An Open Letter to Anders Crenshaw of Jacksonville about Phone Forum 16th Sept
Patrick Lockyer
September 17, 2009
Having listened to your phone forum on the evening of 16th September I was somewhat frustrated to not know how to get a question heard. In any case I wanted to call you on every one of your answers Congressman and equally on almost every one allowed a question. How can this nation contain so many who think from in a box as you and your ´choir´ do. What do you actually achieve when you preach to your choir? They all were ingested at birth with all their values anyway. I am sorry to have come to this conclusion and my wife is/was a devout Republican and ever more shall be so. We just don´t discuss it.
I came here eight years ago from the UK on 4th Nov 2001. I had been a Conservative since coming out of the military in 1970 after nine years and some time in Berlin and in NATO. Had a driving school which is lucrative in the UK despite the higher gas prices which is one of my issues. I had worked for a while at 80 hours a week giving lessons which probably paid for some health care as well. I also built up a film company or video company and filmed Prince Faisal of Jordan´s graduation by contract. Most of my family was/were labor supporters and my mother was a shop steward and I hated unions all my life.
I did not become a leftie easily as I was surrounded by righties in Pensacola and especially in the Elks club on the beach. A spell of being in Fort Walton Beach was even worse. You were judged by your pocket book and not your character. It stood out a country mile. Unity Church in Pensacola was the only place I thought was more flexible and rounded. There were many discussions that did not even get political. I have found some flexibility in Jacksonville as a bigger city and even when it is military edged.
I do not know if I am a liberal or whether I am just anti Republican. I speak as I find and have just not been able to find many Republicans that impress me with their mindsets and values. Where I come from I could go into a London pub and sit at the bar and invariably start a conversation with a complete stranger, maybe home born or not. I would know that we might agree on some things and disagree on others and not fall out or be rude and that we would both leave not frustrated or angry or bitter at all.
I have found here that invariably I mostly meet Republicans here in Jacksonville and most of my wife´s friends are Republicans and also her work mates and family. One of the things that I have found the hardest to come to terms with both here and in Pensacola has been the bigotry and racism. I have not a racist bone in my body and the term ´nigger´ is abhorrent to me. I have found in my marriage in Pensacola, as short as it was that exploitation of blacks in the way of owning a trailer park that kept them as cheapo income and easy evictees was distasteful to me. There have been similar things here.
I have been in a relationship and visited areas of Georgia that are even these days reminiscent of the Dukes of Hazard era. You shut your ears to the in built hatred and bigotry that prevails. You feel as if you are on another planet sometimes. You read about it and hear about it when you listen to Fox Talk Radio and you can´t escape that most Republicans just cannot stand against the comments that advocate hate against the President and I listen intrigued that such stuff is even allowed. Having this ´so called´ freedom is also the freedom to sell guns and gold and nuclear bunkers. So just because it´s successful makes it ´OK´. How that all leads to Police and Security Guards getting shot seems not to matter at all?
Back to the matter of the Phone Forum. How can you be so opposed to every citizen or even resident having free health care? Do you mean that you would just shrug your shoulders to witness a child in a hospital having been diagnosed leukemia being refused treatment for ´any´ reason? You think that would happen in a London hospital? How you even be proud of your nation and your policies and expose them in a phone forum? I come from a country where every politician serves for all citizens?
I was born in a war torn London in 43 and is that what makes Brits more compassionate? Do you not even know how you come over to most Europeans? In 1948 everyone in the UK was broke. My dad was broke and broken, three sinking´s in a minesweeper as ´officers cook´ probably contributed. Who was going to oppose free health care and who in a right mind would try to change that? How do you mighty righties who afford planes and car trips to DC and getting rooms to stop the poor from getting cover even live with yourselves? Seniors get free prescriptions at age 60 in the UK. I´m proud to pay taxes and high gas prices to be able to state that? Why are they all camped in Calais wishing they could get to the most compassionate country in the world? Ask me what it is like to be able to say that? Go figure.
Now I do owe you as you, on behalf of my wife helped in my immigration issues. We also met at the huge citizen acceptance at the UNF. I long time realized that there is much to gain from joining the club. The same club that often emerges to be as phony as ´pork and beans´. Clergy that are phony and hurt kids. I met a Czechoslovakian that had been here for 18 years and his best description of America was ´phony´. There is much truth about that. Politicians who are exposed don´t help. All too many of them?
