Merry Christmas to the underdogs

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
16
4

Christmas has never been a religious festival for me, it’s always been a human celebration, a coming together of friends and whanau. A season to pause, drop the animosity and connect with our loved ones.

For many, this Christmas will be as bleak as every other day, and it is righteous to remind ourselves of their journey and the need to redouble our efforts so that those without have as much reason to rejoice another year passed as those with.

As inequality soars and the pretense of our egalitarianism peels and fades, let us remember those less fortunate.

So Merry Christmas to the underdogs.

To the 270 000 NZ children living in poverty;
To the tens of thousands of beneficiaries and working poor who have to rely on charity to make this day less sparse and painful;
To those grappling with depression and loneliness at a time of family;
To those at the coalface of social service cutbacks while the ink flows for corporate welfare cheques;
To the homeless, the addicts and the beaten;
To those working too hard for minimum wage;
To the prostitutes, the prisoners and those who never see justice;
To those with an empty chair at their table;
To those broken by war and conflict who see violence without end;
To the Palestinian people suffering another year of occupation;
To a world mourning the loss of Nelson Mandela;
To those who are forced by hegemony to be second and third class citizens in their own nations;

Merry Christmas and peace on earth to us all.

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16 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Martyn
    Thank you for this. That is exactly my sentiment at this time of year and you said it in a beautiful way.

    Yesterday I couldn’t believe the size of the crowd in front of and inside City Mission on Hobson St. Heard that Santas are heart broken to hear children ask for a house ‘because they sleep in a car.’

    Merry Christmas to you too…thanks for all your great work this year.

    Couldn’t bear to watch John Lennon, especially this song. He was Stephen’s hero.

  2. … and a very merry Christmas as well, from our household to you, Martyn, and to the other bloggers and readers of this fine website.

    May 2014 find us all in a better place, and the world just a wee bit closer to justice, peace, and prosperity.

    Two thousand years ago, they nailed a guy to some bits of wood because of his radical message, “Be good to one another”.

    That message is just as radical today as it was then, and one that our species still has a way to go to embrace.

    All the best to everyone!

  3. To the suffering people of Tacloban struck by the most powerful storm ever recorded on land, we wish you the best at this sad time of year.

    The Philippines people and government have appealed to the world to do something about climate change. Ban Ki Moon touring the wrecked city was greeted by schoolchildren singing him Christmas carols in the remains of their ruined school.

    If we don’t act, this will be the future for many more innocents….

    The world need look no further than the catastrophe in the Philippines to comprehend the profound and dangerous consequences of a warming planet, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned….

    Extending his deepest condolences to those affected throughout the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan, he said that all around the world, people now face and fear the wrath of a warming planet. “The science is clear. Human activities are the dominant cause of climate change. We cannot blame nature.”

    http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp/www.iaea.org/story.asp?NewsID=46531&Cr=climate+change&Cr1=#.UrnzZSpXspI

    Ban Ki Moon has announced that a United Nations Leaders Summit on climate change will be held in September next year.

    This will be in the middle of New Zealand’s national election campaign.

    Hopefully, the international spotlight being put on climate change will prevent Labour and National parties from ignoring climate change during the elections. An issue that both don’t want raised, as it would expose the the fact that to all intents and purposes their policies are identical. Both Labour and National support Deep Sea Oil drilling and other unconventional sources of oil. At a time when we should be cutting back, both Labour and National support a huge expansion in new coal mining. Both Labour and National are ignoring the desperate calls of the Philippine people and our Pacific neighbors, (who we signed an agreement with in September in which we promised to cut back. Only to break it within weeks.)

    In a disgusting double act, the government, supported by the Labour Party, bailed out the failing Solid Energy coal miner to the tune of $155 million. The Green Party said money would be better spent on a “Just” transition of Solid Energy workers to “Jobs That Don’t Fry The Planet”.

    Compare the $155 million given to Solid Energy to keep on wrecking the climate to the the pathetic $5.1million that our government gave to Philippines typhoon disaster relief.

    Climate change is the biggest human catastrophe of all time, yet our politicians continue with policies that will increase the harm, willfully ignoring the reality of the harm they are causing.

