In the Realm of Ideas

When I was eight or nine years old, my family lived in a two-room apartment on east 60th Place in Chicago. It actually was the back two rooms (kitchen and dining room originally) of the second floor of a two-flat building that had been divided into three separate apartments, rather than one. There are many memories that I retain from the short period that we lived there.

My maternal grandmother would watch us kids for my mom and invariably would decide that she should clean out the refrigerator. The result would be a cake made from whatever leftovers happened to be there, and I do mean whatever! The amazing thing is that even pan-fried calf’s liver and the dreaded brussels sprouts actually could be turned into a tasty snack. Well, as long as you didn’t watch her prepare it! In those instances, ignorance was truly bliss.

My mother had a corselette - all black lace and red ribbons - that I thought was the prettiest thing ever. So, one day I wore it to school, complete with toilet-paper enhanced breasts. The look on my mother’s face when she picked me up, about an hour later, was a perfect version of her famous “How did I raise such stupid children!?” face.

There was the day someone’s cousin or the other brought home a container of the wax used to coat milk cartons. All of us neighborhood kids gathered in the yard behind my building and made casts of our hands. I can remember being terrified to dip my hand into the hot wax and then amazed to find that after that first layer, the cast could be built up completely painlessly. I think it good fortune that soon there was this chorus of mothers shrieking at us to “put out that fire” and “get your tail in this house” and from our porch, “No-reeeeen!” which translated into “all of the above.” It’s really no telling what we would have decided to cast next.

But, my favorite memory of all from that time are the days that I would scurry across Stony Island and the adjacent sliver of parkway and run across Museum Drive to the Museum of Science and Industry. There was no entrance fee in those days, so I was free to wander among the exhibits at will. Mostly, though, I would spend the hour or so that I had before I needed to be back home just sitting in the Great Hall and thinking ... just thinking. Not worrying or plotting or planning, just thinking. It was grand. It is this treasured memory and its many intellectual influences that continue to make me take any and every opportunity to visit the Museum of Science and Industry.

In 1989, the museum did it again and fostered another novel direction to my thinking. One that I still maintain and expand. The exhibit was Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Realm of Ideas. It was a traveling exhibit, a highlight of which was an actual life-sized example of Wright’s Usonian Automatic home installed on the museum grounds. I still covet that house. But mostly, I retain the contemplation of the lifestyle the Usonian design both stimulates and allows.

 The Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian Automatic house of hollow-core concrete block was designed so it could be built by anyone." The Chicago Exhibit was held from June - September 1989 at the Museum of Science and Industry. Photographer, Rich Hein. Date: 6-5-89. Location: Museum of Science and Industry.

Wright is known for many attributes, notably his Prairie Houses, richly detailed, labor-intensive designs for wealthy clients. Yet, Wright also believed that the basic building block of American Democracy was the freestanding private house. There was a quote in the exhibit that I have unsuccessfully searched for. Perhaps I made it up. But, it is the notion that the citizens of a Democracy must have a sense of “individual autonomy” in order to effectively contribute to the collective well-being as they direct government.

Interior view of Usonian Automatic House. Exhibition. Museum of Science and Industry. Photo acquired from the archives of the Chicago Tribune.

This has so many ramifications, this individual autonomy; the capacity to make an informed, un-coerced decision. I believe that acquiring this capacity is part of the initial trajectory of human development. Could it be that the toddler first crawls then runs at top speed just because she or he can? That “no” becomes a favorite word because it is a test of control? Likewise, the toddler’s insistence on personal choice in clothes is to stand against the tyranny of adults, albeit well-meaning adults. And on and on. With time, the natural desire for individual autonomy becomes informed (some might say suppressed) by socialization. Such that by the time we have control over, or rather the responsibility to select where we live, it is questionable whether the individual decides or the society decides. But anyway ...

The example of Usonian design in the exhibit offered the following elements:

• A central space that is the hub of the home. where residents come to be together. It is uncluttered through a use of built-in furnishings and filled with light from window walls. In the exhibit version, this great room was bordered by a corner area that featured a division of the tall space into an intimate dining area and an upper-level office/den space. The dining area flowed into a galley kitchen, which maintained the height so that there were extensive built-in cabinets for storage.

• One entered the home though doors which were mirrored across the entryway by doors which opened onto a terrace that ran the length of the house adjacent to the great room. This section of the house contained a hallway of built-in closets/storage areas on both sides and opened into bedrooms (the master bedroom had access to the terrace). The bathroom was at the end of the hallway.

• Flow patterns allowed movement from the entry to the kitchen, the hallway (and thus, bathroom and bedrooms), terrace area, and great room. The great room allowed passage to the dining area, office/den, the kitchen, and back to the hallway.

• The bedrooms were small with built-in beds, shelving, and drawer space, allowing room for a chair and side table.

• Lots of interior wood. Everything in its place and a place for everything.

The intent of the Usonian design was that it be modular and allow a homeowner to determine configuration based on personal need and desire. It was also intended to reduce costs by allowing the homeowner to assemble specially-configured wall modules and other aspects, leaving the skilled labor to be completed by professionals. Another cost savings was in the built-in elements. They also minimized needed free-standing furniture. And, there were features which also addressed maintenance aspects.

I was particularly drawn to the expectation of participation. Like with the building plans and prefab homes you could once buy from Sears and other catalogs, it required input from the buyer in the configuration of the home. To have input has rarely been an affordable option. Yet having input is an important element of individual autonomy. It informs one’s thinking in ways that simply saying yea or nay does not.

So, Frank Lloyd Wright and time have passed and the Jeffersonian preference for open space, the pastural idyll, has given way to urban sprawl, and, biases of myriad kinds have given way to the decline of cities. And, unfortunately, the Usonian home has few existing examples. The horrible burst of the housing market bubble curiously does not seem to have generated much conversation around housing. I suppose it is reasonable to think that people are more focused on mortgages, foreclosures, and the myriad other important issues facing America in this 21st Century. Still ...

