Working over Obamacare

Tuesday Sept. 24 New York Times opinion page has an article on the lies/distortions currently in the media on Obamacare better elucidated than my column: http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/sabotaging-health-care-one-lie-at-a-time/

Here is my column, with Links and additional commentary missing in The Big Horn County News, in italics:

It's hard for me to imagine that citizens of Big Horn County are as confused as many in the rest of the country over Obamacare.  If they are, I'd like to do my part to help clear things up.  

The mixed messages we're getting from media, politicians, and our fellow citizens could leave anybody's head spinning (and not from lack of medicine).  Last month I saw a news picture of Tea Party demonstrators carrying signs that said "Hands off my health care" and "No socialized medicine."  At first this seemed consistent with the familiar conservative message of reducing government intervention.  Except, it turns out they weren't protesting expansions in government-subsidized health care.  They were actually expressing their opposition to the proposed $500 billion cut in Medicare.  Huh? 

Then at the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville last month, a middle-aged man in a red golf shirt stood raptly at a booth labeled "Kynect." He was receiving services through Kentucky's state-run program to help citizens access the new health benefit exchanges (similar to services that will be available here in Big Horn County next month). The man was impressed. "This beats Obamacare I hope," he mutters to one of the workers. See  http://kynect.ky.gov/ for a detailed report, and for further analysis http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/kentucky-obamacare_n_3801054.html

"Do I burst his bubble?" wonders Reina Diaz-Dempsey, overseeing the operation. She doesn't. If he signs up, it's a win-win, whether or not he knows it's really Obamacare. Yes, "Kynect" is the Republican-initiated program written ten years ago for Massachusetts.  It was adopted with few changes by the Obama administration and dubbed "The Affordable Care Act." This program got lots of bipartisan support because it will significantly improve the average citizen's access to private health insurance, while potentially increasing health industry profit margins.  So what's the problem with affordable and profitable health care? Is it all in the sound of the label "Obamacare," eliciting media-promoted emotional reactions nationwide?

Some people may prefer to be misinformed.  After all, we're living in a world of sound bites and unexamined beliefs we like to call "facts." However, I think we're better than this here in Big Horn County.  I want a little more straight talk and I believe you might, too. Let's take a look at some of the misinformation floating around about Obamacare.

 1 Obamacare cuts $500 Billion From Medicare:  Why would the same people trying to eliminate virtually all family support programs, also not want to reduce Medicare costs?  It turns out that the health insurance companies are determined to keep their cash cow program, "Medicare Advantage," pouring tax money into their private coffers.  The proposed cuts are not a slashing of the current Medicare budget or current benefits.  Changes to the "Medicare Advantage" private insurance-run programs will lead to substantial saving for taxpayers over the next ten years. Of course, it will be cutting some government handouts to insurance companies.

 http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/medicare_and_the_500_billion_b.php?page=all

 Why would they suddenly promote this program benefiting primarily the poor? Obama wielded the same rhetoric against the Republicans: 

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/03/a-final-weekend-of-whoppers/

Nevertheless, it's a $500 billion reduction in the growth of future spending over 10 years not a slashing of the current Medicare budget or benefits. It's true that those getting benefits will continue getting their benefits. But it's also true that Medicare Advantage's private plans (about 22 percent of Medicare enrollees) will have fewer options for add-on benefits that really bankroll more profit for private insurance companies. The bill aims to reduce rising costs from Medicare Advantage plans that simply hand over Medicare funds for corporate insurance administration.

These insurance administration costs have risen much higher, compared with the regular fee-for-service government-administered Medicare. But because congress has consistently stopped real medicare reform, it has inadvertently or not cultivated the resultant criticisms of medicare's problems. Medicare Advantage plans run by insurance companies have been quick to step into the gap, insurance companies have reaped increasing profits, and we citizens have sheepishly picked up the tab to pay insurance companies instead of the government (see how government messed up Medicare?) for the increased cost.

