The end is near but the game isn’t over

Monopoly is fun growing up. Our kids liked Monopoly, or at least they thought they did. It starts out with equity, endless possibilities and a colorful stash of paper money. As the dice are rolled and deals are made, the tone changes. Eventually, the accumulated wealth of one or two dooms the rest to a slow demise. Hard feelings mount, sometimes tears are shed, and once one person has it all, the game is over. That's the way the rules were written.

A visiting cousin amended the rules. Seeing a fellow player suffering disastrous losses, she willingly sold some of her assets to balance the holdings more equitably. Soon, the other players followed the example of looking out for others' interests as well as their own. They delightedly discovered that with assets and power in balance and a level playing board, the Monopoly game could go on forever.

My kids and their friends discovered in Monopoly what our nation's founders already knew. A game that coddles the rich with insider privilege, benefiting from the work of the rest of us, gradually dwindles resources for the working class and will not last. The game soon ends.

America started out with immigrants fleeing the monarchies in Europe. They uniformly opted for a land with a level playing field. Our revolution and our constitution were fought and formulated to keep it that way. Inherited wealth was anathema to our founders because they knew from Europe it kept concentrating power and corruption. Hard work, ingenuity and neighborliness were respected far above royalty or inherited privilege. It's still that way, especially here in Big Horn County. We have a tradition of insisting on transparency of our leaders and a more balanced economy, so we the people retain the right to keep it that way.

But guess what? We've lost it. We now have the greatest disparity ever in accumulated wealth between a small group of families at the top and the rest of the families of this great nation. They are accountable to themselves and their stockholders, not the people. The resultant suffering is all around us in Big Horn County; all we have to do is look at the economic game played in Washington. Yet, there is no talk about changing back to our founding principles with firm government and public oversight. Instead, we endlessly and uselessly debate the national debt ceiling.

Our game board has gone under the table. There's a broader than ever marriage between Washington and Wall Street to amass wealth in a small group. We have had corporate executives sitting down with our elected congressmen as members of the Allied Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) to secretly write new rules for our economy so our government will monitor wealth and power even less. We have a huge military industrial complex that sucks more money out of our nation's economy than the world's next 50 military powers combined. A significant part of our nation's media is owned and controlled by a single powerful corporation headed by one family – hardly "fair and balanced." Secrecy abounds.

Our Bible, the most fundamental and important document shaping our American culture, speaks of one sin more often and with more emphasis than any other: the sin of greed. It's the sin of a few acquiring more at the expense of the many. The few have more than they need and the many don't have enough. Salvation stories in scripture are swept time after time into provision for living, in plenty and without fear. Most importantly, salvation passages highlight healing and deliverance from this sin. It also confirms our teenagers' amendments to the rules of their game of Monopoly.

Which way will we follow? In our heating-up political atmosphere right now, this issue fields the most useful discussions. How we handle the horrific imbalance between the have-too-much's and the deprived-of-enough's in this nation should be the central issue of the election. In fact, if the Bible is right at all, our nation's existence rests on the outcome of this issue in our domestic and international policies. There is no more important issue and it just happens to be central to the formation of our nation's democratic tradition as well our Judeo-Christian faith.

Let's talk it up. Let's not just sit by and watch the end of the game. Let's vote for those rich folks who run for political office only if they have the courage to take on this issue. That way, the American Dream, instead of ending, will renew our families and give real hope to all of us.

Check out the nytimes.com article by billionaire Warren Buffet, August 14, 2011: "Stop Coddling the Super Rich," at nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

www.greenwoodfarmmt.org

Government by Chickens

The numerous ongoing debates over the budget deficit in Washington remind me of my chickens. You see, I bought them as baby chicks six weeks ago, investing in the hope that they would do a job. Their task was to eat bugs off the potatoes and cabbage in our garden. But, unfortunately, they were spending more time sparring, flying at each other and downright scrapping instead of pursuing bugs. I had sent this fine poultry brigade to the garden to do a job, and that job was not getting done.

It's the same in Congress. We sent a fine brigade of legislators to Washington to do a job that simply is not getting done. No one there is interested in real tax and securities reform that would benefit those of us who lost our shirts in the latest national finance scandal. Remember the Tea Pot Dome scandal? Remember the the Savings & Loan scandal? How about the 30 to 50 percent of retirement most of us lost in the mortgage banking fraud? Are we still naive enough to trust Republicans or Democrats on their headline-grabbing debate over deficit spending and raising taxes and government default?

I hate the politics of politics but, unfortunately, politics has a real impact on people like me; even more so on those more vulnerable than me and my family. No legislator dares touch the real issue – that we have a shyster system of government that protects the rich and cheats those who do honest work. Any elected official that speaks of dismantling this shyster system must be prepared to face the prospect of punishment at the polls. The folks in power are plutocrats with an elaborate propaganda program in place. Bombarded with confusing economic complexity we, the people, are led like sheep to believe that life will actually be better for us if we simply stop deficit spending and never raise taxes. And so, the shyster system remains intact.

Just like when I bought my chicks, during the latest election, I was temporarily hopeful that a new administration would squash the buggers in charge of the economics of our nation. Having been in China for two years, I frequently read the Economist Magazine and was exposed to diverse international perspectives on American foreign and domestic policy. I learned the amount our nation devoted to the vulnerable and working class of our country paled in comparison to the massive government policy changes, subsidy and bailouts for the corporate rich and powerful. I became convinced of the need for people-oversight of our economy, and toward a smaller government doing more of the vital work of regulating for transparency and honesty. Sadly, though it still isn't politically feasible to change the shyster system and our reps in congress continue scrapping over misleading and irrelevant issues ad nauseam, day after day.

