Replacing dialogue with labels

There was a time in Wyoming when it was enough for competing politicians to contrast their views as either Democrats or Republicans. Candidates chose which of those two labels they would use. The label mattered less than the substance. People didn’t care which party you represented. They wanted to know who you were and what you stood for.

Back then Wyoming had a healthy political debate. Sometimes the Republican candidate won, sometimes the Democrat. I don’t know when that changed but prior to 1976, sixteen men represented Wyoming in the U.S. Senate (the Equality State has never elected a woman). Ten were Republicans. Six were Democrats.

Until 1978, Wyoming elected 14 men to the U.S. House of Representatives. The partisan division was nine Republicans and five Democrats. For many decades, the state saw value in having members of both parties in the congressional delegation. But all that changed in the late 1970s. Since 1976, Wyoming has refused to send a Democrat to Washington, rejecting even the popular former governor Mike Sullivan.

Arguably there are many reasons. One thing that changed is the tone of the debate. Somewhere along the line, it became insufficient to define your opponent as simply a member of one of the two political parties. Republicans began to identify Democrats as “liberals.” The dialogue about issues was replaced with labels. Voters accepted the shorthand. They quit caring so much about where a candidate actually stood on the issues. It was enough to learn he or she might just be a liberal.

Eventually, that term lost its punch. Now they are “socialists.” The term is used by people who cannot define it in order to persuade voters who, likewise, cannot define it. It all started when Sarah Palin found she could get a rise out of her audiences by claiming Barack Obama was one. She took a page out of the playbook of that erudite political philosopher Joe the Plumber. The term caught fire and has been a mainstay of the debate ever since, especially popular among right-wing media entertainers.

The use of the term may, as they say, electrify the base. But using it demonstrates an abject level of ignorance. I ask speakers who use the term to tell me what it means. I have yet to get an answer. They may not know what it means but they know it scares the voters.

What is socialism? Socialism is an economic concept that advocates public ownership of all resources. Members of a society control the production and distribution of all resources collectively. Goods are produced and distributed based on need rather than on market forces such as profitability, price and consumers' purchasing power. In a socialist economy, workers contribute to society based on their ability and receive according to their needs, rater than being paid wages and using that money to purchase what they want. Private possessions are limited to personal-use items such as clothing. There is no need or ability for individuals to accumulate wealth. The goa is equality among the people.

The second chapter of the Book of Acts describes early Christians that way. “All who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.” Now, first century Christians could be called socialists. But there is absolutely no evidence that twenty-first century Democrats are.  

Today the definition of the term has been intentionally dumbed down. Today it is a term used by some to describe anyone they think should be kept put of public office or denied access to the public arena. Conservatives learned from Joe McCarthy that it’s enough to use words that frighten people. The words don’t have to be true. The speaker doesn’t even have to know what they mean. The words may demean democracy, but, what matters most is winning, right?

So, just toss the word out there and see what happens.

Romney, now Matt Mead, makes false claim (Revised)

When Wyoming Governor Matt Mead was enlisted by Mitt Romney to back him up in what every fact-checker in America said was untrue, it went almost unnoticed. Almost.

Seemed odd when the Republican presidential candidate claimed a White House memo that actually said one thing said the opposite. Why would Obama end the welfare work requirement that President Clinton started? It turned out he didn’t. The President issued a policy directive saying the opposite. But who reads the documents when you can just hear about them on FOX News?

The Romney campaign made it clear their claim that Obama ended the work requirement was their story. They were sticking to it though every objective source in America said it was being untrue. Instead of throwing in the towel, Romney doubled down on the lie.

The Romney campaign is intent on using a campaign narrative portraying Obama handing out tax dollars to lazy, no-account welfare recipients. Do they have any facts? No, but who needs them? These guys know how to make square pegs fit into round holes. Don’t have facts? Make up a story, call it fact, repeat it often, and buy political ads to prove that what is false could be true.

Then solicit help from willful, partisan, co-conspirators. Since anyone with a penchant for the truth was unwilling to come to his aid, Romney found others who were willing. Enter “the governor of some of the people.” On August 15th, at the request of Romney’s campaign, Matt Mead sent a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius. “I hope you will reconsider the intentions of the 1996 TANF law and reassess your authority to waive the work requirements for TANF beneficiaries. I request that HHS not undo through administrative action what the 1996 welfare reform law intended and has done.”