---

The mission of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is to “Create Strong, Sustainable, Inclusive Communities and Quality Affordable Homes for All. The HUD Strategic Plan articulates the goals that will guide and stimulate its activities to fulfill this mission during the FY 2010-2015:

• Goal 1. Strengthen the Nation’s Housing Market to Bolster the Economy and Protect Consumers
• Goal 2. Meet the Need for Quality Affordable Rental Homes
• Goal 3. Utilize Housing as a Platform for Improving Quality of Life
• Goal 4. Build Inclusive and Sustainable Communities Free From Discrimination

Wow! And that’s before you even get to the subgoals, strategies and measures that support these four goals. Here are the subgoals for Goal 3:

• 3A.  Utilize HUD assistance to improve educational outcomes and early learning and development 
• 3B.  Utilize HUD assistance to improve health outcomes 
• 3C.  Utilize HUD assistance to increase economic security and self-sufficiency 
• 3D.  Utilize HUD assistance to improve housing stability through supportive service for vulnerable populations, including the elderly, people with disabilities, homeless people, and those individuals and families at risk of becoming homeless
• 3E.  Utilize HUD assistance to improve public safety 

It is notable that HUD has newly adapted a collaborative stance toward its mission. The strategic plan outlines a variety of programmatic approaches to working with local communities to address their particular needs. This seems to me a focus whose time has come, finally. I was also struck by the emphasis on counters to discrimination. Given the institutionalized nature of so many of our society’s biases, every element of the government needs to have such an emphasis. But, I will make a confession.

Reading the HUD materials made me extremely conscious, once again, of how much redundancy exists in American government, top-down and bottom-up. Much of the current struggle in the Congress has to do with how government will utilize its resources. It has been portrayed as the struggle between entitlement programs for the rich versus entitlement programs for the middle class and poor. This portrayal is accurate, but it also delineates why the struggle will not contribute to the strength and stability of the United States of America.

The available knowledge base, technology and resources that America brings to bear on the vision of our identity in this new century remain abundant. But, each of these is overshadowed by our very unique brand of capitalism. And in the shadow of capitalism, we will not do what most needs to be done - that is to return to first principles as we restore the faltering economy and rebuild communities devastated by natural disasters and economic ones.

Foremost among these principles is that every American must be ensured the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not only does everyone need a place to live, we need a place to prosper. We need the opportunity to not only be told about possibilities in schools, but to actually see these possibilities at work in our neighborhoods. We think of these elements as only affecting the poor, but how many people do you know whose adult children have returned to live at home because there is not affordable rental homes that enable the quality of life they came to expect from living with their parents?

All of which means that instead of planning more segregated housing patterns, we need the development of more mixed-income housing. Instead of just building affordable housing, which too often translates into boxes with very little consideration given to the lifestyle encouraged by the box. We need to insure that there is an aesthetic component to the architecture, and landscaping, AND building maintenance and sanitation services that are effective!

By way of example, back in the day I worked in a school where busing was utilized to address racial integration. One of the highlight activities of the school was a Bicycle Safety Day. Students came to school with their bikes, riding or being ferried in the family SUV. Since the school bus was not capable of carrying bikes and students who rode the bus would have to ride across several major streets, making that option dangerous, these students mostly did not participate in the activities of the day.

To address this oversight of planning, several of us - teachers and parents - decided to ride along with students in order to make a safe caravan in which they could bring their bikes to school. It was a hoot! But, what I remember most are the comments of parents as we waited for the caravan to form: “Why don’t these streets have handicap access at the crossings?” “Why haven’t these streets been cleaned?” “Wasn’t garbage pickup today? Why are these bins still full?” These were parents who lived less than a mile away, but had never before recognized that they lived in a different universe.

This is where collaborative government programs could have real inroads. Middle and lower income families often don’t recognize that they have a right to more than just a home. They have a right to a clean and pleasing environment in which to live and raise their families. They have a right to hold government accountable for providing the services that promote and sustain the quality of their neighborhood.

Here’s another example: as a young adult, I moved from Chicago’s Southside to an apartment on the Northside, just a block west of the lake. People would spend the summer evenings enjoying the beach and by evening’s end, the beach looked about as I had come to recognize it from my old neighborhood - garbage strewn everywhere! But, here comes the difference; in the early morning, sanitation crews cleaned the beach. Not once a fortnight, or whatever pattern existed on the Southside, but every day. Each evening when people returned to the beach, it was clean, not because no one left garbage, but because public works kept it that way. The instances where public services were, and are, not equally available to all neighborhoods of a city are numerous.

Every neighborhood may not be composed of Usonian houses, but every neighborhood can be inhabited by people who embrace their individual autonomy within the collective. This is learned behavior. As a society, we can teach this behavior just as easily as we now teach that those without wealth have no standing, and, by so doing, we would eliminate our institutionalized biases, like racial profiling and the “invisible” community redistributions of resources to benefit some at the expense of others.

Sometimes the most complicated of things are actually quite simple, where there’s a will - there is a way. You just do it! Our problem is that we have a system that reinforces the idea that only some of “we, the people” can have a quality life; that only homeowners or affluent renters are entitled to have input, and that wealth is the only measure of autonomy. We have integrated the notion that there exists “throwaway people,” as if they were not citizens, with protections under the law. And our housing patterns reflect this attitude. We’ll know when we have gained the will to make our country otherwise, when we establish effective mechanisms to make sure that everyone has affordable access: to quality housing, quality healthcare, and quality legal services!

To Share More Adequately in the Resources of the Nation.

Recent statements and attitudes from conservative politicians and their extremist factions couch their positions in such mean-spirited and biased ways that I am continually amazed that they seem so oblivious to the incongruity between their statements and attitudes and rationality and intelligence. I am most struck by how this is being played out around food stamps and the welfare system.

My perspective on the current political and economic attacks by the conservative Right, is a recognition that they are actually attacks on the the most commonly held tenets of American society. Those beliefs that most of us were raised to ascribe to America; fair play, opportunity, and justice.

Hmmm, let me rephrase, these current attacks should be understood as a continuation of attitudes and policies that have existed from the country’s earliest days -- from the colonial presence through revolution and nationhood. These policies and attitudes separate the wealthy from the poor in an attempt to eliminate from the American Democracy the influence of any except the monied - who consider themselves to be the “ruling class” and thereby entitled to dictate both the policies of the country and the behavior of others. Laws be damned.

As with all and everything in history, the evolution of notions of public welfare wind a long and circuitous road:

• The Code of Hammurabi, 1772 B.C.E. ("along with all that eye for an eye stuff"), called for not only the protection of widows and orphans, but protection for the weak against the strong.

• Roughly 14 centuries later, Aristotle opined that man as a social animal had to cooperate with and assist his fellow man.

• ‘Philanthropy,’ ‘charity’ and related terms are ancient Greek and Latin in origin.

