Five New Year's hopes for American society

by Mario T. García on Jan. 04, 2011

Here we are into another new year. It feels like the years seem to pass by more rapidly each time. I wish time, at least for me, would slow down more. As with many other Americans, I think about New Year resolutions or hopes.

Let me share with you five public hopes I have for 2011:

  1. I hope that President Obama will show more resolve in dealing with the Republicans. I’m all for compromise but that should entail a process and not a starting position, as the President too often seems to be inclined.
  2. I hope that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq truly begin to wind down. I don’t expect this, but the deaths of so many people in both countries -- including Americans -- are very much the result of U.S. intervention in both countries. Americans are dying in both countries for failed policies and for the questionable aggrandizement of an American empire based on corporate and military objectives.
  3. I hope that Americans will begin to realize again that they cannot depend on the political and economic elite -- both Democrats and Republicans -- to make major changes for the benefit of the American people. Only grass-roots struggles especially by progressive and liberal-minded people will achieve this. History instructs us that all significant reforms emanate from the bottom and not the reverse.
  4. I hope that Americans will begin to display a more charitable and humane attitude toward one another -- this includes the principle of aiding those in need. We need to help the unemployed and those who need government assistance for family and medical needs. We need to reject the unfounded notion that government is the problem.
  5. I hope that this charity and tolerance will extend to the strangers amongst us -- in particular immigrants, including undocumented immigrants. Here, as I have noted previously, I believe Catholics should take the lead based on the church’s embrace of immigrants. We need to call for new immigration laws -- including the DREAM Act -- that will allow a pathway to legalization and citizenship for those immigrants who have been here for years and have contributed to American society.

I have other hopes and dreams, but if these five come true I would be very pleased.

Happy New Year to all.

Quit spreading heresy and

Submitted by Ted valmassei (not verified) on Jan. 04, 2011.

Quit spreading heresy and claiming to be catholic. You're falling for the oldest sin in the book--disobedience. Support the catholic church in ALL it's teachings or become a Protestant and start your own church.

Hermano Mario, I gather that

Submitted by Justiniano de Managua (not verified) on Jan. 04, 2011.

Hermano Mario,

I gather that you are a “UnitedStates’er of North America” from the way that despite your obvious hereditary lineage you write as one who has also stumbled into the custom of co-opting the name “American” as though it “belonged to” the US of NorthAmerica. It’s one of the bad habits easily acquired by people in “power” even though possibly not in “authority.” As for instance last weeks the NCR citing “HUDSON NEW YORK”: with the headline: «Venezuela: Church Warns of Chavez Dictatorship Grab», referring simply to the opinion of the cardinal and two archbishops and ignoring the 60% of the poor who democratically continue voting for Chavez and his political party and who are THE CHURCH speaking in favor Chavez by their vote over the past eleven years.

Venezuela apart, here’s to your “five public hopes I have for 2011”:

1. We Mexican Americans, Guatemalan Americans, Salvadoran Americans, Honduran Americans, Nicaraguan Americans, Ecuadoran Americans, Venezuelan Americans, Bolivian Americans, Canadian Americans, Argentinean Americans etc., etc. hope that your President Mr. B. Obama gets serious about saving OUR planet which is being ruined by 9% of the world population. Despite Kyoto, Copenhagen and now Cancún still the United States 9% of world population is still not willing to “bite the bullet.”
2. Please don’t include us other Americans in asking pardon for your wars and interventions to construct the “American empire based on corporate and military objectives”.
3. If anything that has been brought home to us “Non United Stateser Americans” by bitter personal experience it is that as you say: “History instructs us that all significant reforms emanate from the bottom and not the reverse.”
4. We “Non United Stateser Americans” have learned “fraternal solidarity” since so many of us live on less than USA$2 a day. The GNP of USA is up around $45,000, while here in Nicaragua the GNP is US$1,000.
5. Since we “Non United Stateser Americans” live in Mestiza América where probably 70% of the population is “Catholic after our fashion” we are already well accustomed to embracing immigrants since from way back 500 years we have all been dribbling into our different American countries.

A New Year’s wish to embrace the challenge for “a different possible society”, “a different possible world” and to seriously work to save our planet, Pacha Mama.

Justiniano de Managua

Post new comment

NCR Comment code:

  1. Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger.
  2. Use appropriate language. Avoid vulgarities and slurs.
  3. Keep to the point. Deliberate digressions don't aid the discussion.

For more detailed guidelines, visit our User Guidelines page.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
(if you have one; if not, leave this blank)
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <font> <swf> <swf list>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • You may use <swf file="song.mp3"> to display Flash files inline

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This is to prove you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.