Several weeks ago, six prominent pastors joined together to write an open letter to President Obama regarding this issue. They highlighted something many of us in Big Horn County don't often think about. God is partial. He does take sides, but they have nothing to do with the sides of liberals or conservatives, Republicans or Democrats. Rather, God takes sides with the poor and marginalized. It's written all throughout the Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. (See sojo.net a moral budget July 15, 2011.)

Who tore down the system in our nation that used to give the poor the opportunity to better themselves and their families through personal initiative? How did we come to the point of giving the wealthiest one percent privileged access to expanding their wealth while funding media manipulation of all of us into a side show? We watch the cockfights between congress and the president, distracted while they erect a shadow government to protect their financial cronyism, secret insider deals and the welfare of rip-off tax breaks?

Yes, I'm talking about Bush's breaks. I just read that letting Bush's temporary tax breaks expire, as originally designed, would yield more deficit reduction in ten years than any of the proposals now being foolishly debated.

I've heard it said that when we give handouts to the rich, we are ultimately helping the poor because the rich create jobs for all of us. So why is it that over the past few years, as our corporate tax rate has fallen to the lowest amount in decades, our unemployment rate is so high? After all, we've spent almost a trillion dollars on corporate bailouts. We hear that "taxes are job killers." Well, taxes haven't gone up, so where are the jobs?

This morning, Bonnie and I threw the chickens out of the garden, all of them, along with their chicken coop. They wouldn't stop their sparring foolishness, and further, they keep eating the tiny tomatoes intended for our bellies. We the people – my family – vested with the right to govern our garden, will manage our resources for the benefit of all of us.

Those feisty chickens will be confronted with an impenetrable wall of oversight: a chicken fence, to keep them from using their well-honed beak technology to mess with our crops.

If only we could say the same thing for those in Washington.

--
David Graber
Hardin, MT  59034

Chickens and Government II

 

Finally on Monday the senseless combativeness in Washington has settled down to a new slightly more rational cooperation.

 

That's what I gathered while watching, with surprise and fascination, as our chickens began working together for their common good. 

 

In my last column, Big Horn County News July 20, I explained how they were banned from our fenced garden.  I didn't expect this cooperation.

 

They gathered into a gang and began running all together in the same direction. At first I saw no useful purpose. As I watched closer, I saw their mob-like stamping chicken feet stir up a wave of grasshoppers and bugs in front of them.  Insects were eaten at the moment of landing, no time to get hopping feet folded to spring and fly again, because other chicks behind had kicked them up. As their flight range was exhausted, down they came, into a gizzard.  Every chick got a fair chop at the economy of the pasture's protein.  My forage got a break from the bugs and hoppers.  My chickens are getting fatter. 

 

More to the point, I'm watching an avian illustration of what now could and should be happening for the good of our nation, now that we finally have some congressional compromise to move in the same direction.  And this all in spite of the snide remarks and arrogant character degradation by Fox Radio Right Wing Fair and Balanced Talk Shows, and The Sky-Is-Falling Analyses of Democrats and Liberal Pundits.

 

Yes, we really can move in the same direction; congress folk can compromise their promises and get elected on reality instead of simplicity. We can preserve our union, return to our basics as a nation, and value what gave us the right start back in our revolution against the conservative British Crown royalists. 

 

Are you paying attention? I hope the words of George Lakeoff, in a recent oped, might help us see again our nation's values to which we just might be returning:

 

We Americans care about our fellow citizens; we act on that care and build trust and we do our best not just for ourselves, our families and our friends and neighbors, but for our country, for each other, for people we have never seen and never will see.

 

That's what our capitalist economy should be about, as Adam Smith wrote when he held up the common good as the basic bottom line of capitalism in America.

 

It's time to tear apart the modern experimental nest of pundits, politicians, media moguls and billionaires who place personal power and profit above the public good.  They laugh up their sleeves to their foreign banks, and it echoes across the back 40, as they manipulate the masses of American citizenry into hysteria about government takeovers, raising taxes, the terrible Taliban in Iran, and a host of other side issues. While truly harmful, these really are symptoms to which paying too much attention has become a dangerous diversion from restoration of our real historical values. They have done an astounding job of smearing and discrediting foundational public enterprises: public schools, government agencies that support family businesses and farms where children labor, non-profit medical care, public funded elder care, and even now social security, Medicare and Medicaid.

 

In our nation this experimental nest wants to feed us chicks the equivalent of ground "protein" that's really horsemeat by-products unfit for human consumption.  We are then told to feel happy we can sit around being lazy recipients of the largess of the elite's welfare system, and don't have to leave our fence boundaries to join in with others in pursuit of a livelihood.  Most conspicuously, we chicks get addicted to the protein pellets from the outside so there is no need to tread that grass in step with others for the good of all. We are supposed to enjoy confinement, and to think life consists of being lucky not to be left outside the fence, not abandoned to survive in the low life of pursuit of protein for survival. 

 

More than any other agenda, our founding fathers were adamant that unregulated private wealth concentration was anathema to our fledgling democracy.

It's possible the decision of the Republicans in the House to stand with Boehner and back Obama's negotiated plan will lead to some new valuing of our public enterprise system, especially government's function to open the big sky so we can see each other and get coordinated for the common sustenance of all. I saw it happening with my chicks here on the back 40.  Maybe, congressmen will be booted from their fenced garden too, or learn to think beyond pushing for more government deregulation of private wealth concentration, and instead join us all supporting public enterprises for the good of all of us.

 

David Graber

Hardin, MT

 

--
David Graber
Hardin, MT  59034
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org