The year was 1945 on a ranch, 60 miles south of Cody, Wyoming, on the South Fork of the Shoshone River.
The ranch was owned by a wealthy heiress from a prominent Pennsylvania family, who was then married to her second husband, a rodeo cowboy of minor fame in calf roping on the regional rodeo circuit. A romance that was born, no doubt, amid the pungent aroma of manure and the glamour of a real western rodeo. Her first husband was a man of prominence, living in Philadelphia, who had custody of their only son more, I suspect, because of the superior environs of life on the Main Line versus those of living on a remote ranch in Wyoming.
My Dad was a hired hand working on that ranch who, also, harbored dreams of becoming the World Champion Calf Roper, dreams never to be realized. I was nine years old and, when I wasn’t helping my Dad, Smoky (the best horse I ever rode) and I would take off to explore the many wonders hidden among the foothills leading up to the mountain peaks high above the ranch site. As the sun would begin to set in the West, Smoky would take over, I would drop the reins over the saddle horn, and he would dutifully take me directly to the door of the ranch cabin we called home, just in time for supper. I was quite content to be alone with my own company, a cherished solitude that was to be interrupted by the son of the heiress who was to be my constant companion for the remainder of those precious summer months.
It was the first time I realized that people actually traveled in private railroad cars accompanied by a butler. That was totally alien to me, but he proved to be just another nice enough kid. We would divide our time between the working ranch from that of the owner, which was separated by a couple of miles. I recall the stately log structure of the main ranch house and its manicured lawn, with the utilitarian part of the home joined to the main house by a breezeway. He and I would often have lunch together at a small table in the main kitchen. On one such occasion, following lunch, he asked me to go with him to his room. His Mother happened to be in the kitchen at that time, and I can recall the incident as vividly as the day it happened, as she turned to her son and said, “Georgie, you know we never allow the hired help into the main house.” That was my introduction to the reality of the relationship between wealth and the hired help to which I, obviously, belonged at the ripe old age of 9! It proved to be a signature moment in shaping the values that have sustained me throughout my life. The Heinz 57 brand never graced our table again.
I don’t believe that most wealth is the product of dedication and hard work. Rather, I am more inclined to think it is from gaming a system for its own benefit, and usually at the expense of others of lesser stations in life. To the mouths of the greedy, there never seems to be enough. They always want more.
I, also, don’t believe that people who are dedicated to amassing great wealth are unaware of the cost of their ambitions to the society of which they are a part. Rather, I am more inclined to believe they know full well what they take for themselves and the attendant costs on those who work to provide it to them. Conscience is not one of their virtues. The free market, without regulation and safeguards to ensure honesty and fairness, simply does not work and does not accrue to the benefit of society.
In order to make what they do more palatable, wealth seems to have an ingrained ability to demonize those they exploit and whose pittance they plunder at will. The statistics showing the massive transfer of wealth from the common man to the top tier of the population in this country, since the days when “Ronnie” was our president and up to the present time, clearly shows what has been sacrificed by our working people in order to make all that possible.
Free trade, so strongly advocated and touted by our political establishment and the business “community,” certainly did nothing to improve the lot of working Americans. As business flourished in the new environment of globalization, with illegal aliens pouring across our southern borders, deregulation of business interests and the massive dismantling of our industrial base, the working Americans faced a dismal future, devoid of the hope and promise so cherished and embodied in the American dream. They were vilified by business and government sympathizers for looking to organized labor in order to help shore up their base and restore some semblance of control over their own destiny. As the service industries burgeoned, we witnessed massive numbers of people reduced to the minimum wage and consigned to menial labor; what we came to refer to as the “working poor.”
History has been witness to a string of First Ladies parading around like dowager queens in their expensive finery, deigning to acknowledge those who were not particularly high in the social register and patronizing those who hadn’t quite made it. Great role models for a country that so reveres the notion of equality as a fundamental virtue of what we are supposed to be all about. Most enjoyed that station in life by virtue of the compromises in character made by their husbands in supplication before the thrones of vast wealth and power.
Bill and Hillary abandoned the richness of their trailer park heritage in favor of pandering to massive wealth, whose favors could be had for the asking by casting their lot with the likes of Wall Street Bankers and corporate America. They made a bundle after leaving office, ostensibly from “speaking engagements” which remains suspect as far as I am concerned.
Then, of course, there was George W., The Village Idiot made good. What Bill did not finish, George and Co. did, and Obama is sweeping up the crumbs from all that is left. The impoverishment of mainstream America is now all but complete. It was just a question of time before their house of cards came tumbling down, but it did so with a bang not heard since the Great Depression.
It is utterly incredulous to me how so many mainstream Americans can buy into, and blindly support, the mantra of the rich, powerful, corrupt and morally bankrupt of this country and, indeed, the world. Their zealousness boggles the mind and the conscience of those who know better. Just look at them. Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Marc Sanford, John Ensign, tea parties, religious zealots, Ann Coulter, ad nauseum. Then there are those who are the masters of seduction when it comes to manipulating all those who profess to be so well-intentioned, all the while dutifully serving their masters of power and privilege, such as Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Barack Obama, Joe Lieberman, Ben Bernanke, Max Baccus, and a whole host of others who routinely sell out this country and those who elect them to public office. No amount of sanitizing by all those who aid them and the media who champion them can wipe the stains of shame from their dark and dirty souls. People suffer and die because of their empty rhetoric and their veiled pretense at giving a damn.
