A Sebastapol Minority

By Harry T. Cook

10/18/13

While in the San Francisco area recently to deliver a lecture and to visit a sister-in-law, I happened into a supermarket early one morning to beg change for a coin-fed newspaper box. I was short one quarter.

A very pleasant cashier tried her best to find four quarters for my proffered George Washington, but could not find them in any of the store registers. "Too early in the day," she said. She took a quarter from the pocket of her apron and, brushing aside my demurral, said, "Here, take it. Have a wonderful day." And I did.

Early the next morning, just as the nation was poised to greet the inception of the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges along with the the federal government shutdown, I returned to the supermarket, hoping to find the cashier to return her 25-cent piece.

There she was again, having come to work at midnight, but nevertheless full of warmth and smiles. In our brief conversation, I learned that she lived in Sebastapol. When we had driven through that nearby California town the day before, my sister-in-law remarked that it is one of the most politically liberal cities in America.

I told the cashier that, as I was pretty much a socialist, we could happily be neighbors. Her face turned to granite, the smile faded and, with flashing eyes, she said, "We'll see about that socialist business when Obamacare ruins us all. You must be one of those people who want the government to do everything."

Taken aback, I said, "Well, maybe not everything. But it is my understanding that we together are the government of the People, by the People and for the People and in that way can and probably ought to do a great deal for each other." That elicited a pronounced rolling of the eyes.

Trying to change the subject, I asked why she worked the midnight shift. Said she: "To make ends meet." Upon further inquiry, I learned that neither she nor other part-time employees of that supermarket chain are represented by a collective bargaining unit. Health care insurance for them -- other than through the exchanges -- is but a dream.

I tell this story because I take it to be a microcosmic view of the political disposition that seems to possess a significant sector of the white American grassroots. I was surprised and discomfited at having encountered it in so rough a way so near to one of the best-known centers of liberal thinking in the country.

It put me in mind of Thomas Frank's 2004 book, What's the Matter With Kansas?,* in which he puzzled over how Kansans struggling with unemployment, poor schools and general poverty would continually vote against their own economic self-interest by electing conservative Republicans. The answer was that those particular office seekers harped on the alleged evils of reproductive rights, evolution and gay marriage and how Democrats and other communistic socialists were promoting those very un-Christian and un-American horrors.

My cashier friend at the supermarket did not seem like a person who would be gulled by such ad hominem arguments. So what was her problem? Where did she get the idea that "government" is her enemy? Why does she not see that the government of, by and for the You-Know-Who is responsible for assuring the welfare of the plural You-Know-Who? Isn't that what "liberty and justice for all" means? Or could mean?

The "pursuit of happiness" is said to be a universal opportunity in America. It is one thing to have the opportunity and quite another to have the means to do so. Between them, the one-percenters and their poorer cousins, the ten-percenters, possess 72% of the national wealth. The bottom 40% of the population possesses 0.2%.**

This disparity is due in large part to profoundly unfair taxation policies that, far from soaking the rich, reward them for being rich.

My California cashier friend works long, hard hours just to make ends meet, yet resents the government of which she is a constituent as well as what that government can do for her. Taxes from her wages may help others less fortunate than she. Some would call that socialism. I call it democracy.

I very much regret that, having been so undone by this encounter, I forgot to give her back the quarter. I returned to the supermarket the next morning to do so, but found she was not at work that day -- my last in California.

* Also the title of the well-known August 16, 1896, William Allen White essay in the Emporia Gazette. White's editorial essay, to say the least, takes a different tack than Frank's book.

** Source: Congressional Budget Office.

What a Friend They Had in Jesus: The Theological Visions of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Hymn Writers

Have you ever found yourself humming a favorite childhood hymn, only to realize you could no longer embrace its message? Harry Cook explores how hymns reflect the religious beliefs of their times. He revisits the texts of popular hymns, posing such questions as: How true are they to the biblical texts that seem to have inspired them? What aspects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century piety have persisted into the twenty-first century through the singing of those hymns? And, how does one manage the conflict between the emotional appeal and the theological content of such hymns?

