Jim Atkinson
A lifelong Democrat, Jim is running for Congress this year in Pennsylvania's 11th Congressional District.
Jim is in the race for a very simple reason: it's time for the People to take back control of their government. “The People,” means all of us – not just the entrenched interests which currently have a stranglehold on policy and legislation in Washington DC.
A career airline pilot and happily married man, Jim and his wife Elena are raising their three young boys in Lancaster. “I want my children to inherit the kind of USA I grew up in, where dreams come true,” Jim says, “and with what politics has recently descended to, I’m deeply concerned for the future.”
The American Dream is under a greater threat this year than it's ever been in our lifetimes. We quite literally face the prospect that in 2024 a former president could be once again elected to The White House and declare himself a dictator. Yes, you read that right: Donald Trump is ready to end our beloved form of representative democracy and install himself as a ruler who is accountable to no one.
We can't let this happen. It's time for all of us to get involved in defending our basic institutions of government, and pushing back with our full weight against the government-for-sale system which brought us to this point. Our democracy will only be safe when it is firmly in the hands of us, The American People.
Once we've prevailed over this looming threat to our Constitution, we've got to get busy on some urgent matters of business. Our healthcare system is designed and built by those who reap the highest profits from it, not those who work in it or those who use it. We can do better. And we need a government which takes a long view of the future, addressing urgent matters of climate change, environmental protection (including our clean drinking water), and everything which affects our young people. Tomorrow's voters are in the classrooms and the playgrounds today, and we need to make sure they're ready to take the reigns of government when it's their turn.
This year, Jim will be working hard to earn your support. Together we can make Pennsylvania's Congressional District 11 a place where all constituents have full access to their congressman, where we have lively Town Hall Meetings, and where the real issues affecting people's lives are the top priority.
The Sacrifices of Those Who Came Before Us
Jim Atkinson
My dad grew up about a one-hour drive from the southern part of Pennsylvania's Congressional District 11, in West Virginia. He was born in January of 1918 on the family farm just outside Berkeley Springs, known then as "Meadow Farm." The Atkinson family had a tomato and sauerkraut canning facility, growing their own products and employing local people on land that had been in the family since around the time of the Civil War.
By the end of World War II, my father was the only soldier from his family to come home from the war. His two closest brothers, with whom he'd worked hard all through the Great Depression, gave their lives in the war. When I was growing up, we always honored the sacrifices of our bravest, regardless of their family histories, political leanings, or any other aspect. We simply honored our heroes, unconditionally.
In recent years, however, we've been tormented by messages which are completely at odds with what my uncles died for. Can you imagine a Lieutenant yelling to his men as the ramp drops on a landing craft at Omaha Beach on D-Day, "OK, MEN, GO HIT THAT BEACH AND FIGHT WITH ALL YOU'VE GOT -- SO SOMEDAY A U.S. PRESIDENT CAN COME TO THE CEMETERY HERE AND CALL YOU SUCKERS AND LOSERS!" It is simply too much to take. We cannot allow ourselves to tolerate it. We cannot allow ourselves to become exactly what we were fighting against. We owe it not only to ourselves and future generations to be brave enough to resist it; we truly owe it to the memory of our fallen to be as brave as they were, and resist. The fight for freedom is never over, and it will never reward cowards and go-alongs.