From our own John May — I think I’ve heard him relate this story before …
The first time I heard of Elizabeth Warren was back in 2006/7 when I watched a video of her speaking at Berkeley with the heading “The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class”. It is an hour long video and I watched it three times in a row, taking notes the third time.
You need to understand that at the time, I was a recovering “Ditto Head” Republican who suffered a case of depression, blaming myself for a terrible year where I was unemployed, my wife was in the hospital, we had spent most of our savings to move to Massachusetts a year earlier, and now we were close to losing it all. As a believer in the free market, boot straps mentality, and the notion that anyone on welfare of any kind is a freeloading bum, the weight of it all came crashing down on me as I must me the single reason my family was failing. I was hospitalized for depression.My sister, a life long Democrat, often recommended that I read Chomsky, Warren, and others to see things her way. I resisted. Then one day I came across this video and decided to give it a look. After my third viewing, I sent off an email to then professor Warren, thanking her for opening my eyes to the reality that I was not to blame and it was the system that was rigged against us. My wife and I were both college graduates, we had insurance, savings, we both took classes regularly to improve our education and job skills, We had two children and lived a frugal life, but in spite of all that, we were suddenly on the edge of bankruptcy because she was diagnosed with breast cancer on the same week that I was laid off at my job. Clearly, there is something wrong with the system and I thanked her for her work in showing that to me. I felt cleared of a great wrongdoing. I could be proud of myself once more.
A few weeks later, I received an email from her administrative assistant, The email said that while Professor Warren reads all her emails, she cannot personally reply to them all but nonetheless, she appreciated my email and hoped for the best for my wife and me.
Then a few months later, I received an email from Professor Warren herself. She explained that after reading our story, she had to write us personally and thank us for sharing our story and that she was glad that we were doing well, and that its people like us that inspire her to keep up effort to make things right. I wish I saved those emails.
Much later, when Professor Warren announced that she was running for the US Senate and would be holding her first campaign rally at Framingham State, my wife and I decided to go. We were late getting there. The auditorium was nearly full with just a few of us left in line, waiting to get in. At the front of the line, there was Elizabeth Warren, personally thanking each person who was attending.
I thought to myself, how, in a few seconds after this woman has already met hundreds of people, can I say “Hello, I sent you an email a few years ago and you wrote me back and ,,,,,,,” and not look like an idiot? Somehow, when that moment came, I just shook her hand and said, “Hello, my name is John and I’m from Franklin. I wrote you some time ago about your Berkeley video when I was out of work and…..” she stopped me right there, her eyes widened and she said “Hi John, where’s your wife, I hope she’s okay” She was, and she was right behind me. Elizabeth greeted my wife and gave her a hug.
That was all my wife and I needed to hear. She remembered us and what we went through. In the middle of her first campaign announcement, she was more interested in my wife’s well being than her campaign.
The next day, my wife and I went to the town clerk. I changed my voter registration from unregistered to Democrat and my wife changed hers from Republican to Democrats….and the rest is history.
Elizabeth Warren is authentic. No one will ever convince me otherwise.
I think the thing that her opponents fear — and perhaps hope to exploit – is that she is very very real, absolutely sincere in her beliefs and commitment to those on the “ragged edge of the middle class”. That’s her life’s work, and attention must be paid.
petr says
–snip–
It’s worth noting that Elizabeth Warren, too, started off as a Republican. (Hillary Rodham, also, although their ideal Republican was likely to have been Ike and not Rush…). I’ve also read (I believe it used to be on her wikipedia page, but no longer) that Elizabeth Warren began looking into bankruptcy law as a straightforward way of, as John says, proving that people who fell into bankruptcy were just freeloading bums who merely wanted to avoid using their own bootstraps to succeed. She got over that rather quickly, apparently, as the weight of evidence to the contrary began to, first, pile up and then snowball.
I think this is a part of her story that needs more emphasis, not only because it’s reality, but because her past mirrors Johns past and, if we are to extricate ourselves from the present pass, something like this conversion must be in the future for the Trump voters: Those who voted for Trump will have to someday refer to themselves, similar to John, as a “recovering Trump Voter.” To recognize the errors they made and the lies they fervently believed. The alternative is for them to vote someone worse next time… because that’s exactly how deceit works. We can ease this passage and perhaps even engender a repentance if we run a candidate who can show voters that there is something worthwhile on the other side… that the passage is not deadly, and in fact healing.
