Sometimes it’s easy to get confused and upset after spending 10 minutes listening to the mainstream media. It seems that every day there’s a new outrage. Whether it is a football player who wanted to pray before a game and was not allowed to or a grandmother who’s being kicked out of her house in some sort of illegal foreclosure scam, or any of 100 of other different outrages, the media wants to keep us in this fevered pitch so we will tune in tomorrow. When our blood is boiling, we don’t think straight. We lose our priorities as we jump from one infuriating scenario to the next.
In theory, the Christmas season (including Hanukkah and Kwanzaa) is supposed to reconnect us with the things that are important – family, friends and our pursuit of happiness. Without jobs, without a living wage, it is hard to enjoy our family and friends because we simply cannot pursue happiness. This is what is important. The above short video from 2008 is a funny but poignant reminder about all the things that we are fighting for. We are fighting to end unnecessary wars which do nothing to increase our security. We are fighting so that everyone has the same rights in the eyes of the law. We are fighting so the law looks at corporations as stacks of paper instead of regarding them as people. We are fighting so that we can drink our water without poisoning our families and swim in the local streams without spontaneous combustion. We are simply fighting for a better and sustainable future.
Conservatives under the steady guidance of Fox News and Rush have veered so far off the road that I don’t see how they can get back to some normal thought process. The GOP candidate slate and how even moderates like Romney have to lie to appear more crazy is demonstrative of this. I’m hopeful moderates in this country will recognize that today’s GOP is out of control and return democrats to office. Now democrats are far from perfect, but they at least try to represent the middle class.