Greenwood Farm Blog

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Israel's Most Dangerous Enemy.

Enmity or hatred of other people is the greatest enemy we will ever face. If we look at what is happening around the world and at our own violence-filled history, this fact becomes apparent. Right now there is a high level of interest in research focused on the intractable conflict in the Middle East. The ongoing killing and civil unrest is incomprehensible to many of us who haven’t encountered enmity descending to this level.

Even in Big Horn County we don’t ignore this. Many of us are veterans having seen action in that theater. Now here’s another land invasion into the Gaza Strip, another ceasefire ended, and more inconclusive negotiations leading to more thoroughly justified killing. It is hard to comprehend how Israel’s attacks within its own boundaries continue decade after decade. It is also hard to fathom the ongoing level of enmity expressed toward Israel by other nations.

I’m wondering whether our own history of ethnic conflict here in Big Horn County could shed light on the current Gaza conflict. Is there anything we learned in our struggles evidenced by battle sites right here that could be enlightening?

White enmity toward American Indians was strong following Custer’s defeat on Last Stand Hill that hot June day in 1876. Two years later, a small band of Cheyennes, under Dull Knife, wanted to come back home here to the Little Horn and Rosebud. They were stopped by a January blizzard in 1879 and were found holed up in a hollow in the Nebraska Sand Hills. This band was escorted to Fort Robinson, where they were to be kept safe. I remember this beginning of the story I heard from a Ft Robinson military historian in 1976, as my family was camping in the area.

Our narrator went and on about fascinating military trivia, not mentioning the human connections that had been broken between the Cheyenne nation and their land. He didn’t mention the loss of the buffalo, their means of providing food and shelter, except as a military strategy; or how on that day they found themselves and their children cold, hungry, tired, and without any means of self-defense.

I heard a different version of the story shortly after I first moved to Busby to teach English and music. Friends like Teddy Risingsun and Austin Two Moons made sure I knew the real story, and warned me when I told them of my plans to take my family to Ft. Robinson. Teddy came back from the Korean War certain of his vision that the America he fought for needs to see the light. The central reason for the long and difficult Indian wars of the Americas from 1492 was not intransigent savages. It was the breaking of native nations’ connections to land and all its provisions. It was ongoing theft and occupation of Indian land. It started with slavery, led on to mass murder, sexual abuse, starvation, imprisonment, forced removal, torture and genocide. At that time I didn’t recognize the real enemy enmity, initially against Indians by Whites. I was only shocked with Teddy’s graphic litany of reasons for anger against Whites.

Of course we all know that the real savagery began with European gold-lust in Hispaniola. In a few short decades the West Indies islands were depopulated of millions of inhabitants in the New World’s first genocides. It continued the next centuries with atrocities on both sides up the East Coast of the thirteen colonies, into the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys with the Revolutionary War, and across the plains to Montana by the end of the Civil War.

This carnage on the plains of Montana has been ending over recent decades because of courageous people cutting enmity and cultivating peace. This trend culminated in a successful installation of an Indian memorial alongside the Custer memorial at the Little Big Horn Battle site near Crow Agency. The history of this monument alongside that of the 7th Cavalry is traced in a 2005 thesis by Megan Reece, “The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and an Indian Memorial After 1988.”

In the words of Susan Harjo at one of the hearings in preparation for the change, “It is because of the valor and sacrifice of the past generations of all Indian nations in defense of treaty, sovereignty and human rights that there are any Indian people alive today. The heroism of our relatives at the Battle of the Little Bighorn has become the symbol for Indian people generally of the just and provident actions of all our ancestors to protect family and home.”

Some Palestinian and Israeli leaders are recognizing the need to address enmity as the enemy. Their writings, the science they access, and the religious inspiration for their courage is almost unknown in Big Horn County and in most of our nation. Look on my blog for links to their organizations, and find the remarkable stories of true courage that will eventually win the peace in Palestine and Israel. They remind me of the stories I heard from Cheyenne descendants of that battle after we arrived here in 1973, and Austin Two Moons’ speech and prayer at the dedication of the memorial. We have right here on Last Stand Hill a history lesson on how enmity is defeated. It’s worth sharing that with Israelis, Palestinians, the nation and the world.

The following is not included in the Big Horn County News edition:

Both the United States in the 1870's and Israel in modern times can be characterized as "... a bully sitting on a smaller child, and every time someone objects to the fact that the bully is beating the smaller child with an iron rod, the bully exclaims, “Well, he tried to slap me, so I was forced to defend myself.” No, you can’t claim that you’re beating the smaller child with an iron rod in self-defense, especially when you can end the entire confrontation simply by getting off him. Back to the political reality, Norman Finkelstein put it best: “The refrain that Israel has the right to self-defense is a red herring: the real question is, does Israel have the right to use force to maintain an illegal occupation? The answer is no.”

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/28/debunking_the_myths_about_gaza_the_truth_behind_israeli_and_palestinian_talking_points/

Suzan Harjo, a Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal representative, prepared a statement in support of the Indian Memorial, delivered at the hearing on the memorial in September 1990:

“…The battlefield was becoming a park for the American Indians as well.

There were feelings of relief and of victory in the cold November air. The battlefield name change was one more step toward an actual memorial. American Indians visited for the first time after the bill’s initial passing, and instead of feeling as if they were visitors on an unknown land, acceptance and justice welcomed them. This dramatic change, courtesy of the American government, set the battlefield down a brand new path, because the same legislation approved an Indian memorial at the site. Soon, not only would the battlefield’s name welcome both American Indians and white Americans, it would also offer a sacred space.”

That sacred space was opened by the renaming of the Battlefield, “Little Big Horn Battlefield,” implicitly declaring that Custer, instead of being the sole hero of the battle, gives legitimacy and equal hero status to both sides.

It took more than a century for official acknowledgement both sides need to be welcome who claim ancestry on both sides in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. It was a real struggle for life and liberty at our tourist-worn site on Last Stand Hill just south of Crow Agency. So now, two memorials are located just up the hill from the museum. They brins balance to the tragedy of both sides in a struggle for land, safety from harm, and provisions for life. It’s basic to human existence.

The Little Big Horn Battle was simply one example of many from back then with striking similarities with the Israel and Palestine disasters over the last decades. We learned that stealing other nations’ and people’s land and calling it one’s own is just wrong. Destroying and wasting the vast herds of buffalo, the primary source of a several nations’ means to work and provide life for themselves and their families was wrong. The disdain for language, culture, life style and despising the very existence of other peoples is now understood as simply wrong. We learned that. We in Big Horn County, with our wealth of differences in heritage, religion and language, know this.

