Letter to the Editor
State officials are reconsidering whether to use information posted on a website where employers could report employees who don’t show up to work after the site was attacked by hackers. While obviously not the technically appropriate venue, the website was a place where the general public could have symbolically performed their public duty to report every Ohio public official who doesn’t show up and do their job serving the public interest.
Public officials are paid with public tax dollars, yet too many increasingly serve the interests of big corporations and the rich. The list is long of Ohio elected, appointed and agency officials more beholden to energy, insurance, agricultural, financial, real estate and a slew of other corporations — and the richest 1% — than to the general public
We the People’s ability to have our voices heard and basic needs met continues to diminish, due in part to Supreme Court decisions declaring that “political money in elections is free speech” and “corporations have constitutional rights.” The We the People Amendment would abolish both constitutional doctrines.
As conventional arenas for the public to be heard and hold public officials accountable decline, it’s inevitable that the 99% will explore unconventional ways to make democracy real.
Greg Coleridge,
Cleveland Heights
Greg Coleridge is outreach director of the national Move to Amend campaign.
create real democracy 