Light in the Darkness of Newtown

The massacre of innocents in Connecticut brings a pall of darkness over the nation. Yet, in the midst of the darkness, there is new hope we will regain the civic good will that used to restrain carnage such as this.  We in Big Horn County share the nation's concern about the pathology of individuals attracted to such violence by life experiences and media.  Unfortunately, it's a pathology involving more than a few bad individuals. There is a more pervasive mindset that contributes to opportunities for the disturbed among us to act out their violent fantasies.   

 

It surprised me to learn recently that gun violence in the United States now ranks with that of Somalia, a country known for its ongoing brutal civil wars.  Since Columbine there have now been thirty mass murder events, with this one among the very worst.  I think most of us know that total gun control is not the best solution to this horrific situation.  We know that tighter gun control laws and enforcement of those laws will not necessarily end killing sprees.  Sadly, reducing access to weapons won't guarantee a reduction in severely deranged individuals among us.  

 

A useful direction would be to address the national mindset that required twenty beautiful children, and seven adults, to pay a horrific price for one man's freedom to shoot the guns of his choice. 

 

We need the old gun laws back in place when I was a teenager. Those regulations were designed to protect human lives while supporting responsible use of guns.  Hunting and self-defense were primary reasons to own guns then (see my previous column, AUGUST , 2012 "How we got gun un-control"). Weapons designed smaller and smaller with larger and larger capacity for better concealment and more convenient slaughter of massive numbers of people, such as the Bushmaster 223 and newly marketed high-capacity handguns used in this and recent mass murders, were unknown then.  What military weapons did exist were far larger. Yet working models were rightly kept out of the hands of the consenting general public. That was the right mindset.  

 

As a nation, we have somehow lost our common sense when it comes to weaponry. We have stiff government regulations covering access to driving cars, purchase and use of drugs, and handling of dynamite and fireworks. Such regulations keep our children safe from deranged people or dangerous deadly devices of all kinds—except for guns.

 

Years ago, public will resolved to reduce deaths from car accidents.  We decided as a collective society that we were losing too many human lives to motor vehicle tragedies.   We took a multifaceted approach to reducing the loss of human life, including improved road design (shoulders, guard rails, banked curves), car design (safety glass, gas tank placement), and legal safeguards (speed limits, DUI laws).   The result of these efforts was a drastically reduced death rate from that of the 60's and 70's.

 

Over the same time period that auto transportation became safer, advances in gun technology have combined with legal relaxation of gun regulations to increase the ease and efficiency of death-delivery. Ironically, our advanced American technology, with ongoing handgun design improvements, has now made mass murder alarmingly easy and efficient. While we regularly recall toxic bottles from China or ineffective child care seats, our nation has chosen to deregulate guns. This is in no small way related to a massive media onslaught from the NRA and the gun industry. Marketing has been astonishingly effective in encouraging people to overcome common sense when it comes to the safety of our most precious little citizens.

 

Cholera used to kill lots of people.  So did automobile accidents and urban fires. We've been able to address and reduce the senseless loss of life associated with these hazards.  What seems to be missing in this situation is a rational discussion of strategies to solve the problem.  Our nation is stuck in a national hysteria that has hamstrung our access to a broad-based solution.  Rand Paul, a prominent politician, just sent me an email wanting me to fear that Obama, the United Nations, and our federal law enforcement people are now conspiring together to confiscate my guns. Paul's many followers are claiming last week's tragedy has nothing to do with guns. Cars don't kill people? People do? It's like saying cholera and tuberculosis had nothing to do with germs.

 

So no, just restoring rational gun safety regulations to consistency with our own history and with that of other developed nations of our planet will not alone solve our half-century plague of gun homicide. But it would be a good start toward a rational, investigative science-based discussion leading to real changes. The gun industry and the NRA could restore themselves to their role in our nation as advocates for safety and government regulation of our arsenal of weaponry, and my guns will be accessible for any inspection. But this won't happen under their current leadership. This is not the time for President Obama or other federal government officials, religious leaders or gun industry representatives to shrink from rational dialogue.  Let's work together toward restoring the safety of our children and our own capacity to access basic, American common sense in the face of tragedy.  

 

This ends the column as published in the Big Horn County News. Further information:

 

2010 Advent column, "Strengthening America Against Evil":

http://greenwoodback40.blogspot.com/search?q=advent

 

BACK IN 1990, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) issued this warning: "The religious community must ... take seriously the risk of idolatry that could result from an unwarranted fascination with guns, which overlooks or ignores the social consequences of their misuse." Two decades later, about 660,000 more Americans have been killed by guns, with a million more injured.  Continued on this link: http://sojo.net/magazine/2013/01/9mm-golden-calves

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/jared-loughner-mass-shootings-mental-illness

 

http://audio.commonwealthclub.org/audio/podcast/cc_20121101_gunviolencepanel.mp3

 

A rational approach:

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13358-four-ways-to-stop-gun-violence

 

 

 

 

--
David Graber
RR 1 Box 1211D
631 Woodley Ln
Hardin, MT  59034

406 665-3373
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
Bonnie's email graberbj@gmail.com

Hoaxes and Suffering Hanyackers

 

It seems like greedy and thoughtless people have been with us since the beginning of time. Some of these people have become better than others at using their "gods" to justify catastrophic actions. After all, anyone who is able to acquire great wealth and power to wreak large-scale havoc on the world must be a divine favorite.

This system of belief has also been used to shield against seeing the consequences of irresponsible actions. Many wealthy, powerful "rulers in high places" justified greedy choices by blaming God (or their gods) for resulting damage to other people and the environment. Unfortunately, this pattern doesn't just reflect ancient history. 

 

My mother told me her story of a similar hoax that caused pain, sickness and death in the Southern Plains in the late 20's. She was a little girl when she first heard the stories from relatives farther west. Her father was one of some three million young men seeking their fortunes in the southern plains. These men ended up spending most of their daylight hours hanging onto two plow handles behind two horses every spring until the prairie sod froze in the fall, turning over virgin prairie sod row after row. They came to be labeled in the bars of Kansas towns as "hanyackers."

 

This system of exploitation was promoted and not just by the many pioneer farmers, but by Wall Street wheat investors. At that time, mile upon mile of golden wheat grew in the newly turned topsoil of the heartland prairies. People living in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota in the late 20's thought the bounty would never end. It was, to millions of farmers and a few wealthy investors, a permanent wealth-generating resource. My mother was one of those who believed that all was well, as she was told that her Kansas wheat farm was too far east for the dust storms to reach.

 

Eventually the rains stopped and my grandparent's crop shriveled, along with that of their neighbors. One July afternoon the fields lay with little residue under a hot clear Kansas sky. The wind stilled, the birds stopped singing, and the chickens went to the barn. A dark rolling bank of clouds rose from the northwest horizon to darken the sky.  My grandparents, informed by relatives farther west, knew what to do. My mother was ordered indoors.  The windows were shut and wet bed sheets were draped over cracks. She remembers her father going out to check on livestock, and to similarly drape wet burlap around barn windows, as darkness fell and the wind rose to a furious level. She remembers sticking her finger into cracks in the west wall of the house to stop dust from pouring in, driven by the wind. Her father came in and they waited out the storm into the night. It only happened once to them. They were more fortunate than most.