I have much to be thankful to America for. I chose to come to the nation I had visited six or seven times over the previous 15 years. I want be proud to my family and I don´t mention much of this to them. I was very sick in Pensacola when I had just one month of insurance for the whole period from my arrival on the 4th November 2001 until I met my wife and joined her in Jacksonville Florida in July 2005. I had my gall bladder removed in 2001. Recently I was diagnosed stage four colorectal cancer and was in the hospital for nine days. I had colectomy surgery on 27th August and am currently receiving chemotherapy.
I have every respect for the wonderful treatment and surgery and cannot deny that I would be here rather than anywhere to have this happen. It is my fault plus my situation that has meant no screening to have found this mass earlier. I was too concerned with not being too much of a burden until my own situation resolved. I have waited eight years for the right to work and my health has surely suffered.
None of that is why I am opposed to the many right wing mindsets but just a sense of fair play. How could anyone not want that all citizens have the stress less platform of free health? How much less ill health might there be if everyone had cover? If the answer is to tax gas and cars and food and clothing and electronics and furniture and everything that everyone uses and purchases daily then no one will be a non contributor? I had to wonder why no one opposed to free health mentioned the cost of the war and wars and the NASA program and just today the European Force Field? JFK wanted Cuban missiles?
Too many of the attitudes of the callers sounded selfish and so did the responses from you. It appears to be a very selfish capitalistic approach to life is to be admired here whereas people in the many European countries I have visited have a more equaled mindset and almost an embarrassment of their opulence and good fortune. Brits live more on a par with each other and work to live more and not live to work. My wife works hard for Blue Cross and no British company would be allowed to enforce hours and hours of overtime for no extra and being placed in a mentality of fearing dismissal aged 66 and all that means in a position of no health insurance. Land of the Free? Yeah right. One of the things you also spoke of last night was how the young don´t need so much health care? Rubbish, remember the boat crash recently on the Intracoastal and also the nine in the I-295 school crash? Everybody needs basic cover and you have a patriotic duty to achieve it for all ´residents´ just as every single person in London on any day will get the same treatment as will the ones in the loop here and no one will die at 50 from lack of diabetes care. Call me please and give me some time to tell it to your face how wrong you are?
I came here eight years ago from the UK on 4th Nov 2001. I had been a Conservative since coming out of the military in 1970 after nine years and some time in Berlin and in NATO. Had a driving school which is lucrative in the UK despite the higher gas prices which is one of my issues. I had worked for a while at 80 hours a week giving lessons which probably paid for some health care as well. I also built up a film company or video company and filmed Prince Faisal of Jordan´s graduation by contract. Most of my family was/were labor supporters and my mother was a shop steward and I hated unions all my life.
I did not become a leftie easily as I was surrounded by righties in Pensacola and especially in the Elks club on the beach. A spell of being in Fort Walton Beach was even worse. You were judged by your pocket book and not your character. It stood out a country mile. Unity Church in Pensacola was the only place I thought was more flexible and rounded. There were many discussions that did not even get political. I have found some flexibility in Jacksonville as a bigger city and even when it is military edged.
I do not know if I am a liberal or whether I am just anti Republican. I speak as I find and have just not been able to find many Republicans that impress me with their mindsets and values. Where I come from I could go into a London pub and sit at the bar and invariably start a conversation with a complete stranger, maybe home born or not. I would know that we might agree on some things and disagree on others and not fall out or be rude and that we would both leave not frustrated or angry or bitter at all.
I have found here that invariably I mostly meet Republicans here in Jacksonville and most of my wife´s friends are Republicans and also her work mates and family. One of the things that I have found the hardest to come to terms with both here and in Pensacola has been the bigotry and racism. I have not a racist bone in my body and the term ´nigger´ is abhorrent to me. I have found in my marriage in Pensacola, as short as it was that exploitation of blacks in the way of owning a trailer park that kept them as cheapo income and easy evictees was distasteful to me. There have been similar things here.