The Christ they all call on for the deification of the rotten remains and memory of all they claim to be, but are not, did not live in a palatial home, did not surround Himself with the powerful and elite of his time, did not travel in a golden chariot nor indulge his appetites with the finest foods and wines available in his time. Rather, he wore simple garments and sandals. He walked the dusty roads among the most humble of men. He lived in simple surroundings and was carried on the back of an ass. He championed the least among us, and admonished us to share our bounty and our treasures freely with all of those who had so little. How do those who mock Him in every aspect of their lives, yet profess such undying faith to his teachings, square the hypocrisy that seems to have claimed their immortal souls?
I take strenuous exception to the notion that “all men are created equal.” That statement defies reality. People come into this world with grossly disparate measures of genetic makeup. They are born to vastly different levels of affluence and opportunities laid before them as their birthright. The suffering and degradation that will follow and will dominate the lives of so many cannot be explained away by their perceived failure to seize missed opportunities and the burden of perceived indolence they carry.
With the onset of the economic bubble that has just burst, we came to revere and emulate the very ones who have plundered the country and laid fallow that which has given so many, historically, the means to pursue the American Dream. The massive advertising put before us an endless menu of materialistic and hedonistic offerings, made all the easier to acquire through easy credit has, I believe, caused us to lose sight of what we are all about. We now have a mega-church whose pastor preaches that Christ wants all of us to be rich, as if wealth is the beginning and end in our pursuit of redemption and salvation. But people have bought into that opiate and are flocking in droves to hear his message. For us to acquiesce to a world of such massive greed, avarice and callousness toward the human condition, without attempting to ease the plague of human suffering, has to be the greatest affront we can commit in the eyes of our Creator.
Wyoming, known as “The Equality State,” was the first state to have a woman for Governor and was the first state to grant women suffrage. Now, both U.S. Senators from the state are staunch supporters of a health care industry totally out of control, as they sap billions and billions of dollars from the lifeblood of people when they are most at the mercy of the system. So much for the historical banner of “equality.”
“For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.” Luke 12:48
“Whatever you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me.” Matthew 25:40
What has happened to our finer angels?
Cowboy Bob
September 1, 2009
The ranch was owned by a wealthy heiress from a prominent Pennsylvania family, who was then married to her second husband, a rodeo cowboy of minor fame in calf roping on the regional rodeo circuit. A romance that was born, no doubt, amid the pungent aroma of manure and the glamour of a real western rodeo. Her first husband was a man of prominence, living in Philadelphia, who had custody of their only son more, I suspect, because of the superior environs of life on the Main Line versus those of living on a remote ranch in Wyoming.
My Dad was a hired hand working on that ranch who, also, harbored dreams of becoming the World Champion Calf Roper, dreams never to be realized. I was nine years old and, when I wasn’t helping my Dad, Smoky (the best horse I ever rode) and I would take off to explore the many wonders hidden among the foothills leading up to the mountain peaks high above the ranch site. As the sun would begin to set in the West, Smoky would take over, I would drop the reins over the saddle horn, and he would dutifully take me directly to the door of the ranch cabin we called home, just in time for supper. I was quite content to be alone with my own company, a cherished solitude that was to be interrupted by the son of the heiress who was to be my constant companion for the remainder of those precious summer months.
It was the first time I realized that people actually traveled in private railroad cars accompanied by a butler. That was totally alien to me, but he proved to be just another nice enough kid. We would divide our time between the working ranch from that of the owner, which was separated by a couple of miles. I recall the stately log structure of the main ranch house and its manicured lawn, with the utilitarian part of the home joined to the main house by a breezeway. He and I would often have lunch together at a small table in the main kitchen. On one such occasion, following lunch, he asked me to go with him to his room. His Mother happened to be in the kitchen at that time, and I can recall the incident as vividly as the day it happened, as she turned to her son and said, “Georgie, you know we never allow the hired help into the main house.” That was my introduction to the reality of the relationship between wealth and the hired help to which I, obviously, belonged at the ripe old age of 9! It proved to be a signature moment in shaping the values that have sustained me throughout my life. The Heinz 57 brand never graced our table again.
I don’t believe that most wealth is the product of dedication and hard work. Rather, I am more inclined to think it is from gaming a system for its own benefit, and usually at the expense of others of lesser stations in life. To the mouths of the greedy, there never seems to be enough. They always want more.
I, also, don’t believe that people who are dedicated to amassing great wealth are unaware of the cost of their ambitions to the society of which they are a part. Rather, I am more inclined to believe they know full well what they take for themselves and the attendant costs on those who work to provide it to them. Conscience is not one of their virtues. The free market, without regulation and safeguards to ensure honesty and fairness, simply does not work and does not accrue to the benefit of society.