2. It will pay for illegal immigrants' health care:  The Affordable Care Act doesn't provide health care for undocumented immigrants. In fact, there are numerous provisions that specifically require exclusion of undocumented immigrants.  But whoa! Perhaps we should let immigrants pay into the pool. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/the_case_for_insuring_illegal.html

This lie was launched to prominence with the help of a false accuser, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, who famously heckled President Barack Obama during an address to a Joint Session of Congress by yelling "You lie!" after the president had mentioned that undocumented immigrants would not be eligible for the credits for the bill's proposed health care exchanges.

Undocumented immigrants are younger, healthier, and prone to work harder than most of us long time citizens. With 7 million of these potential insurance premium payers in our country, they would definitely lower insurance costs for all of us.

3 It's a Jobs-Killer: Some pundits pronounce anything that the Obama White House does—from regulating pollution to flossing after meals—as something that would "kill jobs." The Affordable Care Act is no different. There's no real evidence to support this familiar diatribe. Come on guys, get a new slogan. 

But does the health reform plan threaten jobs? Not by any honest measure. See McClatchy Newspapers: 

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/17/106950/is-health-care-law-really-a-job.html#.UhtQAGTXhn8

4 It adds to The Deficit: Will this big government program push indebtedness to such a height that our future Chinese overlords will gleefully take over Sarpy Mine?  We spend twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as other industrialized nations.  This situation might make sense if we had better health outcomes, but unfortunately for all of us, this is not the case. How does this upside-down spending-to-benefit ratio ensure our financial future as a nation? Independent analysis shows that affordable health insurance is likely to save both public and private money, and is already showing this to be the case in states where implementation is progressing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/18/cbo-score-on-health-care_n_502543.html

5.  Republicans, and their ideas, were left out of the bill and the process.
In fact, the Democrats were eager to get GOP input and enthusiastic about including many of their desired components in the bill. The Affordable Care Act was modeled on a reform designed and implemented by a former Republican governor and presidential candidate, whose innovation was widely celebrated by the GOP while said former governor was running for president. The heritage foundation dreamed up the "individual mandate" used in Massachusetts in Romneycare to ensure "no free riders."  Further provisions were borrowed from the Senate GOP alternative to the Clinton plan in the 1990s, and the 2009 Bipartisan Policy Committee plan, which was endorsed by Tom Daschle, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole.

As for the process, you might recall that the White House very patiently waited for the bipartisan Gang Of Six to weigh in with its own solution, and openly courted one Republican gang member, Sen. Chuck Grassley, long after it was clear to every reporter inside the Beltway that Grassley was intentionally acting in bad faith. 

And perhaps you don't recall the bipartisan health care summit that was held in March of 2009? if so, don't feel bad about it -- RNC Chairman Michael Steele couldn't remember it either, when he yelled at the president for not having one.

http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201002250005

Steele Criticizes Obama For Not Holding A Health Care Summit Last Year...Which He Did February 25, 2010 10:45 am ET — Matt Finkelstein

Today on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown," RNC Chairman Michael Steele dismissed today's bipartisan health care summit as a "dog and pony show." The beleaguered chairman added that if President Obama was serious about working across the aisle, he should have started off the reform process with a bipartisan event last year.  But, as hosts Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie quickly pointed out, Obama actually did hold a bipartisan summit last March:

http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201002250005

6 Death Panels will be terminating patients to fund Obamacare.

The "death panel" lie spread across Montana, only exceeded by its predictability. That is the best way to counter opening access and reducing cost to millions of Americans who have gone without health care for so long? Convince them the government wants them dead. "It really began with serial liar Betsy McCaughey, who in 1994 polluted the pages of the New Republic with a staggering pile of deception in an effort to scuttle President Bill Clinton's health care reform. As Nyhan documents, she re-emerged in 2009 when "she invented the false claim that the health care legislation in Congress would result in seniors being directed to 'end their life sooner.'"