Available at:

Polebridge Press

Amazon.com

* * * * *

What reviewers said:

"Important and heart-warming ... Cook's keen insights into the most familiar of old-time gospel hymns ... help you do theology like a grownup."
--Robin Meyers, author of Saving Jesus from the Church

"A compelling look at centuries of Christian theology and practice, at how particular hymns have shaped American faith and religious thought."
--Richard Webster, Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church, Boston

"A call to integrity in worship ... This exciting, penetrating and provocative study explores the theology we sing, which re-enforces the dated and pre-modern theology from which the Christian faith seeks to escape."
--John Shelby Spong, author of Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World

Readers Write

Essay 10/11/13: Self-Evident

Kenyan Bixby, Novi, MI:

My great regret is that this is not an election year (for 435 House members and 1/3 of the Senate). Were it so, we would at least have a small chance of changing leadership (using the word carelessly). My bet is there will be no shutdown/debt ceiling on the agenda a year from now, and I fear the short attention span electorate will have long forgotten the anger/frustration of today.

James Boxall, Alexandria, VA:

Thanks for your thoughtful essay on the Affordable Care Act and the issue of national health insurance. The ACA is not the bill I would have written; nor is it the bill that progressives would have supported had an alternative been possible. Unfortunately, it was the best that could be done under the circumstances. You are quite correct that a Medicare-for-all bill would have been far superior. Two decades ago Pete Stark's Ways and Means Health Subcommittee reported such a bill to the full Ways and Means Committee as a substitute for the Clinton health proposal. The Stark bill never made it through Congress. I doubted that there would ever be another attempt at a universal health insurance plan in my lifetime. So President Obama deserves much credit in tackling the issue. The Obama bill is based in part on a proposal by Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island, a thoughtful Republican, who proposed an individual mandate as an alternative to the Clinton plan. I had the opportunity to meet Senator Chafee at a meeting in January 1994 when the health insurance issue appeared to have legs. He was a fine man who passed away too early. There are no Republicans serving in Congress today like John Chafee. It is interesting to note the journey of his son Lincoln Chafee, currently governor of Rhode Island. Following in his father's footsteps as a Republican, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. After his defeat by Sheldon Whitehouse he became an independent having decided that the Republican Party was not for him any longer. He spoke at the Democratic convention last year in support of President Obama's reelection. Recently he announced that he was switching to the Democratic Party. Unfortunately for the citizens of Rhode Island, he is not running for reelection as governor. It is difficult to be a progressive these days even in a Democratic bastion like Rhode Island. Last week in your essay you mentioned Albion College Professor Darrell Pollard who was a progressive Republican (back in the 1950s and 1960s there were such people). Dr. Pollard told his political science classes that he saw the day in the future when the U.S. would adopt national health insurance. I am glad that he lived to see the Affordable Care Act as imperfect as it is. Finally, I had to chuckle at your comments about Senator Cruz. My sentiments exactly!

Tom Hall, Foster, RI:

Right on! It is all too clear that for the rich and powerful (as in the dictionary) ego comes before equity.

Alice Lapham, Plano, TX:

Mr. Roosevelt had the right idea. I don't think most Americans today even know about his "Second Bill of Rights." I would bet that they are purposefully suppressed. Thanks for helping us oldsters remember.

Cora Krumm, Carmel, IN:

When I had a parent-teacher conference about 20 years ago with my daughter's civics teacher, I brought up Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights and wondered if it would be covered sometime during the course. I was met with a blank stare. I went further to the principal and then to the superintendent and was basically stiffed. I wrote my senator, then Richard Lugar, to inquire why that bill of rights was not taught in the public school. No answer.

Michael Fultz, Clarkston, MI:
I don't think I will see single-payer health care insurance enacted in my lifetime. FDR had a shot at setting something like that up because a significant percentage of Americans hadn't grown up in affluent middle class households. Today, most Americans have grown up in affluent households, so they will either be unmoved or repulsed by populist appeals that would have been more popular in FDR's era. Unlike Glenn Turner's Santa Claus, the Santa Claus of the majority of Americans has always given them everything they wanted, which has made them indifferent to the needs of their fellow citizens. The idea that someone uses food stamps to survive makes these people hateful instead of sympathetic. So, a major ideological change will have to happen before single payer becomes a possibility. At this point, that is very unlikely.