• Within the Torah, Jewish doctrines teach the duty of giving, and, equally important the right of those in need to receive. (Here’s an aside: I found it really interesting that in this context, Christianity seems a move to acting out of service to the religion as opposed to acting out of individual responsibility.)

• Ecclesiastical and secular charity was linked by the European evolution from mutual aid through monastic structures to feudalism to guilds to hospitals (attached to monasteries) to municipal authorities.

Seems pretty good, huh? But, just like now, a change in societal fortunes brings about reactionary policy changes. The English Statute of Laborers in 1349 was very similar to “Jim Crow” laws without the racial implications, but complete with all of the control aspects. Then in 1531, a statute was enacted that set punishment for able-bodied beggars and designated areas for the needy in which they could beg. In 1536 and 1572, respectively, paid alms collectors and an Overseer of the Poor were established along with a tax to provide relief to the needy.

But, the most influential in what would become the United States was the English Poor Law of 1601. Along with mercantilism, this law set patterns that shifted policies in recognition that subsistence depended on employment, not labor itself. Willingness to work, did not guarantee wages.

But, remedy in the colonies - as in England, was a local matter. Very quickly more and more colonies at ports and small towns found there were more poor, many of whom were refugees from various wars and skirmishes, than the local coffers could assist. This created policies that set residency requirements for aid and punitive consequences for strangers and the able-bodied who were destitute, including banishment.

By 1700, the General Court of the English colonies had begun state aid, in whole or in part for the needy, and local communities were reimbursed for the relief of “unsettled persons” with contagious diseases (who could not be sent away).

The establishment of state aid was accompanied by changes in attitudes toward the needy. Poverty came to be thought of as a crime and voluntary idleness was regarded as a vice. Such that the poor were bound out as indentured servants, run out of town, or put in jail. Poor and illegitimate children were removed from recalcitrant parents and apprenticed, as were orphans. Work houses were rationalized as both morally therapeutic and beneficial to the economy. 

What assistance there was for situations of obvious need was not available for Native Americans (who were being intentionally killed or starved) nor for Free Blacks, who were simply denied assistance. Slaves were considered the responsibility of masters and not of public concern.

Between 1700 and 1772, there was 1 pauper for every 4 free men in the colonies. Some were needy immigrants. Some were disabled soldiers or refugees from the frontier and Canada. Some were poor because of the seasonal nature of their jobs.

There were widows and orphans of seamen who died at sea. And, it is estimated that from one-third to one-half of all recorded first births resulted from pre-marital sexual intercourse, creating a rise in illegitimate children to be supported by public welfare.

Up to this point, poverty in England and the colonies was thought to be a part of the natural order. Remedies reflected this Calvinistic stance. But with the intellectual Enlightenment of the mid-18th century, as John Locke asserted counter to Calvinism, “poverty was not natural and incapable of being eradicated.” It was not something to be tolerated with stoicism and resignation.

With the emergence of the United States, “independence in the new world, where resources were abundant, offered Americans the opportunity, if not the obligation, to root out old errors and vices and erect a society which would be a beacon to the world. At the very least, if the independent republic and democratic rule were to endure, American citizens had to be exempt from such impediments as illiteracy, poverty, and distress to cast their ballots freely and rationally.”[1]

In subsequent decades, American welfare policies and approaches have ebbed and flowed, mostly according to economic trends, and, reflective of biases that assign poverty, again, as the fault of the poor themselves and a demonstration of their lesser character, and, also as structures of control and societal manipulation.

It is a sad fact that the stereotypes around welfare recipients are outcomes of the cement-shoes of racism that we Americans abide. Would contemporary welfare approaches be different if the majority of Americans understood that the majority of welfare recipients are not people of color? Would approaches be different if poverty was not regarded as a willful act of the lazy, whatever their race?

Fundamental questions remain. Many of them are embedded in our economic system, where they are hard to pry out for examination. I much prefer the simple, common-sense approach.

Should American welfare policies be adopted so that citizens who are without wealth will be recognized as having the right to be healthy, happy, and secure? Perhaps the first step is to stop demonizing the poor and worshipping the wealthy. Perhaps we just need to enact those so very illusive American tenets: fair play, opportunity and justice.

[1] Trattner, Walter I., FROM POOR LAW TO WELFARE STATE: A History of Social Welfare in America, 1984.

Letter From Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

If you watch the anarchist tirades coming from extremist Republicans in the House, you'd think they believe that the government that governs best is a government that doesn't exist at all.

But behind all the slogans of the Tea Party – and all the thinly veiled calls for anarchy in Washington – is a reality: The American people don't want a future without government.

When was the last time the anarchy gang called for regulators to go easier on companies that put lead in children's toys? Or for inspectors to stop checking whether the meat in our grocery stores is crawling with deadly bacteria? Or for the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause horrible deformities in our babies?

When? Never. In fact, whenever the anarchists make any headway in their quest and cause damage to our government, the opposite happens.

After the sequester kicked in, Republicans immediately turned around and called on us to protect funding for our national defense and to keep our air traffic controllers on the job.

And now that the House Republicans have shut down the government – holding the country hostage because of some imaginary government "health care boogeyman" – Republicans almost immediately turned around and called on us to start reopening parts of our government.

Why do they do this? Because the boogeyman government in the alternate universe of their fiery political speeches isn't real. It doesn't exist.

Government is real, and it has three basic functions:

Provide for the national defense.
Put rules in place-rules, like traffic lights and bank regulations, that are fair and transparent.
Build the things together that none of us can build alone – roads, schools, power grids – the things that give everyone a chance to succeed. These things did not appear by magic. In each instance, we made a choice as a people to come together. We made that choice because we wanted to be a country with a foundation that would allow anyone to have a chance to succeed.

The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that the white pills we take are antibiotics and not baking soda. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees crash tests to make sure our new cars have functioning brakes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes sure that babies' car seats don't collapse in a crash and that toasters don't explode.

We are alive, we are healthier, we are stronger because of government. Alive, healthier, stronger because of what we did together.

We are not a country of anarchists. We are not a country of pessimists and ideologues whose motto is, "I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own." We are not a country that tolerates dangerous drugs, unsafe meat, dirty air, or toxic mortgages.

We are not that nation. We have never been that nation. And we never will be that nation.

