To the editor:

I took part in the March 15 Clinton rally at the ferry terminal. What brought us out of our homes is the alarming intrusion of corporate money into our government.

We have President Obama to thank for pulling us back from the brink of a Depression, but his efforts to repair our economy are misguided. He gave flu shots to a three-legged horse, trying his best to make something run that simply can’t.

Corporations, Wall Street and the wealthy are withholding the revenue our country needs. This is one case in which the Republicans are right: It is class warfare.  Against the middle class and the disenfranchised. And unless you’re wealthy, membership in one political party or the other will offer no protection.

This is not the country we were raised in. The sidewalks look the same, the sky’s blue and flowers bloom. Underneath this normal-looking facade, our representatives have been compromised by vast injections of money from the wealthy and powerful.  Taxes on corporations and the rich once paid for the hospitals, roads and schools that made this country great.

Over the last three decades, that revenue has drastically been reduced, and working people are left to pick up the tab.

It takes no imagination to see that transferring this tax burden to the middle class will destabilize our country and lead to the kind of violence we saw during the last Depression. Without bargaining rights, there will be no floor to wages.  With massive layoffs of public workers, the jobless and hungry will become more desperate as their numbers and poverty increase. More small businesses will close for lack of customers with spending money.

Third World instability, with its gated pockets of ultra-rich surrounded by growing numbers of working poor, is the road we’re headed down. Everyday people and candidates with courage can stand up to power and money so the American Dream doesn’t become an American Nightmare.

If we duck and cover, or hope quietly that things will blow over, our country falls into the dustbin of history and we have nothing to blame but our silence.

Mark Skullerud

Coupeville