Learning and fun are deadly serious.

Towards the end of summer in Big Horn County, two events of great significance for our children converge: Crow Fair and the start of the school year. At the fair, excited children are given the opportunity to be in their first dance, prepared with the right regalia, given an Indian name, blessed, and given strong ties to their extended family and tribe. They enter the arena with strong interest at being acceptable as members of their family. Most important, with these patterns of interaction with their family members, they have life.

After Crow Fair parents hurry to prepare children for school with the right clothing, learning materials, and excitement about school. Children are taken to school the first day so parent, teacher and child can get acquainted. They begin with a clear understanding of school rules, who will enforce them and how. 

Both of these watershed events access children's God-given drive for life: to learn the intensely human patterns unique to their family and friends. It's how we humans say to each other, "You belong, you are part of us, we need you to stay with us." The drive to know and do these patterns supersedes any other drive for life among humans. 

A few decades ago in my 50's I went with my son and a friend to hike a hundred miles of the John Muir trail in the California High Sierras. At that time he was unconvinced of the usefulness of fly fishing, and left it to me to haul a fly reel along with my seven-foot collapsible spinning rod. Having heard that mayflies, caddices and midges are generally of a light burnt brown to white color in the Sierras, I collected a chunk of fur from our pet cat Marshmallow, and proceeded to tie some midge patterns using this fur. It worked fine for several of the ponds and streams we encountered, but all the trout we caught to that point were small, almost fingerlings compared to Big Horn River trout.  Then we arrived one late afternoon at a lake below timberline surrounded by trees and a talus slope to the south. We saw rises. These were larger trout, appearing to be about a foot long.

A slight breeze drifted over the lake down from a tight talus slope, and that's where I carefully dropped my marshmallow special carefully a few meters off the rocks. In seconds, up came one to take a look. Immediately several others surfaced, splashed around my fly, and took off to the depths. I waited, and nothing else happened so I cast to another spot where I had seen some rises, and a larger golden nosed up to investigate mine. Again, this one had barely arrived into visibility when a pod of others charged into the scene, circled with a few splashes and they all disappeared.  Meanwhile, I could still see rises to real flies on the surface surrounding my fake.

I kept trying, and the same scenario repeated. Darkness was descending before I finally got a small hit, but I hooked none of those fish from that lake. Neither did my son, with his spinning hardware. We only speculated on why those trout obviously had so much fun splashing around my fake fly. Were the fish actually teaching each other what a fake fly looked like? Was my attempt to harvest dinner being turned into a learning opportunity for the young fish in the school? What had they learned and how? Or was some or all of this my imagination, imposing my human mind on reptile mind?

Crow Fair provides a powerful venue for passing along important life lessons to children. Activities from camping to dancing take place in intergenerational groups of family members. Children don't spend so much of their time with others of the same age from different families. Song and dance are central patterns that connect children with others: first in their family, but also with the tribe and nation. Children are expected to do what their parents do. Yet boundaries are clear, and children are often entrusted with their own self-discipline, with minimal threat and virtually no punishment.

 Big Horn County schools serve a similar and complementary role for our children. In the structured environment of public school, our children acquire a different set of life lessons. Because of the schools' healthier foods programs, kids can't default to sugar and refined carbos. Activities are used to challenge and enrich. Time is carefully planned to the minute, and children do not have the option to walk away and do their own thing.

While the lessons of Crow Fair may be more about culture and identity, and the lessons of school more about academics, it seems to me that there is some value in finding ways where the two venues could merge a bit. Just like the fish in that mountain lake, we want to equip our kids as much as possible with the tools and insights they need not just to survive, but to thrive. Perhaps this week's two major community events might hold the key to some powerful tools for doing just that.

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

Learning from Trayvon and George

The tragic death of Trayvon Martin has given the media much fodder to publicly chew over the past few months. To date there are hundreds of in-depth media analyses and news stories, hyping this case into distracting agendas of racism and bigotry.

 

I think this story is so fascinating for us because it demonstrates how the assumptions we make about each other can lead to truly horrible consequences. 

On the surface it's a simple set-up. Trayvon, the hoodie wearer with a black face, was the victim of unfounded suspicion and fear. He had experienced being followed and confronted prior to that fateful night, so was ready to defend himself against future attacks. George, the overweight ADD child, had developed his own sense of defensiveness and insecurity. Both went out that night primed to confront the enemy their separate communities defined for them. Trayvon was ready to resist "the man" or any white person challenging his right to be present on the streets of his neighborhood. George took the role of gun-toting community protector against burglars or other low life trespassers on his, the very same, neighborhood streets.

