Humans and Turkeys

This column is continued from the Big Horn County News May 29, 2013, at the seventh paragraph below.

 

Living with animals on a daily basis can be amazingly instructive.  I've written about my turkey adventures in the past and their lessons continue this spring, with our new brood of little poults.  I know that we humans are not turkeys, but sometimes the similarities are too close to ignore.   Like our tom, Lightning, when it comes to the common good, we often just don't get it.

 

Last week Lightning refused to let one of the hens alone after her successful brooding. Annabelle graced our yard with her brood of eleven poults, in the image of their father,  each with a lightning streak of baby fur across its tiny forehead.  As Lightning recklessly pursued their mother in his single-minded urgency, he began tramping over the little ones.   The object of his affection attempted to shelter her offspring under her wings, but this protection was short-lived, and we ended up losing two to hypothermia. I eventually separated Lightning and Annabelle between the garden fence and the yard.  Unfortunately, the poults were small enough to squeeze between the fence wires, breaking out of their captivity to explore the wide world.  To his misfortune, one strayed too long on Lightning's side of the fence.  The tom was pacing and strutting along the fence opposite Annabelle, desperate for her attention, as she protected her little ones from the harsh wind.

 

Seated at lunch, I glanced out the window just in time to witness the heartbreaking episode.  I saw Lightning pounce, peck, and grasp a fragile furry yellow lump in his beak. I dropped my turkey sandwich and rushed out after him, arms waving aggressively. He dropped his progeny, its neck broken. I briefly held the tiny dying bird. In rising rage, I found my hatchet by the chopping block and marched back, cornering the bad tom. Reaching for him with my left hand with the hatchet in my right, I froze in mid-air. How could I expect he would voluntarily extend his head over my chopping block while I held him with my left arm and wielded the hatchet with my right? I was so filled with rage that I actually considered stupidly hacking my tom to death were it not for the simple fact that I only had two hands.

 

After I cooled down for a minute, I realized the ridiculousness of my actions.  On further contemplation, I could see parallels in many of our human behaviors.   As people, we are capable of astonishing feats of self-sacrifice to protect our common good. Look at how selflessly adults have given their lives to save children in recent national disasters.   On the other hand, we can so easily let our emotions push us into socially and personally destructive choices.

 

Lightning lost it. Like him, we humans get fixated with quick perceptions of good vs. evil and our worldview takes on a rigid black-and-white formula. Under this spell, our nation's technological power to threaten ultimate destruction blinds us. Fearing the loss of our domination of the world's economy, we become oblivious to the plight of the "least of these" (see Matthew's gospel).  We often don't understand the fragile circumstances of those caught up in collateral damage, as we attempt to recreate the world as we would like it to be. 

 

This memorial week we honor those who sacrificed for our common good. The most redemptive honoring would take us away from turkey thinking and restoring our humanity with others of our species. We, after all, unlike Lightning, have the stamp of the Creator's image.  Let's learn from the sacrifices of victims on both sides of warfare waged over the past decade.     While we're praying for the soldiers and children who have lost their lives to warfare waged around the world, let's steady our own hearts and lay down our need to punish.  In that way, we can become more like the image of our Creator and less like stampeding toms.

 

The following is continued from the shorter version of this column in the Big Horn County News:

 

Here's an example of the kind of sacrifice some humans, honoring our Creator's image stamped on us, have been making to benefit our nation. It's not the kind Lightning the tom turkey lived and died for. 

 

A Christian Peacemaker Team group suffered serious injury in a vehicle crash while fleeing Baghdad in the first wave of our bombing ten years ago this spring. They desperately needed help, one with life-threatening bleeding. No one was available; there were few drivers who braved that road under bombardment. A car finally came along with Iraqis who knew the area. They stopped to help, ignoring the danger.  They took them all to Rutba, a town just off the road to Kuwait.

 

As they approached the town, they were dismayed to see the hospital in total destruction. It had been destroyed by our bombs three days earlier. But local Iraqi doctors found essential supplies and had set up in a nearby house. Using the few medical supplies and equipment that survived the bombing, they stayed and worked to save the lives of those Americans. They ignored the reality that the bombs destroying their hospital and wreaking casualties among their staff and patients were as American as these casualties, now under their care.  They gave aid and comfort to their enemy (gregbarrett.org/tag/christian-peacemakers-team/March 13). They were not like Lightning the Tom Turkey.

 

These Americans and Iraqis can inspire us to a fitting honor for those many in Big Horn County who have suffered the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. Such sacrifice is most redemptive when we as a nation can be freed from our own misguided aggression. We have so much more hope than Lightning, since we do have a real Master, Jesus, and a Book to follow, the Bible. Jesus' protective and healing mission was primarily to the "least of these" who encountered raging rejection by those who wanted to do everything by the book.

