Editor:

     The last few weeks have been a very turbulent and disquieting time. As America sees her very core shaken by the men and women that "We the People" have chosen to represent us, the world waits and wonders what else will befall us.
      If there was any doubt that the current administration is simply not up to the task of running the country, the promise by President Obama's "boy wonder" Timothy Geithner (current Secretary of the Treasury) that there would be no change in the credit rating from AAA shows the total incompetence that our leadership in the executive branch as regards how the American economy works.
      Standard and Poor's is a venerated credit reporting service that downgraded America on Friday, August 5. This is the first time in our history we have been downgraded.
      In the week ending on Friday, August 5, the stock market lost its gains of the previous year - over 500 points. This news, coupled with reduction in our credit rating will have negative consequences on almost all of us. Those owning mutual funds, stocks, house payments and even credit cards will all feel the negative effect. We all remember the great bailout when one trillion dollars was pumped into the American economy to bring us out of the recession we were in.
      Can any of us say with any certainty that that bailout helped? There is a very real chance that we will continue the slide into an even deeper recession. To whom shall we turn to for help? Europe is in its own financial crisis, with Greece already getting a bailout and three other economies possibly needing their own. Our biggest lender, China, is also our biggest enemy.  We should do all we can to pay them and stop digging our hole even deeper.
      What should we do? First, become as educated as you can about what is happening in the government, especially where it concerns the economy. There are hundreds of good (and not so good) web sites that help us to better understand just what our leaders are doing for/to us. It is also time for those on the left to open your eyes and see what is happening with the "change we can believe in."
      America is being pushed and prodded down a very dangerous road that is leading to Socialism. Let us take our freedoms back and demand that the powers be returned to the states and local governments who best know how to effect change in their own regions. A very wise man (Thomas Paine) once said that governments who govern least govern best. Let us take the power away from Washington and give it back to "We The People." It is our country, not the government's.
      In closing, I would like to take a moment to say a very fond and grateful farewell to those men from SEAL Team 6 that lost their lives in a helicopter crash on August 5. These are the men at the very tip of the spear and we owe these men and the men and women who are in harms way a salute that they deserve.
Tom Grovenstein
Statesboro