AFSC WV statement on Senator Manchin and Build Back Better

 CHARLESTON, WV (December 20, 2021) Over the weekend, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin announced on Fox News that he would not support the Build Back Better act. This comes after months of debate over the provisions in the bill, which would help families with childcare, improve the U.S. response to climate change, and strengthen the social safety net. The proposed legislation would also provide needed funding for Black Lung benefits.

The West Virginia program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) – a Quaker organization active in the state for a century – issued the following statement calling on Manchin to change his position:

“A century ago, Quaker volunteers began working in solidarity with the people of West Virginia. There was severe economic hardship in the coalfields, with child poverty and hunger being key issues. Sadly, and perhaps incredibly, those issues are still very much alive in West Virginia, and we are still in the struggle to alleviate these challenging circumstances for people in our community.

During the 1920s and and1930s, AFSC administered direct relief to families in West Virginia and advocated for federal New Deal legislation to reduce unnecessary human misery, which transformed U.S. society. From the 1970s onward, AFSC accompanied and advocated for justice for coal miners and other workers, Black people, women, children, people in poverty, and other marginalized communities.

On many occasions, AFSC staff and volunteers collaborated with then legislator, later Governor, and now Senator Joe Manchin on state and federal issues ranging from the minimum wage and fair taxes to coal mine safety and preserving the gains of the Affordable Care Act.

We have also witnessed firsthand the better angels of our Senator’s nature in the compassion he has shown for victims of natural and human disasters. From the 1968 Farmington mine disaster, in which he lost an uncle, to the Aracoma, Sago and Upper Big Branch mine tragedies in the 2000s and beyond, Senator Manchin has shown himself to be compassionate and responsive.

Thus, we are deeply saddened to learn that Senator Manchin has withdrawn support from the proposed Build Back Better Act. Many in West Virginia have worked tirelessly to advocate for an opportunity to pass this life-changing piece of legislation. The Build Back Better Act would be as positively transformative as the New Deal in dramatically reducing child poverty and helping working families negotiate the duties of family and work. The Build Back Better Act would also address the existential threats of climate change and the need for a just economic transition for the people of West Virginia towards a more prosperous, sustainable, and less extractive and exploitive economic future.

We are still hopeful. AFSC is a diverse organization committed to the deeply held view that there is “that of God” in every person. It is not too late for Senator Manchin to return to his commitments, take a bold and needed step in this pivotal moment, and support prompt enactment of these measures.

We are holding out hope that our Senator still has some compassion for the hundreds of thousands of West Virginians and millions of people who would benefit from the Child Tax Credit, childcare support, improved health care, and immigration relief. As an organization with a global footprint, we also hope the Senator has compassion for the billions of people worldwide who might benefit from addressing climate change, an existential threat to us all.

We urge our Senator to recommit himself to negotiating the passage of genuinely transformative federal legislation that would dramatically reduce human suffering in West Virginia, the United States, and worldwide.”

###

The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. Drawing on continuing spiritual insights and working with people of many backgrounds, we nurture the seeds of change and respect for human life that transform social systems.

Quick action needed to save the Child Tax Credit

Calling all WV people! There is a disturbing article in Politico to the effect that WV Senator Joe Manchin may want to throw hundreds of thousands of WV kids--and millions from other places--under the bus by slicing the Child Tax Credit from proposed federal legislation. The expanded CTC has reduced child poverty by millions since it went into effect in July. And it dies today unless congress takes action, with Manchin being the key vote.

Manchin has been saying he's not hearing from West Virginians about this. We know that's not true but I'm hoping you can make it even less true by calling his Charleston  (304) 342-5855 and DC 202-224-3954 offices ASAP to save the program

Perfect timing for a seasonal reference

 I think most people can agree that it’s been a tough year, but it hasn’t been all bad. We’re in the middle of the fastest drop in child poverty in the nation’s history, thanks largely to the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) that went into effect on July 15.

Around 346,000 West Virginia children have benefited from the credit. 

According to the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, “The fourth monthly payment of the expanded Child Tax Credit kept 3.6 million children from poverty in October 2021. The Child Tax Credit reached 61.1 million children in October and, on its own, contributed to a 4.9 percentage point (28 percent) reduction in child poverty compared to what the monthly poverty rate in October would have been in its absence.”

That’s pretty major, and the numbers they’ve been tracking have been getting better month by month since it went into effect in July of this year. Given the chance, they’ll just keep getting better.

Contrary to fears that the CTC would discourage employment, the US jobless rate is at a 21 month low, while Governor Justice announced in October that the WV not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate  was 3.2 percent, the lowest on record.

That shouldn’t be a surprise if you think about it. The boost in monthly income is helping people stay in the workforce while looking after the needs of children.

Recently I’ve been part of an effort to collect and share stories from WV families about what they’re doing with the CTC. Here’s a sample in no particular order of how people are using it to improve their lives: paying for braces for kids, new clothing and shoes for kids, paying off bills, buying food, winter heating, car payments and insurance, kid’s doctor bills, fixing water problems, buying a new toilet, internet access, school supplies, moving to a better and safer home, visiting family members not seen in years, mortgages, utilities and preventing cutoffs, household supplies, and extracurricular activities for kids like sports, camps and cheerleading.

No doubt it’s going to make Christmas a little brighter for many families here and around the country. 

Unfortunately, all those benefits could die this month unless congress passes legislation to extend it without restrictions that would cut off those who need it most. 

Given the holiday timing, I can’t help thinking about the comments of pre-repentance Scrooge in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. When reminded of the needs of the poor at this time of year, he asks “Are there no prisons?...And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?”, referring to the miserable shelters indigent people were sent to at that time.

When he was told that many poor families would rather die than go to such places, he says "If they would rather die…they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

(I would like to think that we’ve made a little progress in mercy, compassion and social policy since Dickens penned those words in 1843.)

In the end, even Scrooge experienced a change of heart at this time of year and did the right thing. I hope something similar happens in the US Senate, with some help from West Virginia.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Proof of great prudence

 

Don't quote me on this, but sometimes I think the world might be a better place if more people studied Machiavelli. 

OK, not so much the advice about how a prince who came to power by unusual means might need to seem to be good while doing nasty things. Or the whole means/ends thing.  But there was a lot more to him than that. 

I don't know of any other author who wrote so clearly about the role of fortune in human life and the need to be ready when the floods come, the difficulty in enacting major reforms, and much more.

He was also a supporter of small-r republican government in his home city of Florence and was even tortured for it. The 18th century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said of him that "Whilst pretending to teach lessons to kings, he taught great lessons to the people."

The particular nugget of his that's on my mind these days has showed up here before, but it seems particularly timely advice these days to some major struggles in progress:

"I hold it to be proof of great prudence for men [sic] to abstain from threats and insulting words towards anyone, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you."

Interesting times, again

 I never thought it would come down to this. Who would have ever dreamed that the economic fate of millions of low income and working Americans, the climate and--oh yeah--the future of democracy would come down to one vote in the US Senate. And that vote happens to be from a certain West Virginian at a time when West Virginia is at its political nadir (please God don't let us sink any lower!).

I guess it's proof that God, the gods, Lady Fortuna, and/or world history has a sense of humor.

In fairness, as the senator in question has pointed out, if an election or two somewhere else had gone just a little differently, we wouldn't be in this situation. And, believe it or not, the situation could be worse. A lot worse.

In the last year, it seems that many groups and individuals around the country have discovered West Virginia again. I was hoping those days would pass since the torrent of journalistic "Trump country safaris" tapered off. 

In my experience, and taking a long view of history, it's almost never a good thing when the larger world discovers West Virginia.

Apparently, some from out of state think this senator sprang into existence out of nowhere sometime around last February and have tried to inform us of that fact. Some have even suggested we might consider contacting the senator in question...like it never would have occurred to us and as if we had no knowledge or experience of this person. 

What I do know is that a lot of people here are working hard to get the best possible Build Back Better through and to do all we can to push for voting rights--and that no fight before or after will ever be as important as this one. Some are focused mostly on climate, others on voting, others on economic issues, and many care deeply about all the above.

