Following the story is a continuation of my thoughts on the economy, in which I discover an "Elephant in the Closet." Also, in the works for a future posting is a "feature" on butterfly farming of which here's a sample, pictured nibbling on a plant in my yard:
But let's get on to that short story I promised you.
* * * * *
A Matter of "Life" and Death
Jack Lippman
It gets very cold in the mountains of central Italy in the winter, especially if you haven’t any fuel to put into the stove to heat the house. And beside the cold, there was the hunger. The retreating Germans had taken whatever food had been stored in the barn, so Katarina and her brother had to go out and look for frozen berries, roots and maybe a wild turnip or two with which to make some soup, as well as some branches to use as kindling for their cooking fire. Pietro had been able to trap a rabbit last week, but they had about finished eating that, even the little bones from which they had been sucking marrow. Perhaps today he would catch another one. Their mother had died in an accident two years ago and their father, who hadn’t spoken a word since he came back from the Army three years before that happened, gratefully shared whatever ten year old Katerina and Pietro, two years older, managed to bring back to their bleak farmhouse.
The Germans took more than the food. Before they fled the rocky farm community in the Apennines, they went through each house, carrying off whatever jewelry and clothing they could find to take back to what they called the Fatherland, but worst of all, they had stolen all of the shoes that they could find.
“Pietro, my feet are very cold,” said Katerina, pointing to the ragged covering she had wrapped about her feet. “I’m glad I found this old pair of Papa’s boots, but there are more open spaces than leather on the bottom and my feet are packed with snow. I am so cold.”
“Little sister, be grateful. All I have is wet newspaper tied around my feet. I think my toes are about to fall off. I can’t feel them any more. Look, though, at that bush! The birds didn’t get all of the berries on it last summer! Go pick them while I dig some roots.”
“How much longer can we go on like this? I am so tired.” Pietro put his arm around his sister and smiled. “The Americans will be here soon, now that the Germans are gone. Then everything will be alright. But we have enough for today, I think. It’s starting to get dark. Let’s go back to the house before we freeze to death.”
* * *
Some days earlier, after the arrival of hundreds of cartons marked with the highest security markings at the Luftwaffe airdrome near Bologna, Major Kurt Von Seckel grimaced after leaving his Commandant’s office.
“What are you annoyed about, Major?” his aide asked as they strode down the ramp to the field where their dozen remaining Messerschmitt fighters sat under white and grey camouflage netting. “You won’t believe it, Fritz, but the psychological warfare people in Berlin have come up with an interesting idea to slow the advance of the American Fifth Army up through Italy. They want me to drop leaflets, or more precisely, magazine covers, on the Americans.”
“Major, excuse my saying so but we can put our aircraft to much better use.”
“Of course we can, but they are all going crazy in Berlin. But orders are orders and we shall follow them. But listen to me, Fritz. This is important! First, do you know what the most popular magazine in America is?”
“Of course, Life Magazine! I used to be in intelligence analysis, you know, Major.”
Von Seckel smiled. “Good! Then you must know that all of the Americans recognize the magazine. Well, Berlin has printed up thousands of ersatz covers of Life Magazine showing a pretty girl on it under the Life logo in its usual red rectangle, for us to drop on the Americans instead of bombs. Here, take a look at one of them, Fritz.”
The aide examined the magazine cover for a minute and exclaimed, “What is this supposed to accomplish, Major? I would rather our planes dropped bombs than give the Americans pictures of pretty ladies to look at.”
“Turn it over, you idiot!”
“Ah, now I see. Oh, how very clever we are! On the backside is a picture of a skeleton’s head wearing an American helmet, and the name of the magazine is changed from “Life” to “Death” in the red box. Yes, Berlin is exceedingly clever.” The Major smiled. “I’m sure that this will convince thousands of Americans to drop their guns and desert, don’t you, Fritz? What do you think?”
“You don’t want me to answer that question, Major, do you?”
