My friend writes that she has no interest in keeping “deathaversaries”, it being a “ghoulish, masochistic and punishing habit”. She is right, of course. I don’t keep them intentionally. Yet sometimes death has it’s way of tapping you on the shoulder, reminding you that the life you are so immersed in [...]]]> September 11

My friend writes that she has no interest in keeping “deathaversaries”, it being a “ghoulish, masochistic and punishing habit”. She is right, of course. I don’t keep them intentionally. Yet sometimes death has it’s way of tapping you on the shoulder, reminding you that the life you are so immersed in today can end abruptly at any time. Last night we were in Home Depot and they had an animatronic Grim Reaper Halloween Decoration whose long bony finger pointed at us as we walked by. We were suddenly aware that it was the evening of September 10.

On the morning of September 11, 2001 I was in the kitchen, feeding salmon and grits for breakfast to my one year old daughter in her high chair. She always did like her some fish for breakfast, which I suppose puts her more in tune with the rest of the world than most Americans…at that hour of the day, anyway. My friend Julia called, no pleasantries, and told me to turn on the TV. I asked what channel and she replied “Any channel”.

It was true, every single channel had the same image: an airplane sticking out of a skyscraper. As I called my husband to come to the living room from his home office, another plane crashed into the next skyscraper, and I felt suddenly nauseous, as if I had been punched in the gut. It was 9:06 a.m. We began to realize this was not a horrible accident. Someone had done this on purpose. We were rooted to the floor for a few moments, staring at the tv, unable to process. Then we both realized we had to move.

Without speaking, we put a sweater on the baby, and just walked outside. So did everyone else in town, apparently. The streets were full of people, just wandering aimlessly. We walked and walked along a main artery where stores were randomly either lit and unoccupied or simply closed and dark. Eventually we reached an open ice cream shoppe, where we stopped and got ice cream cones. There were a lot of people in there, no one spoke other than to ask for the flavor they wanted and pay. It felt like a Twilight Zone episode somehow. We walked outside and ate our cones slowly, watching the sky, wondering what would come next. We knew it would be bad. We went home so my husband could begin trying to find his friends in New York (he had grown up there, more or less) but I could not stay in the house. I put the baby in the stroller and walked to Church.

Now I am not a Church person, but something about the space was comforting to me on that day. It was full of silent people too. I lit a candle and sat down for a while. Then I took the baby to the park, and sat there in silence with the other silent Mamas, and watched the bigger kids run around. Even the kids were pretty quiet. I think at some deep level we all knew it was that point where the wind dies, just before the storm actually hits.

Quite possibly he did [...]]]> This is Amina Filali. She was sixteen years old. She is dead. She is dead because she ate rat poison. She ate rat poison because her life had become intolerable. Her life had become intolerable because she was forced to marry her rapist, and he starved her and beat her regularly.

Quite possibly he did not want to marry her either, but found it preferable to serving time in a Moroccan jail for raping a minor. Amina’s parents had brought charges against her attacker, and Amina’s marriage to the rapist was arranged as the solution to the legal problem of the family honor. This is apparently how things roll in Morocco, and many other places worldwide. In a legal system where rape is treated as a property crime against the family honor, which is seen as residing in the virginity of the victim rather than as a crime against the victim herself, this may be oftentimes a more just solution than prosecution. For example, if Amina had fallen in love with a young man not approved by her parents as a marriage prospect, and had consummated that relationship, in many places both she and her lover might be vulnerable to prosecution for “rape”, an offense still often punishable by lashes or even burning. In such a circumstance, marrying the “rapist” would make sense to resolve a family drama. But in a situation without consent, forced marriage heaps cruelty upon cruelty to a level of injustice which is hard for me to fathom.

Traditional ideas of family honor may have been restored, but marriage to her rapist was evidently not an improvement for Amina’s personal situation. She went to her mother for help, and apparently her mother told her to “be patient”.

As suicides go, rat poison is a horrible way to die. But for Amina Filali, it was preferable to living with her abusive rapist husband.

I have a daughter. If she came to me for help after being raped, I can totally imagine telling her to be patient and wait in a safe place while I hunted down her attacker and killed him with my bare hands.  It makes me ill to imagine being required to accept him as a son in law, and trying to help my daughter resign herself to this fate. But I do imagine this is a possible future for us.

My daughter is twelve. Her beauty is heartbreakingly fragile, chrysalid. Inside the cocoon of our family protection, under her braces and her experiments with clothing and makeup and hairstyles, she is morphing into a young woman. A young woman whose life and freedom are far more precious and honorable to me than two thousand year old social mores. Soon she will emerge, damp winged, and launch herself into the world as an adult human.

A complicated and often evil world in which young girls are routinely raped, beaten, and forced to marry their attackers. A world in which one’s agency about something as basic as the use of one’s own body is frequently limited to choices like being raped and beaten with the full approval of one’s parents and society and the law, or eating rat poison. A world where women are not quite human. Not here, you say? Not in America? Surely not in this land of the free?

Bullshit. Here. Here in the America where the Republican Presidential platform includes the outlawing of abortion in cases of rape and incest.  In this America where the legislative trend has been towards narrowing the definition of rape with terms like “forcible” which redefine coercive rape within abuse of power situations as not “legitimate rape”.  Fear of retribution is not enough, apparently.  One must also be beaten, or under direct threat of deadly weapons in order to call it rape.

Morocco, where Amina lived, has a law which exempts a rapist from prosecution if he marries his victim. This is not actually unusual, world wide. In fact, the same prescription is set out in the Bible, the Book of Deuteronomy. It’s Biblical, so it must be good, right? Rape was historically treated as a property crime in the United States, so those who imagine that a return to traditional values would be an improvement may well push for such laws to be restored in the future. My daughter’s future. If women are not people with the agency to choose what happens to our bodies, we are property to be bought and sold and treated as slaves. Whatever the rhetoric, if we do not own our own bodies, we are property. If sexual activity eliminates our rights to choose what happens to our bodies, we are chattel. So perhaps these troglodyte bible pounding monsters in our American pulpits and Congress have not yet advanced their cause to the point where marrying one’s rapist would become a standard outcome of a rape, but it sure seems possible that we are headed in that direction.

My friend Kathy is a historian, specializing in the History of the American South. She has read every single surviving personal account written by an enslaved person in North Carolina. There are some 200+ of them. She knows an awful lot about slavery, and it’s impact on the individual person.  One of her favorite stories is about a slave woman who was a famous seamstress; renowned for her exceptional skill and artistry in a time when gowns were precious and made by hand. When this woman’s legal owner lost her to a gambling debt, she chopped off her own hand rather than have her capacity for art sold on the block. As an artist, it is for me a sickening thought to be forced to lose my art to preserve my agency. I don’t know if I would have the will to do it, but I applaud her bravery.

I think of that seamstress as a martyr to freedom and human dignity. Since Amina died, women in Morocco have been carrying posters with a photo of Amina Filali, with the word “dignity” written en Francais across her forehead. There is a facebook page We Are All Amina Filali. In my view Amina is also a martyr to freedom and human dignity. I close my eyes and imagine Amina’s defiled and poisoned body, carried away to heaven by a benevolent swarm of rats. This vision makes me angry. It makes me cry. It also makes me determined.

As tragic as her death is, Amina Filali chose agency and I applaud her too. I will think of her when I read about “legitimate rape”. I will think of her when more legislation in the direction of female inequality and servitude is advanced in congress. I will think of her when women begin setting themselves ablaze, a la Arab Spring, in protest against the onslaught of injustice directed at us in the name of traditional values.  I will think of her mother, too.

How many maimings, self-immolations and suicides will it take for women to be seen as human? When will our humanity trump the oppression of “traditional values”? How many lives will be sacrificed? How much rat poison will it take?

Related articles

• ‘Moderate’ Morocco: Muslim teenager kills herself after a judge forces her to marry her rapist
• Morocco Rape Law Reform: Women’s Rights Groups Slam Female Minister’s ‘Traitorous’ Comments
• Turkish Woman Shoots, Beheads Rapist
• Whispers in the Dark
• Moroccan women’s groups lash out
• Understanding Islamic Feminism: My Interview with Vanessa Rivera (Nasreen Amina) Part 2, August 2012
• Imagine You Were Raped. Got Pregnant. Then Your Rapist Sought Custody.
• Legitimate Rape & Punishment

The first I heard of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, I was visiting my Sister, Adele. Adele and her husband ,Thomas, are farmers. They live on a cooperative land trust farm in rural France. Romantic, I know. It really [...]]]> Originally published at The Hand That Feeds You

The first I heard of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, I was visiting my Sister, Adele. Adele and her husband ,Thomas, are farmers. They live on a cooperative land trust farm in rural France. Romantic, I know. It really is, too. It was an amazing trip for me—the first one ever away from my kids. Lots of people pitched in to help pay for the tickets for me to go there.