Nyhan: "McCaughey's statement was a reference to a provision in the Democratic health care bill that would have provided funding for an advanced care planning for Medicare recipients once every five years or more frequently if they become seriously ill. As independent fact-checkers showed (PolitiFact.com 2009b; FactCheck.org 2009a), her statement that these consultations would be mandatory was simply false--they would be entirely voluntary.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/07/andrew-sullivans-mccaughe_n_313157.html

 7 Our health care is already 'The Best In The World'

We have the pinnacle of health care in the United States. Why would we mess with the best?

We also have the best first-class commercial air travel. What do the people in America who "fly coach" in the health care system get? By all objective measurements, it's overpriced and underperforming—if you were lucky enough to be participating in it. As anyone who's fortunate enough to have employer based health care or unfortunate enough to have a pre-existing condition can tell you, health care for ordinary people already involved all of those things that we were told would be a feature of the Affordable Care Act: long waits, limited choice, and rationing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/us-health-care-expensive_n_624248.html

So Many More To Choose From!

Obviously, we in Big Horn County have been flooded with misinformation on Obamacare. For more, check out the Impossible Tale Of The One-Dollar Abortion, the Story of the State-Based Inflexibility That Wasn't,The Curious Case of the Politically Connected Waivers and Nancy Drew And The Hidden $105 Billion Expenditure.

http://www.minnpost.com/dc-dispatches/2011/03/michele-bachmanns-health-care-cover-charges-hard-fathom

Here's research on the vast numbers of young adults who simply don't know the meaning of the Affordable Care Act's reforms:

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2013/Aug/1701_Collins_covering_young_adults_tracking_brief_final_v4.pdf

Covering Young Adults Under the Affordable Care Act:

The Importance of Outreach and Medicaid Expansion

Findings from the Commonwealth Fund

Health Insurance Tracking Survey of Young Adults, 2013

Sara R. Collins, Petra W. Rasmussen, Tracy Garber, and Michelle M. Doty

 Here's the abstract: There is concern that many young adults (ages 19–29) will remain without health insurance in 2014 despite the Affordable Care Act's reforms, including subsidized private coverage offered in new state marketplaces and expanded Medicaid eligibility. How things turn out will likely depend on outreach efforts and states' decisions on expanding Medicaid. Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Tracking Survey data from 2011 and 2013 show increasing awareness among young adults of the 2010 requirement that health plans cover children under age 26. Of the estimated 15 million young adults enrolled in a parent's plan in the prior 12 months, 7.8 million would not likely have been eligible to enroll prior to the law. Still, only 27 percent of 19-to-29-year-olds are aware of the marketplaces. Meanwhile, most uninsured young adults living below poverty will not have access to subsidized public or private insurance in states opting out of the Medicaid expansion.

--
David Graber
Hardin, MT

graberdb@gmail.com

Middle East Morass

Fall is in the air once again and our familiar autumn rituals are underway. Here in Big Horn County we're busy with harvesting, canning, and getting little ones started in school. Out in Washington D.C. they're planning for our next military strike in the Middle East. It seems like some things never change.  

The media has a lot to say about the war weary American public. Yes, we should be a war-exhausted species. We've been going at this for centuries, with little relief. While our justifications and weaponry changes, our propensity for war has remained unabated since ancient times.  

In the grotto of the cathedral chapel at Notre Dame University is a relic of a little-known saint from ancient Roman times. Marcellus of Tangier was a Roman Centurion, leading a campaign to stamp out insurrections not far from Syria in the year 289 CE.  At that time, Emperor Maximian Herculeus was considered to be a divine entity, a son of god, and Christianity was outlawed.  On the occasion of the emperor's birthday, Marcellus rose, clad in his military regalia, to address the gathered crowd. Instead of appropriate words of praise for the emperor, Marcellus astonished everyone present by removing his implements of war—sword, belt, armor and dagger—and laying them before the imperial dais. He declared that as a servant of Jesus Christ he would no longer participate in demonic worship and its associated slaughter of human flesh and blood. This didn't end so well for him, as on October 30, 289 CE, he was beheaded for treason, along with the clerk Cassius who protested the unjust sentence. However, his bold words will again be considered an heroic act of faith and self-sacrifice by those who celebrate this saint's day come October 30.