As you can probably imagine, this kind of pressure raises lots of interesting questions and tensions about tactics and strategies. As in soft or hard, inside and/or outside, calling in versus calling out, how hard to push without crossing a line, what works and what backfires, and more. And the situation changes every day.

All this would be an interesting intellectual exercise if there wasn't so much at stake. 

Stitching WV back together

 Apart from deer hunting, it’s hard to think of anything more classically Appalachian than quilting. It was an art born of necessity that produced items of beauty and warmth treasured for generations.

Both of us grew up in homes where quilting played the part. In Amy Jo's home, the sewing started when fall began, and those winters are memories of three generations gathered around the quilting frames set up in the sunroom. On similar evenings, Rick’s mother could be found curled up on a couch with a quilting hoop and a cat or two after a day of teaching junior high math.

In the days before textiles were mass produced in overseas sweatshops, things like clothing and blankets weren’t taken for granted. When garments became worn or threadbare, anything that could be salvaged was likely to wind up as part of a patchwork. It was also a way of preserving a bit of sentimental treasures like baby clothes or a special dress or of simply helping someone in need. 

It wasn’t a throwaway culture.

Aside from keeping people warm, quilts and quilters plaid a role in the struggle for freedom. During the days of slavery, quilts hanging outside a home were even used as codes to assist escapees along the underground railroad by identifying safe houses or warning of dangerous conditions.

Today, the fabric of our communities is frayed. West Virginians have been hit by factory and mine closings, automation, massive outmigration, an opioid epidemic, deaths of despair, floods and other extreme weather events—not to mention decades of growing inequality and the COVID pandemic. We need to salvage what we can and sew our state back together in the spirit of our parents and grandparents. 

One way to do that is to ensure the passage of the Build Back Better agenda now under consideration in Congress. This includes provisions that would reduce child poverty, make child care affordable for millions, provide paid family leave, help seniors with in-home care, improve health care and more.

We were recently part of a group that delivered a quilt to Senator Manchin’s office. The squares told true stories of what the Child Tax Credit (CTC)—set to expire at the end of this year--has meant to West Virginia families. Some spoke of how the CTC helped them buy shoes and clothing for kids, fix cars so parents could work, or take part in extracurricular activities.

We’ve also heard from people about how the lack of safe and affordable child care kept them from entering the workforce. Others spoke of being torn between work and caring for m family members with disabilities, illnesses or injuries. We could easily fill up more quilts with stories like those.

We hope the quilt is a reminder of what West Virginia families need and of the best in our traditions. We need to follow the examples of our parents and grandparents and save what can be saved.

We can’t afford any more throwaway lives, families, or communities. 

(This ran as a joint op-ed with Amy Jo Hutchinson in the Charleston Gazette-Mail."

On crowds, pro and con

Sometimes I think I'm the last Freudian...except I'm not exactly a Freudian and if I was I probably wouldn't be the only one. Still, I'm part of the diminishing crowd that thinks he knew a thing or two about a thing or two.

(And, yes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.)

An example of Freud hitting the mark are these comments on crowd and group behavior, which can be a two edged sword:

When individuals come together as a group all their individual inhibitions fall away and all the cruel, brutal, and destructive instincts, which lie dormant in individuals...are stirred up to find free gratification. But under the influence of suggestion, groups are also capable of high achievement in the shape of abnegation, unselfishness, and devotion to an ideal. While with isolated individuals, personal interest is almost the only motive force, with groups it is very rarely prominent....Whereas the intellectual capacity of a group is always far  below that of an individual, its ethical conduct may rise as high above it as sink below it.

I'd say he nailed it. 

WV Groups call on Senator Manchin to Build Back Better

 For the last year, all eyes have been fixed on West Virginia, a state long economically exploited and stereotyped in the national media. In a narrowly divided Senate, our own Senator Joe Manchin would cast a deciding vote on groundbreaking policies that will affect millions of Americans for years to come.

With so much hanging in the balance, ordinary West Virginians mobilized as never before in support of a Build Back Better agenda that could revitalize our economic and community life. Many issues are riding on the outcome: Poverty, care for children and the elderly, health coverage, access to education, jobs, infrastructure, climate and more. While different groups and people  on the ground here had many priorities, we made a conscious effort not to be divided. 

We recognize the same people who gain from child and earned income tax credits need child care to work and help when sickness or disaster strikes. And that a changing climate makes us all look at the sky with a new fear.

When the outlines of the plan announced by President Biden were revealed, we celebrated. The Child Tax Credit alone has the potential to reduce child poverty by nearly half, doing for our children what Social Security has done for elderly Americans

Working parents constantly struggle to meet child care costs, which can exceed college tuition. Capping these expenses for families earning up to 250 percent of median family income would ensure quality care for around 20 million children while parents work or attend school. Improvements to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act will expand home care for seniors and people with disabilities, extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and hold down premiums for many more.

We would get funding for Pell grants and job training programs. We could expand child nutrition programs. Additional investments in affordable housing will help stabilize and improve the quality of life for many families. The framework also represents the largest effort to confront the many threats of climate change in American history while rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and helping the Appalachian region transition to a more prosperous and sustainable economy.

We recognize that no deal will be possible without the vote of Senator Manchin and it’s time for him to make a commitment to support Build Back Better. We call on Senator Manchin, his colleagues in Congress, and the Senate to move to pass this transformative legislation.

This wouldn’t be the first time our senator has influenced national policy in the interests of ordinary Americans. In 2017, he helped preserve the Affordable Care Act when it was in danger of repeal, while opposing irresponsible tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. He played a critical role in the passage of the American Rescue Plan earlier this year. We urge him to step up again for West Virginia and the nation. 

We regard the Build Back Better agenda as a major down payment for America’s future, one which we hope will eventually ensure a healthy and inclusive society in which all people can live a life with dignity and thrive. An ancient Chinese proverb says that “a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.” This is a good first step, with many more to come.

(Note: this statement was signed by a number of West Virginia organizations, including Young West Virginia, West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, West Virginia Citizen Action Group, Rattle the Windows, American Friends Service Committee West Virginia, Community Change, TEAM for West Virginia Children, National Association of Social Workers West Virginia Chapter, Race Matters West Virginia.)

Child Tax Credit should help those who need it most

 Imagine developing a powerful medicine that could dramatically reduce human suffering, and then denying it to those who need it most.

Unfortunately, something like that could happen, with legislation now under consideration in Washington. The “medicine” is the expanded child tax credit that was passed as part of the American Rescue Plan and that went into effect in July and could expire at the end of the year, unless action is taken.

The child tax credit covers nearly all American children, including about 346,000 in West Virginia. And that’s a good thing. When the first installment of the refundable credit went out for the first time on July 15, the Census Bureau found that food insecurity in households with children immediately dropped by about 25%.

Probably the greatest thing about the child tax credit is its broad reach. By covering so many families, it could do for kids what Social Security did for elderly Americans. Before Social Security became a thing, poverty rates were high for older Americans. In 1969, for example, more than a third of older Americans experienced poverty. By the end of the century, the rate had dropped to less than 10%.

Without Social Security today, the poverty rate for the elderly would climb to nearly 40%, but it also makes life easier for millions of families living above the poverty line. That’s one reason why it’s so popular.

The child tax credit can do the same for our children. It has the potential not only to help working families but also to reduce child poverty by nearly half. However, that will happen only if it is extended and if it doesn’t exclude those families living in deepest poverty.

It’s kind of like the flip side of the old story about asking a bank robber why he robbed banks. He answered, “That’s where the money is.” If you want to reduce child poverty and the lifelong damage it can do, you need to go where the money isn’t.

Any measure that would impose income requirements to qualify for an extended child tax credit would undo its most beneficial effects by leaving out those with little or no income.

One population that could be hit hard by income and employment requirements is households with grandparents and other seniors raising children. According to the Census Bureau, in 2019 — before the COVID-19 recession — West Virginia was among the top five states where grandparents were responsible for taking care of children. We’re mostly talking about retirees, although anyone who has raised children knows that is work.

According to a news report from Clarksburg’s WBOY, “More than half of grandparents in West Virginia who live with their grandchildren who are 18 or younger are responsible for them, according to the 2019 U.S. Census numbers, making West Virginia the second in the nation for grandparents raising grandchildren.” The numbers have gone up since then.

