U.S. Debt--Biggest Lies About

It just baffles me that in all this talk about the debt crisis, scarcely a word is said about three events that contributed the most to the deficit:

• Two major wars--don't even mention cutting the Pentagon budget
• Tax cuts of 2001 & 2003--off the table
• Prescription Drug Plan Medicare part D--huh? 

This is a long article, but seems to me to do a better job of explaining the "debt crisis" than just about anything I have read.

Gramma Windy

The 6 Biggest Lies About the U.S. Debt By Arun Gupta, AlterNet Posted on July 28, 2011, Printed on July 30, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/story/151827/the_6_biggest_lies_about_the_u.s._debt Editor's Note: This article has been corrected to reflect more accurate calculations. There is one simple truth about the discussion of the looming U.S. debt crisis: it is largely a compendium of half-truths, distortions, myths and outright lies. For example, is it true that the U.S. debt is unsustainable, which is spurring the budget-cutting fever? Far from it. While U.S. debt is at one of its highest levels ever in terms of gross domestic product, the estimated interest payments for all of 2011 on the $14.3 trillion public debt will be a mere $430 billion. This is only 18 percent more than the $364 billion paid way back in 1998, while the U.S. economy has grown nearly 30 percent since then. Rock-bottom interest rates on U.S. government debt account for the low payments today, but the practical effect is that servicing the debt as a percentage of GDP is near the lowest it’s been in decades. Or what about hysterical headlines like “U.S. Debt Default Looms” (courtesy of NPR) unless Democrats and Republicans agree to raise the debt ceiling? They are completely untrue. Richard Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, says, if there is no agreement by Aug. 2 to allow the U.S. Treasury to borrow more funds, then “the government instead would choose among cutbacks on various expenditures such as state and local aid, medical aid, for war, for infrastructure. It would extraordinarily unusual for a government in such a situation to attack its creditors.” If no deal on the debt ceiling is reached this sucks for the rest of us, such as the millions depending on their portion of the $23 billion in Social Security payments scheduled for Aug. 3. A short delay would do no serious harm, but a longer delay, perhaps just a week or two, would be devastating. For one, removing income support payments would have a major ripple effect in our consumer-based economy. Spending would drop precipitously on items like food, medicine, transportation, clothing and household goods. Peter Bratsis, a professor of Political Theory at the University of Salaford in England and a Greek-American, says his home country is a cautionary tale. Speaking from Greece, Bratsis said since the debt crisis hit last summer many people’s income have dropped up to 25 percent as wages, pensions and social welfare have been sacrificed to please the banks. As a result “Greece is in an economic depression. In Athens, on every block, you have shuttered bakeries, cafes, shoe stores, plumbers and other small businesses that are closed because either people don’t have the money to spend or are afraid to spend.” Second, says Wolff, “The U.S. Government is one of the largest buyers, if not the largest purchaser of commodities in the world of oil, of computers, of weapons. In an already shaky global economy, the biggest buyer of goods would be making cutbacks. This would be stupefyingly dumb.” He adds that by playing chicken with the national debt, Washington has already irreparably wounded the economy. “The world depends on the U.S. economy running smoothly. A default would lead governments and companies to rethink their relation to the United States, and this has already happened.” The point is while the dangers are rife in a delay in raising the debt ceiling the doomsday scenario of a government default on debt is not going to occur. The creditors will be kept happy and there will be no default because that is how government works in a capitalist economy. And even if the impasse dragged on, the Fed could dip into its $550 billion in reserves, including more than $400 billion in gold at current prices, to keep making debt payments. One blatant lie is that Republicans and Democrats, the Congress and the White House are serious about reining in budget deficits to reduce the long-term debt. They are not. The Congressional Budget Office calculates that the deficit from 2011 to 2013 will be $3.5 trillion. Over the decade it will be $8.5 trillion. Now, lots of numbers are being thrown about on spending cuts over a 10-year period, but they keep dropping – the Senate Democrats are proposing $2.2 trillion in cuts and costs savings while the Republicans weigh in at $915 billion. Cutting one or two hundred billion dollars a year is meaningless. Wolff says, “Even if you cut the debt $300 billion, you are left with an