I suppose I could pat myself on the back for never having believed the lies and look down in accusation upon those who still do… but that’s both scant comfort and an unbridgeable gulf betwixt and between me and them and the reality I have to face is that I can’t help them. John and his wife and the good Senator Warren can.
This is the story of America in the future: everybody who presently denies climate change will be faced with the consequences of that denial someday; everybody who voted Trump will be confronted with sheer horror of it (if they haven’t been already…); Mr and Mrs John T May and Senator Elizabeth Warren have made a similar trek already and I guess the best I can do is to help the May’s and the Warren’s to help those yet to make that trek. Call it fate. Call it karma. Call it irony. Whatever you want to call it… but I’m beginning to think Elizabeth Warren might just be the right candidate for the times…
carl_offner says
I too have heard this story, albeit not with quite as much purple prose. I tell it to everyone I know. The thing that really impresses me about it is this: people rarely change their basic beliefs. This was case where Elizabeth Warren did actually change a fundamental way she had been brought up to look at the world, and made this change based on an honest investigation of the facts of the matter. I find this just stunning.
Steve Consilvio says
I was never a Republican, but I am a recovering capitalist. I boot-strapped a business with $5000 and ran for 20 good years, but 9/11 changed all that. The assumption that the economy is ‘rigged’ is wrong. It is dysfunctional, and cannot possibly deliver the greatest benefit for the greatest number. If you have ever played a game of Monopoly, then you have witnessed the problem: Everyone starts off even, everyone gets paid the same, and everyone gets an equal number of turns. Despite all this ideal world infrastructure, wealth slowly concentrates into the hands of one player. The powerful are not ‘rigging’ the system, and it could be easily argues that they are simply in a fight for survival, the same as everyone else. The bigger they are, the bigger their overhead, and the harder they fall. Capitalism is a perpetual panic because of our accounting methodology.
Note that there is no government or taxation in Monopoly. It is a perfect free market, based on chance, and that alone is enough to generate a plurality of misery. Our capitalist system runs EXCLUSIVELY because of the ever-growing National Debt (aka the Bank in the game). Inflation is closer to the real enemy, because as prices rise and goods are consumed, the mathematical footprint is permanent, and the only possible solution is to compound the accounting farce with an ever greater accounting farce. This takes place primarily in the area of real estate, where mortgage interest underlies every boom and bust. All the real estate inflation makes all of society poorer. While the mass suicide of 19 people on 9/11 was crazy, underneath the surface there is actually a logical complaint about modern economics. The banks run our society, the military defends it, and Congress created the rules. The target of the attack was very logical. Unfortunately, even if we abandoned interest entirely, as bin Laden advocated, we can see that there are no interest payments in Monopoly. It is profit itself in the act of buying and selling that is driving the volatility. The solution is simple: non-profit businesses. Politically that is difficult because it requires everyone to let go of the status quo, but was undoubtedly the idea behind jubilees in the Old Testament. There is no way to predict profit, but it is easy to correct its effect if not allowed to fester. In an ironic twist of fate, the stability of our government over 200+ years is simultaneously our weakness.
Someone like Warren is likely intelligent enough to grasp the problems and fix them, although I am somewhat concerned by the partisan rhetoric which diverts attentions from the system to blaming people or Wall Street. Wall Street is fully funded by volunteer payments, in large part by unions. If the unions divested from Wall Street, like in South Africa, we could have systemic change tomorrow, (Divesting from fossil fuels to protect the climate is far too little an idea). Trump had an opportunity to unite the country and solve problems, but instead blew it big time. Stupid people (me) are capable of having an epiphany and seeing the world differently, but the real change necessary is not from Republican to Democrat, it is from Capitalism to Commonwealth. We are playing a game of Monopoly which guarantees everyone loses. A few tweaks in the right places could make a world of difference.
johntmay says
It’s rigged. Don’t kid yourself. In Monopoly, everyone starts with $1,500 and we take turns rolling the dice. The rules are cast in stone and all players have an equal chance ot winning. In American Monopoly, guys like Trump and Romney start out with $15 Million and here’s the best part, once they pass GO, the player with the most cash and properties gets to re-write a rule. (We call it lobbying). And golly gee if that new rule is not to their benefit!
