Distinguishing the Wheat from the Chaff

Is separating the wheat from the chaff as easy as it sounds?  How does the ordinary citizen tell the difference?  How do we try to make it real?  Compared to what? …

One of the more challenging and less talked about difficulties of human existence involves distinguishing what is real from that which only appears to be real.  Some use the old farmer’s cliché of separating the wheat from the chaff.  Perhaps it is easier on a farm.  In real life, for example, when the vices of greed and pride are presented or appear as virtue, it’s not so easy.  Beneath every truth and appearance there seemingly lies a measure of paradoxical opposite.  Although confounding at times, that which has one guessing keeps life interesting.

In my impressionable years, my father taught me many things I have not forgotten.  He was an insurance broker and had done quite well for himself, as far as I could determine, having raised five children with my traditional, stay at home mom.  Dad was a great speaker, not so great at changing a light bulb, however.

One day, dad was pontificating about the various traps and pitfalls which one must encounter on the way up the corporate ladder of success.  As one of my good friends likes to say, “Remember, the toes you're stepping on today could be attached to the ass you're kissing tomorrow.”

Anyway, my dad was starting to sound a bit frustrated, his passion catching my attention, and so I began to listen.  Sensing this, dad continued: “You know, Michael, when you get to the top, there’s only two things, basically, which you’ll find there: cream and human excrement (actually, he used a different word that began with “sh” and ends with “it”).  They both float to the top.  And, as incredible as it may seem to you, it’s exceedingly difficult sometimes to tell the difference between the two!”

At the time, given the folly of relative youth, I had no idea what he was talking about.  But, I remembered his words and learned later that dad had been right about this.  Such that today, in mid-life, I continue to find it amazing how smart my dad really was about certain things.  One of his strengths was that he could always seem to judge the character of people extremely well.

Perhaps, this was because dad was a salesman, who lived in a professional world not necessarily of “what was,” but rather, “what do you want it to be?”  In other words, his world was about image making or creative marketing.

For example, US History paints the mid-20^th century American Western man as being basic in his needs, fiercely independent, individualistic and self sustaining, without the need for (government) assistance.  The image was of John Wayne, the cowboy, and the Madison Avenue marketing creation of the “Marlboro Man.”

Some swear they are the sole torch bearers, the reality on which the hope of enlightened progress depends.  The gray suit, heavily starched white dress shirt figure of the White Anglo-Saxon Prostestant (WASP) male Ivy Leaguer fits that particular bill to a tee.  But can we count on it to be it real?

There are yet other people who walk the walk, talk the talk, and actually sound quite real and legitimate, except that they are fake through and through.  The pathological liar is the most egregious example.  They live in a nebulous world, their brain short curcuited from the ability to separate fact from fiction.  What sets them apart is one would swear they were telling the truth, even when it became certain that they were not.  There is no intention to deceive, but the message is clearly disconnected.

A terrific, concrete example of dad's metaphor in action came to America by way of the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas for the position of Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court.  Thomas had been nominated for appointment by then-President Bush/“41” to succeed the celebrated Hon. Thurgood Marshall, holder of the so called “black, liberal seat.”

At Thomas’ US Senate confirmation hearing, things got strange.  A witness was put forth to testify in such a fashion as to discredit Thomas and thereby attempt to dissuade the Senate from voting in Thomas’ favor.  The witness, Anita Hill, was an attractive, educated black woman, who had initially been hired by Thomas in connection with his first federal job appointment.  Ms. Hill also worked under Thomas later at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where Thomas had headed up that agency as appointed by then-President Reagan.

Day after day the battle raged on during the confirmation hearings, which were broadcast via live television into the living rooms of ordinary citizens, who watched in fascination.  The public was mesmerized, one day by Thomas, the next day Hill, then Thomas again in a final rebuttal.  And it seemed all but impossible to tell who was telling the truth.  Perhaps we’ll never know for sure, the only certainty being that such is the way of the political process. 

Finally, distinguishing what is real from what is merely a facsimile was boiled down to its essence by Bill Parcells, the successful, former NFL head coach with two Super Bowl rings to his credit.  Coach Parcells lamented players who made excuses for poor or unacceptable performance.  Those players  typically attempted to rationalize their particular team’s slow start, for example, an 0-3 record out of the gate, with a proviso that the team really was “good” and would turn it around.  Coach Parcells would have none of it, however, formulating his standard response: “You are what your record is.”