 

It seems to me that we can all relate to both of these positions.   Haven't we all claimed the right to move through the world unmolested by those who miss-perceive us as threats and the right to feel safe where we live?  I know that I have felt both sides of this.  

 

In fact, I can still recall the summer afternoon in 1973 I took unpaid leave from a mobile home assembly line to stand before a judge in a courtroom in Boise, Idaho. The week before, driving home from work, I was in the right lane in an intersection when a Mercedes driver to my left decided to make a right turn, into the left front fender of my '63 Ford station wagon. The impact was strong enough to tear my headlight rim off.

 

Even though I wasn't at fault, I found myself required to appear in traffic court. I assumed a quick explanation would settle the matter, without any expensive charges or fines. I left work early one hot afternoon to appear at the appointed time in court. Being sure of my innocence, I didn't even consider how my patched jeans, scuffed boots and sweat would look to the judge.   It didn't even occur to me to bring along a change of clothes that would make me look more like the "respectable" party in the case.  After all, I assumed that the judge would be more interested in the facts of the incident than my social status.

 

I assumed wrongly. Called up to the bench and unacquainted with courtroom propriety, I inadvertently rested my sweaty forearm on the edge of the judge's polished walnut separation barrier at shoulder height. His first question surprised me: "Are you tired?" he asked.  "Not really, your honor," I replied. "Then would you please remove your arm from my bench?"  By then, I was done for.

 

I quickly moved my arm, and just as quickly held my tongue from saying that my taxes paid for his bench. I forgot my planned explanations. I pled guilty to overtaking in an intersection when, in fact, I was being overtaken. I paid my fine, watched my liability insurance rates rise, and seethed as I returned to sliding that rapid-fire air nailer along the j-rail of the mobile home roof edge in my assembly line bay.

 

I hope that we can honor Trayvon's memory by setting aside our own assumptions of others long enough to remember what it feels like to be unfairly judged ourselves.  Let's use this true example to reinforce the lessons of the Bible that warn us against biases of appearance, social status, skin color, or gender.  Together, let's engage a real Spirit-led battle against such sins that beset us as a nation, even in Big Horn County.  Maybe heightened compassion could help prevent more horrendous consequences to ourselves and other people. It wouldn't be the first time faith has been at the center of repentance and change in our nation.

 

The following are a few sources linking the Christian faith center of our nation's religious history to major social repentance, particularly the end of slavery and the civil rights revolution with Dr. Martin Luther King.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/history/slavery_1.shtm

 

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano (Author

Born in present-day Ghana, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano was kidnapped at the age of thirteen and sold into slavery by his fellow Africans in 1770; he worked in the brutal plantation chain gangs of the West Indies before being freed in England. His Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery is the most direct criticism of slavery by a writer of African descent. Cugoano refutes pro-slavery arguments of the day, including slavery's supposed divine sanction; the belief that Africans gladly sold their own families into slavery; that Africans were especially suited to its rigors; and that West Indian slaves led better lives than European serfs. Exploiting his dual identity as both an African and a British citizen, Cugoano daringly asserted that all those under slavery's yoke had a moral obligation to rebel, while at the same time he appealed to white England's better self.

 

 

When God Made Martin Luther King Jr. Smile: The Man, The Leader, The Dreamer [Paperback]

Raymond Sturgishttp://www.amazon.com/When-Made-Martin-Luther-Smile/dp/1456420992/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376003050&sr=1-8&keywords=Martin+Luther+King+faith (Author

 

Mobilizing Hope: Faith-Inspired Activism for a Post-Civil Rights Generation[Paperback]

Adam Taylorhttp://www.amazon.com/Mobilizing-Hope-Faith-Inspired-Post-Civil-Generation/dp/0830838376 (Author), Jim Wallis 

 

Racism in the Obama opposition in Arizona removes the façade. It really is about race. Is it also race in Big Horn County?

http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130806obama-phoenix-protests-outside-school.html?nclick_check=1

 

Following is some information on the Zimmerman trial for murder of Trayvon Martin:

 

