2017: But, make it “new”

A "new" year, a "new" beginning. The beginning of a new year soothes and refreshes us all. A new year means having the possibility to forget and restart, to erase and renew, to forget, forgive and rediscover the way. ... The beginning of a new year places us at a crossroads where we learn from the past and plan a better future. 

But the illusions incorporated into our promises for a better future do not prevent us from ignoring the present reality, marked by a deep crisis that manifests in the most varied conflicts of our natures: personal, family, labor-related, economic, political, social, cultural, religious, etc. ... 

The lives of many men and women with neither sense nor direction that are reflected in higher rates of suicide, drug use, alcoholism ..., families destroyed by a wide range of circumstances, deep economic crises for which nobody seems to be responsible and that most affect the poorest of the poor, war fronts in different nations, abysmal relations with the rest of the world, a conflictive coexistence among the different groups that make up American society, etc. … These put before this nation the need for the new year to be truly novel and new. 

To preside over the newness that confronts the United States - in the face of past and present failures - Mr. Donald Trump was elected President of the government of this great nation. 

The election of the first president who has never held public office is already a novelty in our nation’s history. It is very novel if it is considered that this election takes place in a society where signs of discrimination and racial segregation persist and in which minorities continue being, and leading the lives of, minorities. 

Even though we have our highest hope in God, people have put their earthly hopes in the leaders of the people and in the good and correct management that they have over their governments. Thus, for the immediate future of American society, we place our trust and hope in the government that, starting on January 20, will be led by President-elect Donald Trump. In it, we have the hope that, as promised in the election campaign, his government will put an end to the irrational, unjust and inhuman bellicose confrontations that not only bleed the economy and the social welfare of the nation, but also the young blood of our young soldiers and that, in addition, while well-surrounded by his immediate advisors, will succeed in a national and international management of the economy that, in the short term, will return us to the prosperity for which this nation has come to be known by its citizens and for the rest of the world. 

But, we are confident that Mr. Trump’s government will have a "new", handling of the immigration issue in which all immigrants and, especially, Hispanics and other ethnic groups established in this nation, who have arrived from different continents without documentation, obtain treatment that is more dignified, more solidary, fairer and more humane and fitting for a population that has put the best of itself and its efforts into contributing to the greatness of the entire American society that he flaunts before the world. 

In the same way, the Hispanics living in this nation and in all our countries of origin expect from the incoming government better and more adequate international relations with all countries, as is required between nations that share the same planet and the same destiny to which all humanity is called: to make this world a more livable place, more fraternal and, therefore, more human. 

Upon beginning a new year, let us leave behind the bad news and let us jointly launch ourselves into the construction of more and better good news with the certainty that if the small or large crises that affect us now have as their ultimate cause a crisis of humanity, that is to say, a deep crisis in the spirit of the human being will be a process and a "humanizing" growth inwardly for each person and the emergence of new and more honest relations between men and the people that offer us a new year and a better future. 

This joy for a new year and these hopes in a new government are grounded in the faith that always invites us to renew ourselves, to leave behind the old man and build in each one of us the new man. The new year will be new to the extent that everyone: both those who participate more directly in the mission of government and also all the citizens who are building the novelty we so need with our deeds, words, behaviors and attitudes. Let us now offer a new year, a new society, a new government for a better nation and a new world. 

I wish all of you, together with your loved ones, a new, blessed and happy 2017.

The Challenge of the the 2016 Elections

 

We find ourselves immersed in the debate that will conclude with the election of the next president of the United States of America. The contest is between the candidates of the nation’s largest and most traditional political parties: the candidate for the Republican party, Donald Trump, and that of the Democrats, Hillary Clinton.

The Republican party, traditionally conservative and allied with the powerful interests that have sustained the capitalist system and promoted the material and economic success of this great nation, faces today, with their candidate Trump — among others — two serious problems. On the one hand, he promotes discrimination and intolerance; on the other, this candidate does not belong to the traditional political structure of the Republican party.

The discourse of Trump gathers and exploits the worst sentiments of those who, like himself, forget the condition of immigrants while claiming to be natives and owners of a land that does not belong to them; they forget that this nation has always been a land of immigrants. It has been this so-called melting pot, precisely, that has enabled America to become a powerful nation before the rest of the world. It is for this reason that this discourse becomes populist, demagogic, hurtful and dangerous for the political and social stability of the United States and the world.

The party of the Democrats, on the other hand, traditionally liberal and allied with the cause of the working class, those who have fewer opportunities to access the social benefits provided by this nation, has embraced — indiscriminately and finally — a series of causes and laws of a postmodernist type such as abortion or marriage between people of the same sex, that discount the traditions and fundamental human values upon which this nation was founded, like the right to life and the family; issues that, although novel, protect a few minorities and satisfy postmodern tendencies according to which each one — seeking their personal pleasure and satisfaction — build their own life as they please, distort and hide the truth in the midst of a thousand half-truths and take us dangerously close to the border of disaster with a moral relativism where it is no longer possible to discern — for the good of individuals as well as for society — what is fundamental from what is accessory, what is essential from what is accidental, what is permanent from what is transitory and ephemeral.

Given these political circumstances, succinctly described, today it is more difficult to decide for whom to vote, what person or political group to elect to guide the destiny of this nation. Today, the great majority of voters feel confused, uncertain and discouraged when it is time to choose between the political alternatives just described. Political alternatives — Democrats or Republicans — with extreme positions, both populist and equally dangerous — as we have said — for the near future of families, society, this nation and the world.

Moreover, and to worsen the political electoral atmosphere in which we find ourselves immersed, other social institutions that would have the role and the moral responsibility to orient Americans for the best political choice possible, find themselves today — as never before — discredited and, for that reason, without authority to guide us in this historical crossroad that is political, social, cultural and electoral.

We face a political choice will not be between two good proposals for the nation, or between a good proposal and a bad one; rather we find ourselves obliged to choose between them or, as they say in philosophy, to choose between the lesser of two evils.

In this situation, the electoral panorama proposed to us is very difficult and between which we must make a choice. The scene reveals the moral and spiritual decadence of our society according to which our material and economic progress as a society does not coincide with the human, moral and spiritual progress, unveiling the lack of political leaders who are well formed morally to fight for the common good and, finally, a political panorama that — for all that we have said — urges us to continue struggling in the search to establish and continue consolidating this society and nation in the grand values of humanity, such as the truth for liberty, justice for peace and solidarity for survival. Therefore, we have to choose between the lesser of two evils!