My Response to "The Grey-Haired Brigade" Email

I was forwarded an e-mail a few days ago from a friend who knows I "like" these kinds of things. It was forwarded by a barfly we both know. Actually, barfly is too harsh a term. He's a regular. And when talking sports over a beer, he's fine (even if he is a Yankees fan), but we've never spoken politics. And now I know why. Here's the email, copied word for word from this website:

"The Grey-Haired Brigade"

They like to refer to us as senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs. Some of us are "baby boomer" getting ready to retire. Others have been retired for some time. We walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once were. We have worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and grown old together. Yes, we are the ones some refer to as being over the hill and that is probably true.

But before writing us off completely, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration. In school we studied English, history, math, and science which enabled us to lead America into the technological age. Most of us remember what outhouses were, many of us with firsthand experience. We remember the days of telephone party-lines, 25 cent gasoline, and milk and ice being delivered to our homes. For those of you who don't know what an icebox is, today they are electric and referred to as refrigerators. A few even remember when cars were started with a crank. Yes, we lived those days.

We are probably considered old fashioned and out-dated by many. But there are a few things you need to remember before completely writing us off. We won World War II and fought in Korea and Viet Nam . We can quote the pledge of allegiance, and know where to place our hand while doing so. We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield. We didn't fight for the Socialist States of America , we fought for the "land of the free and home of the brave." We wore different uniforms but carried the same flag. We know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, America , and America the Beautiful by heart, and you may even see some tears running down our cheeks as we sing. We have lived what many of you have only read about in history books and we feel no obligation to apologize to anyone for America.

Yes, we are old and slow these days but rest assured, we have at least one good fight left in us. We have loved this country, fought for it, and died for it, and now we are going to save it. It is our country and nobody is going to take it away from us. We took oaths to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that is an oath we plan to keep. There are those who want to destroy this land we love but, like our founders, there is no way we are going to remain silent.

It was the young people of this nation who elected Obama and the Democratic congress. You fell for the "Hope and change" which in reality was nothing but "Hype and lies." You have tasted socialism and seen evil face to face, and have found you don't like it after all.

You make a lot of noise but most are all too interested in their careers or "Climbing the social ladder" to be involved in such mundane things as patriotism and voting.

Many of those who fell for the "great lie" in 2008 are now having buyer's remorse. With all the education we gave you, you didn't have sense enough to see through the lies and instead drank the Kool-Aid. Now you're paying the price and complaining about it.

No jobs, lost mortgages, higher taxes, and less freedom. This is what you voted for and this is what you got. We entrusted you with the Torch of Liberty and you traded it for a paycheck and a fancy house.

Well, don't worry youngsters, the Grey Haired Brigade is here, and in one month we are going to take back our nation. We may drive a little slower than you would like but we get where we're going, and in November we're going to the polls by the millions. This land does not belong to the man in the White House or to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It belongs to "We the People", and "We the People" plan to reclaim our land and our freedom. We hope this time you will do a better job of preserving it and passing it along to our grandchildren.

So the next time you have the chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand up, put your hand over your heart, honor our country, and thank God for the old geezers of the Grey-Haired Brigade."

Here's my response:

I hope the Grey-Haired Brigade will remember this email when they vote for Sharron Angle as she's advocating to privatize your Social Security benefits that you've paid into for decades.  Oh, wait, she doesn't want to privatize them, she wants to "personalize" them. Yeah, tell me what the difference is.

I hope the Grey-Haired Brigade will use the smarts they got from going to school where they "studied English, history, math and science" when they vote for Rand Paul who is a proponent of abolishing the Department of Education and perhaps cutting down on federal student loans if given the chance.

I hope the Grey-Haired Brigade will remember this email and think twice before casting a vote for Christine O'Donnell, who is in favor of repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that gives them extra cash for Medicare prescription drugs that the Republicans didn't see fit to provide them when they signed Medicare Part D into law under Bush with no way to pay for it.

We thank the Grey-Haired Brigade for their service to this country in previous wars as they should thank the young folks they're complaining about for defending their country in the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can't seriously believe that the almost one and a half million active personnel in the US Armed Forces are all Republicans, can they?

We know the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner.

We sing along to America The Beautiful.

We Pledge allegiance to the flag.

But none of that really matters to you even as we young 'uns are the ones who are providing the payroll taxes that are paying for YOUR Social Security, all the while challenging those who would take it away from you, the ones who the Grey-Haired Brigade would prefer to have in office. Remember that the next time you want to complain about the young folk.

Perhaps if the Grey-Haired Brigade thought about the results of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as even some conservative economists have done, instead of blindly accepting accusations of failure as fact from GOP politicians who've done nothing but stand in the way of progress for the benefit of their party and not the benefit of the people, instead of listening to the likes of Rush Limbaugh who wanted Obama to fail even before his first day in office regardless of the consequences of what that would mean for the country, instead of following conspiracy theorists like Glenn Beck who whip people up into a fearful frenzy to the point of scamming them into buying gold and survival food kits from disreputable companies who until recently used Beck as a paid sponsor, we'd be much better off.

Yes, we voted for Obama, but we don't have buyers' remorse. On the contrary, it's like buying a new car and not being able to go more than 60 MPH the first month. We are actually frustrated that he hasn't been as progressive as we'd like but we're just getting started, baby. Health care reform, Wall Street reform, credit card reform, The Lily Ledbetter Act, moving troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan where they should have stayed in the first place, ending the Stop-Loss policy, eliminating outdated weapons systems like the F-22, saving the auto industry and millions of jobs with it, restarting the nuclear nonproliferation talks, and the list goes on. And this is in spite of Republican obstruction.  If you really pay attention, it's more the Party of No that has slowed down Hope & Change for an outside shot at More Of The Same.  How did that work out in the first decade of the 21st Century?

If there's a difference of opinion on policy issues, that's a completely legitimate debate to have, but if Republicans are actually blocking legislation that they themselves authored just to slow things down, maybe the Grey-Haired Brigade can enlighten us as to how that helps their constituents.  I keep hearing all this talk about "taking our country back" and "reclaiming our land and our freedom." But to that I ask, "Take it back from whom?" "What freedoms have you lost that you want to reclaim?"

But go ahead, Grey-Haired Brigade, go to the polls and vote your conscience.  But you'd better be right. Otherwise, we'll see you on the ice floes as the people you'd like to have in power don't really care about you. They care about their corporate masters, the ones who grease their palms so they can screw WE THE PEOPLE. And I don't want to hear any whining about it when they do.

And one more thing: STAY OUT OF THE LEFT LANE, SLOWPOKES!