Kidnapped Santa

Taking a superficial story designed for American commercialism, Baum tries to endow it with deeper insight and universal meaning. The biggest problem about Christmas is that it is largely a Christian festival with unscrupulously unchristian values of self-interest, whether consumer or corporation. Christmas is indisputably the season of plastic and increased debts. Mothers and fathers fret about fulfilling the demands of their children and children stressed out about satisfying the expectations of their parents. Kids arrive in school eager to show off what they got, but not what they gave to those in need. It's also one of the few times in the year, when the homeless can stand in long lines and reasonably expect to receive a cooked meal.

In the US, approximately 33% of the children now come from single parent or homeless families. They live in shelters, becoming urban nomads without proper diet, social support or stable foundation. They have no future. This isn't their future, but America's future. People do not live in the street merely because they are shiftless, lazy people. Often they land there as sudden reversals in their lives and catastrophes outside their control. Sudden medical bills or consumer fraud strips a person quickly of his means. A job loss or unexpected accident forces a family from its home. Once on the street or in a shelter, it is virtually impossible to return to a stable position in a society that puts so much emphasis on material accumulation where the rich live like robber barons while exploiting the poorer classes for labor. Compared to Europe, the US is a disaster area fast becoming a country like India with an enormous split between the wealthy and poor with the impoverished becoming the Untouchables and Invisible Unwanted Burdensome People. They eat tax money for breakfast says the big self-serving government.

Moreover, technology affects the working population of America deeply. Without basic education, health or technological skills, an unemployed person cannot find a job. Jobs such as waitressing or janitorial work are unstable. Unskilled labor is dispensible, easily replaced by another drone. Psychologically the worker is worn down by the pressures of society, the unrelenting debts and his inability to fulfill basic needs of his own or family's survival. Certainly a Sony Playstation might be a nice toy to give to a family with limited means, but development skills, constant encouragement and personal interaction will go a much longer way in reversing the ills of society.