 

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

graberdb@gmail.com

Deadbeats and the American economy

You hear a lot these days about deadbeat dads, those who father children without assuming any responsibility for their wellbeing.   These guys get a lot of bad press and well-deserved public scorn.   They also take hits for contributing to a welfare state, certainly a factor in our national economic doldrums.   Many people think of large corporations as the good guys, who are taking care of American families.  Theoretically this happens through paying hard-working men and women a fair living wage, with incentives for improving skills and productivity.

 

As I listen to the pundits these days, I can't help but wonder whether big businesses are that different from deadbeat dads.  In fact, it seems like they're working pretty hard to keep lots of children living in poverty.  The big business drive to increase profits at all costs looks a lot like the company store.  

 

It's nothing new.   Back in 1972, with three kids in diapers and strong teaching credentials, I persuaded my good wife to follow me west. We headed for Boise, Idaho, where I could not land a teaching job. I fell back on my farm boy experience and soon was a welder's helper, hired to construct a steel building for Morrison Knudsen. Coincidentally, this building would be used to assemble coal-handling equipment for the Sarpy mine, here in Montana. I had no idea my farm boy work ethic was anywhere unique. I was confident in my initiative to work for a living, instilled by my parents and grandparents.

 

Soon I found myself working as the ad hoc leader, under an experienced company foreman. My team of ten worked efficiently. The building was almost completed as we approached a month of work. We were ahead of schedule. Our foreman said he was being ordered to Iran to build CIA listening stations soon. Meantime, he was recommending us all for welding training and mentioned that union benefits would start on our 31^st day of service.  For me, this meant doubled wages and medical benefits for my family.

 

I'll never forget my 31^st day on that job. The MK general manager met us at the shop door with "Good job boys, your work is done." He handed us our final paychecks.  I spoke up, "Our foreman said this job would lead us to union wages and benefits. Where do we apply for union membership? And where's our foreman?" We were informed that our foreman had been transferred to another job because this one was nearly completed. MK's steel workers--we were kept separate from them-- would complete the job. He encouraged us to "Step right in line to fill out a new application."

 

I hung out with my buddies in line and we visited with the fresh job seekers. Most had already worked several thirty-day stints, only to be laid off on day thirty. I finally understood what they were saying. We were part of a pool of skilled temporary workers doing the same work as the professionals but without the wages and benefits. They really liked us. Our unwitting financial contribution raised MK stock and incentive bonuses to CEO's. I left the line of my working peers and wished them well. All of my fellow laborers were hard working people, who accepted their responsibilities and wanted to earn an honest living. I went on my own to the National Labor Relations Board at the state capital and asked for advice. They said there was nothing I could do, it was all legal, and all too common.

 

Unfortunately, my story is not unique.  Since those years in the '70's, workers' income continues to be redistributed upward, to those who generate no income working with their hands. This creates more need from the growing pool of working families who cannot make ends meet. Welfare distribution increases to the poor, and the myth grows into reality of financially strapped people who want more stuff. We seem to be moving back to the days of sharecropping, which should be long past us. Meantime, congressmen and CEOS prodding more production from real work increase their wealth concentration and stigmatize the rest of us as freeloaders.

 

When I hear about the abhorrent salaries CEOs are receiving for bankrupting their companies, I can't help but think about all the American tax dollars that were used for those bailouts.   I wonder, how many hours of real labor did it take to pay for one hour of bad decision-making at the top?   Who are the real deadbeats here?

 

(Following is the continuation of my column from the Big Horn County News, after further editing)

 

Taxing the Rich would not solve the problem.

 

The problem is clear: President Obama's economic recovery didn't work for us in Big Horn County. Sure, the government bailed out Wall Street and GM. But the average net worth of the 7% wealthiest rose $800,000 from 2009 to 2011.  And the 93% rest of us, including most of us in Big Horn County, lost $6,000 (Pew research released April 23).  This year, 80 percent of Americans have 7 percent of the nation's wealth, while 1 percent of Americans have 40 percent of the nation's wealth. It's continuing to spiral out of control, and we in Big Horn County continue to fund our deadbeat dads' nest eggs.

 

Making off with the largess of our great American economic vitality, only a minority of the small group at the top believe the rest of America's families are also part of their responsibility as American Citizens.  It's called greed in the Bible.