The trial itself was flawed from the very beginning. This occurred partly because of something known in law enforcement as "parallel construction." It's motivated by a desire to win a case in court without ensuring the identity of the perpetrator. In the case of Trayvon, the parallel construction occurred in place of the truth, and the prosecution may have been caught up in ensuring the exoneration of George Zimmerman.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/10-reasons-lawyers-say-floridas-law-enforcement-threw-ryan-zimmermans-case-away?akid=10772.144927.deIBo9&rd=1&src=newsletter879185&t=3

 

The conversation in the media by professional journalists and pundits has been no freer of foolishness than that in the barber/beauty shops and parking lots of our nation. And conversation on the Trayvon Martin case has been obsessive.  http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/22/big-racial-divide-over-zimmerman-verdict/

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20120323204107/http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/22/tagblogsfindlawcom2012-blotter-idUS212849160320120322

Stand your ground laws state by state

 

http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/22/big-racial-divide-over-zimmerman-verdict/

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/23/1225851/-The-One-Simple-Graphic-that-Sums-Up-the-Whole-Problem-with-the-Trayvon-Martin-Case?detail=email

 

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

Free scything lessons

I've often heard that expression, "Everything old is new again."  This summer I got the chance to put a farmer's spin on this saying. I've also discovered a way to make at least one long-abandoned "conventional" farming technique efficient in a modern world. Practicing a half-hour of daily scything can save money on gym membership fees, health costs associated with the build-up of arterial plaque, and fossil fuel expenses. Turns out this cost-saving and health promoting practice is actually not that difficult, safer, and an effective alternative to pulling ditches with a tractor every spring.  

 

Except for the Amish over on the Tongue River north of Ashland, we in Big Horn County encounter few farmers serious about conventional farming. By "conventional" I mean the farming technology that was passed down from many generations of fathers and mothers before us. These techniques used little or no fossil fuels (gas, diesel, or coal). For thousands of years muscle energy was more than adequate for food production.  Today, however, physical labor is viewed as a quaint, relatively useless source of energy for farming.

 

I wonder whether it might be time to revisit some of that traditional knowledge we have abandoned over the last couple generations. Couldn't we reincorporate some of the old techniques to supplement our more modern (and less healthful) ways? I guess it's up to those of us who had exposure to conventional methods as youths to bring back some still useful approaches. 

 

More than fifty years ago my grandfather planted some valuable muscle memory into my adolescent arms and back. Swinging a scythe was definitely not my idea of how to be productive back then. I resisted his lesson in favor of an internal combustion motor driving a whirling steel blade. It seemed ludicrous to me that anyone would brag about being able to cut lawn grass with a scythe as Grandpa and my uncles did. What a waste of energy, I thought, when we have such powerful tools at our disposal.

 

Fast-forward sixty years.  I had an irrigation ditch clearing problem to solve.   Naturally, I saw this problem as one of finding the right technology. Off I went and bought a wheeled string mower from Randy at True Value. I painstakingly rebuilt the mount of the belt-driven string rotor into a position nine inches further forward, so dipping the handles would raise the spinning strings sixteen inches higher along our irrigation ditch walls. This successfully made mowing our lateral ditch walls easier and faster than using a hand-held string mower. It certainly was an improvement, but it still was strenuous work.

 

A month ago I discovered my old scythe.  I found the place in the blade I damaged thirty years ago learning to cooperate with that tool instead of forcing it into the weeds needing cutting. I applied my Dremel™ tool to the weld I had made and never really shaped correctly, and sharpened it the way I was taught almost a half-century ago. A month ago I carried it expectantly to our grass-infested lateral off Farmer's Ditch, braced my feet and began reviving what was left of my scything muscle memory.

 

It worked. I was simply amazed and quickly became obsessed. I couldn't quit, until, almost a hundred yards and a half hour later, my cell rang. Knowing my son was coming home that weekend, I saved the rest of the ditch for a family scything event.

I gave lessons to my two grown sons, as my grandfather had done with me. They were as surprised as I to find how efficient this manual process was. The time investment was about the same as running the big blade behind a tractor to pull ditches. Scything was actually less frustrating when working sodded in ditches like ours, where there is a tendency to pull the point too deep or skim too high, losing the accurate slope needed for effective ditch flow. Even more importantly, we didn't need to drive to the Hardin community center after work to pump iron.  

 

So here's the deal. Free scything lessons are available at Greenwood Farm. Just search Youtube on line for any scything video, then go to Randy or Dean, hardware stores on Center Street, and order a genuine old-fashioned scythe with hardened steel for honing to a razor edge. This musician-writer-farmer is offering free beginner lessons in scything, with a real honest irrigation ditch in which to practice. Stop in even if you can't find a scythe. If you quickly learn to keep the heel down you won't break mine like I did. But do please check your garage attic and let me know.