The farm is amazing and beautiful. There are five families in the cooperative; an interesting mix of young farmers and older activists. One couple are pretty radical, and have long been involved in direct protest actions which target the use of industrial chemicals and GMO’s in farming. Each family has their own home, but they all share equipment and resources, including the food they produce. They eat a communal together meal most days. Adele keeps a herd of goats and runs a creamery, making yogurt and cheese. Thomas is your classic German intellectual….he listens to podcasts of NPR on his headphones while he works in the market garden, taking very fine care of his organic vegetables. Thomas really, really likes tomatoes. Anyway, he is also quite well read, and keeps up with politics. At breakfast he shared his newspaper with me.

Upon seeing an article about OWS, I was immediately intrigued. Camping in the park near Wall Street; now that was an interesting idea. At the time, Thomas was not particularly impressed. But I was. I thought they were on to something.

A few weeks later, when I was home, the movement had grown bigger. Much bigger. Occupy was on the news every day, and all sorts of news about it that was not in the news was on facebook and youtube. There were live feeds from all over the place by a small army of guerrilla citizen reporters. There was an Occupation in every major metro area, all over the world! There were mini occupations in quite a few minor hamlets, such as my own. Some of my friends were moved, inspired….compelled….to go to New York and check things out. J and I thought seriously about it. He had just lost his job. The Occupation was really interesting now. It had become a locus for our sense of impotent rage and impending doom. A means of expression where we had none before. A kind of political….performance art.

Ultimately we decided the Wall Street Occupation was no place for our two little kids. So I checked out the local scene here in Chapel Hill. It was pretty tame. About 10 tents in front of the Post Office (aka Peace and Justice Plaza…a historic site for local protests). The occupiers were a surprisingly diverse bunch. A few grad students from UNC in Political Science. A few young radical types. A few homeless folks. That was about what I had expected, but they were not the majority. Oddly it was mostly a bunch of middle aged, middle class people (like myself) from various backgrounds. There was a tent with donated food and medical supplies, and a sign up sheet for information emails. To the delight of my six year old son, the tent table featured several boxes of Krispy Kreme Donuts.

It was cold and wet, the October chill filtering into our bones by way of the slow southern drizzle. We went inside the post office and sat in a big organic blob of a circle in the main hallway…Jack and I leaning against a wall of P.O. Boxes. Jack downed a couple of donuts while I tried to grok the geist of the General Assembly. From what I gathered, basically all the Occupations utilize a similar set of procedures and forms. A general assembly each evening at the same time, usually led by rotating facilitators. Achieving consensus is the point–the intention. Working Groups meet after the GA on topics such as Security, Outreach, Direct Action and Supplies.

At the Chapel Hill GA, One representative from each group gave a report. While most comments were driven towards the working groups which would be meeting after the GA (in order to keep the larger meeting to a manageable length), theoretically anyone could speak. Decisions were all made by consensus. A set of hand signals I had never seen before was in use to indicate desire to speak, points of order, agreement or disagreement, and other expressions. Jack ate about 4 donuts, and then ran out of patience for the consensus process. We went home and I made some dinner.

Over the next few weeks a I went back a couple of times. I would have liked to go more often, stay longer, and see more, but my life was exploding. The stress of our situation had my husband and I fighting all the time, interrupted only by our efforts to manage stuff and take care of the kids.

Suddenly the occupation of Wall Street was shut down, kicked out of the park. Crackdowns happened at the same time, all over the country. Oakland CA had some really ugly ones, with rubber bullets and other types of urban crowd control weaponry. Pictures were posted on Facebook of injuries. National news coverage disappeared.

The Chapel Hill Occupiers were still at the Post Office. A direct action group split off from the GA and decided to occupy the Yates building, an abandoned car dealership in Chapel Hill. The owner of Yates lives out of town, and the building has sat empty for 10 years. The group decided to occupy the building, and use it as a community center. They organized a dance party. Free meals arrived, donated by a local restaurant. Yoga classes were held.

After a night of sleeping bags and kumbyah, a Strategic Emergency Response Team (SERT) came and surrounded the building, arresting everyone (including the press) at gunpoint. Local politics have been in a tizzy ever since, with lots of vitriol flying over the internet about “black bloc” anarchists, and postings of articles how the anarchists are a “cancer” on the nonviolent Occupation movement. The Chapel Hill Occupation decided to shut down the tiny tent city and pursue other avenues of expression. Except one guy. He is still there. From what I understand he had no where else to go.

So what now? Where will the Occupation go from here?

I ask my friend N, who has become a somewhat reluctant spokesperson for the Chapel Hill Occupiers. She tells me there are many different roads being pursued toward the future of Occupy. Her path is with Nomadic Occupation…calling attention to different areas with mini occupations and staying only long enough to garner a bit of media attention for those strategically chosen locations. She hopes more middle class folks will join the cause, and embrace the principles of creative non-cooperation and consensus….before it is too late. I tell her I think things will have to get yet even worse before middle class people will let go of their lifestyles to establish survivalist group housing. Keeping backyard chickens is one thing….eating roadkill is a different deal altogether. (Evidently my MIL has a good pressure cooker recipe for squirrel, but I have not been inspired to try it yet).

Still, I agree to come check out the next event, a protest over increasing local restrictions on the public use of space. We talk about the bill of rights. We talk about the economic crisis, and how its impact is more structural adjustment than recession. We talk quite a bit about the Yates Occupation. Evidently that group told her they wanted to highlight the way buildings sit empty, owned by far away landlords, while local folks needs for space are not considered. We discuss the town manager, who was in charge of both the SERT response to the Yates occupation, and the move to place greater restrictions on our right to peaceful assembly in Chapel Hill. We talk about the overlapping and confusing system of town regulations, which serve to insure that any public assembly will be illegal in some way, leaving the door open to shut down this constitutionally protected right for reasons of any political motivation or administrative whim.

We spoke a bit about the hand signals and the form of the general assemblies. I was curious where they came from. She informed me they originated with the Athenian Senate, and were further developed by the Quakers and Civil Rights era anarchists….the evolution of the forms and procedures of consensus are very interesting. I make a note to study this further.

I ask my friend B, who works for the town, to tell me the government side of the Yates Building Occupation story. He tells me the SERT had been called in because the group in the Yates building were “anarchists” and they had “not ruled out violence”. Hmm. But they had not engaged in any kind of violence. Dance Party? Yoga? Free Snacks? Where was the emergency?

Anarchists. Everyone is scared of them. Because we associate the term anarchy with the kind of violent nihilism of A Clockwork Orange or The Crow. Chaos. Lawlessness. At minimum, fires and broken windows. Property damage for sure, with strong potential for human casualties. But what does the term mean, really?

So even though I have some idea, I hit Google. With my background in Political Science, I was able to filter quickly through a lot of hotheaded material and discover the disturbing truth about Anarchists. They are Anarchic. Which is to say, there are many different ways to be an Anarchist. Almost as many ways as there are to be say..a Christian?

No really, there are many theories of Anarchy. Some are nonviolent, some not. Basically the idea is of anarchy is that individuals should govern themselves, and cooperate with those nearby to get stuff done. No one is in charge. Personal accountability and responsibility are highly valued. Anarchists are profoundly anti-authoritarian, feeling the state is an exploitative system, as is industrial capitalism. They are against the existence of the nation state, believing this to be an inescapably oppressive structure, oriented towards the production of wars. They are strong proponents of decision making by consensus, rather than hierarchy.

Beyond that, anarchy can go lots of different ways. Some groups are avidly Marxist, some not particularly so. Some groups are anti-capitalist—well, most are to some degree. But some are reformist, some revolutionary. There is no general consensus of Anarchists. So if you know the term, you don’t really know what any particular person or group means when they call themselves anarchists, unless you talk to them. Which my town failed to do. They just brought in other guys in black outfits. With assault rifles.

My Friend H, who is a middle class Dad and very involved with Occupy, says the anarchists add “a shot of adrenaline” to the movement. He feels they provide energy and excitement. Another friend B, talks about the need to create a public conversation about trading “destructive order” for “creative disorder”. The existing system of economic distribution is the order we are accustomed to. But it has been profoundly destructive for people and the planet. Anarchists are certainly big on the “creative chaos” factor. Their re-framing of procedures and systems we take for granted is valuable to anyone questioning the status quo of our economic system which funnels a massively disproportionate share of wealth to the 1% at the expense of the 99% of the population. A system which values ownership over human rights and decency. But how far should the movement go? To this point, the Occupy movement has essentially been theater. The Occupations were a form of creative disorder. Non-cooperation with the status quo, in front of millions of I phones, posted to social media.

The buzz online is that there is conflict within the Occupy Movement about the direction of the future, with those who adhere to a strict policy of non violence pitted against those who favor keeping open the possibility of violence, or at least some property damage, for a few specific situations, such as self defense or protection of others in the group. Some make a case for leaving open the option for symbolic property damage. The official word, as I understand it, is that the future of Occupy will include “a diversity of tactics”. The actions of the group, in general, have to this point been quite disciplined and non violent.

But it seems to me the future of Occupy depends heavily on its ability to manage its anarchists, their image and reputation. Because there is always some minor official who would rather call in a Strategic Emergency Response Team than start a conversation.

