the root of all evil

In the conversations I’ve participated in with Chris Bell, I’ve occasionally sensed that he’s not quite ready for prime time, but that he’s a very fast learner and may well get there. More importantly, one of his central themes just makes me want to give him a Great Big Hug. So perhaps he should be happy that I’ll be at a wedding in Ruidoso this weekend and will miss the big shindig on Saturday night. He doesn’t need me hugging him all the time.

The line that inspires the desire to hug is the one about budgets being moral documents. I sense in that line a deeper understanding that politics and society are about people, not money, and that money used by those who have it to destroy those who don’t is bad money. When we wail and gnash our teeth over green pieces of paper, bits of our soul break off to be trampled under the stomping feet of commerce. It’s ugly.

I thought about this last night when the SO and I ate in Furr’s Cafeteria in Wolflin Village. We were enjoying our meal as much as is possible in Furr’s when the waiter came to our table and introduced herself.

Waiter: now, Furr’s is a cafeteria. We’d walked through the line, carried our own food to our tables, now we have a waiter that we’ll have to tip?

The waiter made her way to the other tables; it took her about thirty seconds since no one needed anything. Then she began to bus tables and sweep the floor.

Ah, that’s her real job, isn’t it? Bussing tables and sweeping floors, but if Furr’s calls her a waiter and she takes thirty seconds to introduce herself to each table, they can pay her about a nickel an hour. Waiters have a lower minimum wage than everyone else because they supposedly get tips.

So basically Furr’s is trying to get customers to pay as much of their payroll costs as they can. And if Furr’s is like any other company, those waiters probably have to tip out everyone else at the end of the night. I know we have some ex-waiters around these parts. Is this fair?

Furr’s is finding a way around existing law to exploit human beings. That’s what corporations do; but Republicans would give these amoral social constructs ever more power to exploit and wreck human lives. They deregulate, they give tax breaks, and as for that pesky minimum wage that Furr’s works so hard to get around, some Republicans say we shouldn’t have one at all.

So the next time you go to Furr’s look for our waiter. You’ll see her; she’s an African-American mother of a teenager. She’ll be telling jokes and cutting up so that maybe her customers, who don’t really need her, will notice her anyway and leave some change on the table because that’s how she feeds her family.

Look for her. That’s who Republicans want to exploit. And that’s who Chris Bell and other progressives are talking about when they say that budgets are moral documents.

SPACEDARK