Most of the tax avoidance rules are ones that poor mortals like me could never use because we don’t have enough cash to join the club. There will never be a “John May Charitable Foundation” with my sons as stewards of that fund that really never gives much to anyone but pays them $3 million a year. The list of “rules” that favor the wealthy are not endless, but they are extensive. For an in depth look, read the book “Rigged” by economist Dean Baker. You can download it FREE here.
There is a reason why wages for the working class have remained stagnant for over four decades while a few individuals and families are getting richer, and richer and richer. The reason is they, not we, are making the rules, and the rules are rigged in their favor.
Steve Consilvio says
johntmay, Monopoly has a clearly defined beginning. Real life does not. Every generation is entering in the middle of the game where the rules and all the property are owned and controlled by the older generation. Because of hereditary advantage, in our case non-monarchial because that system was overthrown, some families have a huge advantage. That does not make the system ‘rigged.’ Although there is obviously a lot of corruption, crime and self-dealing taking place, the system itself has nothing to do with the individuals. People do not “have an equal chance of winning” in any meaningful sense. The majority MUST lose. The rules create that result. Since wealth concentrates despite all the equalizations in Monopoly, those advantages in the real world build and compound even more mercilessly. Obviously a lot can be done to mitigate the effect, but if the average person is invested in Wall Street, trying to make unearned income, then somewhere there must be someone being underpaid and overworked. It’s pretty common for people to be paying a mortgage with one hand, while trying to take interest with the other (401K, etc). That doublethink is of their own making, not by the 1%. We must reap what we sow. It’s hypocritical to complain about corporations while wanting to take the profits for oneself. Again, the middle class majority can change the system overnight, but only if they have the vision to change themselves.
johntmay says
You seem to prove my point:
Corruption is part of the rigging. How many Wall Street crooks did the Obama administration go after? None, Why?
Explain to us why members of the same minority keep winning, if the system is not rigged? Not all teams win the Superbowl, but if the NY Jet won 45 of the last 52, I’d say the system is rigged.
You just demonstrated how the system is rigged against the working class.
So why haven’t they?
Steve Consilvio says
johntmay Corruption makes a dysfunctional system worse, but it is also a chicken or an egg problem. Corruption in part is a response to the fact that you are likely to lose by playing fair.
Obama didn’t put anybody in jail, but I am no fan of Obama. My moniker for him was Obama the Timid.
People say the Patriots cheat because they keep winning. A jealous accusation does not make it true. Sure, some minority keeps winning because they have the cash or access to credit to prevent them from falling off their perch. Wall Street gets a bailout, not Main Street. The bigger issue is that SOME minority must win, it matters less who they are because the majority MUST lose. Killing the King doesn’t help if you don’t change the system of protected privileges. He was going to die eventually, and someone else will take his place. Like electing people that only think alike, the status quo will endure regardless of the individual players.
The system isn’t ‘rigged’ when people voluntarily invest their saved surplus into a ponzi scheme (Wall Street). They are being foolish. They have been brain-washed by the dominant culture. The problem of doublethink and groupthink has deep roots. As in 1984, the opposing sides might be full of ferocity against each other, but they are not opposites (good vs evil), but actually a mirror image of each other. Enlightenment is more like the Tao, finding the third way.
scott12mass says
Islam itself prohibits interest not just Bin Laden, but don’t worry rich people in those countries can use ijara or murabaha to make a few bucks. Besides Islam considers magicians evil (haram) and who doesn’t like a good trick, so we don’t want to emulate them.
SomervilleTom says
I hope your reference to Islam is intended as humorous.
Just to be clear, consider Deuteronomy 23:19 (from the Hebrew Scriptures, or “Old Testament” for Christians):
Or Exodus 22:25:
Or Leviticus 25:36:
These are from the Pentateuch — held sacred by Islam as well as Judiasm (and Christianity).
The prohibition of usery is a fundamental part of all Abrahamic religious traditions.
Steve Consilvio says
SomervilleTom, I don’t see anything humorous in how society functions and divides. A lot of blood gets shed over an inability to communicate.
