Thanks and thoughts

Some follow-up to yesterday's post. Please email Ed Schultz at his radio or TV show to say thank you, he's approaching this crisis as though it was his own family seeking help. You can also tweet him at @wegoted, @edshow.

I had a chance to review Rep. Alan Grayson from two nights ago. I hoped the 99ers would get an advocate on their behalf similar to Alan Grayson for health care reform. Sure enough someone claimed that mantel: Rep. Alan Grayson. Why can't anyone else be Grayson? Is he the only Democratic in the house with heart, soul and guts?

A friend suggests that Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Jim McDermott are amongst the most likely to champion additional unemployment extensions. Please contact either or both (especially if you are a constituent) to urge their vigorous participation. For anyone without benefits for months, patience is poison and action is everything.

Please participate in the "Send a Shoe to Washington" Campaign. There are so many in danger of losing everything. A coordinated campaign makes us newsworthy, which generates press. News coverage guarantees the 99ers will not be ignored.

Finally, thanks to Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe. It takes strength and courage to buck your party. Still, part of me has to ask, $25? It took $25 per family per week to get this going? Is that what it takes to get this going? $25? Now my family has to go to Martha's Vineyard for just a week in August. $25? I'll have to suffer with domestic caviar. $25 is $108.33 a month. $108.33 is bread, eggs, milk, peanut butter, jelly, ground beef, noodles, tomato sauce and canned vegetables. Don't worry. We will all figure it out. Sen. Collins, Sen. Snowe and any Democratic Senators that hid behind Sen. Collins and Sen. Snowe, don't consider me ungrateful. I am grateful checks will be out soon. I am grateful to pay my bills. If $25/week was what it took to get these extensions funded, I am grateful it wasn't more. So I am grateful. I am so grateful I could puke.

What is equitable? Equity.

As Congress prepares to return to work for a mere 3 weeks, it's important to define what we want. As a group, we the unemployed want 1) the extensions approved 18 months ago fully funded through 2010 2) extensions beyond 99 weeks. Unfortunately, no elected official wants to champion going beyond 99. Until current extensions are funded nothing will be done. Realistically, no one will champion unlimited extensions, so we must be precise in articulating our expectations.

What do I want? Equal treatment under the law as almost any other person. Since recent court decisions imbue corporations with personal rights, this is a great place to start. Just as the banks were bailed out for the good of the country, I would like the same. Not for my good, but because it is good economics. Auto manufacturers were propped up not for the sake of the corp., but to minimize collateral damage. Add more weeks not for me but for the stores I frequent and the property values of my neighbors. When I get healthy, I wish to continue to pay a disproportionately low share of tax. I would like to borrow gobs of money at 0%. I want to invest that money to grow my profits and justify obscenely large bonuses. Not for my sake but for the good of the country. (I apologize for the last few sentences of liberal diatribe. Like gas it surfaces at inopportune moments). What do I want? I want to be considered the same as the big corporations, because as a group we are just as significant. I will give specifications in my next post.

Like the rest of the country, I am unable to fathom the extent of the crisis in the Gulf. I wish Congress could fix it with the wave of a pen. I am sure they would if they could. I don't want to equate the country's chronic unemployment with the Gulf disaster. The circumstances are different but the results might have similar effects on our country. Ironically, Congress could mitigate the effects of long-term unemployment with just a wave of the pen.

I plan to start a conversation on delivering our yet to be crafted message on Facebook at UBO21C, please join in. Also follow on Twitter @UBO21