Editor,
It is now expected in this US of A to have some drama at the Capitol just before the Christmas holiday. 2024 follows this tradition. Peace and good will toward all mankind is a trite saying for those who would make policy that benefits themselves. Sometimes we are surprised that it sort of works out that votes that have been worked on for years happen in a seeming blink of an eye, It is done with a mad dash to heading out back to the home state. It is a budget that could, if not passed, mean an upended global economic upheaval. We are past that for a few months. I may even get the promise made to other workers but not me. I am one of the public workers that lost out on SSI in retirement that which I put into SSI for years. This is the passage of what the elected Congress Representatives voted on as fair now. HR 182 put me and others back in the ability to collect fairly what we worked for in other jobs that required us to pay SSI but at the end left us out when it was time to collect fair retirement. I was a teacher.
Those not so pleased with this turn of events where public workers in professions such as mine should get this benefit are seemingly just fine with allowing the highest earners in the corporate world to have a cut off or cap on what they are to contribute to SSI. They put in a pittance for the amount of money they receive year in and year out. Those not having a job are out of luck. There is no excuse for them, even if it is really the system that is set- up to punish those without and give to those who have. So, bravo to the politicians that moved us along. Bravo to those who will not be cowed by billionaires and fake machismo. Bravo to those who strove for the opposite of hate, the opposite of hoarding greed, the opposite of myopic self serving.
Here is to peace for children who are killed in Gaza by the score (35 every day) every day, every day of the war that is not theirs. Here is to good will for all who go or put their resources in the lands with starving, unsheltered, and maimed and terrified peoples. It is not new since even before that “prince of peace” but it certainly can and must be changed.
Having peace and good will is not up to any outside force. It is up to us. We still have a government that is able to function for just these truths that were laid out in the Declaration and continued in the United States Constitution. It is we who decide if we will follow and support billionaires or if we will say we must have a much more equitable present and future. It goes across all areas of our lives from birth to death. We can and do make a difference. If we contemplate our actions after they take place, we know that there were choices and they would have made a difference in our lives and the lives that touch our own. But that difference comes because we participate or because we choose not to participate. It is as a snowflake added to an impending avalanche or the flutter of a butterfly’s wing that touches a floating seed as it travels a thermal.
Lift your voice,
Linda Guffin
Downieville