When I have skimmed through the letters lately, very few are actual letters to the editor and instead are columns from writers across the U.S., along with the little blurb at the bottom asking for letters.
I have put off writing a letter for quite some time now, for various different reasons. However, I am inspired by a few other letter writers, such as Cheryl Sanders, who writes eloquently and with passion. I must also applaud Fred Bindelwald. He too, writes with a grandiose flair that I admire. Both, however, are completely opposite.
One is progressive and one is conservative, and both use writing to provide information and persuasion. Like I have said in a previous letter, they are both two sides of the same coin. One is Democrat, one is Republican, but it’s still the coin of politics. It’s ironic, to say it’s a coin, because coin is man’s folly.
The almighty dollar is the one thing that can push good people to do terrible things. There are many people who will take money just so they can look the other way. I am not above them, either. I have said regularly the things I would do for money. If I, a poor person, would do incredulous acts for money, what would someone else, say, a politician do?
People could argue that they have enough money as it is, but is it ever enough? Once you get a taste of that sweet, sweet wealth, what would they do? Flip a coin, follow the money. Be an opposer to certain rights, just to guarantee more coins in their pockets? Push through other bills, just so they can hear the jangle of money? Or even more so, turn their heads to an obvious ethnic genocide?
And if not that, why not take more care of the homeless people who live on the streets? Or, if they are too below the coin, why not the veterans who are in those same streets? Did they not pledge their lives to chase those money signs in the form of humans? Were those soldiers not targeted specifically in poor areas, because there is money to be made off the lives of the poor?
There is one thing in common with money and politics, I have found. Each and every dollar, each and every coin, each and every politician, deals in human lives. And there is money to be made when those lives end.
I used to compare politics to spider webs, and politicians to different kinds of spiders. I have changed my mind now. There are no spiders, no webs. There is only money, and money makes people do bad things.
Nettie Wildrick
Fort Madison