A champion for children (and someone else completely different)

Last Friday I  had the opportunity to attend an event celebrating the Children's Health Insurance Program which featured on of the key architects of that law, to wit WV's senior senator Jay Rockefeller. During the program, several medical and mental health professionals spoke about the benefits of the program, which also covers dental and mental health.

CHIP, enacted in 1997 in Congress and expanded repeatedly in WV since then, now covers children in families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. It has made a huge impact in health coverage. One number I've heard thrown around is that since the program began, around 40 million children have benefited from the program.

In WV, CHIP outreach, which also enrolls eligible children in Medicaid, has reduced the number of uninsured children to practically zero. As one dentist said at the event, "you just don't see uninsured children anymore."

That is quite a legacy and may be the greatest of Rockefeller's many contributions.

MEANWHILE, ON THE DARK SIDE, WV Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and his rich friends don't have to worry about affording health care. So instead they worry about how to keep others from getting it. Nice.

A birthday approaches

June 20th marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia.  Lots of people are taking stabs at writing birthday salutes, but this one by retiring Senator Jay Rockefeller is worth a look in case you missed it.

TWO DEFICITS. We've been listening to the the hysterical yowlings of deficit hyenas for the last few years. It turns out the federal deficit is going down pretty quickly and is at its lowest point since 2008, not that the yowlers will let up or anything. The jobs deficit, however, is more serious and they don't yowl about that. Read more here.

HAVE YOU THANKED A COMET TODAY? Some scientists think that comets that landed on the early earth may have brought the elements of life.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Creative reading

The theme at Goat Rope these days is Ralph Waldo Emerson's influential essay on The American Scholar. In that lecture, delivered to distinguished Harvard alumni, he disparaged book learning separated from life. And, although I am a reader's reader, this is one time when he makes pretty good sense to me. They go better together.

Some of the best reading I've done has happened when I've been immersed in some struggle or other that called into play everything I had. For example, reading about the history of the civil rights movement or reading the works of social thinkers like the great Jewish sage Martin Buber or Protestant theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich  was much more nourishing and real when I was in the midst of a fight for racial justice or workers' rights and grappling with questions of means and ends. Likewise, reading Hobbes was more alive when I was working to reduce youth violence, just as modern philosophers like Habermas or Rawls were when I was trying to deal with and figure out different systems of domination.

Here's Emerson making what I think is the same point:

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant; and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. 

Sometimes I've returned to the same books that once burned on the page at a later date and a calmer time and found, with Hamlet, just words, words, words.

WILL HE OR WON'T HE? Here's the Washington Post interviewing WV's Senator Jay Rockefeller about the future of health care reform, including the question of whether WV's Governor Earl Ray Tomblin will expand Medicaid.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The universal thump

"For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials and tribulations of every kind whatsoever."--Ishmael in Moby-Dick.

Here's yet another reason why everyone should read this greatest American novel: most of us are grunts one way or another and the book basically sings the greatness of gruntdom. And even if you have a good gig, you gotta serve somebody, as Dylan sang. Ishmael takes great pride in taking to sea as a simple sailor, even though it means getting ordered about and yelled at.

In his view, the human condition is such that we are all in one way or another a grunt at the disposal of some arbitrary power, even if it is simply that of an indifferent universe:

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about-however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way-either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder blades, and be content.

I don't think I have Ishmael's confidence that things equal out over time, but I appreciate the generosity of his sentiment.

WHAT HE SAID. WV's senior senator goes off on the Ryan budget here.

GRANDMOTHERS made us what we are today. Maybe even literally.

THE DONALD HATCHES A DUD. Not much of a Trump card. (Full disclosure: the Spousal Unit and I used to dream of a 2012 Trump/Palin ticket purely for the entertainment value. You betcha.)

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Happy anniversary, Social Security

“We can never insure one-hundred percent of the population against one-hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life. But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age. This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the united States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt, August 14, 1935

Today I hosted an event celebrating the 77th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act at a crowded Carpenter's local union hall in Huntington. Medicare and Medicaid hit their 47th anniversary a couple weeks back on July 30.