But it was not an easy struggle. The focus on the memorial at Crow Agency was symbolic of the enmity pervading both sides since Columbus first set foot on the Americas. It looked impossible. It took honest application of moral principles espoused by the powerful side. Highly significant was the national policy of welcoming anyone to our national memorial parks regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or economic status. The ancestors of those who fought and defeated General Custer felt distinctly unwelcome simply because there was no acknowledgement nor legitimization of their motives in defending themselves from General Custer’s attack on that June day in 1876. People across the country and around the world attended hearings that were not suppressed. Those organized against a memorial for each of the two sides had to stand down, and truth won out. The story is admirably recounted in detail by Megan Reece in her thesis of 2005: "The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and an Indian Memorial After 1988.”

http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/meganreecethesis.htm

Now it’s time to tell our president, our government, and this nation that just like then in Big Horn County, today neither side has a monopoly on enmity. But enmity is only exacerbated when one side is significantly more powerful than the other. It takes backing off to look at the obvious. One side uses the worlds largest bulldozers to destroy the other side’s homes, the other side has none. One side has F16 fighter bombers, helicopters, and command of the air space and uses it effectively to kill suspects, the other side has none. Was side has repeatedly killed or driven off livestock and otherwise destroyed agriculture production of the other side’s means to access food and a living. One side has been incarcerating children and killing children at a rate many times that of the other. One side has been crowding the other side into smaller and smaller areas, surrounding them with walls and impenetrable barriers to freedom of movement, making them virtual prisoners in what’s left of their own dwellings. One side’s children grow up witnessing death and destruction, experiencing the trauma of being present when family members are harmed, forceably subdued in their homes, or even killed. One side has all the weapons and technology of the US government to mount a successful self defense, yet frequently claims its right of self defense is under attack. The other side has neither effective self defense weapons nor rights to them, and now finds its tunnels, the only access to weapons for defense, destroyed again. One side has almost unanimous support from Christians in the United States.

But, a growing minority of American, Palestinian, and Israeli Christians, Jews and Muslims are working together against enmity in many worthy organizations cited below, even though they are opposed by the enmity of both sides.

A half-century ago, decades after Custer’s defeat, the protagonists met at Crow Agency and “buried the hatchet” in order to call off the hatreds and distrust that had tainted relationships between the factions here. We may be coming nationally to that point in our relationship with the lopsided “battle” in Gaza. We know it’s gotten ugly. Many liberal and conservative Jewish people in America and in the Middle East are waking up to the reality of the horrific imbalance. There are now over twenty active Israeli human rights organization working frantically to educate Israelis and, ostensibly, citizens in the United States, even in Big Horn County, about the plight of Palestinian people under Israeli military occupation. Ultimately, Israel’s security will rest in its recognition of the right of Palestinians to self defense of their homes, land, resources, and their families. The opposite is not an issue.

Following are a series of human rights organizations based in Israel, representing the voices of a strong minority of Israeli citizens deeply opposed and concerned about the direction of their nation. Unfortunately, none of these voices, though often having media access in Israel, has almost none here in the United States.

http://www.btselem.org/

B’Tselem (in the image of God) is one of the oldest human rights organizations in Israel. It’s stated focus: "acts primarily to change Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories and ensure that its government, which rules the Occupied Territories, protects the human rights of residents there and complies with its obligations under international law’ It’s web site is often inaccessible or difficult to load. Look it up on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B'Tselem

Adalah
The first Arab-run nonprofit legal center in Israel. The organization was established in November 1996 and its main goal is to achieve equal rights and minority rights protection for Arab citizens of Israel.

Amnesty International - Israel Section

The Israel section of Amnesty International participates in the organization's campaigns to prevent human rights violations in Israel and around the world.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel was established in 1972. ACRI is a non-partisan, independent organisation that works for the protection of human and civil rights in Israel and in the territories under its control.

The Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA)
Founded in 1988, HRA works to promote and protect the political, civil, economic, and cultural rights of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel and to further the domestic implementation of international human rights principles.

The Association of Forty
Formed in December 1988, the association represents the residents of so-called unrecognized villages and their problems and works to promote support locally and internationally.

Bizchut Israeli nonprofit organization working to advance the rights of people with physical and mental disabilities as well as the mentally ill and to achieve their full integration in Israeli society.

Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights
The organization was established in May 1999 by planners and architects with the goal of strengthening the connection between human rights and spatial planning in Israel. As a professional organization, Bimkom strives to achieve the right to equality and social justice in matters of planning, development, and the allocation of land resources, and assists communities and minorities affected by social and economic disadvantage and by civil rights' discriminations to exercise their rights in this area.

Gisha: Center for the Legal Protection of Freedom of Movement
An Israeli not-for-profit organization that seeks to protect the fundamental rights of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories by imposing human rights law as a limitation on the behavior of Israel's military.

Kav La'Oved
Non-profit organization established by a group of volunteers in 1990 dedicated to protecting the rights of disadvantaged workers in Israel.

Machsom Watch - Women for Human Rights Founded in 2001 by a group of Israeli women in response to reports on violations of the Human Rights of Palestinian civilians at military and police checkpoints. The group conducts daily surveillances at various checkpoints, observes the procedures at the checkpoints, challenges wrongdoings, assists the local population and provide updated web reports.

Meezaan Center for Human Rights
Meezaan Association for Human Rights focuses on maintaining adequate and professional legal representation of the Arab minority in all that concerns it as a native minority on its land; as well as raising awareness amongst the public and the non-profit organizations, throughout giving legal advisory and support as needed. We also concentrate on documenting transgressions and discrimination in every aspect of the Arab minority's existence, through authentic reports and publications that highlight and affirm these violations

HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual
An Israeli human rights organization whose main objective is to offer legal and administrative assistance and advocacy to Palestinians of the Occupied Territories whose rights are violated due to Israel's policies. These include Detainee Rights; Residency Rights and Family Unification; Freedom of Movement; Violence by security forces and settlers; House Demolitions and Deportations. HaMoked's site contains information relating to these human rights violations: Israeli laws and regulations; international conventions; petitions to the Israeli High Court of Justice; claims for compensation for damages; decisions by Israeli and other courts; and other official documents and reports.

Mossawa - The Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel
The organization was established in October of 1997 as a Non Governmental Organization. Mossawa works to promote equality for Arab\Palestinians within the borders of Israel. Mossawa utilizes advocacy methods to change the social and political status of Arab/Palestinians in Israel in an attempt to gain minority recognition and rights, without sacrificing their national and cultural rights as Palestinians.

Physicians for Human Rights - Israel
PHR-Israel, established in 1988, is dedicated to promoting and protecting the medical human rights of residents of Israel and the Occupied Territories. PHR-Israel opposes the subjugation of medical care to political considerations and fights against breaches of medical human rights by the Israeli authorities. PHR-Israel also works to rectify and prevent breakdowns in health care delivery in the West Bank.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI)
An apolitical organization dedicated to the elimination of torture as a means of interrogation by Israel's security forces. PCATI is the only organization in Israel exclusively devoted to the issue of illegal interrogation. PCATI documents, monitors and responds to cases of illegal interrogation, ill-treatment and police brutality within Israel, the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian National Authority.

Rabbis for Human Rights
The only organization in Israel today concerned specifically with giving voice to the Jewish tradition of human rights. RHR has helped numerous individuals, publicized causes, engaged in civil disobedience, lobbied the Knesset and participated in a landmark high court case limiting the scope of the army to abuse human rights under the guise of security.

Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights
An Israeli not-for-profit organization comprised of women and men who have come together to take concrete action against the constant human rights abuses inflicted on the Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The members of the organization come from diverse personal, professional and political backgrounds, but share a deep concern for the significant damage these abuses are causing Palestinian and Israeli societies. To ensure the effectiveness of its action, Yesh Din is assisted by legal, human rights and media professionals.