Of course, the work requirements had never been waived. According to media reports, not all GOP governors were as malleable as Mead. Ohio Governor John Kasich refused to send the letter being solicited of Republican governors by the Romney campaign. Although he sent a similar letter, “Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has acknowledged that the presidential campaign of Gov. Mitt Romney’s current main line of attack against President Barack Obama, that he gutted welfare reform’s work requirement, is based on a falsehood.” (rawstory.com among many other sources).

Even as it became clearer to anyone interested in the truth that their claim was false, Mead’s letter was posted on the Romney-for-president website and Associated Press picked it up, running the story in many Wyoming press and media outlets in Wyoming on August 24^th.

Mead (like Brownback, like Kasich, like Romney) knows better. If he just went to factcheck.org he’d learn, “Mitt Romney’s TV ad claims the Obama administration has adopted ‘a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements.’ The plan does neither of those things.” His own Department of Family Services was aware of what the HHS memo actually said. They administer the welfare programs Romney is talking about.  Weeks before the governor sent his campaign letter to Sebelius, DFS received a memo from the administration on this very issue.

You can read it yourself and judge whether the intent was to end or to actually strengthen the work requirement for welfare recipients. It was posted as HHS Transmittal TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03 (www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203.html) from the Department of Health and Human Services starts by stating the purpose of the directive. “HHS is encouraging states to consider new, more effective ways to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.”

After clearly stating the policy is intended to give states flexibility (an old GOP mantra) it says waivers will be considered only “to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of meeting the work goals of TANF.”

The memo makes it obvious that Romney and Mead are fishing a dried-up creek. Listen. “HHS is committed to ensuring that any demonstration projects approved under this authority will be focused on improving employment outcomes and contributing to the evidence base for effective programs.”

The word “work” appears at least 20 times in the Obama memorandum. Usually it refers to the continuing requirement that welfare recipients be required to work. Often it refers to the willingness of the administration to “work with” the states.

What won’t work is dishonesty. Wyoming deserves better than blatant partisanship from its governor.

"Caesar, Samuel, Shanker & Moses" : My Labor Day sermon at Highlands

It is Labor Day weekend. Like most American holidays, that has come to mean little more than three days off. But, like with most American holidays, there was once upon a time when it really meant something about our national values. The first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882. Soon the first Monday in September was established as the official day to recognize working men and women. The holiday was once dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It was intended to be an annual national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well being of our country.

There was a time when the names of labor leaders were cheered and they were revered. My father was a miner and a truck driver. Jimmy Hoffa’s name has been turned into a symbol of corruption but around our house in the 1950s, Hoffa’s name meant workers getting a fair deal. He was proud of that Teamster’s badge.

Remember names like John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers, Samuel Gompers, the longtime leader of the American Federation of Labor and one of the great organizers of the American Labor movement of the last years of the 19th century and the 20th. Albert Shanker - until Shanker's time teachers…and most all public sector employees…were forbidden to strike. Albert Shanker fought for the rights of educators to earn a decent living and partake of benefits reflective of their worth to society. Then there was Caesar Chavez who founded the National Farm Workers Association that later became the United Farm Workers. Cesar led the disenfranchised against the profit-hungry grape growers.

Caesar, Samuel, Shanker…Caesar Chavez, Samuel Gompers, Al Shanker…But the greatest worker organizer and advocate in history was Moses. Like all of those other names…Gompers, Lewis, Shanker, Reuther, Hoffa, Chavez…Moses represented underpaid and exploited workers. Like the pharaoh before them, the industrial and business leaders feared and disdained those who represented the working poor.

But Moses was the first in history willing to stand up against the economic and political powers. Moses never intended to be a leader, didn’t want to have that role. Moses was simply negotiating justice for his people. He wasn’t asking for something for nothing…he wasn’t asking for a handout, Moses was asking for justice.

As we read Deuteronomy this morning, we know the negotiations failed. Moses has led his people out, they went on strike, God promised them a better deal, a better contract…the strike-breakers went after them with their spears and chariots and God took care of that.

