I have experienced some bizarre Christmases in my time, not to mention mixed fortunes, but I love Christmas nonetheless. Of course, being Irish (Anglo-Irish, if you want to get technical) I tend to think of Christmas as being a roughly ten day period including New Year’s Day. I don’t believe in treating Boxing Day as a normal working day—and taking off New Years Day is little more than common sense. You need time to recover. As for the rest of the Christmas period, you don’t need an excuse—it’s Christmas!
True, I’ll almost certainly write every day during Christmas—and some might categorize that as work—but writing, as far as I am concerned, is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. In fact, it’s fun even if the subject matter is grim (as was the case yesterday).
I don’t know what possessed me to write about such a serious matter as the effect of propaganda on the U.S. on Christmas Eve, of all days, but I expect the barrage of near desperate consumerism brought it to the forefront. Then I started to try and get a grip on my ever elusive thoughts—always a challenge—and the piece just escalated.
I think it’s a screamingly important subject though few others seem to. That should scarcely surprise me. The whole point of conditioning is keep one’s victims biddable—and that we clearly are (at least in relation to the blatant corruption of our political system, the economy, and the declaration of yet more unnecessary and expensive wars). It’s as if we are on drugs (and, of course, the sad truth is that many of us are—and legally at that).
The above cartoon comes from a consistently provocative website fabiusmaximus.com run by Fabius Maximus (who I don’t know) and some friends of mine. Anyway, their blog of December 20 2013 demonstrates that I certainly don’t have a monopoly of concern about the U.S. – not that I ever thought I had.
It starts:
How can we arouse a passion to reform America in the hearts of our neighbors?
Summary: People usually focus on the details of reform, such as the specific policies that if enacted will reform America. But that’s the easy part of the process, and several steps down the road. Instead we should focus on the first steps, such as how to arouse Americans and motivate them to work for reform. Today we try for a different perspective on this task: how to rekindle America’s passionate love of liberty.
It ends:
The comments to these posts prove my analysis to be a dead end, similar to the results of others (e.g., Naked Capitalism, to name one of hundreds or thousands). We producing entertainment, like News at 11.
Well, given that it is Christmas Day, I’m content enough with entertainment. So I have borrowed the mouse cartoon I found on the FB site—because it absolutely fits the mood—and now I’m heading out for Christmas dinner with some remarkably nice people.
Happy Christmas
Victor.
No comments:
Post a Comment