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Saturday, February 25th, 2006
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2:25p - Yuletide carols being sung by the choir
It's February 25th today, and this means that Christmas is ten months away. Valentine's Day has passed and spring is slowly on its way, but until then we have winter and more winter to survive through. In that spirit of Christmas, I want to make a plea to everyone everywhere. Let's start treating people a whole lot better.
Every year at Christmas, I get such a great feeling about people and mankind. When I worked at Tops, the Salvation Army had set up outside our store. I would try and remember to save some loose change so I could donate each day that I came to work. Some days I couldn't, but when I had some I did. And I don't mean to be boastful, but I'm merely stating the situation.
I wasn't the only one; in fact, I was far from it. So many people care and give their hearts to those who are in need at this time. So many people understand that the Christmas cheer is reason to try and make everybody's holiday a little bit better.
My parents tell me of a time when only one pharmacy stayed open on a holiday, and that pharmacies would open on a rotating basis. I think I've touched upon this before. Now, we need to have businesses open seven days a weak, twenty-four hours a day, and every day of the year.
I have worked Holidays, particularly the last two Thanksgivings. I can tell you that these are the slowest businesses days, contrary to what you might hear. At Tops, we had a full crew running cash registers and the fewest customers I'd ever seen. Almost all of the customers we did have were husbands running "Honey-will-you?" chores. They forgot the garlic. Or they forgot the green beans.
You know what? Do without them. What's more important, being with your loved ones and celebrating a great tradition, or having the green beans? Let's let everyone be with those close to them.
But the interesting question I want to get at today is this: What if the Christmas cheer lasted all year long?
Should it really just be a couple weeks of caring and sharing? Should we leave the rest of the year to let people fend for themselves? I did notice a great many people donating money to the Hurricane Katrina cause, and the Tsunami before that, and many September, 11th funds before that. But should it really take a horrible disaster, a terrible tragedy to make people reach out?
This is one clear reason that I'm a Democrat. I'm not sure which part of the bible says that the rich should get richer and the poor deserve to be poor. The Parable of Talents was one small piece and can be read many different ways. My answer is virtually the rest of the bible, especially the loaves and the fish.
Should there be rich people in America? Absolutely. There are people who deserve a lot of money and know how to invest that money to expand business. Should they be as rich as they are? Probably not.
America has the highest wealth disparity between the rich and the workers of any industrialized country. Out of all of the civilized world, our bosses make so much more than we do, even though we do their work. That means less spending power for the workers, and ultimately less political pull.
How then, if America has such a huge middle class, do we elect leaders who favor rich people? Well, that's absolutely easy. Issues like guns, gay marriage, and abortion.
People will tend to vote Republican because of their faith, which is oddly exactly why people vote Democratic. What's the difference? Well, the latter doesn't parade their faith around and pretend to be on God's side.
Does God believe in laissez faire? Wow, I hope not. In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't. Although, I could be wrong because I haven't talked to him lately. Apparently, he's too busy talking with Pat Robertson.
Does God want you to have assault rifles? I don't think so, but I could be wrong. Again, ask Pat Robertson.
Does God believe in taking all the wealth and concentrating it into a small group of people? These people that make their best profits off of a war that had no justification? That's a real tossup.
But, George Bush is a born-again Christian and he knows what God wants us to do. Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing wrong with being a born-again Christian, it's even admirable really. But how many of you knew that Jimmy Carter was also a born-again Christian? How many knew that you can find God and still care about the well-being of your fellow man, too? Probably not an exorbitant amount of you, because Jimmy Carter didn't parade his faith around through his politics, did he?
It would be easy to claim that God is on your side, because who is prepared to argue with God? Where the problem comes in is when you balantly use his name in vein for the sake of politics. Think about it, how many gay marriage references has Bush made recently? How many terror alert warnings have we had since the last election? And you people bought it? Oh, man that's so disappointing. Can't you see?
We're selling our six largest seaports to a country with ties to Al-Qaeda, where two (or three, or four) 9-11 hijackers were from, who recognized the Taliban as a legitimate power but does not recognize Israel in that same manner. And Bush is calling detractors "racist." What? George Bush, accusing someone else of being racist?
My head has officially spun the fuck off.
Let's care about each other, let's devote programs to making people's lives better. Let's not be afraid to pay our taxes to fix the economy, to fix our roads, and to fix our deficits. Because if not, it doesn't matter how much money you have in your pocket... you might not have much infrastructure left to spend it anywhere.
Merry Christmas.
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