It’s Coming on Christmas
It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
River – Joni Mitchell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpFudDAYqxY
It’s a time for sad Christmas songs as we finish “year one” of the Trump era. It’s hard to get in the Christmas spirit while we watch the nation we love lose the values of charity, tolerance, environmental conservation, and intellectual realism. Hell, our government agencies can’t even say these words: transgender, diversity, fetus, entitlement, vulnerable, evidence-based, science-based (I wish George Carlin could riff on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBH5oNQOS0.) Trump has moved to “thought-control.”
Today, Congress will pass a “tax reform” bill, cutting taxes to the wealthy, and leaving the rest with little relief now, and higher taxes in a few years. We are told that corporations will use their newly gained profits to pay workers, create jobs, and expand markets; but the evidence-based (whoops) result is likely that they will return the profits to share holders and company officers. That’s what happened with the “TARP” money that stemmed the Republican recession of 2008.
The Republican plans depend on the “good conscience” of corporate America. And while I am a child of corporate America, and do believe that many of America’s business leaders act in “good faith,” I also know that the very definition of a successful business executive is one who creates profits. So when we turn over the Internet to the assurances that corporations won’t find a way to monetize their new freedom; it’s like asking dogs not to eat the food on the floor.
And, on this seventh day before Christmas, we hold our breath, waiting on the next shoe to drop on the Mueller investigation and staring into the chasm of Constitutional crisis. We watch as even those Republicans who seemed to take a more objective view like Senator Burr of North Carolina, fall into Trump’s pattern of distraction by investigating Jill Green’s campaign for President.
We watch as renewable energy is ignored and protected lands are opened to desecration by industry. Science-based evidence (whoops again) of climate change is denied. We listen to the President demand that we rearm America, his “peace through strength” doctrine so reminiscent of the Cold War theories of the 1950’s. This time, we may not be so lucky and avoid nuclear devastation.
It’s Christmas of 2017, and the realities of Trump are setting in. But Christmas is a season of hope, and there is still hope for change. Many Americans have taken individual responsibility for their government, they’ve voted, they’ve marched, they’ve cried out against the revisionism of their country. While not all of the battles have been won, there is the glimmer of hope in Alabama and Virginia; in many Courts holding fast to the law, and of course, the silent Mr. Mueller.
It’s “coming on Christmas” and we’ve been here before. In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, Americans could see the long march ahead, but also see the inevitable victory. In 1933 Americans were in the depths of the Great Depression, but had hope with Roosevelt’s New Deal. In 1943 World War II raged, but the battle in the Pacific had turned. And in 1973 Nixon was still President, but the Courts inexorably moved to reveal his guilt.
Americans in each of those times looked ahead to a long time of hardship, but found hope for a nation that would emerge more involved and compassionate. Hope.
Thanks for sharing!