“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”by Dee Brown, 1979. It tells the broader story of our Indian wars in the American West, piercing through the clouds of the conquering power’s stories. The book expresses a Native American perspective on the injustices and betrayals committed by the US government. Brown describes Native Americans' displacement through forced relocations and years of warfare waged by the United States federal government. The government's dealings are portrayed as a continuing effort to destroy the culture, religion, and way of life of Native American peoples.^[2]Helen Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor is often considered a 19th-century precursor to Dee Brown's writing.^[3] (From Wikipedia)

From Ha’aretz, Israel’s largest news outlet, English version: Israel's moral defeat will haunt us for years

We have passed 1,000 dead Palestinians. How many more?

If victory is measured in the number of dead, then Israel and its army are big winners. From the time I wrote these words on Saturday, and by the time you read them on Sunday, the number will no longer be 1,000 (70-80 percent civilians) but even more.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.607550

An unholy war that spells disaster for democracy

Every day Israel's misguided Gaza operation continues, it threatens to overturn and decimate our nation's humane foundation.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.606448

Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza Debunked

Why does the mainstream media keep repeating these false claims?

http://www.alternet.org/world/five-israeli-talking-points-gaza-debunked?page=0%2C1&akid=12060.144927.tTeisn&rd=1&src=newsletter1013185&t=5&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/07/24/lets-tell-truth-about-international-madness

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/21/facing-fines-conversion-or-death-christians-flee-mosul/comment-page-4/

http://live.aljazeera.com/Event/Gaza_Blog

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/how-many-palestinians-been-kil-2014726131843576945.html

http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/meganreecethesis.htm quotes this book: 22 FitzGerald, Frances. America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century. New York: Vintage Books, 1980, 58. 5

“a high percentage – perhaps even a majority - of American schoolchildren learned American history from a single book: David Saville Muzzey’s American History.

Indians ‘had some noble qualities…but at bottom they were a treacherous, cruel people.’ By the 1890s – the decades following the end of the Indian Wars – white

American portrayals of American Indians declined even more. Words added to the

repertoire of American Indian descriptions included: “treacherous, cruel, tyrannical to

women, idolatrous, lazy, vengeful, and given to torture.”

July 9, 2014, David Harris-Gershon has an article in Alternet, Posted by Tikkun Daily, “As a Jew living in America, the past week has changed me forever.”

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/tikkundaily/jew-living-america-past-week-has-changed-me-forever?page=0%2C1

--
David Graber
Greenwoodfarmmt.org

graberdb@gmail.com

Hardin, MT

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Expanding the Medicaid Conversation

When our State Legislature chose not to expand Medicaid coverage last year, it made the national news. See how one vote killed Medicaid expansion in Montana, and it was a mistaken vote http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/24/accidents-happen-how-one-mistaken-vote-killed-montanas-medicaid-expansion/

Medicaid expansion would have allowed Montanans making slightly more money than the federal poverty rate to receive Medicaid benefits (as an alternative to purchasing private health insurance coverage). This became newsworthy because our state’s decision was ultimately caused by one legislator’s vote-casting accident. While that is pretty remarkable all by itself, equally remarkable is the flood of errors and misleading information about the issue that engulfed us along the way. After all, Medicaid expansion would have addressed one of our biggest concerns about requiring all Americans to have health insurance. It would have directly benefited those Montanans living just above the national poverty rate—those who have to choose between $100-$150 worth of groceries each month and their health insurance bill.

What accounts for the reluctance of Montanans to support Medicaid expansion in our state? It seems the campaign of misinformation around Affordable Care worked well here. Last year our own NEWS picked up on this in “Opinions divided on Medicaid expansion.” http://bighorncountynews.com/archive/2013/week%2013/story2.html

Two different studies were cited that pointed to vastly different outcomes in states that did expand Medicaid coverage. One study found worse surgical outcomes for Medicaid clients than for patients with private insurance. Another found increased life expectancy for Expanded Medicaid recipients (3% decrease in fatalities for 20-64 year olds in New York, Maine, and Arizona).

How confusing! It turns out that both stories are true, but the devil is in the details, as the saying goes. The first study didn’t take into account the fact that Medicaid recipients receiving surgery were in worse shape to start with (largely as a result of living in poverty). Those with private insurance had better results from surgery because they had more access to preventative care all along. It’s interesting that those of us who don’t do research studies for a living can see right away that this comparison is bogus. How did those professionals at the University of Virginia miss it?

The Gazette this past Friday quotes a U of M economist, who, with similarly sly bias, notes that “thousands of jobs” will “cost tax payers millions.” http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/economist-rapid-changes-in-health-care-mean-jobs-for-billings/article_572a4d32-20b4-5c6f-81ab-9f26af797ed3.html

The remainder of the story leaves the reader with a challenging task of connecting disconnected information to understand the full picture. Medicaid expansion through 2021 in Montana could “cost taxpayers about $34 million.” That full amount will be incurred over the span of seven years, while along the way creating 14,000 jobs statewide. That calculates to under $400 of taxpayer investment yearly for each of those high paying health sector jobs. When you think about the overall gain in state revenues that would come from these jobs, it’s hard to imagine a better investment for our state.

Now when this amount of misinformation gets deliberately spun around an issue that would seem to benefit so many ordinary, working-class Montanans, it makes me wonder about money. Who would stand to benefit by manipulating the issue in this way? It turns out that the most likely alternative to a simple Medicaid expansion in Montana will almost certainly release federal funds to our state’s private insurance companies. They can then limit health coverage for their own profit. This mostly affects Montanans working hard to stay out of poverty, those families who manage financial independence until it comes to over-priced health insurance costs. When wealthy executives of these companies stand to enrich their already-overflowing coffers, can we expect them to be honest with the facts?

Follow the money trail to learn the truth about this, and how so many issues in our state get confused when the facts on their face seem so clear. Several good sources highlight the media control of dialogue on important issues, clouding those issues with well-financed bias. Here are some on this issue:

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/economist-rapid-changes-in-health-care-mean-jobs-for-billings/article_572a4d32-20b4-5c6f-81ab-9f26af797ed3.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/06/1290119/-MedicAid-Expansion-Follow-the-Money

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2013/Dec/1718_Glied_how_states_stand_gain_lose_Medicaid_expansion_ib_v2.pdf

--
David Graber
Hardin, MT

graberdb@gmail.com

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Let Freedom Ring

Even though he never wore the uniform, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his life for our freedom. The revolution for freedom of which he was a part had values and aims much like the one we celebrate from 1776. My hope is that we may learn something on how to best win the fights we in as a nation face this July 4, 2014. For this column, I‘ll simply offer his words on the struggle for freedom from human oppression back then. The full speeches quoted in part here are available online via any search engine.