The political minority in the House that condemns government and begged for this shutdown has its day. But like all the reckless and extremist factions that have come before it, its day will pass – and the government will get back to the work we have chosen to do together.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

We, the People ...

Well, I was on a roll. Ideas for blog posts abounded at every turn and interaction of my world. Life was good! And then, American politics absolutely threw me for a loop. The workings or rather, the non-workings of our Congress is just beyond comprehension. They drove me to drink, rather than write! But, enough ostrich action. Here we go.

So, conservatives, libertarians, insurance and pharmaceutical companies and the American Medical Association (AMA) don’t like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Not surprising, they didn’t like the Health Security Act of 1993. Actually, they haven’t liked any approach to health care reform since forever. Well, notably beginning in the 1930’s.

Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to include publicly funded health care programs as part of the Social Security legislation. The American Medical Association went ballistic and opened their coffers to oppose any and all things connected with universal health care. The stage was set for the entrenchment of a deep political fear of any organized and well-funded opposition to health care reform. A fear that is ongoing and further instigated by today’s political organizations and lobbyists (not the mention the Supreme Court’s deregulation of political contributions by corporations, and, politicians themselves).

In the 1940’s, legislation was passed to support third-party insurers, mostly hospitals that offered their own insurance plans. The first of these plans became Blue Cross. After World War II, industrialist Henry Kaiser expanded the organization he had formed during the war to a nonprofit organization open to the public, with a structure similar to a contemporary HMO except for the nonprofit part (I found it interesting that The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has the mission of “filling the need for trusted information on health care issues,” including global policies. http://kff.org). I’m still finding it hard to know who to trust. But, they are worth the read.

In 1949, President Truman attempted to make universal health care a part of his Fair Deal legislation. No dice. And once group premiums paid by employers became a tax deductible business expense in 1951, third-party insurance companies became the primary providers of access to health care in the U.S.

The legislation that established Medicare and Medicaid passed in 1965 under President Johnson’s administration. Still opponents, especially the AMA and insurance companies, opposed the legislation on the grounds that it was compulsory; it represented socialized medicine; it would reduce the quality of care; and it was 'un-American.’” Sound familiar?

In 1970, Senator Ted Kennedy introduced a bipartisan national health insurance bill—without any cost sharing—developed with the Committee for National Health Insurance founded by United Auto Workers (UAW) president Walter Reuther, with a corresponding bill introduced in the House by Representative James Corman. Congressional hearings were held for health care reform for the first time in 20 years, but no universal health care bill passed the Congress. But, reforms extending Medicare coverage in 1971 were signed into law by President Nixon.

In 1974, President Ford called for health insurance reform. AMA opposition during this period moved the conversation to a voluntary tax credit plan. However, with the change in the Congress after the 1974 elections, the AMA strategized in 1975 to support an employer mandate proposal instead of their tax credit plan.

By December of 1977, President Carter had removed the support he had given to universal health insurance when he was a candidate for the presidency. He told Ted Kennedy that the bill needed to be changed to preserve a large role for private insurance companies, minimize federal spending, and be phased-in so not to interfere with balancing the federal budget. Reverberations from this position are included in the arguments set forth in opposition to today’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Over his political career, Ted Kennedy fought long and hard for health reform. In 1985, COBRA was passed to give some employees the ability to continue health insurance coverage after leaving employment. The Clinton Administration made health care reform an essential part of its policy initiatives. During the Bush Administration there were a number of proposals offered to ensure the quality of care of all patients by preserving the integrity of the processes that occur in the health care industry. None of these were successful. Guess who, once again, opposed their enactment?

Bringing us back to the now and the continuing saga of health care reform in the United States.

Perhaps it is time that We, the People of the United States of America, step outside the hype of political parties, the AMA, insurance companies, and corporations and take the time to envision exactly what health care should look like in the richest country on the planet.

• Should every American be able to depend on affordable and accessible, quality health care regardless of economic status?

• Should every American have access to preventative maintenance of their health, regardless of economic status? 

• Should every American have health insurance as a protection against emergency, unrestricted by the circumstance of age, or when you became sick, or what is making you sick?

Government becomes involved in these questions because of the word “every.” The policies and laws of the federal government should be designed to nurture the well-being of Americans, every American. Well-being begins with health and impacts all sectors of the society.

Opponents to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have failed to answer any of these three essential questions in the affirmative. Instead, they present arguments about cost and entitlement; complications and problems, but not once have they offered approaches to these elements so that the questions can be answered “yes.”

If these questions are not relevant to the naysayers, so be it. It means that their vision of America is a very unpleasant, narcissistic, greedy and oppressive vision. It is not a vision based on the reality of this country, which has prospered by the blood, sweat and tears of every American, regardless of their economic status. Theirs is a vision that should not be accepted or allowed. But that will ultimately depend on the will of We, the People ...

This Film Is Not About Poverty!

When the film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, was released, I did not see it in the theaters. I read the reviews. It was described as surreal, a fantasy. It was said to present fortitude in the midst of “a desolate wilderness of poverty where a small community struggles to survive.” No, thanks.” Then I started reading things about it’s lead actress, the then 7-year-old, Quvenzhané Wallis. So, I purchased the DVD to support her, and the filmmakers. It had set on my shelf for months, but then I finally watched it. It is like being able to watch The Odyssey from its contemporary vantage point, or the telling of the fables that sustained people through centuries. Beasts of the Southern Wild provided an experience that has left me tingling inside, still.

The power of the visual image is in its potential to stir the human imagination to create a moment unlike the reality of seeing a picture and knowing that it is whatever medium it is; that someone framed it or not; that someone else hung it or propped it, or strung it together with other images in a magic of technology. This power is manifest in that moment when we suspend our disbelief, and give our humanity over to this interaction where the eye tells the brain to tell the heart to beat faster and for the innards to glow with each quickened breath.

Such was my experience viewing Beasts of the Southern Wild. I was given the gift of sustained joy that comes from the power of the visual image multiplied into a moving picture and combined with primordial storytelling. I think that Joseph Campbell would have loved this movie. Bruno Bettleheim would have loved this movie. The ancient Greeks and philosophers would have loved this movie. African griots would love this movie. And those of us like me, who have been longing, searching for a hero’s journey in which to not only imagine, but to also see myself within such a quest; to recognize that the quest is mine and ongoing, and to be heartened by this fact.

