Senators, Constituents, & ISIS, Oh My!

I completely understand that our government officials are busy making decisions for our country and earning money from their constituents, but is it hard to have an answering machine or multi-line phone system? Is it also difficult to get the contact information from your constituents who call to leave a message?

 

I called both Senator Schumer and Senator Gillinrand of New York State to ask them to vote NO on offering the Syrian rebels military aid. Senator Schumer’s office never even picked up the phone and there was no answering service. Senator Gillibrand’s assistant didn’t even ask for my name or contact information when I left my message. How does this happen? I understand that in Senator Schumer’s case there may have been an error in the answering machine or perhaps the assistant had stepped out, but for Senator Gillibrand’s assistant to not even care about who was calling is, well, unprofessional.

In a day and age when the average American constituent is vying for the attention of a senator who is receiving money from corporations or other wealthy donors, it is more important than ever that we feel heard. How are we, as every day citizens, as actual people, supposed to feel that we have a government for the people, if we aren’t being heard or respected?

 

Some may wonder why I do not want military aid for the Syrian rebels, it is because military aid rarely, if ever, solves anything. I saw firsthand what military aid did to Iraq, and ISIS is proof that military aid does not benefit a country. The Taliban is another example of military aid going wrong. The US gave Afghanistan weapons to fight the invading Russian forces and those weapons ended up in the hands of the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan (I refuse to call it Operation Enduring Freedom, see post What's In A Name: Operation Iraqi Freedom). Instead, using our military to bring humanitarian aid, as we do after natural disasters, actually benefits a country. Dropping bombs does not actually solve the crisis, in reality, it kills innocent civilians and creates future “terrorist” who are angered by America’s insistence to perpetuate war in all the nations they deem unfit.