“. . . And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children. . . will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from his “I Have a Dream” speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs&feature=kp

“The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind. Somebody must have sense and somebody must have religion. I remember some years ago, my brother and I were driving from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee. And for some reason the drivers that night were very discourteous or they were forgetting to dim their lights. . . And finally A.D. looked over at me and he said, 'I'm tired of this now, and the next car that comes by here and refuses to dim the lights, I'm going to refuse to dim mine.' I said, 'Wait a minute, don't do that. Somebody has to have some sense on this highway.' And I'm saying the same thing for us here in Birmingham. We are moving up a mighty highway toward the city of Freedom. There will be meandering points. There will be curves and difficult moments, and we will be tempted to retaliate with the same kind of force that the opposition will use. But I'm going to say to you, 'Wait a minute, Birmingham. Somebody's got to have some sense in Birmingham.'

—Martin Luther King, Jr., 3 May 1963. This quote and most of the remaining quoted here can be found at Most are available from: This and the remainder of the quotes from Dr. King can be found at http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/king_quotes_on_war_and_peace/

“Most revolutions in the past have been based on hope and hate, with the rising expectations of the revolutionaries implemented by hate for the perpetrators of the unjust system in the old order. I think the different thing about the revolution that has taken place in our country (1776) is that it has maintained the hope element and at the same time it has added the dimension of love. Many people would disagree with me and say that love hasn't been there.

“. . . I would be the first to say that it is nonsense to urge oppressed people to love their violent oppressors in an affectionate sense. And I'm certainly not talking about that when I talk above love standing at the center of our struggle. I think it is necessary to see the meaning of love in higher terms. The Greek language has three words for love – . . . which is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all . . ., an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. When one rises to love on this level, he loves a person who does the evil deed while hating the deed. I believe that in our best moments in this struggle we have tried to adhere to this. In some strange way we have been able to stand up in the face of our most violent opponents and say, in substance, we will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with our soul force.

“ . . . And one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory. This is our message in the non-violent movement when we are true to it. I think it is a powerful method and I still believe in it. I know that it will lead us into that new day. Not a day when we will seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, thereby subverting justice. Not a day when we will substitute one tyranny for another. We know that a doctrine of black supremacy is as evil as a doctrine of white supremacy. We know that God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men; but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race. He is interested in the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers and every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. With the non-violent method guiding us on, we can go on into that brighter day when justice will come.

—1966 Ware Lecture: Don't Sleep Through the Revolution, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. http://www.uua.org/ga/past/1966/ware/index.shtml

“We must find new ways to speak for (freedom). . . and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”

—Martin Luther King, Jr., "Conscience and the Viet Nam War" in The Trumpet of Conscience (1968)

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David Graber
graberdb@gmail.com

Hardin, MT

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Who will save planet earth?

The Bible has stories of environmental catastrophe. It’s usually an expression of God’s judgment. There is a movement among evangelical Christians today connecting the two, suggesting that God intended us to be caretakers of creation. Our shirking of that responsibility—misusing creation for profit and domination—has consequences. It’s all connected, and the Bible reflects that.

Some Christian media promote a disconnect between these. They say that God, being in control of climate, exempts humans from responsibility for the planet’s climate catastrophes. They limit sin to an individual and personal matter, feeding the common assumption that climate change is none of our government’s responsibility, nor of ours.

Many of us don’t like those arguments. We prefer to simply reduce our fossil energy usage. It’s not just because the rest of the planet’s peoples point their fingers at the US for being the biggest fossil hydrocarbon burner per capita. It’s rather because the changes we could make are obvious. We have easy access to technology to retool our energy use to renewables. The benefit to our economy, now bent on fossil hydrocarbon burning, in the long run would easily outstrip the costs of reconfiguring. Our prestige worldwide would gain: we would start living up to environmental principles we espouse. Our current military presence around the globe could be replaced with technical assistance to mitigate climate disasters, saving lives and American tax dollars. But there’s a real downside: Such a change in mentality requires major cerebral energy to reconsider evidence and envision our path to change, regardless of its clarity and ease. That’s our difficulty.

A small evangelical Spanish church in New York City is an inspiration for the mind changing just beginning to happen even in Montana. The United Revival Mennonite Church there is co-owner of the first US apartment complex built to strict international “passive house” environmental standards (http://passiv.de/en/). The $8.5 million building with 24 units is designed to cut energy use by 90%. According to a recent New York Times article, Europe had 25,000 of these certified structures built by 2010. Today, there are only 13 similar energy efficient buildings in the US. Occupants are finding surprising economic benefits living in a building designed to reduce energy consumption by 90% (as compared to conventionally constructed buildings).

We at Greenwood Farm have a potential fourteenth, but need research to back our innovations. Like the “passive house” international standards, what we spend in extra insulation and solar energy design is offset by our miniscule heating/cooling installations. Two of our structures have no backup fossil energy source. The most recent, a 2600 square foot home, has a fossil energy backup: an ordinary cheap 20-amp 30 gal hot water heater plumbed in-line with the pex floor heat loops. These loops are normally heated by a solar hot water panel impervious to frost damage, and on cold cloudy days by a wood stove harnessing combustion expansion to accelerate draft to a forge temperature. This forces vent gases through thirty feet of horizontal steel chimney, down in the floor. It’s all assembled with salvaged steel. Our first structure with this design just completed its fourth winter season without backup heat, and with constant family occupancy. It consumes about 20% of the wood consumed by efficient wood stoves.

Our systems are designed for ease of operation, with occupants highly engaged in monitoring and adjusting for comfort. This eliminates many conventional high-tech controls and sensors. We take maximum advantage of the sun’s heat, the thermal mass of our concrete walls, the earth beneath our floors, and our super insulation. We have automatic insulated shades. These protect against radiant heat loss when closed at night in winter and open for solar gain on sunny winter days. Burning Russian Olive firewood keeps our fuel use in the planet’s carbon life cycle (unlike the megatons of carbon flowing by us on the Burlington Northern conduit, destined to rise into the sky above). Systems like ours can be easily adapted to commercial use.

Anyone is welcome to come review our systems. We learned from many others and little of what we do is our own innovation. We especially appreciate Paul Wheaton and associates at permies.com, based in Missoula. Our interest is in helping good ideas spread. These are natural approaches connected with God’s way of healing our planet. They are one way of balancing the ongoing massive human excavation and burning of hydrocarbons God placed deep under the bedrock of our planet. Does He really want humans to extract and burn in a few centuries most of what he placed there ages ago?

(Following are comments not included in the Big Horn County News edition of the column):

Our rocket mass heater technology incorporates very high temperatures in a small firebox with oxygen loading from the forge-like rocket effect. This effectively burns hydrocarbon particulates and harmful gases (carbon monoxide, H2S, etc) so the effluent from the stack is cooled water vapor and the other gases normally present in healthy air to breathe. See some of these links, or come stand on our roof (next winter, please) to breathe the air from one of our rocket mass heater vents.

http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp

https://www.google.com/search?q=rocket+mass+heater+design&es_sm=91&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=FqB-U4ecDsWoyAT334DIDw&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1320&bih=712&dpr=0.9

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-a-Rocket-Mass-Heater/

Biblically based environmental organizations, Christian:

http://www.creationcare.org/

http://ecostewardsprogram.wordpress.com/

https://www.plantwithpurpose.org/about-us/

Resources for sustainable technology in case planet Earth lasts a while yet:

http://www.permies.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4usXIAoy9us

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/05/20/climate-activist-bill-mckibben-get-arrested-wearing-a-suit-for-the-earth/

Just use a few search words and start reading, then visit rural communities nearer the northpole, along seacoasts, near mountains, glaciers, forests, anywhere on the planet, and ask residents.