    • Now wouldn’t it be interesting to get some figures on what portion of that $155 million went to mine workers and their families on Te Tai Poutini (“the Coast”), who are often used as political cannon-fodder to justify the continued existence of the mines, and what proportion went to upper management in Christchurch, security and spying companies like Thompson and Clark, globe-trotting mining consultants etc

      Nobody begrudges Coasters gainful employment. Just as the economic stimulus package given to the Coast when Timberlands’ native logging was brought to an end revitalized Greymouth and the southern Coast, the government could have done the same thing for Westport and the northern Coast instead of giving that money as corporate welfare to a mining company it is about to sell off.

      BTW For anyone considering buying shares in Solid Energy, the bail-out gives you some idea of what kind of returns you can expect; none, unless a Labour/Green government continues subsidizing it like National is.

  6. Well said, Martyn. It is indeed a time for reflection as well as celebration.

    Merry Christmas to you and yours and to all of the people who work to make TDB what it is, and especially to anyone who needs some extra love and care this Christmas.

  7. Very well put Martyn. Thank you.

    Merry Christmas to the TDB and contributing bloggers. To those on the receiving end of struggle and impoverishment, I sincerely hope the coming year offers hope and prospects combined with a positive outlook.

    Take care one and all.

    • But Ovicular, It is NOT just an experiment in NZ. Have a look in the UK Guardian – same misery happening there, but they’re further down the track.
      “Neo liberal” is like a nasty global virus.In actual fact “neo liberal”= the mindset of the ruling class. The Elite. The International Banksters. (the banking system is a giant fraud anyway) They are malevolent in their aim to reduce the working class (whom they deem unworthy) to mere economic slaves. And the rest of poor & struggling , they, The Elite don’t care if they die. In fact that is the hope.

  10. I agree this festive season lets give a thought to all those less fortunate, those whose luck has been down, to remember people who have lost their employment, not because they are lazy (as this government lead people to believe), but because they are victims of a failed economic experiment and neoliberalism which has led to a large disparity between the haves and have nots. And lets all try to be kinder to one another

  11. Hi Martyn,
    I have read many blog posts in the last couple of days and I really appreciate that you have conveyed the right meaning of the Christmas. There are many things that are ignored and I really feel that Christmas is the day to spread the happiness. I really loved your blog entry. Thanks for sharing.
    Merry Christmas and keep doing the great deeds..:)

    Thanks
    Susan

  12. Merry X-mas and best wishes for 2014 – to all ‘The Daily Blog’ bloggers, commenters, readers and especially those that are downtrodden, without hope, let down by this rotten government, the homeless, lonely, sad, hungry, depressed, those in pain, sick, disabled, in age care – that in some cases looks more after the shareholder of the companies running them, than the “clients” or residents that it should be there for.

    Yes, this is a time to bear all them in mind.

    Paula Bennett signed off for her holidays in her style, if you can bear the thought of it, what this story is about:

    ‘Bennett: Sip It Sweetie and help my re-election campaign’

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11176800

    So there you have it: She “cares” ALL about HERSELF, before anybody else!

  13. So Merry Christmas to the underdogs.

    To the 270 000 NZ children living in poverty;
    To the tens of thousands of beneficiaries and working poor who have to rely on charity to make this day less sparse and painful;
    To those grappling with depression and loneliness at a time of family;
    To those at the coalface of social service cutbacks while the ink flows for corporate welfare cheques;
    To the homeless, the addicts and the beaten;
    To those working too hard for minimum wage;
    To the prostitutes, the prisoners and those who never see justice;
    To those with an empty chair at their table;
    To those broken by war and conflict who see violence without end;
    To the Palestinian people suffering another year of occupation;
    To a world mourning the loss of Nelson Mandela;
    To those who are forced by hegemony to be second and third class citizens in their own nations;
    Martyn Bradbury

    To this list I would like to add the 4 million people made homeless in the Philippines by Hurricane Haiyan.

    The total population of New Zealand made homeless, their houses smashed and ruined, many missing loved ones.

    If a disaster of this scale happened to us, we would think it was the apocalypse.

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