by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Yesterday in this space I touched on a couple of "feel good" stories of Christmas, tales which serve to remind us of what the holiday season should be about. That posting mentioned Jonathan Werner, a Boy Scout who raised over $11,000 and then used that money to buy Christmas gifts for 600 children who are in foster care in his home state of Minnesota. I also wrote about Reverend Randy Fikki and his "radically inclusive" Unity Southeast Church in Kansas City, an organization that, under Reverend Fikki's direction, provides a wide range of services to the area's poor and needy citizens - services that include life basics like food and shelter.
But good people doing good things for others were just some of the things that were going on in the United States of America on Christmas Day. There were also some darker, seamier tales that made the news before the day was over.
My congressman, a Republican by the name of Jason Smith, sent around his weekly email newsletter on the evening of Christmas Day. It would have been a wonderful opportunity for Jason to extoll the virtues of helping others, especially over the holiday season, but, as near as I could tell, Jason only mentioned Christmas one time in his lengthy email, and that was in the form of a complaint about Christmas and Christmas travel being more expensive this year - a circumstance that he was quick to blame on President Biden.
Curiously, Rep. Jason Smith did make room in his taxpayer-funded newsletter to brag on the 2017 GOP treasury giveaway to billionaires and corporate America - what was officially and misleadingly titled "The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" something that disastrously skewered the economy toward benefitting the ultra-rich and did more to bring about this "expensive" Christmas than all of Biden's spending actions combined. Is it any wonder that almost all of Jason's media appearances are on Fox?
Early on Christmas Day there was some sort of attack on three power substations around the city of Tacoma, Washington. Those terrorist attacks left thousands without power on an extremely cold day. The attacks came after recent similar assaults occurred at six power substations in Oregon and Washington, and not long after two power substations in North Carolina were disabled by automatic gunfire. The FBI is investigating all of these attacks on the public electrical grids, but so far no arrests have been made.
Perhaps instead of whining about the public release of Donald Trump's tax information, Rep Jason Smith and his 534 other members of Congress (including 100 senators) should be focusing on real threats to America - like armed insurgents attacking US infrastructure in an attempt to inspire rebellion!
And at the absolute bottom of humanity's food-chain this past Christmas holiday weekend was Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott who thought that the worst cold weather siege of the year would be a great time to send three busloads of migrants to Washington, DC, and dump them at the home of the Vice President on Christmas Eve. Abbott's political stunt has been decried by many as being steeped both in racism and in cruelty.
So while the Christmas season is a great time for shining lights on the needs of humanity, never forget that there are always some out there who are busy unscrewing those light bulbs and trying to keep all of the good things in the world for themselves.
Hate, violence, racism, and cruelty should have no place at the table on Christmas - or on any other day for that matter.
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