Yes, Leviticus puts prohibitions on interest, but it also puts a prohibition on profit, too. How does a society operate without profit? What is a non-profit business?
I don’t think it is that hard. We are in debt for $21 Trillion. Every nation in the world is in debt, besides businesses and individuals. This is totally crazy, and the best way to understand it is as percentages compounding. It makes no difference if the percentage is interest, profits, wages or taxes; the mathematical effect is the same. Inflation wins, wealth concentrates, society fragments. Zero is always a fixed point.
Most people are content with just getting ‘more,’ rather than questioning the bigger system of how did the concentration of wealth occur. Inflation will always outpace earnings and generate more concentration of wealth. The next generation will repeat the mistakes of the previous generation, and the math can only get worse. A revolution is an attempt to reset the numbers, but the next day the same problems will repeat if not understood.
SomervilleTom says
Thanks for posting
Steve Consilvio says
scott12mass I think they are emulating us. The Declaration of Independence says that we went to war because the King refused to negotiate. Our policy of 1) only negotiating from a position of strength and 2) refusing to negotiate with terrorists is the same position that the King took, and leaves war as the the only option.
As in all things, just because someone has a grievance, it does not follow that they fully understand the problem or have the best solution. Sunni vs Shite isn’t that much different than GOP vs Democrat. North vs South, Black vs White. Tribalism comes in many forms,
Ultimately it is the inability to trade fairly (within the division of labor) that is at the heart of all disputes. A proper reading of Marx and Adam Smith, for example, has more overlap than disagreement. Both condemned inequality.
Attacking the World Trade Center was no different than attacking the tea companies, who were given protected status by the Lords of Trade. America wants to set the rules for trade around the world, so we have naturally spawned a global resistance. If Adam Smith had been heeded, then Marx would not have needed to write. Smith’s words have been twisted beyond recognition. If the social contract is ignored then ruin must follow, but the bigger question is still how do we make the division of labor work for everyone? Obviously philanthropy is too little too late. We have a lot more empirical evidence to draw on than Smith or Marx had. We should not ignore it in favor of a simple scapegoat.
SomervilleTom says
I must have grown up playing a different Monopoly game from you.
The heart of the game is buying property “deeds”. All properties of a given color must be owned in order to put houses or hotels on them.
Any property can be “mortgaged” (emphasis mine):
You offer some interesting speculation about the nature of capitalism and the role of inflation. It isn’t clear to me that it’s any more credible than your apparent misunderstanding (or mis-remembering) of the rules of Monopoly.
Steve Consilvio says
SomervilleTom, In Monopoly, if nobody owns any sets, nobody usually goes bankrupt, but the Bank will run out of money. This suggests that anti-trust legislation should be enough to keep the people free, but obviously a bankrupt bank has to be dealt with at some point.
The “interest’ fees you refer to are not a significant part of the game. Only when the tipping point occurs (the game has a boom economy and then a bust economy) does that come into play. At that point the wealth has already concentrated and ‘equal wages’ is not enough to keep pace with inflation.
Boom is bust is at the heart of our wild economy, as 2008 showed, as well as the S&L bailouts under Bush. This has been going on since the beginning. Henry Lee (Robert E’s father) was a speculator that went bankrupt, as well as many others involved in the creation of the Federal government. High property values increase the cost of living and lower the standard of living, the exact opposite of what most people think. They think rising real estate values is good. The towns get more revenue, and people want to cash out for their retirement, but the effect is a larger burden on the next generation who will demand more wages. This increases inflation and volatility. (and stress for retirees)
I should add: All real estate appreciation is good for the banks. When we trade property, banks get the proceeds from the sale as a deposit and get the debtor on the hook for the same amount. They realize all the gains from appreciation. Our system isn’t capitalism, it is really feudalism 2.0. Instead of being bound to the land and giving the harvest to the Lords, we are bound to the mortgage and give cash to the banks. We are more mobile but just as enslaved. Whether we are young and expanding or older and downsizing, the banks win on both sides of the transaction. That “free checking” is very expensive.
SomervilleTom says
Thanks for posting.
johntmay says
Thanks Charlie. Yes, I’ve told this story many times over the years, especially when anyone ever questions the character of Elizabeth Warren.