After The Markets Close: Part I
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Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII
Labels: After The Markets Close
Fixing the House
George Carlin, a man of exquisite intellectual savvy, has died. You may be asking, why is a group dedicated to economic and social justice interested in a comedian? Surprisingly, Carlin understood the realities of life in America better than any politician I've ever met.
The best way I've found to honor someone's life is to continue the work they committed that life to, and while I lack his comic genius, I can offer my own response to our modern dilemma.
Fixing the House
My parents didn’t take care of their house. Often times they were just too busy to do the needed maintenance, sometimes things broke they couldn’t see, and yes, a lot of the time they were lazy and decided it would become my problem when they moved out and signed the place over to me. I’m pretty sure they hadn’t intended things to get this bad, but that’s how it goes. Things just get away from us.
I’m not exactly handy, so I call a contractor. Eight years ago my parents hired one of the two unions operating in our town, so I call them, thinking they should, you know, back their own work. Our first meeting is less than stellar. The dinosaur that I open the door to walks in, nods at the cracks along the wall, the groans of the floor, the doors falling off their hinges, and attempts to convince me nothing’s wrong.
‘Those are meant to be there,’ he says, pointing at the web of cracks along the ceiling.
‘Those opened up during an earthquake.’
‘See? Perfectly functioning safety feature. You know, pressure release, makes sure the wall doesn’t fall down.’
I’m speechless. Pushing against the wall to prove a point, and thus earning myself a shower of plaster and paint chips as the wall sags under my doughy physique, I look back at this contractor. ‘That’s not supposed to happen. This wall is about to fall over, and the house with it.’
He pauses, chews his lip, and with undeserved confidence, answers. ‘That is a foundation correction you’re seeing there. The wall is adjusting to find a better place to saddle all that weight.’
‘But if the wall moves the ceiling will collapse.’
‘No, I’m sure it will be fine.’
I look up, back to the contractor, then up again, and back again. Up one more time, just to make sure. ‘I’m pretty sure the ceiling’s going to come down on our heads without this wall.’
He smiles. ‘Trust me, my friend, you’re as safe as you could ever hope to be.’
I call a contractor from the rival union. He’s young, enthusiastic, and equally hopeless. I show him the wall, he nods and agrees something has to be done. I smile, for now it is I with undeserved confidence, as I ask,
‘So when can you start?’
‘Right away,’ he replies, ‘I’ll get my tools.’
‘Would you like me to move any furniture?’
He looks back at me and shakes his head. ‘No need, I’m starting on the roof.’
‘Excuse me?’ I’m two paces behind him as he exits the building and gets a ladder from his truck. ‘The problem is not the roof.’
‘Oh sure it is, just look at those shingles.’ He’s right, the roof does need a lot of work.
‘But isn’t the wall slightly more important than a few shingles?’
He stops on the third step of the ladder. ‘Maybe, maybe not. But I’m not sure what’s wrong with that wall, and fixing it is going to take a lot of work. Might mean rebuilding a lot of this house, since so much of it is falling apart, and that’s not something I like to get into. But shingles, I can do shingles, and you can’t argue that your house needs new shingles.’
‘But if that wall isn’t fixed those new shingles are going to be in the cellar in about a week.’
He shrugs. ‘But you’ll have a better looking roof, and that’s a change you can believe in.’
‘Okay, get down from there.’
His head pokes over the edge of the roof. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I said get down, I’m not hiring you.’
‘But those shingles need changing.’
‘I don’t care about the shingles, I care about the wall. If you’re not going to fix it I’m not going to hire you.’
‘Well,’ he huffs as he descends the ladder, ‘I don’t know who else you think you can hire. The only other union … well, they’d probably tell you nothing was the matter and everything will work out.’
‘Yes, they did.’
‘So I’m your only choice.’
‘But you’re not going to fix my wall.’
‘But your shingles-‘
‘I don’t care about the shingles!’ I roll my eyes and point to his truck. ‘Just go, I’m calling someone else.’