According to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, slightly over half of state children in foster care are in a formal or informal kinship/relative home, with much of the weight carried by seniors.

Another group that could miss out is people with disabilities or those who care for them, a group that overlaps to some degree with seniors. In 2019, about one in five West Virginians (nearly 350,000) had some type of disability. For people over age 65, the figure is about 40%. In 2017, 37% of working-age West Virginians with disabilities, i.e., those most likely to have children, lived in poverty.

Then there are parents and kids in domestic violence situations, which have been described as “intimate terrorism.” Among a host of bad things, this can keep people from meeting income and employment requirements for reasons of either power and control or personal and family safety.

According to Futures Without Violence, a national nonprofit advocacy group, “About one in four women experience intimate partner violence over their lifetime and reported some related impact.” Women between the ages of 18 and 24, prime childbearing years, suffer the highest rates of intimate partner violence.

The group also notes: “Increased financial security also gives survivors of domestic violence more options for safety for themselves and their children, such as living independently from an abusive partner.” Too often, people stay with abusive partners because they lack financial resources to support themselves and their children. Fully 74% of women in those situations reported staying in an abusive environment because they lacked financial resources according to a 2012 survey.

The Resource Center on Domestic Violence: Child Protection and Custody reports: “One researcher has estimated conservatively that at least 10 to 20% of children are exposed to intimate partner violence annually, with as many as one-third exposed at some point during childhood or adolescence.”

Nobody wins by denying benefits to people who are too terrorized to hold a job.

Aside from those situations, there also are people simply with very low incomes, those who have lost work because of the pandemic and seasonal workers in industries like tourism, one of our few growing economic sectors.

The beauty of the child tax credit is that it benefits a wide range of families with children. That needs to stay. But we shouldn’t leave anyone behind, especially those who would gain the most.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

How the Child Tax Credit helped one WV family

(Please take less than two minutes to watch this video about the real life benefits of the  Child Tax Credit made by AFSC's JoAnna Vance and videographer Orlando Pinter--then consider calling the DC office of WV Senator Joe Manchin at the number given below.)

The Child Tax Credit is not an abstract policy; it has real impact on real people like JoAnna Vance and her family in West Virginia. Watch and share her story, then take action: Call Sen. Joe Manchin at (202) 224-3954 and tell him to support the Build Back Better agenda.

"My name is JoAnna Vance, and I am an organizer in the state and the nation.

Everything that I am today is a direct result of my recovery. The reality is, you stopped using drugs and you're in recovery and now you are there, in life, every day—not numbing your feelings, not running away from your problems, actually facing them—for probably the first time in your life.

My husband and I worked really hard to get where we are today, to give our kids the life that they have. Just like many other families, we still struggle.

When I got the Child Tax Credit in July [2021], it went straight to the pediatrician and I paid the bill that I owed for my children's health care. It was just a weight off my shoulders. You need all of the support and the help that you can get, especially in early recovery. Not having support, not having these other options, not having sustainability can all be detrimental.

The Child Tax Credit is helping people with recovery. It's helping people who have been affected directly by substance use disorder. The Child Tax Credit is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, and it's helping our kids and helping our families in West Virginia and across the nation."

JoAnna Vance, AFSC WV Recovery Fellow

Hitting close to home

The state of the nation in the last few years is making me think more and more of Dante's Divine Comedy. This would be fine if it reminded me of the parts about Purgatory and Paradise, but I'm kinda stuck on Inferno now. 

The very first line of the very first canto pretty well sums up the state of the nation, as spoken in the first person: "In the middle of the journey of our lives I awoke to find myself in a dark wood, having lost the true path."

Ouch.

As the Poet/Pilgrim tries to push through the brambles he is threatened by three predatory beasts: a she-wolf, a leopard and a lion. Rivers of ink have been spilled over what these symbolize, but the most convincing explanation to me mirrors the classification of sins and punishments in hell.

The upper level of hell is for the greed (he used the term "incontinence," but that has other connotations these days), represented by the she-wolf. Then comes the level of the violence, represented by the lion. The lowest level is that of fraud and deceptions, which leaves the leopard.

Lost in the woods and threatened by greed, violence and lies...that sounds about right. In the poem, he has to literally go through hell to get out of it....hmmm.

Dante is aided by two guides at different parts of the journey. His guide through hell and lower purgatory was Virgil, who arguably represents natural human wisdom and effort, which will only go so far. To make it to paradise, he needs the assistance of Beatrice, who represents divine grace and mercy.

We could use both right about now.

Where is everybody?

 

Image by way of wikipedia

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with UFOs, then known as “flying saucers.”

It was a thing at the time, with UFO crazes that sprang up and disappeared like mushrooms every few years. Flying saucers were featured in news stories, science fiction, movies and popular songs.

In 1959, toward the end of his life, the famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung wrote a book about them titled, “Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky.” He thought such sightings were psychological projections symptomatic of our lost sense of wholeness.

I don’t know about that, but my kid self gobbled it all up and scanned the sky, desperately trying to convince myself I saw something.

For a while, I read dubious books that speculated about ancient astronauts. I got over that, although you must admit that the “wheel in a wheel” the biblical prophet Ezekiel saw “way up in the air,” as the song goes, was pretty trippy.

During a UFO craze when I was in junior high, a friend of mine and I wrapped up in aluminum foil and walked on Interstate 64 at night trying to appear as space aliens. We were hoping to freak out drivers, thereby obtaining eternal glory. (I guess I peaked early. And I’m assuming the statute of limitations has expired on such offenses.)

Interest nationally in UFOs has persisted over the years, and not just in the “X Files” crowd. This summer, the Pentagon released a report acknowledging some weird things way up in the air but casting doubt on their extraterrestrial origins. Meanwhile, the search for intelligent life on other worlds has shifted to radio telescopes, such as the one at Green Bank, in Pocahontas County, so far with no luck.

Saucers aside, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t life of some kind out there somewhere. After all, in our own solar system, we know there’s life on Earth, such as it is, with some serious scientific speculation about microbes on Mars and Venus, and maybe even something under the ice on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. A number of potentially habitable exoplanets have been discovered beyond our system that might support life as we know it. Then there’s the possibility of life as we don’t know it. After all, the universe is big.

Still, a question remains that is sometimes known as “the Fermi paradox,” which got its name when physicist Enrico Fermi asked, “Where is everybody?” In a universe so vast, it seems that at least some beings are likely to have become technologically advanced enough to send signals out into space to other worlds. So far, we haven’t found any.

There are lots of reasons that might account for this, one of which is a real downer.

Astrophysicists Tom Westby and Christopher Conselice have written: “Perhaps the key aspect of intelligent life, at least as we know it, is the ability to self-destroy. As far as we can tell, when a civilization develops the technology to communicate over large distances it also has the technology to destroy itself and this is unfortunately likely universal.”

Sometimes, I think we’re starting to resemble that remark. On Earth, even relatively low-tech complex civilizations tend to have limited shelf lives, as geographer Jared Diamond demonstrated in his bestselling book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” Diamond defines collapse as “a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time.” He argues that this has often been driven by environmental and climate changes, as well as related social factors.

Among the examples he discusses are some Pacific Islanders, Mayans, the Anasazi of the American Southwest, Vikings in Greenland and more recent societies pushing their luck.

According to a recent estimate, we’re consuming the resources of around 1.8 Earths, and we only have one. The effects of climate change are already bad but could get much worse if unaddressed, with rising temperatures and sea levels, extreme weather events, extinctions, food shortages, epidemics, massive displacements, conflicts over resources and related societal stresses.

Climate change, by the way, isn’t that hard to understand. Most people know that insulating a house helps keep heat in longer. To test this hypothesis, all you need to do is leave doors and windows open on a cold night. The greenhouse gases we’ve been burning since the Industrial Revolution began in the early 1800s have added way more insulation than we need, with potentially disastrous consequences.

And we’ve wasted decades when we had no time to spare to deal with it.

Fortunately, there are some concrete ways to address climate change in infrastructure bills now under consideration and in further legislation likely to be proposed soon.

West Virginia has much to gain in terms of transitioning to a stronger, more sustainable, and more just economy — and our senators will have a big say in whether any of that happens.

