Stephen
Fournier
Attorney at
Law
Tel: 860 794
6718
stepfour@stepfour.com
I signed up with the Secretary
of the State a few weeks ago as a write-in candidate for U. S. House of
Representatives. Under ordinary
circumstances, I wouldn't support somebody like me. I'm a known troublemaker and dissident,
combative and uncompromising. I resigned
from a discredited Hartford Board of Education after 13 months in office to
protest the misconduct of most of the other members. A few months later, the Connecticut General
Assembly dissolved that board. It's a
safe bet that Congress is no less venal a body, and I wouldn't expect to make a
lot of friends there.
My mission would be to confront
the racketeers in government and bring them to a public accounting. Real politicians can't do that sort of thing,
because they have political debts, usually to these same racketeers. I'm convinced that government is now
organized principally to enrich privileged private parties: war profiteers, government contractors,
bankers, suppliers of critical services, like health care, and critical
commodities, like energy, and other millionaires and billionaires.
Congress can't act in the
public interest, because these forces won't allow it, and they have the
resources to back up their decrees.
Until members of Congress impose some accountability on their
colleagues--miscreants like Tom Delay and Duke Cunningham and Dennis Hastert--the
influence of corrupt wealth over government will increase, and the predation of
the ruling class on ordinary people will continue.
I've taken many positions on
many issues, and I haven't always been consistent. A Hartford High/UConn
education will do that for you. I tend
to be against war, but I did take the military oath, and I took it seriously,
and I can't seem to shake it. I wouldn't
shoot anybody for the flag, but I like to think I would do it for the Constitution.
I'm big on equality, but I want
merit rewarded, too, and I demand that we recognize individual accomplishment,
even at the expense of the mass of lesser performers. At Hartford High, everybody had to go to the
blackboard, and we were humiliated publicly when we failed there. I wasn't for it then, but I am now.
I've always opposed the death
penalty, but I could support it if it were prescribed for grievous
malfeasance.
I love that we come from
different cultures, and I know that ours would be a poorer nation if not for
the preservation of ethnic values and traditions, but I'm also convinced that
we fail without a social contract based on common values.
I respect John Larson, the
incumbent congressman, for standing up against the invasion of
I love driving, but I'm
convinced that pushing a half-ton of metal around to transport one person is an
irresponsible act.
I hate nationalism, but I
concede that we pass on a national identity to our children and that we fail at
their peril to ensure the integrity of that legacy.
I don't doubt the pressures
applied to people who are trying to give a true account of events, but I
believe the commercial news media have systematically disinformed
us and that reporters have accommodated them in every particular.
I revere the rule of law, but I
celebrate my criminal record. I may be the
only offender on my community service crew to frame his certificate of
completion. My criminal record was wiped
clean, but I will always remember my two days on the chain gang, sweeping the
gutters on
I believe that the gravest social
deficiencies—racism, ignorance, nationalism, poverty, violence—are rooted in
corruption.
If I went to Congress, I would
vote to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney.
I would vote to withdraw
I don't want to go to Congress,
and I've been deferring this move every two years for a long time. To get me to take the job, people would have
to engage in an unusual act of citizenship.
I won't be on any ballot. There
won't be any yard signs or bumper stickers.
Voters will have to find out that I exist and remember to lift the
little metal tab and write in my name.
It's almost impossible to get elected that way. On the other hand, if you do get elected by
write-in, you can reckon on a pretty strong mandate. If I'm to be set loose in
I like to cast a write-in vote
when I can, because I know it gets counted.
My wife Ruth works at the polls most years, and
there's seldom much written on the roll of paper that shows the write-in votes,
but they do get carefully counted, and that roll of paper is retained by the
town as a permanent record. And if
you're a compulsive iconoclast like me, you'll be happy to have a write-in
candidate available and the option to cast a protest vote on election
day if you feel like it.
If you think this is a dumb
idea, you’re not alone, and you can toss this letter in the basket. If not, mention it to somebody you know in
the
As I mentioned, I can't take
this job except in consequence of an unusual act of mass citizenship.
Steve Fournier