 As time passed, Christianity grew across the Roman Empire and soon became the law of the land. In spite of the message of Christ, war continued in all its forms. Now people could use Christianity as a justification for brutalizing pagans, including Jews and Muslims.  Any soldier killed in active duty was guaranteed a spot in heaven. Today, Islamic extremists bent on insurrection against the United States offer the same reward to their suicide bombers.

 Marcellus believed that war was demonic—a horror against all of mankind. I think this truth is still with us today.  Any war, no matter how well justified or morally righteous, will bring suffering and brutality beyond comprehension. 

 Syria is symptomatic of a rising epidemic of governmental violence and reciprocal insurrection violence hearkening back to Pax Romana. But today, our technology surpasses all previous advances in power to smash human flesh, bone and blood. The demonic cancer of high tech violence now floods increasingly from our movie screens out to the far corners of plant earth. As the evil dictator Assad escalates his chemical warfare against his own civilians, President Obama wants to respond in kind by sending our own weapons of massive destruction, carried by our new generation of brave warriors, into the carnage.

 Whatever happens with Syria (or our next military intervention in the Middle East), I hope we can find the courage to ask ourselves some fundamental questions about war's capacity to heal. Is it possible to use an awesomely superior power to blow up, gas aerosol bomb, break, microwave, or smash human bodies for peace? Can violence be quelled with violence, no matter how superior? After all, peace reigned in Jewish ghettos following massive torture and executions by Nazi SS troops. Brutal dictators across the globe seek peace by killing all who oppose them, down to the last child. This kind of uneasy peace incurs a future cost that is incalculable, as we see time and time again across our planet.  Remember Rwanda and the Balkans?  

 In contrast to the science of warfare, the scientific research into how humans wage peace and win against terrible evil is rising. There are other ways. Obama is not trapped into returning evil for evil, and neither are we in our families. Many of our naïve assumptions about "doing what it takes" are demonstrably idiotic. After all, we've been engaging in rampant warfare for centuries, with all its accompanying horrors. It doesn't seem to solve our fundamental conflicts. I wonder what we could learn from those who found the courage to separate out the demonic from the holy, as did Jesus in ancient Israel, Saint Marcellus in the Western Roman Empire, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in our own time.

Meantime, in our living rooms, most of our children watch cartoons with special blood-and-guts effects raising the ante of adolescent tit-for-tat, pay-back, and giving those bad guys some of their own medicine. Maybe we could heed our Bible, read our history of saints who made the supreme sacrifice, challenge our adolescent mentalities about "there's a jungle out there," and grow up a little.

The following was not included in the column as published September 4, 2013:
First, some comments from Kevin Zeese in Truthout. For the entire article see http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18673-obama-should-seek-legal-prosecution-not-illegal-war

There is no question that under international law, the allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government do not provide a legal basis for military action by the United States.  To put it directly: The United States will be violating international law if it attacks Syria.

To act within the rule of law to effectively deter the use of chemical weapons the following should occur:

1. The U.S. should present its evidence regarding use of chemical weapons in Syria to the UN Security Council.
2. The Security Council should condemn any use of chemical weapons and forbid further use of chemical weapons.
3. It should expand the scope of the UN investigation to include the issue of responsibility for attacks, refer the Syrian situation to the International Criminal Court for further investigation and adjudication, and call for convening of a peace conference.

Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida gives a thorough analysis of the proposed military intervention in Syria: “The only thing you can be really sure about when you start a war is that you can’t be sure about anything when you start a war.” He is interviewed at length on September 5, 2013 on Democracy Now. See www.democracynow.org.
Our government has a history of hypocrisy with chemical warfare. Some of the secrets have been pried out of the closet, and millions have suffered around the world, including several deplorable incidents causing unnecessary suffering and death among our enlisted. This WMD, chemical warfare, has been deployed and may still be deployed by our government secretly. From agent orange and phosphorus bombs to sarin and U238, the history is often ignored by our media. Check this site for informative links and evidence: http://www.alternet.org/world/america-and-chemical-warfare?akid=10899.144927.cUsAQi&rd=1&src=newsletter893052&t=5

 Pope Francis, addressing the crowd on Sunday (September 1, 2013) in the Vatican City's St. Peter's Square: "Never has the use of violence brought peace in its wake. War begets war, violence begets violence." 