Related articles

• Occupy London: what did the St Paul’s camp represent? | Mark Greif (guardian.co.uk)
• The Last Faces of Occupation (dazeddigital.com)
• What Occupy can learn from the 17th century (newstatesman.com)
• Occupy’s challenge: Reinventing democracy (Salon) (occupyusatoday.com)

I am writing in response to your recent article in Slate entitled “Liberals, Don’t Homeschool Your Children”. I can only imagine from your judgmental critique of homeschooling parents that you intended to provoke a reply. If this is in fact the case, you may be pleased to know [...]]]> Dear Ms. Goldstein,

I am writing in response to your recent article in Slate entitled “Liberals, Don’t Homeschool Your Children”. I can only imagine from your judgmental critique of homeschooling parents that you intended to provoke a reply. If this is in fact the case, you may be pleased to know that your article was widely circulated and hotly discussed in my home school community. Surely this is happening in many other such groups as well, so you will probably get lots of satisfyingly aggravated responses, which your editor can publish for you to shoot down. After all, we lazy rich white home school Moms have nothing better to do than write strong letters to the editor defending our privilege, right?

In my group one mother posted a request that someone reply to you. She said she would do it herself, but between her part time job and family responsibilities, she could not find the time to address the task with the thoughtfulness it deserves.  Actually she was a bit angrier than that about it, but I hope I have her intent covered.

Ms. Goldstein, do you have any children? I have to ask. Your credentials as a liberal journalist do not qualify you to judge me, either as a liberal, or a parent. Nor do they provide you adequate insight into my community to level a directive at us about how we should educate our children. I really want to know if you have kids. Because parenthood requires us to continually balance our ideals against our responsibilities to our families, and rarely permits persons as intelligent and thoughtful as yourself the grounds for such one sided judgment. Perhaps you are trying to drum up some kind of “mommy wars” over education? Perhaps you are just…young?

You have very impressive, even intimidating, journalistic and academic credentials. This tells me that you are probably naturally suited to the institutional structure of school, and were probably well supported while you were there. Certainly you have worked very hard. Your background is one you, your parents and your teachers must surely be proud of.

As a mother, if my daughter were to build a career half as successful as yours to date, I would certainly feel I had done well by her in terms of her education, …and I did notice quite a lot of private school in yours, by the way. When I googled you, I admit it gave me pause. Perhaps you can imagine my “aha” moment when I re-read your article and realized what a beautiful example it was of profoundly uncritical institutional thought. The most charitable thing I can think to say is that it is exactly the sort of thinking I would expect from a person so thoroughly schooled as yourself. You have obviously done some research, and applied some tools of analysis. Your writing is engaging. Yet you do not appear to have examined the ground you are standing on.

What is a Liberal Homeschooler? Am I, for you, merely the assumed opposite of a Fundamentalist Christian Libertarian Dominionist Homeschooler? Do you imagine we are a group essentially just like the women at your office, or the last cocktail party you attended, except we are nursing toddlers in the park with our older children reading Mark Twain and Phillip Pullman nearby? What exactly leads you to presume that your idea of “liberal values” is one that the entirety of non fundamentalist attachment parenting unschoolers would share? Just because we are not raising revolutionaries for God’s Christian Army does not mean we agree with you about the meaning, let alone the value, of public education.

In my personal experience, you are right about some things. Home school families are indeed diversifying as a group. I live in an area where the home school community spans the spectrum from those who want to ensure that their God-fearing children are not sullied by exposure to science to those Dragon Mamas who want to make certain their offspring get into Stanford. Yet there are a wide range of perspectives somewhere between those poles, or somewhere else altogether. Many are families whose children for one reason or another did not thrive in the school system. Many have children with mild to moderate ADD, ADHD, Aspergers or OCD.

There are indeed those parents who prefer to spend family time together, perhaps running a family farm or traveling instead of attending school. There are Homeschoolers of Color who feel their children will be ill served in a public school system which tracks them towards low achievement (many of the Moms I know who meet that criteria are former public school teachers). Plenty of homeschool families I know personally live at or near the poverty line, making lifestyle choices from the bedrock of their values. Choices which involve significant financial sacrifice. I will not cover the impact of the financial crisis on my family, for that would go on far to long to maintain the threads between your article and the main points of this response.

I volunteered to respond to your article. Let me do so by telling you a bit about my particular family, and how we came to what many would call “unschooling” for our children. It is very long. I hope you will be patient enough to read it.

It was not really a decision at all, but a process; a slow and circuitous route through the social and economic and educational tangles of our time. Ultimately, the decision to home school our children was actually deeply in line with our values. These are values which privilege responsibility to our family, and to living in genuine community with the people near us, above any theory or “ism”.

Values which, I imagine, would be very hard to connect to if one were urban, well educated, ideologically committed, and childless. Or perhaps equally hard to understand if one had children, but valued her/his career and/or personal ideology over the welfare of his/her children. In a culture where “family values” seem only to apply to the unborn, this is not an unusual situation. But it is a stance that hardly qualifies a person to judge home schooling parents as hypocrites or betrayers of the progressive cause. You do not own the cause of progress. And the liberal tradition of fighting for public schools is a particular expression of values, not a value in itself.

Your seeming disdain for the idea of attachment parenting leads me to conclude that you either know very little about it or you have totally swallowed the cultural value of separating children from their families early and institutionalizing them as thoroughly as possible. Just because an institution has been good to you does not mean it is good for everyone. If you ever become interested in learning about the importance of attachment on development and human relationships, and the long term implications of this, especially in the context of the institutionalization of human social experience, I would be happy to recommend a reading list. It actually begins with Foucault. I believe further research might improve your understanding of what we AP folks are trying to accomplish, and how that fits in with “progressive”, or “liberal values”.

You also make a lot of assumptions about the value of schools. Personally, my husband and I pay a small fortune in property taxes in addition to a special school tax to help fund what is widely held to be one of our nation’s better public school systems, even though we no longer use the schools. We are committed to the availability of public education. Home schooling is certainly not for everybody, and the availability of a good public school seems, at least on the surface, to be a critical building block for a strong civil society. This is not to say that I believe schooling is the best choice for anyone. I simply fear the idea that eliminating the option of high quality low cost schools, for those who have neither the resources nor inclination to undertake personal responsibility for their child’s education, would be a disaster for what is left of democratic civil society. It does not mean that I believe that ideal of excellent public schools actually exists as a real option for most people. And I know a lot of dedicated school teachers.

I do believe the foundation of the school system is flawed at its core. We have a system of public schools quite literally designed from the outset to intentionally separate children from their families, in order to turn immigrants into factory workers. Since this is contrary to the goals of most of today’s parents, teachers and even the marketplace, it seems to me that the current crisis in education requires deeper consideration than a mere commitment to participate. It also follows that to attempt superficial internal reform at the sacrifice of one’s own child’s welfare is not only morally questionable, but it runs contrary to the purpose of raising informed, engaged citizens. Yes, the focus on testing is problematic. But that is a natural consequence of a system which seeks to define, segregate and train cogs for the wheels of commerce and cannon fodder for the military according to class and an ever narrowing range of academic accomplishment.

When my oldest was a baby, I read a powerful book by Ann Crittenden called “The Price of Motherhood”. It was an economic analysis of the impact of mothers and of the role upon the women who undertake the task. Since I had chosen stay-at-home motherhood over graduate school or a paid career, the book had an enormously validating message for me. My choice to stay home was not one built upon the level of privilege you seem to assume, but an economic and moral choice in accordance with my values. It was complicated. Let me explain how I arrived at it.

When I worked in finance, pre-child days, I had been a registered assistant for an investment adviser. I was seriously underpaid. The number one question we got from couples under 50 was “Our family is so stressed and exhausted…is there some possible way one of us can stay home? ”. My job was to take in all their financial data, and put it together so we could analyze their situation and present financial options. Unless Mrs. Client was an attorney or a physician, or had a job she deeply loved and did not want to leave, I saw the math prove over and over again that these families would be better off financially if Mom stayed home. Mothers, even highly educated ones, seemed often to bring in just enough money to put these families in a higher tax bracket. Usually two income households lock themselves structurally into this problem by buying more house than they really need—an expense that has recently become all to clear to families struggling with layoffs in the economic crisis. Granted, the families I was working with were usually well to do. But the same problems apply broadly to our whole society. Our lifestyle choices and our incomes are interdependent, not unidirectional. The values perpetuated by consumer culture lead us to view accomplishment in terms of income. It has long been possible to purchase status. If one lets go of that wheel, and is willing to live with less, according to different values, other economic possibilities can and do open up.

In my work in finance I found that the soft costs of working (clothing, meals out, dry-cleaning, various services) combined with the expenses of transportation and childcare usually made the net gain of Mom’s paid labor too low to make up for the costs of her absence in the unpaid field of care-giving. The average financial gain for the families whose finances I analyzed was less than $5000/year. The lower her income, the more likely that the financial contribution of her job was negative. And as Ms. Crittenden so thoroughly explains, Motherhood is an economically and socially valuable and important activity, though it is punished in a society which elevates income production over all else.

