I'm measuring the promises that were made when my daughters were babies to now as adult women. USA leaders have failed to keep their promises to hopeful parents and the next generation.

I'm tired of my government in the US giving us hopeful and encouraging words on how we are heading to a better and a more peaceful world.

Let me cite just two promises that I measure with the births of my two adorable (well, most of the time) daughters. One was born in 1970; the other in 1982.

What also happened in those two years when my daughters were born that represented promise and hope for me?

In 1970, the USA and Russia (then the Soviet Union) signed the Nonproliferation Treaty. What this treaty basically said was that the governments agreed on a time table to dismantle their nuclear weapons. This was an historic event in world history. The weapon system that killed and maimed thousands with just two drops in Japan in 1945 was to become a thing of the past. This was not to be so. The bombs are still around. Our government has in the meantime tried to build new ones through such programs as Complex 21, mini nukes, bunker busters, and now Reliable Replacement Warheads project that is euphemistically called Complex Transformation.

The promise that my government gave me and citizens of the world in 1970 was a bunch of crap basically. We still lead the world in nuclear arms, and the military industrial complex is determined to keep the contracts coming their way so they can build up to 150 new nuclear weapons annually until God knows when.

The second promise my government didn't keep was one that was made when my second daughter was born in 1982. This was when the World's Fair came to Knoxville, TN. Its theme was "Energy Turns the World." The US 26 years ago used solar to run a boat on the Tennessee River and to run the ventilation system of the US Pavilion. The entire purpose (other than putting Knoxville on the map) was "to explore new technologies to conserve energy, to harness long lasting most renewable sources of energy, and to carry on research for new sources of energy," as President Jimmy Carter noted when he signed legislations giving Knoxville the go-ahead on the fair.

I had my baby girl in her stroller at the fair. I was given hope at the time that our country would solve its energy dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and that it would find safe and renewable energy for us from the enthusiasm around the world's fair. Today the so-called Sunsphere stands as a symbol of empty promises made to this mother and her daughter.

Do you know what new inventions did come from that world's fair dedicated to new forms of energy? Touch screens, boxed milk and Coca Cola's Cherry flavored Coke.

I want to be positive about my country. I want to be confident that it will keep its promises to me and other citizens. I have raised my children to believe in these promises. But I'm beginning to think that promises are only as good as the money that's used to buy them....behind the scenes. And we have no corporations at this time, to speak of, who care an inch about renewable and alternative forms of energy.

This may be one reason why it is almost impossible to distinguish these days the difference between our own Departments of Defense and Energy. They have both have become very proficient at pushing the manufacturing of bombs, draining the world's fragile and limited resources to build and hopefully never use. And both are great friends with industrial contractors who need their business.

I am sad tonight as I think how President Ronald Reagon said when the 1982 World's Fair opened that government just had to get out of the way. Well, it did. Where has it gotten us? More dependent on foreign oil and not any closer to achieving the goals put forth at that fair when my adult daughter was just a baby.

Maybe, what needs to happen is that a new government of, by and for the people needs instead to GET IN THE WAY!

What do you think? Will our grandchildren have the opportunity to live off the grid with energy they produce themselves? Will they at last live in a country that doesn't have to kill other kids like them to get more oil? It's up to us to give them a positive answer.

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