How can it be December already?
It was carved pumpkins, then pumpkin pie, and now we are readying for Christmas trees, dreidels, and multi-color candles.
December brings one of my favorite memories with it. When my daughter was little, no more than four, and attending nursery school, songs of the season were a big deal and one of her favorite school activities. “Dreidel, dreidel, dreidal, I made it out of clay…” became a standard in our house even though we are not Jewish. But my favorite memory from this time is when she asked, “Can I have a dreidal for Christmas?” It was so wonderful, and was a hit with several of my Jewish friends from work.
All the mixings of my life have been wonderful, and that is what I try to hang on to at this time of year.
No matter whether we are preparing for marvelous gatherings for the Holidays or settling in for enjoying the memories of Christmases past, we can make the the most of the upcoming season. It is difficult for many, but it can be done.
Sometimes I focus on an orthogonal element of my family’ history when I become too sad over times and people gone into history. What do I mean by this? Though Sojourner Truth is not in my family tree, I often think of her at Christmas-time.
Christmas was one of the times my father would expound upon family history and the homestead at Hill Lake, north of the town of Silver Lake, in Kosciusko County, Indiana (Yes, that same Kosciusco County as in American Gods,) and stories about my great, great, grandfather John M. Hill and his multiple army enlistments, his wounding in service of the Union Army, and his participation in the Battle of Gettysberg were often subjects recounted. Stories from the 1800s seemed nuanced and real even though my dad, born in 1915, heard them second hand.
I was born in Indiana where my family had lived since the 1840s. By the time the divisions over abolition of slavery were headed toward war, in the late 1850s, Indiana was four decades into the ban of new slavery as the freeing of all slaves had been accomplished in 1820, four years after being granted statehood.
The Boston Liberator reported on October 15, 1858: “At her third appointed meeting in this vicinity, which was held in the meeting-house of the United Brethren, a large number of Democrats and other pro-slavery persons were present.”
This vicinity was Northeastern Indiana. The United Brethren meeting house was in Silverlake, Indiana. This group became EUB which was the church of my father’s family.
I always envisioned my family being in the supportive audience there, the progressive community which Republican at the time, that had invited her to speak during her anti-slavery tour. My father was quite politically progressive, it appears that this tendency could be traced back several generations.
Christmas, “Ain’t I a woman,” family stories, and political history; my holiday memories contain it all. What are your unlikely holiday associations?
Conservative Calls Labor Members Slobs and Animals
Just heard, on the Lawrence O’Donnell show, The Last Word, on MSNBC, State Senator Grothman of Wisconsin refuse to apologize for calling the protesting constituents who are camped out in the Capitol “slobs.” In not doing this he also managed to dig a deeper hole for himself. It seems union workers, public servants and the like are a different “breed” of people from the Walker supporting constituents of his district. Just click on the link above and start watching the video 1:45 min. into the clip.
Does this consdescending, pompous *bleep* really understand that he is calling the public servants of his state animals? He might as well have said, “Oh the common people, I do think they should be kept out of sight when the upper classes are about.”
This shows a basic BIG problem in the U.S. that is presenting itself all the way from Wisconsin to Arizona. Somehow ignorant people, truly ignorant people who despise education and knowledge, people that did not finish college and have found themselves in the upper socioeconomic brackets of society, through no efforts of their own, have taken over much of our political system.
These authoritarian elitists really think that they inherently are better than every one else and have the right to impose their beliefs on the rest of us and force us to do the work as they reap the benefit. These folks are no better than anyone else and in my opinion have no class, no honor, and no conscience. Our country was founded to help regular people have control over their own property. We attempted to eliminate the power of the Monarchy with our War of Independence. We created our country so rule would not be consolidated and inherited by a privileged few. Common landowners were citizens with equal voice in governance; there were to be no rulers.
While the common person was watching TV and consuming the opiate of the masses, the same little *bleepers* that would have been the simpering tax collectors of the monarchy switched their loyalties to the new monarchy – the corporation. The U.S. originally gave the corporations no rights. They did this for a very important reason. The East India Tea Company was buddy, buddy with the Monarchy, Lords, and Ladies. If you haven’t read about corporate personhood, you should.
I sincerely hope that legislatures start listening to their constituents because we are not that far away from another bloody revolution. I don’t want that. You don’t want that. If anyone in your family works for the city or state, or receives any assistance from the county or state, or belongs to a private union you are cutting your own throat by supporting corporate interests. Forget Repulicans, forget Democrats, look at who is in favor of progressing the state of the common person. Traditionally Democrats support labor and Republicans support management. This is no longer true. Democrats now support labor and management. Republicans support corporate management and owners. Progressives support labor and local business. Conservatives – well that word has been co-opted to the point where it means nothing. If you are talking about religious conservatives, well that has no place in our governance structure. Fiscal conservatism… well, no one has been fiscally responsible for decades. Let’s just get back to government of the people by and for the people.
And if our government refuses to represent the interests of the people, well we have to change the government. I was at a PDA meeting last week and it was amazing, a couple hundred people showed up rather than the group of 20 that were present when PDA tried to start up in Tucson a few years ago. There was an energy there that was calling to be channeled into an aggressively progressive.
At the same time that PDA is gaining steam, the Start Our State, or Baja Arizona, movement is getting attention. Phoenix has been draining the coffers of Tucson returning far less than than an equitable amount to our community, allowing religious conservatives and pseudo-libertarian corporatists to impose anti-American legislation on our state, gut our K-12 and Higher Education systems, and insure a low wage workforce. People are getting fed up.
I for one am very tired of living in states that are absolutely regressive, but I love Tucson. When you are connected to a person who teaches and does research at a University level, you are tied to working in states that may not be your first choice if all other things were equal. I would love to live in a state that somewhat supports my belief in democracy and equality. Baja Arizona might just do it for me.
But if elitists like Walker run Wisconsin, and wackos like Brewer run Arizona, I’m not sure where is safe to go other than metropolitan areas, and I don’t want to have to do that. Somehow I feel like my rights are being stepped on.