Considering the alternatives, I’d prefer that we take steps now to ensure that we and our grandkids and their descendants can stick around longer — maybe even long enough to find some real alien life forms.

After all, I’m getting too old to wrap up in aluminum foil and run around on interstates.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazatte-Mail.)

An anniversary of sorts

 St. Jean Pied de Port in southern France

I get a bit sentimental at this time of year. Three years ago today, after going down the wormhole of the Camino de Santiago Compostela for several months, I set off from a WV Friends Gathering near Huttonsville in a rental car, dropping it off in Baltimore and catching a ride from a friend to the BWI airport.

Then followed a night flight with a brief stopover in Iceland, a morning landing at Charles DeGaulle airport near Paris and two more flights to Biarritz.  From there, it was an hour or so in a shuttle car to St. Jean Pied de Port in the Pyrenees, where my pilgrimage would begin. It was the beginning of 37 days of walking across northern Spain along the medieval pilgrimage route walked by millions since the 9th century (full disclosure: I took one day off from hiking after 33 straight days in the beach town of Finisterre on the Atlantic). 

Including getting lost and other meanderings, I think it was around 640 miles across mountains and plains to the ocean, through rural Spain, small towns and a few major cities, sleeping at whatever place I could find at the end of the day, usually in unisex dorms called albergues operated by monasteries, churches, cities or individuals. It was a time of just bare living, with walking and seeing the only job at hand, punctuated by conversation, solitude, laundry, rough food, and Spanish wine.

Looking back I am reminded of my reasons for going, which were best expressed by Thoreau in Walden:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had never lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience ,and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

Well, it was sometimes sublime and sometimes mean. There was a lot of  heat, pain, discomfort and fatigue. And a lot of beauty and wonder. And I must confess I spent an undue amount of time daydreaming about a no-holds-barred fight to the finish with the evil genius that designed the backpack I was carrying. But it did, at least for a little while, front the essential facts of life and drive it into a corner.

Looking back, it seems like a miraculous dream.

Pass the chronos, please

I often think about how the New Testament uses two Greek words for time, kairos and chronos. Times of kairos can be described as critical, make-or-break, pivot points, hinges of history, times of decision and all that. Chronos is like the ordinary run of times when things are not so...interesting. 

It seems like this truly is a time of kairos for the nation and the planet with so much at stake, including ensuring the future of democracy; dealing with catastrophic climate change; fighting off authoritarianism; addressing gross inequalities and such, all in the middle of a pandemic. And things seem pretty close to unraveling all over the place.

And, just to prove that God, the gods, Lady Fortuna and/or world history have a sense of humor, people from West Virginia are going to have a disproportionate impact for good or ill. Will the right to vote be guaranteed or will the forces of racist voter suppression win? Will we "build back better" with a stronger and cleaner infrastructure and more just economy for all? Will we take what may be a last chance to deal with climate?

Which also means, what are the most effective things that we can do here and now to move things in a more positive or at least less bad direction? A lot of my friends are working on it. And we're all feeling it.

I keep thinking about those lines from Lord of the Rings where Frodo said "I wish it need not have happened in my time." 

To which Gandalf replies, "So do I...and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

I wouldn't mind a good chunk of chronos right about now.

Regrowing West Virginia

 It’s no secret that West Virginia is facing some pretty serious demographic problems, even aside from our spiking COVID-19 spread.

For starters, we have one of the oldest populations, a trend to which I am contributing. We have long been at or very near the bottom in terms of workforce participation.

Not only do we have more deaths than births, but we’re rapidly losing population. Between 2010 and 2020, state population has dropped by about 3.2%, or almost 59,000 people. For comparison, the population of Charleston is about 48,000.

The population loss is more than the combined populations of Pocahontas, Webster, Gilmer, Pleasants, Pendleton, Calhoun, Tucker and Wirt counties. We’ve also been at or near the top in terms of overdose death rates.

According to the West Virginia Center for Excellence in Disabilities, the state has the highest rate of people with disabilities, at 1 in 5, although I’ve seen much higher estimates. We’ve also long been at or near the bottom in terms of median income and the top in terms of poverty rates.

Taken together, these are some pretty serious challenges.

If we’re going to survive, let alone thrive economically and culturally, one obvious solution is to be a welcoming place for new arrivals from around the world.

Welcoming immigrants isn’t exactly a new thing for West Virginia. One of the first acts of the newly formed government of West Virginia was the appointment in 1864 of Joseph Diss Debar, himself an immigrant from France, as commissioner of immigration, with the goal of encouraging people to settle here. Something of an artist, he is perhaps best known for designing the state seal.

In 1870, he published the West Virginia Hand Book and Immigrant’s Guide. Diss Debar’s efforts would eventually be far surpassed by agents from coal and timber companies who scoured Europe, often painting a rosy picture of life in the Mountain State that didn’t meet the reality.

Along with immigrants from overseas, the state’s population and workforce was increased by the internal migration of many Black Americans from the deep South.

According to local historian and longtime journalist James Casto, “Over the decades, countless Italians, Poles, Serbs, and Turks were put to work building railroads, cutting timber, and running sawmills. Other industries, too, benefited from immigrant labor. Even before the Civil War, German and Swiss immigrants traveling up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers found jobs in the iron works located in the Wheeling/Weirton area. English and Belgian craftsmen were recruited to work in the state’s glass factories. Germans came to brew beer. Talented Italian stonemasons crafted fine homes, buildings, and walls, many of which can still be seen.”

Ken Fones-Wolf and Ronald L. Lewis wrote, in probably the most complete single source on this issue, “Transnational West Virginia: Ethnic Communities and Economic Change, 1840-1940,” “In sum, it was the skills and the labor of these migrants that made modern West Virginia.”

It didn’t always go well for the newcomers. Some agents were deceitful and greedy. Some new arrivals were kept in virtual peonage or wound up working and living in appalling conditions. Of course, it was the coal mines that would be the biggest consumer of immigrant labor — and sometimes lives.

A 1911 report to Congress breaks down mine employment by ethnicity in detail for the Fairmont and Elk Garden, New River and Kanawha, and Pocahontas coalfields. Aside from native-born Americans of European and African origin, among the “races” of immigrants identified as working in the mines in the early years of the new century are, in no particular order and using the original terms and spelling:

Russian Hebrew; Hebrew other than Russian; Italians; Poles; Slovakians; Russians; Magyars (Hungarians); Slavish; Lithuanian; English; German; Litvich; Greek; Welsh; Irish; Scotch; Swedish; Belgian; Danish; Syrian; Bohemian; Bulgarian; Austrian; Slovenian; Ruthenian; Montenegrin; Herzegovinian; Dutch; Macedonian; other Slav races; and other southern or eastern European races.

(It’s interesting to note how slippery the socially constructed notion of “race” is and has always been.)

Under tough and sometimes brutal conditions, this mixed multitude managed to bridge differences and forge bonds of solidarity in ways that enriched our culture and contributed to the nation at large.

Given the recent 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain, it’s good to remember that many of those who marched for the rights of workers to organize were immigrants from overseas.

And in modern times, immigrants punch above their weight class when it comes to contributing to West Virginia’s economy. According to the American Immigration Council, while they make up only 2% of the population and labor force, their households accounted for $628.7 million in after-tax spending power in 2018. The 1,200 or so immigrant-owned businesses in West Virginia generated $36.2 million in business income. Plus, adult immigrants are about twice as likely to have college degrees as native residents.

West Virginia’s immigrant population also paid over a quarter-of-a-billion dollars in taxes, to the tune of $185 million federal and $72.8 million state and local. While there weren’t many more than 100 people eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status in 2018, they paid an estimated $270,000 in state and local taxes.

These are the kinds of economic and cultural contributions that could slow — and eventually reverse — our steady decline. Various immigrant groups have added much to West Virginia’s history, and they could add much more in the future, but only if we put out the welcome mat.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Looking back

 There's been a lot of ink (and pixels?) spilled during the last few days on the anniversary of 9/11. It's hard to believe that 20 years have gone by, although in some ways it seems even longer.

When I first heard the news I looked out from the little house we were renting (less than two weeks into our marriage) and saw donkeys playing and rolling on the ground. The contrast between that bucolic scene and the horror elsewhere was stark.