This is not to say that fathers cannot do the job of care giving, or that Mothers cannot provide adequately for families. There are all sorts of  ways to structure families. I know many families where the parents both work part time to support homeschooling, or where Dads stay home with kids while Mom works. Some of the non traditional families are gay. Yes, extended breastfeeding does indeed create a prevalence of very traditional looking stay-at-home Moms in the AP and homeschool communities. But this is more a response to the way the consumer society and nuclear family is structured than anything else. Most Moms I know would ideally work part time and spend lots of time at home with their little ones. In a tribal situation, there is extended family and lots of help with the work of raising a family. My homeschooling group has come to be almost a tribe to me. We help each other. All the time. Because that is how we wish to live. Relationships have replaced the need for revenue in many areas of my life.

After my short career in finance I was ready to commit to staying home, at least until my children were in school. We moved near my Mom, and bought a tiny condo. I joined a Mom’s group. I was thrilled when Ms. Crittenden came to Chicago on book tour, and I took my daughter in her sling to the independent book store where the author was speaking. I brought several of my Mom’s group friends with me. We were devastated when Ms. Crittenden recommended that we deposit our infant children on the steps of City Hall in a strike to protest the treatment of mothers. It was a clear illustration of the problem…we were prisoners of love. I don’t know if that message was her intention, she sounded perfectly serious about her idea; an idealistic proposal which was to most mothers, preposterous. For most parents I have known, no ideal is as important as taking loving care of that little person in their arms.

When it was time to send our daughter to school we bought a home just outside Chapel Hill North Carolina. It was the only house we could afford in this school district. The house has issues, but at the beginning we were committed to the public school idea. In fact, we moved here from Chicago to be in a good school district with a lower cost of living so that I could both be closer to extended family and devote the time to be an involved public school parent. My brother lives nearby, our parents retired here.  I was planning to work part time when my second child was old enough to attend school. My eldest had excellent teachers in pre-school and kindergarten, and we looked forward to a long and involved relationship with the public school system. I was secretary of the PTA when we pulled our daughter out in the first grade with symptoms of depression and anxiety.

The PTA was a nightmare. Ms. Goldstein, have you ever been on a PTA board?

Somehow I doubt that your career would afford you the time, even if you do have children. Our particular board had one fund raiser a year. It was an evening auction. The tickets were $50, and none of the money went to the school; it went to cover the cost of dinner and drinks. That meant a family with two parents or one parent with a date would spend $100 on tickets, probably $10 in tips, and roughly $50 in babysitting for the evening before they had even raised a penny for the school. I brought this up at the first meeting of the semester and was roundly criticized for my suggestion that parents who could not afford to donate $500-$1000 to the school might be glad to give smaller amounts….$25, $50? Perhaps we might consider some additional fund raisers that would allow a wider band of families to contribute? Perhaps this should be done not only for the funds themselves but on the principle that as many parents as possible should be involved? The PTA board President leveled her cold blue eyes and me, tossed her immaculately frosted hair and said “well, if they want to contribute, they can always buy spirit wear”. I protested that my family could not afford to attend the auction. The PTA board President retorted that I should do a better job managing my money. I had a hard time holding back my tears of rage at her privilege and rudeness.

They. Spirit wear. It might has well have been Marie Antoinette with the famous brioche/cake comment as far as I was concerned…and I realized what I was up against.

I soon discovered that there was another organization which functioned as a shadow PTA for Families of Color. It was a Parent-Teacher group focused on helping parents to assist their children to succeed in school. The racism and class-ism of this was astounding to me. But the group had been around for 30 years, because they met a genuine need. The integration of the schools had not provided anything resembling a  level playing field for the economically disadvantaged or for children of color.

Ms. Goldstein, not everyone gets a good value out of school, as you so clearly have. You point out in your article that many families are unable to home school because they have single parents. I know several single parent home schoolers, and I do agree that choice presents serious challenges. But the challenges produced by school itself are often just as problematic.

My husband and I both had terrible school experiences, complicated by the breakups of our families. His involved multiple interstate parental kidnappings and far too many schools. Mine began in that cushy bastion of white privilege, South East Washington D.C.

You see Ms. Goldstein, my parents were the type of Liberals you seem to admire. Heavily involved in the Anti War and Civil Rights and Women’s movements, they bought and rehabbed a brownstone on 9^th street SE. I believe the address was 357 if you want to pass by the next time you are in the area and check out my street cred. I don’t think the neighborhood has changed much in the past 40 years.

My parents deeply believed that my lone little white face in the classrooms of what can only be accurately described as a ghetto would be the key to improving those schools. Sending me to public school in Southeast D.C. in the 1970′s was only one expression of their commitment to “living their liberal values”. It would take a generation or more, of course. So my immediate experience was less important than the long term ideals of racial equality and equal access. I would naturally pick up academic skills just from the environment of my home. Plus, my family could not afford private school.

In some ways, the experiment was enriching for me personally. In preschool, my teachers and classmates loved to braid my long, fine hair. They spent hours playing with it, giving me cornrows while teasing me for being “tender-headed”. I learned to play double dutch. I was not afraid of black people (as was the politically correct term for African Americans at the time) for the simple reason that they were the only people around me for most of the day. I became observant of behavior, rather than focused on race.  I played with my neighbors; a family of seven. That family was comprised of a single Mom, her elderly and disabled Mother, and her 5 children. They lived in the basement of the house three doors down. All the kids shared one big bare mattress on the floor, and played cool games like who could smash the most cockroaches with Mamaw’s slipper. I thought it was fun, like camping. Their TV was on all the time.

I did experience some culture shock when it came to lunch at school though. My pre-school teacher had no patience for a child who turned up her nose at a perfectly good hot lunch, just because she did not care for it. She tilted my head back and held my long braids in one strong hand while she force fed me mac and cheese with a serving spoon until I threw up on her. I still cannot eat mac and cheese to this day. But overall, the cultural exposure was positive for me. As an adult, I do have African American friends, whose perspective I value deeply. Over my lifetime, my understanding of cultural differences and the human bonds between all people has served me well.

First grade was much worse than pre-school and kindergarten. I walked through the park to get there. Past the old drunks and the disabled veterans, who periodically flashed me. Presumably that was educational in some way!!!  Past the angry teens and the drug dealers, who thankfully ignored my six year old self. I walked to the ugly brutalist cement block building and up the rusty metal stairs lit only by bare bulbs (which were often out or missing) into my classroom. There were about 25 kids in my class—I think nowadays the average is closer to 30. Our teacher was a long suffering lady whose name I cannot recall. She was very committed to discipline in the classroom. A child who used foul language was obliged to spend an hour standing in the trash can. A child who had “talked back” to her was whipped with a belt, bare bottomed, in front of the class. The whipping was provided by his Mother, who was called in to administer the discipline that teachers had recently been denied the authority to apply in 1972.

It was not all bad though. At the end of each day, the teacher would turn out the lights and tell us to put our heads on our desks. She would ask those of us who had been “good” to raise our hands. Then she would go around and deposit a small handful of candy in front of the “good” ones. We would eat it self righteously in front of the less well behaved children. There was no candy in my house, so I was always “good”. I was quiet and followed orders. I helped the boy who sat next to me with his worksheets every day. I also made best friends with the other white girl in the class. Her name was Claire and she was blonde and beautiful. Her father did PR for Jimmy Carter. Her Mother stayed home. My Father worked for H.E.W., and eventually he helped to develop the Department of Education as a separate Department while Carter was President. My Mother worked for the Museum of African art, then the AIA.

One day at recess there was a fight. Fights were common on the playground, but this one was special. I don’t remember what it was about. What I do recall quite vividly is that one of the big boys, probably a sixth or seventh grader, took one of my classmates by the back of the neck and repeatedly smashed his head against the concrete wall of the school. I stood rooted on the asphalt to the chalk drawing of a hopscotch board, unable to breathe for sheer terror. Blood came pouring out of his head. I could see something gray and gelatinous peeking through the bloody crack in his skull. Eventually the big boy dropped the limp and motionless little boy, and ran away from the building altogether. One of the girls ran indoors and found an adult. The ambulance came and took him away.

The next day not only was my classmate gone, Claire was not at school anymore either. Her parents had put her in private school. I asked to be sent to school with Claire, and my request was denied. I went on strike. I made myself appear ill each morning in every way I could imagine until my parents finally relented mid-year. They sent me to the private school, even though they really could not afford it. I was thrilled. My new class had twelve children. They were mostly white kids, but there were several different ethnic backgrounds represented: black, white, Hispanic, Asian….but we did have something important in common. Committed, educated parents who somehow had the means to scrape together the tuition fees for us to be there.

I loved Ms. Mora, the teacher. I was embarrassed to admit to her that I was unable to read the first worksheet she gave me. She whispered kindly that it did not matter, and allowed me to draw on the worksheets instead. The next day at worksheet time she took me onto her lap in a rocking chair she kept in a corner of the supply room. We went slowly through a book called “The Purple Turtle”. It took a long time, but I struggled my way through to the end. Ms. Mora then informed me that I had just completed the third grade reader.

By the time I actually hit third grade, I was an avid reader and a militant feminist. I organized a demonstration at recess. It lasted a week. We marched around the playground, protesting the boy’s refusal to allow the girls to play kickball. My poster said “Alex Peacher is a MSP”.

