Morning Feature: Real American Values, Part I – Respecting Each Other
Dee Grubbs was a career teacher in Texas. She had bought a little piece of land for retirement. Then an investment firm stole her and her parents’ savings. Then came the spider bite. Then food poisoning. Sick and ashamed, her life was collapsing.
Real Americans came to help. (More)
Real American Values, Part I – Respecting Each Other
This week Morning Feature looks at progressive values. Real American values. Today we discuss valuing people over profits: respecting each other. Tomorrow we consider the earth as our home, not our trash can: respecting the land. Saturday we conclude with good government: respecting the law.
Our progressive movement has a moral core, but we rarely talk about our moral values. Instead we talk about issues and policies, facts and statistics. We tell voters what’s in it for them, but rarely ask them to be part of something more. And as we saw Monday, voting is a civic act. Voters want to be moral, and their votes are based not only on Who I Am, but also on Who I Want To Be. To win their support we progressives must connect our issues and policies to our Real American Values.
Real Americans Don’t Cheat
Dee Grubbs spent her career teaching middle and high school students, mostly in central Texas. For the last 12 years of her career, she taught in alternative schools in San Antonio. She thought of herself as a “strong and independent” woman. Divorced, she raised a loving son. They’re still close. Boerne Star reporter Elena Tucker wrote that Dee “conveys the attractive ambiguities of tough and soft, sage and young, sweet and savvy.”
But not so savvy in investing. Dee had bought some land “on the rim of the world,” atop “one of those heights from which clouds can be mounted and ridden as they drift by … where Mapquest has no meaning since the few road markers that turn up are aged and grudging and give up little information.”
She planned to build a retirement cottage. Some of her friends and co-workers invested with Triton Financial, a high-profile firm in Austin, so Dee checked their background. Triton seemed reliable, and she invested with them. She also encouraged her parents to invest with them. For two years Dee got steady dividend checks. When she retired, she cashed out her pension and put that in Triton too. Professionals told her it was a smart financial decision.
Then she tried to get some money out to start work on that cottage. She met delay after delay, excuse after excuse. On Christmas Eve, 2009 she got an email: the Securities and Exchange Commission had seized Triton Financial. Dee’s life savings, and her parents’ investment, were gone.
Triton Financial was a Ponzi scheme.
Real Americans Don’t Let Each Other Starve
Dee tried to keep her emotions in check. She took whatever work she could find. She lived in a small trailer on her land “on the rim of the world,” without running water. She held up until a bite from a poisonous brown recluse spider put her in the ER for two days. Still recuperating a week later, she got food poisoning. Finally her steely Texan reserve broke. “And after that it just hit me,” she told Tucker. “And when it did hit me, it hit hard.”
Soon after, Dee took a temporary job with the Census Bureau. She ran into an old friend who asked if she’d built that retirement cottage yet. “I tried to just answer ‘no,’” she later said, “but I started getting emotional and I told her a little bit about what happened.”
A few days later, the friend’s husband called. His name was Buddy Brooks. He runs a non-profit ministry, A Gathering In Christ, volunteers to help people in need. He asked Dee if she’d like some help building her home. “I can do this,” he told her. “I’ll organize it. I’ll get everybody together.”
And he did. Two dozen workers showed up on Dee’s land, “a disparate group of cabinetmakers, jewelers, real estate agents, artists, camp directors, road crew workers, and even some unemployed.” By the end of the first day, they had the frame up on her 336-square-foot cottage, the exterior walls enclosed, the roof decked and tar-papered, and electrical boxes installed. Doors and windows and plumbing would have to wait. But the workers moved some tables and Dee shared her first dinner in her new home.
Real Americans Care For Each Other
“For me, it’s just a sense of community. In the world where we live today, we live so segregated sometimes,” Brooks later told Tucker. “It’s just about helping out when somebody’s in need. This is an old-fashioned ‘barn-raising.’ Here one of our neighbors is in need and we have the resources to make a difference. We can all pull together. We make something happen.”
Dee remembered the times she’d helped other people, and the satisfaction she’d felt. But she’d never asked for help herself. “I have always been a very strong, independent – very independent – woman. I take care of myself and never asked anybody for anything. With this, I felt like something was terribly wrong with me.”