 

Not long ago our nation's families were much more able to thrive with a government-overseen economy that worked. Retracing our steps far enough, we find a government surplus. There was no debt when the Bush-Cheney administration came into office after President Clinton. They quickly turned the surplus into a national debt, and Obama has imitated Bush with bailouts of Wall Street. Little trickled down to Big Horn County.

 

 

Unprecedented wealth disparity in the United States.

 

Of course government debt is a serious problem. But it also makes a convincing false ploy. Our sold-out pundits tell us how we got into this malaise. But it's misleading. They blame the bottom 47% for just wanting more stuff. This answer hides the deadbeats' tracks to the casinos.

 

Much of the unprecedented disparity between the few wealthy and the 90% rest of us has been attributed to natural free enterprise.  This is far from the truth. The amount of disparity is directly related to a distortion of the "golden rule:"

"Them that's got the gold make the rules." Here's an entertaining informative video on the true extent of wealth disparity in America:

 

http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/

 

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-wealthydeclines-for-the-lower-93/

 

http://www.alternet.org/economy/rich-have-gained-56-trillion-recovery-while-rest-us-have-lost-669-billion?akid=10398.144927.mrg7cP&rd=1&src=newsletter834900&t=3

 

Two Harvard Economists Repudiated

 

Making the poor and middle class bail out the deadbeats at the top is most revealing in this story about two Harvard economists.

 

"Since 2010, the names of Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have become famous in political and economic circles. These two Harvard economists wrote a paper, "Growth in the Time of Debt" that has been used by everyone from Paul Ryan to Olli Rehn of the European Commission to justify harmful austerity policies. The authors purported to show that once a country's gross debt to GDP ratio crosses the threshold of 90 percent, economic growth slows dramatically. Debt, in other words, seemed very scary and bad.

 

Their historical data appeared impressive, as did their credentials. Policy-makers and journalists cited the paper to convince the public that instead of focusing on the jobs crisis that was hampering recovery, we should instead focus on deficits. The deficit hawks jumped up and down with excitement."

 

The foundation of the entire global push for austerity and debt reduction in the last several years has been based on a screwup in an Excel spreadsheet and poorly constructed data.

 

http://www.peri.umass.edu/236/hash/31e2ff374b6377b2ddec04deaa6388b1/publication/566/

 

http://www.alternet.org/economy/meet-28-year-old-student-who-exposed-two-harvard-professors-whose-shoddy-research-drove

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/opinion/debt-and-growth-a-response-to-reinhart-and-rogoff.html?_r=0

 

Ms. Reinhart and Mr. Rogoff have published several other papers, including a 2010 academic article, "Growth in a Time of Debt." It found that economic growth was notably lower when a country's gross public debt equaled or exceeded 90 percent of its gross domestic product.

 

The most important insight for anyone following this debate, and one that Ms. Reinhart and Mr. Rogoff acknowledge, is that there is no evidence supporting the claim that countries will consistently experience a sharp decline in economic growth once public debt levels exceed 90 percent of G.D.P. Although the two of them partly backed away from that claim in a 2012 paper in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, they have now done so more definitively, saying the 90 percent figure is not "a magic threshold that transforms outcomes, as conservative politicians have suggested."

 

Medicare and medicaid fraud

 

Right in here Montana we have Medicare fraud. Not the usual thousand-dollar cheats, but again, unlike the usual drivel blaming the poor, deadbeats are at the top.

http://www.kpax.com/news/2-mt-hospitals-to-pay-millions-in-medicare-fraud-settlement/

 

Two Montana Hospitals, St. Vincent in Billings and Holy Rosary in Miles City, Agree to Pay $3.95 Million to Resolve Alleged False Claims Act and Stark Law Violations

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/May/13-civ-495.html

 

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/billings-and-miles-city-hospitals-to-pay-m-over-referrals/article_049a886a-4b8e-5752-8a91-e01098e199bd.html

 

 

Cheating workers out of their wages

 

Most of us with friends in the oil boom east of Sidney know of at least one roughneck whose wages were stolen when a startup wildcat company CEO heisted the till and took off to the Caribbean, letting his company go bankrupt and a million in wages unpaid. This and my experience with Morrison Knudsen are symptoms of a much larger problem of wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the rich.

 

http://economichardship.org/do-wage-theft-laws-allow-wagetheft/

 

http://www.alternet.org/labor/when-your-boss-steals-your-wages-invisible-epidemic-thats-sweeping-america?akid=10374.144927.8Yn4Tz&rd=1&src=newsletter831565&t=3&paging=off

 

Americans like to think that a fair day's work brings a fair day's pay. Cheating workers of their wages may seem like a problem of 19th-century sweatshops. But it's back and taking a terrible toll. We're talking billions of dollars in wages; millions of workers affected each year. A gigantic heist is being perpetrated against working people: they're getting screwed on overtime, denied their tips, shortchanged on benefits, defrauded on payroll, and handed paychecks that bounce like rubber balls. A conservative estimate of unpaid overtime alone shows that it costs workers at least $19 billion per year.