enormous annual deficit that adds hugely to the national debt they all claim to care so much about. It gives lie to the idea that the Republicans and Democrats are interested in trying to cut the national debt.” If you really believe shrinking the debt is an imperative, then there are easier ways to do it then stealing grandma’s meds. The Bush wars and tax cuts – which are still going – cost $3.3 trillion from 2002 to 2009. Cutting the trillion-dollar war budget in half, ending the Bush tax cuts (which Obama could have done with no sweat when he was bursting with political capital in early 2009 or by calling the GOP bluff before or after the 2010 midterm elections) and raising tax rates on corporations would pretty much wipe out the deficit over the next decade. In the case of corporate taxes, during the last decade it averaged only 10.7 percent of federal revenues – and since 2008 it’s shrunk to barely 5 percent – versus 29.8 percent in the 1950s. Of course, the stand-off is based on another lie: that Congress and Obama administration can enforce cuts over a 10-year period. The budget process is an annual exercise. There is no provision whatsoever to make cuts permanent because they can always be undone by Congress, and taxes can always be lowered or costly new wars started, both of which always seem to happen, widening the deficit once more. There is no end to the falsehoods and fantasies from the chattering classes. “We are in recovery.” So says Ben Bernanke – since 2009 no less. Obama has been saying the same since 2010, while hedging that it is “painfully slow.” Really? Tell that to the 25 million Americans who are unemployed, underemployed or have dropped out of the labor force. This amounts to an unemployment rate of16.2 percent, but the real rate is probably closer to 20 percent after factoring in youth unable to enter the workforce or those who have taken early retirement. Or try telling the 100 million Americans who are effectively caught in poverty (using far more realistic measures than the government does) or the 6.5 million households with mortgages that are delinquent or in foreclosure that we are in recovery. The notion we are in recovery is based on believing the downturn was “the Great Recession,” a distortion the New York Times helped spread. Paul Krugman is one of the few mainstream commentators saying that not only is there no end in sight to the four-year-long slump, let’s give it a more accurate label such as, “the Lesser Depression.” Suppose the corporate media had been saying “Depression” for the last few years. It would have bolstered support for extraordinary measures to dig out of an extraordinary crisis, such as policies that did work during the last depression: jobs programs, infrastructure, social welfare, stronger labor rights and aid to local governments. But this would mean redistribution of wealth downwards instead of upwards. Therefore, saying recession makes it sound part of the normal boom-and-bust cycle, one we will overcome through the magic of the market as we have so many times before. We can then move on to the recovery phase, which means getting our economic house in order by reducing the debt, a lie told by Serious People whether pundits, politicians or experts. We are being led to think the wisest course is repeating the major mistake of the Great Depression – enforcing austerity in a deep economic funk. When the New York Times backs huge cuts to social spending, you can be sure the rest of the media assumes squeezing the poor and middle class harder is the tonic for economic health. Sure, the Times may sniffle that Obama’s stunning offer to hack $650 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security was “overly generous” to Republicans but that is just code for “we in the liberal penthouse support it with mild reservations.” On the other side of the media aisle, the Wall Street Journal endorsed the Republican sadism, saying that none of the critics on the right offer “anything nearly as fiscally or politically beneficial as Mr. Boehner’s plan.” This is what passes for the range of opinion in the two most esteemed newspapers in the country. That’s because we are still in thrall of the biggest lie of all – market fundamentalism. An eternity ago, in 2009, Newsweek declared, “We Are All Socialists Now.” They were right, but only in the way America has always been socialists: we socialize the rich when they lose money, and then we socialize their ability to profit. (The esteemed economic historian Karl Polanyi argued “laissez-faire was planned.” By that, he meant profit-making depends on government regulation of land, labor, finance and the environment. On top of that, there are outright transfers of wealth that occur during wars, infrastructure building and as part of social reforms, such as the railways, the Cold War, Medicare, the internet, and the bank bailouts.) Thus, the debate is about differing Democratic and Republican visions on which parts of the welfare state should be