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Show _A33 __The SaltLake Tribune OPINION Thursday, November 23, 1995 _ Meaning of Thanksgiving Is Beyond Dinner Table Shortchanging America By Holly Sklar KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS - BOSTON — Picture sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner and percent of households doubled their after-tax income, adjusting forinflation, while the bottom 60 percent lost income. Since then, telling your inequality has increased further. children this: To quickly pay off the mortgage and other debts, you're going to spend their college fund, cancel their health insurance and expect them fo pay room and board by working jong hours at after-schooljobs. * Meanwhile, you're going to keep stocking your rare gun col- jection and donating money to ‘wealthy neighbors. Sound farfetched? You're notin Congress. + The congressional majority frants you to believe they'rebai- tncing the federal budget with “tough love” for our children’s sake, They don’t wantyou to notice they are showering moreloying tax breaks on the wealthy, while being tougher onthe disad- vantaged. They don’t want you to notice they are subsidizing profitable corporations and giving more to the military than even the Pentagon askedfor, while harming education, health care and the environment. Take your Thanksgiving pie and carve it up into 10 slices. If the pie were the distribution of American wealth, 4 slices would go to the top 1 percentof families, 2 slices would go the next 4 percent, and 4 slices would go to the bottom 95 percent. That's right. The top 1 percentoffamilies have about the same amountof wealth as the bottom 95 percent. Yet Congress insists that the wealthy need more tax breaks. From 1977 to 1989, the top 1 better to give thanto receive, why do Americans devotea holiday to the blessings they acquire instead of the blessings they bestow on others? Listen to the voice of Thanksgiving today, and that contradiction will become a revelation than 6 percent. Business after-tax profit rates hit a 25-year high in 1994, thanks in large part to lower corporate taxes and downsized worker wages. “Had the tax rate on capi- ture promises an endless Depres- sion — minus the New Deal. The politically weakest New Dealentitlement, Aid to Families with DependentChildren, is the first to go. Never mind that only 1 per- cent of the federal budget goes to AFDC, and without it more battered women will be forced to choose between homelessness or staying with an abusive partner, and growing numbersofchildren will suffer hunger, illness and early death. Social Security and Medicare are being undone, beginning with the more vulnerable SSI (Supplemental Security Income) and Medicaid The scapegoating stereotype of deadbeat poor people masks the growing reality of dead-end jobs ‘WSPAPERS FORT WAYNE— If it really is household income dropped more tal income remainedatits 195279 average,” says the Economic Policy Institute, ‘‘government revenue would have been $40billion morein 1994.” In 1974, corporate chief executives made 35 times the averagesalary of their own employees. Today they make about 150 times the average. Yet Congressis taking more from the needy to give to the greedy. For more Americans, the fu- thanks. Lincoln knew tiat the true spirit of Thanksgiving Day By Kevin Leininger KNIGHT-RIDDE! Between 1989 and 1994, median Blessings and disposable workers. Since 1973, poverty rates for children in families headed by persons younger than 30 have more than doubled among whites, married couples, high school graduates and college graduates, One out of four officially poor children live in families in which parents workedfull-time, year-round. Almosthalf of all young fulltime workers, ages 18-24, earn low wages — more than double the share in 1979. More and more full-time workers will face an impossible juggling act of saving for their retirement, paying for their children’s college education and taking care of elderly parents. If you don’t like our government’s unbalancedpriorities, you are not alone. A recent Business Week/Harris poll foundthat most Americans think the government should guarantee jobs for all thosewilling to work, public assis- tance payments for those who can’t work, job training, child care for low-income working mothers, and a minimum level of health care. We can afford those commitments and more with fair taxes on corporations and the wealthy, a safer, smaller military budget; a universal single-payer healthcare system replacing the increasingly inhumane insuranceprofiteers; and a true full-employment economywith living wages. Decent education, employment, health-care and child-care programs save much more money in the long run than they cost. They are key to nurturing the kind of society we can be thankful for. Holly Sklar is a Boston-based writer whose latest book is Chaos or Community? Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad Economics. Thanksgiving Time With Uncle Will and Cousin Newt that can become a sourceofself-satisfaction become a source of humility. Pride that allows giving, but not receiving will soften into the realization that the ability to give gladly depends uponthe willingness to accept graciously, and with thanks It is that symbiotic relationship between benefactorandrecipient we celebrate on Thanksgiving Day, not the blessings themselves. People who think they earn their salary don’t usually thank their boss for their paycheck. I wish I knew for certain, but I suspect that people who win the lottery don’t normally thank the clerk who sold them theticket. Random good fortune generates only a generic kind of gratitude Thanksgiving Day honors another, better kind of gift: the kind that cannot be earned, yetis specifically and freely given. Many Americans, I suspect don’t often think in such terms. Welike to believe we are in control and deserve the good things in our lives. Even government checks now areconsidered ‘“entitlements.’’ Many Americans, too, believe such self-importance is a productof the late 20th century. Notso, It is as old as humanity, which makes the need for Thanksgiving Day as new as tomorrow RICK HOROWITZ MILWAUKEE — What you have to remember about Thanksgiving, Mama keepstelling us,is ,everyone’s got their own ideas. Sometimes you put ’em together andit works just fine. Other times you'd better fasten your seat belts. Guess which it is this year — Mama's got Uncle Will and Cousin Newt at the very sametable. I warned her monthsago.I said to her, “Mama, youcan't have Uncle Will and Cousin Newt at the very sametable. They can’t stand the sight of one another on normal days — how do you expect them to makeit through Thanks- giving?” But Mama’s got her own ideas, too — she saysit’s sheer foolish- ness that they can’t get along, and anywaythey'll makea special effort out of respect for her, not to mention it being Thanksgiving and special time for families. “All we've got is each other,” Mamasays. (That's exactly the problem, I’m thinking to myself.) Mama'sfigured Uncle Will for the head ofthe table, sameasalways since Daddy’s gone, And she’s figured Cousin Newt for way down at the other end, right next to Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob has a “calming influence” on Cousin Newt, she says — not that Cousin Newt needs a “calming influence” anymore, but just for insur- ance. First thing through the door, Cousin Newttries to sit in Uncle Will's favorite chair. Uncle Will's already in Uncle Will's favorite chair — hejust gives Cousin Newt a shove, almost makes him spill the cranberries. Then Cousin Newt announces we've got to be finished by 7 o'clock. “If we're serious about Thanksgiving,” he says,‘we need to be done by 7. So UncleWill pipes up.“I’m as serious about Thanksgiving as you are,” he says, “but I don't know that we can finish by 7. Maybe we won'tfinishtill 8, or 9, or even 10 — it all depends.” “Seven,” says Cousin Newt, and Uncle Bobsaysit, too, and all the littlest cousins on theirside of the table start shouting, ‘Seven! Seven!” like it’s the smartest idea they've ever heard. “We can’t eat that fast,” says Uncle Will. “We'll get indigestion.” “Seven,” says Cousin Newt, “or nobodygets any turkey.”” Mama’s got that look in her eye. “Why don’t we start with the side dishes?” she says, trying to sound calm. “That'll give us a running jumpeither way.” Cousin Newtoffersto help bring the food out, and he and Mamagointo the kitchen while Uncle Will and Uncle Bob just stare at each other. Then Mama and Cousin Newt come back through the swinging doors andstart passing theplatter around. “What the heck is this?” says Uncle Will. “It’s all the trimmings,” says Cousin Newt. “Trimmings, my foot!” says Uncle Will. “They're cuts! There’s hardly anything here!” “You want a well-balanced diet,” says Cousin Newt, “you haveto give up a few things.” “What's that got to do with Thanksgiving dinner?” shouts Uncle Will. “And why do you get to decide what we give up?” Before anyonecan stop him, Uncle Will grabs the platter, marches straight for the front door and pitches the whole thing right off the porch. So then Cousin Newt marches inte the kitchen, grabs the turkey from the oven and pitchesit right out the window! So then Uncle Will shuts off the oven — “No need to keep this runningif we're not cooking anything,” he says. So then Cousin Newt finds the fuse box and stomps on all the fuses — “No need for these if there’s no meal to look at,” he says Andthat’s whereweare,sitting in the pitch-dark — except for Mama, she’s up in her room cry- ing. Uncle Will's muttering something nasty about Cousin Newt, who's muttering something nasty right back. It's hard to be sure with all the lights out, but I think Uncle Bobjust hit someone with a kaiserroll. We're one big happy family. It was 1863 when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be “a day of thanksgiving and praise to our be- neficent Father.’ His reasons seem as fresh today as they were 132 years ago. “We havebeen the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven,” Lincoln wrote that year. “We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and poweras no othernation has grown. But we have forgotten God. “We have forgotten the gracious handthat preserved us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced bysome superior wisdom andvirtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have becometoo self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace; too proud to pray to the God who madeus.” Lincoln's willingness to write such words in the midstofa civil war that claimed nearly 500,000 American lives shows he understood the fragility of most of the things for which we normally give rests in the humility that allows people — and nations — to acknowledge that some things are beyondtheir control The “beneficent Father’ of Lincoln’s proclamation addresses the matter of thanksgiving countless timesin the Bible. Most of the references show how people should give thanks for the blessings they receive. But perhapsthe most profound referenceis the well-known story of the Pharisee and the tax collector from the Book of Luke, in which Christ showed how thanksgiving can be a trap instead of a blessing. Understand that mpssage, and you understand Thanksgiving Day: The two men had gone to the temple to pray. The Pharisee, a memberof a group that prided itself onstrict adherence to Jewish law, stood and said: “God, I thank you that I am notlike other nien — robbers, evildoers, adulterers or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and givetithes of all I possess.” Was America like that in 1863, when both the North and South were claiming moral superiority in their battle over union and slavery? Does it reflect where Americais today, as we imply sinister motives in the debate over budget priorities and in the discussion over who has — and doesn’t have — the right kind of “family values’’? It is a wonderful thing to be able to gather with family and friends around a table topped with food and reflect upon bless- ings received. But the voice of Thanksgiving warnsus of the danger of smugly viewing those blessings as accomplishments instead of gifts: One view induces vanity and the willingness to view people with less as somehowundeserving of the same happiness we enjoy. The other view, by acknowledging our common human needs, fears and failings, produces humility and gratitude. It is the love in the heart, not the turkey on the table, that makes Thanksgiving Day special. It is a love ofself, family, friends and country, but also of God, from whom allblessings flow Lincoln knew what too many Americans still do not comprehend: People and nations who acknowledge no powergreater than themselvescan find only fleeting, selfish comfort during goodtimes ~ and no comfort at all during inevitable times of hardship and tragedy. Thanksgiving Day is a promise that nooneis ever really alone. As long as America gives thanks,it has hope. 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