As I once again watched Charles Dickens’ immortal “A Christmas Carol” (the George C. Scott version is my personal favorite), I was struck anew by Ebenezer Scrooge’s infamous dismissal of those disadvantaged persons who would choose to die in poverty rather than enter the notorious workhouses or debtors’ prisons:

“If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

– Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol”

And I couldn’t help thinking of Vladimir “Scrooge” Putin, sitting in his gilded Kremlin palace or luxuriating in any of his far-flung hideaways, lambasting the people of Ukraine for choosing to fight, and possibly die, rather than surrender their homeland’s sovereignty and their personal freedom.

My thoughts next seemed naturally to turn to Donald Trump, partying through the Christmas season at Mar-a-Lago as Congress adjourns for the holidays, leaving millions of Americans facing the new year without affordable medical insurance.

And it occurred to me, not for the first time, that we average citizens — in the eyes of the ruling elites — are of no more concern than Scrooge’s “surplus population.” The difference is that, in real life, we probably can’t depend on three spirits to bring us an overnight Christmas miracle.

It seems that we’ll just have to find a way to fix things by ourselves. And until we do, as Dickens’ Tiny Tim would say:

“God bless us, everyone!”

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
12/22/25