RSN Fundraising Banner
FB Share
Email This Page
add comment

writing for godot

AN OPEN SEASONAL LETTER TO THE 2013 CONGRESS AND CURRENT SENATE.

Print
Written by Brian Johnstone   
Wednesday, 25 December 2013 03:35
Honorable sirs and ladies of the 113th United States Congress and 2013 Senate.
As you take your customary Winter break to be at home with your families and/or friends, particularly those of you who claim to be of one Christian denomination or another thus celebrating the birth of your churches’ founder, I would like to share a few thoughts with you, particularly those of you who are working so hard to cripple or privatize Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all Social Safety nets, deny the common citizens and residents you are constitutionally mandated to represent and of whom you are employees through their mandatory tax payments from the fruits of the work -if they have any in these still lingering recession plagued times-, any hope of Universal Healthcare (which you all enjoy at it’s highest and most comprehensive level in the current for-profit non-system and which is funded by we the people), passage of measures to finance job-creating infrastructure renewal including public transport, and a quality public education.
These thoughts are derived from my memories of the universally much loved “A Christmas Carol” novel by the esteemed author Charles Dickens written in 1840’s Britain, years of great hunger and want, ill-distributed wealth, punitive internment and punishment, especially for the poor and indigent, set in the capital London, which I’m pretty sure many of you have read to your children, nieces and nephews or other young people, or perhaps curled up in comfort and warmth with them to watch one of the many movie versions which have been produced over the decades and are still rightfully popular to this day.
There are several passages in this book which I would draw your attention to as especially relevant to these times, which seem to me to be the most mean-spirited and divisive of my long association with and intermittent periods of residency in the United States, including at present.
The first is when two gentlemen were seeking cash contributions from passers-by and asked Scrooge how much they could put him down for, to which he replied “Nothing”! The following conversation ensued.
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time.
“Many are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?" said Scrooge.
Whereupon our wealthy but cold-hearted hero left them shaking their heads.
Later, the Spirit of Christmas Present mocks Scrooge's former insensitivity by hurling his own words back at him as he regards the appalling children of humanity, Ignorance and Want:
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.
“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree; but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!”
“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.
“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”
If you will permit me the observation, it seems that the recent and current actions and votes of many of you wantonly cultivate Ignorance and Want under the guise of “Fiscal responsibility” in order to subjugate those who send you to Washington D.C. or states’ Governments, into declining conditions of dependency on miserly wages, no benefits, healthcare a myth, no paid time off, having to have a vehicle to get to work rather than reliable public transport and being complacently accepting and even grateful for the lowest common denominator through Ignorance which leads them into Want of any but the basics –if even that.
This whilst spending lavishly on an already bloated military –larger than the next sixteen countries combined, and extending the National Security (Spy) Agency in the name of “Homeland” inurement to invasion of any kind, prompted by the fashionable buzz-word “Terrorism” post 9-11 to covertly and almost obsessively and excessively intrude upon the freedom of speech and action of your citizens and residents.
I especially address this hopefully simply but bluntly stated and sincere Billet-doux to Rep’ Ted Cruz, Minority Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker John Bohner, Rep’s Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Ron Johnson, John Kyl, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio Pat Toomey, Michelle Bachmann and Governors Scott Walker Wis, Rick Perry Tx –and many others of what I can only describe as a reactionary inclination, rather than conservative.
It is my wish for all of you that at this time of the year when we are exhorted to care for each other, especially the least fortunate amongst us as you celebrate the birth of one who was put to death for working throughout his limited world in the cause of the “Least of his people” and against the profiteering and exploitative false priests of his own Sanhedrin and by extension, the ruling empire of Rome, you might pause to reflect on the consequences and immediate effects of many of your past and current advocacies and votes on the “least of the people”, the poor, elderly, needy, handicapped, homeless and indigent.
You might consider in fact “What would Jesus do”? As many of you have a distinct tendency to distort the message of the Gospels according to his Disciples for your own motives and gain, I would exhort all of you to be honest with yourselves for once and take HIS part as far as we are permitted to understand it through the lens of a distinctly shaky historical and theological set of interpretations from allegedly close accomplices.
You are meant, by the very intent of the constitution you swear to protect and uphold, to take the welfare of those you represent to heart and seriously, rather than work only to be re-elected by an increasingly limited set of wealthy funders and their lobbyists for their own gain and your own. Remember your Prophet’s statement “It would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” or words to that effect.
Incidentally (if it at all interests you and if you have read this far), I’m not personal opposed to a certain level of prosperity if it is got by enterprise or dint of hard work, creativity and industry but am definitely anti-greed and totalitarian monopolist domination of any given field of endeavor by those who have inherited their lucre and live only to increase it to the exclusion of any other considerations, including the displacement or even elimination of all who inconveniently stand in their path. In fact you might describe it as the ‘Corporate State’.
I’m not saying that the Bible, as the sacred book of Christianity necessarily represents my own spiritual beliefs –which are entirely my affair and mine only- but am thrusting the recorded acts and sayings of the founder of that particular Church which so many of you tend to wield as almost a weapon of justification for anti-social or anti-populist activism or proposals. I invite you to examine the true meaning of the word “sacred “ in this context.
Finally, please try to do your jobs as representatives of the populace, rather than remote, elitist and hubristic, power-besotted servants of those who contribute most heavily to your election, or re-election campaigns.If your beliefs as Christians are true –as most of you hope- you will face the same higher tribunal as we of the many-headed, when you depart this mortal coil.
Try to act accordingly, as Dickens’ Ebeneezer Scrooge came to be changed for the ultimate betterment of so many, by the spirits who visited him and showed him the singularly blinkered and self-centered, greed driven errors of his ways.
Or as Robert Burns, my beloved national bard and great humanitarian wrote “O’ wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oorsel’s as ithers see us”.
I wish you -and all you serve- the best of the season, some reflection and perhaps reconsideration for 2014 year and ‘seven generations to come’ as so many of our wise continental native elders stated. I would refer you, in closing, to an observation in an earlier time by the great native spiritual leader Sitting Bull (Tatanka Leyoté), Hunkpapa Lakota. “The White Man can make everything but he has never learned to distribute it”!
Sincerely.
B.J.
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Email This Page

 

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.

RSNRSN