And so, several phone calls later, I find a contractor who, upon looking at the wall, agrees that it’s in serious trouble and that he can probably save the house.
‘It’ll take basically building a new wall around the old one to hold up the ceiling, then knocking out the old bits.’
‘Can you do that?’
He shrugs. ‘Can’t see why not.’
My relief is indescribable. ‘When can you start?’
‘Let me get some things from the truck, get a better look at what exactly needs fixing.’
I nod and walk him out, only to find my lawn has been filled with a hundred or so protestors who, upon seeing me and the newly hired contractor, begin shouting at us.
‘Scab!’
‘Traitor!’
‘Weasel!’
‘Thief!’
I look at the contractor, whose bewilderment is strangely comforting. I suppose if he was used to being called a traitor and a thief I’d have cause for concern.
‘That’s our business you’re stealing,’ one of the protestors shouts at the contractor before turning to me. ‘You’re not allowed to hire non-union!’
‘Yeah!’
‘Yeah!’
‘I think I can hire whoever I want.’
‘Gasp!’
The crowd recoils, and then recovers. ‘No you can’t!’
‘Yeah!’
I sigh. ‘Yes, yes I can. Because you,’ I point at the dinosaur, ‘can’t even realize that this house is about to collapse, and you,’ I point to his younger shingle obsessed colleague, ‘think ignoring a problem you don’t understand is okay as long as you make some small improvements. So I’m going to hire this man, who not only recognizes there is a problem, but also has a plan to fix the wall, and with his help this house will survive to see another generation of my family inherit it. Now get off my lawn.’
I wish I could say that, being professionals, the unions took it well and realizing the error of their ways, allowed this independent contractor to do what they could not do and fix the house. Instead they picketed every doorway, every window, threw things at us, prevented the contractor from entering, until finally I thanked him for his time and told him to go home. It was quite obvious that the two unions would rather see a house collapse than let someone else have the job.
Thank god politics isn’t like this at all.
TROUBLING TIMES
In lean times, biotech grains are less taboo
By Andrew Pollack (The New York Times) MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2008
Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.
Resistance relaxes to modified wheat
By Andrew Pollack (The New York Times) MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2008
Some companies buy genetically engineered products for the first time as grain shortages bring new pressure on governments and consumers who say they no longer can afford to say no to GMO.
Aid arrives in Haiti, but many are left out and country remains unstable
(The Associated Press) SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 2008
Hundreds of Haitians stood in long lines Saturday, just as others had walked for hours throughout the week to receive the U.N. and regional food aid pouring into the country after a spate of deadly riots.
Rats feasting on rice cause famine scare in northeastern Indian state
(The Associated Press) SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2008
A food shortage has hit a remote Indian state after an army of ...
UN food aid agency's gap grows
By Missy Ryan (Reuters) FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2008
Surging crop prices have helped widen the World Food Program's funding gap to around $750 million this year, and the U.N. food aid agency warned it may have to cut rations for hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren if new donations don't materialize soon.
Leaders warn on biofuels and food
(BBC) TUESDAY APRIL 22, 2008Two Latin leaders have issued warnings about biofuel
production on food supplies
Fun With Bill Collectors
Not many people know what their life is worth. Those that do often find out through unusual channels.
My significant other, through a few youthful indiscretions, has found herself with a first hand perspective on the debt crisis that’s coming to a head. As credit card companies are finding out, eighteen year olds with no steady income spend far above their means, and tend not to be able to pay back those exorbitant bills when they finally pile up. Six years later, and my partner is still dodging bill collectors, though not through the usual means. She has, fortunately, several natural talents that make the jousting match with her creditors more than a far fight.
First, she was informed enough to find a lawyer. In this case, it was a hot shot lawyer who did pro bono work with people under piles and piles of debt. He told her, simply, don’t pay them. Not one red cent. There’s no more debtors prison, and he advised her simply to finish school and then declare Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Chapter 7 strips you of all your possessions, but voids all debts, as opposed to Chapter 13, which forces you to pay back your creditors for five years before you can void those debts. The slate wiped clean, it would take her a few years to rebuild her credit, but provided she learned from her mistakes, all would be well.
