(MG) Lots of my mother's family settled in Montana and live there still. It's a different life style. My brother John and I visited the state, stopping in Havre, back in 1967. We climbed a hill. John was so captivated by the setting sun, he wanted to take a picture. We had left the camera behind. I looked at how far back down the hill it was, and said, "No way, John. We'll never get back here before the sun sets."
(MG) But he REALLY wanted to take the picture, and so he shimmied down that hill, retrieved the camera, and scurried right on back up, in plenty of time for photos. I so admired my brothers persistence, perseverance and optimism.
(MG) When our family moved to the 60010 zip code in 1964, John was about to enter 4th grade. He took a lot of bullying, being a small child and not at all gifted in athletics. But he had a plan. He would run for 8th grade student council president. He started his campaign early ... in 1964. Worked it for more than four years, and was elected with over 1,000 votes to about 50 for his opponent, Peter.
(MG) Later, John and Peter moved on to NYC, to bigger and better things - theatre, television. John made it to Broadway and performed in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with both Donny Osmond and the guy from the BeeGees. Peter wrote scripts for various TV shows. In John's rent-controlled building, a new apartment was opening up. John thought highly enough of Peter to tell him that John would be renting the new apartment, so Peter could have John's old one.
(MG) When John went to rent the new apartment, he was too late. Peter had beaten him to the lease. Let us just say that Peter had learned a thing or two about politics. They both laughed when telling the story. I miss my brother, so much, even after all these years. I miss Peter too.
(MG) But John's dogged determination (as compared to my wimpy surrender) characterize much of his life. Few things came easily to him (although his voice was a heavenly gift), so he had to work hard for his successes. A few things came quite easily to me. I took successes for granted. Worked pretty well until a massive failure circa age 30. I wasn't prepared to cope with failure, and my whole world fell apart. Major depressive episode, etc, etc.
(MG) So, you can probably imagine how crappy I felt, when John consoled me, saying, "You know, with AIDS, I have a death sentence and all, and some days I feel pretty low. But I simply can't imagine what it would be like to be perpetually depressed for months on end."
(MG) His dying words to our sister, Marianne, were these: "I'm afraid, Marianne."
Marianne: "It'll be okay John. You've been in the hospital before."
John: "That's not what I'm afraid of."
Marianne: "Well, you've taken the medication before."
John: "That's not what I'm afraid of."
Marianne: "John, what is it you're afraid of?"
John: "I'm afraid THEY'LL never know ... how much I loved them."
MG: And having said those words, he died. Marianne could barely speak them at
the celebration of John's life held at some theatre on 42nd street. Those words
spoke to me. They still do. I hope John knew how much I loved him, how much
I admired him, looked up to him, and that I always knew, that he was by far
the better man, the one worthy of emulation and admiration.
(MG) He was a wonderful man, an incredible human being. He was my inspiration.
When The Class War Goes Local by David Sirota
When most non-Montanans think of Montana, they think of “A River Runs Through It” — they don’t think of the central front in the war on anything (except, maybe trout, if you consider fly fishermen “warriors”). But for the last week, this sparsely populated state has been the central front in the war on the middle class, and the onslaught Big Sky country experienced shows that this fight could be coming to a town near you.
Our story begins in the Montana legislature, though it could be anywhere, as this lawmaking body is a microcosm of America’s ideological divides. Democrats pushed to boost education spending and give each resident homeowner a $400 property tax rebate. To fund the plan, they proposed closing tax loopholes and strengthening tax enforcement in a state where roughly half of all Fortune 500 companies doing business get away with paying less than $500 a year in taxes.
But such a move offends conservative politicians and the corporate lobbyists who crowd the hallways of state capitols like the one in Helena — and these types don’t take lightly to being offended.
The GOP-controlled Montana House pressed a tax cut for corporations financed by spending cuts, including one eliminating all public-health programs. When last week it came time to negotiate a compromise, Republican class warriors dug in further, offering amendments to kill Democrats’ proposal to beef up corporate tax enforcement.
The result? The legislature ended without a budget, and Montana is now on the brink of its own version of the 1996 Gingrich-Clinton government shutdown. It is a troubling situation for middle-class Montanans, but for anti-government Republican politicians and lobbyists, it is a big victory in their war on the middle class.
Days later, Montana’s U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, a Democrat, joined Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in headlining an economic-development summit in Butte, a devastated city that is one of America’s all-too-common casualties in this economic war. Once the bustling capital of the copper industry, Butte today is known for its salt-of-the-earth inhabitants and for its canyon-like Superfund site known as the Berkeley Pit — a defunct open-pit mine that the Anaconda Company abandoned with a pool of deadly chemicals at the bottom.
The captains of global finance attending this summit no doubt saw Butte’s boarded-up brick buildings and rusting mine shaft skeletons from the windows of their private jets that crowded the town’s airport. Yet, they delivered speeches as if they were attending an executive conference at a Caribbean resort.
Corporate leaders looked out over Butte’s wreckage and not only trumpeted the supposedly booming economy, but then berated worker protection laws and lavished praise on the “benefits” of free-trade policies — policies that have decimated wages and job security by forcing American workers, farmers and small businesses to compete in a global race to the bottom.
Executive Dan Rice of Printing for Less criticized Montana for being “an employee-slanted state;” for considering a bill asking businesses to take into account the environmental and community impact of their decisions; and, thus, for being hostile to job growth. He didn’t explain why, if this was true, Montana has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation.
Similarly, the $20-million-a-year CEO of McGraw-Hill, Harold McGraw III, claimed America’s trade policies have “had a net positive impact on U.S. manufacturing jobs.” This, despite 3 million manufacturing jobs lost since the China free-trade pact was signed in 2000.
That so many major players trekked to Montana to read the same script proved this event wasn’t about local economic development — it was about making sure Baucus remains a reliable Washington ally in the war on the middle class. The Senate Finance Committee he chairs oversees America’s economic and trade policies, and Baucus has been feeling pressure to stand up for his middle-class constituents after the Montana state Senate passed a resolution demanding he oppose more free-trade deals. Such volleys rarely go unanswered by Corporate America in this war, and so the big guns came to Butte to tell the locals to back off.
At a time of growing job insecurity, stagnating wages and Great Depression-level economic inequality, the 2006 election gave us reason to hope for change. But as events in Montana show, change will not come with one election, nor will it come easy. If the war on the middle class can make its wrath felt in a small state’s part-time legislature or cheerily propagandize at a decimated town’s economic-development meeting, you can bet it can — and will — come anywhere.
David Sirota worked for Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s 2004 gubernatorial campaign. He lives in Helena, Mont.
© 2007 The San Francisco Chronicle
Lyrical Post Script: For What It's Worth Song Lyrics
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
