Granny D

I am amazed that the AMAZING trek by Granny D across the breadth of this nation has not attracted more publicity from the mainstream press. I was in Florida when Granny D hit Washington, DC, on February 29. I would have thought that this event would have had major front page coverage. Yet I only found a small insert about Granny D in only ONE of the two newspapers that I read during the whole time I was in Florida. To me, this is spooky. Perhaps this was just an aberration, and that, overall, she did get a lot of coverage in the nation’s newspapers.

Yet, for example, I saw nothing in the Gazette on-line about it. Ed.

Some excerpts of Granny D’s remarks in Washington, DC

"Before the rise of the Environmental Movement, a senator might have looked upon a polluted Hudson river and said that the old river is simply paying the inevitable price for progress. But now, after so much sickness endured, so much new understanding gained of our fragile network of life, and after so much effort by so many, we see the insensitivity and ignorance of such a statement. How did anyone dare think that our beautiful land stretches itself out for companies to ravage for their profit and our misery?

"Before the Campaign Finance Reform Movement, which grows every day now with such power that it shakes the political parties to their foundations, a senator might have advised his fellow member to not worry about voting down campaign reforms, because the people don’t care. That is, in fact, what Senators McConnell and Lott did say -- and that is what precipitated my walk. I have come to tell them that they are wildly mistaken, and I am glad to have you along to add your voices to mine. .....

"What might we call the selling of our government from under us? What might we call a change of government -- from a government of, by and for the people, to a government by and for the wealthy elite?.........

"Of course you may not have our democratic republic to sell. What our family members died for, we do not forget. They died for our freedom and equality, not for a government of the rich alone.

"Along my three thousand miles through the heart of America, which I made to disprove your lie, did I meet anyone who thought that their voice as an equal citizen now counts for much in the corrupt halls of Washington? No, I did not. Did I meet anyone who felt anger or pain over this? I did indeed, and I watched them shake with rage sometimes when they spoke, and I saw tears well up in their eyes.

"The time for this shame is ending. The American people see it and have decided against it. Our brooms are ballots, and we come a-sweeping. We will visit every state where anti-reform Senators are up for reelection and bring with us the long lists of your corruptions, and I will be with them. You will try to buy your way out if it with expensive advertisements. But we will take such spending as further proof of your corruption, for Americans pay ten dollars in extra taxes for each dollar you receive for your campaigns from special interests. ........

"Now, Senators, ...... If I have offended you speaking this way on your front steps, that is as it should be; You have offended America and you have dishonored the best things it stands for. Take your wounded pride, get off your backs and onto your feet, and go across the street to clean your rooms. You have somewhere on your desks, under the love letters from your greedy friends and co-conspirators against representative democracy, a modest bill against soft money. Pass it. Then show that you are clever lads by devising new ways for a great people to talk to one another again without the necessity of great wealth. If you cannot do that, then get out of the way --go home to some other corruption, less harmful to a great nation. We have millions of people more worthy of these fine offices."