Showing Up

SHOWING UP
By James Gore

Whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent we can all agree that politics in the United States have never been more toxic.

This toxin seeps into our systems as gerrymandered districts, closed primaries, and money-grubbing campaign finance laws. It pits the democracy created by "we the people" against the greater good of “we the people.”

It seeps into our minds, replacing reality with games and spin such as the “Blame the guy before me,” game, and the “I’ll only vote for it if my party created it,” game.

This toxin, it limits our ability to change things for the better. It keeps us mired in the struggle to be right rather than to do what is right.

While this toxicity is how we define the politics of the now, it is not how we will define the politics of our future – not if we the people show up, run our own country, and cure ourselves.

Excerpts from the Time Magazine Article, “Encountering Anguish and Anxiety Across America,” by Joe Klein.

I found this article insightful and real.  So, I removed a few of the most striking excerpts to post for your reading pleasure.  More writers and reporters need to get out of the confines of their desks and the internet, and do like Joe Klein did here - get out of the virtual America and into the real nation that resides within everyday Americans.

His writing on the discontents with Free Trade, the Financial Sector's disgraceful actions, and the image of multicultural America are especially interesting.

JMG

Full article available online at: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2024065,00.html

DISCONTENT WITH THE FINANCIAL SECTOR

...the disgraceful behavior of the financial community, and its debilitating effects on the American economy over the past 30 years, was the issue that raised the most passion, by far, in the middle of the country...This is not a new story — I've been covering factory closings since the 1970s — but it has picked up momentum over time, and a compelling narrative is beginning to emerge about the human carnage caused by arrogant financiers. The same bankers who did the leveraged buyouts of the 1980s and '90s, which sold local factories to national conglomerates, which in turn closed those factories and sent the jobs overseas — those same bankers turned to housing in the 1990s and 2000s, creating ridiculous mortgage products that encouraged people without the proper financial resources to buy homes they later defaulted on, causing the value of most middle-class housing to plummet. Everyone seems to "know" that now. The more sophisticated understand that homeownership was a program promoted by both Democrats — through government agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — and Republicans. The most sophisticated understand that the financial community enriched itself obscenely by playing casino games with obscure, unregulated products like credit-default swaps, in which fortunes were made on tiny fluctuations in the value of those mortgages.

Freedom is Never Free

I had this sent to me in an email a few years back and came across it recently.  I think it is a profound testament to not just action, but to sacrifice.  I am constantly amazed at how many politicians use the founding fathers' legacy as a justification for their current policies.  I think we need more emphasis on honoring those who sacrificed for our freedom instead of using their legacy for political gain. 
JMG

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.
Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated.

But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged:

"For the support of this declaration,
with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence,
we mutually pledge to each other, our lives,
our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. Some of us take these liberties so much for granted...We shouldn't. So, take a couple of minutes and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid . . .

LET'S ALL REMEMBER THAT FREEDOM IS "NEVER FREE"!!!!

Uncovering America - The Colville Reservation

Uncovering America

By James Gore

ENTRY #1 – The Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation

"Poverty is more about a cycle of despair and the disbelief that things can get better than it is about the amount of money you have, or don't, in your pocket."  Brian Patterson – Oneida Tribe

Growing up in the United States, we learn about Native American history only within the context of history itself.   We learn about past injustices, including past massacres, past broken promises, and past relocations. 

Outside of school, the only glimpse offered of Native American life is through Hollywood and Casinos, neither of which cast any clarity on the lives of the original Americans still living in present-day America.

This myopic view shows that past generations achieved their goal of keeping the original North American’s away from America’s sight and trapped on out-of-sight-out-of-mind reservations.  Reservations just like the one I recently visited.

The Colville Reservation lies in North-Eastern Washington, in between Spokane and the Canadian Border.  During the week of October 18^th, I had the fortune to get out of Washington, DC and into the countryside of a far different Washington. 

A month before while at a conference in St. Louis, Missouri, Dick Gooby, the Executive Director of the Indian Nations Conservation Alliance (INCA) asked me to come out to see the Colville Reservation and meet with the Tribal Leadership.  In addition to my position with the Department of Agriculture, my background in the Vineyard industry was of interest to INCA and the Colville Leadership. 

I was told that this particular reservation, like many others around the United States, faced extreme levels of poverty and strife.  The description I was given shocked me: 

·         Sixty percent unemployment;

·         Ninety percent of the tribal income gone with the closing of two lumber mills in the past year;

·         Dangerously high levels of diabetes, teen pregnancy and gang violence;

·         Dangerously low levels of high school graduates, personal initiative, and hope.

After getting picked up at the Spokane Airport, Dick Gooby and I began the drive towards the small town of Grand Coulee and the Colville Reservation.  The two plus hour drive through wheat fields and small rural towns afforded me the opportunity to speak frankly with Dick about the Reservation and our upcoming meetings. 

Living in Washington, DC – in the land of know-it-alls – I have become a firm believer that the only way to learn is to first be open about your ignorance. I started by telling my host that I had never been to a reservation, didn’t have any experience with the challenges faced by Native American Communities, and wanted to learn and experience from as wide a spectrum as possible over the coming days.   

To Read entire story follow the below link:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BzOSmZ0UUErDZjg2MmM2NDgtODk1OC00M2RiLWFmMjItZWIyYTY4YjRmMGQ0&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

In the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”