We speak to let elected officials know we embrace inclusive policies that provide the foundation for healthy community life. We wholeheartedly oppose policies grounded in exclusion, in destruction, and in fear. We are residents of our neighborhoods and of the world.
Elected Official Letter and Friends for Civil Action Statement
Letter to members of the Texas Legislature and the Governor
May 24, 2017
I write as a representative of one of the many postcard storming groups that have cropped up around our country, many of us getting the same idea at the same time without consulting with each other.
In my group, more than 200 are on our email list, receiving weekly updates. Twenty to sixty of us come to postcard storms—we have held 8 storms so far, with an average attendance of forty people. We come together to write, not chat. Others send messages independently. We are neither hateful, nor sore losers—at least, not generally speaking.
What we are is deeply concerned that our way of life is being uprooted and discarded in a matter of months. Civility has been trampled—but that is perhaps the least important loss. The most important loss is that a whole party of our nation, one of two parties with a rich tradition of service, has decided that governing isn’t their business. Within our group we have traditional Republicans, moderate independents, and many Democrats.
We are bound by the belief that inclusive policies are best.
Such policies open the door for everyone to have an opportunity to participate in a robust economy. They respect the rights of all people, citizens or not. They value the fundamental difference quality public education makes, and they recognize that without a quality public education system we are lost as a society. Inclusive policies recognize health care is beyond the pocketbooks and wallets of all but the very richest and that government must be involved in solutions that allow all people to access health care—regardless of whether that person is deemed a good worker. Inclusive policies understand our environment really is being destroyed by human hands, and that we must take measures while we still can to protect it. Inclusive policies acknowledge that no one of us has a direct line to the source of creation and, thus, cannot declare a woman’s womb his business.
We write simple messages—largely in opposition to a particular bill. Our messages are simple, because we know any attention our words will get will be fleeting at best, so we try to make the biggest point we have to offer on a lead topic as clearly as we can. Respectfully.
We believe that issues government must actively solve are intertwined and complex and demand expert input. Where we would hope to see solution-driven policies, we instead see blustering, ego-driven chest-thumping, meanness, self-interest, and perhaps worse.
While the President prompted us to pick up our pens and purchase postcards, he, in my view, is compromised by intellectual instability and lack of relevant experience. Our eyes are looking beyond him at elected officials in all the offices where we hold a vote. Our hope is to enlist many other people in many districts across the country in the same endeavor, voting out of office the people who act for themselves instead of their constituents.
Those elected officials who believe America’s needs can be solved through tax breaks have lost their way. What sounded to some like a good promise, just like the sound of a border wall sounded good to some, isn’t what America needs. What we think we want and what we really need aren’t necessarily the same, and too many of our elected officials have ceased to look ahead to what is needed.
Along with my fellow Friends for Civil Action, I plan to stay engaged in the coming years, as I have been in the past months. Too much is at stake not to be.
Sincerely,
Mary (Molly) H. Sharpe
Austin, TX 78703-2833
Friends for Civil Action co-signing this letter: Mary A. G. McCalla, Lois C. Pattie, Kate E. Clark, Jean L. Works, Martha Pincoffs, Louise Gose Pincoffs, Eileen Lundy, Nancy Chapman Collins, Cynthia W. Caruso, Sally Wittliff, Karen Hertel, Julia Baker Howry, Annes McCann-Baker, Susan O. Bradshaw, Karen Saadeh, Desiree Hollingsworth, Maria Cisne Farahani; Jane Dryden Louis, Danielle Jaussaud, Carol Conner Wilson, Margot Thomas, Cindy Keever, Joanna Hitchcock, Gay Gillen, Susan Erickson,
Friends for Civil Action Founders’ Postcard Stormer Statement
Friends for Civil Action is an informal network—without dues or infra-structure—of friends and neighbors branching to many neighborhoods. We engage in postcard storms to make our voices heard.
We speak to let elected officials know we embrace inclusive policies that provide the foundation for healthy community life. We wholeheartedly oppose policies grounded in exclusion, in destruction, and in fear.
We are residents of our neighborhoods and of the world.