In order to make what they do more palatable, wealth seems to have an ingrained ability to demonize those they exploit and whose pittance they plunder at will. The statistics showing the massive transfer of wealth from the common man to the top tier of the population in this country, since the days when “Ronnie” was our president and up to the present time, clearly shows what has been sacrificed by our working people in order to make all that possible.
Free trade, so strongly advocated and touted by our political establishment and the business “community,” certainly did nothing to improve the lot of working Americans. As business flourished in the new environment of globalization, with illegal aliens pouring across our southern borders, deregulation of business interests and the massive dismantling of our industrial base, the working Americans faced a dismal future, devoid of the hope and promise so cherished and embodied in the American dream. They were vilified by business and government sympathizers for looking to organized labor in order to help shore up their base and restore some semblance of control over their own destiny. As the service industries burgeoned, we witnessed massive numbers of people reduced to the minimum wage and consigned to menial labor; what we came to refer to as the “working poor.”
History has been witness to a string of First Ladies parading around like dowager queens in their expensive finery, deigning to acknowledge those who were not particularly high in the social register and patronizing those who hadn’t quite made it. Great role models for a country that so reveres the notion of equality as a fundamental virtue of what we are supposed to be all about. Most enjoyed that station in life by virtue of the compromises in character made by their husbands in supplication before the thrones of vast wealth and power.
Bill and Hillary abandoned the richness of their trailer park heritage in favor of pandering to massive wealth, whose favors could be had for the asking by casting their lot with the likes of Wall Street Bankers and corporate America. They made a bundle after leaving office, ostensibly from “speaking engagements” which remains suspect as far as I am concerned.
Then, of course, there was George W., The Village Idiot made good. What Bill did not finish, George and Co. did, and Obama is sweeping up the crumbs from all that is left. The impoverishment of mainstream America is now all but complete. It was just a question of time before their house of cards came tumbling down, but it did so with a bang not heard since the Great Depression.
It is utterly incredulous to me how so many mainstream Americans can buy into, and blindly support, the mantra of the rich, powerful, corrupt and morally bankrupt of this country and, indeed, the world. Their zealousness boggles the mind and the conscience of those who know better. Just look at them. Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Marc Sanford, John Ensign, tea parties, religious zealots, Ann Coulter, ad nauseum. Then there are those who are the masters of seduction when it comes to manipulating all those who profess to be so well-intentioned, all the while dutifully serving their masters of power and privilege, such as Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Barack Obama, Joe Lieberman, Ben Bernanke, Max Baccus, and a whole host of others who routinely sell out this country and those who elect them to public office. No amount of sanitizing by all those who aid them and the media who champion them can wipe the stains of shame from their dark and dirty souls. People suffer and die because of their empty rhetoric and their veiled pretense at giving a damn.
The Christ they all call on for the deification of the rotten remains and memory of all they claim to be, but are not, did not live in a palatial home, did not surround Himself with the powerful and elite of his time, did not travel in a golden chariot nor indulge his appetites with the finest foods and wines available in his time. Rather, he wore simple garments and sandals. He walked the dusty roads among the most humble of men. He lived in simple surroundings and was carried on the back of an ass. He championed the least among us, and admonished us to share our bounty and our treasures freely with all of those who had so little. How do those who mock Him in every aspect of their lives, yet profess such undying faith to his teachings, square the hypocrisy that seems to have claimed their immortal souls?
I take strenuous exception to the notion that “all men are created equal.” That statement defies reality. People come into this world with grossly disparate measures of genetic makeup. They are born to vastly different levels of affluence and opportunities laid before them as their birthright. The suffering and degradation that will follow and will dominate the lives of so many cannot be explained away by their perceived failure to seize missed opportunities and the burden of perceived indolence they carry.
With the onset of the economic bubble that has just burst, we came to revere and emulate the very ones who have plundered the country and laid fallow that which has given so many, historically, the means to pursue the American Dream. The massive advertising put before us an endless menu of materialistic and hedonistic offerings, made all the easier to acquire through easy credit has, I believe, caused us to lose sight of what we are all about. We now have a mega-church whose pastor preaches that Christ wants all of us to be rich, as if wealth is the beginning and end in our pursuit of redemption and salvation. But people have bought into that opiate and are flocking in droves to hear his message. For us to acquiesce to a world of such massive greed, avarice and callousness toward the human condition, without attempting to ease the plague of human suffering, has to be the greatest affront we can commit in the eyes of our Creator.
Wyoming, known as “The Equality State,” was the first state to have a woman for Governor and was the first state to grant women suffrage. Now, both U.S. Senators from the state are staunch supporters of a health care industry totally out of control, as they sap billions and billions of dollars from the lifeblood of people when they are most at the mercy of the system. So much for the historical banner of “equality.”
“For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.” Luke 12:48
“Whatever you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me.” Matthew 25:40
What has happened to our finer angels?
Cowboy Bob
September 1, 2009
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