups to discuss their organization’s
legislative agenda and foremost concerns with the lawmakers who have
jurisdiction over federal veterans programs. There are so few
opportunities for Senators and Representatives to meet ordinary voters,
the people who don't have millions of dollars to donate to their chosen
party, to take away yet another is unwise. For the committee entrusted to
protect veterans' rights to refuse to meet with those it was created to
defend borders on criminal.

Representative Buyer’s action is a calculated insult to the men and women
who have fought, sacrificed, and died to protect our Constitutional
rights, including the right to petition the government. The fact that he
did so just before Veterans Day makes it more than disrespect, it turns it
into a slap in the face.

Please advise me if you intend to petition Representative Buyer and the
House Leadership on my behalf.

rant, politics

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