Thursday, December 2, 2010

2 December 2010 In the spirit of Christmas past

“A Christmas Carol” by Dickens springs to mind today. I’m certain, that for many Americans, this coming holiday season will be more Dickensian than American. A few lumps of coal to warm the room briefly may become a valued gift rather than punishment for bad behavior.

Unemployment benefits for many Americans who are chronically unemployed will begin running out this week. Congress, spurred by the last election results, has decided that providing further help for our unemployed citizens is no longer acceptable, as it will add to the national deficit. The average unemployment benefit payment is about $302.00/week.

This seems a particularly cruel time to destroy part of the social safety network. The winter holiday season is upon us, the television networks pumping one Christmas special after another at us. Sales fliers fill the newspapers; every economic forecast encourages people to buy everything in sight. The “season of giving” is upon us and we are besieged with requests to help the less fortunate.

The GOP and teavangelists are not without some Christmas spirit. They may consider a slight extension of unemployment benefits if it can be funded by gutting some program they hate, such as education, food safety, medical care for the poor, who have not died rapidly enough to suit the GOP/teavangelist base; and IF the Bush tax cuts are extended for the wealthiest 1% of our populace. The 750 billion dollar deficit that will result from that extension is somehow not a problem for the GOP/teavangelists. Obviously, gifts to the wealthy from Congress are pre-approved by Jesus and friends.

I am reminded of Ebenezer Scrooge who is whisked back to prior holiday seasons and sees the joy they brought to many; then jumps forward to a lonely, un-mourned grave that will be his if he fails to celebrate the spirit of giving to those who are in need and yet still find reason to enjoy their families in the spirit of the season.

Scrooge has been immortalized as the symbol of parsimony. His soul, we are told, has no room for concern for others in its miserly core. He takes note of the disabled children, underpaid and overworked employees and miserable working conditions with no job security; yet he is unmoved and finds no flaw in his cruelty toward his fellow citizens or his employees.

Congress, its ranks saturated with teavangelists and GOPers, is forcing its hand before it is supposed to formally become the next Congress. It has openly declared that it wants to make it impossible for Obama to stand for office in 2012 and that it will do everything possible to reverse the societal gains made by the Obama administration. Collectively the incoming Congress is concerned about party power, about rewarding its owners, but not at all about the welfare of the U.S. citizenry.

They look at the trip back into time and revel in the possibilities of returning the U.S. to a nation of sweatshops and workhouses that Dickens would recognize readily. A nation with no social safety nets, with medicine and health care only for the wealthy, a nation of robber barons, owned by corporations and banking houses appeals to them. A nation that funds the well-being of workers does not.

They’ve been shown the lonely grave that is likely to be the future. They’ve seen the skeletal hand point the bleak future but chose not to care. The skeletal hand is not their worry, not their future, not their problem. The skeletal hand points the future for the American blue-collar worker and the American middle class. Congress stands in no need. They have government funded health care, a pension that they will protect from being cut by any attempts to end this current recession or to diminish the national debt. Congress is Scrooge after taking the first and third trips on “spirit air.”

Trip two and trip three will be the lot of the American working class, middle class, and anyone left over. The safety nets are targeted for destruction by people who have assured incomes, multiple houses, and rich owners to send them on expensive holiday trips complete with fabulous, although illegal if discovered, gifts.

Scrooge learned his lesson at Dickens’ hand. Congress has not.

The teavangelists and GOPers who will be assuring so many of a bleak Christmas are among the many ill-informed who proclaim loudly,” This is a Christian nation.” They also claim to be Christians and to be upset at the “war on Christmas” being waged by non-believers, Jews, atheists, Muslims, and socialists.

One wonders how they can remove all hope of income from millions of American families at the beginning of what promises to be a hard winter. Those families will not only be unable to partake of the annual pseudo-Christmas mania that has replaced any real religious significance for much of the nation, including Congress; they will be unable to purchase food and medication, pay their mortgages or rents, and keep their tenuously held places of residence in heat and lights. They will lose the mobility necessary to travel for job interview, or to relocate for a rare new job. They will slowly lose every bit of personal property and will join the lists of those Americans who are no longer employable.

No GOPer is going to hire an American citizen with no fixed address or ability to get to work on time, regularly. Anyone calling in sick will likely be fired and the next piece of corporate fodder moved up from waiting to slaving.

This will be the GOP/teavangelists gift to many Americans this year. They will trumpet their position as the parties of morality, Christianity, and family values. It’s very easy to see how much value they place in keeping American families employed, housed, and fed this year at Christmas. If there is a “war on Christmas” in the U.S, today, it is being waged by the Scrooges of the GOP, the teavangelist hatemonger’s and liars like Beck, Palin, and Limbaugh, and the greedy 1% of the populace all too willing to gut the remaining middle class in order to preserve their portion of the Bush tax cuts. When the tables are empty, the bellies hungry be sure to thank the GOP/teavangelists for their acts of Christian charity and their overwhelming concern “for the children.”

Don’t bother putting up a tree this year; don’t bother looking for gifts under it. Congress has relieved you of the need. The only gifts this year will be to the extremely wealthy, the ones who buy a new Congress every two years. Don’t worry about paying for America’s gift to the super wealthy. Apparently, both the GOP and the teavangelists feel that it is all right to hand this massive debt down to your children and grand children. Thank you Misters Scrooge!

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