A lot of things have changed since I grew up on a Midwest farm back in the 40's and 50's. Sure, I love the internet and modern conveniences that make my life easier. Yet sometimes I really miss that general sense of pride and support for our American system of government. It almost seems quaint to remember how we had a quiet confidence in our democratically elected representatives. We often disagreed on which party or policy was best, but most of us believed that county, state, and federal government would act in the interests of all of us, protecting the general public against the greed of the wealthy and powerful few.
It seems like our ongoing love/hate relationship with government has become all about hate these days. Unfortunately, much of the angry and destructive rhetoric has become directed against real people, including those in need of public assistance and public employees who meet those needs. The recent sequester points out a real division in how we think about our responsibilities for helping others. It seems that in the minds of many people it is much more acceptable to use public money for building weapons of mass destruction or supplementing incomes of wealthy Americans than for helping children born into poverty.
To get a positive take on our system of government, we almost have to leave the country. It was in China spring of 2002 when I discovered people who have the old-fashioned belief in American government like I remembered as a teenager. My Chinese post-graduate students frequently expressed admiration of the American government. I helped one practice his pronunciation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in preparation for an English recitation contest. I helped a group of four arrange a choric reading of Martin Luther King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail."
The faculty members in my Wednesday evening informal English Conversation Class spoke with amazing honesty about their own government. They quickly drifted into a role-changing pattern of debate between a minority who still supported Central China Communist Party (CCCP) and a majority who wanted American-style free enterprise to transform the fertile agricultural Mien Jiang River Valley draining the eastern massif of the Himalaya uplift into the fertile "Red Basin" just twenty miles west of our campus where Dujiangyen nestles against the foothills.
My students were amazed by images of American production agriculture. They were captivated by the capacity of modern harvesting and planting technology, as well as techniques for managing fertility and plant genetics. A majority of my English conversation group believed that subsistence farmers in the Mien Jiang river valley above Dujiangyen should be replaced with modern American agriculture practices. We never settled the question of what would happen to 500,000 displaced farmers, but it's a question that I believe is at the heart of a truly democratic society. How do we maintain technological efficiency and effectiveness while still supporting the people who have spent their lives working in non-technology related fields like manual labor and the service industry? Can we help people without hating them and our government when our progress cuts them out of access to a livelihood?
We have continued to cut the safety net for ordinary Americans, while failing to address billions of dollars in government handouts being distributed to those who can afford the most lobbyists. People living in poverty have become a useful scapegoat in misdirecting attention from these real issues of fraud and abuse. I've had my own anti-government rants, but now I try to remember that many of my friends and neighbors are public servants. They are real people whom I admire and respect and they're doing great work in our community – protecting us from potential dangers, teaching our children, and conducting agricultural research that will benefit us all. When we despise our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, who are we really hating?
David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
graberdb@gmail.com
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
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