Merry Christmas!

I’ve been sitting back and watching a handful of situations as of late. Watching these situations has led me to ask a few questions.

The first thing that I observed is that Americans spent a total of $20 BILLION dollars in one day on the day after Thanksgiving. This actually leads me to several questions. Why do we need to spend that much money over the course of one 24-hour period? Why couldn’t we be satisfied with spending only $10 billion and either giving the other $10 billion to charity or just saving it for retirement? If we can afford to spend that kind of money in one day on what amounts to future land fill, then why are so many people in foreclosure on their homes and why are there so many people filing for bankruptcy?

Another thing I have noticed is that people are donating their hard-earned dollars to political campaigns. This is not a bad thing in and of itself. But let’s look at the amount of money being donated and spent during the campaigns for President in 2008. According to OpenSecrets.org, the combined total spent (for the third quarter) on the Democrat side of the campaign is $133,516,245 with cash on hand in the amount of $110,888,289. On the Republican side of this, the total spent is $132,445,115 with cash on hand in the amount of $42,921,787. In terms of donations, the Democrats had a total of $244,404,140 and Republicans had $175,336,955; each of these figures spanning the entire length of the campaign by the end of the third quarter. This means that American corporations and people donated a total of $419,741,095 to Presidential campaigns. I think that this is funny considering that, much like the Highlander, there can be only one. The race for the Presidency has effectively turned into a gigantic horse race, with corporations representing the hardcore gambling junkie. I think that it’s kind of sickening to know that Americans have this kind of money to just effectively throw away, yet there are still homeless people here. It’s sickening to think that we have this kind of disposable money, yet the education system is falling apart. It’s sickening to think that we have all of this disposable money floating around, yet we cannot work on an alternative fuel source in order reduce our dependency on foreign oil. It makes no sense to me.

Let’s focus on the homeless problem for the moment. It was estimated that there were approximately 750,000 homeless people in the United States this year. If we (as in American people and corporations) were to reduce the amount that we donated (according to the stats I quoted previously) to political campaigns by 50% and committed this amount to the cause of eradicating homelessness, we would have $209,870,547.50 going toward this cause. This only amounts to $279 per person, but it’s better than nothing, which is what you get when you donate to a losing political campaign. Let’s add the amounts that I spoke of in the beginning of this blog, which is how much was spent in one day of holiday shopping. The amount was $20 billion. Reduce it by 50% and split that total among 750,000 people and you get more than $13,000 per person. That’s a pretty significant amount. If 4 of those people are a family, that’s $52,000, which is more than enough to pay the rent on an apartment for a year. Hell, that’s probably enough to pay their grocery bill and most of their bills for basic living expenses altogether for a year. How many families do you know who live on less than that right now? Thinking about it, every family I know right now lives on less than that. I’m one of them. I’ve lived on less than that my entire life.

I think that the major problem with we Americans is that we try too hard to live the “American Dream”. This dream is great, but not when it comes at the expense of other people. We are so busy trying to be this new and bastardized version of what we think an American is supposed to be that we have forgotten that we are human first. I think that we need to drop the superiority complex and adopt an equality complex. Sorry, but your kid doesn’t have a need for a $500 gaming system when the kid down the street doesn’t have enough food to eat even though their parents are doing everything they can. Your kid doesn’t need new $100 Nike sneakers when the soles of the shoes on the kid down the street are being held in place by duct tape and Shoe Goo and are 2 sizes too small. Your kid doesn’t need a $200 Starter jacket when the kid down the street doesn’t even have heat in his house. Think about these things. So many people spend so much time worrying about what kind of gift they are going to buy their loved one for the holidays. They never stop to think that they are giving out gifts to people on a day that is not their birthday. The real gift is reflection on your life and recognizing just how fortunate you really are to be alive, healthy and surrounded by people who care about you.

Oh, and if you are one of those assholes that gets pissed off when a person says “Merry Christmas” when you are not a person who celebrates Christmas… FUCK YOU, you FUCKING DICKHEAD! You should be glad that they didn’t just spit in your face, kick you in the crotch, punch you in the throat and steal your wallet. If I say Merry Christmas and you get indignant about it, you’re likely to get all of the above from me, minus the stealing of your wallet just because I’m not a thief.