This is in response to a letter from Dick Rosenberg, May 23, titled “Complacent.”

I’m not complacent. I’m mad as hell.

Actually, what I feel is a measure of helplessness. I see my country disintegrate into a pretense of morality, while those in power appear to have no sense of morality in the areas of truth, compassion, tolerance or any of the other values I have been raised to believe are most important.

We rave about gays while we insert ourselves into the governments of other countries, creating messes we have no idea how to solve.

We handicap our researchers, who could discover the cures for diseases by using embryonic cells, and the government protects corporations who gouge the elderly for medicines they need to survive.

Some officials rave about abortion and then cut services to those who live.

I could go on and on about the hypocrisy, but it has all been said many times before.

The kind of action necessary to turn that around will come at the next election if enough people are as mad as I am.

In the meantime, for my own peace of mind, I will go about my life, do the best I can and bide my time. I don’t intend to let my bitterness poison my being or that of my country, which I dearly love.

What I can do is brighten the corner where I live, doing a little good here, a little there each day. I am not complacent.

Marilyn Burgess, Leeds