sent to the glue factory. “We all must sacrifice,” is the mantra. Never mind that the effect on the national debt will be laughably small. Slashing $650 billion from entitlements – Obama’s burnt offering – will nick a miniscule 3 percent off the national debt by 2020, while the suffering will be enormous. But we must do it to appease the markets. Pleasing the markets means pleasing the credit rating agencies – Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch – an example of cult-like devotion in which the elite command us to drink the Kool-Aid. Like a death watch, the media turn anxiously to the rating agencies to ask the condition of U.S. government debt. Are they going to downgrade it, which would mean higher interest rates and an even bigger debt problem? This is one more big lie as Japan’s huge debt – more than twice the size of U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP – was downgraded in January and “there was no negative impact at all,” according to one analyst. But first let’s go to the tape and review how the big three credit rating agencies inflated the mortgage bubble. The bubble was driven by the banking industry’s insatiable appetite for debt, the repackaging of dicey mortgages into profitable securities. The agencies, especially Moody’s and S&P, gave investment-grade ratings to almost any sack of residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO) that passed across their desks. By law, banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors need investment-grade ratings on these securities to hold them. Since the rating agencies were paid by the issuers, they were raking in the cash by gold-plating shit. Moody’s revenue on these securities quadrupled from over $61 million in 2002 to over $260 million by 2006. For S&P, it went from $64 million to $265 million for CDOs in the same four years and from $184 million in 2002 to $561 million in 2007 for RMBSs. Don’t think they didn’t know exactly what they were doing. At S&P, one manager emailed a co-worker in December 2006, “Let's hope we are all retired and wealthy before this house of cards falters.” Then, according to a U.S. Senate report, the ratings firm triggered the financial collapse by downgrading huge amounts of these securities from AAA to junk. In one day, on Jan. 30, 2008, S&P downgraded an astonishing 6,300 ratings. In 18 months the two firms downgraded more securities than they had done in their entire 90-year histories. Once the securities turned to junk, the big players could no longer hold them, which burst the bubble as they were sold in a panic and losses began mounting on the bank’s balance sheets. We know the rest of the story – the financial collapse, the trillions in bailouts and credit lines, the lack of punishment for executives at any of these firms, the return to obscene profits a year later, the de-fanging of any credible reform. But now, we are being told, the rating agencies word on debt is the word of God. This time, S&P is not so much looking for a fast buck as nakedly pushing an agenda. In a blatant lie, S&P President Deven Sharma, who was summoned to testify before a House subcommittee on financial oversight on July 27, said his firm was “misquoted” in demanding $4 trillion in cuts and unctuously preached that ratings should be free of politics. What happened is two weeks earlier, on July 14, S&P issued a detailed statement, explaining that it was placing both long-term and short-term U.S. debt “on CreditWatch with negative implications.” It explained that “there is an increasing risk of a substantial policy stalemate enduring beyond any near-term agreement to raise the debt ceiling.” It did offer a safe passage. S&P said that if “an agreement would be enacted and maintained throughout the decade” to realize “budget savings of $4 trillion,” then “other things unchanged” it could affirm the stellar ratings on both short- and long-term U.S. debt. But, it warned, any “credible” agreement “would require support from leaders of both political parties.” S&P knew exactly what it was saying. The only budget number it mentioned (three times) was $4 trillion. By saying both parties needed to sign on to an agreement to be credible, it knew the Republican agenda of strangling the last of social welfare would triumph. And by issuing the statement in the heat of negotiations, it threw its lot in with the Tea Party mob. S&P was telling Capitol Hill to drive a stake through the heart of the welfare state. To let us peasants know we must till the corporate fields until the day we die. Otherwise, the credit rating deities will rain downgrades upon our heads, blighting the land for future generations. We must pay now and forever. That is the truth, a truth so crude and cartoonish it seems comical. Which is why we need so many lies. Arun Gupta is a founding editor of The Indypendent newspaper. He is writing a book on the decline of American Empire for Haymarket Books. © 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/151827/