The two Luftwaffe officers strode back to the warehouse, thinking about how many planes they might lose in dropping the magazine covers on the advancing Americans.
* * *
“Pietro, what is that coming down from the sky?” asked Katerina as they got closer to their farmhouse in the frigid twilight.
“I hope it isn’t more snow.”
“Pietro, it is too big to be snow. It looks like paper birds, floating down in our old vineyard. Run and pick one up!”
Before long the two children had collected armfuls of the magazine covers and, along with the roots, berries and kindling wood they had gathered, as well as a mouse that Pietro had caught in his trap, they carried them back to the house. After warming their frozen feet near the small cooking fire, they fashioned paper sandals out of layers of the magazine covers they had collected. Tied around their feet with scraps of cloth, they called them “our new shoes” and were the closest thing to dry footwear that they had worn in weeks.
Two mornings later, some American troops came by the farm house. They left some food with the children and told them that someone from the village would be coming to look in on them in a day or so to see if they were alright. They smiled when they saw what the children were wearing on their feet. “I bet the Nazis never thought they’d be helping keep some kids’ feet warm, maybe even saving their lives, when they dropped those screwy Life Magazine covers from the sky,” a tall corporal from Newark chuckled to himself as they marched off, trudging up the snowy hill toward the vineyard.
(Well, the story is fiction … but the magazine covers were real! Here is a copy of the front and back of what the Germans were dropping behind the Allied lines in Italy in the winter of 1944. Some were far "sexier" than this example, but you get the idea.)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
THE ELEPHANT IN THE CLOSET
For years, I have been preaching that the real answer to our nation’s economic problem is job creation. I used to think protectionism was the way to accomplish this, but our global economy has more or less eliminated that option. Jobs produce income which can be spent, and that spending creates still more jobs, and on and on. It really is just that simple. Now, let’s go back to my recent suggestions (I suggest you read them again, but if you choose not to, brief summaries follow) for solving the three problems besetting America and see how they specifically relate to job creation.
The Real Estate Crisis: By selling bonds, the government gets the money to buy up “underwater” mortgages at a discount, and auctions them off to bidders who manage these properties on a rental basis, usually with the former mortgagor as the tenant. This takes many older properties off of the market, enabling the construction industry to step in to keep up with the need to put new housing on the market. This creates jobs in construction and real estate.
The Wall Street Crisis: By stopping the extraction of undeserved funds from the economy by speculators, hedge funds, banks and private capital firms, more money becomes available for real investment in real businesses committed to hire employees as they grow. Otherwise, these funds would be used non-productively by those whose only investment aim is profitability through extracting wealth from the economy. Tightened regulation will stop this. When have hedge funds, for example, benefited anyone other than the very rich who invest in them?
The Budgetary Crisis: Significantly raising personal income taxes on the wealthy will provide the funds necessary for today’s essential government programs (and they are essential) which include unemployment benefits and investment in job creation, particularly in regard to education, health care and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure. At the same time, these increased tax revenues will also be used to eliminate the deficit and start to pay down the debt. Reducing corporate taxation will give businesses the incentive to start up and keep operations in the United States and create new jobs here.
The elephant in the closet which the politicians refuse to recognize and talk about is that personal income taxes must be increased on the income of the wealthy. Cutting government investment in essential services, and reducing those services, is an acceptable answer only for the wealthy who do not need these services, and for the gullible who have been duped into believing that what is good for the wealthy is good for the economy. For the vast majority of Americans, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are essential and there is no reason these services should be reduced in order to preserve the assets of the wealthy. This is what the Bush tax cuts were all about and it is shameful that the Democrats, including the President, went along with continuing them. The time has come to raise personal income taxes on those individuals whom the economy has treated very well and blessed with great wealth. (If you want specifics, I consider great wealth to start with an annual income of $300,000.)
Jack Lippman
A Quiz: How many of you have ever heard of Grover Norquist? More about him in a future posting.
A Quiz: How many of you have ever heard of Grover Norquist? More about him in a future posting.
No comments:
Post a Comment