Blayney Colmore, Jacksonville, VT:

You're not just talking about health care, but about a shift in the basic agreement in this country about what constitutes a good and useful life. My uncle Harry, my mentor in many things, an internist in Mt. Kisco, NY, beloved, revered by many, worked tirelessly, often, alas, to the neglect of his family, for the good of his patients. He loved it because he was fascinated by how humans worked, and because he thought he was doing good. He was terrible at managing money because, so long as he had a place to live and could feed his family, he didn't care about money. Far from poor, often in debt, he lived what I then thought a rather elegant existence, one I translated into parish ministry for my own life. Harry now looks like a throwback. And even though clergy still can't join the 1%, they make enough money to have altered the emphasis in ministry from helper of the needy to a more entrepreneurial emphasis on growing the church. The point is that we all measure value now in terms of money. Even the language of politics is fixated on the 1% and the 99%, which while significant, still assumes wealth is a universal goal. There must be some income level that could be considered adequate for a good life (oddly, Nixon is the only president to suggest a guaranteed minimum income...too little, and only with the motive of ending welfare), but today it would be considered unAmerican for any of us to settle for it. I suppose each of us has dreamed of hitting the lottery, and even in my poorest years I was able to house and feed myself and family, but I'd like to think it's more than my knowing I am nearing my end, and grateful for a pension, that I have actually enjoyed the sweet taste of "enough." How to move an entire culture (world?) off the preoccupation with wealth, persuade us that a healthy society will sacrifice to provide for its poorest, and teach ourselves how to strive, not for excess, but enough???

G.A. Knott, Brooklyn, NY:

A friend from Columbia passed on to me your latest article about Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights. That was the subject of a master's thesis I wrote many a long year ago. Except for a book several years ago by Cass Sunstein, most people have forgotten about that 1944 State of the Union message. Were that the state of our union today as FDR envisioned it. You performed a public service by bringing it to light.

Pete McManus, Southfield, MI:

I agree with everything you wrote in your column of today, until the final paragraph, which could easily be taken as a call to kill Sen. Cruz. In fact, I see no uncontrived way to read a different meaning into it. I suspect you were just tempted by the rhetorical flourish, and wanted to end your excellent sermon with a bang. Alas, I think you crossed a nasty line, and I hope you will retract the final paragraph, or at least walk it back significantly. Many of us count on you to be a voice of reason -- we pass on your writing to those who need some practice with clear thinking. How could I pass on that paragraph? [Editor's Note: Mr. McManus' point is well-taken. The essayist apologizes for the ungraceful tone of the final paragraph.]

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

You are right. "It does not help that for-profit insurance companies have their mitts deep in the till." The Affordable Care Act is essentially a Republican, big business, for-profit approach to providing universal health care. The irony is that Tea Party wing nuts are trying to kill it. Republicans of all stripes are against programs that benefit the poor. This has always been the case. They represent the interests of 1% against the rest of us. Medicare for all, financed by increased taxes, is the way to go. To get there, Republicans should be soundly defeated at the polls in 2014 and 2016, returning both houses to the Democrats and electing a liberal, rather than a moderate Democratic President. Wake up, America! Your health and the national economy are at stake.

Robert Causley, Ph.D., Roseville, MI:

The breath of air you provide gets my weekend started. Thank you. Now let us look at the very essence of the problem: Roosevelt knew what he was about when he called "adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health" a right. He knew that the power to guarantee rights had firmly to be placed in the hands of the People's government. THE PEOPLE'S government, Where is it? With less then 50% and sometimes even less then 20% of the voters participating in the election process how are we ever going to get our ship of state back into operation as it was planned? Or, is this the plan? Destroy our country and allow those who have the means to survive the ability to take over?

Tracey Martin, Southfield, MI:

Fierce. And frighteningly fitting. Thank you. How simple the solution. Wouldn't even require a new federal agency. Medicare is already here. Out of my mal-informed Republican heritage, I tried to reject it when I turned 65. Fortunately, my government insisted that I share in Roosevelt's hope for all.

What do you think?

I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at revharrytcook@aol.com.

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