A Willing Silliness in Winter

Soon it will be the first day of December, and I will be asking myself about the value of gift giving, decorating trees with little ornaments, drinking and eating too much, and going to parties.

Is there a therapeutic silliness? In the midst of snow, cold, bare trees and root vegetables growing whiskers in the cellar, how does it make us happy to put on feasts, use up our food stocks and bank accounts, for a few weeks of extravagance?

Perhaps the answer can be found among those who are too poor to have Christmas. Ask those living in poverty about Santa Claus, Jingle Bells, high hopes and high expectations? What does it mean to know you can't light up a tree like everyone else, even though you know these things are not as critical as nutritious food and good health.

The argument that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus is true for those who celebrate the birth of Jesus, and the carols and hymns around that are as beautiful as the staged nativity plays in school. However, for the majority Christmas is about something else, and the origins of these mid-winter celebrations began in Pagan Europe.

For Christians who celebrate I wish you joy, anticipation and gratitude for the Christ's birth. For others I wish you warmth, company, family, lights and celebrations. For small businesses I wish you some extra profits to store for the coming year. For children I wish you that wonderful feeling of magic that comes with imagining Santa Claus flying over the globe, bringing gifts.

Whatever it is I hope we are able to focus on the lights, on the tree, on candles, in a wood fire, in familiar songs and stories, and mostly the sense that yes we can create this warmth and light in the middle of winter. Mostly it is about a ritual that tells us we have a tribe, and we belong.

If Hate Should Win Over Love in America

The narrative coming out of media has inflamed rage, alienation and despair among the American people, and so the land is ripe for draconian measures. This will ensure absolute power for the tribe who have funded xenophobic movements, government lobbies and media, in countries all over the world.  If the haters win it means a large enough portion of American society is ready for bloodletting and the scapegoats have already been identified.  If the haters win based on their promises it means America has given up on social justice - which is not socialism but shared responsibility through civil society.

1. Planned parenthood and women's rights will be shut down along with women's voices, as promised by candidates. 
2. Same sex marriage will be banned and the LGBT community will be forced underground or targeted with violence. 
3. Abortion will be made illegal even in cases where a woman's life is at risk.
4. Medicare and social assistance will be stopped.
5. Environmental pollution will rise exponentially wiping out many species through toxic poisoning. 
6. Education funding will run out, public schools shut down and communities will be required to build and pay for their own education.
7. Libraries will be closed.
8. Psychiatry and counselling will be outlawed and mental illness viewed as a lack of morality and self-discipline. 
9. Family breakdown will be blamed on the work of feminists and liberals.
10. Worker's unions will be outlawed.
11. Civic leaders, journalists and liberal religious leaders will be arrested and placed in prisons without trial.
12. All government departments will be merged and the only services funded by taxpayers will be the police force and the military, which will eventually be contracted out to private security companies. 
13. Extreme poverty will erupt in more gang activity, and municipalities will be sponsored by corporations and run by drug cartels.
14. A war will be started with Iran, Russia and China, to employ the frustrated young men who have lost hope of making a living. 
15. Civil war will divide the country.
16. Citizens who build local economies in their workshops and gardens will have their property confiscated. 
17. The one percent will become the .5 percent and they will be much richer than they are now.
18. Current party leaders will not see this coming.

Most Americans would deny this is possible mainly because there are so many community activities built and run by good, hard working, people.  But the tribe who have employed the CEO's, the military personnel  the politicians and the experts, have already managed to erode civil society by alienating humanity from their natural power and re-creating reality through the media they sponsor.  This tribe are so powerful we will know them not by name but by their fruits - totalitarian regimes in South America and Europe since the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

The only way we can take back the power we have is to nurture what sustains us. There is no solution, no ideology, and no guaranteed strategy to fight back against the absolute rape of our psyche through the worship of power. Our hope, if there is any to be had, lies in our practice of compassion and mindfulness.