PART #1 "All Politics Is Local"

 

These words were attributed to former Speaker of the House, Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill Jr. The words, however, were passed down to him from his father. The former Democrat Speaker of the House and 34-year veteran of the Congress wrote in his autobiography "Man of the House":

"This was the only race I ever lost in my life, but in the process, I learned two extremely valuable lessons. During the campaign, my father had left me to my own devices, but when it was over, he pointed out that I had taken my own neighborhood for granted. He was right: I had received a tremendous vote in the other sections of the city, but I hadn't worked hard enough in my own backyard. 'Let me tell you something I learned years ago,' he said. 'All politics is local.'"

On the issues, I suspect there is little upon which Former Speaker O'Neill and I would today agree. However, in the case of this one quote, I couldn't agree with him more. All politics ARE local. I know there are many of us that are angry, frustrated and scared with what we see happening in Washington these days but feel helpless to do anything about it. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.

Everyone seems to be looking for a "way to help the cause", "a way to change the course" America seems to be on. No matter your choice of words most of us agree that we are headed in the wrong direction both nationally and locally. The first step is is to get educated, start asking questions and, most importantly, get off the couch. There are plenty of things you can be doing on a local level to get involved and help the cause.

The fight to take back Washington from the corruption of special interest groups, lifelong politicians and institutionalized party-oriented nepotism starts on the STATE level, as does the return to Constitutional Integrity. In the case of my colleague, Angel, and I, the State is Massachusetts. We can't expect to change a thing until we introduce ourselves to our State government perched high above us on Beacon Hill, Boston.

Beacon Hill, meet FlemingandHayes...

 

TO BE CONTINUED...


PLEASE NOTE: Angel and I are aware that the correct grammar would be "All politics ARE local". Before correcting our choice of words please note that this was a quote, hence the "quotation marks". Don't take this up with us, take it up with Speaker O'Niell, who passed away in 1994.

PART #2 The Constitution vs.

The First Amendment.

Article 1; Section 8; The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;7; To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

I'll rail against the Constitutionality of the United States Post Office at a later point in time, but I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you the experience I had this morning when I attempted to mail the stack of letters Angel and I prepared last night.

 

I started my day by heading down to the Waverley Square post office, which is down the street from my house, all our letters in hand (well, in a back-pack, in my hand). After purchasing 204 stamps ($.44 a stamp these days) I began inquiring as to the best course of action to accomplish our goal of confirming the delivery of our letters for documentation.

Our original plan was to mail all our letters "Restricted Delivery". This way, the letter could only be delivered if someone was to sign for it. This sounds great in theory, but, at a cost of $4.50 per letter, this proved to be cost prohibitive. After weighing all my options, I decided to go with a "Certificate of Mailing". At $1.15 per letter, this was more in line with our "shoestring budget." Mailing our letters this way also shows that we give custody of every letter to the Federal Government; meaning that, if any politician denies getting one of our letters, they are either indicting the United States Postal Service or admitting their own staff lost our correspondence. It sounds fairly easy and well-laid so far, right? However, this is where our story takes a turn towards the truly asinine...

For reasons highlighted above, I am sold on the $1.15 "Certificate of Mailing," and tell the clerk that I have 204 letters that need to go out with said "certificate." As luck would have it, the postal worker tells me that mailing more then 200 letters may entitle me to a "bulk" discount. From my perspective, the plan seems to keep getting better (cheaper). Because the clerk, through his own admission, is not clear on applicable discounts, he calls the Fort Point post office in Boston to clarify procedure (as you will soon see, this is, unfortunately, where the "wheels come off the bus" and I'm reminded that there is almost nothing the Federal government does more efficiently then the private sector).

So, there I am, waiting at the counter where the gentleman spends the next 35 minutes on the phone as he's apparently being bounced from one menu to another before finally being disconnected (and here I was thinking this only happens to us civilian outsiders, but, nope!, it happens even to government employees, too). Normally, I'm impatient in these situations, but the irony of a federal employee suffering on hold with the government agency he's employed by is worth the price of admission. Anyway, he calls Fort Point back only to be lost in their directory before being disconnected again. On his third attempt, he gets some supervisor's voice mail and hangs up. He tries back a fourth time and actually gets a live person, who then transfers him back to the supervisors voice mail for a second time.

It's apparent now that Fort Point isn't going to have an answer for us, so he calls the other Belmont branch which is also stumped on what the discount should be and tells him to call the Fort Point office. Luckily, he doesn't bother with calling them for a 5th time. He instead calls the Waltham branch and actually gets a live person. They tell him that I would indeed be entitled to a discount, but they're not sure what it would be and he should call the other Belmont branch. (AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!)

It's been an hour and half at this point and despite the tom-foolery I'm witnessing I have to get to work at some point. I thank the gentleman for trying and tell him that I'll just pay full price for the sake of getting this over with and getting on with my life (if looking for a discount was where the wheels came off the proverbial bus, trying to finalize my transaction is where the bus flips on its side and bursts into flames).