[w2]

Vagaries of Voting 2

Republicans like to bleat about how soldiers have died for our right to vote, and then they do their best to deny citizens their right to vote.

Vagaries of Voting

When President Franklin D Roosevelt was running for a third term, he asked a friend, whom he knew to be a Republican, how he was going to vote.  The friend replied: "I know you're a Democrat, but I'm voting Republican."  "Why?" asked the president.  And the reply: "When you first ran, I voted Republican.  And when you ran for a second term, I voted Republican again.  Well, I've never had it so good.  So I'm going to vote Republican again this time."

Comparing Apples and Oranges

When we think that a comparison of two items is not valid, we say that it is like comparing apples to oranges.  Well, let's see...

They are both fruits
They are both roundish
They are both sweet
They both have peels
They both enclose seeds
They both grow on trees
They both are picked ripe
They both store well
They both can be used in salads or desserts
They both can be eaten out of hand
They both can  be squeezed for juice
They both can be made into spreads for bread

Hmmm, maybe that is really not such a good analogy after all.  Maybe we should say, something like...apples to coconuts?

Gramma Windy

Comparing Apples and Coconuts, maybe?

The following is a letter I wrote to The Journal in response to an item by Doug Copenhaver, of the Martinsburg City Council, in which he spoke scathingly of costs and delays in government projects, and glowingly of private projects.  The letter will be printed within the week.

It is amazing how much disinformation can be packed into an item as short as that by Doug Copenhaver on page A6 of Sunday’s Journal.    It could hardly even be said that he is comparing apples to oranges when he compares a government project with a commercial project in the county.  His take on the government project—negative.  His take on the commercial project—positive, even though, in fact, the commercial project could not exist without government largesse, including your taxes.

Infrastructure, such as the Raleigh Street Extension of which Copenhaver speaks, is a common good and it is expected that government will  provide for such projects.  It would be considered deplorable if government were to rush through approval and funding of such projects without adequate planning.  Also, as Copenhaver rightly points out, such projects often involve city, state, and federal dollars to construct.  Copenhaver deplores the requirement that the project adhere to the Davis-Bacon Act.   This law requires that contractors for government projects pay prevailing wages (which Copenhaver calls a euphemism) to their workers, preventing them from importing labor from low-income states, immigrants, etc., just in order to keep costs down.  The act forbids contractors to pay lower wages just in order to keep the bidding price down.    Copenhaver’s “Rule of thumb” figure of 30% cost of a project if union wages are paid is suspect.  It doesn’t sound like an accounting figure.  Construction workers in Berkeley County should be pleased to know that Copenhaver, owner of a construction firm himself, is in favor of lowest possible wages being paid to them.  Including when it comes to building a new county high school next year.

As to the lauded Macy’s Fulfillment Center using private as against public dollars, with contractors hired by them and not bound by Davis-Bacon:

As part of a negotiation with the Berkeley County Council, Macy’s will pay no property taxes for 15 years, and no payments-in-lieu of taxes (PILOT) for six years.  By the PILOT program Macy’s will pay about $11.5 million instead of possible property taxes of $21 million, over a 15-year period.

Macy’s also received a loan for site preparation, and The West Virginia Economic Development Authority authorized a bond issue of up to $176.1 million for the project, to deal with any unanticipated costs that may come up.  As well, the state is providing $7.3 million in incentives, including a $5 million loan to Berkeley County Development authority to help prepare the site for the Macy’s center; $1.8 million from the Governor’s Guaranteed Workforce Program for job training; $500,000 for the Community and Technical College System to assist Macy’s with its start-up training.  As well, Macy’s is exempted from state sales tax for any equipment it purchases for the center.

