A Day With Our Senators

Last night, as I was watching the late-evening session of the Senate on C-Span, the perfect wish came into my mind. What a miracle it would be if I were granted a whole morning to stand on the Senate floor with every responsible soul in attendance and offering me complete and undivided attention. My perfect dream of communicating with everyone in the room would begin like this… “Ladies and Gentlemen, first, let me thank each and every human being in this room for giving me your complete, undivided and uninterrupted attention this morning. I must forewarn all of you. This morning I come to you as nothing more than a simple, common sense, down-to-earth citizen of this country. I come to you as a mere housewife; mother and grandmother with no completed college education. I come to you as a daughter, sister, niece, granddaughter, daughter-in-law and cousin. I come to you as a survivor of a broken home, dysfunctional family and single parent that never received a dime of child support. I come to you as a woman who survived by living within her means that always considered worst case scenario of all possible consequences before making any decisions in my life – well, as much as possible. Because, I come to you as an imperfect human being; despite my best intentions there were mistakes I made in my life through all my passed years of life. Most importantly – I come to you as the child of God that I am.” “Please bear with me, as I will not be speaking to you from a realm of political correctness and narrow boundaries of proper governmental proceedings adhered to by yourselves as you conduct business in this room. Quite frankly, those things are actually petty to my reason for being here with you this morning. All that matters to me is knowing I have reached the room of human beings put in charge of overseeing the mechanics that turn the wheels in our country.” “That being said I would like to move on with a list of questions I have for each and every soul in this room. Now – directing my attention to the young folks sitting in chairs surrounding the Senate President’s chair – I admit that I am not totally sure of the title for their positions. But for now, I will refer to them as your Pages. As for the list of questions I will be offering, all I ask for in answer will be a show of hands. With that, I will now begin that list.” “I wish for everyone in this room to look around and gander at the array in ages of folks in this room at this moment. How many of you in this room can remember when there were plans for any weekend in your family, when you better get whatever supplies needed no later than Friday evening, because, everything would be closed down during the weekend? Show of hands, please. Those of you with your hands up, please, keep them up for a moment. Now - Senators – take a look at your Pages.” “You can take your hands down now. Thank you. Next question. How many of you can remember when you would go to any family functions held during a weekend and it was just the norm for extended family in attendance to include second, third, maybe even fourth generation relatives that always showed up for any family get-together? Show of hands, please. Those of you with your hands up, please, keep them up for a moment. Now – Senators – take a look at your Pages.” “You can take your hands down now. Thank you. Next question. How many of you can remember when all your family would show up for a weekend get-together and everyone would be surprised and saddened because one family member had not been able to attend, due to having to work on that day? Show of hands, please. Those of you with your hands up, please, keep them up for a moment. Now – Senators – take a look at your Pages.” “Thank you. Now – How many of you in this room grew up with your mother at home with you while you were growing up during your childhood? Senators – take a look at your Pages.” “Thank you. This next question is directed towards only our young Pages sitting in this room. And please understand. This question is in no way meant for embarrassing you, whatsoever. Count yourselves as a huge help of representing our current youngest generation living in our country today. Those of you that have come from divorced parents, please, stand up. Please stay standing for just a moment.” “Senators – take a look at your Pages. Consider their ages. Now I ask everyone else in this room the same question. Those of you who came from parents that divorced before you reached the similar age group of these young folks standing – please stand and join them.” “Now – consider two different equations here. Guestimate the ratio of the given example exhibited by our young Pages here, compared to the ratio of the given example of our older standing members in this room at this moment. Now imagine the relativity of those ratios to every citizen in this entire country.” “Thank you, everyone. Please take your seats. As you can easily see – times have, certainly, changed in our country. And today – the discussion on the floor in this room surrounds an economic nightmare going on in our country. This morning’s exercise with the list of questions I have put before you is the end result of impact. And every single portion of it all is directly related to one common denominator.” “But, first, let me share something with you. Jesus spoke in parables for a reason. When it comes to the nature of existence and success of our nation – for too long now, our country’s leaders have failed to recognize that tool left to us by our Lord and Savior that was intended as one of the most wonderful sources for guidance. That being said – I ask you to take note to the fact that even every tree on this planet has its own maximum height at which it will grow until it reaches full maturity. From that point, maintenance of the root structure becomes its utmost importance to its health and survival. If you attempt to plant more young trees on top of the existing tree’s root system – death is inevitable to one or the other. More times than not it is the older tree that reaches a fatal end.” “Business – commerce – free enterprise – all can be a really good and positive direction for any country. However – there comes