So two years later, they’re still calling her, and she’s still not paying. The power of a ‘no’ should never be underestimated.
Second, she’s got moxy. Bored with simply ignoring the calls of creditors, she decided to turn the tables on the hounds. I present to you a fictitious (though true in spirit) conversation between my partner and an unwitting creditor.
‘Hello?’While this is, obviously, a bit of a joke, it’s not. Collectors are really calling her from a hospital, claiming she’s a bad person for not paying this bill. And yes, a bill collector has told her she should have thought about whether she could afford to go to the hospital as she was puking her guts out. To say this is out of control is the tiniest of understatements.
‘Is this [name redacted]?’
‘Yes, this is she.’
‘You owe us money!’
‘Who is this?’
‘You owe us money! Pay us back now!’
‘Justin, is this you? Is this a joke?’
‘This is no joke. I’m calling on behalf of [hospital name redacted]. We know you have money, give it to us.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘We know you’re still employed at [company redacted]. Why isn’t paying back your hospital bill a priority?’
‘Because I’m broke.’
‘You have money, give it to us.’
‘I can’t, I told you I’m broke.’
‘Well you seem to be earning more than enough money at [company redacted]. Pay us that money.’
‘I need that money to pay for rent and food. I really am broke.’
‘Well you should have thought of that before you agreed to receive our services.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You have a moral obligation to pay us back for the medical treatment you chose to avail yourself of when you came to [hospital name redacted].’
‘I was puking my guts out and would have died of dehydration without that treatment. You’re saying that, as I was lying on the floor of my bathroom, I should have checked my back account before calling 911?’
‘Yes. You are a bad person for not paying this bill.’
‘Are you high? You’re the one telling me if I can’t pay you a pound of flesh I should have stayed home and died in a pool of my own vomit!’
‘Ma’am, we live in a society of laws, and those laws say you owe us money and you’re a bad person if you don’t pay your debts. Booga booga booga, feel bad for not paying us!’
‘Oh my god, you’re completely insane, not to mention morally bankrupt.’
‘You’re the one who is morally bankrupt! We saved your life, that means we own your life! Pay us our money!’
‘Don’t I have a right to live? Don’t I have a basic human right to the things I need to stay alive?’
‘Yes, as long as you pay us for it.’
‘That’s not what rights mean. A right is something you get by virtue of being alive. We would never tolerate someone making us pay for the right to speak freely, or make the press pay a fee to be free from censorship. We don’t pay the police not to illegally search us, why should I pay you to stay alive?’
‘Because we own the hospital, and we run it to make money. Pay us our money or you’re an evil communist infiltrator that hates America and eats babies.’
[Laughter]
‘This is no laughing matter. We’re going to take you to court, and they’re going to tell you what a bad person you are, and then it will be in the papers, and your family will know you don’t pay your debts, and they’ll all be so ashamed of you, so so so ashamed. Be afraid! Pay us or we’ll ruin your good name!’
‘I have no problem getting up in front of a judge and telling him just what I told you. Are you willing to do the same, and tell the whole world that only rich people should get treatment when they are sick? That the poor should die at home, where no one can see them, that the poor should neither be seen nor heard?’
‘Er …’
‘I’m done with you.’
[click]
I share this story for two reasons.
First, I love that my partner has chosen to turn the tables on the people who act as enforcers of a compassionless machine created to press out every penny out of our pockets. How much blood that takes, well who cares. I hope anyone who reads this, who has creditors harassing them, follows her example and gives the hounds a taste of their own medicine.
Second, if I could distill everything that’s wrong with our for profit society, it would look a lot like being told you’re a bad person for going to the hospital when you couldn’t ‘afford it.’ As if we can afford to die, and by going for life saving medical treatment she couldn’t afford she was just trying to be selfish and lazy.
Not many people know what their life is worth. Apparently my partner’s life is worth about fifteen hundred dollars. I suppose if the creditors ever call again I’ll have to tell them what I think of their accounting.