Stories of the African-American sojourn have been filmed many times. The images have been created and recreated to tell of noble and ignoble acts, suffering, triumph (even if historically short-lived), but never images of power and transformation. Never, until now, with the macroscopic images of a small child in Beasts of the Southern Wild. These are not images of segregated poverty nor of subjugation through racial divides. These images project a humanity as raw and joyful as life can be, should be.

The young filmmakers who made this work of art created a vision of the heroic that translates across communities. It translates to anywhere that people have made a conscious decision about how they will live, not how much money they will have. It is a vision of true survival, the survival of the human spirit as one among many spirits in the natural world.

If you look, truly look and release yourself to this film, what you will find is the imperative to face the question: what are the important things of life? Why survive? What must we treasure and protect and therefore nourish in our youth and the generations that follow them. Perhaps it is that we, African-Americans, will ever only sojourn in this country until we again take up these profound questions en masse. Perhaps it is the same with all of us here.

In the film, there are so many instances of sharing and concern for the welfare of others. And, there is a strong differentiation made between the sharing and concern that respects the individual’s autonomy and the sharing and concern that is imposed on the powerless. For the very first time, I feel that I have the beginnings of an inkling about why there are people of extremely limited material means who refuse charity. And for the very first time, I have been presented with images that recognize material limitations as the least of our concerns.

Survival is not the fare served up via reality TV. It is not making sure that you not only keep up, but have more than the “Joneses.” Survival resides in an active intellect and the creativity that accompanies it. Survival allows us to join with others, not to oppress them with our power and possessions. In survival we come to recognize ourselves. Survival insists on the lusty scream of joy. Beasts of the Southern Wild is a model, not a template, but a model of survival. It is wonderful!

Out! Out! Damned Fowl!

USDAgov flickr Upload on April 17, 2012

SumOfUs (sumofus.org) defines itself as a nonprofit movement of consumers, workers, and shareholders speaking with one voice to counterbalance the growing power of large corporations. Currently, the organization has 1,249,265 members worldwide. I’m one of them.

So, when I received their alarm! alarm! email over the current status of plans to revise U.S. poultry plant regulations and privatize plant inspections (against the warnings of the government’s independent oversight office), I sprang into action and called the White House comment line to voice my opposition to this plan and urge the President to reverse any such new regulations. I hung up the phone and was left with this nagging feeling that it was the waste of a dime.

I hold certain assumptions about how public food safety works in this country, but I have to admit that I haven’t the foggiest idea where my assumptions originated. What I do know is that they are far from the reality of industrialized food production and the government’s regulation of same. Perhaps it was the four basic food groups and later that ubiquitous food pyramid, both brought to you by the USDA. They have a strong presence in my memory. Perhaps it is this ethereal presence that made me feel there was a guardian over the safety of the food that I purchase. Perhaps, but at any rate, I set out to learn more about the regulation of food in America. Well, poultry processing anyway.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was established in 1862 by President Lincoln. Subsequently, he termed it to be “rapidly commending itself to the great and vital interest it was created to advance. It is precisely the people's Department, in which they feel more directly concerned than in any other. I commend it to the continued attention and fostering care of Congress."

The “people’s Department,” such a safeguard makes sense to me given that food is of fundamental interest. In the ensuing years, the USDA was given cabinet status under President Cleveland and the American farmer was supported in the effort to produce a veritable cornucopia of foodstuff. Just looking at the photographs from the USDA website, even for someone familiar with “super” markets generates a profound appreciation. 

An interesting aside deals with the handling of U.S. patents. The U.S. Patent Act became a part of the Constitution in 1790. It assigned the granting and control of U.S. patents to the Department of State, namely the Secretary of State. (I have to wonder if this act would have been structured in this way if someone other than Thomas Jefferson had been the Secretary. But, he was and it was.)

Subsequently, The Patent Act of 1836 created a Patent Office. Although still a part of the Department of State, patents were placed under the control  and maintenance of a Commissioner, the first being Henry Leavitt Ellsworth. Here’s the interesting part: Ellsworth was a lawyer who apparently had a great deal of interest in agriculture. His position gave him access to members of Congress, and he used this access to collect and distribute new varieties of seeds and plants. These interactions obviously were held as valuable because in 1839, Congress established the Agricultural Division within the Patent Office and allotted a budget for "the collection of agricultural statistics and other agricultural purposes."

Okay, back to the future. Well, after one more aside that I certainly never heard in the media. Hard to believe that I would have ignored it. Did you know that in 1999, the USDA settled a class action lawsuit, the Pigford Case, alleging discrimination against 13,300 African-American farmers? The government's settlement of just over $1 billion was reportedly the largest civil rights claim to date. The 2008 Farm Bill provided for 70,000 additional farmers to submit their claims. In 2010, the federal government made another $1.2 billion settlement for outstanding claims and President Obama signed Public Law 111–291—December 8, 2010, which appropriated funds for the government’s settlement obligations. Farmers in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia were among those affected by the settlement.

As this final appropriation bill was being completed, Republicans attacked Shirley Sherrod, claiming that she was biased in her performance as USDA Georgia State Director of Rural Development. That I read about. The allegations were false and the Administration was prematurely and incorrectly reactive. I now believe that this attack and the immediate firing of Sherrod are tied to the acknowledged discrimination against Black farmers and resentment toward the settlement. Republicans screamed Black racism against Whites in the USDA and embellished with charges of fraud on the part of Black farmers, and the President, possibly focused on getting the settlement funds appropriated, was caught by this subterfuge. The result being that Black farmers did not get the national attention that their ongoing cause deserved.

The report on the initial distribution of claim payments has yet to be completed. I’m very much looking forward to reading it. If you share that interest, reports are posted at the USDA Office of Inspector General website http://www.usda.gov/oig/foia.htm .

Okay. I’m back to the present vision of the future for real this time!

In April of this year, the USDA changed the rules for poultry processing. Perhaps, the changes were in response to sequestration budgetary pressures. Perhaps. USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack says the regulations change is designed to “keep the poultry industry profitable and save the government money” (firing 75% of USDA poultry inspectors would reportedly save approximately $90 million over three years). Really? So money and money topped the “peoples Department” rationale list - even though what we’re talking about is our food!

What were the changes, you might well ask. Well, one huge concern is an increase in processing speeds at the same time as a decrease in the number of USDA inspectors.  Large poultry slaughterhouses are “factories” that process chickens through “kill lines,” currently at a regulated rate of 140 birds per minute, with each line overseen by four USDA inspectors. In September of 2014 when the new regulations take effect, each line will be allowed 175 chickens per minute and will be overseen by a single USDA inspector.