 

Almost a century later, we are still struggling with the effects of the large-scale topsoil depletion of the 1920s.   Soil scientists are belatedly recognizing the catastrophic death of billions of beings in every cubic inch of soil when prairie sod is busted.  Without these microscopic creatures, production of soil nutrients for plant health ceases, and must be externally applied for plant growth. We live with that legacy and effects of misunderstood human-created additives to soil to this day.

 

It took more than a decade to undo this hoax of the never-ending wheat bounty from just plowing and planting. Government agents were paid and deployed to convince farmers to start strip cropping their wheat between rows of fallow and planting hedgerows around fields, efforts to hold the fragile soil from blowing into the wind. Some churches began supporting the evidence for more responsible farming practices and a great soul-searching allowed farmers to connect stewardship of the Lord's provision with care for the environment, especially that of the soil. That's the tradition into which my parents were born, like many of our Big Horn County ancestors. But many remained in the darkness, unwilling to look at the real options.

 

During this Christmas season, I'm reminded of how Jesus dedicated his life to bringing the light of truth to bear on many hoaxes, including that of greed trumping virtue.  Mary's eloquent song (St.Luke 1, 46f), expresses her hope that her unborn child will bring a new understanding to the world. I also have hope that as we seek to emulate the life of Christ we will not overlook Mary's "Magnificat." We can overcome our human tendencies to value immediate rewards for a few over prosperity for all.  History has shown that kingdoms that rise this way still fall. Edifices of power on their thrones are still cast down.  The "people who walked in darkness" of hopelessness and despair, those losers and low life, still come around to see a great light. Truth again becomes a legitimate pursuit, and human life, especially that of the "least of these," flourishes as the "rich go away empty," and the "hungry are filled." In early Christianity, this was the heart of the advent message.

 

The following is continued from my incomplete column in the Big Horn County News December 4, 2012:

 

It's true right now. See the new documentary Chasing Ice, soon to appear in Billings. For now, check this web link to a 59-year-old committed Bill O'Reilly fan just after watching it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzw1dZNWiL8

 

The "hoax of global warming" is in reality the big money-perpetrated hoax that we can continue greedy consumption of fossil energy, and that the consequences to climate are legitimately placed in God's hands. We are living on the cusp of the most catastrophic climate change in recorded history. Unlike previous changes, this one is connected to our behavior. The science is conclusive. Governments, the energy industry, insurance agencies and our pentagon are already deep into strategic planning on climate change. The only questions are what kind of planning, for how soon, with what degree of human catastrophe. There's also the question, as in the dustbowl days when farmers kept breaking prairie sod years after the dust storms started, of how long we will persist in ignoring basic changes needed, and how long we will hide behind our theology about God's providence when our greed violates his basic ethics about compassion for all creation.

 

It really is in our corporate hands as human inhabitants of the planet.  I hope we as a nation do not prepare to enter the wars almost sure to break out with roots in climate catastrophe. I hope we will start now to alleviate the severity and build infrastructure in keeping with our historical commitment as a nation to human rights.

--
David Graber
Hardin, MT  59034
graberdb@gmail.com

Giving thanks for pain

All this talk about the pending "fiscal cliff" got me thinking about the value of pain in our daily lives.  We don't normally think of pain as a good thing, but it does play an important role in keeping us from repeating dangerous behaviors.  Maybe it's time to accept, as a nation, that greed for more and more must be replaced with thanksgiving for less.  Those on this giddy ride of growing prosperity these latest decades must now attend to the reality of our slippery slope and the sled we ride on.

 

I remember a cold November morning, soon after my 7^th birthday, when I learned an important lesson about pain.  I peered out the window, under my bandaged forehead, into the sunshine. There were my father and my siblings skating on ice over snow-covered fields, with the ice so strong and smooth they could sail forever. It was all I could do, nursing my headache and fever, to pretend I enjoyed watching while suffering the double agony of knowing my pain was avoidable.

 

My lesson started the day before when my brothers and I decided to experience the thrilling sensation of sledding on ice.   That morning started windy, drizzly and soggy as we walked to school, not bothering to pull our sled along through the clinging slush. During the day the temperature dropped and the rain added over an inch of ice to the already hardening snow.  As we were slipping and sliding all over the edges of the road on the way home, we spotted the neighbor girl's sled leaning against their garage door.  All we could think about was how fun it would be to ride that sled down that hill.  Imagine the speeds we could reach!  It would put all other sledding adventures to shame.   We asked to borrow the sled to try out the slope of her front lawn. She said we could, but cautioned us that her sled wouldn't turn.  This is when we should have stopped, but the prospect of that thrilling ride blinded us from reality.

 

My brother went down the hill first, all the way to the road and over into the field beyond. Amazed, I was anxious to try it too. But he said no. He  showed me how only one of the two steering rivets were intact.   However, I was certain that since the steering handle was in place that sled was steerable.  Besides, with all my sledding experience,  I was sure I could handle any exception.  I proceeded to the takeoff point. "I'm telling you, don't ride that sled," said my brother as my hands grasped the rim on one side and the handle on the other. I flopped prone on that sled, aiming it away from the concrete culvert at the bottom of the hill. I barely remember catching some grass that made a little curve to my trajectory back directly at the culvert.  That's the last I remember.

 

My brother said I tried to steer, gave up, released my steering grip and desperately pushed myself away from the sled. But my efforts caused the sled to shoot off harmlessly to the side, and leaving me heading directly into the culvert at far too fast a speed to bounce off it with my hands.

Next thing I remember was my brother dragging me home, barely able to walk, and the shock of opening my eyes to a totally formless red world with no ability to see. Blood had been pouring down into both my eyes, soaking me and freezing on the front of my jacket. I shrieked and coughed out the blood in my nose and mouth as my brother struggled to walk me the quarter mile home.

 

It was one of the few times I was taken to see a doctor in my childhood. He put in four steel clamps to draw the flesh together for healing. He warned my parent to watch my eyes to see if they focused together, and my balance for walking, and sent me home.  I had already been sick to my stomach, and a fever completed my misery for the day. It was the next day that I was watching mournfully, deprived of skating on that cool flat ice. But even more, I was contemplating what I had lost because I didn't pay attention to the exact stuff of rivets, wood, and spring steel sled runners. 

 

American families have been riding this economic sled for some time.   We believed that there were fiscal policies and practices in place that allowed our leaders to guide us safely away from the culvert.  Now our families are getting an economic pain message.   Republicans tell us our sled will be sound if we keep taxes low for the wealthiest. Then they will create more jobs.  Alternatively, Democrats claim to protect entitlements, and that our economy will be restored to health when consumers have more money to spend.  Meanwhile, one rivet is missing and cranking the steering handle left or right doesn't make a bit of difference in the trajectory. Whether a culvert or a cliff looms, our economy is driven by painful mistakes of the past decades, not just the last two administrations.