Macy’s plans to invest about $150 million in the project, of which some estimates say that about $25 milllion would be wages for construction workers.

West Virginia Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation — an organization that represents union construction workers — complained that West Virginia companies did not get to bid on the project, which was awarded to a Tennessee contractor.  There’s apparently no requirement that the jobs be local, much less union.

It would be interesting to be able to compare wages paid to construction workers on the Raleigh Street project as against those paid by Macy’s contractor.

..

Touch the Morning

I don't know whose this song is, but...it's mine now

Take the time to touch the morning,

Oh, you'll wish you had some day,

Take the time to touch the morning,

Now before it slips away.

Take the time to catch the sunshine,

as it slips down through the trees,

Take the time to touch the morning,

Touch the morning on your knees.

About CFPB

Bill Arnold, of Romney WV, wrote this letter to the editor elucidating what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is all about.  He also follows up with some suggestions of other consumer protections that should be in place.  Since he wrote this, we have learned that President Obama, instead of appointing Elizabeth Warren to the post of director of CFPB, has appointed her deputy, Richard Cordray; the GOP has already promised to fight that nomination; indeed, they had previously said they would fight any nomination unless rules are changed to weaken the function of the agency.  As well, theyhave an upcoming bill, which you can google to find more details: 

Consumer Financial Protection Safety and Soundness Improvement Act of 2011 - H.R.1315

This House bill would make it easier to overturn rules and regulations issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Here is Bill's letter:

To the Editor

On July 21 the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) becomes law.  It will inherit consumer protection responsibilities from seven federal agencies and assume powers to police "unfair, deceptive, or abusive" financial services products which rob our pockets, lessening our economy's ability to sustain a demand that can grow us (JOBWISE) out of this Wall Street induced recession.

It will write new rules and enforce existing ones for banks with assets of $10 billion-plus  and the tens of thousands of companies in the “shadow” banking industry who charge outrageous interest (e.g.: payday lenders, student Ioan companies, mortgage brokers, debt collectors and credit card companies). Smaller banks will be subject to CFPB rules, but other regulators like the FDIC will enforce them.

CFPB has authority to write rules affecting mortgage down payments and disclosures, loan modifications, credit card rates and fees, bank overdraft charges, credit score usage, and eligibility for student loans, credit cards, pre-paid cards and more. 

They can impose fines on companies, require restitution to aggrieved consumers, rescind consumer contracts and/or file lawsuits against firms that violate its rules. The intention is to make it easier for consumers to understand the often indecipherable fine print that financial firms throw at us.

It should be no surprise that entrenched financial interests, whose huge incomes depend upon our ignorance, are heavily lobbying inside-the-beltway captives (such as Congress) to disintegrate the CFPB.

Anytime you hear Elizabeth Warren's name (the intended head of CFPB) in the headlines you can expect controversial diatribes to accompany the· entrenched financial establishment's crusade to delegitimize the CFPB, CFPB will cover our back. We've needed it for a long time.

CFPB is only a first step in recreationalizing a new way of life that keeps America's prom­ise valid for our future generations.

Here are others. 

"Benefit Corporations" commit to treating their employees, customers, communities and local environments with the same respect as their shareholders.

Put an independent public director on every board who would advocate for the public's interest.

Tax the short-term speculative activities that dominate/distort financial markets.

Eliminate monopoly protections.

Incorporate state banks to increase avail­ability of public money to local businesses, farmers, homeowners, and college students.

Restrict the doctrine of "limited liability" so investors are liable for bad things their busi­nesses do.

Reward money-managers for "long-term" growth. Make the payout from pension divi­dends tax-free for low/middle income wage-­earners.