Congressman Nick Joe Rahall attended the event. A strong supporter of all three programs, Rahall said

 "... Social Security is a fortress of reliability. It has never missed a payment. Every dollar and benefit has been paid out on time and in full - how many 401-ks can tout that same record? Social security and Medicare are not the cause of our current budgetary woes and they should not be used as a piggy bank for unrelated spending, especially paying for more tax cuts for millionaires."

WV's senior senator Jay Rockefeller was not able to attend but sent a specially made video for the event, saying,

"I am so glad West Virginians from across the state are joining together to celebrate this important day in history. Seventy-seven years ago, on August 14, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed a landmark piece of legislation creating our nation’s Social Security program. It is a program that protects so many West Virginians and has lifted millions of people out of poverty. Social Security was created during the Great Depression, a crucial time in our nation’s history. And, since then, it has provided life-saving benefits to widows, the children of deceased workers, people who are disabled, and the elderly. Social Security has proven to be one of our nation’s most successful programs, serving 451,000 West Virginians – including 41,000 children where one or both parents are deceased, disabled, or retired – and more than 50 million Americans each year. It is something we should all celebrate.”

Today's celebration took on a special significance in light of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's selection of congressman Paul Ryan as running mate. Ryan was an architect of President Bush's failed effort to privatize Social Security and has crafted similar or worse plans for Medicare and Medicaid.

Things are going to  get interesting, alas.

An Enemy of the People...

...is the title of a play by Ibsen about an otherwise well-regarded doctor who becomes a pariah when he discovers that the waters on which his home town's economy is based are poisonous.

Good thing nothing like that could ever happen in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, huh? I mean, the idea of someone catching some flack for being insufficiently servile to a major industry is way too far-fetched in this day and age...

Totally off topic, WV's ruling class is throwing yet another hissy fit over Senator Jay Rockefeller's recent comments about coal. As usual, Ken Ward provides a great summary at Coal Tattoo.

Here's just one example of how those who dance to the masters' tune spin things around here. The headline of the print version of The State Journal, a business publication, blares "Rockefeller Blasts Coal, Lauds EPA," which, to the ears of those who run this state, is the equivalent of "Rockefeller Dropkicks Jesus, Gives Obama-style fist bump to Satan," only worse.

If you actually read what Rockefeller said, it's pretty clear that he wants the industry to have a place at the table for years to come, but facts don't matter around here. I'm afraid things are going to be pretty ugly here for a stretch.

The sad part is, things are going to be tough enough anyway. WV has a tough transition to go through, thanks as much to market forces and competition with natural gas as to anything else. Excessive rhetoric, denial and blind resistance aren't going to help.

Happy birthday, West Virginia, warts and all

Today is the 149th birthday of El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia.  We've probably seen worse days here, but we sure has hell have seen better ones. By chance, two state related items caught my eye today that deal with some ugly aspects of the current scene here.

These days, it seems that some of the state's leading politicians are given to cowardly pandering to the coal industry and, however indirectly, to racist elements. The song they are dancing to goes something like this: the Obama administration, which happens to be led by a black man with a strange name, is waging an unprovoked and all out war on coal through its diabolical Environmental Protection Agency.

West Virginia native Michael Tomasky has a great piece in The Daily Beast that confronts the racism factor head on.


And it was really refreshing to see that our senior senator Jay Rockefeller was channeling a bit of the late great Robert C. Byrd and calling on the coal industry to tone down its war rhetoric. Here's a link to his speech on the Senate floor.

I can't imagine either Senator Manchin or Governor Tomblin ever having the guts to say anything remotely resembling that. Besides, Tomblin is too busy cutting child care benefits for working families anyway.

So happy 149, West Virginia. And may 150 be a bit less cowardly and ugly.

Rand-om thoughts

In traditional Okinawan karate, a training tool used to develop striking force or atemi is the makiwara, which is basically a board buried in the ground and used as a striking post. For generations, karate trainees have stood before the makiwara practicing punches and other techniques in order to toughen the striking surfaces and develop focus.

Its usage is not as common as it once was. Nowadays, people are more likely to use a heavy bag, which is both similar and different.

El Cabrero must admit to having a personal makiwara, metaphorically speaking, in the ideology of Ayn Rand, which has pretty much become the ideology of the Tea Party and radical right wingers these days. I love whacking away at it whenever the occasion arises, which is fairly often these days.