 

As difficult as the reality is to face, I'm thankful we as a nation are waking up to our true situation, often in spite of our politicians and media. This is the first step in being able to discuss actionable alternatives for fiscal decisions and course corrections.  Let's hope we can pull together to guide ourselves away from the edge of this cliff.  

 

Some sources:

http://www.nomiprins.com/  Nomi Prins was just recently a top executive at Goldman Sachs and longer ago at Bair Stearns. She's now an independent contributor on insider trading and various missteps by government and the financial sector leading to our current difficulties promoted as a "cliff." I think she's very reliable and honest. 

 

http://www.nomiprins.com/thoughts/2012/11/10/real-danger-of-obamacare-insurance-company-takeover-of-healt.html

This is her recent column on obamacare, and insightful assessment beyond most pundits.

 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/spending-more-doesnt-make-us-healthier/

NYT has quite a lot of info in its blogs that's reliable, this is one.

 

Paul Krugman, also at NYT, is good. So are opinion writers in the London Guardian, the Israeli news paper Haaretz, Al Jazeera, and American non-commercial media sources such as Truthout.com, Alternet, Democracy Now, etc.

 

 

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

graberdb@gmail.com

Thin Ice and Five-Legged Dogs

How America lost the 2012 election and what to do about it.

 

The political climate these days feels a lot like skating on thin ice.   It might seem like a hackneyed metaphor, but it contains a lot of truth for those of us who grew up around natural ice.  

 

I recall the day my brothers and I went out for our first skate of the season.   A cold breeze blew across the pond and the new ice looked strong and inviting. We three brothers glanced furtively at a small spot of open water near the dam as the ducks, having kept it open, loudly protested our presence and left for the barn. Our parents had been distracted from weekday farm affairs with Sunday-after-dinner conversation. With a glance at the 12-degree reading on the thermometer they assumed the ice was safe. They didn't think or know about early winter thermal inversion in ponds, and the effect on ice of a large flock of ducks. Soon we were racing around the pond, with each rotation getting closer to the ducky hole of open water in the ice.

 

My older brother warned one of us, "That's too close; the ice is thin near there!" But our confidence and success with this first skating of the season overruled caution. I still remember the crash and tinkling of ice as my brother disappeared under the surface.  A second or two of shocked silence was broken by an icy splash when he emerged, ice shards flying and skate blades digging into the clay as he stomped up the bank of the pond. By the time we ran him back to the house all of us were soaked, and we were dragging him. He was nearly frozen through, but luckily for all of us survived to skate another day. 

 

As with my older brother's warnings, candidates for public office can no longer win in our political system by speaking the truth.  We as the electorate want so badly to be told that we can skate blithely along without considering our underlying economic and societal foundation.  We want to believe that we don't have to do anything hard, that all can all be simple and work out just the way we want.  We'll offer our vote to those who tell us those lies regardless of reality.  The euphemisms marketed by politicians all over our media made it seem like their plan will let us skate safely on thin ice, and that's all that matters. 

 

Abe Lincoln used to ask, "If you call the tail of a dog a leg, how many legs does that dog have?" Whenever somebody answered "Five," he would say, "No. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." He was referring to slavery, and the habit of euphemizing it as "our peculiar institution." The remedy for the loss we all suffer in this bad election year is to detect and stop our euphemistic thinking.

 

In this election season, all of us in Big Horn County were bombarded with media-generated euphemisms.  These clever phrases were designed to keep us spinning past honest problems in order to market to us a distorted worldview. Unfortunately, when we immerse our minds and emotions in these phrases, our honest concern for fellow families, our county, the nation and especially humanity worldwide is quelled. We need to be shocked into confronting the avoidable tragedies coming as irrational euphemistic thinking has been surrounding and shoving us onto thin ice.

 

If a car mechanic subscribed to an ideology that all car engine problems result from faults in the ignition system, the mechanic would have a very hard time fixing a car with a broken fuel pump.  As illogical and unproductive as this seems, our politicians have a penchant for giving us euphemisms that blind us from real complexity.  What do terms like deep recession, climate change, or preemptive defense really mean?  Do they distract us from the reality of a failing economy, global warming, and international bullying? 

 

The more we run away from the reality of our problems and dive into partisan ideology dictating one easy answer, the more those clever enough to tell us what we want to hear further their own interests at the expense of the rest of us.  The best thing we can do is to embrace reality and strive to work together to address the problems we want to deny because they seem impossible to solve.   

 

Now that the 2012 election over, its time to cure our winners of their euphemistic thinking. We've already had a national shocking plunge or two through the thin ice around our pond's ducky economic hole. It should wake us up to really working collaboratively rather than obstructively to achieve positive change in our society.  Did those winners tell us what we wanted to hear?  Do they have a track record of saying whatever it takes to get elected? Anyone thinking their candidate has been telling the truth and the other guy was lying needs to watch how close they are to the ducky hole. We the people need to start holding our elected government and its corporate cronies responsible for the truth they had been avoiding, starting now.

 

Sources are cited and further information follows below. The column as written in the paper is above.

 

Lie to me I promise I'll believe
Lie to me but please don't leave

 

Sheryl Crow,  from her song, "Strong Enough"

 

Our political system requires lies. The swirls of distracting euphemisms by both parties creeps into our living rooms, distracting us from real problems. We want a strength based not on reality, but on euphemisms strong enough to cast a false image we can't achieve because it's not real, and all the wealth, technology and military force in the world can't make it real.

We have used various euphemisms

 

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12434-beyond-the-dead-end-of-american-electoral-politics-rethinking-the-crisis-of-politics

 

http://journalism.about.com/od/writing/a/Keep-Euphemisms-Out-Of-Your-News-Stories.htm

 

 

The Human Factor is Now Affirmed in Global Climate Change

Global climate change has now been affirmed significantly as having a human cause by the Cato institute and the United States Department of Defense. This has implications for a new sense of responsibility upon our nation, but has been ignored or denied in our 2012 election.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/22/509090/patrick-michaels-and-the-cato-institute-unwittingly-accept-the-climate-threat/?mobile=nc

Patrick Michaels and the Cato Institute

 

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=116192

 

http://www.wgbhnews.org/post/innovation-hub-10202012-encore-global-warmings-new-math

 

See the press releases selected by Pew Trusts on climate change.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_detail.aspx?id=919

 

 

China loans, the national debt, wars and waste

 

Our marriage of high tech industry and our military, creating dependency upon trillions of taxpayer dollars invested with no hope of return to benefit American citizens, in the last decade a significant factor in the borrowing from citizens of China.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/iraq/

 

http://www.moneymatters101.com/debt/debtaddict.asp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/15/us-debt-how-big-who-owns

 

 

 The Corporate Mad Dogs of Citizens United

by Texas Congressman Jim Hightower

 

http://www.nationofchange.org/corporate-mad-dogs-citizens-united-1351690614

Published: Wednesday 31 October 2012

"As feared, our people's democratic authority has been dogged nearly to death by the hounds of money in this election go 'round, thanks to the Supreme Court's reckless decree in the now-infamous Citizens United case.