Additionally, the new regulations change the way that slaughtered chickens are sanitized. Instead of relying mainly on visual evidence of illness and contamination, the USDA will now allow that harmful pathogens be addressed by dipping all slaughtered chickens in water laced with chlorine and other antimicrobial chemicals. In other words, all of these chickens will have absorbed a chemical brine that also provides a little profit bonus by increasing the bird’s meat weight. Turkeys are also effected, but that’s yet another story!

Alternately, there are methods available for sanitizing poultry at this stage of the processing that do not include incorporating chemicals into the meat. Air chilling is one example. (Now I know why Whole Foods has that section labeled “air-chilled chicken!”) But, air chilling takes time and the four companies that account for nearly 60% of the chickens slaughtered in the U.S. (Tyson, Pilgrim’s Pride, Purdue and Sanderson) rely on keeping price points low and inventories high through increases in the speed rate for processing the birds.

I can’t imagine working on a “kill line.” For those who do, having your expected work output increased by 25% per minute, while you are welding extremely sharp utensils sounds like a very dangerous proposition to me. And what about air quality in these slaughterhouses? Just thinking about chlorine makes my allergies act up. But, that is not the concern of the USDA. That worry belongs to another protector of public safety, the Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Haven’t learned what they have to say yet.

Who regulates the regulators? Congressional committees don’t seem up to the task. Maybe that would be a good job for all those fired inspectors?

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Poultry Grader Guillermina Aguilar performs an Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) Check, Package Defect (P/D) Check, net weight of boxes, measures frozen temperatures and counts pieces per box of frozen chicken breasts in a Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Berryville, Arkansas on March 25, 2010. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guineas, and pigeons are all eligible for grading and certification services provided by the USDA AMS Poultry Programs’ Grading Branch. These services are provided in accordance with Federal poultry grading.

If You Want Peace, Fight for Justice

My earliest memories are based in a childhood world bordered by the two blocks along Giles Avenue from 37th Street to 35th Street in Chicago, IL. My mother and father lived in the rented second floor of a regal brownstone mid-block north from 37th Street. But the true hub of this world was the home of my great-grandmother and great-aunts on the corner.

My great-grandfather had purchased the building in 1919. In the basement there was a “shop” down a short stairway and under a green awning. This was Melon King. Family myth holds that the watermelons sold, iced and by the slice, on enameled trays at tables surrounded by “ice cream parlor” chairs, were the result of cross-breeding on the melons that Samuel and his friend had developed on a farm outside Charleston, S.C. Each year, the crop was trucked to Chicago and people flocked from all over the city to savor the deep red flesh that was as sweet as cotton candy.

As a Winningham, I was the “rich kid” on the block. There are lots of stories about that, especially during the first twelve years of my life when my great-grandmother was alive. But it is only recently, that I have come to fully realize how rich was the life of this community.

At the opposite end of my world from Melon King was the “Armory.” As a child, I was always fascinated by this what seemed a truly huge building. Having no idea what an armory was, I always thought it was just the name of someplace big. I did not know that it was the Eighth Regiment Armory, built in 1914-1915, the first armory built in the United States for an African-American military regiment.

The Eighth Regiment evolved from a volunteer militia formed in 1871, the Hannibal Guard. During WWI, the Hannibal Guard, which had undergone a number of name changes to accommodate racist objections, became a division of the Illinois National Guard as part of the 370th U.S. Infantry, the “Fighting 8th.” In 1927, a victory monument was erected to honor the achievements of the Eighth Regiment. The impressive monument remains at 35th Street and King Drive.

 

 A fascinating history with so many untold layers, but what drew me to thoughts of the armory was a little historical tidbit, also with many, many untold layers.

On February 14, 1936, more than 800 delegates, representing 500 different organizations from across the nation, gathered in the Eighth Regiment Armory for 3 days of an event which inaugurated the National Negro Congress and was designed to build a national constituency to pressure the Roosevelt Administration for labor and civil rights.

I am so familiar with the street that I can see the crowd of people who gathered outside of the armory to listen to loudspeaker broadcasts of the sessions inside. The discussions concerned sharecroppers, interracial organizing, women and labor, the arts, business, and the war in Ethiopia.

The next year, several young leaders who had attended the Chicago event formed the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC) in Richmond, Virginia (later moving their headquarters to Birmingham, Alabama). Over the next twelve years the organization membership grew to 11,000 at its peak. The SNYC worked to make southern blacks aware of their rights, especially regarding the vote, and of strategies for protest, including anti-lynching campaigns. They worked for the establishment of unions and fair employment practices. Notably, the SNYC was associated with two other organizations working on these issues, the Communist Party USA and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Southern Negro Youth Congress members meet with Idaho Senator Glen Taylor, 1947.

Sallye Bell Davis has been characterized as “the most active lay member” of the SNYC. I’m learning (surprise!) that the role of female activists is definitely underrepresented in the predominant histories of the political and labor movements of this period and through the 1950s.

So, if your mother was Sallye Bell Davis and you had developed in a household that included an independent and entrepreneurial father, Frank Davis, and the goings and comings of intellectuals and activists, and, communists, what kind of adult would you become? One answer is that you would have become an adult like Angela Davis.

On this past Saturday, the Crossroads Fund presented Bending the Arc: The Robert Howard Annual Symposium. Cheryl Corley moderated a panel representing the YMCA Youth Safety and Violence Prevention Initiative; Project Nia; Violence Interrupter; the Marquette University Peace Works Program; and, with special guest and commentator, Toni Preckwinkle and, Keynote Speaker, Angela Davis.

Angela Davis. I remember that she was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List in 1970. I remember thinking upon reading Soledad Brother that George Jackson had little of substance to say about her (but, maybe that was my own gender bias at the time). I remember that Nixon called her “a dangerous terrorist.” I remember she was acquitted of the legal charges against her. In retrospect, I think that Angela Davis became so publicized because she is a woman. She became the female face of the Black Panthers, and possibly, it was that she became the warning to black women that gender would not protect them. Black women knew that. Perhaps it was actually a warning to white feminists.