I have been in a relationship and visited areas of Georgia that are even these days reminiscent of the Dukes of Hazard era. You shut your ears to the in built hatred and bigotry that prevails. You feel as if you are on another planet sometimes. You read about it and hear about it when you listen to Fox Talk Radio and you can´t escape that most Republicans just cannot stand against the comments that advocate hate against the President and I listen intrigued that such stuff is even allowed. Having this ´so called´ freedom is also the freedom to sell guns and gold and nuclear bunkers. So just because it´s successful makes it ´OK´. How that all leads to Police and Security Guards getting shot seems not to matter at all?
Back to the matter of the Phone Forum. How can you be so opposed to every citizen or even resident having free health care? Do you mean that you would just shrug your shoulders to witness a child in a hospital having been diagnosed leukemia being refused treatment for ´any´ reason? You think that would happen in a London hospital? How you even be proud of your nation and your policies and expose them in a phone forum? I come from a country where every politician serves for all citizens?
I was born in a war torn London in 43 and is that what makes Brits more compassionate? Do you not even know how you come over to most Europeans? In 1948 everyone in the UK was broke. My dad was broke and broken, three sinking´s in a minesweeper as ´officers cook´ probably contributed. Who was going to oppose free health care and who in a right mind would try to change that? How do you mighty righties who afford planes and car trips to DC and getting rooms to stop the poor from getting cover even live with yourselves? Seniors get free prescriptions at age 60 in the UK. I´m proud to pay taxes and high gas prices to be able to state that? Why are they all camped in Calais wishing they could get to the most compassionate country in the world? Ask me what it is like to be able to say that? Go figure.
Now I do owe you as you, on behalf of my wife helped in my immigration issues. We also met at the huge citizen acceptance at the UNF. I long time realized that there is much to gain from joining the club. The same club that often emerges to be as phony as ´pork and beans´. Clergy that are phony and hurt kids. I met a Czechoslovakian that had been here for 18 years and his best description of America was ´phony´. There is much truth about that. Politicians who are exposed don´t help. All too many of them?
I have much to be thankful to America for. I chose to come to the nation I had visited six or seven times over the previous 15 years. I want be proud to my family and I don´t mention much of this to them. I was very sick in Pensacola when I had just one month of insurance for the whole period from my arrival on the 4th November 2001 until I met my wife and joined her in Jacksonville Florida in July 2005. I had my gall bladder removed in 2001. Recently I was diagnosed stage four colorectal cancer and was in the hospital for nine days. I had colectomy surgery on 27th August and am currently receiving chemotherapy.
I have every respect for the wonderful treatment and surgery and cannot deny that I would be here rather than anywhere to have this happen. It is my fault plus my situation that has meant no screening to have found this mass earlier. I was too concerned with not being too much of a burden until my own situation resolved. I have waited eight years for the right to work and my health has surely suffered.
None of that is why I am opposed to the many right wing mindsets but just a sense of fair play. How could anyone not want that all citizens have the stress less platform of free health? How much less ill health might there be if everyone had cover? If the answer is to tax gas and cars and food and clothing and electronics and furniture and everything that everyone uses and purchases daily then no one will be a non contributor? I had to wonder why no one opposed to free health mentioned the cost of the war and wars and the NASA program and just today the European Force Field? JFK wanted Cuban missiles?
Too many of the attitudes of the callers sounded selfish and so did the responses from you. It appears to be a very selfish capitalistic approach to life is to be admired here whereas people in the many European countries I have visited have a more equaled mindset and almost an embarrassment of their opulence and good fortune. Brits live more on a par with each other and work to live more and not live to work. My wife works hard for Blue Cross and no British company would be allowed to enforce hours and hours of overtime for no extra and being placed in a mentality of fearing dismissal aged 66 and all that means in a position of no health insurance. Land of the Free? Yeah right. One of the things you also spoke of last night was how the young don´t need so much health care? Rubbish, remember the boat crash recently on the Intracoastal and also the nine in the I-295 school crash? Everybody needs basic cover and you have a patriotic duty to achieve it for all ´residents´ just as every single person in London on any day will get the same treatment as will the ones in the loop here and no one will die at 50 from lack of diabetes care. Call me please and give me some time to tell it to your face how wrong you are?