Our numbers grow as friends talk to friends. Some of us are liberal, some moderate, some fiscally conservative. We applaud a thriving economy, but are only satisfied when the goal is prosperity for the many, not just the few.
Though a number of us are part of organized religious traditions, we resent the way that close-minded beliefs are being propagated in the names of “Christianity,” “Family Values,” and “Patriotism.”
Above all, we believe in an America that values the unique human spirit that lies within each of us as citizens, and within those as well who would join us as citizens.
Acting with persistence, we will continue to voice our concerns, to work for candidates who agree with our aims, and to let our representatives know that we are measuring their actions against the template of our beliefs.
Founders as of May 22, 2017
Mary (Molly) H. Sharpe 78703-2833
Kate Clark 78703-2706
Cynthia Keever 78705-3510
Gay Gillen 78703
Kathryn Miller Anderson 78703-1903
Margot Thomas 78751
Desiree Pedreschi Holllingsworth 78746-4120
Mary Gideon Herman 78703-4309
Paula Thompson Herd 78746-1232
Joan Lava 78731-4723
Standish Meacham 78703
Nancy Chapman Collins 78703-3633
Emmy Lou Sawyer 78731-4736
Edwin R. Sharpe 78703-2833
JoAnn McKenzie 78731-2908
Teresa Ann Oppedal 78703-2447
Cynthia Woodham Caruso
Mary Jane Hilfer 78746-4125
Cindy Winn Livingston 78731
Sidney Hollingsworth 78746-4120
Lois Catherine Pattie 78745
Susan O. Bradshaw 78756-3510
Rebecca Benz 78722
Danielle Jaussaud 78759-4438
Mary A. L. (Maline) McCalla 78703
Loretta Bates Fischer 78703-4228
Karen Jean Saadeh 78751-3723
Elizabeth Osborne 78703-2234
Robbie Ausley 78731-4049
Quita McMath 78703
Kathleen Doris Niendorff 78703
Margaret D. Manley 78731-6125
Teddy Kinney 78703
Bea Ann Smith 78703-3314
Diane Umstead 78703
Jean Leary Works 78703-2244
Susan Cassano 78745
Molly Dougherty 78703-2502
Nancy Scanlan 78731
Susan Robertson 78731
Patricia Yeargain 78731-1800
Elaine Robicheaux 78730
Mary Murphy Craddock 78703-2436
Mary Ann Roser 78756-3516
Sandra Sain 78703
Susan Robbins Kelly 78746-4121
Randeen S. Torvik-Ragan 78703-2844
Annes McCann-Baker 78746-2304
Mallory Campbell Shaddix 77024-7104
Ann Mason 77030-4120
Terri LeClercq 78751
Anne Byars
Alison Suttle
Dallas D. Miller
Brittmarie Janson Perez
Maria Farahani 78731
Jeri Houston
Dana Hollingsworth
Karen Moody
Paula Tuttle
Julia Bateman
Ann Caroline Leifeste 78727
Jennifer S. Hassibi 78703
Barbara Kim Bernson 78751
Brenna Randolph 78703
Heid Ross 78756
Jessica Niemiec 78751
Courntey Dial 78725
Ameli Agbodan 78731
Leila R. Lederer 78731
Michele Murphy 78756
Christian Drake 78703
Joan Sharpe 78731
Kelly Aho 78756
Lindsey Connor Mosby 78731
Regan Lenehan 78756
Joan Lusky Levy 78746
Tracey Marchbanks 78735-6488
Lynn Cohagan 78731
Jane Scroggs 78703
Martha Pincoffs 78722
Eileen Lundy 78746-2708
Edward Lundy 78746-2708
Sally Bowers Wittliff 78703
Karen Hertel 78703
Louise Gose Pincoffs 78703
Julia Baker Howry 78703-1521
Elizabeth Hood Hall 78703
Marjorie (Margie) McClurg 78746-4622
Carol Conner Wilson 78703
Judith Willcott 78705-2321
Susan Erickson 78703-6027
Joanna Hitchcock 78703
Nancy Wilson Scanlan 78746
Dina Sherzer 78746-4342
Joel Sherzer 78746-4342
Molly Sharpe welcomes you to Friends For Civil Action 