There were lots of warnings in those days, punctuated with object lessons like the events at Kent State, Jackson State, Grant Park, and the apartment of Fred Hampton. Okay, I won’t go there - back to the present:

I think that this symposium was extremely important, and extremely boring. It was important because the panel represented people and organizations extending their resources to find solutions and work to their effect. It was boring not because of what was said or how it was said, but because it is impossible to say everything that must be said in 2 hours. It was boring because I was antsy for the call to action.

The contemporary situation is well-defined. Violence has overrun urban communities. Education is plummeting to mediocracy at best and total ineffectiveness at worst. Anger poisons the young, and, the police. These things we know. But, what is to be done? Where is today’s National Congress? (Commemorating the March on Washington ain’t it.)

It feels to me that established leadership at the national level in every segment and sector of the society has carved out who will lead. Rather than be incorporated and supported, youth groups like the Dream Defenders are shunted to the side. Community activists are engaged as Democrats or Republicans, but not for the cause(s), but for partisan politics.

The Crossroads Fund symposium was in some ways a counter to these attitudes. There are young people stepping forward to enable a better world. Right here in Chicago, as the panelists showed, and across the nation. These are the voices I want, I need to hear. These are the voices I want to join.

So, what will it take? I’m feeling like there are at least 500 organizations around the nation today that if gathered in such a place as was the Eighth Regiment Armory, might just generate the ideas and the energy that would spark true change for the better.

Stay tuned.

What If Socrates Had WiFi?

Many, many, many years ago, I came across a book of essays entitled, “I Dissent” or maybe it was “We Dissent.” I can’t remember now. But, what I do remember is the effect that it had on me. It was the first time that I encountered a validity to the idea of challenging authority. The essays, or at least my internalization of them, presented the challenge of authority as one responsibility of the citizens of a democracy. In this context, the challenge is not a call to man the barracks; it is not to become oppositional simply for the sake of it; it is not to obstruct, as so many in our current Congress appear to believe. It is an entreaty to question and to participate in society with intellect, as well as heart.

I am of the opinion that without a knowledge of history, dissent risks advancing without the substance necessary to persuasion. My formal education in America, alas, did not provide me with a conversance of how human beings got from “there” to “here.” What it did give me was the desire to know. And in the 21st Century that’s all one needs. Information on any and everything is just a click away, waiting for our encounters to make some reasonable sense of it all. Plus, we have the wealth of services at public libraries. I want a bumper sticker that says “Love Your Librarian!”

Our government tells us the what of policies, rarely does it tell us the whys of policies, and never does it tell us the possible consequences of policies, potential or real. These things we must ferret out for ourselves - if we want to know.

Right now, I’m waiting to see if the G20 Summit gets around to discussing how the international community will deal with those wealthy individuals and corporations who have become such adept tax dodgers, and, hoping that we don’t punish one immoral act with another in the Middle East. In the meantime, I dissent.

An Ottoman Is Not A Cushioned Footstool: Part II

You know what the real problem is? The real problem is that people accept political maps as if the Earth came all marked up in lovely little lines of demarcation, with countries shaded in lovely pastels. Like so many things in contemporary society, political maps are a figment of our imagination. We made it up.

Well, the powers that be made them up, as an outcome of revolts, wars, and greed, mostly because they could. The majority of the land that we now call the Middle East was once long held by the Ottoman Empire.

What a difference a couple of centuries can make, heh?

We know that maintaining our modern day dependency on oil demands that we give attention to the Middle East (and anywhere else that oil has been found, but that’s another discussion). But the story of today’s Middle East begins with the slow erosion and then dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

Whether it’s countries or individuals, it’s debt that’ll do ya - every time. By 1881, the Ottoman Empire carried a huge debt, mostly owed to Britain and France. The Sultan cozied up to Germany. The Deutshe Bank secured a concession to build the final leg of the Berlin to Baghdad railway, including subsurface mineral rights and the sole rights to any petroleum in the area, 20 kilometers to either side of the railway. A gigantic strategic coup for a Germany on the make!

This was bad news for Britain and France, and not particularly cheery news for Russia either. What happens next is very interesting and very convoluted, but the quicky version is that Germany was politically isolated; the established petroleum companies were co-opted; the establishment of a constitutional monarchy after the Young Turk revolutions of 1908 and 1909 gained France and Britain an opportunity for moral and political leadership in the corroding Ottoman Empire; and the end of World War I carved up Africa and the Middle East (including a very large protectorate named Iraq). It is a perspective enhancement to realize that the U.S. was not considered a Great Power in these days.

So what were American relations in the eastern hemisphere, with countries other than England and France, and the resulting policies that have evolved since 1776? Consider this, Morocco was the first nation to recognize the United States as a unified sovereign nation, doing so in 1777. Don’t hear much about Morocco, but they joined in a treaty of “peace and friendship” with the United States in 1787, which though renegotiated in 1836, remains in force - the longest unbroken treaty relationship in U.S. history.

Perhaps Morocco was moved to this alliance to solidify its autonomy in the emerging new world politics. It had maintained its sovereignty in spite of Portugal, Spain, and the Ottoman Empire. To have defeated the British certainly made our fledgling nation of interest. Wonder what the first trade exchanges were all about? Anyhoo ...

I suppose my main thesis here, is just to say that American citizens do not have enough information about the Middle East. And that’s putting it mildly! To quote Rick Ungar’s op-ed piece in Monday’s Forbes:

     “If you think our interests are best served by lobbing missiles into Syria or taking an even more active role in their civil war, then you should feel free to criticize this president for not acting in accordance with your wishes. If you believe that this is not a fight that we should engage in, call your Congressional Representatives and tell them to vote against supporting Obama’s war plans.

      But if you are forming these opinions based on the self-interest of the media or the politicians, you might wish to rethink your position based on reality as neither the media nor the politicians are fulfilling their responsibility to give you measured analysis designed to assist you in forming your own perspectives.”

Technology has given us an opportunity to reach beyond the trivia of our own media and the propaganda of our government. I heartily, again, encourage visits to http://syriadeeply.org. I’m hoping that anyone who has other sites or resources to recommend will post them here. Also, have a look at F. William Engdahl’s essay on oilgeopolitics.net (http://oilgeopolitics.net/History/Oil_and_the_Origins_of_World_W/oil_and_the_origins_of_world_w.HTM#_edn19). It is also a reminder that we don't know jack about the Balkans either!

In parting, one last image.