I was not among those who believed that the US would make no response. To me, that would have been naïve in the extreme. But I certainly didn't anticipate a 20 year Afghan war. Or that a group of neocon ideologues would use the fear and anger the attacks aroused to successfully push for an invasion of Iraq, a regime which, however repressive, had nothing to do with the attacks. 

I did know that we were in for a world of trouble when then-defense secretary talked about "leaning forward." To be forward leaning is to be aggressive and off balanced, a situation that often sets up disaster. 

(In judo, ju jitsu, aikido and other martial arts, you always want your opponent to be leaning forward. That makes it easier to throw them.)

According to the Associated Press, the war in Afghanistan alone killed 2,448 American service members, 3,846 US contractors, 66,000 Afghan national military and policy, 1,144 allied service members, 47,245 Afghan civilians, 444 aid workers, 72 journalists, and 52,292 Taliban and other fighters.

Brown University's Costs of War project estimates that the " global war on terror" cost the lives of at least 897,000 people, displaced at least 38 million, and cost the US at least $5.8 trillion, not including an additional $2 trillion in health care and disability coverage for veterans in the future.

And after all that, the world isn't exactly full of REM's shiny happy people.

Economists often talk about "opportunity costs," which are defined as the loss of potential gains from other alternatives when one is chosen. It boggles my mind to think of the possibilities, alternatives and lives that were lost among the many roads not taken.

Good for the soul

 These really are hard times. I don't know many people from any end of any spectrum who aren't a bit stressed out nowadays. But one recent dose of soul medicine for me came in the form of the United Mine Workers union Labor Day rally in Racine, WV. I've been going to those off and on for 30 years. 

It was really weird and sad to be there without seeing, talking with, and listening to my dear friend Elaine Purkey, a labor singer and songwriter who performed there pretty much every time until she died of COVID last year at around this time. Here's what I wrote about her when she passed. I took that hard.

This year was different and special in that Labor Day coincided with the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest workers' insurrection in American history (so far...), when 10,000 miners marched across southern West Virginian to gain the right to organize. Some UMWA members and supporters retraced that march this year. 

It was great to be around working class people committed to fighting for a working class agenda. I hope that all the efforts to commemorate past struggles help people commit to those of today. Things were rally bad here 100 years ago. Progress was made--and lost.

I'm so old-fashioned that I believe the only hope for the world is the solidarity of the diverse, multi-racial and international working class, even if part of it has lost its way for the time being. I know that without it, we aren't going anywhere.

I think we are at a pivotal point in history and it's going to be a close one.

Good advice, often unheeded

 

In the infernal depths of the Reagan era, I started working in the reference department of the main Cabell County Library in Huntington. Before that, I'd spent several relatively happy if ill paid years working at the branch in my hometown of Milton. It was a different world.

Huntington was and is one of WV's larger cities and was an industrial powerhouse at one time. All of which went to hell around then. It was a perfect storm of greed, deindustrialization, deinstitutionalization of  people with mental health issues without adequate community services or resources, rising homelessness in the process of become normalized, and slashes to the safety net.

All of this meant that lots of people were under extreme stress without a lot of safe places to go, the library being one. Part of the job was making sure it was a welcoming but safe place for all and occasionally defusing situations with people having a bad day or evening or year.

At the time, I was given the following advice from someone who had been at it a while about dealing with people in challenging situations: "never back somebody into a corner." 

I think it was originally meant literally as some of the library stacks involved dead end rows of shelves, but that advice has served me well over the years. As a point of general strategy, violence prevention or even self defense, it's not usually a good idea to put a potential opponent or person of concern in a position where their only way out is through you. As the saying goes, back a mouse into a corner and it will fight like hell.

Whenever possible, and it isn't always, I think it's a good idea to give opponents and people we meet in challenging situations a graceful way out. It's basic de-escalation.

I found this idea beautifully expressed in Rabelais'  hilarious and occasionally scatological 16th century novel Gargantua and Pantagruel, where the genial giant Gargantua puts it thus:

"For according to true military practice you must never drive your enemy into the straits of despair, because such a plight multiplies his strength and increases his courage; which was cast down and failing before. There is no better aid to safety for men who are beaten and dismayed than to have no hope of safety whatever. How many victories have the conquered wrested from the hands of the victors when the latter have not been satisfied with moderation, but have attempted to make a complete massacre and totally destroy their enemy, without leaving so much as one alive to convey the news! Always leave every door and road open to your enemies. Make them a bridge of silver in fact, to help them get away."

I think about Gargantua's advice today in the context of trying to influence certain politicians...let's say a US senator for example...to support policies you want them to take, such as, hypothetically speaking, to extend the Child Tax Credit. 

I don't think it's a good idea to demonize such an person and place them in a position where doing what you want seems like a defeat and humiliation, since this can often just stiffen their resistance. It's even worse to attempt a show of force when you don't have any.

To have a chance of actually getting things like that done, we need to make a bridge of silver not burn one.

Some really good news for kids and families

 I’m a big fan of getting quick results ... the good kind, anyway. It doesn’t happen very often and is even rarer when it comes to solving big social problems.

But it’s happening right now for millions of American families, in terms of increasing food security and reducing economic hardships.

Here’s the background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Census Bureau developed the Household Pulse Survey, which is designed to quickly and accurately collect information on how American households are doing and distribute it in as close to real time as possible “to inform federal and state response and recovery planning.”

One very recent survey measured the impact of the newly expanded and refundable child tax credit, which went into effect July 15 and reached about 35 million families with a monthly credit of up to $300 for kids age 5 and under and $250 for those age 6-17. The tax credit has the potential to dramatically reduce child poverty and the long-lasting damage that causes for as long as the program lasts.

The results after just one installment have been startling. The census survey found that food insecurity, defined as “sometimes or often not having enough to eat,” in households with children dropped by nearly 24%. Specifically, before tax credit benefits went out, about 11% of households with kids experienced food insecurity. After the first round, that number dropped to 8.4%, a reduction of almost one-fourth.

Households without children didn’t see any improvement in this area, so we can safely attribute the change to the child tax credit.

(As a math-challenged person, I sometimes find the difference between percentages and percentage points to be confusing, and I’ve stumbled over it more than once, but a percentage point is just the number for arithmetic difference between two percentages, while a percentage expresses that difference as a fraction of 100.)

The survey also asked families how hard it was to meet basic household expenses. Not surprisingly, households with children were more likely than those without them to report that making ends meet was “somewhat difficult” to “very difficult” before and after the child tax credit went into effect. But after just one round, the number of families with children experiencing hardships declined by 8% while it increased for adult-only households by nearly 5%, an effect not as large as that for food security but still statistically significant.

Where was the money spent? Pretty much where you’d expect: About 57% of households spent at least part of the money on educational expenses, including books, supplies, tutoring, tuition, transportation and after-school activities; 47% spent some on food; 28% spent it on internet, telephones and utilities; 25% bought clothes; and 17% of households with a child under age 5 spent the money on child care.

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, had this to say about the early results: “It looks like families are using this to pay for basic needs that their kids have. These are things we know many families are struggling with. This extra payment is going to reduce the number of families at risk.”

Not all the money was spent right away, however. Nearly a third of parents saved most of it — and that’s a good thing, too. Many financial experts stress the importance of personal savings for many purposes, including a cushion for emergencies, major purchases such as homes or vehicles, financial security and higher education.

About 40% spent most of the credit paying down household debt, which has nearly doubled to about $15 trillion over the past 20 years. Home mortgages make up the lion’s share of debt, but there’s also plenty from student loans, car payments, credit cards and such. Paying debt down or off is a huge stress reliever and has been called the key to financial success.

That’s a pretty impressive record for a 1-month-old program. If it’s extended beyond 2021, a measure now under consideration in the U.S. Senate, this could be a life changer and lifesaver for millions of Americans.

And our two senators will have a lot to say about that.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

A very big deal for kids

 Child poverty is expensive. According to a 2018 article in the journal Social Work Research, it costs the U.S. over $1 trillion a year, or around 5.4% of the country’s gross domestic product.

Contributing factors to that price tag are things like loss of economic productivity, costs associated with increased health care needs and contacts with the legal system, homelessness and mistreatment.

