Thoughts for Tomorrow

Will you invest today -- or Expense Tomorrow?

In honor of this election cycle that has just 121 days left, I want to talk to you about tomorrow. Not Monday specifically, but ‘tomorrow’, that ethereal destination toward which we’re all headed.

The number of days until I reach that is much smaller, God willing, than what lies ahead for my grandchildren. I pray they will have plenty of tomorrows and that they are filled with wonderful things.

I worry about the way we look at tomorrow and the way Republicans view tomorrow. The differences are dramatic and, in some cases unnerving.  When we look at tomorrow, it is our hops that our children, all children will live healthy lives, with good educations, and opportunities to discover the richness of life and do things that matter to them.

When Republicans look at tomorrow, they see the same thing --- but for their kids and

‘people like themselves’.

When we look at tomorrow, we have to be grateful that someone before us looked at tomorrow and said, “We must plan today so people retiring can have a nest egg -- not much, but enough -- and health care. And they made sure our tomorrows have those things.

Republicans look at tomorrow and say, “That’s socialism. We don’t need that. It goes against every principle we stand for.”

“But,” they say, “If we have to have a system because we can’t find the votes to eliminate it, let’s at least privatize it, so we can enrich our friends.”

When we look at tomorrow, we fret about the children who may not have all that we had. Some of those children are our own kids, and certainly our grandchildren. It keeps us on edge.

Not so, Republicans. They have friends who run the military industrial congressional and the prison industrial congressional complexes. If we feed, clothe, educate and love all our children, who will fill the need for soldiers and prison labor?

Now, if we have to feed them and educate them, let’s at least privatize the processes. It’s good for business, our friends’ businesses. And if we have to provide them healthcare, let’s be sure we privatize that, too.

We see infrastructure needs differently, too. We, for whatever reason, feel the need to drink clean water, to breathe fresh, unpolluted air, and walk over uncontaminated soil.

So do they, as long as it’s where they live. For the rest, let’s tap those resources for profit, where we can privatize the profit and socialize the expenses -- the expenses of superfund sites, the expense of cleaning rivers and underground aquifers. and, where such pollution exists, let’s privatize the reclamation on the nation’s dime.

Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about tomorrow, because I’ll probably live out my years in comfort. SOME of my generation will have it as easy as I -- though not all. I find myself wondering why I even bother with this. Then it comes to me. I do this because my grandparents came here to stake their claim. And they worked and saved to give my parents more than they had. And my parents worked hard, and saved so they could give me a better life than they had. So what’s my legacy if I take and don’t give back? I can’t live with that vision of tomorrow.

Now most of us, and I include myself in this, didn’t really do the stuff I’m speaking about here. We did not pollute the water, We did not contaminate the soil or pollute the air. Not individually. But, except for the noble activists among us, we let it happen. We did not destroy the economy. But, except for the noble activists who screamed as loudly as they could to warn us, we let it happen. Hell, for a while we even went along with the destruction as our 401Ks increased in value. We did not go to war. We let others do it for us. Activists cried out. Politicians mollified us. In every case where things are wrong with our nation, We were the ones who let them happen.

Tomorrow’s coming. There’s much to do. And we can do it. We can vote for those people who recently came to us and said, “Enough! Wake Up!”, and rallied us to act. If We can do one thing right. let’s stand by those who want the tomorrow that we wish we’d better prepared for. We can elect them and give them the support they need to correct our past failings.

I ask for your support for

Dr. Mary Headrick  for  Congress in Tennessee’s 3rd District

Lenda Sherrell                Congress in Tennessee’s 4thDistrict

Cheri Siler                      Tennessee State Senate  District 7

Mary Mancini                Tennessee State Senate  District 21

Gloria Johnson              Tennessee House District 13

Terry Adams               US Senate

John McKamey           Governor of Tennessee