Require that publicly traded corporations use only cash surpluses for growth investments.

Bill Arnold

Romney, WVa.

Dogs in the House--An Allegory

Dogs in the House

Bear is a big dog—I would say he weighs about 90 pounds, because I don’t like to exaggerate.  I do know that I am no match for him if he chooses not to go where I say he should--at such times he is an immovable object and I can’t budge him.  An apparent cross between a Golden Retriever and a German Shepherd, he is a gentle, companionable dog and gets along well with my other dogs, Frankie and Tessa, though he just barely tolerates my daughter’s dog, Ming.  And for good reason, as Ming always snarls and growls at him when he, Bear, comes into the house.

Frankie is a Border Collie mix, about 50 pounds, quiet and shy, with blue eyes, hence the name, though she is female.  Tessa, a terrier/dachshund mix, 25 pounds, friendly and gregarious, is everybody’s friend, a storybook dog.  Ming, a Pekinese, about 13 pounds, a temporary resident of the household,  holds a permanent grudge against Bear, perhaps because Bear is so big that Ming perceives him as a threat to his mistress.

Bear is afraid beyond measure of thunder storms, gun shots, and fireworks, and at the sound of any of these he is ready to tear down the door to get inside.  Once inside, he takes up residence in the bathroom, which is in the center of the house, away from windows, quiet and cool.  Lately, he has been spending most of the day in there, and I attributed this originally to the fact that it was cool, the floor is cool.  But now his motive seems to have evolved into something more sinister.  Although he is never seen to make a threatening gesture—lower his head, snarl, growl, bare his teeth--all three of the other dogs refuse to come down the hall past his doorway.   Frankie and Tessa sleep in my room, and Ming in my daughter’s room, but if I am already in my room at night and the dogs did not accompany me, they will not pass Sarge’s station, but will yelp or whine for me to come provide safe passage.  He just lies there looking innocent, but clearly he has them intimidated.  Clearly he has apprised them of the dangers inherent in any attempt to pass by his station.  And they dare not challenge him.

So, do you see an allegory coming?  Consider Congress, wherein the Republicans seem to have intimidated the Democrats—you don’t see them snarl or growl as the Democrats pass by, but you know they must have done it, just by way of demonstrating their power; why else would the Democrats cower?  They just make it very clear what can happen.  Then all they have to do is sit back and wait for the Democrats to cave, to fold, to whine, even yelp, to beg for someone to help them by this impasse, so they can go on with their lives.   The Republicans, outnumbered or not, have it all under control.

B-b-but, you see, I can’t be there to walk the Democrats past the Republicans:  “Come on…it’s okay…you can do it, see?  They won’t bother you, just keep going…”

Ada the Dog

 

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Ada the Dog

from http://adamaecompton.wordpress.com/ comments and more at this url

Just a 3-legged dog living thu an unnatural disaster

Hey everyone, I’m a three-legged dog named Ada who’s living the country life here in northcentral PA. My name is short for Americans with Disabilities Act. I was adopted from the vet’s office after I was abandoned by some guy who works in the natural gas industry. So the story goes: I was brought to PA from TX and left here when he went back to TX. After I became a stray and was hit in the road, someone dropped me off at the vet.

The vet saved me by amputating one of my front legs. A month later, I was adopted by my new master and he gave me my name. He lets me blog, but moans about using too much bandwidth, whatever that is.
This is the blog of my life and the ongoings here in the country… specifically, the part about how operations at the Marcellus Shale wellpad next to my kennel’s property (literally) has affected my favorite places to play– in the field, in the pond, in the water from the garden hose.
So far, my master can light the tap water on fire and his pond’s ecosystem is crashing (e.g., the salamanders have died off). Pre-drill analytics show that I used to drink pristine water… now, my master fills my water bowl from one of those 5-gallon blue water jugs. The scariest part is that the gas wells next door haven’t even been fracked yet. All this drama and trauma is from the drilling process and/or the perforation process (which happens right before fracking). Isotopic analyses prove the thermogenic methane migration comes from the gas wells next door.
I’m guessing you’ve never met a dog with an education in organic chemistry, philosophy, or assessment, and I hope we can be friends!

