Goodwill Industries thankful for community support
Each year, we like to publicly thank supporters of Chattanooga Goodwill Industries and its work.
Goodwill helped 6,000 people free of charge in 23 counties with services ranging from vocational training and job placement for people with disabilities to furnishing entire houses for the once homeless to giving away refurbished medical equipment to helping seniors return to the workforce and more.
The citizens of the communities we serve in Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia make these programs happen. Their generous donations of clothing, furniture and household items and the revenue generated from the sale of these items in Goodwill stores fuel our mission services.
From the bottom of the hearts of our dedicated board of directors, our hard-working staff and most importantly, the people we serve, we say, "Thank you. We are grateful."
From our Goodwill family to yours, we wish all a joyful holiday season. May God bless us and our country.
Dennis Brice
President & CEO, Chattanooga Goodwill Industries
Stop whining, leave 'safe spaces'
Some advice for our little college petunias needing ridiculous safe spaces: You have created very limited future job prospects for yourselves if you can't handle the real world.
Life can seem to be so unfair, but please be thankful you live in the world's greatest country with unlimited opportunities for success. It's all in how you look at things.
Consider that across our nation's history, Americans from all walks of life sometimes found their safest space was in a foxhole, and their moment of truth was life or death. They did the heavy lifting for you - all to preserve the freedoms our citizens enjoy every day.
So stop whining and grow up.
Daniel Warren
Wise up about government function
When will we realize that government doesn't make wealth; it only taxes wealth and redistributes wealth? Government produces nothing. Government makes nothing. Government cannot grow our economy or improve our economy. Wealth is added only when some factory makes something and someone sells it. Our country improves only by working and making, not by taxing and spending.
Gerald Whitely
Ringgold, Ga.
Electoral College is appropriate
Re: Chattanooga Times editorial on the Electoral College published Sunday. I am one who could not vote for either candidate, believing (as many did) each unfit to serve. However, the Constitution mandates the Electoral College picks presidents. What Change.org advocates is unconstitutional and should be confined to Letters to the Editor.
The founders created that system in part to avoid the largest population centers (think New York City and Los Angeles today) deciding the vote.
Trump won the popular vote in a majority of states (see the red state/blue state maps). Without the Electoral College, the common man's vote would not count. What to do?
Charlton W. Hillis
Chickamauga, Ga.
Help! Enforce law in Spring City
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had law enforcement who actually enforced the law?
We live in Spring City, where law enforcement is the laughing stock of the area. It seems to be on any road you drive on - speeders are out of control. Highway 27 in Spring City is the super racetrack. The 30 mph speed limit is where they test cars for speed. School buses do 60 mph in the 30 zone. Everyone knows the odds of getting caught are almost zero. Log ging trucks will run you off the road. Drivers texting; dogs in drivers' laps.
Why do we spend good money putting up speed limit signs? How often do you see any law enforcement out doing their job? Why do we pay these people? If they don't want to do their job, then find someone who will. I strongly believe in law enforcement and worked very close with and for them years ago when I was a justice of the peace. On this day, does anyone even care? We think not. How many have to die first? Please let's think safety first.
Art W. Lyonais
U.S. core values likely down drain
In an article for CounterPunch.org, Richard Moser congratulates the inept DNC for elevating a person who could well be our last president. Only a fevered population would accept a figure bearing the presidential bona fides of a windup doll and could be so easily led toward national political suicide.
Trump makes Dubya look scholarly. After 20 years of Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter and the propaganda machine at Fox, the dumbed-down body politic in America showed the mind of a Frankenstein monster: "Foreigners baaad. War goood. Social democracy baaad. Corporate profiteering goood. Liberty and justice for all baaad. Discrimination goood." Such equivocation is a recipe for fascism. Will Trump negotiate with fellow corporatists to bring home trillions from offshore tax havens (most of it salary increases withheld from the working class since 1970) to rebuild America, or scold the Pentagon for wasting trillions of tax dollars on useless wars, or do anything to protect our environment? Not likely.
Honesty, equality, respect for civil law, opinion based upon demonstrable truth, love of neighbor, concern for the future, protection of basic human rights - the core values of America - were sacrificed to a golden calf - certainly not my president.
Bruce Wilkey
Signal Mountain
Grant us mercy for what we did
According to one presidential exit poll, 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. That I am a 19 percenter who wrote in another Republican brings me little comfort. This mephistophelian pact will bedevil us for years to come. Henceforth, when an evangelical declares that some moral failing disqualifies an individual for public office, the only proper response will be loud, sardonic laughter.
I understand the rationale. Everyone is worried about the composition of the Supreme Court. Well, we won. We got our justices, but only by pandering to the worst form of injustices. Now my only hope is that the God of mercy will grant us mercy instead of the justice we so richly deserve.
Herbert K. Lea
Chickamauga, Ga.
Got election blues? Stop being gullible
Are you feeling disillusioned after this and every other election? That means you were suffering from illusions and enchantment. Rather than wallow in self-pity, use your backbone to take advantage of your epiphany.
You've been guilty of gullibility by belief in religious claptrap, imperialist wars, crooked politicians and criminal corporations. You've been taught by most educational systems that strive for mediocrity through intellectual equality.
The right is as guilty as the left; both expect heavenly messiahs or political saviors to rescue them from self-induced blindness and abrogation of personal responsibility for actions and consequences. Like those who believe imaginary ETs will arrive to save us from stupidity, you've swallowed the same pills from advertisers, politicians, television, pulpits and the military that tomorrow will be better if today you'll buy their manure wrapped in pretty paper. Your fears and desires, fanned by propaganda, commit you to a lifetime of self-doubt.
Stop believing your magical Santa Claus will be found in politicians, preachers and police states.
The choice to remain in misery is yours. Pull the covers over your head in shame or look to your epiphany and rejoice in your new freedom of clarity.
Stephen Greenfield
Cleveland, Tenn.