 

graberdb@gmail.com

David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

It’s the government again.

Here they come again, telling us what we can and can't do with our own natural resources.  This time it's about coal, that apparently boundless energy resource enriching our nation. Now the government, via President Obama, is telling us what to do about our coal.  Increased environmental safety measures associated with extraction might reduce profits and could affect employment in our region.  Here's where the confusion comes in.   Most of us are absolutely certain we want money from coal extraction, the more the better.  Many of us are also concerned about carbon loading the air we breathe. Meanwhile billions of tons of coal pass through Big Horn County via Burlington Northern tracks en route to the troposphere encircling our planet.

 

This brings us to our ongoing dilemma about what we should sacrifice in immediate benefits to ensure a survivable future. I grew up hearing stories about the bad old days of the dust bowl from my farming grandparents. Back in Kansas, in the early thirties, everyone knew that the government was confused. They were actually paying farmers to turn up clods of dirt in sterile fields across the plains. My grandpa knew it was nuts, but decided to make a little extra money with his moldboard plow and mule. He had a family to support and the drought virtually stopped income from farming. He draped the Hames collar over his mule's neck and hooked the traces to the plow. He leaned on the handles as he trudged back and forth across the long gone wheat field, turning up clods.

 

He knew it was pointless effort. Nothing could grow in those dry clods. The local Ag agent maintained that the clods would slow or stop the drifting dust. Most in the little Mennonite church on the prairie agreed this was a futile endeavor. It was already early July, getting hotter and drier, making plowing and planting a ludicrous effort. But money talked. He worked in the hot morning sun and earned the government-subsidized check calculated by the acres he plowed, as the government agent counted. The government was giving, and he might as well be on the take.

 

As he plowed, my grandfather recalled the days when lush wheat fields flourished before the rains stopped. He grieved for the loss of the green fertility and early prosperity of the plains. Now even the windmills struggled to find water for the few mangy critters and crazy people left on the prairie who actually owned some land.  "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away," intoned the preachers, leaving the farmers and the Chicago grain futures investors and bankers unaccountable for the environmental disaster of the American West Dustbowl.

 

As it turned out those crazy government bureaucrats were right. Those farmers, like my grandfather, played a vital role in preserving our national bread basket. The short-term solution worked. Billions of topsoil particles stopped bouncing into the air and landing in ditches and rivers where they didn't belong. The longer-term solution was deployed the following spring, and it also proved effective. New hedge rows were planted every square mile by the Civilian Conservation Corps (same government program that built bricks for Big Horn County Schools at CCC camps near Busby). These hedges supported the summer plowing efforts. Tiny particles of SiO2, the main ingredient of soil, no longer converted into clouds of dust, creating dust storm convections with ferocious winds.   Those incredible storms had produced not just overwhelming dust, but also lightning, thunder, hair-razing electricity in the air, and fires where vegetation still existed. As my grandparents told me, the dust was sometimes so thick one could hardly see a hand held hand in front of one's face, depressing metabolism in all breathing creatures and causing untold deaths from dust pneumonia.  

 

Later my grandparents moved on to Oklahoma where they once again found fertile ground and were able to make a living from the land.  As a lad, I recall finding the old mould-board complete with wooden handles as I was on my way to catch frogs in the spring. Later that evening my Grandpa told us about plowing up the dirt clods in Kansas with a plow like that. To this day, I'm ever grateful for the efforts of those farmers who created a better world for me.  Who knows what would have happened to my mother's family (and my own future) without the foresight of those government agents to mitigate environmental damage from bad farming practices.  Nobody believed it would help at the time and would only lead to more ruin and destruction. Their persistence paved the way for real changes that have promoted sound agriculture to this day.  

 

Maybe we should consider what is being proposed now to mitigate the effects of climate change. Given my family's history, the future economic toll of severe environmental damage is a much scarier for me than short term reduction in coal profits.  Let's consider the future of our nation's soils and waters, and how much we're willing to do to protect our grandchildren's grandchildren.