Liberal a Pejorative?

This is my most recent letter to the editor, published in the Hampshire Review on July 7, written in response to a regular columnist taking shots at liberals.

When did the label “liberal” become a pejorative, and a person identifying as liberal become the personification of evil?  As expressed by a recent writer in the Hampshire Review, who lumped liberals with criminals, deploring the fact that the law has been “changed so drastically or misinterpreted that there is more protection for the criminal—and the liberal—than [for]those who try to obey the law.”   Liberals don’t try to obey the law?  Liberals don’t deserve the protection of the law?  Does this writer mean that, without these undue protections, liberals should all be in prison?  For what misdeeds exactly?  When the writer says that “independence has been carried too far,” does she mean as evidenced by the fact that there are liberals roaming free?  James Madison, one of those forefathers she mentioned,  made sure that the Bill of Rights provided protection for criminals (presumably including liberals), as evidenced by the fact that four of the first ten amendments address the rights of those charged with crimes. 

I am proud to identify with our liberal founding fathers, and agree that indeed they would be appalled at some of the changes that have taken place in 200+ years.  Thomas Jefferson, for one, who inveighed against any semblance of aristocracy, plutocracy, corporatocracy, or theocracy, would no doubt bow his head in despair.    Liberals would agree with conservatives that there have been laws “changed and enacted” that would cause them to cringe, although we might not agree as to which of those laws are cringe-worthy.  We also might not agree which changes have “made a mockery of our Declaration of Independence,” or “overpowered our foundational freedoms.” 

As to displaying the flag—how anyone can presume to question the patriotism of another based on how he flies the American flag is beyond my comprehension.  I will have to say that when I see a tattered flag still proudly fluttering in the breeze in someone’s yard, I wonder about the history of that flag.  How old it is, how long it has been flown, where it came from, how special it must be to its owner, what pride s/he must feel when looking upon it, and how hard it would be to think of replacing it with a brand spanking new one just because someone made a rule to that effect.  One should be careful that respect for the flag does not amount to idolatry.

Billy Bragg and Me

BILLY BRAGG AND ME

Who would have believed that there could be an affinity between Billy Bragg and me, although he knows nothing of me and I have never listened to his songs.  I have only known that he was a singer.  Do you know him?  Do you know his songs?

Now I have learned that he and I were discovering Simon and Garfunkel at the same time, around 1970.  We both shed tears over “Scarborough Fair,” and we both were profoundly moved by, and  identified with, “I Am a Rock.”

Yet Billy Bragg and I couldn’t have been further apart.  He in England, I in USA.   He a lonely, yearning adolescent boy of 12, and I a wife and mother of nine children, in my late 30’s, struggling with a faltering marriage.  How could there be such a bond, and the two of us unaware of it, between two such disparate persons?

I have become aware of this bond through reading Billy Bragg’s “The Progressive Patriot: A Search for Belonging.”  I only recently purchased this book—I think it showed up as a suggestion when I was ordering the dvd “The Internationale,” the latter having been recommended in some political item I was reading, and featuring Pete Seeger and Billy Bragg,   Billy is, of course, English, and his book came to me all the way from England.  You should read it.  He begins with a stirring philosophy of patriotism, goes on to write of the history of his home, Barking/Essex, and about dissent in the area and in his family.  Then he gets to the music that appeared during his adolescence, and its profound influence on him.    Oh, and that’s not even half way through; I have not yet finished the book myself.

 Every Spring  when I start digging in the earth I find myself singing “Scarborough Fair,” as I prepare a large clay pot, set with ‘parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,’ and give it a special place of honor in my herb garden.   But how had I missed the canticle all those years, or perhaps I had not missed it at all, perhaps it had reached me subliminally.  But it took Billy just now to call the Canticle to my attention.   Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEhAXQ5QQzs and listen to it for yourself.