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT 59034

graberdb!@gmail.com

Friday, May 9, 2014

Tipi pole politics

Since coming to Montana Indian country with my family in ’73, there’s one lesson I learned slowly: We humans are all connected. That means that if we are to stand strong, like poles of a tipi planted firmly staked into the earth, we must trust each other. Canvas, ropes, stakes and poles operate with nothing hidden from the sky or earth, with all details of the structure united for protection of something precious. Inside that small round perimeter, children are born and learn about their own links to earth, sky and other living things. A tipi provides safety from the threats of weather and predators. But it remains transparent to all that it exists for the good of humanity.

We planted a tipi at Greenwood Farm the spring of 08 when we first moved here. We erected the poles and laid them all into position, then lashed the chief pole into position and wrapped the canvas around the cone of poles. We attached cords to pebbles lashed into the canvas edge. These we connected firmly to stakes driven so powerfully into the spring-droughty hard clay that some of them splintered a bit. Our grandchildren enjoyed sleeping in our tipi that summer. In the fall we neglected to take it down. Guests used it again the next summer. And then it went through a second winter.

A tipi is an amazing round structure, able to withstand the force of wind better than any similarly strong square (or cube) structure. But I ignored sound advice from our adopted Indian relatives about how long term tipi care. Two years of freezing and thawing deviously loosened the stake-hold some poles had with the earth. The first big windstorm of the third spring jerked loose some stakes. The canvas waved in the wind and shook the structure, lifting some of the poles.

Soon the loosened skirts of canvas, waving gleefully in the gale, tore the pebble connections. At that point, the system’s foundation was broken, in spite of the lashing ropes at the top holding the poles tightly together. The whole cone suddenly tipped in a gust, and flew loose from its moorings. It crashed onto my car, breaking the windshield and smashing the hood. There I found it, poles still connected by the unyielding lashing, much of the canvas still in place, but flopping uselessly in the diminishing storm.

Here in Big Horn County we too often see our social support systems held together at the top, but tipped over, trashed and useless for the purpose intended. Real connections to the ground of human need are damaged. This is not just Big Horn county, it's all over the world. Dysfunction, secrecy, and even in some cases threats of violence displace the original intent and design of political systems. It's what makes politics a dirty word for many of us. Denials of uncomfortable truth are dictated by those firmly holding the tipped poles together. Their reason for being—the good of humankind—is often lost in excessive profits and a race to control tax dollars. Most of us know pain at the family level in America because of one or another of our dysfunctional and deceptive top-down politics.

Dangerous cynicism takes hold. We begin assuming humans are incapable of honest dedication to the common good espoused in our creeds, and will only do right with motivation by fear. For that reason, we have developed a huge legal system of justice based on fear of punishment that is dedicated to complicated conflict of interest detection. We assume that other people cannot make decisions based on altruism and a true desire to help support each other. Assuming the worst, we lose connection to the best.

I believe humans can do what tipi poles are designed to do. We can stand strong and connected, embracing those things that hold us together as people. We can protect those we love and still touch earth and sky. When will we loosen our grip on divisive rhetoric, and re-stake ourselves to the ground of common good, cloaked in a fabric of transparency? Let’s invest again in our workplaces, schools, churches, and volunteer organizations in working together and assuming the best intentions of each other. Neighbors held together at the ground-level will survive the strongest winds.

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

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Know your ACE score

We Americans certainly have health problems. But with the world’s best health technology at our disposal, we can now prolong our lives when confronted with problems like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke and other maladies. It wasn’t too long ago that many of these conditions led to much shorter life spans.

We’re also learning a lot about how many of these diseases are actually symptoms of deeper problems. As researchers began looking for root causes of these issues, they found that these conditions are often concentrated in parts of our country where there is a lot of poverty. They also learned that caring for individuals suffering with these symptoms is extremely expensive. And they found that increased health expenditures in these high poverty areas didn’t necessarily improve health as much as they should have. And while throwing lots of money at these problems does generate lots of business for the health care industry, there may be a better way to improve our health.

It turns out that a simple questionnaire called the ACE Assessment—that can be given at a visit to any clinic—can help with this problem. ACE is short for “Adverse Childhood Experiences.” The few questions on the assessment generate a score, and research shows that the ACE score correlates really well with the likelihood that someone will suffer from one or more of these symptoms. Interestingly, more than anything else, the questions on this survey ask about childhood experiences of fear.

Yes, that’s right: a fear assessment.

Incredibly enough, childhood experiences of adversity can create stress and fears that may cause diseases extending into adulthood and aging. According to researchers, young brains are especially vulnerable to stress. “When prolonged stress occurs during infancy and childhood, the stress hormone cortisol is released throughout the young brain and body. These stress hormones compromise normal brain development and damage the immature immune and nervous systems.”

Could it be that early stress might account for some of our troubling health problems in Big Horn County? If so, is there anything that could be done to protect young children from the effects of poverty?

A decade ago, Bonnie and I observed a village where these symptoms seemed to be nonexistent. We sat for a meal on two of the few chairs available at a kitchen table in the most important house of Cheng Meng, an impoverished Tibetan village. There was a striking contrast between obvious impoverishment and robust health present in this family, and in virtually all we met. Villagers lived in ancient buildings with dirt floors, worked very hard raising vegetables and herding goats on the mountainsides. For a little extra income they hiked into the tundra to collect “Tibetan Medicine,” to sell to middle profiteers for a burgeoning market in the cities of China. But in contrast to American poor, nearly everyone had lived for generations in the same houses, worked the same jobs, and was deeply connected with everything and everyone around them. They didn’t know they were missing fast food, grocery stores, and the constant presence of media entertainment.

We watched healthy, active children accompanying their families into the high country the day we visited. These youngsters obviously grew up connected and knowledgeable about their importance to everyone else in the village. Their connections fed them, warmed them, and gave them a sense of safety. Their lives were predictable and stable. Their days were filled with love, healthy foods and challenging exercise for their growing bodies. We were surrounded in this house in this village with awesome hospitality of the healthy families there.

Recently I began wondering what I could learn from this encounter. Why were these people so healthy, so free of the usual American symptoms? The temptation is to look for an ingredient in the mountain air, a particular food from the tundra of the Himalayas, or a rare ingredient in the gall bladder of a Himalayan tiger. However, having learned about the ACE Study, I wonder now if I was looking for the wrong magic ingredient. Perhaps I should have considered the need for children to have stability, connection, and a solid heritage of people and place. These basic elements provide safety and nutrition for developing brains, provided by the work of parents and extended family. Science clearly demonstrates that when these elements are lacking, illness and modern disease can become a plague.