My parents were now in an all out war with each other. I was so traumatized, I could not pay attention in class. The liberal 1970′s teachers let me sit in the reading corner all year. The only project I remember was the unit on ancient Egypt. We built a life sized sarcophagus out of paper mache, and decorated it with paint and gold foil. We went to see King Tut at the Smithsonian. That was cool. But I missed learning to tell time, and the multiplication tables. My parents divorced. At the time that was a relief, though I developed chronic bronchitis which kept me out of school a lot for the rest of my school career. I think now they would say it was asthma; a condition those familiar with human attachment dynamics would say was likely a physical response to my Mother’s stress.

The summer before 6^th grade my parents both remarried and my Mom’s new husband got a job in Chicago. We moved to Evanston, a well-to-do university town on the north shore of Lake Michigan, right next to the city. One of the main attractions of Evanston at the time was access to the excellent public schools. My Mom signed me up for Martin Luther King Elementary…a magnet laboratory school on the west side of town. King Lab was racially diverse, but a social disaster for me.

You see Ms. Goldstein, merely sharing a classroom is not enough to overcome racial stratification. Chicago is very racially divided. The poor black kids had no interest in me, nor the rich white kids either. The rest of the middle class kids were as invisible as I wished I was. I had the wrong accent, the wrong jeans, the wrong gym shoes. I used long words. I did not play sports, which for many was a great leveler. I had no obvious niche in the rigid class structure. My school developed social skills were simply not up to the task of keeping up in the highly competitive environment. There were, however, many good teachers there. They were a diverse bunch too. I fondly remember my 6^th grade homeroom teacher, Mr. Thwaites. He was on a year-long exchange program from New Zealand, where he was a Middle School Principal. He took me aside one day when some other kids were teasing me and told me it was OK to be smart. My debt to him for saying that to me at that particular time in my life is incalculable. Our 7^th grade math teacher was a former basketball star from Northwestern. He had a pet tarantula. But he could not catch me up without those pesky multiplication tables, which I could not remember, no matter how many times I learned them. He was very kind to me though, and encouraged me to keep trying anyway. Ms. Williams, the 8^th grade English teacher, was all about Shakespeare. We read plays and sonnets all year long. We celebrated Shakespeare’s birthday with performances in the courtyard and a giant sheet cake with a portrait of the bard himself in colored icing. I believe she was what some old time politicians might have called a “known thespian”.

Despite the many good teachers, I did poorly at school. Perhaps these days I would be labeled with some sort of learning difference, or ADD. In today’s public school system, with very actively involved parenting, I would have probably been given OT and stimulant medication. Perhaps I might have done better. As it was, I left school in the 11^th grade to work in a restaurant. I took a GED. At 26, I finally went to college, needing over 2 years of remedial math to be able to take college algebra. I worked very hard and was an excellent student. Phi Beta Kappa. I went on to get a degree in Political Science, and was actively recruited for graduate school. By that time I was in my thirties. After a year of agonizing over the decision, I chose to raise a family instead, feeling the work of parenting would be healing for my soul, and that I could not devote sufficient time either to my studies or my family if I were to attempt both motherhood and an academic career at the same time.

It has been healing for my soul. Motherhood has also led me down the unexpected roads of attachment parenting and home schooling. The shock to my dogma which I experienced from the first moment I held my first child has not let up, and only increased with my second. I was certainly not going to be one of those mothers that co-slept. Until my baby had breathing problems at birth, and a nurse suggested that I sleep with her because my body would wake up if she stopped breathing. I was certainly not going to nurse anyone older than 2, (the recommended minimum length of time for immune benefits) until I tried to wean a 2 year old who felt weaning was equivalent to burning her with hot coals. I was certainly not going to home-school, until my precious 6 year old was losing weight and exhibiting symptoms of depression and anxiety, and our pediatrician asked what her teacher was like. I was certainly not going to unschool…there are things you just need to know, right? Until I learned more about how the brain works, and what actually happens when you allow a child to be a person and treat them as such. In the past few years I have watched my six year old son teach himself to read, and to add and subtract, along with many other “academic” skills. I have learned that the best support I can give them is facilitating their natural curiosity, and enrolling them in the responsibility for educating themselves as a lifelong journey. In my own journey, I have confronted many of my assumptions about ideology and parenting, and found that love must be the guiding principle in my decision making.  Also I have learned that personal agency, community consciousness and critical thought, not classroom instruction, are the true bedrock of civil society. Do we want to be a society of sheep, blindly sacrificing our time and talents on the altar of consumption? Separating ourselves from others by swallowing what we are told we want? Defining ourselves by our purchases?

Or do we want to take the more challenging path of honestly observing ourselves and our surroundings, making difficult choices which seek to balance our ideals against each other?

So Ms. Goldstein, perhaps none of this means anything to you. Perhaps there are points you agree with, yet fail to support your political agenda and will thus be ignored. But this is the true experience of a progressive home-school Mom, living her values out loud on a daily basis.  And I am not alone.  A whole tribe of liberal homeschoolers have my back, and I have theirs.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Baselice, Chapel Hill

read the slate article here

So listening to the SOTU, I was struck by the President’s use of the term “Responsible Homeowner” in reference to a proposed bill that would expand aid to families “struggling to make their mortgage payments”. I found myself immediately wondering: what exactly would qualify as a responsible homeowner? I mean, taking care of mortgage [...]]]>

So listening to the SOTU, I was struck by the President’s use of the term “Responsible Homeowner” in reference to a proposed bill that would expand aid to families “struggling to make their mortgage payments”. I found myself immediately wondering: what exactly would qualify as a responsible homeowner? I mean, taking care of mortgage payments is only one of many responsibilities a homeowner has to manage. Most homeowners also have families, the responsibilities around which, dare I say, perhaps sometimes trump those of paying the mortgage and other bills. So being responsible can take many forms.

Not according to the President and Congress. Evidently, a responsible homeowner is one that is current on their mortgage payments.

text of responsible homeowner bill

That’s right folks. The families who are responsible, and therefore deserve to have their mortgages refinanced at today’s historically low rates, are the ones who are somehow still able to make the payments regardless of drastic changes to their financial circumstances. The people who need help most don’t qualify, since their need for help defines them as irresponsible.

It makes me think hard about the definition of responsible. I want to share with you a story about a family struggling with mortgage payments due to the economic crisis, and you decide for yourselves if they are responsible or not.

This is a true story about a family who lost a big corporate job over four years ago when Dad’s company was consolidating entire departments to keep their stock price up, just before the economy started to tank.

Picture a sole provider Dad, who had worked his way up in the same company for eleven years. Through expertise and hard work he had reached a mid-level management salary despite not having a college degree. This household had chosen to purchase the least expensive home they could find in the best school district, moving across several states to be near a sibling. This choice was part of a long term plan to keep the family close in order to be able to help one another. One of the reasons they moved to this particular area was the combination of lower housing costs and good quality schools. They left a city they loved to make this move because they thought it was the best long term choice for their family, hoping to convince their parents to retire to the warmer state with a lower cost of living so the siblings could eventually share the work of caring for their parents as they aged, and the little ones could grow up with the security of an extended family nearby.

This family chose a simple, older home without many modern amenities at a purchase price well below what they qualified for during the heady days of the housing boom. They had a good income and excellent credit. Because they had doubled up payments on their first home purchase, (a condo) they had a substantial down payment. The home was not in perfect condition, it had issues. But it also had a nice big yard and room for both a home office for Dad, and for a second child.

Shortly after the birth of their second child, this family realizes that their plans for Mom to go back to work need to be put on long term hold because the oldest child does not thrive in an institutional school environment. After much soul searching, the family decides that private school is incompatible with their long term financial plan, and home schooling becomes the obvious best choice for that child.

So, now you have a young family, two young kids, one a school age home school-er, one a toddler. Suddenly, after an excellent performance review, Dad’s job is eliminated…. right at the point that thousands of companies start shedding jobs like dandelion seeds in the wind.

There are almost no job listings.  Companies are laying off workers by the thousands each month.  The news is full of the financial crisis.  The housing market is crashing.  Many homes are sitting on the market.  Many are in foreclosure.  This is not actually a recession, it is a structural adjustment.  The results are equivalent to NAFTA for middle class people.  Most of these jobs will not return.

Dad looks for another position, learning quickly that the job that just disappeared evidently requires an MBA according to the market. But he only has two years of college credit.

He applies for every open job that looks remotely possible, including night shifts at low paying jobs that could bring in some income while leaving him available to look for work during the day. But no one bites. Not even when he applies for jobs doing things like stocking shelves or telemarketing. He does not meet the criteria for these jobs either. Presumably his experience is too….executive….for that kind of work and hiring managers at retail stores and level one sales jobs feel he would be a poor fit and probably leave as soon as a better paying job became available. Which is of course true.

Mom looks for a job. But even with her BA, and background in finance, she has been out of the market for too long. Her skills are rusty, her recent experience as a SAHM is not viewed as economically valuable. Everything she remotely qualifies for pays less than her child care costs would be for the youngest child, never mind the concerns about sending the oldest one back into an environment that was causing great distress. She looks into providing home daycare, and discovers her house would not meet local regulations for a daycare provider.