That may sound like a lot, but tons of solid research has emerged over the last several years about the long-term effects of adverse childhood experiences on social/emotional/cognitive development as well as health, substance use disorder, incarceration and lowered economic outcomes.

While not every child who experiences poverty has a lot of adverse childhood experiences —and many kids not in poverty have plenty — these experiences are strongly associated with economic hardship and poverty, both in childhood and later in life.

Conversely, economic supports and a positive cash flow are protective factors from many of these negative outcomes. Poverty may not directly cause all of them, but it can make everything worse.

For that matter, our relative position within a given society, even if we’re not at the very bottom, has a lot of impact on how healthy we are and how long we’ll live.

The decades-long public health research of British epidemiologist Michael Marmot, author of “The Status Syndrome: How Social Status Affects Our Health and Longevity” and other books, has identified some basic factors at work here.

The short version is we’re social animals who need a degree of autonomy or control over our lives to thrive.

And we crave the ability to fully participate in the society in which we live. Lack of one or both increases the fight-flight-or-freeze stress response, which is adaptive for short term dangers like a tiger attack but deadly in the long term.

One experiment really opened my eyes to the long-term effects of low socioeconomic status in childhood. Nearly 200 healthy volunteers were exposed to rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. They were also surveyed about their family background and experiences and then were observed for several days.

Amazingly, those whose parents didn’t own their homes or owned it for a shorter period in childhood were more likely to get sick — and this effect was independent of the volunteers’ current age, sex, race, body mass or socioeconomic status.

It seems that these experiences engrave themselves on our bodies whether we’re aware of the impact or not.

That would be the bad news. The good news is that, thanks to a provision of the federal American Rescue Plan, child poverty is about to drop by nearly half. Right now. The only questions are how well we do at signing people up for the right help and how long the program lasts.

The American Rescue Plan expanded the federal Child Tax Credit and made it refundable for most families, to the tune of $250 per month for kids aged 6-17 and $300 for those under 6, including newborns.

In terms of impact, this could be as huge as the enactment of Social Security in 1935, Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, or the Affordable Care Act of 2010. According to Social Work Research, “it is estimated that for every dollar spent on reducing childhood poverty, the country would save at least $7 with respect to the economic costs of poverty.”

Most families won’t have to do a thing to qualify for the credit, provided the adults file tax returns with the IRS. Fully 35.2 million American families received the first installment on July 15. It’s also estimated that 346,000 West Virginia children, 93% of all children in the state, qualify for the credit.

However, those who are in greatest danger of missing out are those who need it most. It’s been estimated that as many as four million American families might be eligible for the credit but didn’t file income taxes due to low earnings. It’s hard to know the exact numbers of such families in West Virginia, which has more than its share of low-income families, but we’re clearly talking about thousands of kids and tens of millions of dollars.

The IRS created an online portal for non-tax filers and they’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible, but it does require basic information, including things like an email address and Social Security numbers.

Some families, especially those without broadband, may need help in applying.

Fortunately, the American Rescue Plan offers a potential solution. The state of West Virginia will receive a total of $1.35 billion in federal aid, while city and county governments will receive around $677 million to address the impacts of the pandemic, including economic hardships. If even a small fraction of that funding could support outreach, including paying navigators to help sign people up, it could make a huge difference.

In addition, community groups, places of worship and public agencies such as libraries could all play a role in improving the lives of West Virginia’s children by helping to get the word out. Probably the biggest opportunity to reach those who are missing out will come as kids go back to school.

Mahatma Gandhi famously called poverty “the worst form of violence.” We should make the most of this chance to dramatically reduce its toll. And fight like hell to make that permanent.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Not surprised

 I can't say I was bowled over with surprise when I saw this CNN news story about how badly health care in the US compares to other economically advanced countries.

To wit, 

The US once again ranked last in access to health care, equity and outcomes among high-income countries, despite spending a far greater share of its economy on health care, a new report released Wednesday has found.

The nation has landed in the basement in all seven studies the Commonwealth Fund has conducted since 2004. The US is the only one of the 11 countries surveyed not to have universal health insurance coverage.

Commonwealth Fund  president David Blumenthal was quoted as saying "In no other country does income inequality so profoundly limit access to care as it does here. Far too many people cannot afford the care they need and far too many are uninsured, especially compared to other wealthy nations."

However, if you want to look at it from a slightly more optimistic angle, think how much worse all that would be if the Affordable Care Act had been repealed or if the many attacks on Medicaid and other programs had succeeded. All those things were real possibilities not so long ago--and fighting them off took a LOT of work from a LOT of people.

One step at a time I guess.

One of a kind

 I was saddened to learn of the death last Sunday of one of my heroes, the aptly named Robert “Bob” Moses, who passed at the age of 86.

I came of age after the heroic age of the Civil Rights Movement. Over 30 years ago, at the beginning of my career with the American Friends Service Committee, I read Taylor Branch’s masterful book Parting the Waters: American in the King Years. It was there that I learned of Moses' harrowing work on behalf of voting rights and his deep commitment to grassroots leadership.

Moses, who earned a doctorate in philosophy, and Dr. Martin Luther King had much in common while being polar opposites. Both were brilliant African-American civil rights leaders and tacticians

King was a public spokesperson who did well on the public stage--and thank God for that. Moses, on the other hand, avoided the limelight and often worked behind the scenes to promote voting rights and elevate grassroots leaders in the deep south, while enduring beatings, gunshots, threats and jails.

The philosopher Aristotle long ago argued that the truly brave person wasn’t incapable of feeling fear. Such people might be foolhardy or ignorant. A truly brave person does what the situation requires however fearful. I don’t know what Moses felt in the many times he put his body on the line for justice, often at the cost of physical brutality, but his courage never seemed to waver.

It's an added irony that he passed just as we're bracing for another assault on voting rights aimed and rolling back the gains of the past.

Moses’ aversion to star status seems to me to have embodied the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), where Jesus taught that his followers should do their good deeds (prayer, fasting, charity) away from public display or scrutiny.

Moses left the US around 1966, eventually spending several years in Tanzania working as an educator. On his return to the US, he developed the Algebra Project, which aims to improve math skills and ultimately educational and occupation success for disadvantaged students, particularly those in the Black community.

I'm kind of jealous that my wife, Anna Megyesi, got the chance to meet Moses in the 1990s when she was working for the AFSC in western Massachusetts and invited him to speak at an annual celebration of Martin Luther King Day. He accepted, but declined to speak about his work in the deep south in the early 1960s, preferring to talk about his work in promoting math skills.

He was the real deal. After learning of his death, I kept thinking of a line from Bob Marley's song Exodus: "send us another brother Moses"...but I have the feeling they broke the mold when they made him.

Calling the point

In another lifetime, I used to referee karate tournaments. Although they could get kind of rough, especially for higher-ranking adults, they weren’t like today’s full-contact mixed martial arts or submission matches. The idea was to give regular people of all ages and levels a chance to safely compete with peers.

A full point — or “ippon” in Japanese — was awarded for a controlled legitimate technique correctly applied to a legal target area.

Grappling wasn’t permitted, although some foot sweeps or takedowns were allowed, with points awarded if they were followed up immediately with a strike or kick to the downed opponent. (I guess you could say “don’t kick ’em when they’re down” didn’t apply here. It was more like don’t take ’em down unless you’re going to kick ’em — in a controlled way of course.)

Although, after visiting karate’s birthplace in Okinawa, I came to doubt whether it should ever have become a sport, I took something valuable from that experience. No matter what I thought of a competitor, their teacher, fighting style or uniform, I tried to set aside stylistic rivalry, which was rampant, watch every match as closely as possible and call the point if I saw it.

In these days of polarization and political tribalism, I think we’d be better off as a state and nation if people made a habit of “calling the point” or recognizing positive ideas and actions of people across our divides when we see them, even if we must struggle over others.

Not that I expect anyone to care, but, in that spirit, I’d have to award two points to actions recently taken by the West Virginia Legislature. Really.

The first was passage of Senate Concurrent Resolution 202, a resolution calling on the federal government to release $8 billion to the state for job-creating mine reclamation projects. In addition, the resolution calls on Congress to pass the RECLAIM Act, which also would make funds available to deal with mine-related damage and to reauthorize the Abandoned Mine Lands program, which is to expire in September.

