A day for children to get presents, a tradition in my country
Although I am not religious, I was raised in a predominantly Catholic country where the Church traditions are closely intertwined with the popular culture. Our Christmas celebrations didn’t include gift giving…that was done on January the 6th in celebration of Gaspar, Melchor and Baltazar…otherwise known as the Three Wise Men or the Three Kings.
This was a holiday that was strictly for children and I have indelible memories of stepping out into the street and seeing all the neighborhood children showing off the new toys brought to them by the Three Kings.
I have particularly fond memories of that although my parents were somewhat frugal and didn’t shower me with toys like the other neighbor children. I was always envious of them but one year we went to a party given by the Corp of Engineers and they had a raffle. One of the prizes was a Lionel model train and I won it. You can’t imagine how thrilled I was…I did for once have a toy that was better and more expensive than any of the toys the other children got that Dia de los Reyes.
Much to my chagrin, I never even got to take the train set out of the box because my selfish father put it away only to sell it the following December and I got to see it running in one of the display windows of a store in my hometown. I still don’t know what he did with the money he got for it.
The following year, amazingly enough, I went to the same party but this one time I won the first prize at the raffle; which was a Schwinn bicycle. It was magnificent and I would have the kids in my neighborhood come over to look at it...when they would ask me if I intended to ride it I would answer that as soon as I could reach the pedals I would. I really don’t remember how we managed to take it home as we were riding the bus in those days. But what really got forever printed in my mind was my father’s reluctance to let me ride it. It sat there in my bedroom all year…granted, I could not reach the pedals quite well and it was a heavy bike for a scrawny kid like me.
Then the following December came and the bicycle was gone. My dad had taken it to the local department store and sold it to them. Only this time we found out what he did with the money: he gambled it away in a cock fight.
GOVERNMENT IS TOO BIG – SO SAY THE TEAHADIST REPUBLICANS
But what are they proposing to remedy that?
When these right-wing asshats repeat the mantra of the Republicans that ‘GOVERNMENT IS TOO BIG” it pushes all the buttons that make me indignant and cantankerous; I immediately question whether their ideology is a valid one because I don’t see them offering any alternatives.
Government is as big as it needs to be for what is arguably the only world super power. Are these Teahadist-Republicans saying that they no longer wish for America to be the most powerful nation in the world? Are they willing to give up all that power and all the privileges that go along with it when America becomes a third-rate power?
Tha is what I think would happen if we reduce the size of our government:
Instead, I think that we ought to take a long look at our priorities and our wasteful spending. We also have to remedy the redistribution of wealth that has already taken place…from the poor and middle class to the very rich…a privileged class that comprises only 2% of our country; making us not just an oligarchy but also a “WELFARE STATE FOR THE VERY RICH” and that my friends is the worst kind of SOCIALISM and social re-engineering.
The first thing America has to do is to tax its citizens fairly, and that includes eliminating all those undeserved and unfair tax cuts for the very rich.
We must end this business of “outsourcing”; that should become a dirty word for us. To outsource contract to companies like Haliburton which moved its headquarters out of the US to avoid taxation. We have to end once and for all rewarding corporations for outsourcing jobs to other countries. Subsidies to these companies must stop; let us return to the concept of bidding for contracts instead of awarding them to Cheney and his cronies.
We have to realize that history has taught us a very important lesson: that no matter how many men and women we have in uniform; the present day adversarial struggles don’t use troops any more. We could have a million military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan and we are not going to alter the outcome…did we learn this from Vietnam?
We also have to reduce the size of the military to reflect a different kind of warfare: one that is based on technology and intelligence, not troops. We must close most of the military bases we have abroad and let those countries we are defending…well, defend themselves…they are big boys by now and certainly affluent enough.
I think that one good place to start with the much needed reduction of the military is by eliminating weapons programs that are obsolete or useless. It is not going to do us any good to have 1000 nuclear missiles pointing at nowhere when two or three would be enough to destroy mankind. It is useless to think about us having fourteen different kinds of fighter jets when not one of them will ever see an air scuffle. It is furthermore useless to have all these generals conducting “war games” that are tantamount to military tic-tac-toe and which only has the purpose of entertaining these bored, warmonger top brass .
We must eliminate the monopolies of health insurance companies that use up more than 17% of our GNP and offer nothing in return. The sooner we realize that these companies do not produce anything, manufacture no product and exist for the sole purpose of making an obscene profit, the better it is going to be for America…these companies are dead weight, nothing more than parasites.
When you talk about government being too big the Republicans and Tea Baggers are referring to regulations and rules…some of which were instituted as a result of the Great Depression and it kept us on solvent grounds all of these years. But because there was a systematic and pervasive elimination of these regulations because of the Republican ideology…we saw ourselves in the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
We as a nation have seen not just the decimation of the middle class but also the destruction of the political process that assured us participation by the people. I am afraid if we don't soon institute campaign reforms we will indeed throw the baby with the bathwater out the window and destroy this noble experiment we call DEMOCRACY that has served us so well and has provided an example for other countries to follow. For goodness sake, let's stop considering corporations the same as human beings...they are not...they are entities that exist for the sole purpose of profits and we all know that greed has no conscience...corporations as a rule have very little social conscience.
We must as a country stop useless endeavors of social engineering. We have to stop this “WAR ON DRUGS” that has only brought about a situation worse than when we had liquor prohibition. We must as a country get government to regulate banks and Wall Street and get government out of our bedrooms.
We have to restore our commitment to science, education and technology…that is what makes us competitive in the world. Teaching Evolution may satisfy some of the more ignorant base of the Republican Party but it does nothing to provide this nation with the scientists it needs to compete.
We have to end our dependency on fossil fuels and once and for all end the stranglehold the oil companies have on our nation. Brazil did it in the early 70's when they were a third-rate, poor nation. There is no reason why we, with our technology in hand can't do the same.
And for crying out loud, let’s debunk and discredit once and for all that failed Reaganomics premise that suggests giving to the rich will allow wealth to percolate down to the middle class and the poor. It didn’t work!