She works hard at cutting expenses, eliminating anything they can define as a “want” rather than a “need”. The family all let their hair grow long. Mom’s exercise and acupuncture regimes have become unpardonable luxuries. She stops indulging in these, quitting the gym and yoga classes. She focuses her attention on economically productive activities…..growing a vegetable garden, cooking everything from scratch including bread and yogurt, hunting for clothing and household goods at the thrift store. She frequents the dump for useful cast off items. She cancels the cable. She makes Halloween costumes and gifts for birthdays and Christmas by hand, usually out of scraps. She cooks, sews, felts….realizing the economic value of her efforts meets or exceeds what she would make in income at any of the jobs she is “qualified “ for, and she is taking good care of her family at the same time. One month she sells her jewelry to pay bills, keeping back only her wedding ring and a few heirloom pieces she wants to pass to her daughter. She works very hard to be a good neighbor and develops strong friendships in the home school community, realizing in the process how community ties enable her to trade favors for things the family can no longer afford, like classes and camps for the children. She goes to swaps, picking through her friends’ cast-offs to find clothes and shoes for herself and he kids. Used toys are now acceptable gifts.

Dad variously tries consulting and sales, and works at several failing small businesses. He spends long hours at the computer, often many more than he did when he had a paying job. These ventures bring in some income, but not enough to consistently and reliably pay the bills. The family depletes the home equity line of credit. Since they are juggling each month to pay the bills, Dad ties the checking account to a credit card to catch any overdrafts. This is a mistake. Soon the credit card payments are too high. They contact the credit card company. They close the card and begin a repayment program at a reduced rate. They begin to rotate bill payments, often waiting to pay until a service is about to be disrupted. They start to ignore the telephone, since debt collectors now call the house constantly. They increase their barter activity, and begin selling household items on eBay. Dad begins scavenging and reselling what he can glean cleaning out friend’s garages and abandoned homes. The family becomes adept at assessing resale value of things they find, and becomes familiar with eBay, half.com, consignment clothing shops and the used bookstore. They explore their artistic talents to find those they can trade for goods and services they now cannot afford, and possibly generate a bit of cash here and there to buy food or gas for the car.

At this point, they look seriously at the possibility of selling their home, and realize the poor market would require them to make costly repairs before even listing the house, which is likely to sit anyway a long time before selling. AND, with their newly poor credit and lack of reliable income, where will they live? They decide to withdraw some money from their retirement, certain that a few months down the road, things will be better and Dad will have a job. The long term investment prospects for their property are good, given the rate that people are moving into the area, so the house may, in fact, be a more stable investment than the money they have in the retirement account anyway. All they have understood about the market, home ownership as an investment…all this has changed.  The future is very uncertain.  They remain hopeful. But things are pretty bad.

Mom talks with a bankruptcy lawyer, who advises her that bankruptcy would be a good idea, but only after Dad gets a steady job since employers now use credit checks as a factor in vetting job candidates. She feels the lawyer is selling bankruptcy, and decides to at least wait until things are worse.

Two years pass. Things get worse. Dad has intermittent work, but it is never quite enough to keep up. They spend all the retirement money, taking the account they contributed to so diligently for a decade down to $1.69. This at huge penalty since income taxes are determined viewing the withdrawal as current income on top of the 10% penalty they are already paying to withdraw early. The credit card payments have now become impossible. They go into default on the credit card, but continue making payments to the card company, who claim the amount they are able to pay is not acceptable, since it does not meet the minimum requirements. They pay something each month anyway.

Dad takes advantage of a state program which provides career counseling for displaced workers. He signs up for a subsidized program to prepare for a technical certification, hoping to improve his value in the market.

Companies begin hiring, in a very cautious way.  There are a few openings. Very few.

And…the job search process has changed. First off, there are very very few traditional salaried jobs available. Most companies now use contract labor to meet short term needs, perhaps hiring traditional employees out of the pool of contractors. Many firms just use new contractors all the time, or renew contracts over and over, effectively outsourcing the hiring and benefit burden onto contract firms who offer minimum benefit packages or none at all.

The way employees are selected has changed too. Now instead of HR professionals looking through resumes, robot search agents troll the internet, hunting for keywords which indicate that a candidate may meet the criteria set out by the hiring firm (client).  Anxious to be certain that the contractor will be able to perform the work, and confident that a labor market flooded with unemployed talent will yield the ideal “Cinderella” contractor, criteria is set as stringently as possible. Which means among other things that our Dad in question, being honest on his resume about his education and experience, gets ZERO calls. The robots cannot find him, since he does not have a college degree, which they associate with his skillset. Because he does not meet the criteria for the job he was doing very successfully for the past 8 years, the robots cannot find him; no hiring managers see his resume.

Finally, Dad follows the advice of several friends and lies on his online resume, listing a BA where he actually only has two years of college. He lists it in a liberal arts major, totally irrelevant to any professional work he has done in his 15 year career. He also re-tailors his experience to meet a newly emerging career path which has significant elements of the job he was doing before, but is far less complex. He is hired within a week as a contractor. The client likes his work, and continues renewing his contract for a year. Dad puts in long hours of unpaid overtime, and has to stop attending certification classes. He juggles his reported hours since the client only wants to pay for 40 hours a week. Sometimes he takes a morning or an afternoon off to keep his hours within the limit. On those days he looks at jobs, and pursues hobbies that he hopes might lead to supplemental income.

Occasionally he gets a gig building websites. The family tries to catch up on things like doctor and dentist visits, only to discover that the insurance provided by the contracting agent is chimerical, and many procedures like lab work are not covered. They build up medical bills that stretch the family’s ability to meet even the minimal payment plans they make with each particular provider. They begin juggling those. They pay off the smaller ones, and some of the larger ones go into default.

Immediately following a review at which Dad is assured his contract will be renewed, the client company Dad is working for lays off tens of thousands. The contractors are first to go.

Savings completely exhausted, they are unable to pay the mortgage. They contact the mortgage company and request a forbearance. Because their credit is tarnished by the past few years, they do not qualify for a refinance at a lower rate, even though current rates are half the rate on their existing mortgage.  A current rate would save them hundreds of dollars a month.   They complete the paperwork for a forbearance, which would give them a three month break on payments, and add those payments to the end of the loan. They stop paying the credit card company.

Dad jumps quickly into the job market, stopping only to sign up for unemployment benefits (up to this point not taken), food stamps, and medicare for the kids. Mom and Dad don’t qualify for medicare, since their unemployment income is too high (at 20% of their previous income). The family juggles every bill now, struggling to stay warm and fed on 20% of previous income. The food stamps are a huge benefit, they would not be able to manage even basic needs otherwise. They borrow money from family, who also give them firewood as a Christmas gift.

The marriage is strained, and they go through a difficult period with lots of fighting. The take advantage of social services for counseling and things improve. Despite all this, they manage to maintain a reasonably happy household most of the time. Their friendships are strong. The children are thriving.

That Christmas the real Santa Claus shows up in the form of many seemingly random anonymous gifts of gift cards, cash, food items and wrapped presents for the children. These are from their friends, their community. In many ways it is the best Christmas ever.

Dad applies for contract work anywhere—out of town out of state, global, whatever. He gets lots and lots of phone calls from India.

Evidently first line of hiring has been outsourced to India. Recruiters for whom English is a second or third language send out email blasts to any potential hires that are pulled in by the resume trolling robots. The family derives great amusement from the computerized transcripts of voice mail messages from recruiters with Indian accents.

Dad gets 3-5 calls from recruiters a day. The way it works is this: after an initial interview with the first line recruiter, the candidate is passed to an account manager. If the account manager feels it is a good fit, they present the candidate’s resume to the client. If the client feels it is a possible fit, they schedule a phone interview. If this goes well, there may be more phone interviews or perhaps a face-to-face.

Dad has many interviews, at various stages in this process. He can hardly keep track of which job is being discussed. But he does not quite fit easily into any particular niche. He can do lots of different things. Given that there are 5.5 candidates for any given position, companies are certain they can get their wish lists met exactly. He could do a lot of these jobs. But he is not an exact fit for the criteria of very many. And companies are looking for Cinderella. But the glass slipper is too small…it is a much reduced salary with little or no benefits that will evaporate at midnight or after a few months when the contract is up.

He gets an offer from a local company. It pays quite a bit less than his last contract, but he is grateful to accept. Unlike the previous contracting agency , this one asks for proof of his college degree. No degree is specified in the job requirements. Dad contacts the hiring manager at the client company, and lets him know his situation. He writes about putting BA on his online profile to get past the robots, stating that he hopes the offer will not be withdrawn. There is no response. He fills out the agency paperwork truthfully. After several weeks of back and forth confusion with the contracting firm, Dad is informed that the firm has lost the contract.

Dad resumes his search.  He changes his online resume to say he has a BA from the University of Hard Knox, hoping to bypass the robots, without confusing the recruiters. He continues to get lots of calls. Several opportunities look promising. Progress is slow. Many companies say they are in budget discussions, and re-evaluation procedures regarding the jobs they have listed for hire.