 

"That rank political power play by five black-robed judicial partisans unleashed the Big Dogs of corporate money to bite democracy right in the butt this year, poisoning our elections with the venom of unlimited special-interest cash. But there's also been another, little-reported consequence of the malevolent Citizens United decision: It has unleashed mad-dog corporate bosses to tell employees how to vote.

 

"CEO David Siegel of Westgate Resorts, a major peddler of time-share schemes, warned his 7,000-strong workforce against voting for Obama. To do so, he wrote in a letter to each of them, would 'threaten your job.' Obama, Siegel declared, planned to raise taxes on multimillionaires like him, which would give him 'no choice but to reduce the size of this company.'

 

"Likewise, Dave Robertson, president of the Koch brothers' industrial empire, notified 30,000 workers that they would suffer assorted 'ills' if they helped re-elect Obama. In case that message was too subtle, Robertson helpfully included a slate-card of Koch-approved candidates for them to take into the polling booth."

 

 

 

Wall Street Won the Election. The American people lost.

http://www.nomiprins.com/thoughts/2012/10/23/before-the-election-was-over-wall-street-won.html

By Nomi Prins, Tuesday 23 October 2012

 

"Banks trump citizens, and absent severe reconstruction of the banking system, the cycle will absolutely, unequivocally continue.

 

"Before the campaign contributors lavished billions of dollars on their favorite candidate; and long after they toast their winner or drink to forget their loser, Wall Street was already primed to continue its reign over the economy.

For, after three debates (well, four), when it comes to banking, finance, and the ongoing subsidization of Wall Street, both presidential candidates and their parties' attitudes toward the banking sector is similar  – i.e. it must be preserved – as is – at all costs, rhetoric to the contrary, aside."

 

 

Naomi Prins a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, now a senior fellow at Demos, writes regularly on corruption in Washington and Wall Street for news outlets ranging from Fortune to Mother Jones. It Takes a Pillage is her third non-fiction book. It gets inside how the banks looted the Treasury, stole the bailout, and continued with business as usual. We all watched as packs of former Big Financiers commandeered posts in Washington and lavished trillions in bailouts to "save" big Wall Street firms that used that money for anything and everything except to fill in Main Street's potholes. We all watched as Wall Street heavyweights fought tooth and nail to declaw financial reform and won.

 

It's time to address the most significant unaddressed real issues, fogged out by the fraudulent fakery of fisticuffs, in hopes President Rombama will rise to the occasion with the election over. These are the issues that have disunited our nation most grievously, and stand to threaten global humanity and Big Horn County residents unlike any other. We, the people of these United States, need to talk out our disunity.

 

 

Fatalities in the GOP War on Regulation

Thursday, 01 November 2012 09:10By Dr Brian Moench

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12463-fatalities-in-the-gop-war-on-regulation

Federal investigators close off access to the offices of the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, October 16, 2012. Criminal investigators from the FDA were on site at the center on Tuesday in the first public indication that the government was preparing a criminal case against the company linked to a deadly outbreak of meningitis. (Photo: Barry Chin / Boston Globe)

 

More Americans than died in the attacks on the World Trade Center die every year from contaminated medicine, food, air and water. Yet the GOP argues we cannot afford the promulgation and enforcement of the regulations that would save these lives.

 

I doubt Lilian Cary, 67, would be voting for Mitt Romney or any Republican this year. Actually, Lilian won't be voting for anyone next week, because she died of meningitis, weeks after being injected with steroids for back pain. She is one of 25 people so far to have died from contaminated vials of epidural steroids. Her husband was also given those injections at the same clinic and could be facing a similar fate. As of late October, 338 people have been stricken by infection. In all, over 14,000 people have been injected with these contaminated steroids. There will undoubtedly be more illnesses and deaths before this mass tragedy is over.

 

 

The Weimar Syndrome and the American Economy

 

Thursday, 01 November 2012 13:35By Charles Derber and Yale Magrass, Truthout | Op-Ed

 

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12477-historys-magic-mirror-americas-economic-crisis-and-the-weimar-republic-of-pre-nazi-germany207

 

"Germany's economic crisis of the 1930s led to the rise of far-right populism and the Nazi Party, fueled by the corporate and military establishment. An American version of this "Weimar Syndrome" could emerge as the far Right closes its grip on the Republican Party.

 

"Contrary to common wisdom, the ascendancy of the Tea Party, Christian fundamentalist, militarist, anti-feminist, anti-immigrant and other racially-coded right-wing elements in the Republican Party - that could gain preponderant influence over the nation in a Romney/Ryan Administration - is not new. It is the most recent example of the "Weimar Syndrome," where liberal and Left parties fail to solve serious economic crises, helping right-wing movements and policies - that lack major public support, but are groomed and funded by the corporate and military establishment - to take power."

 

 

Two dangerous crises ignored in the presidential debates..

http://www.alternet.org/world/chomsky-america-acts-it-owns-world-while-endangering-planet-nuclear-war-and-climate-change

 

Chomsky: "America Acts Like It Owns the World, While Endangering the Planet from Nuclear War and Climate Change"

Inability to face the truth about ourselves in this country is all too common a feature across American society.

October 26, 2012  |  

Note: In a recent speech, Professor Chomsky examined topics largely ignored or glossed over during the campaign, from China to the Arab Spring, to global warming and the nuclear threat posed by Israel versus Iran. He spoke last month at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst at any event sponsored by the Center for Popular Economics. His talk was entitled "Who Owns the World?" Democracy Now! transcribed Chomsky's talk

 

 

 

The War Against the Poor (and middle class)

 

http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/10/04/who-didn%E2%80%99t-win-presidential-debate

 

But save the big government issue, the part of it that's real.

 

The most important disagreement between the two parties is over the size of the federal government vis-à-vis state local and state government, especially the family. Those of us fed up with bureaucrats dictating our personal and financial affairs swarm like flies into a flytrap that takes our intention of "we built that" and reduces rather than enhances our control of our destiny.

 

Those who claim constitutional support to reduce our federal government's role, increasing state and local control, are badly distorting the historical foundation of our American government. We have in Big Horn County many families who, without federal government subsidy, would not survive here. And many are farmers. So let's take a look at what really happened two centuries ago that helped our families here to work for a living, and thrive.

 

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/how-mitt-romney-would-screw-red-states-support-him?akid=9617.144927.amFqBw&rd=1&src=newsletter736736&t=3

 

Mitt Romney's suggestion that emergency management is best left up to the states is not just a silly, ideologically informed bit of campaign rhetoric. It represents a radical departure from what most people think it means to be an American – a view that has been litigated in our past, and consigned to the dustbin of history

 

 

 

 

--
David Graber
Hardin, MT  59034
graberdb@gmail.com
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org

The corn pickin’ caper

"Well, Dad did it first," proclaimed my brother.


Caught up in Halloween Eve pranks at our farm with our parents gone, we two brothers were vulnerable to a neighbor boy's focus on the first word of "trick or treat" against our own family that windy, cold October 31 night. We agreed, with our neighbor boy a year my senior, to replicate our Dad's prank of disassembling a Model T and assembling it on top of a barn. 