a time when, like a tree, it reaches full maturity and its root system should become an even greater focus of importance for its survival. As with a tree – when sappers, or, stray seeds dropped by birds manage to connect with soil and begin growing between roots of the already existing tree, it is a responsible gardener that will make a decision of action that will determine the best outcome. Should the gardener ignore and allow nature to take its course – the risk for losing everything holds the highest and greatest chance.” “Business and commerce have been allowed to run rampant in this country with no boundaries of integrity and responsibility for maintaining proper health of this nation. They have consumed seven days per week – many operating 24 hours around the clock. Retail chains have eroded this country – just like the sappers popping up from the roots of an existing tree. They have taken quality time away from weekends that family could once depend on for nourishing relationships with family and God. There has been a complete flip in the status of full-time versus part-time employee pools, simply for the advantage of not having to provide benefits for employees and their families.” “It’s time to face the fact that we have parents working three to five hours on Christmas Day for minimum wage – at McDonalds, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Arby’s, KFC and all the other fast-food chains. This is just wrong and downright disgraceful.” Here lies your problem with lack of healthcare. Here lies your problem with divorce. Here lies your problem with overcrowding of jails and prisons housing adults and kids. Here lies your problem with low levels of learning in education. Here lies your problem with housing.” “That’s where the core exists to those and many more of the critical problems in this country. Part-time employment of truly novelty commerce is killing this country. It is the greater portion of the kill. But that sector is not standing alone in the guilt. The majority of all retail business in this country exists with blame for the downfall of millions of families being subjected to settling for crumbs scattered from homeless to living in conditions under roofs that you would never dream of allowing your own children to settle for.” “I give you a moment to consider these two questions. What brought the turning point where a part-time job became no longer only an opportunity for a teenage kid in high school or college to earn extra money? When did a part-time job become something a mother and a father, both, had to hold down – for two or even three different businesses, in order to financially support their family?” “Free Enterprise in business and commerce has had plenty of time to run its course for proving itself with ample opportunity of choices and actions regarding its place in our country. Frankly, the choices, actions and behavior have led us to this point of crisis in our country. All that can be seen and felt is obvious pure irresponsibility and greed with pure lack of conscience. And to this I say it can only force a hand in (literally) reshaping the concept of your roles in leadership and governing for your constituents – your employer - the people of this country.” “As with a child, when a parent must step in and take control to put a child back in line when they have made bad choices and behaved badly – so should our government’s leadership take hold of business and commerce when they, too, have made bad choices and behaved badly in ways that have harmed the maintenance of the lives of the people of this country.” “Why does it take an organized labor union to protect an employee to make sure they get a full-time job with wages that can support a family and benefits that can protect a family’s health? Is that not a form of discrimination and/or segregation? What about all the people of this country having to work in fast-food joints?” The answer is so simple. There is a basic parable – set of principles – for setting forth by our government and to be governed by our leadership that could put the wheels of this country’s survival back onto a good and positive track. If a company cannot maintain honesty, integrity and realistic fairness in this country, then – they deserve to be forced into closure. But for the sake of good, healthy growth in any kind of company – direction should be focused on a geographical move to a new customer base. Growth should never have a focus on changing up a good product with deceitful behavior that actually destroys a good product that was never broken – only for the sake of brainwashing profits out of a customer base in only one country. Just think about it. How many products do we have in my kitchen right now, which have never been in the hands of the people in Africa?” “Clean up the destruction done to the American family by business and commerce by changing leadership’s role toward giving direction in encouraging successful companies to take an original product to a new customer base in another country. It can only set forth new wheels in deprived countries that will bring about even the simplest needs for self-reliance. In order to build a plant and produce a product anywhere in Africa – it means they have to have water and electricity. If a company wants to be successful and continue growing – let them go to Africa and be a part of getting the utilities established for establishing that plant. Watch the movie, “Phenomenon” and you’ll get where I’m going with this. Best line in the movie is when John Travolta’s character says, ‘Everything is connected.’ If we all just take time to sit on a corner street somewhere in this country and think about that fact – life would be so easy. Things in this country would be so much better.” “As a citizen of this country – a mother – just a plain, everyday housewife… I leave you with food for thought and a plea for serious consideration of pure common sense action. And I thank each and every one of you for your service, as well as your time and patience to listen to all I share with you this morning.” At the end of my perfect dream I am left wondering – would any of it make enough difference that could be helpful to the change we all need?