Chain Rattling

I’m trying my damnedest, but I just don’t have the "Christmas spirit." The tree is decorated, our plans are taking shape, family and friends are on the way, menus are set, gifts are magically appearing in stockings… but I can’t muster that "joyeux Noël." Sure, Christmas is America’s Viagra-induced orgy of consumerism, but charity often prevailed. This year, however, is bringing us a plague of Scroogery and Capital Vices (pun intended) that snuff the flames of understanding, generosity, kindness, and selflessness: Unbridled greed in the tax bill (enriching the rich, hogtying the middle class, and pillaging the poor); Saturnalian gluttony in the Senate and Congress (and Hollywood and academia and seemingly everywhere...); a president’s hubris that rivals the Fallen Angel’s; a lustfulness in men that gets more sinister with every daily revelation of abuses; an idleness that resigns us to this ugly, newly old America (while occasionally, lamely, lazily shouting out injustices on Facebook or blogs [read: this]); an envy that reimagines the “stars upon thars” mentality and will result in an epidemic of intolerance; and a senseless wrath that arms mass murderers and upends liberties. These behaviors undo reason (on both sides of the political spectrum) and eradicate centralism, compromise, appreciation, and promise. I’m trying my hardest to find humanity in this Inferno of heartlessness; but the men in power, in all their forms of power, are making it seemingly impossible for me to celebrate. To them ALL -- every Mitch, Paul, Mike, Orin, Harvey, Kevin, Roy, Charlie, Matt, James, Mario... -- I have a gift this year: A visit from the hooded, boney Ghost of Christmas Future. Yet, despite their humbug, their narrow-mindedness, vices, and lies, and for the sake of the season, I’ll emulate Tiny Tim and wish them all Merry Christmas and “God bless Us, Every One!" Yes, even the self-obsessed Antic Executive with the Fake Bake instant spray-on tan. [Ahhhh, now the Ghost of Christmas Past returns!]