Watching the faces of the volunteers changed that. She saw in them the satisfaction she had always found in helping others. “One of my lessons here is that I can have this gift – that I am worthy of something this big. I’ve never felt that way before.”
Real Americans Respect Each Other
Dee won’t get much if anything back from Triton Financial. The SEC found the firm had few assets and many liens. The Texas Securities Commission has found fraud, but no criminal charges have yet been filed. The investigation continues.
But she now has a home. With running water. And the respect of her community.
“Everyone knows someone now who’s having a hard time with either the economy or being out of work. Income is not what it was and the value of property is diminishing,” a long time friend of Dee’s said, pausing as workers drove home nails. “This is priceless what people are doing.”
Real Americans don’t cheat. We don’t let each other starve. We care for each other. We respect each other.
Real Americans know people matter more than profits. Even “on the rim of the world.”
+++++
Happy Veterans Day!
Good story, NCrissieB.
This story illustrates exactly why we can’t allow changing social security to allow private investment. The name of the program itself should be enough to let people know that they shouldn’t be changing it to get rid of the “security”. It’s name reflects the whole “people matter more than profits” that we need to emphasize.
And thanks to you, my brother, and all the other veterans who have taken the time to do something extra for our country. I’ve got to remember to send a message to my friend from work who is one of the many Iowans currently serving in Afghanistan. Here’s to you, Rob!
Thank you, Glenda. In turn I must thank Boerne Star reporter Elena Tucker for her amazing, evocative prose.
And yes, this story highlights the risks of privatizing Social Security. Dee Grubbs performed due diligence before she invested. The firm seemed sound, with what seemed a solid prospectus and reams of endorsements. They even sponsored a professional golf tournament. Dee was so confident she not only invested her own pension, but persuaded her parents to invest theirs as well. Yet it was a scam.
The conservative myth of rugged individualism and “you’re on your own” is not Real America. Barn-raisings – what these people did for Dee – are Real America.
Caring for each other is a Real American value.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
This story moved me to tears. These are indeed real Americans, stepping up to help a neighbor in need. Those are the people I want to know and share this country with.
And I think most of us “little people” feel the same.
Sorry, I can’t write anymore. I can’t see the screen. Thanks for a beautiful, inspiring story.
P.S. And thanks for fighting to take back what it means to be a “Real American.” Too many of us have forgotten.
I cried too, winterbanyan. I decided to spend this week sharing stories that exemplify our Real American values, so I Googled [barn raising stories]. I found several, and this one jumped off the screen and grabbed me by the heart. We Americans are not 300 million “rugged individuals.” Our past and our present are filled with stories like this. They are progressive stories because we are a progressive people who want to be part of something bigger than ourselves.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Amazing story. The tale of Dee’s financial problems has been repeated over and over again since the banksters got the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed in 1999. From Enron’s collapse wiping out people’s life savings and pensions, to the SEC being completely subsumed into the cowboy-culture of the Bush administration to the Wall Street crash of 2008 brought about by people gambling with other people’s money, Real Americans have been shafted by politicians who owe their fealty to Wall Street and the top 2%: the republican “base” – the have-mores.
It is great to hear about people pitching in to help each other. Because even when our elected officials let us down, there will always be people caring.
I agree, Jan. For progressives to reclaim our nation’s center, we need to share and celebrate stories like this. For too long we’ve let conservatives define our nation’s moral values, including a business ethos of “whatever you can get away with,” and those who got hurt must have deserved it.
Triton Financial are the villains of this story … because Real Americans Don’t Cheat.
Dee and those in her community are the heroes of this story … because Real Americans Care For Each Other.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
winterbanyan posted a link to a video yesterday in the Noontime News about cheating at a Florida university. One of the kids interviewed said “everyone cheats”.
Actually, no they don’t. But the attitude shown by that student is telling. If it is somehow an accepted fact that “everyone cheats” then they will. We need to push back on that.
As behavioral economist Dan Ariely found in his research – I embedded his TED video in Monday’s Morning Feature – “everyone cheats” … unless we’re encouraged to think about moral values. Then we stop cheating, because we want to be good people. We act on Who I Want To Be.
