Abraham is known for a rather famous offer of hospitality to travelers, “please do not go on past … let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves.” Afterward, Abraham is rewarded, “One of them said, ‘I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.’” If we thought the travelers’ food appeared magically as in a fairytale, we’d be mistaken. Lost in the background of the story, rarely credited or rewarded, are the people who labored to bring the travelers their food and refreshment. “Abraham hastened into the tent and told Sarah, ‘Quick, three measures of fine flour! Knead it and make rolls.’” Abraham sent “a choice steer to a slave, who quickly prepared it.”
The way of the world has not changed much since Biblical times. The Sarahs and slave laborers behind the scenes still do most of the work while the slave owners out front still get most of the credit and reward. That ageless truth was once again highlighted in recent exchanges concerning the Magic Kingdom, Disney. Abigail Disney, grandniece of Walt, stepped out of Sarah’s tent, shall we say, and before the House Financial Services Committee. There, she spoke the truth of the Disney Corporation’s privileged few who get credit and reward though they front for slave labor practices. “It is time to pull back the curtain on this garish life and ask ourselves how high a handful should soar as the rest of us watch the American Dream collapse for a large majority of working people?” Ms. Disney knows it is not magic but slavish conditions that mark working people’s lives, “We have begun to cannibalize the very people that make this economy thrive.” Disney is a $150 billion corporation. It made approximately $9 billion in plunder last year. It routinely receives hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks from local governing authorities. In addition, it recently received a $1.6 billion federal tax break from Trump as part of his gift to the 1% class. Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, recently received from its Board a four year compensation agreement for approximately $423 million. This is happening at the same time the Sarahs and most other slave laborers at Disney make less than $12 an hour, less than $24,000 annually. Slave wages indeed (U.S. Dept. of HHS set the 2018 federal poverty level at $24,600 for a family of four). Abigail Disney offered ideas for changing the conditions, which workers hospitably received; renovate empty housing near Disney parks to eliminate workers’ housing and commute needs, restore stock options for all employees, and distribute left over food among workers. Abigail Disney offered another idea but it will not be hospitably received by capitalist owner; cut executive bonuses in half and then use that half for employee needs such as wages, health care, child care, and emergency needs. Capitalist owners persist in their inhospitality to workers and to workers’ rights initiatives. Their behavior is a searing indictment of capitalism which operates as a debt slave system but is presented by the master class as if it is a magic kingdom.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked …protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism … who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse … who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or … to the daisychain or grave … What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? … Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities! … skeleton treasuries! … spectral nations! invincible mad houses! … monstrous bombs! They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!” (Howl – Allen Ginsberg)
Prayer: Spirit, we reject magic and madness to live in communion
Question: How can I help change capitalism and its slavish practices?
July 21, 2019 Gospel Luke 10:38-42 Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time