 

Wage theft happens when employees cheat workers out of their wages. There are many ways employers intentionally do this. Sometimes workers are pressured to work uncompensated overtime and to pay for safety equipment which should be provided by the employer. Some employers keep workers' tips and some simply pay less than the worker has earned. Sometimes workers are paid less than the minimum wage and sometimes workers are not paid at all. In her recent piece "Preying on the Poor," Economic Hardship Reporting Project's Barbara Ehrenreich cites an estimated $100 billion are stolen from low-wage workers in the U.S. each year.

 

Prisons for profit

 

Prisons for profit are no longer just in China. Our burgeoning prison industry reaps and enormous windfall from our tax dollars, purporting to keep us safe, but that's not nearly all.  Even more is gained from the capable young men trapped in the system, far out of proportion to the racial balance of our nation. More blacks, for example, are now in prison than were in slavery just before emancipation. Many of them are employed at a pittance in industries like meat processing. In fact, many of the meals served in Big Horn County Schools include meat paddies from our prison meat processing industry.

 

http://economichardship.org/scroogian-return-of-debtors-prisons/

Quote of the Day, April 25, 2013, excerpted from "Making Poverty A Crime" by Jim Hightower in the Standard-Examiner and through OtherWords:

"Ohio's Civil Liberties Union recently issued a report documenting the Scroogian return of debtors' prisons after finding that municipal courts in that state are jailing poor people unable to pay court fines. Last summer, a suburban Cleveland court threw 45 people in jail because they couldn't come up with the money for fines they were assessed, and the Sandusky Municipal Court imprisoned 75 down-and-outers for the same "crime."

 

Besides the fact that jailing indigents for debts cost the courts way more than the fines they owe, it also violates the U.S. and Ohio constitutions. But what the hey — on to Georgia, which has enhanced the debtor prison experience by privatizing it.

Say you roll through a stop sign. Uniquely, the Peach Tree State counts that as a criminal offense. Now, say you can't pony up the full fine. Suddenly, you're in the clutches of a for-profit, private probation corporation. It charges probationers a $15 "start-up" fee, a $25 photo fee, and a myriad of other fees — on top of the fine they owe. Fail to pay, go to jail. Want to post bond? It's a new nationwide industry, centrally managed for profit.

 

http://economichardship.org/scroogian-return-of-debtors-prisons/

 

http://www.justicepolicy.org/news/4389

 

http://www.standard.net/stories/2013/04/24/making-poverty-crime

 

Ebenezer Scrooge, the Dickens character, perfectly personified the nasty rich. For example, when asked to make a charitable donation for people trapped in poverty, Scrooge curled his lip in contempt and snarled: "Are there no prisons?"

Blessedly, our American society has progressed well past such heartless disdain. Unless, of course, you happen to be poor in Ohio. Or Georgia. Or in the nationwide utopia envisioned by Newt Gingrich.

 

Ohio's Civil Liberties Union recently issued a report documenting the Scroogian return of debtors' prisons after finding that municipal courts in that state are jailing poor people unable to pay court fines. Last summer, a suburban Cleveland court threw 45 people in jail because they couldn't come up with the money for fines they were assessed, and the Sandusky Municipal Court imprisoned 75 down-and-outers for the same "crime."

 

Careless abuse of the planet we all live on

 

http://www.alternet.org/environment/slaves-our-stuff-creative-vision-break-away-consumer-cultures-destructive-grip?akid=10374.144927.8Yn4Tz&rd=1&src=newsletter831565&t=9

Need a creative way to fight fears of our planetary demise? A new book by Billy Talen prophetically titled, The End of the World (OR Books), may be just the trick. Talen, also known as Reverend Billy, and his Church of Stop Shopping, exposes the socio-political structure of consumerism and the commoditization of the earth with songs, impassioned preaching and theater events. Talen has been arrested 70 times along with members of the Church for their acts of civil disobedience in banks and other places of corporate mediation. Their decade-long collaboration, under the direction of Savitri D, has brought them to communities throughout the U.S. and internationally where they have built a performance institution of communities of action with songs and uplifting protest spectacle on the streets and in concert halls. Talen and the Church's inspiring and engaging performances ask us to take action on behalf of our home on our rapidly dying planet.

 

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

graberdb@gmail.com