To learn more, check out “The Childwise Institute,” an organization of medical providers based in Kalispell. http://www.childwise.org/ace-study-summit-2014/

A PBS documentary on “Frontline” highlights the connections between poverty, high per capita health costs, and high levels of unhealthiness in a major city in the east.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/doctor-hotspot/

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

We for the common good

Part of our shared American culture is our sense of humanity. Most of us were born into this sense, especially those of us over fifty. We were raised to consider what’s best for all of us, rather than just ourselves. We now can see that our shared sense of “we” has been gradually degraded over the past couple of generations. It seems the media has a lot to do with this. When I watch television I’m struck by this relentless message of self-centeredness. It comes across in both programming and advertising. Regardless of content, it seems to be all about “what’s in it for me.” How often do you hear these familiar phases? “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps (and quit whining about it).” “I’m just looking out for number one.” “I have to take care of myself first.” “It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

The opposite message would be that it’s good to look out for the benefit of others as only a part of caring for one’s own responsibilities. In Big Horn County we have ethnic heritages that historically encouraged a sense of “We’re all in this together.” I remember Ted Risingsun of Busby, quoting his grandfather, “If you are in need, don’t go to the best-kept lodge with the nicest tools and best horses. Go to the poorest lodge, the one that’s ragged and old, and not well kept. That’s where you will find generous people, happy to help you.”

One tribe in California has a remarkable story rediscovering these values. Recently I heard their story in an entertaining broadcast on Bioneers. As in Montana, tribes in California have used casinos as a means of economic advancement. Chairman Sarris, of the Federated Tribes of Graton Rancheria, found himself facing a daunting conflict. At first opposed to casinos, he tried to stop an outside organization from building one near the Graton Rancheria. Then, seeing that the casino would inevitably be built regardless of what the tribe did, he changed his mind. He pursued the option of tribal ownership. That’s when the opposition mounted. It came both from the white community and from within his own tribe. The struggle was complex, involving deep values. Could this tribal nation uphold its traditional values, benefit the land, and also benefit the local community with diverse economic status, and with divergent religious beliefs? Chairman Sarris invested in the common good for all sides, focusing strongly on the values of his heritage.

Turns out he was right. Through all the changes, Harris held up his cultural heritage, as a “Home culture, safe, and connected,” values compatible with all sides in the conflict. He contrasted this beliefs with the homeless culture so prevalent on the streets of his city, and imbedded in the horrendous history of his people since the Spanish conquest. Values held in common across the political, religious and economic divides of the community became visible in the way the tribe promoted and built the casino with his leadership. The “me” culture of homelessness was replaced with a common ground of caring and sharing in “coming home to a we culture.”

Before the Spanish arrived, the Sonoma/Marin county region in California was home to the largest urban population in North America (outside of Mexico City). After Spain claimed this territory, legalized enslavement of Indians began. It persisted for centuries, during which time the California tribes became homeless. Up to 1924, Indians in California lacked citizenship and legal rights. That’s when the Graton Rancheria was granted federal tribal recognition, and the new Indian nation was born. The last segment of the broadcast is the story of the casino, how it became a benefit to all in the community, Indian and non-Indian alike, and more importantly, how the “me” culture was defeated. The entire community still benefits together.

Most of us in Big Horn County claim a heritage that upholds these ancient values. Obviously, they are portrayed in our Judeo-Christian writings. Even our Lenten observances uphold these values of self-giving for the good of all. They also happen to be at the core of our two Native American heritages here in Big Horn County.

This is not a tale of fiction. It’s a story of whole community advancing for the common good, where “we” can include everyone. Check out the Bioneers Radio Series 13 - Revolution from the Heart of Nature broadcast, “Coming Home to a We Culture” https://www.prx.org/pieces/112182-betting-big-on-a-native-dream-coming-home-to-a

“Given the extreme economic disenfranchisement of Native American tribes, being an Indian in modern times has given rise to Indian casinos. Chairman Greg Sarris of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria found himself staring down the barrel of massive community resistance. Was it possible to create a casino that would uphold traditional values and benefit the land and local community? You wouldn’t want to bet against him.”

Further current information:

http://gratonrancheria.com/tribal-government/

--
David Graber

Hardin, MT 59034

graberdb@gmail.com

Thursday, March 27, 2014

I thought I had to play God

Stop. Look. Listen. Remember those old RR track crossing signs, now extinct? Misinformation, impatience and the power to act decisively can be lethal. In the following personal account, I was attuned to the power of the family 20 Gauge. An intervention beyond my control saved a life.

A mutt adopted us. It was a red spaniel bird dog mix that appeared one evening without a collar near my wife’s parents’ home just out of Gulfport, Miss. We didn’t feed her that evening. She was there again the next morning, obviously looking for a family. Our family agreed to be adopted.

So we discovered she loved hunting. She was good, pointing and waiting until our signal to flush a quail covey. We didn’t wonder; we just accepted the good luck. She helped us hunting nutria, ‘possums and armadillos, looking for bull snakes and moccasins in Cyprus swamps, fishing in the Gulf, beach combing, and building and paddling pirogues on the bayou. There was plenty for a red longhair bird dog mutt to do.

But then tragedy happened: she attacked the wrong prey. The first clue was when we were walking to get the mail. We noticed her down the road by the swamp loping in circles and howling. I couldn’t figure out if she caught someone’s stocking cap in her teeth or had an overgrown beard under her chin. That perception changed in a hurry as we approached her. She was sporting a massive cluster of porcupine quills under her chin, in her nose and even her mouth.

The boys inquired with a neighbor what to do. Let them fester and come out on their own, said the old man. It’s impossible to pull out that many porcupine quills without doing lethal damage.

So I helped my wife’s younger brothers clip them off, a task that still turns my stomach thinking about it. It was tough holding her to clip them off. We hoped she could eat, but I’m not sure she ever did, since we couldn’t clip the ones in her mouth.

She took the pain as a send-off, and went howling into the piney woods behind the ball diamond. We didn’t see her again for two weeks. She came back barely able to walk, mangy hair falling out, with her jaw rotted off to the bone on one side. A few quills were still hanging on. She refused food, and only drank a little water.

That’s when my emotional thinking set in, prompting me to act out of ignorance. This dog would not survive, so I thought. We had no choice but to end her suffering. The next morning we enacted our plan. She seemed weaker, and was willing to let one of the boys lead her to a pit we dug. I hid the shotgun behind my back, knowing she would be ultra alert to any muzzle pointing at her. We knew from previous experience pointing the empty gun at her with the hammer cocked and pulling the trigger, eliciting a yelp and quick jump away from the muzzle. So I knew we had a challenge.

Robert held the dog over the pit. We didn’t think to blindfold her. I cocked the loaded shotgun behind my back so she wouldn’t hear the set of the firing pin. In one smooth sweep I moved the gun muzzle to between her eyes and pulled the trigger. The blast penetrated deep into the ground. In that split second she had already jerked free, and then dragged herself amazingly fast for a deathly sick dog, yelping and crying into the piney woods. I assumed she would die a miserable death.

A month passed. I’ll never forget that morning. There was that mutt on the front doorstep. Some of her fur had grown back, hairless flesh had rebuilt on the side of her jawbone, and she was looking much more alive. I could not believe this was the same dog, but the healing scars on her nose and lower jaw were too obvious. It was also obvious that her jerk away from the muzzle of that gun was timed perfectly.

She stayed with us then, forgiving as dogs do. But from that time on, every time she saw any of us with a gun she took off and hid. She would not hunt. Instead, she became a loving companion to our two-year-old son. For a month I had accused myself of failure. Why didn’t I think to blindfold the dog? I remain amazed with the power of that dog to heal itself.