Barometers
A trick knee will tell you when a storm is coming because the fluids trapped in an improperly healed joint expand as a low pressure system approaches. A dead canary will tell you exactly when the air in a mine has gotten too toxic to keep breathing. For indicators on the economy, get yourself a minimum wage job.
Today I was told a hilarious story involving a restaurant, how employees are treated poorly, and what they’re doing in reprisal for the abuse. What I’m going to tell you is absolutely true, but for legal reasons, I’ll decline to mention the name of the restaurant involved. It’s a national franchise that is both well known and quite popular. The actions of its regional management are a barometer themselves, showing us exactly how bad the economy’s getting. What the employees did in return, on the other hand, illuminates an undeservedly forgotten element of labor economics.
What follows is perhaps more than you care to know about the restaurant business, but I hope you’ll stick it out and find it as fascinating as I did when it was explained to me.
Restaurants are a great indicator of economic health because the money that gets spent there is almost exclusively expendable. Food is not something we can only get at restaurants, and in fact almost without exception it’s cheaper to cook for yourself than eat out. If fewer and fewer people are eating out you can put money on the fact that incomes, or income security, are falling. Eating out is a luxury, and unlike vacations to Hawaii or a new TV, it’s a luxury that’s easy to trim from the budget without cutting into your standard of living.
Those that do continue to eat out are not immune from the specter of economic uncertainty; far from it. The generosity of tips are strongly correlated with the economic fortunes of the people that eat out. Things looking good, tip big when your server’s done an awesome job. But if you’re counting pennies and aren’t so sure about next month’s bills, you just can’t afford to tip more than 10%. If that.
Servers are the first people to feel the effects of an economy in trouble because long before people see their paychecks shrinking, servers see their tips dry up in the face of fear for the future. So I was quite interested to hear about the new cost cutting measures the restaurant in question has undertaken to try to keep profits up in the face of a dwindling clientele.
The first, and most obvious solution, is to increase productivity. Typically, businesses do this by firing people and making the workers that remain do the jobs of those that were fired. This is exactly what this restaurant did: they cut the hours they scheduled for their servers to no more than 20 hours a week, and when people quit they didn’t replace them. Six months ago, each server was responsible for three tables. Now they wait four tables. That’s a 25% increase in productivity, but now they’re over working the employees that stuck around because they can’t find a better job.
It’s also established practice to pay servers minimum wage, so while a fourth table would provide additional income for servers in extra tips, those just aren’t coming any more. The source of this information says tips are down, averaging to about 12%, but she has to tip out 9% to other workers at the restaurant who don’t get tips, like the bussers, hosts, bartenders, etc. So while she sold over $1100, she walked home with less than $100. That seems like a lot of money for six and a half hours work (if you include hourly wage, it averages out to roughly $23/hour), but she’ll only work three or, maybe, four nights a week.
So the restaurant is facing hard times, and foists the onerous task of paying for maintaining their profit margins onto its workers. Old news. But somewhere at the corporate home office of this particular franchise, an accountant said this wouldn’t be enough, and so the regional manager stopped into a local franchise and proceeded to introduce a new round of cost cutting measures.
First, the above mentioned change in how many tables each server takes. See above.
Second, no more employee discount on food. Employees used to get 50% off their meals while they were working, but no more. I guess the logic is that between fifteen servers, five cooks, a dishwasher and someone to plate the food, that’s 11 meals that were slipping past the bottom line each night. This is, quite directly, shifting the burden of the profit margin to the employees.
Third, increased bar staff. The bar is, and this should be no surprise, the most profitable part of the restaurant. Any restaurant really. If you’re charging even just five bucks for a bottle of beer poured into the glass, figure it out. So it makes sense to add more people to the bar: more bartenders, more total sales. But for the bartenders, they’re each seeing their tips go down, and their tip shares (the portion of regular server tips that are ‘tipped out’ and split among the rest of the employees) decrease because it’s spread out over more people.