The old corn pickin' wagon was too much temptation. We opened the gate to the cornfield where it was abandoned, a victim of farm mechanization. We pulled it by hand up to the east side of our barn.


A pliers from my pocket easily slipped the cotter pins loose, the washers fell off, and the wooden wheels literally fell of the wagon as the catcher side boards flopped loose. With the single-row Case cornpicker behind our John Deere A just a week before, we knew we would never repeat last October's collective thuds of corn ears flung against those side boards as Dad controlled Babe and Dummy, the beloved faithful farm team, with voice commands. The husking hook Dad gave me on a crisp frosty morning the previous October, now was an obscure memory.


The stiff northeast breeze rose a bit as we threw a rock fastened with binder twine over the corn crib. We tied it to the heavy hay rope used to pull hay loads up into the barn, and pulled on the twine to get the rope up over the top. Then deciding on the heaviest item first, we tied the chassis of that old wagon to the rope caught and hitched our old mule to the rope on the other side of that two-story high corn crib. 


Then came the first problem. The mule wouldn't move hitched up. Dad was not there, and even my older brother could not pull hard enough on his halter to make the commands work. We tried a whip, and the mule simply crunched up and mumbled complaints. 


Then our neighbor boy picked up a two by four. He had barely raised it when the mule took off. There was a crash, a sound of falling debris, and we ran around the barn as the unseen mule, its tethers trailing, ran through the gate we left open into the un-picked corn field. We rounded the corner to see part of one sideboard that had broken off, jammed against the eave of the corncrib roof, and tumbled back down to the ground. The rest of the broken chassis lay askew on the ground. 


We stared long enough at the scene to feel the east wind blowing snowflakes against our noses and into our eyes, but were not ready to give up. We used the rope on opposite sides of the crib to help each other and the first wheel up onto the roof. But the increasing snow wetting the cedar shake barn was turning to ice. We tried, but it was getting late. Our parents would soon be home.


We gave up. The neighbor boy left for home, and we went to bed where we knew we should be on Halloween Eve when our parents arrived home. 


Next morning Dad came in to wake us up for chores. He had already been out, finding our milk cows in the corn, the crib barn roof wrecked, and the corn wagon broken in pieces. He wanted an explanation.


My memory is vague of the punishment I earned for this foolishness over a half century ago. I do remember the chagrin of feeling the guilt of Halloween tricks against my own family. I also remember the embarrassment of letting a little peer pressure set aside my good sense. I don't know if it was spoken, but I remember being sure my father regretted telling me his story. But most, I remember his chastising us for thinking we could get the wagon up on the roof without the wheels on to help it roll up past the roof edge, and over the top ridge.

The following paragraphs written in consultation with my editor, Shelly Sutherland, were deleted in the paper edition of my BHC News column this week:

Every generation wonders how the next will survive to adulthood.  We elders ponder where they come up with so many dumb, and often dangerous ideas, about ways to pass their time during adolescence.  Well, guess what?  It's usually passed down from us. Of course we got many of these same "original" ideas from one of our progenitors.  The details of these pranks vary, but there are some classics. This one from my childhood.

I don't know if it was spoken, but I remember being sure my father regretted telling me the story of his prankster triumph.  I also hope my grandchildren aren't reading this story about my own misadventures.  I don't want seeds sown that could lead to future chaos in Big Horn County.

Also, Hallowe'en history is fascinating regarding the syncretism between Christian and pagan religious observances.  For the ancient Celtic religious observance of Sanheim, the origin of most of our Hallowe'en traditions, see:  http://allsaintsbrookline.org/celtic/samhain.html

Here is the most honest essay I found that recounts the most important Christian history associated with the "All Saints Day" and the day before, known as Hallowe'en:

www.stjohnbchurch.org/HalloweenNotHollow.pdf

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

graberdb@gmail.com

Obomney for President?

Both political parties issue surveys where one can rank issues in order of importance. Last week I got another one. Frustrated with the misleading agenda-driven wording designed around the myth that there's a big difference between the two candidates and parties, I changed wording and added a few issues.  But there is little use.

 

The most important national issues are absent in the debates. Obama and Romney agree on so many issues they are essentially one and the same candidate.

 

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11991-social-security-president-obamas-biggest-failure-in-last-weeks-debate

 

"Obomney" will win the presidency, and our nation will lose again. The independent and third party candidates are bringing up the most pressing issues affecting our national security and economy. But they are shut out of the debate. The Commission on Presidential Debates, set up after the League of Women Voters withdrew citing fraud on the American People, now sets the rules and controls the audience. So the national debates we should have, the issues that most affect us in Big Horn County and families around the world, will not happen.

 

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11991-social-security-president-obamas-biggest-failure-in-last-weeks-debate

 

http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/10/04/who-didn%E2%80%99t-win-presidential-debate

 

They argue with each other over which plan bodes the worst for a contrived crisis in social security, Medicare and Medicaid. We have, in Big Horn County, come to believe these benefits (not entitlements) we've paid for over almost a century are ending. Neither candidate nor party discusses a simple solution: make these payroll deductions a flat tax and keep the same benefit max for social security. Income levels above the current cap of $106,800, rare in Big Horn County, would then be taxed at the same rate. Keeping the benefit max, doing away with that cap and flattening the tax would simplify payroll taxes for employers.  It would also, solve the funding problem of these programs forever, and allow lowering, not raising, the overall payroll deduction rate or age of starting benefits.  This option is off the presidential debate table.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/opinion/krugman-disdain-for-workers.html?_r=0&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

 

option-eliminate-the-payroll-tax-cap-AARP-ppi-econ-sec.pdf

 

Eliminating the Social Security Payroll Cap: A Bad Idea | NCPA

 

The great Obamacare debate has run its course, with a successful censorship of the public option by both parties. Now Romney, in his latest waffling in the Denver debates, has made clearer his plan to replace Obamacare with Obomneycare.  Neither plan brings us anywhere near par with other first world nations' health care expenditures because it ignores the public option employed virtually universally outside our borders.

 

The two parties want us to argue over the middle class instead of seeing the many families who were middle class, and now have fallen below the line. They mislead us into thinking it is simple joblessness. They ignore the huge growth of jobs that do not pay a living wage. So we continue the myth that the poor simply lack initiative, and refuse reform of our currently unjust economy, hostile to millions of American families. Check out the new documentary http://thelinemovie.com/

 

Other sources on American poverty:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/opinion/krugman-disdain-for-workers.html?_r=0&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

 

They opt for the least viable option in addressing Iran's potential for a nuclear weapon, because they think we the people feel safe with them shaking our big stick. The better option is to convene a broad nuclear conference over Iran's possible nuclear threat including those two Middle East nations already having deliverable nukes trigger ready: Israel and Pakistan. These two should submit to the same UNSCOM inspections and truth-telling Iran has been allowing—yes, allowing, and that truth is not spoken to the American people. Such a strategy would guarantee an end to Iran's potential nuke preparations, motivated by the current reality of no nuclear parity with Israel. Like with Saddam, will we successfully negotiate away viable defensive weapons and then, God forbid, bomb and invade another nation.