In America today, the power to destroy has far more investment in money and brains than the power to facilitate healing. People are not trusted to care for themselves and their destiny. Nations not trusted to root out the festering wounds that easily metastasize into the cancer of terrorism are subjected to military occupation, so we have more soldiers deployed abroad than other nations of the world have deployed altogether. We have sponsored and proliferated drones, the ultimate expensive technology to assassinate possible terrorists around the world with lethal decisiveness and no due process. We have the world’s highest per capita peacetime incarceration rate, at great cost to taxpayers, because we quickly distrust human relations and trust instead our criminal justice system, coercive police action and imprisonment. We have families in crisis beyond their capacity to care for themselves because of our shotgun mentality to blow up health care and other government services. We don’t work to save our national economy through rational restructuring of the worldwide debt problem and stopping bailouts for the big billionaire businesses. So we join with the powerful, playing God with our technology of destruction.

Yet we have, in our constitution and in our religious writings, the clear admonition to let God be God, and direct our care to the lives of the “least of these.”

--
David Graber
graberdb@gmail.com

Monday, March 10, 2014

Our strong moral foundation

We’re good people here in Big Horn County. We have lots of compassion and common sense wisdom. We like to think for ourselves. We don’t want the government or our neighbors to make decisions for us. We realize that our lives are connected with others and that helping our less fortunate neighbors is the right thing to do. This capacity to connect with people in need outside our immediate family is at the heart of our moral foundation here. We can do amazing things when given the chance.

Look at how we rallied to help our neighbors across the state line. At the beginning of this long winter, ranchers in South Dakota faced catastrophic losses. Some herds were almost totally wiped out by over two feet of snow that came on high winds, before animals were acclimatized to winter weather. With an instinctive common sense of what’s right and wrong, a large group of Montana ranchers knew exactly what to do. Money, resources and cows went to aid the less fortunate. No one held back with a perception that those South Dakota ranchers just made the wrong choices, or were lazy. We didn’t hear much about moral dilemmas in this case.

Now we’re dealing with a situation in our own back yard that is a little more complicated. Our declining housing resources and burgeoning demand in Big Horn County have faced off good people here into a difficult disagreement. It has to do with the rental property ordinance proposed in the recent Hardin city council meeting. There are moral issues on both sides. We know that it is dangerous and unhealthy for children to grow up in substandard housing. Children who are exposed to rodents and mold have astronomical rates of asthma. Exposed wires, holes, and lead paint are just accidents waiting to happen. We wouldn’t give kids kitchen knives and chainsaws to play with, and then blame them for getting hurt.

On the other hand, local rental property owners aren’t a bunch of slum lords. They’re not trying to exploit children and families. They are regular, decent people who are trying to balance their budgets. Sometimes renovating existing rentals isn’t economically feasible for them. If renters are concerned about safety issues, maybe they are the ones to look somewhere else for housing.

Both sides of this issue speak logically and support commonly held values.

Take, for example, a common scenario in Big Horn County. A tenant with young children demands corrections to living conditions and refuses to make rent payments. Yet that tenant has a history of delinquent payments and family members’ abuse of the living quarters. The land owner initiates legal process to evict the tenant. The tenant countersues to force the landlord to make the needed repairs. The court is stuck between two alternatives. But there is a third alternative in our moral foundation.

Recent appeals to legal action and objections to governmental oversight both darken the clouds obscuring that foundation. Sometimes law, with its threat-based system, undermines the basic human foundation of society: that of civility, trust, and commitment to the common good. If we use the power of law to uphold the common welfare of all, it works. But, too often, the popular use of law is to compensate for our inability to trust those we assume are enemies. It assumes life is about winners and losers, and ends up blinding us to the possibility of a good outcome for all.

We are obviously at loggerheads. Rather than focusing on reaching a solution that protects all, each side is consumed with digging out legal briefs to bolster their case. Instead of paying attention to real need and common possibilities for resolution we have become focused on winning the argument. Maybe it’s time to look into our moral foundation alternative, easily hidden in the fog of conflict.

We could start by sorting out the exact conflict. Is it really the concept of safe housing on which we disagree? Or is it over the path for ensuring safety? If finding a reasonable process toward safe housing is the problem, let’s find out how other communities do this. Perhaps there are alternate funding options available or strategies for increasing our overall supply of new/safe housing. Maybe there are legal options that would be less onerous for owners and still protect renters. Let’s explore all our options for resolution before we assume that our neighbors are out to get us. This will keep our houses and our community built on our moral foundation, as enshrined in both our Bible and our American Constitution.

There are many Bible stories depicting common sense compassionate trust. There are also scholarly resources addressing this in current poverty law nation wide. For Bible references, read all four gospels. Nearly everyone Jesus encounters is identified with either the elite powerful or the powerless poor. See how the rulers and the poor encounter Jesus differently, and what he expects of them for salvation.

Here are websites with information on the topic.

http://blog.tifwe.org/myths-of-poverty-wealth-free-enterprise/?gclid=CLjo5MnQib0CFbFFMgod5xoAmQ

https://www.law.georgetown.edu/academics/law-journals/poverty/index.cfm

http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/map-detail.aspx?state=Montana

http://www.cfra.org/newsletter/2012/06/hometown-housing-burnet-texas-model

http://www.cfra.org/news/130305/rural-montana-hurt-tax-holiday

http://www.cfra.org/ruralmonitor/2011/11/17/native-business-owners-testify-congress-reservation-populations-growing-acce

http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/status-of-women-in-montana

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Restoring Justice

The US has one of the largest incarceration rates of any country in the world. We put so many people in jail that we’re running out of space. This happens to be a problem for us right here in Big Horn County. Our county jail is overcrowded. Millions was spent already on a possible facility, and now we are looking to spend more.

It seems like one of those situations that just can’t go on. The more people we lock up, the worse the problem gets. We know that prison doesn’t cure addiction. It doesn’t help people get good jobs to support their families. It doesn’t teach people how to get along with others or how to function in the real world. It especially doesn’t lead to good outcomes for children.

What is to be done? After all, we can’t have dangerous people out on the streets. We can’t let people get away with behaviors that are against the law. Do we just keep people locked up for life, knowing they’re likely to be worse when they come out?

Maybe we could learn something from our indigenous nations. Many cultures have used the concept of restorative justice successfully for thousands of years. Restorative justice is an approach that focuses on allowing people to make up for the damage their actions have caused others. People who commit crimes are forced to dedicate their own lives to helping their victims.

Up in Northern Canadian indigenous fishing communities, a native offender gives up his own trap lines to work for the family of an individual he injures. Often he will work for and with his victim’s family on their daily life-sustaining tasks. He might manage that family’s trap lines, supply firewood, repair or purchase fishing and hunting equipment, or build and maintain their homes. Depending on the offense, a person’s whole life could become dedicated to caring for the family suffering loss from his crime.

This is a life sentence that produces something of value. It truly involves relinquishing a major part of a previous life, but in return the life of the entire community is moved toward restoration. Often there is no recidivism. These indigenous nations’ corrective judicial systems really do what every normal retributive justice correction facility cannot do, but claims to do.