 

greenwoodback40.blogspot.com.

graberdb@gmail.com

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

Liberty and Justice for All

This column in the Big Horn County News is continued on the seventh paragraph below

There's been a lot of discussion in the news lately about our rights to privacy as U.S. citizens—what with spy drones and NSA data-bases keeping tabs on us all. I'm probably not the only one concerned about the role domestic surveillance should play in keeping our country secure. How much freedom is reasonable to sacrifice for safety? It's not an easy call. Our desire to limit our own freedoms and those of others seems to vary with how threatened we feel at any point in time.

 

This time of year brings to mind two important milestones in our nation's quest for liberty. June 26 marks the anniversary of the US Army's 7^th Cavalry Defeat in 1876 at the Little Big Horn near Crow Agency.  Of course July 4^th celebrates the day in 1776 when the United States Declaration of Independence was sent to King George of Britain. Both of these events remind us of how hard won our existing freedoms are.    They also remind us of how a few with liberty and power can withhold similar freedoms from others, leading to deadly conflict.

 

Throughout time and history nations have often viewed others' access to liberty as a threat to their own.  When we see those others gaining the liberties we cherish, we can so easily see ourselves losing.  Why is it so much clearer to us when our own freedoms are being threatened as compared to when we're ignoring the rights of others? Perhaps it takes the perspective of history to understand the underlying motives of fear and greed that influence our decisions.

 

It's easy to see how we might lose our peripheral vision in times of crisis.   One of our mother hens had similar trouble keeping track of her little ones in the rainy weather this spring.  She lost one early in the spring when it got separated and left behind during a foraging expedition in the field. It was too fragile to survive for long in the tall wet grass. Several days later we almost had another fatality.   Our hen was out with her brood when a storm struck. The wind rose suddenly, followed by cracking thunder and the first drops of a major rain falling. With the small ones unable to get back to better shelter, their mother spread her wings and hunkered down to protect them. We saw the storm on radar, and decided to bring her and her little ones into the shelter. But we didn't count them until we set them in the safe shelter. One was missing. So I carried the mother hen back out into the lightning, wind and rain, and set her down where we found her earlier.  She ran immediately a few yards and opened her wings.  She found the lost chick we couldn't hear or see, and fortunately none were lost.  

 

Our own struggles with freedom and security don't always have a happy ending.   Like our mother hen, it's easy for us to lose sight of all the pieces when we're in crisis or fear mode.   Our natural instinct is to protect our own, sometimes at the cost of the very principles we're striving to defend.   Yet, many people see protecting those whose liberties are being limited or lost as a sacred task.   Our common sense of morality recoils from the thought that our liberty depends on depriving others of theirs.

 

This summer, let's not celebrate our nation's unprecedented capacity with interrogation technology, surveillance, drones and guided missiles to successfully select and exterminate human liberty and life. Unlike what too many of our politicians, media and preachers claim, the Bible itself says this power does not grow our own liberty. Let's rather celebrate the compassion and strength we have found in our national history to side with those whose liberties have been limited. When the next media onslaught comes, let's count past ten and take time to listen and look for those lost. 

 

The column continues with resource links: www.greenwoodback40.blogspot.com

 

Both King George and the legislators behind General Custer's last campaign on the Little Horn were oblivious to the loss of liberty and even life stemming from their fears and selfishness. King George and the East India Tea Company were about to lose their liberty to extract tax money and profit from the colonists. He sent occupation troops to end the colonial rebellion. This was business as usual in the British Empire of 1776, despite the King's claim to be an advocate of human life and liberty.  They could have learned from the roots of our revolution and our struggle to build a constitution, but almost two hundred years later Britain was flagrantly and secretly violating this claim.

 

The new book, "Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya," by Caroline Elkins, truth powerful empires want to hide, because it unveils a brutal and ugly side to their proclaimed quest for liberty. See Amazon's reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Reckoning-Untold-Story-Britains/dp/0805080015

 

It's the sad history from the 1950's still being repeated today at Guantanamo and elsewhere. When we willingly sacrifice life and liberty of others outside or even inside our borders, are we really better than Custer or King George? Yet today nations deny and fail to see what we can better see in Big Horn County: that protecting those whose liberties are being limited or lost is a sacred task, a bigger task more worth dying for than the simple task of limiting (or ending) life and liberty for some.

 

Our common sense of morality recoils from the thought that our liberty depends on depriving others of theirs. We here can join vicariously with those who struggled for life and liberty, leaving the security of the US army posts in Colorado and Nebraska in the 1870's and venturing out to the good grass between the Rosebud and the Big Horn rivers to pursue life, liberty and happiness for their families. We can also join vicariously with those who signed that liberty-declaring document in 1776, knowing it was only a milestone in a struggle that continues beyond July 4, 2013, still calling us to a similar respect for the life and liberty of any human being.