The mortgage company, instead of granting forbearance, sells their loan to a “servicing agent”. The servicing agent informs the family that they will have to re-apply for forbearance with them, since the forbearance process had been interrupted by the sale of their mortgage. This company has a reputation online for making homeowners jump through multiple hoops seeking forbearance or refinancing, only to be foreclosed anyway. They demand the homeowners sign paperwork authorizing them as owners of the loan. The family puts this off, concerned about being scammed. Dad does some research and finds a little known state program for mortgage assistance that they may qualify for. After several false starts, he has a face to face interview with the agency and quickly completes the relevant paperwork. After 45 days and many more documents, the program sends notice that they have enacted a stay of foreclosure for 90 days, and accepted the family into the program which qualifies them for financial assistance with the mortgage payments up to a certain dollar amount until they attain salaried employment.  If such employment pays significantly less than their previous income, they may qualify for a refinance at the newer, lower rates. They are still waiting for confirmation that the program is in effect. The servicing agent still calls the house 10-15 times a day.

Are these people responsible? They now have so much debt they will never get out from under it. They have terrible credit. They are prioritizing family and community, while trying their best to keep whatever agreements they have to pay for basic things such as home, food, healthcare…..

Are these people “responsible homeowners”? Do they deserve this program? How about a lower rate? Are they a good risk? Are those two things actually related?

Those of you who read my blog may have been surprised at my lack of commentary so far on the occupy movement. The truth is, my life lately has been overwhelming, and each piece I have tried to write has become completely outdated before I could finish.

Nonetheless, the occupation fascinates me. [...]]]>

Those of you who read my blog may have been surprised at my lack of commentary so far on the occupy movement. The truth is, my life lately has been overwhelming, and each piece I have tried to write has become completely outdated before I could finish.

Nonetheless, the occupation fascinates me. I have been thinking for years about what it might take to galvanize the frustration and hopelessness I see all around into a strong, flexible and widespread movement for change. My search for ideas eventually led me to the work of Gene Sharp—aka the “Godfather of Nonviolent Revolution around the World”.  A fierce proponent of non-violent resistance as a moral force for change, Mr. Sharp has written how-to manuals on overthrowing dictatorships, which have been used from Chile to South Africa to Tahir Square. These manuals are available in PDF from the Albert Einstein Institute. I have read them, and tried to imagine how the principles of nonviolent action Sharp describes in his work can be used to affect change a political system where most people operate under the powerful illusion of political participation and where coercion is accomplished mostly through the mind, using tools of PR and marketing. (For a brilliant analysis and a chronicle of how consumer society and the manufacture of consent were created in the United States, watch Century of the Self on YouTube ) Over the past century, coercion through marketing and PR has allowed cultural forces to produce and sustain an unconscionable shift of resources from the many towards the few, a situation which has finally reached a crisis point for even a society of people who were acculturated to trade ever more labor and resources for the status of ever greater consumption. Our families and our communities and our planet just can’t take it anymore. Hence, the occupation and related protests signal the failure of the manufacture of consent. Of course, when these softer tools fail, those in power always have violence to fall back upon. This underlying reality is generally far from the minds of many middle class Americans, though it is certainly never far from the consciousness of minorities, immigrants and the poor, who know all too well that they usually stand on the wrong side of the law, no matter what they do or don’t do. The rest of us are, however, becoming ever more aware of the potential for violence which underlies our current social order, and also of whose finger is on the trigger.

The first layer of underlying force in modern society is the police. Police, whose job is officially “to serve and protect”, all too often serve and protect those in power and neglect or abuse ordinary citizens. The practical function of the police is to maintain the status quo of class and power, using the rule of law. The very term “law enforcement” means the force behind the law. Now on the surface, we have agency and political participation in this country, so our laws are supposedly made by and for the people. This means, at its basis, that the law is considered legitimate because as a group, we citizens have agreed through the political process to what the rules should be. The police are therefore considered legitimate, because they are just enforcing the laws we the people have made and agreed to. These are laws protecting us from rogue members of society, who are unwilling to go along with the rules made by the group.

That is the way it is supposed to work. What we are waking up to, finally, is the shocking and tragic fact that this democratic ideal is far from the truth. The now internationally infamous Pepper Spray incident at UC Davis provides a startling example of how police use violence against citizens to punish dissent. Dissent, by the way, is not necessarily a rogue act, it is a political act protected by the constitution. While it may be inconvenient at times, dissent is a critical part of agency and political participation in any democratic society. To punish peaceful dissent as a crime (as in the pepper spray incident) is an act of authoritarian violence. It was in response to this act of police violence that the UC Davis students staged a very dramatic nonviolent protest, well in keeping with the principles laid out by Mr Sharp. Non violent protest relies upon the power of shame, the power of morality to undermine the power of violence and force. This is covered extensively in the writing of Gene Sharp and other proponents of peaceful dissent.

There are two main points in Gene Sharp’s work. One is that in an exploitative system, the power of violent force lies with the exploiters, and dissenters are seriously outclassed when it comes to the use of violence. This means another force, moral force, is far more likely to succeed in the long run. The other point Gene Sharp makes it that exploitation requires the cooperation of the exploited. From Roman times and earlier, it is clear that those in power require the cooperation of slaves and serfs and other exploited classes in order to get stuff done. Food production, construction, maintenance, all kinds of actual work is performed by the exploited. Things that actually need to happen in order for society to function. The exploited must somehow participate in their own exploitation for the system to work. Generally this is accomplished by a combination of official morality, such as law and religion, backed up by the threat of privation and violence. So, if we want to change an exploitative system, we must, in solidarity, cease our cooperation with it. We have to resist; to use the power of the many over the few. Collective non compliance is the answer. This is the secret behind non-violent resistance. Resistance is refusal to cooperate, refusal to participate in a broken unfair system or process. And public expression of nonviolent resistance, the power of shame, is the most effective weapon we have to address our broken social contract.

And our system is indeed broken at many levels. Authorities such as university administrators and campus police are morally obligated to protect the citizenship rights of students. The very idea that pepper spray would seem to the authorities like a legitimate response to peacefully protesting college students shows how sick and crazy we have become. Yet the student response to the pepper spray incident was a fascinating illustration of the power of shame. Video of the incident quickly went viral. The use of violence against peaceful protesters brought out even more protesters, who lined up silently along the path between the building where a press conference with Chancellor Linda Katehi was held, and occupied the path all the way to the Chancellor’s car. They refused to leave the premises, and sat silently as they watched her walk to her vehicle, after having waited several hours for the chancellor to exit the building. Her exit became a walk of shame, their silent protest making her fully aware that her authorization of the use of force against peacefully protesting students was a shameful act, which had been witnessed by the larger community. They may not have said anything, but the message was loud and clear. We see you, we know who you are and what you did. You cannot hide behind your office, your status, your security officers.

Shame is a powerful tool. We are profoundly social creatures, and we care tremendously what others think of us. We use shame to curtail anti-social or culturally inappropriate behavior. Shame is critical to nonviolent protest, since it makes obvious the moral implications of the situation in question. Shunning a friend or lover or family member whom you feel has wronged you will hurt that person, but shunning a public figure or group who have wronged one or many, in a broadly public way…this is a powerful tool to capable of producing lasting change. Violence is shameful, and those who authorize it generally try to hide behind the edifice of law or obligation to an office, they are usually loath to be held personally responsible for the use of violence unless they feel they have made an adequate case that such force is required to preserve the greater good. When the greater good is in question, the battle of semantics is generally fought ahead of and along side any actual use of violence. This is where studying the past becomes useful. Of course many of the principles of nonviolent protest are well known. Gandhi and Martin Luther King come immediately to mind as leaders of protest movements who adhered strongly to the idea that fighting an unfair system must be carried out in the realm of morality since those in power generally have quite an advantage in the arena of use of force. Both Indian Independence and American Civil Rights movements were successful largely due to sustained campaigns of nonviolent resistance and protest. Non-violent resistance and protest make clear to the larger (now global) public that actions of force against peaceful protesters are wrong and unfair—shameful. This provides a moral framework encouraging further acts of resistance and protest; a virtuous cycle which hopefully culminates in systemic changes to unfair and exploitative social structures or processes. The silent walk of shame eventually produced a public apology from Linda Katehi. Let that be a lesson for the rest of us. As musician Peter Gabriel said in his song Biko, “The eyes of the world are watching now”. We see you. We know what you did.

Welcome to Kochistan part 2. The Women of Kochistan.

The other day my daughter came in from the back porch to tell me there were two ladies outside—and she had no idea what they wanted. Having some idea, I wiped my hands on my apron and came out onto the [...]]]> Originally published at http://handthatfeedsyou.blogspot.com

Welcome to Kochistan part 2. The Women of Kochistan.