 

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/09/25/iran-reaffirms-offer-on-nukes/

 

http://www.amazon.com/Disarming-Iraq-Hans-Blix/dp/B000BTH5LC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349734224&sr=8-1&keywords=Hans+Blix

 

We Big Horn County family elders, concerned with our children and grandchildren serving in harm's way, don't want to give our government an automatic approval for another unwarranted war.

 

I'm reminded of when the Baghdad bombing began. Hundreds of our English students were gathered at a XiHua University auditorium in China for a public debate contest. Our department head, considered a friend of mine at the time, spoke these words: "America can't be trusted. China will never give up its nuclear weapons. Iraq did. Now look what's happening." I was shocked. 

 

We are bombarded here in this election season with hyped up controversies between the two political parties exemplified both in Rehberg's Government Madness blog and the many Democratic talking points. As a result, our candidates both proclaim this election is about something much bigger than who is president. Then they stand together across the centerline of their road choice and beckon us into their sideshow political fights. As Noam Chomsky says, "…so there are differences between the parties: about how enthusiastically the lemmings should march toward the cliff." So yes, this election is about something bigger than  Obomney for president. But they have agreed to ignore us here, and our media mostly rubberstamps censorship of the most important issues our nation now faces.

 

(Here ends the column in the Big Horn County News)

This problem is profoundly irrational, and unlike anything in our history, in our current broad distrust of science.  Shawn Otto is author of a book worth reading to get a grip on how far we have strayed as a nation from responsible research:

Good Science Always Has Political Ramifications. Why? Because a scientifically testable claim can be shown to be either most probably true or false, whether the claim is made by a king or a president, a Pope, a Congressperson, or a common citizen. [Book Excerpt]

 

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America

Author, filmmaker, science advocate Shawn Otto

Shawn Otto, an acclaimed author, filmmaker and noted science advocate, whose book "Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America" (Rodale Books, 2011) is the winner of the 2012 Minnesota Book Award for general nonfiction

 

He is featured writer in The Scientific American

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-platform-to-crowdfund-the-truth-2012-09

 

Can Democracy Still Work in the Age of Science?– Shawn Otto

"Jefferson's central idea of democracy is that "whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." Jefferson thought it required "no very high degree" of education for people to be well-enough informed. But what happens in a world dominated by complex science? Are the people still well-enough informed to be trusted with their own government? Why or why not? Today, science is under political attack like never before. At the same time, science impacts almost every aspect of modern life, and is poised to create more knowledge in the next 40 years than in all of recorded history. Can we expect attacks to increase or lessen? Why is this happening? Why is it so much worse in the United States than the UK or EU? Why are people the world over protesting against both autocratic and democratic governments? Can democracy survive the rush of science? We'll compare strategies scientists and journalists can use online and off to manage these emerging science challenges – together with a world of unsolved legacy environmental science challenges – for science and better public policy."

 

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/noam-chomsky-fate-humanity-stake-why-are-romney-and-obama-too-cowardly-talk-about-what

 

http://people.howstuffworks.com/debate3.htm

 

http://www.montanademocrats.org/node/409

 

https://rehbergforms.house.gov/govmadness

 

The two parties want us talking about who is to blame instead of what to do about climate change. Of course, the consensus in the scientific community regarding the human role in climate change may be questionable (I doubt it is). But the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice is not questionable, happening decades sooner than forecasts of 2011.  Now, without a national debate, plans are afoot to harvest the vast newly available energy resources in that fragile environment. No attention is paid to the science on the meaning of this symptom of global warming.

 

Recent attention paid to the increase in sea ice off Antarctica avoids the larger affect of global warming as a cause of the marked increase in westerly winds around the continent. It's the increased air flow off the 2-mile-high mountain of ice over the continent, a circular wind current that, though warmer than the air in winter usually is, results in significantly more sea ice. I remember my daughter's experience in the 1990's researching ice of -50 degree temperatures in tunnels deep below the South Pole Station while record high temperatures in summer there were -20 F.

 

Our international relations have become firmly under control of powerful people who reverse Jesus' Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Instead we have adopted pre-emptive war, "do in others before they do you in." This has been our misdirected response to the world tragedy of terrorism since 9-11. Of course we want carnage and deadly civil strife of terrorism removed outside our borders instead of having it happen here. But, by invading other countries and establishing military bases all around the world we have discarded the most powerful tool to stamp out terrorism: collaboration with friendly citizens of nations where there is an anti-American element. The neighbors of these radicals have the power to squelch them. Instead we drone them. Or bomb them. or break in the doors of their homes. We capture, disappear and torture their parents, brothers and sons. Of course some of these are committed to fighting against us. But we haven't really sought to stay there and listen to them. So we wonder why they hate us.

 

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/robert-greenwald/its-long-past-time-admit-military-solution-afghanistan-has-failed-0

 

The Drones now giving President Obama the exclusive power to exterminate a human being of his choice almost anywhere in the world presents a variety of legal issues. Can the US government legitimately attack and kill citizens in a foreign country with which we are at peace?  Even with their tacit consent? 

U of VA author Ashley Deeks justifies this as self defense.  Because the US is targeting groups in Pakistan that are associated with the 9-11 attacks, it has the right of self defense by attacking.

 

The drone legal controversy is thus brought to focus, but not in the debates.  We are not supposed to see or think about the families with children and old people hearing drones in the sky from inside their homes, trapped by poverty and geography in a brutal reality that drones could target their house any night. The psychological wounds from our drone war against the people of Northern Pakistan will come back to haunt us in spreading hatred of America. Instead President Obomney—either Romney or Obama— will continue droning us to peaceful sleep at night with assurances his drones will keep us safe another four years.

 

http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/10/05/can-any-good-come-drones

 

http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/09/25/drone-watch-living-under-drones

 

But road not taken by either party is about choosing to examine honestly and clearly the options we have as a nation on two crucial fronts worldwide: escalating warfare, and escalating climate change. 

 

Both issues affect us right here in Big Horn county. We have one of the highest per capita rate of soldiers serving in combat.

 

On the big science issues and the environment, Scientific American's Shawn Oono says science lies at the center of our biggest policy controversies.  Yet our scientists are not consulted, and our leaders and pundits diminish the importance.

 

On climate, Obama talks about regulating green house gases and increasing fuel efficiency. Romney has backed off from saying we don't know what causes climate change. He now agrees humans have affected our climate crisis. Yet he still says there is no consensus.  His mutually contradictory statements have implications. 

 

On food quality, Romney is about deregulation. He says industry will self-regulate adequately.   Obama says we need government.

 

Water safety.  Overconsumption is threatening the standard of a minimal amount of water for everyone.  Obama talks about a clean water act he tried to push through.  Obama has no specific steps.  He says the real problem with water quality is over-regulation.  Which triggers regulation. He would relax regulations because they are costly and ineffective.

 

Energy.  Obama doesn't talk about the future, he just cites his past policy.