We progressives must encourage progressive moral values. They are Real American values.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
I agree. I don’t know why people are surprised at the venal nature of big business and the Bernie Madoff’s of the world. They get rewarded until they get exposed.
This unreasonable worship of “the rich and famous” is one part of the problem. Another is people who continue to get rewarded for bad behavior because it makes someone money. Institutional investors may be ok with that crap (how low can you go), but as small investors and Americans we cannot stand for this stuff anymore. This is also because real work has been thoroughly demonized.
No, not everyone cheats. Unfortunately, too many people get rewarded for cheating and worse. There are no rules and the law is written by the cheaters.
This is an excellent insight, JBF:
One of the Real American values we’ll introduce later this week is Real Americans Work Together. Real Americans do value work, and we value working together: both formally and informally.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Could not agree more, JBF:
That is exactly what happens. In the news today is a story about payday lenders creating a huge scheme to dupe their customers. The republicans in the Senate tried desperately to get payday lenders exempted from the new consumer protections. Thank goodness they failed. Because we finally had some Good Government:
I hope that debt collection agency faces criminal fraud charges soon. Lying to people, impersonating sheriff’s deputies and judges in a fake courtroom, to scare people into releasing account data so the company could take their money …
… and Sens. Corker and McConnell think they should be exempt from federal regulation?
I have a message for Sens. Corkers and McConnell: Real Americans don’t cheat. And as we’ll see Saturday, Real Americans respect the law.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Great story, thanks!
Thank you, JBF.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
The owner of a local tire dealership is located across the street from where day laborers congregate. She’s been feeding them breakfast or lunch for a couple of years now during the colder months when work is less frequent. We wanted to honor her at a Dem Club breakfast but she refused — not doing it for recognition she said.
Some people are truly remarkable.
Great story, Crissie.
Thank you for that story, Mike. A lot of Americans are truly remarkable. Even if we tell their stories anonymously – and many prefer that – we progressives need to tell and celebrate those stories. Otherwise we let conservatives define our nation’s values … and most of the values they espouse are not Real American values.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
What a moving story. Thank you for sharing that.
Too many real people just become statistics of the bad guys like Triton Financial.
Faceless numbers.
Perhaps if you continue to share more stories like this we can get folks to stop voting for the politicians who allow these bloodsuckers to operate.
Thank you, Dee. I agree that we need to share and celebrate stories like these, so people will connect progressive issues and policies with shared Real American values. We progressives are a moral movement with a moral core, but we too rarely talk about our moral values. Instead, too offer, we offer lists of issues and policy positions backed by facts and statistics …
… without a unifying moral core that invites people to see those issues and policies not only as helping them but also uniting them in something larger than individual self-interest.
I have no idea whether any of the people who helped Dee Grubbs also voted for Democrats or see themselves as progressive. But in helping her, they lived progressive moral values. Real American values.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
I guess I’ve always considered progressive values to be moral ones.
That may have to do with the fact that civil rights activists and leaders believed in our common humanity, and in love not hate.
For me – bigotry is immoral.
For me – the right to food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, and justice – are moral issues.
Any Party, or group of people who fight to take away any of these things, and concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a select few are immoral by nature.
As such, they are anti-American and operate contrary to human values, family values and national values.
WowDeo, well said and totally agree.
The money before people crowd has been winning the argument and elections by discussing family values without really believing in family values (like making a living to support your family) and making social problems against the law.
Family values my (a**).
thanks again
Nice to see you again, OHKnighty.
I agree it’s time to stop letting conservatives talk about “family values,” and start talking about how progressives value families. Real Americans care for each other. We respect each other. Because people matter more than profits.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
I agree, Dee. But this is a case where many of us suffer from what the Heath brothers call The Curse of Knowledge. We are like the Tappers in that example; we know what tune we’re tapping, so it can be hard to understand why the Listeners can’t hear it.
Many of us see our progressive values as moral values. But if we just tap out issues, policies, facts, and statistics – as Democrats too often do – Fred may not recognize the moral tune behind those taps. Asking Fred to guess our moral tune is a mistake. We must tell him what the tune is. Then he can hear it in our issues and policies.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Straight to the heart of the matter, Dee. Thanks. These are indeed our moral issues, and we need to come right out and say so.