The other day my daughter came in from the back porch to tell me there were two ladies outside—and she had no idea what they wanted. Having some idea, I wiped my hands on my apron and came out onto the porch. Two sixty-ish women in flowered dresses approached my back steps. One greeted me, and said they were on a “Christian Mission” in my area. I reserved judgment and let her go through her intro spiel. When she got to the part about how she understood that most people had their own church, but since I had children, wasn’t I worried about what was going to happen in the world, and with Obama and everything, what did I think was going to happen, I gently told her I’d prefer not to discuss religion with her and wished her a blessed day. The flowered Christians made a civil retreat. But I am indeed worried about what is going to happen to my world. Especially since I have children though not necessarily because of “Obama and everything”. It is becoming evident to me that for quite some time now there has been an organized, well-funded push by corporate and ultra right-wing interests to hijack the United States from its people, and re-orient us into a Plutocratic Corptocracy. This is occurring at a variety of different levels, using a broad range of tactics including, though certainly not limited to, pulling hard on the strings of fear that hold together the fundamentalist Christians. And it has clearly been working. Owing to the prominent role of the Koch brothers in this effort, I have (only partly in jest) been calling our evolving nation “Kochistan”, though recent events suggest “Murdochistan” might be just as apt.

Americans are finally becoming aware of this reality. The recent union busting in Wisconsin and similar efforts in other states were a major wake up call for many people. Dismantling the last of the unions, especially when tied to the new powers of “emergency financial managers” at state level is scary enough. Yet with the ascendency of the tea party into national and local politics, we also get the rolling back of any environmental protections aimed at preserving life on the planet for our descendants, as well as an onslaught of hate-filled misogynistic legislation aimed at not only abortion rights but the basic human rights of women and gay people. Together these efforts create a web of changes many describe as the advent of…fascism in the United States. The union of corporate and right-wing conservative interests with political power is potentially a short road to fascism, even as I admit that the term has become a somewhat meaningless pejorative for any oppressive regime. The Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower feared does seem to have brought us to a state of endless war and the values of liberty and opportunity do seem a fading light in the distance.

Bald fear of the future, tied to the experience of dwindling opportunity is the most immediate concern for many people. With the financial crisis and recession taking precedence in the concerns of most of my friends, the onslaught of fascism is hardly foremost on their minds. The people I know are collectively dealing with massive layoffs, cuts in pay, and overwork as a result of staff reductions. Employers, emboldened to demand ever higher rates of return on each employee’s time, add pressure. This trend is paired with ever lower salaries, bonuses and benefits.

Most of the actual legislation appears to be aimed at two objectives: removing or relaxing any environmental protections and rolling back women’s rights. Literally hundreds (thousands?) of bills have been put forward this year, and many have passed which limit abortion rights (or at least restrict access) and remove safety nets that allow women to support themselves and their children without a husband….viewed from a distance it is really dramatic. As a woman, and especially as the mother of a pre-teen daughter, I find this terrifying. In several states, it is now possible for a miscarriage to be treated as a felony. When I was a child, equal rights for women was a serious discussion, there was even an amendment to the Constitution on the table. Needless to say, the amendment failed. At the time, most of the conversation I heard amongst the grownups was that the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) could not pass because it would allow/require women to be in active combat in a draft situation. What I do not remember being discussed at the time was that according to the tide of history, the battlefield has often been the clearest path to legal equality for any subjugated group. Evidently though, this is not true for the women of Kochistan. These days women are in active combat situations, but it seems equality is moving backwards, rather than forwards, even for our soldiers. Of course one can always hope that the current backlash is temporary and the tide of history will overpower the current trend and return its momentum towards legal equality for all. But that hope fades with each new troglodyte bill and with Michele Bachmann‘s candidacy for President.

I try to read a fairly broad swath of periodicals in order to compile my opinions from the space between competing narratives. Among the publications I read regularly is The Atlantic. June’s cover of The Atlantic features a woman in full veil (eyes showing, not a burka) and chador—at least I assume it is a woman—and the title: “Is this the face of Arab democracy?” The title brings up a lot of obvious questions about our cultural assumptions and prejudices, but I will leave those alone for the moment and focus on the image itself and what it brought up for me.

Chador, for those unfamiliar, is a large circular cape—traditionally worn in Iran as a covering for respectable women when they go out in public. Since the Iranian revolution, the chador is traditionally black (though this has not always been so). It is generally seen now accompanied by various other forms of hijab—modesty—which essentially means a veil between the sexes. A veil worn by women whenever they appear outside their homes. A veil of “modesty” covering all but the eyes and hands. Evidently there is a lot of room for interpretation of the prophet Mohammed’s views on modesty—the language of the Koran on the subject is equivocal. Similar garments are worn throughout the Muslim world., with various degrees of modesty being expressed through a wide variety of garments from beautiful decorative headscarves to the tent-like burka, which has a lace panel to hide even the eyes from view. I want to say here I am resolutely in favor of this option when freely chosen by the women who wear it. I have heard that hijab can be a tremendous relief from the pressures of public presentation in an environment where women are mercilessly judged on their looks. And I have learned that the history of veiling is heavily influenced by class and social status. Higher status women have been historically more likely to be covered in public. In Iran, at one point servants and prostitutes were not legally permitted hijab. They had to venture out into public without the social protection provided by veiling. This fact may go far to explain the willingness of modern Muslim women to accept and even embrace the requirement to be covered in public. Nonetheless the issue of hijab has often been part of political changes in many countries–changes which clearly designate women as second class citizens at best. It is also a point of contention in the Western world, often seen as a symbol of “otherness”. During the past 30 years, many places have used hijab requirements to push women out of the public sphere, or even into it, as in France.

I am reminded by all this of my dear friend Marita, who is from Iran. She has told me plenty of stories about living in Chador. It was not optional for her—it was required of her in Iran, even though she is Armenian and not a Muslim. She always hated it. Her big dream in life was to go to college and to ride a bicycle. She is now doing both those things, here in the US, but hers is another story. The story that I come back to is one she told me about women’s swim days. Iran gets hot. Evidently men and women swim on different days, by decree. Sexual apartheid is very rigorous in Iran. She told me the women must swim in full hijab. Imagine for a moment, trying to swim in a chador. Articles I have read recently on Iran tell a different story—that some women even wear bikinis on the women’s swim days—perhaps things have changed over the past ten years since she emigrated–but Marita told me that each year someone would drown. Usually a young girl new to the garments, who had not yet learned to navigate within them fully. Pulled down under the heavy water by her billowing black skirts and cape and veil. Horrified, I asked how they could stand it. Marita told me“The people…. they have nothing. They are so happy just to get wet.”

Right. Somehow, from environmentalism to modesty, the brunt of the burden of meeting social standards seems too fall most heavily upon the women. With all the legal changes brought about by the current war on women, I wondered what chador-like symbol will be forced upon us in the nation of Kochistan?

And the answer I come up with is…..Dagny Traggart. No hijab. Not modesty. Supreme, sublime arrogance. The tyranny of objectification within the context of objectivism. Ann Coulter. Sarah Palin. Michele Bachmann. Women who are at once beautiful and arrogant and predatory; who are admired for these very qualities (well, I don’t find Ann Coulter at all beautiful but she is certainly tall and thin and blonde, which often passes for beauty in our culture). The admiration and emulation of the predator is our Kochistani form of oppression. This is true for men as well as women though that is a topic for another time. Here I am speaking of the tyranny of continual, unrelenting competition between women as opposed to social forms which foster solidarity. How many women can ever hope to compete at that Dagny Taggart level? Very few. Imagine going bikini shopping with your frienemy the underwear model. I’d almost prefer to swim in a cape, and I look pretty good for being middle aged. As a woman, to admire or even despise the power babes of Kochistan is to acknowledge their superiority and to accept one’s place lower down the food chain, and to accept separation from other women by accepting the doctrine of competitiveness. I understand Michele Bachmann is running for President. It appears the Republican strategy for connecting to women is to separate us from one another. To provide women with nearly impossible role models which simultaneously allow us to imagine some kind of agency and equality, by picturing ourselves in their shoes, and to force us to either become predators or to accept our inferior status as prey. To drown us in the chador of our own insecurity, and thus keep us from uniting against the forces which would keep us subordinated.

In Ayn Rand’s libertarian propaganda novel, Atlas Shrugged, the character Dagny Taggart knows from an early age that people do not like her because she is truly superior. She is smarter, stronger, better looking, more fortunate than the others. In true objectivist form, she is her best, truest self when she uses those advantages to their fullest, without apology or even consideration given to those who are less fortunate. She is a predator. Objectivism is a predatory philosophy. This is why it is so appealing to those who wish to keep and even enhance the status and power structures that are already in place. Like the divine right of kings, objectivism justifies the imbalance of resources and power within a larger moral framework. The morality expressed in Ayn Rand’s novels is the glorification of the selfish self. It is the “invisible hand” of the market at work…the idea that individuals relentlessly pursuing narrow self-interest will somehow magically bring about an optimal distribution of resources. Uber-capitalism, free market fundamentalism—call it what you will. I find objectivism to be profoundly immoral, but everyone has a right to his/her own opinion—at least for the moment. I do find it deeply disturbing that Ayn Rand novels are a centerpiece of educational programs that call themselves conservative—especially since I had not always viewed conservatives as predators. But this is what they have become. In modern conservatism, traditional patriarchal morality dovetails with predatory social and economic values to create an oppressive regime here in Kochistan. Our chador may be invisible, but many of us will drown in it nonetheless.