Warranted Outrage toward Washington from a Brilliant Friend

David R. Wright is a retired professor from Clarion University in Pennsylvania.  He also served twenty years as a Representative in the Pennsylvania legislature.  He is retired from that position as well.  He was a primary player in the revision of Pennsylvania's law relating to telecommunication. The legislation served as one of the guiding documents when the U.S. telecommunication act was passed during the Clinton administration.  Dr. Wright was invited to the signing of the federal legislation by President Bill Clinton.  Wright was actively involved in providing Pennsylvania legislative committee leadership on issues related to education, utilities, and more.  His oldest son Douglas was tragically killed by a drunk driver. Douglas Wright was posthumously recognized as the Outstanding Commonwealth Attorney in Kentucky by his colleagues serving as prosecutors in Kentucky.  He has a younger son who works in the wireless telecommunication industry. David Wright is a superb teacher, lawmaker, consultant, husband, father, friend to me and many others, and a man of high ethics.  His father and two brothers were successful pastors in Missouri and Arkansas.  He grew up taught that his nation was a light shining in the darkness.  He still believes it can be and should be.  His words below address a current needless shadow dimming that light that brings pain.  Now in his mid seventies, he has always been and is an avid, eclectic reader.  He studied Journalism at the University of Missouri and shifted his graduate work done on the Masters level to more general communication theory as he completed a PhD  at Ohio University.  All of this is to say he brings wisdom, tolerance, and forbearance to the ways of the world and has been and is now dedicated to making it a more fit world in which to live. Today, July 24, 2011, he e-mailed me a spontaneous outcry of his heart that I thought succinctly captured the essence and mood of many examining  the shameful display going on in Washington.  I think it is worth a read by as many as possible.  His words follow:

"I'm angry.  Our present situation is not Katrina. It is not Joplin after a tornado.  It is not Oslo.  The present crisis is man made by people who should be selling shoes.  Regardless of the outcome,  the stalemate proves once again the Republicans cannot govern and Democrats are impotent even when they have the votes.
 
This is no longer a political quarrel between two factions jockeying for position and power.  It strikes at every man, woman, and child in the United States of America.  It threatens to decimate portfolio holdings for everybody who has invested in the market.  It threatens to make the deficit even worse by raising interest rates so that our debt is ever greater.  It means that middle class folks with variable mortgage rates will see their payment increase.  And for every .5 percent increase in interest rates we lose 600,000 jobs.
 
Our local Congressman is a talking-point spouting parrot; if I had all the facts about his voting record and the pledges he has signed I would write an op-ed piece with the opening sentence: "Where is GT?"  His name is Glen Thompson but likes to go by GT. 
 
All the focus now is on the Congressional leaders.  Some heat should be put on the sycophants who comprise the Obstinate Right.
 
The perfidious posturing politicians have now made it personal.  I'm ready to man the barricades.
 
Other than that, I have no strong feelings about it."