For info on the campaign of deception to promote war, check this out:

From the false Tonkin Gulf narrative in 1964 that boosted the Vietnam War to the fabricated baby-incubators-in-Kuwait tale in 1990 that helped launch the Gulf War to the reports of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction early in this century, countless deaths and unfathomable suffering have resulted from the failure of potential whistleblowers to step forward in a timely and forthright way -- and the failure of journalists to challenge falsehoods in high government places.

Once again, like in the build-up to bombing Baghdad, lots of the rhetoric doesn't add up. But the commercial media is not paying attention. Unlike my Chinese colleagues at XiHua University near Chengdu City in Sichuan, we so easily believe our government when it comes to beating the drums of war.
Here's reporting on a consensus of top military advisors: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/06/obama-warned-on-syrian-intel/
Here's TruthOut, an alternative independent resource:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/18559-how-intelligence-was-twisted-to-support-an-attack-on-syria

Our troubles with counterinsurgency warfare:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/18467-counterinsurgency-has-been-calamitous-doctrine-for-us

Regent University publication, "Christianity.com", June, 2007: 

http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1-300/cassian-and-marcellus-beheaded-for-their-bold-stand-11629631.html 

http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-marcellus-the-centurion/

http://www.ttstm.com/2008/10/october-30-marcellus-of-tangier-martyr.html

 Telling the stories that matter:

 In Memory of Saint Marcellus BY TOBIAS WINRIGHT 30 OCT 2010- See more at: http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/blog/2010/10/in-memory-of-saint-marcellus/#sthash.Ut8aTHbx.dpuf

 http://www.ucatholic.com/saints/saint-marcellus/

 http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/marcellu.htm

 Best detailed account is this story quoted on line  From A Treasury of Early Christianity, edited by Anne Fremantle, New York: Viking Press, 1953, pp. 233-236)

 The Martyrdom of Saints Marcellus and Cassian

Marcellus was a native of Tingis (now Tangier), and a centurion during the reign of Diocletian. He cast away his arms and declared himself a Christian, for which he was sentenced [in 298] by the governor Fortunatus to be beheaded. At the time of Marcellus's trial Cassian was a shorthand writer in the court. He declared that the sentence of Marcellus was unjust, for which heresy he himself was imprisoned and a little later suffered the same martyrdom.

In the city of Tingis, during the administration of Fortunatus as governor, the time came for the birthday of the Emperor. When all in that place were feasting at banquets and sacrificing, a certain Marcellus, one of the centurions of the Trajan legion, deeming those banquets to be heathen, cast away his soldier's belt in front of the standards of the legion which were then in camp, and testified in a loud voice, saying: "I serve Jesus Christ the Eternal King." He also threw away his vine-switch and arms, and added: "Henceforward I cease to serve your Emperors, and I scorn to worship your gods of wood and stone, which are deaf and dumb idols. If such be the terms of service that men are forced to offer sacrifice to gods and Emperors, behold I cast away my vine-switch and belt, I renounce the standards, and refuse to serve."

The soldiers were dumbfounded at hearing such things; they laid hold on him, and reported the matter to Anastasius Fortunatus the commander of the legion, who ordered him to be thrown into prison. When the feasting was over, he gave orders, sitting in council, that the centurion Marcellus should be brought in. When Marcellus, one of the centurions of Asta, was brought in, Anastasius Fortunatus the governor said: "What did you mean by ungirding yourself in violation of military discipline, and casting away your belt and vineswitch?"

Marcellus answered: "On the twenty-first of July, in presence of the standards of your legion, when you celebrated the festival of the Emperor, I made answer openly and in a loud voice that I was a Christian and that I could not serve under this allegiance, but only under the allegiance of Jesus Christ the Son of God the Father Almighty."