A restorative justice approach involves a different way of thinking about those who commit crimes. In this view, antisocial behaviors are thought to result from disrupted connections between people, rather than unchangeable character flaws. This perspective might lead us toward fixing the losses that lead people to criminal activity, instead on concentrating on harsher punishments for offenders.

Maybe we in Big Horn County could learn more from criminal justice systems where restorative justice is the dominant response to crime, where retribution in kind is usually rejected, knowing it does little to heal antisocial behavior. Unfortunately, conventional wisdom doesn’t agree. But research proves even Jesus got it right. “Life for a life,” or, “An eye for an eye,” is what Jesus rejected when he commanded, “Do not return evil for evil.” He seemed to know, and maybe it’s still true: criminals are best deterred by tough insistence on connection to human virtues, especially being forced to see, hear, and understand directly as possible from their victims, and then do something about the pain and suffering their crimes cost.

As a teacher since the 70’s in Big Horn and Rosebud Counties I felt that it was my job to recognize and promote the good in all children. What if we could do this for our community as a whole? Our conventional criminal justice system already recognizes that delinquent children should not simply be punished and left to rot in jail. What if we could recognize the potential for virtuous pro-social behavior in all people, regardless of age, and provide opportunities to make up for misdeeds in meaningful ways? I think our community might ultimately be safer and more effective by promoting the values and virtues we share in common, which means requiring offenders to connect with their victims, where appropriate*, to do all they can to repair the damage of their antisocial behavior.

Sources on restorative justice:

https://emu.edu/now/peacebuilder/2009/10/how-effective-is-restorative-justice/

A meta-analysis of all restorative justice research written in English, Restorative Justice: The Evidence [by scholars Lawrence W. Sherman and Heather Strang of Cambridge University], concluded in at least two trials, that when used as a diversion, restorative justice reduced violent re-offending, victim’s desire for revenge, and costs. A 2007 University of Wisconsin study found that Barron County’s restorative justice program [in northwestern Wisconsin] led to significant declines in youth violence, arrests, crime, and recidivism

*Sexual violence, abuse and rape

These and many offenses, especially among adults, require community restoration rather than a relationship between victim and offender. Current justice procedures too often heap abuse upon abuse, often requiring victim and offender both to be present in a courtroom, an environment potentially perpetuating the rapist’s power over the victim. http://rapecrisis.org.za/information-for-survivors/secondary-trauma/

NIH gets it right.The community response to rape: victims' experiences with the legal, medical, and mental health systems.

Campbell R.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9726113

The following paper deals with power imbalance issues in gender.

http://harvardjlg.com/2013/10/transforming-campus-culture-to-prevent-rape-the-possibility-and-promise-of-restorative-justice-as-a-response-to-campus-sexual-violence/

Quote from the author:

“Applying an intersectional view of how and why campus rape occurs, I argue that colleges and universities should seek to engage the broader student community in dialogue and utilize the grievance process as a means of both holding offenders accountable and preventing future rapes. Restorative justice offers one model for how schools might augment their campus grievance processes to respond to acquaintance rape cases to achieve these goals. Though a restorative justice approach may not be appropriate in every case, I argue that it may provide significant benefits for some survivors and offenders, and help to fill the gaps between existing preventative and remedial approaches.”

http://www.justiceaction.org.au/cms/prisons/alternatives/restorative-justice

“Restorative Justice is a form of mediation that aims to reconcile the tensions between offenders, victims and the community, rather than retributive justice, which merely punishes the offender. “Restorative Justice aims to heal the community bonds and to have a humanising effect on the system of punitive justice”.

http://www.justiceaction.org.au/cms/prisons/alternatives/restorative-justice - _edn1

[1] It enables stakeholders to cooperate and come to an agreement on appropriate outcomes at different stages of the criminal process, not just in the pre-trial process, as it is commonly perceived to be.

This research paper has been prepared in light of questions of the effectiveness of Restorative Justice for reducing recidivism rates.http://www.justiceaction.org.au/cms/prisons/alternatives/restorative-justice - _edn2

[2] International studies referred to in this paper dispel this criticism. For Restorative Justice to be effective, emphasis is placed on reconciliation, where offenders accept responsibility for their actions and make amends and in turn create a level of empowerment in their own rehabilitation.

Effective use of Restorative Justice processes can displace resources from the prison systems, enabling them to be put into the community. The term “justice reinvestment” describes the transfer of those resources into the source area of the problems. Trained community workers reconcile the tensions, often using those same people who have personally experienced the process, either as victims or offenders. For this role to be effective it must have trust, be independent of the coercive process and protected by privacy legislation such as created for community justice centres.

This paper proposes the extension of Restorative Justice programs from not just the pre-sentencing

http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/jstc-rcdvs/index-eng.aspx

http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/jstc-rcdvs/jstc-rcdvs-eng.pdf

Question: Can restorative justice programs influence offender recidivism?

Background: The traditional way of dealing with crime in society is for the State to intervene by punishing the offender. The punishment of offenders is seen to serve justice through denunciation and deterrence. Some critics of this approach have argued that the focus on offenders ignores victims and the community. In the 1970s, an alternative approach, restorative justice, began to emerge and, particularly in the last decade, has proliferated across North America and other parts of the world.

Restorative justice seeks to involve victims and the community in a process that holds the offender accountable for repairing the harms committed by the offender.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?id=147713

Victim-offender reconciliation and mediation programs involving juvenile offenders in California, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Texas were studied to determine the effectiveness of these programs

international virtues project

http://www.52virtues.com/virtues/the-virtues-project.php

The History of The Virtues Project

The Virtues Project was founded in 1991 by three concerned individuals who made a commitment to do something to counteract the rising violence among families and youth. Linda Kavelin-Popov, her husband Dr. Dan Popov and her brother, John Kavelin researched the world's diverse sacred traditions and they discovered something simple and profound.

Essence of the human spirit

At the heart of all spiritual traditions are 360 virtues, described as the essence of the human spirit and the content of our character. A guide containing fifty-two of these universal virtues was published to help parents bring out the best in their children and in themselves.

Used in more than 85 countries

Since then many books and other resources have been published to help educators, businesses and governments implement the virtues. The project has grown into a global grass roots network of diverse individuals, organizations, schools, and communities in more than 85 countries, including Australia. It has been used in many Western Australian schools for 10 years and is growing in popularity now in the Eastern States.

Not about religion

The Virtues Project is not about the practices or beliefs of any one religion. It is sourced in the teachings about virtues found in the sacred traditions of all cultures. Its purpose is to support all people, both those who are religious and those who are not, to awaken the virtues of their character.

aboriginal justice CPT

http://www.cpt.org/work/aboriginal_justice/mandate

CPT’s Aboriginal Justice Team is mandated with undoing colonialism and supporting Indigenous communities seeking justice and defending their lands against corporate and government exploitation without community consent. Our work includes human rights monitoring and reporting, non-violence training, presence and accompaniment, court witnessing, education and advocacy through presentations to schools and churches, articles and media releases, organizing fact-finding and learning delegations to areas of conflict or oppression, participating in and/or offering logistical support for public actions and speaking tours. CPT seeks to enlist the whole church in the work of undoing colonialism.