Dear Editor,

I wrote this letter five years ago when the media was squawking vanishing middle-class blues. Has anything changed since then for the American laborer nation-wide-middle-class included? Has this administration made a progressive effort to get its people back to work? You have a voice! Vote! We need to send a powerful message to Washington.

The letter published in 2008:

The working middle-class is vanishing. We have fallen on deaf ears! We have been sold out to legalized slave labor. The labor force that has powered this nation to greatness is collapsing. Empty industrial parks dot the landscape across this nation. Industries that have made the American dream possible have become the American nightmare! The "chicken in every pot" has a "turkey buzzard" in it.

America is the largest consumer of goods and services in the world. Industrial manufacturing has allowed laborers financial security and financial freedom. A means to feed and clothe their families, educate their children, build and buy homes, automobiles, boats, take vacations, and above all, provide health insurance and retirement opportunities.

When the men and women across this nation begin to grieve their financial losses a seething anger will cover this nation like the raging Mississippi in flood season. It will be a nasty clean up. A jobless nation produces a frustrated and angry nation. Anger management has not seen the likes of things to come. Counselors and Prozac cannot fix this problem, but jobs can. The battle cry across this nation is:

We want jobs! We want our lives back! We have had enough and are fed up with big government! We want change!

Hello-is there anyone home in Washington? Do you hear our cries, Washington? The plague of poverty is knocking at your doo0r. The unemployment lines get longer every day from lay-offs and manufacturing shutdowns.

It is time to rise up, people. Get fired up. Let your voice be heard across this lane. Vote. Let's rid Washington of all who have sold us out!

A small voice in the vanishing labor force,

Vickie Goforth