Four, charge more for everything. Especially alcohol. Beer used to be five bucks, now it’s seven. People used to order two glasses, now they’re sticking to just one. The restaurant makes more money per beer, but servers and bartenders sell less, and thus get fewer tips. This applies to everything: appetizers, entrees, deserts etc. Fewer total sales, fewer tips.
The end result is that servers, bartenders … really everyone at the restaurant is making less than they used to. And now they pay full price for their meals. And they’re being yelled at for not selling enough overpriced food and beer. So naturally, they revolt, in a way only labor can. They steal. A lot.
The bartenders and servers in the lounge have taken to simply giving customers free alcohol, knowing that they’ll get a bigger tip by doing so. ‘On the house’ is code for ‘give me the money you would have paid these schmucks.’ This goes doubly for the employees of the restaurant, especially the bartenders, who rarely end the night less drunk than they began. Customers are also seeing the little extras that go with their meals, sides, deserts and what not, multiply, as servers seek to entice their charges to cough up a little extra money at the expense of the restaurant. Servers might simply decline to ring up things that are ordered and tell the customer it’s complementary. The other option is to tell the manager the customer complained and get them to comp the meal, and then tell the customer (who never complained in the first place) that the server is doing them a favor and is treating them to their appetizers because they’re such great guests.
And no one who works at the restaurant is paying for the food they eat. How could they? They’re not making enough money to eat out, and it’s this fact that is so uniquely illuminating. The restaurant in question had the usual problem with a few ‘lost’ drinks at the bar, or a few meals improperly comped each week, but in the last month the bottles have emptied themselves quicker, the shelves cleared themselves mysteriously, and customers have happily basked in the wave of complementary everything.
We often think of wages as having no bottom; conventional wisdom is that a person, sufficiently desperate, will work for almost nothing to make ends meet. But there is a bottom, because no one will work for less than what they need to stay alive. Why would they? If you’re going to die of starvation if you work or sit, might as well not break your back in the process. This floor, under which wages cannot fall or people will simply refuse to work, is what’s required to purchase the means of subsistence, the things you need to stay alive. Drop wages too low and people simply stop working.
Or start stealing.
In a bizarre twist, the regional bosses of the restaurant in question have given us a case study in where a subsistence wage resides. Restaurant employees may not be as bad off as people stuck in apparel sweat shops, but they are pretty close to the bottom of the ladder in terms of wages and benefits. By effectively cutting the wages of their employees, the managers of this restaurant have forced them to resort to ‘informal’ means of making up the difference so they can make ends meet. That means stealing booze and food, giving freebies to customers without permission, cutting corners with service to manage four tables instead of three.
In the process of cost cutting, the restaurant has shot itself squarely in the foot. The restaurant is making, in the month since these changes were implemented, 29% less money than the month before. If I can lay my hands on their official financials I’ll post them as proof, but for now take my word for it. By trying to shift the burden of their profit margin onto their workers, they eviscerated their own ability to turn a profit. They forgot, it seems, who was doing all the work in the operation.
The obvious lesson is be good to your employees. The more interesting lesson is how people make up that gap between their actual wage and what they need to access the means of subsistence. As the economy continues to worsen, in terms of real wages and real production, expect this kind of ‘informal’ income to become more common place. In the world beyond corporate bottom lines and profit margins, the rest of us have got to eat.
Boycotts, Big Boxes, Buying Local and Better Days
So I’ve had a week to recuperate, work on this post, take few breaths after the MLK conference. Those of you who attended Poverty and After the Markets Close, I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did. It was an honor and a bit of a thrill to stand up in front of a modest crowd and speak the truth without parsing or omission. It’s something we so seldom have the opportunity to do any more.
Be sure to check out our updated portfolio, which now includes After the Markets Close. We've put up a PDF version of our PowerPoint if you'd like to view it/use it yourself. I'm working on a write up to accompany the PDF, so look for that in the next week or so.