Although it passed with the support of Republican supermajorities, it also was supported by Democrats, community organizations and environmental groups. The United Mine Workers union has supported similar measures for years.

This realistic, solutions-oriented approach is a major step forward from the theatrical hissy fits of previous years. And it could actually happen, bringing huge benefits to coalfield communities and the state’s economy and environment.

Ippon.

The second point goes to House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, who recently announced the creation of a bipartisan Food Insecurity Work Group consisting of six Republican and six Democrat delegates. It’s dedicated to “utilizing every tool at West Virginia’s disposal to help reduce hunger throughout the state.”

The group is chaired by Delegates Larry Pack, R-Kanawha, and Chad Lovejoy, D-Cabell, both of whom take the group’s mission seriously.

In a House news release, Pack was quoted as saying, “We have plenty of evidence that shows us how deeply connected hunger is to other issues, such as overall health, mental health, academic achievement and economic prosperity. ... We are committed to putting in the time and energy to truly understand not only what specific roadblocks are out there hurting our West Virginia families, but also what solutions we can implement in the near future.”

For that matter, the Senate passed a bipartisan resolution in the 2021 regular session requesting a study on summer and nonschool-day food programs by county boards of education, something hunger advocates have been calling for since 2019.

This could be another big deal for West Virginia, where it’s been estimated that one in seven residents and one in five children are facing food insecurity, a problem that was highlighted by the school closings and economic hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m hopeful that the work group and community partners can come up with some real solutions.

It’s good to remember in times like these that people can sometimes set aside differences to confront real problems in a practical way.

6 ways to fight hunger in WV

Note: in an earlier post I mentioned the creation of a legislative hunger working group, which was a really positive step. This article by Amelia Ferrell Knisely of Mountain State Spotlight, a statewide nonprofit  news service, highlights some ideas for addressing the problem.

Hunger in West Virginia — a complex problem tied to shuttered grocery stores, infrastructure issues and generational poverty — has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The problem is one that advocates say requires state-level policy and funding to supplement the nonprofits and faith-based organizations that are trying to reach those in need. 

“There are some people who are suffering out here,” said Richard Brett, who runs a food pantry in Princeton. His faith-based charity Tender Mercies Ministries, which relies on a steady stream of volunteers to feed its community members, registers at least one to two individuals or families every day for food giveaways and he saw even more during the pandemic. The lack of jobs in the area and emergency food assistance programs that fall short often push people to reach out for help, Brett said. 

Yet, lawmakers devoted little attention to hunger during this year’s regular legislative session. Last week, House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, announced a bipartisan legislative workgroup will start studying the issue to outline anti-hunger priorities ahead of bill drafting this winter. 

The workgroup will be led by Delegate Larry Pack, R-Kanawha, and Delegate Chad Lovejoy, D-Cabell. Lovejoy in particular has been a vocal advocate for anti-hunger legislation since he was elected in 2016; he says the bipartisan buy-in to the anti-hunger workgroup “sends a message that it’s a priority.” 

But he notes it’s a complicated issue, which will require lawmakers to create practical yet effective policies. Here are six initiatives the new workgroup could take on to reduce hunger and support food charities, according to West Virginia researchers, policy analysts, charitable food network employees and anti-hunger advocates: 

1. Creating a state-level office to address hunger — The Legislature needs to immediately create a state-level office focused on coordinating county feeding efforts, according to Josh Lohnes, food policy research director at West Virginia University. Hunger needs and feeding programs vary from county to county, and a state office would coordinate between state agencies addressing hunger (like the Department of Health and Human Resources and the West Virginia Department of Agriculture) and private organizations (food banks, local charities, local school nutrition offices, etc.) “This office would employ local community food security coordinators in each county to create some connective tissue around responses at the local level that are frankly often uncoordinated,” said Lohnes, who has spent years researching and writing about the state’s charitable food system and hunger. The coordinators would be focused on improving outcomes of state-backed nutrition programs, he said. Lohnes estimated the program could cost the state around $3.5 million per year, which includes salaries for community food security coordinators and state-level oversight staff.

2. Listening to West Virginians before spending federal relief funds — West Virginia has already received half of the $1.36 billion it’s getting through the American Rescue Plan passed by Congress in March. The federal dollars — the state will get the remaining $677 million later this year — can be used to support COVID-19 response efforts, public health improvements (including hunger) and more. Lawmakers will have input on how Gov. Jim Justice spends the federal money after they passed HB 2014, which requires the Legislature to approve the governor’s use of any federal emergency money that is more than $150 million. Seth DiStefano, policy outreach director at the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy, said it is imperative that lawmakers use this time to gather information from West Virginians about what they’ve experienced with food insecurity during the pandemic. He’d like to see the workgroup hold town halls around the state to hear feedback, then lawmakers should “turn that feedback into tangible policy results,” he said.

3. Transporting food to students in need — Feeding America estimates that 19% of West Virginia kids might experience hunger this year because of the pandemic, and hunger experts in the state agree lawmakers need to address feeding gaps for students during the summer and other unexpected breaks from school. Mountain State Spotlight reported on the ongoing gaps in summer feeding and for remote learners during the pandemic due to families’ lack of transportation and schools’ inability to deliver food. While many feeding programs have resumed due to reduced COVID-19 restrictions, student feeding gaps persist. Additionally, transporting food to students could help cut down on school food waste by putting food in the hands of students or other local feeding programs who need food. “If the school and county would stop to study the root of the problem, which we know is transportation, and figure out strategies to make those deliveries happen, they most likely would cut the waste down drastically,” said Jenny Anderson, director of Families Leading Change, a statewide advocacy group focused on improving schools. One plan from anti-hunger advocates that could be resurrected is one to pay bus drivers to deliver summer food; groups had asked Justice to use CARES Act money during the summer of 2020 to address student hunger in this way.

4. Increasing state-backed funding for food charities — More than 300,000 West Virginians relied on the state’s 333 food pantries for food back in 2016, according to research from the Food Justice Lab at West Virginia. Those pantries, on average, operated on a budget of less than $1,300 a month to pay for food, deliveries and more. Justice has for the last two years included $1 million for the state’s two food banks in his budget. But more state funding is needed as the problem has grown. “In the last month, I’ve applied for a million dollars in grants,” said Cyndi Kirkhart, who runs Facing Hunger Food Bank out of Cabell County. The food bank feeds more than 116,000 people each year. Kirkhart said her biggest need is funding as she is working on expanding the food bank’s options to include “medically indicated food boxes” with lean and no-salt added options for people with diabetes — West Virginians die from diabetes at the highest rate in the country — and cancer patients. 

5. Examining barriers to food assistance programs — Anti-hunger advocates want the workgroup to evaluate any barriers that keep West Virginians from applying for or receiving emergency food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). One of those barriers: a bill lawmakers signed off on this past session that continues a program that requires TANF applicants be screened for drugs. DHHR has drug-screened TANF applicants since 2017, when the department launched the pilot project after the Legislature mandated it; from October 2019 to September 2020, DHHR reported that out of 2,067 completed drug use screening questionnaires, only seven people tested positive for drugs. Child welfare advocates opposed the bill, saying that the program was likely to cut off West Virginia children, who make up the majority of the state’s TANF recipients, from necessary food.

6. Guaranteeing free food for students — Last month, California became the first state to offer free food to students without questions asked or required forms.The state set aside $650 million for its universal school meal program starting in 2022, according to NBC Los Angeles. In West Virginia, 47 of the state’s 55 counties are already qualified and elected to serve free meals for all students, pandemic relief aside, according to the West Virginia Department of Education. Rick Wilson, program director for the American Friends Service Committee and long-time West Virginia child nutrition advocate, said lawmakers should prioritize implementing a universal free meal program in West Virginia that would continue beyond the pandemic. 

Whatever policy decisions lawmakers make, the problem is large and growing: Feeding America estimates hunger now affects one in seven West Virginians, as well as one in five of the state’s children. State support is needed to supplement other anti-hunger efforts, said Caitlin Cook, director of advocacy and public policy for Mountaineer Food Bank. The food bank, based in Gassaway, provides food to 450 feeding programs across 48 counties.

