We are in the campaign season for elections this fall across this country of ours. I am not going to presume to offer any wisdom or insight regarding the candidates or the process, except to share an opinion that one needs to participate.
Write your Congressman, your Senators, your Governor, your State Representatives, your President. Write them once in a while to let them know how you feel about what is going on in your day-to-day activities that is either positively or negatively impacted by the job they are doing, or not doing. Get out and cast your vote.
Get involved, participate, inform, and share your views with those who are supposed to be in a position to consider those views as they go about the task of governance for us. Our representatives employ people who's job it is to identify those issues and positions that are resonating with the public, good or bad. If the resonance is high enough, they must take action, react, consider, or face the consequences next election cycle.
The other option for these folks is to react to media coverage, but the media has its own concerns and agendas related to being a for-profit company (usually), concerned about generating sales and revenues, and managing costs, in order to continue being a viable media company. This does not always assure "fair and balanced" coverage, but assures a tilt towards that which will happen to sell a bunch of whatever they have to sell to pay reporters and cover their travel expenses, etc.
Sometimes these objectives don't really reflect the magnitude and gravity of the resonance that some actions, positions, and issues of the government have with regular folks just like you and me. 500 letters to a state representative on a given topic will get heads turning. A recent example of this is the development and evolution of the HHS Department of the Federal Government regarding some recently implemented policies, and the evolution of these in response to public reaction via letter-writing, phone calls and e-mails.
