Just like many other Canadians this holiday season my family will be ‘making do’. For us the war on Christmas is not the inclusiveness of the many celebrations that take place at this time of year. It is not a choice of Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays on a sign or Christmas card. Heck I have Christmas cards that I received as a child back in the sixties that say Happy Holidays. It is not nativity scenes being kept off public property. The real war on Christmas is declared by the corporatists and right wingers. Corporations continue to move jobs off shore while at the same time advertising tells us we are somehow lacking without the latest and greatest new thing we should go into debt for. Right wingers and their ideologue political choices continue to filter money to their corporatist friends while gutting programs that help those in need.
How many children will wonder why Santa bypassed their homes this year? How many families will recall Christmas’s with son’s, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles , aunts, civilians and soldiers alike now dead because of war? How many families will spend Christmas wondering if the New Year will include employment or knowing it won’t? Wondering if they will even have a home next Christmas. How many are waiting for the political will to ensure there are jobs instead of rhetoric about people needing to tighten their belt or accept service positions that won’t cover the bills?
The war is on the people and it is year round. It relies on mean spirited, selfish motivations. It relies on those willing to spout a philosophy they cannot live. Those who spend the year advocating against relief programs then professing to protect the legacy of one who was born homeless and into poverty to young single mother.
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