After the conference, I was left, as I came down off the endorphins and cognitive high, regretting that I didn’t get to more fully answer or discuss some of the questions and comments brought up by those in attendance. It’s the limitation of these one shot workshops, and why I hope if you’re reading this you do drop me a line, Justin at project2050 dot org, and pick up where we left off. I know a few emails have already gone out from my end. However, in the mean time, I wanted to pick up where we left off with what I’d have like to have said at the time.
Several people brought up boycotts as a possible way to influence economic decisions of corporations and private businesses. I commented that, in my mind, everything that has been fixed by boycotts has already been fixed, and we have to look to new methods and tools to bring about change. That answer, though I believe fundamentally true, needs some expounding.
First, let’s talk about the elephant in the blog: boycotts won’t bring institutional change. A boycott of a certain business might change a specific policy, such as dumping chemical waste or logging in protected areas, but it won’t change the underlying reasons businesses dump and clear cut: it’s profitable. And businesses are, of course, required to optimize profits. So even if everything else I say about boycotts isn’t true, the bottom line is that unless you have another tool in the box, a successful boycott just means you’ll have to do it again in a few years when businesses try to optimize their profits at the cost of people or the environment.
Second, someone brought up the
That said, boycotts truly depend on there being a feasible alternative to whatever it is being boycotted. In the case of the bus boycotts, people walked and carpooled. When we talk about some of the particularly heinous economic polices of modern times, the kind we’d like to curtail through some form of political or economic action, it becomes a bit trickier.
Power companies are a great example of a lack of alternatives: boycott the power company by refusing to turn on your lamps all you want, but you don’t have anywhere else to get your power from. In the future we’ll see more ‘green’ power sources come online, but don’t be surprised when it’s Puget Sound Energy that owns those ones too. When you’re dealing with monopoly or oligopoly, boycotts don’t work: you’ve got no where else to go.
And we can’t escape the fact that most Americans don’t have enough flex in their budget to pay more for solidarity. I said it at the conference and I’ll say it here, just in case anyone missed it: voting with your wallet is a privilege of the rich. If you’ve got so little money that you either shop at Wal Mart or go without, choice doesn’t enter the equation. And with 50% of Americans – and rising – in poverty every day, the number of people even able to take part in a boycott, never mind willing, shrinks daily.
If you come up with a boycott that will work, more power to you. Tell me about it and I’ll probably get on board. But I’m not holding my breath. The conditions we live in select against boycotts as an effective means of social change.
And speaking of Wal Mart, there may have been some uncertainty about the place ‘big box’ stores and other retail outlets have in network production, or just in our modern life in general. The number one thing I want people to remember about Wal Mart et al is that, while yes they create a net loss of jobs, the create a net increase in total buying power for people able to shop there. That’s because the drop in total income in a community after Wal Mart moves in is smaller than the drop in prices you get from the mega-retailer.
I never shop there. I avoid the place like the plague. I laughed my lungs sore when
So if you can afford to avoid Wal Mart, good. I’m with you. But don’t forget there are a lot of people who can’t, and that doesn’t make them bad people, and if Wal Mart means they make their food budget work, then maybe Wal Mart isn’t all bad either.
And I know that’s going to make me super popular.
Under network production, however, we have an opportunity to put the big box phenomenon to work for us. What allows Wal Mart to sell things so cheap is, of course, economies of scale: they order in such large quantities that producers can lower their costs by producing in large lots. For those unfamiliar with marginal cost, it’s how much it costs to make the next one of whatever you’re making. Marginal cost tends to fall the more you make, so while the first widget may cost me $1, the second might cost me $.90, the third $.80 etc. So the more you make, the less you have to spend per widget.
If we’re using our retail network to plan production, it means we’ll have a good estimate of the quantities of products we’ll need. This means that, as a whole, the economy will be able to avail of those same economies of scale, since we are in essence bargaining as one giant consumer through thousands of smaller vendors. This brings down total production costs and, hopefully, prices with it.
Will there be a Wal Mart in a network economy? I don’t know; I admit I’m partial to the convenience and logic of one stop shopping. As I said, it saves gas, time, and certainly it’s an effective use of space. But even if we do end up basing the economy on smaller corner shops for distribution, those corner shops will be ordering products produced en masse, and they’ll be getting those low low big box prices we all love. Can I have my cake and eat it too? Could be.