Romney talks about energy independence, but really means north America.  He thinks we could be.  But this is unreal, since the global market determines price and access. 

 

Obama's answers intersect a bit more with what scientists are saying than Romney.

They both ignore our incarceration system. "Perhaps most frighteningly--both to the public and to many of the inmates themselves--is that 2,000 of these men in solitary confinement are released directly from extreme isolation onto the streets of New York every single year.

 

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/unbelievable-inhumanity-solitary-confinement-and-punishment-little-reading-book

 

The often invisible experience of those living in extreme isolation in the state's prison system is revealed in a new study by the New York Civil Liberties Union . The report paints a damning picture of a cruel and expensive practice that is being phased out in other states even as it expands across New York State."

 

They both ignore the poor.

 

http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/10/04/who-didn%E2%80%99t-win-presidential-debate

 

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/10-most-shameless-romney-debate-lies-debunked?page=0%2C1&akid=9486.144927.RsY4PF&rd=1&src=newsletter721717&t=3

 

 

The Mexican gun & drugs war made is in America.  Mexican people blame the American government and gun business for the horrific death and destruction over the border. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H33u1e80WY&feature=relmfu

 

http://factcheck.org/2012/09/romneys-stump-speech/

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/04/1139793/-Mitt-Romney-Lying-to-victory?detail=email

 

http://www.nationofchange.org/hedge-fund-hype-wall-street-horoscopes-and-drop-top-jets-magical-minds-radical-rich-1348753394

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMOzvmgVhc&feature=youtu.be

 

A seven minute video.  Choose who to believe, our government, or the people who went to Pakistan to investigate? Here are some quotes from people who live in the area:  "We don't know why there are drone attacks in our area. But it's Americans doing this, to end the lives of Muslims.  Do American people know the drone strikes here are killing civilians?

 

http://www.nationofchange.org/romney-passes-torch-taxpayers-1349356703

 

Romney's Salt Lake City Olympics, researched by Hightower, the Texas congressman.

 

http://www.nationofchange.org/what-hell-happened-1349363594

"Mr. President, if you can't explain why you are the Commander-in-Chief in this class war against the billionaire bandits attempting to seize our government, then get off the horse and let someone in the saddle who can ride." --Greg Palast

 

http://www.nationofchange.org/last-night-s-debate-romney-told-27-myths-38-minutes-1349364077

 

Four years later Mondale and Reagan vetoed 80 of the moderators league of women voters proposed because they did not want difficult questions.  Remember the public outcry? The next debate included League of Women Voters recommended moderators.

 

In four more years Dukakis and Bush drafted the first ever 12 page-secret debate contract.  League refused, and published the contract, accusing both candidates of trying to subvert the democratic process. The commission got the backing of Republican and Democratic leaders and created a commission to implement the same 12 page contract. Frank Farencoff is still cochair, and he is also director of the American Gaming Commission.  Other cochair is Mike McCurry.  Lobbiest for  media interests.  

 

What are corporations doing sponsoring debates?  Anheiser Bush is biggest.  It can simultaneously demonstrate support for both parties and get great exposure to politicians.  SW airlines, international bottled water, howard buffet, kennedy library, two law firms are other current sponsors. Candidates cannot actually ask each other questions.  No third party or independent candidates are admitted.  The 2004 secret contract written by the join commission of Republican and Democrat leaders was 32 pages long.

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/3/ahead_of_first_obama_romney_debate?autostart=true&get_clicky_key=suggested_most_popular_story

 

 

--
David Graber
RR 1 Box 1211D
631 Woodley Ln
Hardin, MT  59034

406 665-3373
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
Bonnie's email graberbj@gmail.com

The World’s Most Effective Educators

 

—have been sabotaged, sidelined and demeaned.

 

Education is the most effective remedy for poverty. Research increasingly proves this, highlighting that early success in learning most correlates with later success in society.

 

Lesser known is the power of parent as teacher. The key to rebuilding education in America is restoring the priority of parent and child as a learning pair, especially with very young children. The erosion of this vital relationship over the decades goes a long way in explaining our dysfunctional society with our rampant incarceration rates, poverty, greed, loss of the American dream, and life stress. 

 

That learning relationship was stronger in the 1940's when my siblings and I were young. My parents and grandparents had been raised under their parents' and grandparents' tutelage. In this way, they learned who they were. The songs, games, stories and religious values of our heritage were internalized, not as head knowledge, but as heart knowledge. They were safe, and they belonged —two things so rare for young children today. When my parents imparted that knowledge to me, I was learning trust and courage through family bonding.

 

Learning was not yet separated out from real human bonding and placed behind a video screen.  No one could have imagined back then how pervasive screen media would be in the life of today's children. 

 

I remember as a boy, when my siblings and I first heard the new word "television." One of our friends told us about this magical invention that his family had obtained.  That night, without parent permission, we sneaked over the crest of the hill after dark toward a flickering blue light coming from their window. We crept up to the window. We could barely make out the neighbor family with their backs to the window, gazing intently at a small flickering screen. On the screen were obvious faces moving and talking. We couldn't understand what they were saying, but the shock was etched in my memory. It was clear that somehow people had been transformed and stuck in a box. How could any child resist this powerful form of hypnotism! We shivered in the cool night and ran home to tell our parents we wanted one of those boxes. 

 

It didn't happen. My father called it a work saver. My grandfather called it the devil's playground. Our church met and decided this worldly device could not be in any church members' homes. If allowed in, it would corrupt our lives and destroy our Salvation. I didn't understand then the importance of human feedback response to learn trust, respect of self and others, and the bond of family. I didn't know then the importance of learning to live with others for life success, and how that that learning starts at a very young age and its importance peaks at around 2 years old when a child is most easily attracted to the artificial pseudo-human feedback the screen media gives.

 

Since then, TV and other screen media have damaged the learning pair relationship of parent and child. It didn't happen because of poor programming. The very best Sesame Street can't stop the damage. It happened because the attraction of moving faces and bodies, gesturing for attention of toddlers, displaces the most crucial learning unit of education in America and around the world: parent with child—especially before age 3.

 

Enter into the Harlem Children's Zone. The New York City hotbed of crime and poverty in the 70's is now a national success story of poverty transformation. Crime is down. Streets are now dramatically safer for children. Alcohol and drug abuse are reduced. Children do not grow up to be incarcerated as before. It happened in Harlem because of an amazing story of parents and their young children pairing for learning for life. Parents were entrusted with their young children, not simply criticized for failing to parent and losing their child to the courts. Parent classes were not penalties for failure to parent properly.  TV is set aside in favor of "Baby College," where children before age 3 learn to function in real human feedback paired with a parent.

 

Across the nation we need to turn back to the naturally occurring parent-child learning pair lost in the last century with the rise of industrialization, the screen media, and an economy that, for survival, daily separates parents from their young. More funding for social services, head start and home visiting educators cannot in itself be compensation for the loss of the world's most effective educators at each child's most powerful learning age. The most effective programs pay a parent to come to a specially designed weekly class paired with their pre-3 child. It's probably the most cost effective wages paid to teachers anywhere.

