I would like to invite you to participate in my “Democracy Experiment:”
5 years have passed since the beginning of the Iraq war, 7 years have passed since the beginning of the Afghanistan war, we have recently witnessed the foothills of failings in our financial institutions, it has been 7 years since 9/11, we have lost 4,168 brave soldiers to war, and an additional 30,634 have been wounded in battle.
Now that the Republican National convention and the Democratic National Convention have passed and we have see the final of three Presidential debates:
I would like to commemorate the passing of these events with an act of Democracy.
Posted here you will find an open letter to government that I’ve written titled “War Is My Concern, but it is Not My Only Concern” The topics discussed in the letter are broken into 2 primary sections: Domestic Concerns and International Concerns. Each section offers a clearly bulleted list of suggestions for change and the text is designed in such a way that you could easily get the idea of the letter from simply reading the bold text or you could also select “Cheat Sheets” at the top of this page which provides short versions for each section. I am in the process of seeding the site with links to supporting articles and information. Eventually the words in the letter will be linked to those articles. For now you may sift to links by selecting “Endless links” at the top of the page.
In the beginning I simply couldn’t bare the weight of my DIScontent any longer. Writing it out allowed me to breathe easily again. What began as a small project, aimed at catharsis, has evolved into something much larger than I ever imagined it would be. My friends have jokingly referred to it as my manifesto—or not so jokingly—more appropriately, I would say that I am simply frustrated with the state of Democracy and I am searching for solutions out loud.
In the coming weeks, I would like to encourage that you share these pages with your friends and family.
My expectation for posting this letter, for all to see, is not that every person will agree with me but that after reading my letter each person will have springboard from which they can agree or disagree. The issues at stake in the upcoming election are matters of life and death for many people in the US. We should all know what we have given up thus far and to whom we have given—before we elect to give any further. My hope is that this letter will speak to the people and, in turn, inspire them to speak to other people and to their elected officials—though initially, the intended audience for this letter were the government officials in office and those who aspire to take office in the future. I am happy to share it more broadly now. Perhaps you too will become a part of my conversation with government. I believe that the voices of the people can drive the evolution of our Democracy and I think our Democracy is screaming for direction.
Because the course of this election will change our lives and the lives of the global community. I further ask that you forward this e-mail to as many people as you see fit—even if you only forward it to one person and in turn I would ask that one person to do the same and so on and so forth.
Thank you so much for participating,
Diane Dacruz-DiDonato
If you would like to forward my letter further, you may download a PDF version of the letter here:
If you have a suggestion for further destinations or would like to post a link or excerpt please contact me at warismyconcern@gmail.com.
* Re-posting is allowed without permission, so long as you notify me that you plan to do so and credit is clearly indicated. (please send the URL of your posting with your notification so that I can view the final result.) I maintain my right to refuse this courtesy for any reason if I feel compelled to do so.
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