For anyone who has played team sports, it is apparent that such a statement is unassailable.  Rarely in life does reality tend to be that black and white.

-Michael D’Angelo

The Face of Capitalism (Part Three)

(This is the concluding segment in a three part series. The first segment traced the economic system of capitalism to its birth during the administration of President George Washington and through the winding course of US history. The second segment discussed how the face of capitalism goes about the business of amassing wealth in present day America.)

What ever happened to Henry Ford’s simple but then radical idea to double the wages of his assembly line workers? After all, Ford reasoned correctly, it was the workers who would be buying the cars coming off the assembly line. They couldn’t buy the cars without money. Henry Ford seemed to know instinctively that his own success would be fleeting without the participation of the middle class...

Instead, today we have outsourcing. Outsourcing is but an example where human labor is viewed merely as a line item expense on an income statement. It seems to be all about the maximization of profit, nothing more. Everything is viewed as a commodity, including human beings. Why is the manufacturing base vital to the health and vitality of society? The main economic component, as well as the glue that binds our society together, is a job.

But when a business outsources, it unwittingly constructs a dependency which destroys individual initiative and self worth. Consider this as an unintended consequence. Think of the American Indians both before and after the arrival of the white man. We remove the buffalo herds. We remove their livelihood. We make it impossible to sustain themselves. We set up government agencies. The net result is lines of people waiting for basic subsistence. They wait for food, cooking materials and alcohol.

Ordinary citizens are essentially “kept” at a subsistence level, yet dependent on the power structures that would mean their destruction. Today, some call it a “Wal-Mart economy.” At about 30 hours per week, Wal-Mart wages place their workers below the poverty line. Together with an employment application, a would-be Wal-Mart worker is also provided an application for food stamps. The net result is the government subsidizing the Walton family fortune.

Others see outsourcing plainly as a “frightening window into the primacy of (monetary) profit over human dignity and human life.” And that’s just American human life. It does not address the particular horrors to human life on distant shores. Workers swelter through sweatshop conditions, the kind we had here during the Industrial Revolution, until Theodore Roosevelt weighed in on the side of the worker. T.R.’s example reminds us that human welfare comes before profit. But is that what drives the face of capitalism in America today?

Typically, the “exploitation of human beings is always accompanied by the exploitation of natural resources, without any thought given to sustainability.” In this model global warming is and will forever be a fiction, a liberal plot to thwart the legitimate aims of business. Will it remain this way until it is too late and the effects of global warming have become irreversible?

By definition and in practice, American capitalists idolize individual initiative as the holy grail. What they seem to miss is the vision of the founding fathers: the idea of individualism within the larger context of the commitment to a collective social identity, that we are all in this together. When individualism becomes extreme or indiscriminate, the net result is praise for leading citizens like Mr. Romney, the head capitalist. The face of capitalism is the hero among the hoarders of gold.

An “I built that without help” mentality. Even though very few build anything without a lot of help. Some may be able to borrow money from their parents, as the face of capitalism suggests if there are no better alternatives. But most ordinary citizens do not have that luxury. Selfish, proud of it and greedy. When a successful person says “Nobody helped me,” what they're really saying is “Don't expect me to do anything for anyone else.”

Presently we are a nation which needs many things. Among our national priorities, many would include the return of jobs to American shores to re-build the middle class and our manufacturing base. Many more would include paying down our federal debt through a balanced, sensible approach, combining tax increases and spending reductions.

This would necessarily include the reformation of our tax code to restructure and simplify rates and close loopholes so that all, including the wealthiest individuals and corporations, pay their fair share. Consider it a reformulation of the old Jesse James rule. When asked why he robbed banks, James said that’s where the money was.

But the larger question is: Who will lead us forward? Can we place our trust in the face of capitalism whose fortune derived through benefit from things that need fixing now?

-Michael D’Angelo

(Note: Portions of the second and third segments were written in reliance upon the following source material:

1. Drucker, Jesse, “Romney ‘I Dig It’ Trust Gives Heirs Triple Benefit,” Bloomberg.com, September 27, 2012;

2. Ford, Henry, “When Capitalists Cared,” New York Times opinion section, September 3, 2012;

3. Moyers, Bill, “Capitalism’s Sacrifice Zones,” interview with Chris Hedges, July 24, 2012).