And speaking of corner stores, I neglected to bring up the buy local movement during the workshop. Buying local is something like a boycott, often called a buycott, which is when consumers intentionally buy products of companies they want to support. I fully support buying local, but it’s incomplete for greater social change. For one thing, unless you live in certain parts of
Which is not to discourage people from buying local and supporting local farmers and local businesses. Do so, but do so knowing that buying local, on its face, does not challenge the actual source of most of the problems we just lambasted on Saturday. Buying local doesn’t guarantee a living wage for workers, depends entirely on an affluent consumer base able to pay higher prices for local and/or organic products (I just paid 4.95 for a dozen eggs … really), and ultimately depends on businesses that face the same crunch any for profit firm does come lean times.
Which is why it’s so important to expand the interest in supporting local, dare I say strategic, industries by pushing that alternative currency. If you are serious about supporting local business, and keeping it going in the face of global competition and economic uncertainty, you can’t leave their fates to the fickle whim of the market. I was introduced to a very promising currency program after the conference (www.fourthcornerexchange.com/) and will, hopefully, be able to post something about the program in the near future. I’m really impressed by the whole system and don’t want to speak without being properly informed, but suffice to say I’m very encouraged by this happy surprise.
Finally, remember to act like this is going to work. The world looks bleak, blacker on some days than others, and it’s easy to get disillusioned and overwhelmed. Even when we band together, in movements, in groups, in families and circles of friends, we each face those long dark minutes as we fall asleep alone, and I know there are more than a few nights I’m left wondering how I, one lone human whose life is already one third over, can hope to do so much in so little time.
I don’t ascribe to the belief that all we can do is throw our pebble in the stream and trust that, with time, we will change the course of the river. Not because the pebble won’t move that stream, but because there are some conniving, unscrupulous men with chainsaws and hammers building dams and diverting that river where they like it. Throw your pebble in the stream, and all you can have faith in is that water will run over it only as long as it serves the purposes of the people who actually own this country.
I prefer to aim big, and I know I heard more than a few people protesting that this can’t be done, it’s too big, it’s too much, it’s out of our reach. No it’s not. We look to the horizon, and forgetting the world is round, we think that is all there is to see. The world goes on far past the horizon. If I decided to drive to
We will get there, but we have to make a few stops along the way. In fifty years we’ll look back on this and wonder how any of us had any doubt. For now, try to borrow a bit of our future confidence to see you through tomorrow. And bring enough for the day after, because I won’t lie, it’s going to be a long fifty years.
MLK 2008: THE EVOLUTION OF A DREAM CONTINUES
Our thanks again go out to the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force of Bellingham, Washington. These folks and many volunteers created an event that honored one of our country’s greatest patriots. Like last year, and even more so, we were delighted that so many high school students took part. Power to the students…power to the youth!
Thank you Dr. Vincent Harding, keynote for this year's event, for all your past and current work. We wouldn't be able to do what we do if not for the work you and many other put in before us...WE RESPECT THE PAST AND THE PATH THAT CATS LIKE YOU PAVED!
We were honored and very much enjoyed the opportunity to be a part of this celebration/remembrance/tribute/continuance of Dr. King's dreams. No, the (s) at the end of ‘dream’ is not a typo. Dr. King had great dreams for his country. Although "I Have A Dream..." resonates loudly and inspires us all, its continued use to narrowly DEFINE King leaves us less than thrilled.
King also dreamt of an America in which systems and institutions worked FOR all Americans, not BY using some Americans to maintain status quos. So, again this year we presented Poverty: The Inevitable Institution. We also rolled out Poverty: After the Markets Close (stay tuned), a follow up to the first installment addressing the causes and effects of poverty. After the Markets Close is our first public foray into possible alternatives to our current economic systems and endeavors to answer MLK's call for Americans to critically examine our “society as a whole”...The Poor People’s Campaign he and others started in 1968 WILL PERSEVERE!
