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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPowerful Read: An Open Letter To Candidate Romney
I am quoting her letter without any editing. On her Facebook page, she said it could be used anywhere if quoted in full.
Please make this go viral!
Found on http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/18/open-letter-to-romney/
Her Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Bucking-Jenny/260768844001602?ref=stream
Her Blog - http://thebuckingjenny.blogspot.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/20/1134324/-Amazing-Open-Letter-to-Romney
An Open Letter To Candidate Romney
I saw your video.
I saw you speaking candidly and off the cuff about me. Dont get me wrong, I know that you didnt mention me by name or anything, but we both know you were talking about me.
When you were talking about 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 cant help but take personal offense. In fact, once you decided to lump in anybody who is never going to vote for you, you werent 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 Palins 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, Id point to the 4.5 million job head start you had thanks to President Obama saving the nation from the failed GOP policies which you use as a platform, and 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 wasnt your job to worry about us.
First, I must argue with 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 days labor on the Laramie high plains. I am a force to be reckoned with.
If you dont 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 dont 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 dont 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 on, with no hope of profit. I am sorry, sir, but you calling me entitled is like the pot calling the dove black. That isnt 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 my and my husbands 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 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 belongings 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 wasnt Barack Obamas 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 to work. Id 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 youll 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 statements in that video, you said that you had said what you did because you were reassuring your donators that you could win this election. Im 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 youve got. Youve 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% you are talking about are 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 its obvious youve neglected to tithe your heart.
My husband left for work at 7 AM. It is now 9 PM and he wont 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 isnt 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? Three? Four?
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 dont 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 military 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 and 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, Ive 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 re-elected, 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, a.k.a. The Bucking Jenny
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)Nice letter. President Obama should pay this woman a visit.
Liberalynn
(7,549 posts)riverbendviewgal
(4,255 posts)THis should be shared on FB and everywhere else...everyone send an emailed to all.
I would love to see this woman on an Obama ad or a show like Anderson Cooper or one of the Morning shows of MSM.
She needs to heard loud and clear.
I would love to see her face to face with Romney.....
He is such a coward he would never do that.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)FirstLight
(13,368 posts)Love this woman...and am proud to stand beside her with my own voice too. I am NOT a victim, I have been victimized in my life, but I am a SURVIVOR and it takes a special kind of backbone to walk through that, and Mitt will never understand what it means to 'take responsibility for one's life'
Interesting to me that he is really talking about himself, when you listen hard enough
Spazito
(50,629 posts)Powerful! Nails Romney on every count.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,854 posts)Thanks for the post SunsetDreams
SunsetDreams
(8,571 posts)Her letter needs to be shared far and wide.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)hood.
yends21012
(228 posts)Sarah,
Thank you!
rhiannon55
(2,672 posts)Thank you, Sarah, for an incredible letter. You rock!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)a brilliant letter introducing Mitt to the world outside his bubble.
oldbanjo
(690 posts)YOU NAILED IT.
KalicoKitty
(792 posts)This should be posted on everyone's FB page!
Ztolkins
(429 posts)I did not intend on reading it all, but once I read the first paragraph I did not have a choice.
Reading the letter, it seems to me that Romney is a symptom of a larger disease and the most fascinating (and/or shocking) thing about the video was not how it would effect the election, but how the wealthy generally views the rest of society. I do not know why this has not been talked about more, but when we say things like "the gap between rich and poor has never been greater" there's always the implication that it's because the poor people are somehow getting...restless with the inequality. The reasons for the tensions between the rich and poor always start at the bottom. But what I thought was so spectacular about the video was that it showed so crystal clearly that the uber-rich really do feel what we kind of suspected all along - the poor & middle class are here for either their benefit or are just a drag on the system, they resent us for it, and are bitter that they have to pay into a system they feel they own. Perhaps the reasons for the tensions between rich and poor do not all begin with the poor.
And, now, unfortunately for republicans, that resentment, bitterness, and entitlement has a face and its Mitt Romney.
xxqqqzme
(14,887 posts)perspective. Welcome to DU.
mountain grammy
(26,676 posts)Some plutocrat once said "I can pay half the workers to kill the other half!" The wealthy Rmoney doners have managed to bring out the worst in people and it hasn't made a dent their wealth.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)said about there being a class war and his class was winning.
The 1%ers really are in a war against with those who are not in the 1%. They would really like to rule the earth without us. Romney's statements were an admission. And with their posting on the internet, may I suggest that the current unwillingness of the very rich to invest in America, their outsourcing and importing, is a sort of siege, a la the military strategy of the Middle Ages and somewhat later.
They have mounted a financial siege against American and highly paid and well trained European workers. They export their money, outsource clerical jobs and import products and services, depriving us of work and incomes. It's actually a strategy.
The Cayman Island and Swiss accounts are not just manifestations of greed. I now see them as, whether knowingly mounted or not, a state of siege around Fortress America. They are sucking the money and resources out and away from ordinary American working people. They will hire and invest anywhere but America. It's horrible. They want to destroy our unions and our standard of living. It's deliberate.
They figure they will have good plumbing, electricity and water no matter what. But they don't want ordinary Americans to earn enough to be able to afford even those basics. They look at the humiliating poverty of the Chinese and think it is wonderful. They think that is how Americans should work and live.
You have opened my eyes, Ztolkins. I had not seen the full meaning of Romney's comments until I read your post.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)judesedit
(4,443 posts)It is because of them that you even need food stamps right now. They should all be locked up by the IRS for tax evasion. If it was us owing much less, they would have thrown us in the clinker long ago.
jsr
(7,712 posts)mountain grammy
(26,676 posts)Back to obscurity in a landslide elections. The 47% and a few more will speak then.. We should see letters like this on a daily basis.
12AngryBorneoWildmen
(536 posts)Nice blog, too.
liberal N proud
(60,352 posts)Maineman
(854 posts)Romney and the Republicans specialize in transferring wealth from the masses to the few. For 30 years the rich have been getting rich much faster than usual. What the hell does he call that? Oh yes, that is called success.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)SunsetDreams
(8,571 posts)Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)LittleRock
(24 posts)Thank you. Your strength and fortitude and generosity of spirit embody the best of America.