So often its a question of available choices.

Holiday time is a hard time. Especially here in the US where the corporations and the bosses are so dominant. Compared to other advanced capitalist countries there are hardly any holidays here, a day or two compared to a week or so. And at the same time there is the non stop indoctrination and propaganda to buy buy buy. If you do not buy everybody you know a present you are insulting and betraying them. The pressure is terrible. The corporations exploit peoples most generous impulses.

My companion and I were talking about this the other night. After work we went and had some food in a small restaurant and chilled out. It was very nice. We could actually feel the stress leave our bodies. We spoke about the importance to us of being able to do this, we had the money to do this, to go out and have a meal. What about other people?

What about the people who have not two cents to rub together. When they get stressed out with the holidays, with not being able to buy their kids present, with having to work longer hours at a stepped up pace, what do they do? they cannot afford to have a quiet meal and chill out. So in many cases they explode. Personal and family rows and even violence. We thought how lucky we were to be able to get rid of our stress in the way we did.

On our way home we met a few young kids walking the other way. It was a bitter Chicago winter night. They were hunched against the cold, their hands in their pockets and their hoods up around their heads. Look at them I said. They probably do not have a dime, they and their families probably do not own a home. What are they going to do? No decent job, no security, no home. For many one option will be to try and get what they want through crime. After all the white collar criminals and the capitalists do this. It will seem only right to them.

I hope I live long enough to see the great US working class erupt onto the streets and in the workplaces with all the fury and rage that is warranted. Capitalism is a rotten decayed system. It has forfeited the right to exist. the capitalist class has forfeited the right to rule. It will be a happy holiday when we can overthrow them and replace them with a Democratic Socialist Society. I am looking forward to seeing the working class and youth take the fist to this rotten capitalist system.

Sean.