DISSENT: We're all accountable

I'd like to ask Ms. Lori White this: Who created the great Birth Certificate Conspiracy Theory and the "birther" movement? Who created the "TEA Party?" Who screamed "socialism" or "Marxism" while Senator Obama ran for the presidency then went on to attack him and the nation that elected him by November 2008?

Who whined about Health Care Reform (Obamacare)? Who literally claimed that the sky was falling when the president went on to rescue the banks and the auto industry? Who only attacked this president no matter what he did to try to bring this country back from recession? Why don't you look around you and recall the letters to the editors, the rancid editorial columns, the political ads, what appeared on Fox News Channel. For the extreme divisions that exist today regardless of what this nation faced in its financial crisis four years previously, shouldn't "we" be held accountable for that?

Shouldn't "we" be held accountable for the politicians who proclaimed in 2010 that they would focus on "jobs and the economy," elected them for that purpose, only to watch them legislate on the behalf of business interests and religious activists? To legislate against consumer protection laws, to legislate against public sector employees, to legislate against society's most vulnerable people? Shouldn't "we" be held accountable for not wanting that unity that President Obama promised? Shouldn't "we" be held accountable for dissent that today serves no purpose other than to create a nation of warring camps? Think about it and then provide a more thoughtful answer.

JOAN E. HARMAN

Dalton Gardens