“Nonprofits are not a sole solution to hunger, nor any social issue. Non-profits, for-profits and the government sectors all play a role in building food security,” Cook said. “Without commonality and those sectors working together, there’s pushing and pulling in opposite directions without concrete solutions.”

House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, announced the formation of the workgroup June 30. Other members of the workgroup are: Delegates Brent Boggs, D-Braxton; Ed Evans, D-McDowell; Joshua Higginbotham, R-Putnam; John Paul Hott, R-Grant; Riley Keaton, R-Roane; Kayla Kessinger, R-Fayette; Danielle Walker, D-Monongalia; Evan Worrell, R-Cabell; Kayla Young, D-Kanawha; and Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall.

If you’re a West Virginia resident in need of food, please contact West Virginia 211 by dialing 211 or visiting www.WV211.org for assistance.

This explains a lot

 This is more of a tweet as I’m wifi challenged at the moment, but I came across a quote by C. G. Jung that could account for a lot of behaviors seen at little league games and similar situations:

“The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents.”

Going big on hunger?

 This is really weird, but for the second time in a week or so, the WV legislature, which one of my favorite delegates refers to as "the bad idea factory," did something good. I mean real good.

First a little background: at least since 2013, with the passage of the WV Feed to Achieve Act, a lot of my friends and comrades, now known as the WV Food for All Coalition, have worked on hunger and  food security issues, from school meals to SNAP benefits to responding to food needs during the pandemic.

For the last several years, some of us have urged the passage of what has been know as the Summer Feeding for All Act, which would have required school boards to come up with food plans when school is not is session, whether for summer vacations or other disasters.

It was particularly ironic in 2020 to watch the bill die in the waning days of the legislative session just as the first wave of a global pandemic hit that would result in the end of in-person classes for months...and then to watch as schools scrambled to do what they could to make sure kids didn't miss out on food while at home. 

Maybe our theory was correct.

Anyhow, a lot of us who work on these issues were pleasantly surprised to learn that House Speaker Roger Hanshaw announced the formation of a bipartisan working group "dedicated to utilizing every tool at West Virginia’s disposal to help reduce hunger throughout the state."

Here's the rest of the news release:

Delegate Larry Pack, R-Kanawha, and Delegate Chad Lovejoy, D-Cabell, will lead the bipartisan workgroup, which will focus on improving food insecurity, which Feeding America estimates affects one in seven West Virginians as well as one in five West Virginia children.

“We have plenty of evidence that shows us how deeply connected hunger is to other issues, such as overall health, mental health, academic achievement and economic prosperity,” Pack said. “We are committed to putting in the time and energy to truly understand not only what specific roadblocks are out there hurting our West Virginia families, but also what solutions we can implement in the near future.”

Pack and Lovejoy both pushed this year to establish the Summer Feeding for All initiative, and while that did not happen during the regular legislative session, Lovejoy said this new workgroup is a big step forward.

“This is an exciting announcement recognizing that food insecurity is a priority in West Virginia policymaking,” Lovejoy said. “I’m grateful to our Speaker, who has actively participated in the bipartisan House Hunger Caucus since its inception, and now organizes a formal group of committed representatives to tackle this problem head-on.”

Other members of the workgroup are Delegates:

Brent Boggs, D-Braxton      

Ed Evans, D-McDowell

Joshua Higginbotham, R-Putnam

John Paul Hott, R-Grant

Riley Keaton, R-Roane

Kayla Kessinger, R-Fayette

Danielle Walker, D-Monongalia

Evan Worrell, R-Cabell

Kayla Young, D-Kanawha

Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall

 This is a big advance and a major victory for WV's food fighters. You can bet that some of us have some ideas we can't wait to share. Meanwhile, thanks to the legislative champions, advocates and impacted people who have worked for years to raise this issue.

Moving from propaganda to problem solving?

 In terms of using cynical political strategies to promote bad agendas, the "war on coal" narrative that emerged in the Obama era worked as well in West Virginia (not in a good way) as the famous Republican national  "southern strategy" that rode white resentment to power in the wake of the civil rights movement.

(Both had a more or less subtle racial dog whistle component.)

The war on coal narrative basically blamed the ills of the coal industry and coal communities--mostly the results of market forces and automation-- on the policies of the Obama administration and similar targets.

 Meanwhile, people who were serious about dealing with coalfield problems, which are very real, pushed for policies promoting what's been called a "just transition," which the Climate Justice Alliance defines as " a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy." As in solutions over propaganda and scapegoating.

There is actually some low hanging fruit here, along the lines laid out in the stalled RECLAIM Act, which among other things would reallocate Abandoned Mine Lands (not to be confused with abandoned land mines) funding to undo some of the damage caused by mining and create jobs. 

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the WV legislature yesterday, Republican supermajorities and all, approved a resolution calling on the federal government to allocate $8 billion to the state for more job-creating reclamation projects, which is something the Biden administration also supports.

At the risk of sounding like a certain US senator from WV, the measure enjoyed broad bipartisan support--for real--and was also hailed by environmentalists. I'm not sure how far this will go, but this kind of thing doesn't happen very often. Special shoutout to Delegate Evan Hansen (D-Monongalia County), who has taken a leading role in promoting economic transition ideas and addressing climate change. 

Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of legislators formed an informal working group to address coalfield revitalization. It would be nice if this means a real shift in focus towards problem-solving over politics.

A rhetorical question

 Earlier this month, NPR asked "Is American Democracy Sliding Toward Minority Rule?" I'm guessing that was a rhetorical question. As the late John Prine sang, "a question ain't really a question if you know the answer too."

I think the short answer is, we always have been (the same can be said of any class society)...but things are getting worse. For starters, as Princeton researchers reported years ago, with growing inequality and the power of money (not to mention Citizens United), the US is more an oligarchy than a democracy.

However, the NPR story was more about politics as usual than political economy. The Constitution mandates that each state be represented by two senators, no matter how small,  although it was adopted prior to the formation of formal political parties. 

Today, that means that while the Senate is evenly divided by party, Democratic senators represent 41.5 million more Americans than their Republican counterparts. If these trends continue, by 2040, 70 percent of Americans will be represented by 30 percent of senators and vice versa. 

(Then there's the whole thing about places like the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico being denied statehood and representation...and I'm not even going to mention the electoral college.)

Add to that the fact that with the filibuster, 40 percent counts for more than 60 percent. Add the numbers above and it's clear we have a problem that's only going to get worse in times to come.

Something has to give.

Signed. Sealed. Delivered. For real

Whew. It's been a long fight, but the US Supreme Court announced today that it would not overturn the Affordable Care Act. As the New York Times reports,

Striking down the Affordable Care Act would have expanded the ranks of the uninsured in the United States by about 21 million people — a nearly 70 percent increase — according to recent estimates from the Urban Institute.

The biggest loss of coverage would have been among low-income adults who became eligible for Medicaid under the law after most expanded the program to include them. But millions of Americans would also have lost private insurance, including young adults whom the law allowed to stay on their parents’ plans until they turned 26 and families whose income was modest enough to qualify for subsidies that help pay their monthly premiums.

A ruling against the law would also have doomed its protections for Americans with past or current health problems — or pre-existing conditions. The protections bar insurers from denying them coverage or charging them more for it.

This is a big deal for me as I've put a lot of time in on this over the last 12 years, including street actions in support of its passage; bus rides to DC: probably dozens of op-eds; scary town hall meetings, including one where an ACA opponent heckled a priest during an opening prayer; pushing for Medicaid expansion in WV and other states; fighting off attempts to mess with Medicaid expansion; mobilizing to defend it in various ways after Trump's election; urging WV's senators not to undo it when that was a real option; and more. You can probably find scores of posts about it here. I'm also proud that the American Friends Service Committee was part of this effort from the beginning.

I'm hoping this settles things once and for all and that we can keep building out and expanding care, including expanding Medicaid in the twelve holdout states. It's probably no coincidence that eight of those states were part of the Confederacy during the Civil War. As I wrote here in 2014, there's a long and ugly connection between the legacy of racism and denying health care to millions of Americans of all backgrounds. I'm hoping this is a nail in that coffin.