I'm told by the same postal worker (who just spent hours trying to figure out how to do his job at my expense) that he would be unable to finalize my transaction. Apparently, writing up the receipts for my letters would take over an hour, and it's only him and one other clerk at this branch, and lunch break is coming up. I'm not used to treatment like this in private businesses, but, I quickly reminded myself, this is the government, after all.

I really want to get these letters finished and mailed today, so I ask him to call the other Belmont branch to see if they can process my mail. After a quick call, he tells me that they're just as understaffed as he is, and they wouldn't be able to help me today. I'm finding all of this a bit odd, so I ask him to call the Waltham post office again. He tries, but gets no answer.

I'm desperate at this point to just get this over with, so I ask him  what he'd suggest I should do. He gives me a stack of dirty receipt slips and tells me to fill out every one and paper clip the receipt to the corresponding letter so when I finally find a post office that wants to "deal" with me, I'll have less of a wait time at the counter. To me, this sounds like he's trying to pawn his job off on me, so I inquire how exactly I am supposed find a post office that has the time and the staff to do their Constitutionally mandated jobs. He's stumped at this point, pulls out his cell phone and scribbles down the phone number to a "local supervisor" that he says can help me schedule an appointment somewhere to have my letters accepted.


Thank you very much, have a nice day. Time of entry to time of departure from "postal hell" was an hour and forty-five minutes. I'd try to contact the Postmaster General about this, but I know that would be a dead end. I'd try and contact my state Rep. or state Senator, but considering our letter writing campaign has to do with them not standing up for the Constitution or their constituents in the first place, I'm feeling a bit cynical. What are we supposed to do anyway, write them a letter?

The only thought that comes to mind about this whole situation is that the Liberals out there want my health care to be run this efficiently? Are you serious?

**To read the letter we sent, to copy and start your own movement within your state, click here. REMINDER! This is to STATE government, NOT US senators and house reps. If you need clarification, every state government has a website. For example, Massachusetts is mass.gov.**

Part #3 The Grand Finale

 

Like I mentioned in the video, one of these had to be filled  out for every one of the letters we were mailing. I know as far as mass (no pun intended) mailings go, this is a small number, but to say this was labor-intensive would be an understatement. I found out while I was at the post office that they would fill these out themselves, as long as I keep the total to 20 or so at a time. I'm not sure if this is official policy or personal preference, but it's still good to know. I don't want to get ahead of myself, however.

So I head down to the post office. This time I went to a Post Office in Braintree, MA. When I finally get up to the counter (keep in mind this is a very busy branch) I explain to the female employee what I'm trying to do, and much to my surprise she is beyond helpful (for a government employee, anyway). She explains that getting my letters mailed wouldn't be a problem at all, but that I would have to attach the postage to every "Certificate of Mailing" sheet myself. She sold me the stamps and led me over to a corner of the post office and showed me what I'd have to do in order to get my letters out today.

Every "Certificate of Mailing" needed a $1, .10c, .04c and .01c stamp on them. They don't have nickel stamps (I asked). As much fun as sticking stamps sounds, I believe this was Karma for my "repetitive stress injury" comment. After a little over an hour and 816 stamps later, I finished.

After another breather in line, I get back to the counter. I'm honestly shocked when the postal employee tells me that everything is all set and busts out his stamp so he can "bullseye" every certificate. He of course has to double check that the address on the certificate is the same as the address on the letter. Even though he was a very polite gentleman, I almost snapped when he told me that "this" - reading two addresses, pulling off the certificate, and using his stamp - "is a lot of work." I had no sympathy when he told me his arm was getting tired. In the half hour this took I explained the whole point of this letter writing campaign, which after a few quick constitutional reminders he instantly fell behind what we were doing. He guaranteed that every politician that doesn't bother to respond to us is simply going to throw the United State Post Office under the bus. I assured him we have contingency plans for that, and that was it. DONE!

Now as a simple matter of clarification, I know that Angel and I haven't showed the actual letter itself yet. Once we start getting responses back we'll show the letter. We know of a few members of our legislature that do read our blog. There's no need to give one politician preference above another as far as a head's up what's coming there way. I assure you that once we start getting responses we'll post our letter, as well as theirs. After a bit of time if we still haven't heard back from everyone we'll start calling them out publicly, and focus in on specific people.

In closing, please understand that Angel and I put a LOT of time, effort and money into this project. We know not everyone can do this, but there are things that EVERYONE can do to get involved. If you've read down this far your'e probably discontent with the state of politics both locally and federally. If you haven't fired off an email to your representatives or called their office, though, you have no excuse. If you don't know who to contact, get in touch with us, and we will get you the phone numbers and email addresses of the politicians YOU pay to represent YOU.

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We live in a time of instant communication and if you aren't doing everything you can to share your discontent with your political employees then I'm sorry, but you're part of the problem. It's time to turn off the T.V., get off the couch and get involved. No more excuses.