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Sample Letter in protest of the closing of the libraries
Everyone's upset. Everyone is sad. Everyone agrees that closing the libraries in Salinas is unconscionable and should never be allowed to happen. Yet with all the hand-wringing, lamentations, demonstrations of support and newspaper publicity, the situation remains the same: our government at every level is useless and unresponsive and the fate of the libraries rests in the hands of the private sector to chip in and cough up enough cash to continue to provide a basic public service.
From the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times we read expressions of woe --- what would John Steinbeck say if he knew his hometown libraries were on the brink of extinction? What would Cesar Chavez do if he knew the children of his beloved farmworkers had no library to frequent?
Jim Hightower expressed his dismay that even during the Great Depression, the libraries in the United States somehow managed to stay open. Hector Elizondo compared the closures of the libraries to putting "a tourniquet on the mind."
It's time to start holding our public officials accountable for this shameful situation --- ALL public officials: from the city council that chose to shut them down rather than reprioritize, to the county supervisors who preside over one of the wealthiest areas in the United States, to the State Legislature who has been asleep at the wheel for the last few years, to the big, strong Governor who rode into power like a white knight on his steed and his promise to save us all, to the Feds who, like the dying Roman Empire, insist that our great country must spend obscene amounts of the public's money on war and militarism in order to "protect" our way of life -- all the while that very way of life is being eroded due to lack of public services because the funding is being diverted to war and militarism.
For you see, a government's budget is a "moral document" (thank you Jim Wallis). Where and how our government spends the money with which we entrust them should be a reflection of our basic values. If our elected officials cannot or will not serve the interests of the people, then it is the right and duty of the people to get rid of them. I read this self-evident truth in an important document -- at the library.
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