The Really, Really, Really High Cost of Not-So-Low Prices

In our neighborhood, some of us borrow tools from each other. We borrow a jar of honey. We talk over the fence. We help dig the holes for each other�s fence posts. In our neighborhood, we go out of the way to buy from our neighbor's store. We talk about how the big-box stores are opening everywhere and how the local stores are all closing. We talk about how the big-box stores can sell so cheap. So why buy from local stores when we can pay less at the big-box store?

In the end, there is a high cost to low prices.

And what does that mean? In that we support one another, you, your neighbor and I are like an extended family. Our kids play together. It is an extended family that makes up our neighborhood. "Do unto my neighbor as I would have my neighbor do unto me" is what I learned from the values in my family education. I value that education. It is part of my Liberal Democratic values system.

Another part of my Liberal Democratic values system tells me that there will always be the poor. They are not bad. They are just poor. There will always be people who do not manage to make the right decisions to have financial success. Or people who, and who of us might not be there someday, are ill or are dying.

If that is us, we will need your help. If that is our neighbor, we will need to provide the help. It is called "good behavior."

�Leave the corners of our fields for the poor,� the Bible commands.

Many pay one tenth of their income as a tithe to the church. Yet somehow church does not seem to be enough as this country is losing its Democratic values.

There are attempts to cut benefits out of the education budget; to cut Medicaid and welfare. Democratic values are Christian. They are Jewish. They are Muslim. They are the values of good people everywhere. Cutting reasonable benefits for the poor is morally unsound and against the Bible, the Koran and the values of cultures throughout history.

There is a tradition that the 2 1/2 percent tithe�the poor tax, as we would call it�that was levied in the ancient nation of Islam, was so effective that there was a year in which no one person could be found who needed the money. Would that not make a wonderful movie scene?

Fields of snow in the foreground with evergreens weighed down by snowy boughs. The camera hones in on a home�a ranch in Crawford Texas. Luxurious gifts lie all about, the happy family shining their �Christmas-like� smiling faces, listening joyfully to their children singing.

The camera swings out to the gates of the property. There a poor man rubs the swollen and cracked skin of his hands, trying uselessly to convince the phalanx of police at the impregnable steel gate to allow him to approach a warming fire billowing from the oil drum planted on the edge of the road. The camera pans away.

In the past the poor were considered to have a wealth of knowledge. Biblical prophets rarely garnered wealth. In Thailand today, young men are instructed to take a year in the poverty of priesthood. Franciscan monks take a vow of poverty. Many nuns take a vow of poverty.

Today poverty is construed to be shameful. A person who does not have the wealth of a Cheney or a Bush is a failure. Ashamed of their failure, in the poorest of ghetto stores, you can find the sign,

If I Were Smart I'd Be Rich.

We, in the United States, if poor, are, yes, ashamed of our failure and bow down to the one who sends our impoverished to the killing fields, raking in the dollars.

Bow down to Poppa Wardolla.

It's like a football game, where we cheer the defensive tight end who is clever enough to get away with clipping. We cheer the basketball guard who sticks his elbow in the gut of his opponent and is not seen to do that by the referee.

Cheer play fair and win or lose honorably. Is this not the value we want to teach our children in our religious institutions?

It's like a presidential election, where we vote for the candidate who has cleverly rigged the voting machines.

Elect those who play fair and win or lose honorably.

Is this not the lesson we teach in church? Sunday school education always meant a lot to me. The values I learned there still guide me.

Yet we fight for the cheating leader. Do we need so badly to be on the side of the winner? That winner is a loser. Yes, if we side with this winner/loser we may get dollars kicked back to us. Is this what we want each our children?

Good Democratic leaders espouse good education. Yet the Evil have always known how to use evil education. Nazis were masters of education. Terrorists educate their initiates quite well. Unfortunately mis-education exists too often in contemporary PR about war and peace, about elections, about products for sale. Is this what we want our children to learn?

Democratic values can only exist with education. When you come down to it, the point of having an event called, "Independence Day For Independent Bookstores," is education. The point of having an anthology called Independence Day For Independent Bookstores is education. Corporate giants such as GM can only get away with their misbehavior when we lack good education.

'Independent Bookstore' Anthology http://www.paulaaron.com. January 30 Postmark deadline for submissions to "Independence Day for Independent Bookstores 2006," a new anthology. Submit a story (2000 word max), a poem, an essay or a 10-minute play on topics such as: 1) my favorite independent store; 2) how I support the local economy; or 3) I watched my favorite local store close. Please submit early but must be postmarked by January 30 to Paul Aaron, P.O. Box 9251, Chapel Hill, NC 27515-9251 with SASE or to paul@paulaaron.com. Visit link for complete details.

A showing of the film, High Cost of Low Price and a discussion of the anthology, Independence Day for Independent Bookstores 2006. Internationalist Books and Community Center, Chapel Hill Friday, December 16 at 7 p.m.

There will also be a reading by North Carolina Arts Council Poet of the Week, Paul Aaron, accompanied by CJ on Native American flute Go to www.paulaaron.com for details of the evening�s event and to register for seating. Go to www.ncarts.org/services_programs_projects.cfm?ID=10 to see the write-up on Paul Aaron.

Thursdays 9 a.m. go to www.espradio.com for a live link to WCOM, 103.5 FM-LP in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, NC or call 919-929-9601 to join us on air.

Peggy Misch and Doug Stuber will join us on 12/8.

Send this article to a friend Printer-Friendly Version

More articles by this author, Paul Aaron

Dr. Paul Aaron's publications include: "White Flower" and "Our Blessed Love Enduring." "Catastrophizing" was performed by the Deep Dish Theater Company at the Cornucopia House Cancer Support Center in 2003.

In 1971, Dr. Aaron began teaching Yoga and meditation. In 1972 he became the owner of Manna Fest Station, a natural foods macrobiotic restaurant. The Journals of Manna Fest Station are in his plans to publish next year. Organic gardening is still the way of his family�s kitchen table and he continues teaching in the fields of Nutrition and Meditation.

Graduating cum laude from Logan College of Chiropractic in 1983, Aaron practiced Chiropractic and Acupuncture until the point that Democracy and writing demanded all his attention.