For years I thought of “I Am a Rock” as my song, and shed tears as I sang it throughout the day.   Was it a just a song of despair, of aloneness, or did it somehow bring me strength; as Billy says, it gave him ‘great comfort and cause for hope,’ probed his ‘sense of injustice’ and the feeling that he ‘deserved better.’  He speaks of how he ‘drew succor from this song, finding strength and clarity in its breathtakingly absolutist sentiments.’  And so now, after all these years, it is for Billy to help me see how this song, for me, was not just a song of despair to sink into but a song of hope to rise to.  Yet he was 12, and I was 39.  Listen to it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVLFlkehGuU&NR=1

And Billy and I have both gone, on, each in our own way, living lives we never dreamed of in those days.

Thank you, Billy.   

Nationwide Birthday Celebration

When my children began planning a celebration of my 80^th birthday in May, it soon evolved into a nationwide celebration.  When it became apparent that it would be difficult to get all of my progeny—nine children, 17-plus grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and eleven spouses-in-law—all together in one place, they decided to begin with a celebration at my home, and then ship me out west  to continue the celebration with the rest of the family.   Accordingly, on the weekend of May 7^th five children, with two spouses, and six grandchildren, gathered at my country home, for a sleep-out, cook-out, sing-out, play-out, with the grands continuing a decade-long game of Capture the Flag, the oldest players now 35.  On Sunday they hosted a cake and ice-cream social for family and 17 friends.   Families visiting included:  Dale Brady (WV), Paula Elizabeth (Ky), Bruce and Ingy Cutler, with Ava and Ty (NY), Amy and Lloyd Purves, with Austen and Julia, (MD), and Halle Papai, with sons Sean, Mitchell, and Spencer, (MD), (husband Bob absent).  Paula is the mother of two lovely married daughters who were unable to attend.  Lindsay and Chad live in NC; Whitney and Jaime Roberts, with their son, Quinn, live in AL.  A few days later I was put on a plane bound for the West, to visit family in Spokane, Missoula, and Denver.  In Spokane I visited for a few days with Cori and her new husband, Chris, and her 17-year-old step-son, Eric, and helped Cori start a flower garden.  Then spent a few days with Valerie and her husband, Craig, and two sons, Cass and Max, as well as a brand-new great-granddaughter, Diandra, and her mother, Charmaine, and went shopping with Valerie for wedding finery and gifts.  We all traveled to Missoula where I visited with Julia and her husband, Chris, and their two grown sons, Patrick and Mark.  There we attended the wedding of Mark and Robin, as well as meeting for the first time Patrick's wife of two years, Lindsay.  There were a few exciting days spent with 20 family members at a family cabin on Holland Lake, for talk and good food and boating and reading, and where 10 grands continued the western version of the game of Capture the Flag—in just a few short years they will be bringing my great-grands home to play the game with them.  From there I traveled with Tim and his wife, Kim, to Longmont and Denver, Colorado, on the way touring  Yellowstone Park.  In Denver we had a tour ofthe enchanting Botanical Gardens and of the awe-inspiring Garden of the Gods, and attended a symphony, Mahler’s 9^th.    As well, I visited with four grands—Josh, Ben, Joe, and Grace, and a step-granddaughter, Livvy.  In Longmont I visited with a former daughter-in-law, Julie, mother of four of my grandchildren.   Oh, and lots of wonderful food, home-cooked and at local restaurants.   And then, after three weeks, a three-hour flight home.  Let’s see, did I forget anything?  Anyone?  Probably, but all told a wonderful, exhilarating, exhausting, yet relaxing, celebration.

Touch on Earth

Let your touch on Earth be light so that when Earth covers you, the clods of dirt fall lightly.   (from Egyptian Book of the Dead.)