 

David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

graberdb@gmail.com

GEDs and Lost Opportunities

Additional comments and resource links follow the seventh paragraph below, after the Big Horn County News edition of this column beginning here:

 

I have been following the latest Big Horn County saga with interest.  At least this story doesn't involve prisons, confidence men, or Gitmo (not yet, anyway).   This time we're struggling to find a way to fund a popular GED program, housed at Crow Agency.   In my opinion, this situation reflects what I've seen happen many times in the past.  We just don't seem to have a good system for locally sustaining programs when the grant funding expires.  Our default approach seems to be listing reasons why some other agency should be responsible for paying.  Beyond that we might join the naysayers trumpeting that services are not producing results at some hypothetical national level or about why certain people don't deserve a hand-up.

 

This concerns me for the future wellbeing of our community.  Is it really possible that we Big Horn County citizens can't figure out how to pool available resources to improve the circumstances of families in need?  It's clear that without a high school diploma or its equivalent, families are at significant risk for poverty and all its accompanying problems (homelessness, substance abuse, domestic violence). This places a burden on schools, on our county tax base, and on state and tribal family assistance resources, and ultimately makes prisons a big business. Many funded programs in our county are designed to target the very same at-risk families who would benefit from GED attainment.  It seems hard to believe that there is no way to allocate a small amount of resources from several family service providers and public agencies to fund a multi-agency supported GED program.

 

I wonder whether the underlying issue is really part of a worldwide wave of hostility toward the poor. We are living in times of austerity and it seems popular these days to blame the victims of the economic downturn for their misfortune.  It's all over the media and even in Big Horn County:  No more handouts for the poor.  Many of us struggle with this message from a religious, as well as social morality perspective.  

 

Righting the wrongs limiting people's access to life resources, including meaningful jobs, is at the heart of the New Testament (for more, see my blog listed below).

It was the people skills of civility, trust, accountability, and care for the common good that really differentiated the early church from the surrounding culture of the first-century Roman Empire.

 

People skills are also at the heart of what is needed to make all students more successful in life.   Academic attainment accounts for only a small portion of what it takes to complete a degree or work effectively with others in a job setting.   We've all experienced brilliant colleagues who we dreaded working with because of their clashing personalities or lack of teamwork.   Anyone who has tried to get their computer repaired has probably encountered one of those technically competent, but agonizingly patronizing young "service" technicians.  

 

Research studies on the benefits of GED programs are often misinterpreted as showing little value to these prep courses. However, many leaders in the field are far from recommending the end of GED programs.  Instead they advocate for ending our modern education obsession (from early childhood through adult) with easily tested factual-based knowledge.  Over time, we have cut way back in structures and programs that build motivational, character, and people skills.  Research has found that without these life skills, prospects for success in anything go way down. This includes both high school dropouts and GED graduates, both of whom score low in these life skills. But GED adult education programs can be taught in ways that emphasize those important social-emotional skills of civility, trust, accountability, time consciousness, respect and generosity, while students are preparing to pass the paper and pencil tests.   

 

We happen to be blessed in Big Horn County with educators who value the importance of people skill development and know how to teach these vital skills.  It would be most interesting to investigate the success of our Big Horn County GED graduates and compare those with the nationwide average.  My bet is that both our Hardin and Crow Agency centers would score way above the national average. Of course, in order to do such a study, we'll need to find a way to fund the type of instruction that actually makes a difference for our young adults. Is this really beyond our capacity?

 

This ends the Big Horn County News edition. The column continues:

 

Of course, there's a plethora of misinformation in the media quoting research proving the GED and Headstart programs are just a waste of time and taxpayer moneys.  Dr. James Heckman and Tim Kautz of University of Chicago are prominent among education researchers studying the causes and effects of the GED programs nation wide. They are currently working on a book called, "The GED and the Role of Character in American Life." Their research measures of success of young people in three categories: 1) those who graduate from high school, 2) those who pass the GED, and 3) those who simply drop out.  They found little improvement by young people who earned a GED certificate over those who simply dropped out of high school. So should we just end these programs?

