Dear Every Elected Official in the Country ~

That’s it!  I’m tired.  Unbearably tired of you, our leaders, “sending prayers to those affected” or bestowing upon us “resilience” and “strength” not to comfort us, but simply to manipulate us and prevent an uprising.  I’m tired of being patronized about “America’s willingness to pitch in.”  Tired of it.  Because these are words that should be more precious.  Less obvious.  Less common.  These speeches in constant rotation solely to give our society the appearance that it is not coming apart at the seams ~ which I’m not so sure it’s not.  It should not be necessary to use these words every other news cycle.  You call us resilient more frequently than a top 40 radio station plays that horrible Call Me Maybe song.  Is it really necessary to test our resilience and our charity in the face of a national disaster EVERY FEW MONTHS?  No.  Hell no!  Can you prevent every tragedy?  Of course not.  But by the same token it is disingenuous and cowardly to hide behind that curtain and claim impotence in the face of disaster after disaster after disaster.

You CAN lower the astonishing rate of mass shootings by passing legislation that limits guns.  YOU CAN!  And it is only the height of insanity that allows us to believe that stricter gun control laws won’t control guns better.  I know, I know.  I’ve heard it a million times.  The guns used to commit crimes are largely illegal and therefore stricter gun laws won’t impact gun violence.  Bullshit.  And not for nothing, since when did no one obeying a law make you roll over and simply accept that no one’s going to pay attention anyway?  If that were the case we’d have no speed limits ~ because there’s not a person reading this with a driver’s license that hasn’t broken that law.  So why try?  Why bother?  Sounds crazy, right?  Yet that’s EXACTLY the argument we get from the NRA.  And it’s bullshit.  And for as much of an Obama supporter as I am, I see little to no difference between him and the Republicans on gun control.  Obama didn’t even correct Mitt Romney when Mitt horrifically stated during one of the debates that assault rifles are illegal.  Survey says:  UNTRUE.  They are legal. They are very legal.  Just ask the people of Aurora how legal they are.

And hey, this one’s for all the pro-gun legislators ~ If guns make us all safer, then why can’t I march into the Capitol Rotunda with one?  Why is it ok to have a gun in a bar or a national park but not where you work?  Why will more guns keep me safer, but not you?  When you allow automatic weapons in the gallery of the House and the Senate with the exact same background checks that are currently in place maybe, then maybe, I’ll believe a single word that comes out of your mouth.  Until then I’m just going to assume that you’re a voting arm of the NRA.

And let’s not forget climate change.  STOP sending us condolences.  STOP sending us strength.  For those of you who believe God is sending messages, how many messages do you need?  I guarantee that if it were Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers sending these messages you’d have listened a long time ago.  God sent us Katrina.  And then Irene.  And now Sandy.  Devastating followed by devastating followed by devastating.  That’s three messages!  Are you waiting for a house to fall on you?  Let me tell you something, houses fall on the rest of us all the time, lately.  Houses get picked up and moved ~ houses get washed out to sea by this global warming hoax!  But the truth is that you don’t listen to God.  You listen to money.  You listen to companies with powerful lobbies that claim they’ll be inconvenienced by regulations designed to lower the speed and impact of what every scientist on the planet believes is MAN-MADE global warming.  If you’re really interested in not disrupting business, perhaps you might want to consider passing some global warming legislation before every business in Manhattan is under water. Perhaps you want to calculate the lost revenue from Katrina.  And Irene.  And Sandy.  You’re so pro-small business?  Calculate how many businesses weren’t able to and won’t be able to recover from these “natural” disasters.

YOU ARE NOT POWERLESS. YOU CAN AFFECT CHANGE.  THAT’S WHY YOU WERE ELECTED.  THAT’S ACTUALLY YOUR JOB!

So you’ll pardon me if I’m no longer moved by your rhetoric of charity and resilience and strength.  At your tours of the devastation.  At this point you feel like the leaders who cried “Wolf!”  You wash your hands of culpability and try to lift us up by telling us how fantastic we are.  These speeches should be painstakingly written with original copies tear-stained and composed of words nearly possible to utter.  They should not be files easily pulled up by searching the “recently opened” list.  They should not be recycled speeches with a few of the specifics updated.  New Orleans.  New Jersey.  Columbine.  Virginia Tech.  Aurora.  And now Portland and Newtown.  Frankly, I’m waiting for one of you to get a little lax with your editing and mention the wrong devastated town like some rocker on a two year tour.

So I’m calling on you ~ I’m calling on all of you ~ our leaders ~ to lead.  To replace yesterday’s comfort speech with today’s prevention speech. You can’t make life pain free.  You simply can not prevent all tragedy.  NO ONE EXPECTS YOU TO.  But you can sure as hell do more than you’re doing.  Some of you seem not so fond of FEMA.  Fine.  Then put in place some actual legislation that makes FEMA less necessary.  Put in place some actual legislation that might lessen our emergencies!  Lead us.  Take us to a place where our resilience can be stored up and saved not used quite with such remarkable and reckless abandon.  Let’s conserve that for a change.  Lead us.  Lead us to a place where our prayers to those affected are not the same prayers that left our lips yesterday.  I don’t want to pray for those affected anymore.  I want to be thankful that those affected are now those protected.  Lead us.  Please.  We’re begging you.  Lead us.  You can make things better.  That’s your job.  Do it.

~Roger I. Rosen