Yuletide Politics
This year my gifts were consolidated into a donation to a refugee organization. Helping others and sacrificing what we can is what it seems to be all about this season. Many are going without though. There are so many problems in the world to fix, here and abroad. It's hard to know where to throw your weight to see a difference.
I feel blessed and lucky and selfish for being born where and when I was. I am lucky to have the privileges that come with the western world and specifically that of US empire. There have been hurdles and there will always be someone in a position of power above me trying to keep me down. I am a woman, white and able to "pass" as something else if needing to keep a low profile while traveling abroad. I have enough money to live comfortably and enjoy luxuries that most people anywhere else would see as a bit excessive. Bourgeois even?
There are people at my door with nothing in life save the brown bag in their hand and a backpack, there are children down the street hungry and cold because their parents don't have enough work, and there are people everywhere slipping off the edge unnoticed and without a sound. I do what I can by giving my time and efforts to help improve the lives of a few of these people here in the town I live. And this year I gave money to an organization that helps as many as possible enjoy a few comforts like clean drinking water and a save birthing experience.
Is this all that I can do? Is there more? Is there a better way to make it happen? I struggle with this and the guilt I feel as I demand organic vegetables and vegan cuisine because I can afford it and that is what is best for the environment. At this moment there is a wave of misery building, but hopefully together as a global community we can fight it and raise each other out of the most difficult times. With luck those that make it will be stronger and clear the way for more to come and rise up against the system that put into place the same misery that kept them down all to keep a few afloat.
If only we could more widely redistribute the wealth to make us all live a bit more comfortably and the opportunity to make a better world. That would be the greatest gift of all, the reason for the season.
I feel blessed and lucky and selfish for being born where and when I was. I am lucky to have the privileges that come with the western world and specifically that of US empire. There have been hurdles and there will always be someone in a position of power above me trying to keep me down. I am a woman, white and able to "pass" as something else if needing to keep a low profile while traveling abroad. I have enough money to live comfortably and enjoy luxuries that most people anywhere else would see as a bit excessive. Bourgeois even?
There are people at my door with nothing in life save the brown bag in their hand and a backpack, there are children down the street hungry and cold because their parents don't have enough work, and there are people everywhere slipping off the edge unnoticed and without a sound. I do what I can by giving my time and efforts to help improve the lives of a few of these people here in the town I live. And this year I gave money to an organization that helps as many as possible enjoy a few comforts like clean drinking water and a save birthing experience.
Is this all that I can do? Is there more? Is there a better way to make it happen? I struggle with this and the guilt I feel as I demand organic vegetables and vegan cuisine because I can afford it and that is what is best for the environment. At this moment there is a wave of misery building, but hopefully together as a global community we can fight it and raise each other out of the most difficult times. With luck those that make it will be stronger and clear the way for more to come and rise up against the system that put into place the same misery that kept them down all to keep a few afloat.
If only we could more widely redistribute the wealth to make us all live a bit more comfortably and the opportunity to make a better world. That would be the greatest gift of all, the reason for the season.
posted by Sweet Sara at
9:20 AM
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