 

Dr. Heckman's GED project site:

http://heckman.uchicago.edu/page/general-educational-development-ged

 

Dr. Heckman regrets that our national education system so prioritizes cognitive skills and neglects the non-cognitive.  The tests and training themselves are no attempt to measure non-cognitive skills

 

In fact, the two are related, and integrally intertwined.  And this element in itself should speak volumes to curriculum designers for our public schools, as well as the whole new emphasis on testing of cognitive skill development. 

 

 Heckman:  from his University of Chicago web page: http://heckman.uchicago.edu/

 

"I am actively working with personality psychologists, developmental psychologists, quantitative sociologists, statisticians, and neuroscientists to understand the biology and social science producing inequality in health, in labor market outcomes and in society at large."

 

The GED programs and our public high school education programs are both based on prioritizing cognitive over non-cognitive skills. 

 

But in fact, Dr. Heckman is deeply concerned that GED programs research has been quoted and used to support curtailment of GED programs.

"Investing in our Young People" A study in the variations in human life cycle skill development, by James Heckman,  University of Chicago, University College Dublin, and The American Bar Foundation.  November 15, 2006. This is available online: http://jenni.uchicago.edu/human-inequality/papers/inv-young-rep_all_2007-01-31b_mms.pdf

 

According to Mr. Kautz, his colleague:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/young-ged-test-takers-miss-out-on-high-school-experience/2013/05/12/88df6cfc-ab67-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_story.html

 

"The entire (child development) literature assumes that ability is an innate, scalar, age-invariant measure of cognitive skill. This early point of view still prevails in most quarters of economics. …. Noncognitive traits were neglected in empirical research and treated as "soft skills," peripheral to the study of educational and labor market outcomes.

 

Historically the GED is counted as equivalent to HS diplomas on the census. That's hidden a growing problem with actual graduation rates. If you don't count GED recipients as high school graduates, the graduation rate among African-Americans hasn't increased since the sixties.  "If it deludes people into thinking we've fixed social problems that we haven't, that's also a big cost. Because papering over a problem is not going to make it go away," says Kautz. 

 

But GED testing service says it's correct to count the GED as equivalent to high school. "Who determines if it's actually equivalent is the consumers, which are colleges and employers," said CT Turner, Director, Public Affairs & Government Relations for GED Testing Service. He says 98% of colleges accept the GED."

 

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

graberdb@gmail.com

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

Extrajudicial killing and our constitution

The portion of this column omitted from the print edition in Big Horn County News begins, with links and sources, after the seventh paragraph below.

 

So far the public response to the Boston terrorist attacks is a narrow, limited focusing on our breakdown in intelligence and debating over Miranda rights. Moral dimensions are ignored. Yet in the late 1780's one nation mustered the moral courage to compose the strongest document any nation had forged up to that point in history in order to face down great evil. That's our nation, and that's our constitution. It still stands, a model for other nations, asking us as American citizens to be ever mindful of the rights of all people.   

 

Our forefathers knew firsthand the evil inherent in a nation where the government condones extrajudicial killing. They knew the fear that stalked the citizens of such a society. Citizens of thirteen colonies came to an agreement. They successfully ended the targeting homes for break-ins after midnight, false arrest and indefinite incarceration without trial, and execution. That's why they enshrined guarantees in our constitution to "…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…" To make the dream reality they set up an unprecedented model of republican democracy for themselves and their children, including us. That's why we have the right to vote. That's how our government is beholden to us instead of to an elite few who think nothing of trampling on the rest of us. That's how extrajudicial killing of citizens by King George's government was stopped in the United States of America.

 

Historically, it has not been easy to ensure equal protection for all citizens under our Constitution.  Our ideas about who deserves civil rights have changed over time.   We have also suspended application of this great document out of fear in times of national crisis. Although our history is mixed, it seems that, overall we have made strong strides forward in realizing the provisions of our Constitution. We wouldn't have made this progress without active concern and involvement of US citizens.

 

This reminds me of an experience I had back in 2003. I accepted an invitation to conduct a workshop on appropriate heritage language and song for religionists at San Solano Mission in Topawa, the Tohono O'odham reservation near the Mexican border of Arizona. In a palm-shaded open courtyard I shared songs and stories of the Cheyenne and Crow. I listened to responses of the Euro-American pastors and teachers. In the back under a portico colonnade sat elders of the village, quietly listening to our songs and dialogue.

 

Our conversation was interrupted with a deafening blast jolting deep into our bodies. Windows and doors rattled. The blast was followed immediately with a roar that rose so loud we could not keep our hands from our ears. It quickly ceased, and the elders under the portico were hard pressed to comfort us. Surprisingly, they were accustomed to such occurrences.

