Push has come to shove in our politics, with our survival as a people and as a nation in the balance. Our entire system of massive dependence on fossil fuels is unsustainable and more destructive with every passing day. Reform is needed, and long overdue–in fuel use, tax structures (currently propping up disastrous policies and pollluters) and national habits and attitudes. Foreign wars are fruitless–I should know, I’m a disabled Vietnam vet, 100% disabled officially, with a prosthetic left leg.

For five decades, giant corporations have dismissed human workers for ‘cheaper’ technology (spurred on by ‘cheap’ fossil fuels, all of which are untaxed and directly and indirectly subsidized by YOUR tax dollars). We have progressed from living in caves to living in artificial caves (houses), and from respecting the natural world to treating it with cold contempt. No civilization can survive this way.

We are fortunate to have a president who is trying to address these matters, protecting social justice, and is stymied by special interests and their anvil chorus (aka the Tea Party).

Please vote in November, and vote thoughtfully, as though your life depends on it–because it does. As Ben Franklin said, we can either hand together or hang separately.

Jack Snyder

Shepherdstown