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Wayne LeVasseur of Bangor is an Army veteran and graduate of Husson University.
In all my 75 years, I have never thought of flying the flag upside down (for those who do not understand, it is a signal of distress for our country). This is where I feel we are in our current political situation. I have served more than 20 years in the military and have never felt so unsure of our government as I do now.
I fear we will never have an honest citizen serving in the U.S. Senate or U.S. House. I must ask where the people are that really want to represent us and not be self serving and greedy, my goodness this even extends to the Supreme Court.
Ever since my ninth-grade civics class in 1965, I have tried to be cognizant of our government’s workings and at no time has the outlook been so cloudy to me. There seems to be corruption around every turn, money seems to rule everything to the point that we could not get an honest regular Joe elected; it is unbelievable the amounts of money that are spent on elections. I wonder what promises are being made and what rules are being bent to appease the multimillionaires who back the candidates.
I must ask why it is OK for our elected officials to be able to essentially have insider trading secrets and poor Martha Stewart went to prison. Are the elected officials the elite, who can vote themselves a raise at midnight while we all sleep? So many benefits afforded to these special people that you and I will never see; shameful business being conducted in the name of government. It has gotten so bad for me that I am down to voting for the person who I feel will hurt us the least, and that to me is a tough decision.
Where are we now? I think we are without a doubt the jester in the world view. Shamefully, we are no longer viewed as the power that we once were. As one of the younger countries in the new world, we jumped to the front and led through two world wars, fought on two fronts in World War II and showed the world what it meant to be great. But we had great leaders who surrounded themselves with great people that were dedicated to our country and not how full they could get their pockets and build their egos. Where is Harry Truman when you need him?
I am sorry to say that I feel we are now being led by a doddering old man as president. His only claim to fame is his longevity in politics, which to me screams term limits! I often wonder who is behind the scenes running this country.
Let’s look at the other side and we have a man of long-time privilege since birth. It is my belief that he incited the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and when he could have, he did nothing to intercede in stopping it. I believe this man’s ego knows no bounds, he believes that he could do no wrong, perhaps commit murder in New York and get away with it. He stated this in 2016. The man is a convicted felon, and he appears to want to crown himself king of America. He has told so many lies and falsehoods that he likely believes them to be true.
It is unfortunate that a country as great as ours cannot submit better candidates than these two to lead us into the future. Come on people, we are better than this, we have some exceptionally good folks that genuinely want to represent us but due to a lack of perhaps money for campaigning will never see the light of day. We can do better, and we should.
Let’s get the corruption and greed out of politics and start electing folks who want to have good government and want to be our representatives. One last thought: We seriously need to consider term limits to get and keep fresh blood flowing in our state and Washington, D.C.