 

Education administrators and government officials in Big Horn County know the real tax dollar savings potentially available if parents could do better as their children's first teachers. Here we need one of those proven program that focuses on restoring the natural learning connections between our youngest children and their home caregivers, usually Mom.  It's only through acknowledging and restoring parents as a child's first teacher that we can re-establish those early learning experiences vital for educational success in our world today. It's by far the biggest gap in our education system in Big Horn County, and goes a long way toward explaining our schooling difficulties. And we can do something about it.

 

Since the time of my first encounter with TV, this and other screen media have damaged the learning pair relationship of parent and child. It didn't happen because of poor programming. The very best Sesame Street can't stop the damage. It happened because the attraction of moving faces and bodies, gesturing for attention of toddlers, displaces the most crucial learning unit of education in America and around the world: parent with child—especially before age 3.

 

Enter into the Harlem Children's Zone. The New York City hotbed of crime and poverty in the 70's is now a national success story of poverty transformation. Crime is down. Streets are now dramatically safer for children. Alcohol and drug abuse are reduced. Children do not grow up to be incarcerated as before. It happened in Harlem because of an amazing story of parents and their young children pairing for learning for life. Parents were entrusted with their young children, not simply criticized for failing to parent and losing their child to the courts. Parent classes were not penalties for failure to parent properly.  TV is set aside in favor of "Baby College," where children learn to function in real human feedback paired with a parent.

 

Other such programs with this priority have begun across the nation.  A Waldorf School has begun just this year in Lakota country in South Dakota. Missouri in 1970 started a "Parents as Teachers" program that has spread westward, with some content in Montana. Oregon has a growing and well run poverty-alleviation program focusing on the learning pair of parent and young child. Even here in Big Horn County we have the "Family Support Network" pioneering parent involvement with children in school activities. Education administrators and city and county government officials have discovered real tax dollar savings by investing in paying parents to bring children to weekly classes facilitated by professionals in early child education and family dynamics, experienced in proven models expecting commitment to specific curricular content and family change.  

 

There's room for much more here in Big Horn County. We need to examine successful programs such as in Oregon, New York, and South Dakota. We need to hire more professionals experienced in facilitating the learning pair of parent and young child.  And we need learning materials to match the content pre-3's need.

 

Across the nation we need to turn back to the naturally occurring parent-child learning pair lost in the last century with the rise of industrialization, the screen media, and an economy that, for survival, daily separates parents from their young. More funding for social services, head start and home visiting educators cannot in itself be compensation for the loss of the world's most effective educators at each child's most powerful learning age. The most effective programs pay a parent to come to a specially designed weekly class paired with their pre-3 child. It's probably the most cost effective wages paid to teachers anywhere.

 

http://seattletimes.com/html/jerrylarge/2019178227_jdl17.htmlA healthy life may require a good start

Early-life stress and trauma can harm American lives. Columnist Jerry Large says a new book convinced him that the country has to do more to help people when they are young, because stresses and traumas manifest in mental and physical ways later on.

 

Compassionate and based on the latest research, Scared Sick Childhood Trauma unveils a major public health crisis. Highlighting case studies and cutting-edge scientific findings, Karr- Morse shows how our innate fight-or-flight system can injure us if overworked in the early stages of life. Persistent stress can trigger diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, and addiction later on.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Scared-Sick-Childhood-Trauma-Disease/

It's written by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith Wiley. In our youngest children, society sows the seeds of problems that it spends much time and money dealing with as people age. We know that now, and we can do something about it

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinion/sunday/can-great-teaching-overcome-the-effects-of-poverty.html?_r=2

"Are We Asking Too Much From Our Teachers?"  By ALEX KOTLOWITZ     Published: September 14, 2012

"It's been too easy to see this dispute (The Chicago teachers' strike) as one between two hotheaded personalities — Mr. Emanuel and Ms. Lewis, or as a play for respect. Rather, as I spoke with teachers on the picket lines last week, it became clear that it was about something much more fundamental, and something worth our attention: top-notch teaching can't by itself become our nation's answer to a poverty rate that, as we learned the other day, remains stubbornly high: one of every five children in America live below the poverty level."

 

Paul Tough, How Children Succeed  (Houghton Mifflin, Sept. 2012)

Why do some children succeed while others fail?

The following is adapted from Amazon's description:

The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs.

But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control.

How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character. Through their stories—and the stories of the children they are trying to help—Tough traces the links between childhood stress and life success. He uncovers the surprising ways in which parents do—and do not—prepare their children for adulthood. And he provides us with new insights into how to help children growing up in poverty. The role of economics necessitating both parents finding work away from their children is not explored in this book. How would children benefit from the simple economic reform of a living wage law? This book implicitly points in this direction. Too bad it does not 

 

The Death and Life of the Great American School System, by Diane Ravitch (Perseus Books, 2010)

Loads of information with documented official proceedings surrounding changes in education policy.  Actual events with details in sequence paint a reliable picture that damns and exonerates both sides in the public school controversy continuing to rage the nation. As such, this is a valuable contribution to anyone who would deal with issues such as school choice, testing, merit pay, class size, segregation, the role of the arts, student health, violence and bullying, nutrition, curriculum, teacher education and internships, religious concerns, and probably all the major facets of education controversy that continue to this day. I recommend this as a realistic, honest analysis, relayed without political bias. This book can be borrowed at Greenwood Farm.

 

A list of web sites and other sources focusing on parents and their children learning together:

 

http://hcz.org/images/stories/pdfs/ali_summerfall2002.pdf

 

http://mnwaldorf.org/parent-tot-classes/

 

http://www.childrensfarm.org/parent_child.html

 

http://www.quickenloans.com/blog/parentchild-classes-rock

 

http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/152/prof4.html

 

http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeadult/download/pdf/FamLitProgModelAdapted.pdf

 

http://www.linnbenton.edu/index.cfm?objectId=64979B60-ED41-11E1-A279001B21BA1DA1

 

http://www.thelittlegym.com/Pages/parent-child.aspx

 

http://www.pacthawaii.org/early_head_start-oahu.html

 

http://www.columbusschoolforgirls.org/program-for-young-children/parents-and-children-together-pact/index.aspx

 

http://www.nova.edu/humandevelopment/earlylearning/pplace/parentchild.html

 

http://www.musictogether.com/MTPCWorld

 

http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/6249/pre-birth_to_three_parents_leaflet

 

http://www.fcnetwork.org/programs/pact.html

 

http://www.wccf.org/pdf/parentsaspartners_ece-series.pdf

 

http://www.kidsource.com/parenting/parents.part.html

 

http://www.ldaminnesota.org/programs-and-services/community-programs/parents-as-partners

 

http://hcz.org/programs/early-childhood

 

http://www.parentsasteachers.org/

 

www.avance.org

 

www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/.../EDF_Literature%20Review.pdf

 

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/147410/0038822.pdf

 

http://www.amazon.com/From-Parents-Partners-Family-Centered-Childhood/dp/1929610882

 

 

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

www.greenwoodfarmmt.org

graberdb@gmail.com