My Holiday Gift List

By Jim Hightower, AlterNet. Posted December 22, 2004.

It's that gift-giving time of year, and once again I'm delivering the goods to people I think are in need of something special as they head into 2005.

Let's start at the top. For George W, I've bottled up something small, but potent. It's an ounce of humility – not enough to make him truly humble, but just enough to wipe that Viagra-size smirk off his face. Even a little touch of the stuff would make him that much better of a president.

For Tom DeLay, the loopy former pest-exterminator who's become a giant-sized pest himself, I sent a big can of Raid. If he'll spritz a bit of it under each arm in the mornings, it'll hold down his offensive arrogance enough to make him almost human.

But, what to get Wal-Mart? You'd think it has everything. Ah, of course, I'll give it the one thing it does not have: A union! This will enable its employees to get a fair wage, decent health care, and maybe even a pension, thus improving the public image and community reputation of the biggest and Scroogiest corporation in the world.

The Democratic party. Now there's a hard-hit outfit in need of lots of help. But I can think of the perfect gift to let it help itself, build its strength, and even flourish again. I'm sending the national party leaders some gumption – specifically, the gumption to be Democrats. Period. That's what people want the the party of Jefferson, FDR, HST, JFK, and LBJ to be. Not the corporate-hugging, mealy-mouthed party its been the last few years, but the unabashed, uncompromised party of working folks, willing to return to its populist roots and go right at the Bushites and their corporate sponsors.

Then there's Donnie Rumsfeld, who's so puffed up on himself that he can't see the mess he's made with his neo-con warmongering. So, I'm sending him a six-month stint as a grunt in Iraq, assigned to drive one of those vehicles that he still hasn't outfitted with life-protecting armor.

Happy holidays to all!

Jim Hightower is the best-selling author of "Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush," from Viking Press. For more information, visit jimhightower.com.

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