Somewhere near this post you will find a trailer from the movie"Bells of St. Mary" with Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. The aim of showing the segment was to present the clip in which Bing as Father O'Malley, begins his term at St. Mary's school by declaring a holiday.
I wanted to tie it to a scathing and sarcastic review of Barack Obama's request this week that his constituents take the day off next Tuesday and help him.
This is my third attempt at actually finishing that post and I do believe I have hit an emotional wall.
Suffice it to say, the suggestion that people either abuse their employers or co-workers by taking a day off on short notice; or that they use some of their benefit time which may have been reserved for emergencies, sickness or family events and instead go and do some frantic community organizing at the polls - is appalling to me.
I work in Human Resources, we deal with attendance issues quite often. It is evidence of a diminished work ethic in this country. It is why, according to Woody Allen - "80% of success is just showing up". It is a sad statement, but people who come to work everyday are sometimes a rarity.
Work is sacred. It is a gift from God.
When Adam - the first man - sinned and brought a curse upon all of us that would follow in his line. The curse was represented in part by the fact that work would be hard. God promised that the ground would be unreasonable at times, and thorns and thistles would grow profusely.
Work was not the curse - the fact that work is difficult is a by product of the curse.
Until recently people have known that hard work would one day pay off - sometimes financially; sometimes with internal rewards like a renewed confidence and the blessings of genuine tiredness.
They also had a sense that when we all work as a nation, we move the country along. "Rosie the Riveter" and all those women that invaded the workforce during WWII while their husbands were invading France - they knew - showing up every day was important to the entire nation.
Now, Mr. Obama says take the day and come work for me.
Doesn't that sound selfish?
He seems to be saying: "put your job at risk so I can grab this power".
Some people will probably take him up on that offer. Some of them will likely be teetering on the edge of being set free from their employment because of past infractions. Perhaps they will show up at work on Wednesday after taking the "Election Holiday" only to find that they have no job.
Who will be the target of their anger then?
You can bet that it probably won't be Mr. Obama.
And though it should be - it probably won't be the "dupe" that they see in the mirror each morning.
No, it will be that employer.
The one who worked while others seized every opportunity to avoid it. The one who did his/her part to keep the economy going while others were registering new voters or driving people to the polls - even though they have had untold opportunities to vote before election day.
And should Mr. Obama get elected in all this gay and festive season, who will he be coming after to pay more taxes?
Those same folks, that showed up for work every day.
EPILOGUE: The reason this post was so difficult for me to finish is partly because I just didn't think that another angry blog would be helpful right now.
Also it was because I wanted to be careful about what I said: Mr. Obama's campaign has reduced "racism" to a level of triviality. It seems that anything that is questioning or critical - is determined to be racist or at least a code for racism.
It is a pity that free discourse has taken such a beating this election.
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