I sat up straight.

And then he concluded with, “Together, Republicans and Democrats are taking action to protect the most vulnerable and to punish those who abuse them. With these initiatives, we will go after child sex offenders, and we will make sure that survivors have the highest protection under the law."

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There's been no reply.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Our issues fall on deaf ears, even when the person who's 3 heartbeats away from the Presidency (after the President and the Vice-president) announces a bipartisan effort to combat child abuse from one of the loudest bully-pulpits in the country, and expresses the topic clearly, succinctly.

Our society would rather pay attention to almost anything else .. ranging from probes into Russian 'false media' 2016 election meddling or the President's latest Tweet.

I have addressed this fact many times. Last year I repeatedly said that if one were to ask Americans to list the 20 most important issues to consider for the election that nothing about child abuse would appear. It probably wouldn't appear in the top 50.

Each day NAASCA carries a 'Daily Digest' of news that's related to the topics of child abuse and trauma, and every Sunday night we collect the 7 days' articles together (dozens of them) to use as material for our Sunday evening OPEN MIKE discussion episodes of the "Stop Child Abuse Now" talk radio shows.

This past week we'd shared about several things that were directly on point to Speaker Paul Ryan's announcement.

Among them was a powerful OPINION piece from Michael Reagan, President Ronald Reagan's son, who spoke with eloquence of his own experience of abuse as a child and clearly laid out many of the facts and statistics related to childhood trauma. He entitled his offering 'Child abuse -- a subject that deserves more attention.' And he was right. Among other things, Michael pointed out that in 2015 about 700,000 American children were victims of child abuse, and that each predator will sexually abuse 117 kids in their lifetime.

Another article we discussed addressed helping victims of childhood trafficking. It came from a relatively lightly populated and largely agricultural county north of Los Angeles, yet bemoaned the fact that "Over the course of 30 days there could be up to 750 victims working the streets or being sold online here in Kern County." Furthermore it stated that half the human beings being trafficked in the United States are branded, marked like cattle, stripped of their integrity and filled with hopelessness.

Yet another topic came from an article from the FBI. It spoke of how the FBI plays a role in helping to find "Missing Kids." Among other things, last year the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) said there were an astonishing 465,676 reports of missing children. While many of the missing are eventually accounted for, many kids will remain missing. I'd personally like to know that number, perhaps calculated after remaining in the data base over a 5 or 10 year period.

These children I'd describe as "Vanished Kids' and I'm sure the number would be astonishing.

Now a politician can have several motives to announce a position on issues of child abuse. After all it's a safe thing to say, "I care,' but do nothing else. There's little risk here, since so few in the community will actually press for significant action on such a feel-good mention of what NAASCA members know is a pandemic (and world-wide) problem.

That's because the community-at-large doesn't want to address these things itself. It's a taboo topic for most of us. We're in denial, and we'd rather believe we can turn away from such ugly, frightening issues. We mostly feel it 'doesn't effect us, our family, our neighborhood.' In any case, we believe 'others' are dealing with the plight of abused children for us.

The survivor community can play a much more significant role in moving our politicians off the dime. We need to engage them, and every individual who writes an email or sends a snail-mail letter goes a long way to raising the bar. That's because political folk know that for every missive they receive there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of other constituents / voters who care about these same issues, but won't bother to write.

And politicians start to care when thousands of votes are at stake.

There are numerous topics behind which we almost all can rally. The teaching of prevention info to kids in school systems, the elimination of often draconian Statues of Limitations, the establishing of a National data base (easily shared across all jurisdictions) that would clearly identify registered sex offenders, the creation of a one-stop Federal web site where ALL best practices and resources could be linked, etc, etc.

The list goes on.

Unless and until we collectively insist politicians and their leadership, like a Paul Ryan, pay attention to the needs of hundreds of thousands of America's children each year, and offer solutions to the pandemic yet frequently hidden problems related to the child abuse and trauma facing our communities, we will not make significant progress.

Our children are the treasure of our country, and we need to invest in them.

Please .. in this instance, no matter where you live, take a moment to write to Speaker Paul Ryan at the web site below. He's in a National leadership position where he can make a difference .. if he chooses to do so.

His very job is to set the agenda for the House of Representatives.

Simply go to www.speaker.gov/contact to use the 'Speak Out' - email form to communicate with him.

Every single email matters, and NAASCA thanks you in advance for all you do in the fight against child abuse and trauma.

Together we can do what we can not do alone.

Yours in service,

Bill Murray, NAASCA