All God wants for God’s people is freedom, the freedom to be themselves, to take care of their families, to be a part of the community. God gave the Israelites their freedom just as God gave all humans their freedom in the Garden of Eden. God led them to the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. God asks only that they remember and never forget that they were once slaves, once illegal immigrants, once hungry and poor and struggling.

Take care, God says, “take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life.”

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. It was all good…humans for relationships, animals for companionship, water for life, every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

So what happened?

* Every day, approx. 29,000 people in the world die of hunger, or hunger related diseases.

* 80 million children between the ages of 10-14 work for low wages in often dangerous conditions to supply inexpensive products for citizens of wealthier nations to consume.

* 100 million children from 6-11 years of age are receiving no education and they will likely soon join the 900 million adults who are illiterate round the world.

* 1 billion children do not have clean water or sanitary waste disposal (that’s 1/6^th of the world’s population, and that’s just the children!)

* The wealthiest 345 people in the world possess the wealth equivalent to that held by the poorest 40% of the world’s people – that’s over 2 billion people!

* If we were to join the ranks of the 1.5 billion people, half of them children, who are constantly hungry, our diets would consist of 2 oz. of rice a day.

These are today’s slaves. Just what is a slave? Throw out the images of pre-civil war slaves. In those days, people knew a slave when they saw one…by the color of their skin, usually in chains, people bought and owned. Today slavery is different. Today’s slaves are those who are bound by the society in which they live to provide their labor for wages that do not allow them to meet their own basic needs. You see nearly all of those families receiving food stamps and Medicaid are working, many of them more than one job…the political system requires they work in order to receive any government assistance and the economic system makes sure they can’t earn enough to sustain themselves.

So…who negotiates for them? Who remembers them? The world’s richest woman doesn’t She says low-income people are only poor because they don’t work hard enough, and because they drink too much and are lazy.  This from a Australian named Gina Rinehart, who inherited her $30 billion fortune. God sees it differently…Jesus and the prophets spoke often of how the system was rigged against the poor.

God says, “take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life.”

But they are forgotten. No one speaks for them. Or should I say no one negotiates for them. There’s no labor union representing the poor. They can’t afford lobbyists and political consultants, they have no super pacs…and so in today’s world they have no place, no voice.

They have become the stuff of political rhetoric, not sacred obligation. Sacred obligations are not created on election day but on the Sabbath. Money creates Pharaohs. God calls the Caesar Chavez’s, the Samuel Gompers, Al Shankers and Moses.  

The pharaohs don’t mind if we simplycollect food for the poor. Pharaoh loves it when we subsidize the low wages he pays with the food we contribute. What the pharaoh minds is when we negotiate for the poor, when we actually speak out and become their advocates. The pharaoh says, “please just leave the food at the food pantry and quietly go your way.”

 Food collection is an important mission and we here at Highlands have been generous with NEEDS and COMEA among others. But, the sacred obligation of the church, the synagogue, the mosque goes beyond collecting food. Listen carefully to the scripture from this morning…James 1:27…”Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

Churches are stained by the world when they simply collect food for the hungry and never ask, “Why are so many people hungry in the richest country on earth? Why is it we can pay a billion dollars a week to fight a war and have long, mean-spirited debates over food stamps?” “Why are people in our community holding garage sales and spaghetti suppers to raise money to pay for cancer treatment?”

When we Christians ask those questions as we drop off the food baskets, we go from being a respected charity to becoming meddlers. Moses was a meddler…as were Caesar, Samuel, and Shanker.

A stained, defiled world doesn’t like religious meddlers. Once I wrote one of my weekly columns on poverty in Wyoming. A reader responded with a letter to the editor. “Rev. McDaniel,” he wrote, “should stick to saving souls and leave economic policy to others.”

That’s how badly stained the world has become. The stain of the world comes when the church offers food baskets but doesn’t answer God’s call to negotiate on behalf of these people. As we celebrate the Labor Day weekend, take notice of the working people in your lives. Is that woman who served your meal at the restaurant able to feed her own children? Does the fellow who put a new roof on your house have a roof over his own head? What do the falling prices advertised at Walmart mean for the workers whose labor has been discounted so that we can buy for less?

You see…that’s what Jesus was saying when he told the people, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

If we aren’t able or willing to negotiate on behalf of the poor, we should at least honor those who do…and that is what Labor Day is about.