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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 4/11, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Christmas trees now litter the sidewalks, tangled tinsel glittering in the sun. The holidays are over. For many working people this is a great relief.
Why? Because under capitalism, expectations generated during this "special season" cannot possibly be fulfilled.
Macy's, Sears, Chase Manhattan and their friends define the "specialness" of Christmas and Hanukkah as spending big bucks. The message is everywhere.
Take your average TV sit-com holiday show, for example. The house is perfectly decorated. The actors wear the latest clothes. The Christmas tree is huge, and underneath stands a mountain of presents. In case you can't imagine what's in those beautifully wrapped boxes, the commercials let you know. And none of it is cheap.
Here's the twist. The TV family ignores this material wealth and concentrates on some life-defining insight into love, family and friendship, the holiday message of what "really matters." But the real message of these shows is that the intimacy, love, friendship and understanding will come only if huge amounts of money are spent on gifts.
What's the true story of Christmas for working people living under capitalism, where no aspect of life is secure? Short on cash, laid off, cut back, furloughed and generally messed with by bosses, so many working people get through Christmas by charging the credit cards to the max, or borrowing from Aunt Alma to get Johnny a bike. This creates so much tension and anxiety that few are in the mood for moments of insight and love.
Christmas under capitalism would be incomplete without the heart-wrenching "miracle" stories that fill the media. Miracle tales tell of people who overcome extreme poverty and other terrible burdens to pull their lives together with just a little help from charity.
Their stories are always the hook to contribute to write a check. If you can give a whole lot, you get a big tax write- off.
Among the most moving this year is the story of a schizophrenic single mother who triumphed over mental illness and homelessness. She now has a apartment, is going to school, and has retrieved her daughter from foster care.
These struggles are truly admirable. In the hands of the establishment media, however, the stories are used to convey a hidden message. This message is that if poor people just tried, they could overcome their circumstances.
So it's your own fault if you are poor. You're just not trying hard enough.
Meanwhile, these stories may not be miracles. It's hard to know, because the media drops the "neediest cases" like hot potatoes after the holidays.
The "charity" articles and broadcasts focus briefly on a few individuals and ignore the millions. The media do not address what it feels like to be out of work for years, to have your hopes for employment dashed again and again. The daily press certainly does not target the government or the big corporations and banks responsible for making a whole class poorer every day.
No person should have to beg. Charity is a bourgeois concept, and a demeaning one.
It is a "handout" from the class responsible for denying workers their basic human and democratic rights: the right to a job, to a living wage, to decent and affordable housing, to health care and recreational time--which the rich always manage to give themselves.
The real holiday news is not a miracle story. The news is that more people are going hungry. The real news was not put on the front page. It appeared on page 27 of the Dec. 31 New York Times.
According to a survey of 29 cities by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, requests for emergency meals jumped 9 percent last year, with New York City one of the hardest hit.
The Big Apple already has 789 city pantries, kitchens and shelters. But the independent food bank that supplies the food-distribution centers could not meet the 28-percent rise in need since July, and people went away hungry.
If cuts proposed in Washington and Albany go through, New York's food agencies would lose 25 percent of federal funds and about 40 percent of state money.
The holidays are over. Working people did the best they could. Now comes the long winter.
From Harlem to Roxbury, from the Tenderloin to the Barrios of the southwest, the class of workers and the oppressed keeps the real spirit of the holidays alive. It is a slow burn, a well-justified smoldering anger.
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