The Necessity of Work

My first job was as a clerk at our neighborhood variety store. I guess they’re called “convenience” stores now. It was my first year in high school. I walked in. Asked for the manager. Asked for a job. And started the next day! It lasted for a week, until the day that my mother demanded to know why I was getting home so late from school! Since you didn’t ignore my mother’s requests, I told her. At which point, she snatched me up and walked us right into that store and up to the manager: “Thank you, but she can’t work! She’s 12-years-old!”

Those were the days when, as a child, just because you wanted something didn’t mean that you would automatically get it. And having money was an ever-illusive dream. You could scheme and beg all you wanted, but there was nothing for it, except to find a job. But, first you had to wait to be 16. Even then, pickings were slim.

Ray Kroc was just beginning his march to dominate what became the fast food industry. At that time there were few opportunities for teenagers, especially girls, to get a job. For those who did staff the counters to make sure “you could have it your way,” there was also a bit of pride passed from older patrons to young workers. That little smile that said, “Good for you!”

More and more, I'm coming to think that those types of interactions cement the work ethic for young people on the verge of emerging into the world on their own. To be meaningfully employed, also gained the approval of the community. A state of grace that made you walk taller and feel you could take control of your own life. Important moments in the transition to adulthood. But, times change.

There is a discouraging trajectory that brings us to the current state of employment opportunities for teenagers. The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate for those 16 years and older in the year I was born was 3.9%. In 1983 it was 9.6%. I remember that recession. It was the first time that I gave thought to the racial disparities in unemployment percentages. That 9.6% was more like 15% in the Black community.  In 2012, the unemployment rate for those 16 years and older was 8.1%. These figures, of course, ebb and flow. Still, in August, 2013, for White teenagers and Black teenagers, the unemployment rates were 20% and 41.6%, respectively. There is little on the horizon that would indicate the likelihood of change for the better any time soon.

Jobs, at a time of unprecedented corporate growth and profits, should be plentiful. However, outsourcing has changed the structures of U.S. employment opportunity, notably in the replacement of teenagers by adults in the most visible service jobs. Looking at this chart from the New York Times, I remember seeing very few teenagers working at these “fast food venues” and stores compared to adults. It is a fact that has given spark to the recent demands for a raise in the minimum wage and working conditions among service workers. And that fight is well and good.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/20/business/the-iphone-economy.html

But, what about the teens? How will we introduce them to the world of work and provide a balance, and maybe ballast, to their media-driven aspirations to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous?

I won’t subject you to my rant about the quality of U.S. education, but I would like to share a program that is looking to prepare urban youth for work in the 21st Century. You’ll find them at http://www.blue1647.com. Blue 1647 is a Tech + Entrepreneurship Incubator in Chicago, IL focusing on tech education, people development, and entrepreneurial events. Their company overview states that “Blue 1647 is a place where diverse people working for a better world can quickly access relationships and support to bring their ideas to life."

I think it is this potential that gives value to work, and how work spurs human development. It confirms one's ability to bring ideas to life.

Happy Labor Day!

An Ottoman Is Not A Cushioned Footstool Part I

Okay. I admit it: I haven’t an inkling of what’s going on in the Middle East! I don’t get it. You’d think I would. You’d think all Americans would given the huge influence the Middle East asserts within our foreign policy and important sectors of our economy. But, we don’t.

So. I decided that I’d better get better informed, and where else to begin than at the beginning. To my amazement, the U.S. Department of State maintains an Office of the Historian (Who knew!?!) and this office publishes A GUIDE TO THE UNITED STATES' HISTORY OF RECOGNITION, DIPLOMATIC, AND CONSULAR RELATIONS, BY COUNTRY, SINCE 1776. ( http://history.state.gov/countries )

The section of this guide on Syria reads like a pop fiction romance. Our relations have been on-again, off-again over and over and on-going - much like Syria itself. Once a part of the Ottoman empire, Syria was established after World War I as a French Mandate, and represented the largest Arab State, encompassing the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires. It gained independence in 1946 and the people immediately found themselves immersed in a series of military coups and coup attempts from 1949 to 1971, including a union with Egypt from 1958 to 1961. In 1963, the Syrian government declared the country to be under Emergency Law, suspending most constitutional protections for its citizens. This situation remained until 2011, when civil war broke out.

An alternative government was established by the Syrian National Coalition, an opposition umbrella group. This coalition has been recognized as the “sole representative of the Syrian people” by several nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France. And it is with this recognition that we tethered ourselves to the fight over Syria.

The complexities are center stage in the Middle East because this is not the type of “civil war” that Americans would recognize. It is a regional struggle that crosses state boundaries. It is the war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is Israel and the U.S against Iran; the U.S. against Russia; and, the Sunni against the Shia. It is a mess! And imagine if you lived there!?! Over a million people have been killed and millions more displaced. Posted at http://syriadeeply.org is a map showing the locations of refugees, as well as a great deal of other information.

In March, 2013, it was announced that we were “training” secular Syrian fighters in Jordan. In June, the decision was made to arm them. At this point, tension escalated between the U.S. and Russia, because Russia is an ally of the current Syrian President Bashar Assad. However, it seems to me that the U.S. is more concerned with Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons (believed to be one of the world’s largest).

The use of chemical weapons is abhorent. But, I don’t think that the focus of our actions is rooted in morality. I think that it is a case of self-protection. The fear is that Islamic extremists would gain access to the Syrian stockpile of chemical weapons. Not a frivolous concern.

However, what concerns me the most is my relationship as an American citizen to the actions of the American government. Reading over the historical notes, trying to comprehend so much truly “foreign” information, I have to accept that our international policy has evolved from the Imperialist Model. The technological advances of the early 20th Century fostered a demand for oil and the scramble was on.

All of us, each voting and especially non-voting American citizen, have been complicit in achieving not diplomacy, but control in the Middle East and therefore control of oil. Since the 70s, when the OPEC oil embargo caused lines at the pumps and oil companies responded to price controls by creating artificial scarcity, the oil companies have reaped nearly 40 years of unquestioned, tremendous profit. At the same time, the citizens of the United States have internalized the demonization of those who live on top of the planet’s oil reserves.

The question we should all be asking ourselves is not should we punish the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The question is what then? What happens next? What do we want our relationship to be with the other nations of the world? It’s time, past time, that we demanded a systemic change that moves us from propaganda and politics to a reality more appropriate to the 21st Century, at home and abroad.

What would that take, to make such a demand? Is a change of this magnitude even possible? Do enough of us even think it’s worth it?