 

At lunch I sat with my Tohono host and asked him for details about this rude jolt. He told me about children unable to sleep at night for fear of the boom, about families moving out of town, about livestock aborting and large windows broken. He told me the village of Topawa had been made a target for mock bombing runs by our military. I asked him how this happened. He said he thinks the government wants us Indians farther from the border, and would rather do this than tell us.

 

I was shocked that this type of intimidation of tribes can exist in our modern day.  The elders discouraged their tribe from bringing this situation to public attention because they were so grateful to the government for finally giving them the right to vote in 1965.  Then following my visit Arizona's "Proposition 200" came up and became law, placing an imposing barrier to the right to vote for many elderly in that community, being without birth certificates (they birthed at home), drivers licenses (like Crow country), and other paper identification.

 

First the Bush and now the Obama administrations have supported extrajudicial execution of citizen suspects. The Obama administration has now even executed American citizens by drone attacks, a practice previously limited to foreign suspects. Sneaky lawyers have constructed legal justification for this. The language is still secret, not available for public inspection. How can we stand for this? Our outrage should be commensurate with the conviction of those who wrote our constitution almost three centuries ago. They saw the abomination of a government reserving for itself the right to arrest and execute citizen suspects with no effort to apply appropriate judicial process.

 

Think about the implications. Powerful government interests in our country have taken upon themselves a power to abuse and even kill previously relegated only to the Divine. King David in the Bible had a long struggle with this. His repentance is documented in scripture. I predict that American carnage will continue to escalate as we move more into extrajudicial killing and our children follow the example of the powerful. If we want to change this, I propose we do what King David did: repent, and turn from our evil ways. This can start in Big Horn County.

 

The following is exclusive to this blog, not in this column as published in the Big Horn County News April 2:

 

That's how extrajudicial killing of citizens by government was stopped in the United States of America way back with the first 13 colonies.  Things have changed, and it's troubling. We have fallen victim to emotional paranoia leading us into compromises with our constitution that have not and will not help us toward more safety for our children and our families. As extrajudicial killing increases, it will increase among our citizens and children as well.

 

Just last year the policy permitting extrajudicial killing of American citizens by drone attack was given approval, retroactively endorsing the assassination of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old US citizen born in Denver. In October of 2011 he was breakfasting with friends at a campfire beside a trail in Yemen on a mission to locate his father. Unbeknownst to him, his father, also an American citizen, had already been eliminated by an American drone, in a sudden blast totally destroying the automobile in which he and a friend were driving. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki.

 

From Salon / By Andrew O'Hehir, April 13, 2013

How Boston Exposes America's Dark Post-9/11 Bargain

Why did this story drive the whole country nuts? Because we traded rights for "security," and didn't get either.

 

"Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."  —Benjamin Franklin, at the time of the ratification of our constitution.

 

The following has some common sense approaches to breaking our cycle of mass violence worldwide.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/04/rinku_sen_boston_marathon_explosions.html

 

In the Bible, violence in any form becoming acceptable is connected with lawlessness, unrighteousness, and evil. Read in the Old Testament what was happening that God regretted creating human kind, just before Noah's flood.  Then read what's happening in India and in this country regarding rape:

http://www.alternet.org/school-principal-discouraged-teen-girl-reporting-sexual-assault-because-it-would-ruin-attackers

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/03/13/as-steubenville-rape-trial-opens-victim-blaming-begins-in-court-of-law-and-public-opinion/

 

This blog post uses some strong language with sources cited to disparage our loss of constitutional rights for no gain in security for our children and our families.   See the entire blog post on line:

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-boston-exposes-americas-dark-post-911-bargain?akid=10351.144927.3x2SMi&rd=1&src=newsletter828346&t=4

 

Following are web sites detailing the Tohono O'odham nation's struggle with our government including voting rights, and the unfortunate drift back into vote suppression from 1965 when they won the right to vote as mentioned above. 

 

http://www.hrusa.org/indig/reports/Tohono.shtm

 

http://www.nativevillage.org/Editorials/Oodham%20to%20National%20Guard.htm

 

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/11/22/20091122BMGRruins.html?nclick_check=1

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machita_Incident

http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting/ArizonaVRA.pdf

 

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

graberdb@gmail.com

www.greenwoodfarmmt.org

Self Loathing

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