UNDERCOVER CONGRESSMAN

February 25, 2011

Congressman Peter Roskam
150 S. Bloomingdale Road, Suite 200
Bloomingdale, IL 60108

Dear Congressman Roskam,

Have you seen the Emmy nominated, No. 1 new reality show, "Undercover Boss? It follows wealthy company CEO's who leave the splendor of their corner office to work "undercover" along side the lowly paid and un-appreciated minions who actually provide the sweat and toil that make companies successful. The Boss experiences an epiphany of sorts returning to his corner digs with a new found appreciation of how the other half, or more appropriately other 98%, live and work for diminishing wages to make an enterprise successful.

Undercover Boss reminds me of you because, even though you're the Illinois 6th District Congressman of over 700,000 residents, your governing mantra appears geared to the upper 2% in the super rich and the Military Industrial Complex who funnel millions into your campaign war chest. In order to correct this inequity, how about staring in a Congressional version of Undercover Boss to be called "Undercover Congressman". I envision a show where each week you leave your "Congressional Corner Office" to go undercover as, say, an investigative reporter, researching subjects of which you currently have little or no appreciation.

Because your number one goal in the 112th Congress is to abolish the first genuine health care reform for medically uninsured and underinsured folks, how about spending a day with a Sixth District family investigating how they cope with no medical insurance and a host of medical problems. You could see and feel the anguish as they have to decide on what essential needs must be deferred so they can possibly afford proper medical care. You might even witness their declaration of bankruptcy, a worry inconceivable to one covered by the government program of CongressCare. Their plight, experienced by hundreds, even thousands of your constituents, might just cause you to reconsider the insensitive and reckless policy you have chosen to highlight your third Congressional term.

You could investigate a family struggling with the moral dilemma posed by an unintended pregnancy. It could be a teen age girl impregnated by a rapist or even a family member; or maybe just a single mom, sole support of her three kids, who finds her livelihood and family survival threatened by pregnancy. Do you think your opposition to all abortion might just be challenged a bit by encountering the less fortunate who simply don't have the luxury of bowing to your moral certainty against their exercise of a still legal but politically endangered medical remedy?

Another subject for your undercover journey could be the home of a family grieving the death or maiming of a loved one in our senseless and bankrupting wars; those wars you vote to fund with 300 millions of borrowed dollars daily without the slightest justification whatsoever to your constituents. Is it possible that upon seeing the devastation of these monstrous wars up close, you just might suffer the a twinge of guilt that your support is unquestioned because you fear losing the support of the Military Industrial Complex far more than losing your soul supporting these crimes against humanity?

You could spend a day with a family supported by a worthwhile domestic government job you are seeking to abolish in you zeal to reduce the deficit on the backs of the working people of the Sixth District. Tell them how they will get by without a paycheck so you can continue to utilize the savings to fund utterly unneeded tax cuts for your supporters in the upper 2%.

Congressman, there are enough stories of the struggling folks in the lower 98% to keep you investigating for a full season. Your first four years in Congress have left a void which needs to be filled when it comes to the declining middle class being decimated by the policies you so eagerly support. If you did star in such a show, you may not win or even be nominated for an Emmy; but you will garner something infinitely more worthwhile. A heart.

Respectfully yours,

Walt Zlotow
Il Sixth District Resident

CURVEBALL MADE ME DO IT

We're half way home with memoirs of the four chief architects of the illegal Iraq war. First up was former President George W. Bush's tome "Decision points". Just published is "Known and Unknown" by Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. On the horizon is the still untitled book by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Sometime in the next year or two we can mercifully expect the last memoir by a Bush war cabinet biggie, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Sadly, you won't find the story of Rafid Ahmen Alwan al-Janabi, a Baghdad trained biochemical engineer, who defected from Iraq in 1995, in either of the two published and most likely not in the two unpublished memoirs as well. That is because al-Janabi, better known as Curveball by his handlers in German and American intelligence, was the conman whose fictional stories of Iraqi biological weapons factories on wheels were cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his UN speech of February 5, 2003; a speech which arguably clinched the case for attacking Iraq just 43 days later.

Curveball, whose real identity wasn't revealed till 2007, has given an interview to the British newspaper The Guardian, in which he fully admits, even brags about his deception which led to catastrophic war. Since they won't appear in any Bush war cabinet memoir, Curveball's admissions are worth publicizing.

"I had a problem with the Saddam regime. I wanted to get rid of him and I had this chance. I had to fabricate something to
topple this regime. I and my sons are proud...proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld are enjoying the good life in the upper 2% of America's wealthy, making even more millions with their false and self serving memoirs. If, by a miraculous stroke of serendipity, all four of these warriors could ascend to the Pearly Gates together seeking to duplicate their magical earthly life in Heaven, they might be met with this question from St Peter:

"Why did you attack Iraq and get all of those millions of innocent Iraqis killed, injured or removed from their
neighborhood or country?"

Although missing from their books, all four would simultaneously bellow:

"Curveball made me do it!"