Anastasius Fortunatus the governor said, "I cannot pass over your rash conduct, and therefore I will report this matter to the Emperors and Caesar. You yourself shall be referred unhurt to my lord, Aurelius Agricolan, Deputy for the Prefects of the Guard." [The shorthand writer who took down the official proceedings was Caecilius.]

On the 30th of October at Tingis, Marcellus, one of the centurions of Asta, having been brought into court, it was officially reported: "Fortunatus the governor has referred Marcellus, a centurion, to your authority. There is in court a letter dealing with his case, which at your command I will read."

Agricolan said: "Let it be read."

The official report was as follows: "From Fortunatus to you, my lord, and so forth. This soldier, having cast away his soldier's belt, and having testified that he was a Christian, spoke in the presence of all the people many blasphemous things against the gods and against Caesar. We have therefore sent him on to you, that you may order such action to be taken as your Eminence may ordain in regard to the same."

After the letter had been read, Agricolan said: "Did you say these things as appear in the official report of the governor?"

Marcellus answered: "I did."

Agricolan said: "Did you hold the rank of a centurion of the first class?"

Marcellus answered: "I did."

Agricolan said: "What madness possessed you to cast away the signs of your allegiance, and to speak as you did?"

Marcellus answered: "There is no madness in those who fear the Lord."

Agricolan said: "Did you make each of these speeches contained in the official report of the governor?"

Marcellus answered: "I did."

Agricolan said: "Did you cast away your arms?"

Marcellus answered: "I did. For it was not right for a Christian, who serves the Lord Christ, to serve the cares of the world."

Agricolan said: "The acts of Marcellus are such as must be visited with disciplinary punishment." And he pronounced sentence as follows: "Marcellus, who held the rank of centurion of the first class, having admitted that he has degraded himself by openly throwing off his allegiance, and having besides put on record, as appears in the official report of the governor, other insane expressions, it is our pleasure that he be put to death by the sword."

When he was being led to execution, he said to Agricolan: "May God bless thee! For so ought a martyr to depart out of this world."

And when he had said these words he was beheaded, dying for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is glorious for ever and ever. Amen.

When Aurelius Agricolan was acting as deputy for the Prefects of the Praetorian Guard, at the time when he was preparing to hear the case of the holy martyr Marcellus, the blessed Cassian was a shorthand writer under the orders of his staff. So when Marcellus, one of the centurions of Asta, was brought into court at Tingis on the 30th of October, Aurelius Agricolan by his power as judge strove with many threats to seduce him from perseverance in his confession. But the blessed Marcellus by the power of his constancy, so that all henceforward considered him his judge's judge, proclaimed that he was the soldier of Christ, and could not serve the cares of the world, while Aurelius Agricolan on the other hand poured forth words full of fury. Cassian was taking down these statements, but, when he saw Aurelius Agricolan, beaten by the devotion of so great a martyr, pronounce sentence of death, he vowed with an imprecation he would go no farther, and threw on the ground his pen and note book. So, amid the astonishment of the staff and the laughter of Marcellus, Aurelius Agricolan trembling leapt from the bench and demanded why he had thrown down his note books with an oath. Blessed Cassian answered that Agricolan had dictated an unjust sentence. To avoid further contradiction, Agricolan ordered him to be at once removed and cast into prison.

Now the blessed martyr Marcellus had laughed because, having knowledge of the future through the Holy Spirit, he rejoiced that Cassian would be his companion in martyrdom. On that very day, amid the eager expectation of the city, blessed Marcellus obtained his desire. After no long interval, namely, on the 3rd of December, the worshipful Cassian was brought into the same court in which Marcellus had been tried, and by almost the same replies, the same statement as holy Marcellus had made, merited to obtain the victory of martyrdom, through the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong honour and glory, excellency and power for ever and ever. Amen.

---

Evangelical Outreach
PO Box 265
Washington PA 15301 

www.evangelicaloutreach.org

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

graberdb@gmail.com

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