A Citizen's Candid Letter To A Congressional Representative

Tweeting furiously about the unjust state of things is not only fun, but it's also a positive way to get things off our collective chest (sorry GOP, I know how you feel about the term 'collective'). I should know, as I am quite a furious tweeter. But preaching to the choir is only so satisfying, so I wrote my representative in Congress.
I happen to live in the 29th Congressional district of New York State, and my representative is a Republican named Tom. Tom has reportedly accepted extravagant vacations and other kushy gifts from big corporations. I know... this is nothing new. But I wanted to tell him as straight forward and succinctly as possible with a short e-mail (we know about their attention span don't we?) outlining a few things that stick in my proverbial craw, and many others' craw as well, including many of the craws of my 3,765 Twitter followers.
Here it is:

To Representative Tom Reed of the 29th Congressional District

Dear Tom,
I just wanted to drop a line to give you some insight into what's on the minds of many of us who you are alleged to represent:

* We really wish you guys wouldn't favor big corporations over the people. Oh don't try to deny it -- you used to be able to get away with quite a lot, but we peasants now have the best information source in history.

* The fact that we have a healthcare system based on for-profit insurance companies is lunacy, and the main reason why the costs are out of control. Even "Obama-Care's" architect Liz Fowler is a big-time corporate health insurance insider from Wellpoint, and now, after writing corporate favors into law, is off to Johnson & Johnson. This is not the only example of the greasy corporate revolving door of Washington to say the least. The founders would be quite dumbfounded.

* All this fiscal "cliff/slope" nonsense could easily be solved by imposing a Wall Street financial transaction tax (Tobin tax). After all, there is ten's of TRILLIONS of dollars in derivatives trading alone! Our deficit could also be diminished by ceasing to tax gambling speculators & hedge fund managers at a lower rate than the rate that those who do the real work in our country pay. And what's worse? We apparently are now responsible for these gangster-banks' bad bets. When they are are guilty of fraud, bid rigging and naked short-sells of financial products (which is becoming the norm) to extract more wealth from the country, jail 'em. Don't impose a relatively tiny little fine that they regard as merely the cost of doing business. Ya know, common sense things.

* We should assuredly cut this huge surveillance apparatus that does nothing but infringe our rights and dignity, all in the name of 'terrorism,' which kills less people than bed-sheets. We know what it's about; a perpetual war that greases the palms of corrupt 'Defense' contractors, and keeps the populace in fear indefinitely, thus more easily manipulated.

* None of you seemed to notice that there's been a melting polar cap, record fires, heatwaves, and storms. Remember Sandy? Do you really think this will all magically resolve itself? Are you gambling that technology will solve it just in time? I wouldn't take those odds. You should take the billions shelled out in corporate welfare checks to big oil and use it to develop a renewable energy future. Germany showed us how, but that's probably out of the question because big business has to remain the status quo -- I guess that's why you conservatives don't sufficiently embrace change(or facts for that matter). Regardless, you should all stop drilling our children's future into the shale. It's not very nice at all.

Suffice to say that empire takes a terrible toll on those in it, especially when it declines. It doesn't have to, of course, but you guys must know these things. Don't you? I mean, all of you have been formally educated and we assume your capable critical thinking. You must have taken history classes, you know that old maxim; "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it?" But then maybe the appeal of short-term gain has completely short-circuited your long-term cognitive abilities.

I would like to close with a warning:

History shows that the people will only take so much until they start taking heads. So dig your bunkers deep.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Merrill, Citizen

What Is Civilization?

It just dawned on me that most of my posts here began as responses, in one way or another, to a friend or Twitter follower who made certain comments or statements to me. Here is the latest.

One of my followers on twitter asked me to elaborate on what I meant by civilization in this tweet I posted:

"We May Be Able To Delay The Collapse Of Civilization A Little Longer http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/opinion/going-beyond-carbon-dioxide.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0 … ...But not likely."

@jennyfrky replied, quite unexpectedly, with:

"Can you give me your definition of civilization?"

(The little devil thinks she's clever doesn't she?)

Well, that immediately turned my briskly posted tweet into a deep philosophical and scientific question that I felt required to answer, as though I had pulled a fast one, hoping no one would notice I was brushing over my failure to define the terms. Of course, this led me to reply with three tweets that was a summation of what I fleshed out after the fact.
The flesh I outed was this:

What, exactly is 'civilization'? Some would say "Well, civilization is when we can make things like cars, phones and what have you." (Of course, the Romans didn't have the same things we have, but the principle is nonetheless the same.)

Others would say "Well, civilization is when groups form governments, and then make laws to make sure things don't get out of hand."

And still others would say "Well, civilization is when you have most of the population making all the stuff that everyone uses and getting paid for it so that they can live."

Well, the real definition is obviously a combination of these and probably a few other archetypical descriptions ...and I believe it would go something like this:

Civilization is said to exist when a species (In this case, humans) form a larger group with sub-groups working together to make their existence individually and as a whole, more comfortable through the use of the various tools the groups can assemble. The advancement naturally increases over time because improvements are made to the existing tools, thereby making a wider variety of tools.
The production and use of these various tools (everything man-made is essentially a tool; a car is a tool to move you to other places, using minimal effort. Television radios etc., are tools to spread manifestations of information, that all initially begin as ideas), are divided into subsets of groups who receive compensation for the expense of their time and energy, thereby allowing them to continue living in the greatest amount of comfort that the current technical advancement level of said civilization can provide
The global group will also set up a much smaller architecture to place controls on society and administer the rules, thereby enforcing order. These subgroups can use one or more of various established political ideologies or religious ones (religion and politics were once one and the same, but as civilization evolves, the two begin to separate due to the speculative nature of religion) that comprise the foundation that the structure of this enforcement of rules is based upon. After all human brains are the most complex structures in the universe that we know of, and the most unpredictable.
There is a system in place that enables the dissemination of ideas from one individual or group to another group or individual by means of invented tools. In our case, writing, which was the first iteration of artificially produced 'external memory', then radio, TV and currently our artificially simplified brains, other wise know as computers.

So, this is the best short-paper of a description that I can come up with at 3:14 in the A.M., hastily cobbled together from what started as a response to a tweet. So I'm sure there are other aspects of civilization not thought of by me at this present moment, likely because my eyes are staring to droop and my bed is beginning to seem very appealing. If anyone would like to expand or add to this (without writing a college thesis), I would encourage you to do so if I was still awake! (Please do.)

G'nite/morn y'all!