It looks like I'm not the only one. This item from Alternet starts out like this:

Some say that maybe it is a bad idea to base a political party's ideology on a belief that altruism, democracy and Christianity are "evil." Others say that maybe it is a bad idea to base a country's policies on fictional novels rather than science and history. Still others say is it a bad idea for national leaders to think of most of the public as "parasites" while saying people with tons of cash are "producers" who should govern. I am talking about the Republican Party's embrace of Ayn Rand and her cruel philosophy.

There's lots more. Click here and whack away.

LET THEM EAT...WHAT? House Republicans are planning to cut nutrition and food safety programs.

DEFENDING MEDICAID. Rockefeller does it right.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Vox populi

Not that many people in positions of power seem to care, but the majority of Americans strongly oppose the radical agenda being pushed by the right wing in Congress.

Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America's Future notes in the Huffington Post that most people in this country

•oppose cutting benefits for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid recipients;

•reject the idea of raising the age of eligibility for these popular programs;

•hate the proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher or privatize Social Security;

•support taxing the rich and corporations to close the deficit and fund needed investment;

•favor cutting military spending for both obsolete weapons systems and current wars;

•and, while acknowledging the need to reduce deficits, place a higher priority on creating jobs and getting the sputtering economy growing.

DESTROYING MEDICARE IN ORDER TO SAVE IT here.

I'M GAME. Robert Reich calls for federal budget ju jitsu.

JAY VERSUS JOE. Here's a good Gazette editorial on the budget debate and how West Virginia's two senators find themselves on opposite sides. Please step away from the Dark Side, Senator Manchin.

A NEW CHARGE has been filed against a Massey Energy security officer. Meanwhile, tomorrow the independent investigation of the Upper Big Branch disaster ordered by then governor Manchin will be released tomorrow.

THE STATE OF THE STATES. Not good (although WV is doing fairly well for a change).

MY NECK OF THE WOODS didn't come out too good in a survey of well-being.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Rite of spring

This:


Minus this:


Equals this:


HOSTAGE CRISIS. The debt ceiling vote may be the next one.

CLASS COMPROMISE. Here's an op-ed by yours truly about the Romans and us.

BUDGET BATTLE. A number of groups in West Virginia, including the American Friends Service Committee, have weighed in against a federal spending cap and cuts to programs like Medicaid. The issues have also divided the state's US senators, one of which (Rockefeller) is great on the issue.

GET YOUR DYLAN FIX here.

SPEAKING OF WHOM, it looks like Dylan's lyrics are the most cited of any writer in American legal decisions.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

It's hard not to cuss these days

From the AFLCIO:

While 25 million unemployed and underemployed U.S. workers are drowning, CEO pay skyrocketed by 23 percent, for an average salary of $11.4 million in 2010, according to the AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch. Released today, data compiled at PayWatch also show CEOs have done little to create badly-needed jobs, instead sitting on a record $1.93 trillion in cash on their balance sheets.

The 2011 Executive PayWatch features the compensation of 299 S&P 500 company CEOs and provides direct comparisons between those CEOs and the median pay of nurses, teachers, firefighters and others. For instance, while a secretary makes a median annual salary of $29,980, someone like Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf rakes in $18,973,722 million—632 times the secretary’s salary. The pay gap between Wall Street and Main Street has widened egregiously—as recently as 1980, CEOs made 42 times that of blue-collar workers.

There's more here and the full report is here.

And let's not forget the fact that the very wealthy are paying less in taxes. And there's a bit more here and especially here on the same subject.While we're at it, this article provides a good account of how things got to be this way.

El Cabrero grew up in a cussing family and I know a thing or two about obscenity. Trust me, it's obscene to talk about gutting Medicare and Medicaid and other programs that help low income and working people in the name of deficit reduction while continuing to cut taxes on the wealthy in a time of growing inequality.

OFF TOPIC BUT INTERESTING. I missed this Washington Post item when it first came out. It's an interesting take on how Glenn Beck kind of lost it.

TALKING SENSE. WV Senator Jay Rockefeller suggest that the US needs to get out of the current wars.

INTERESTING QUESTION. Ken Ward asks in Coal Tattoo whether WV's political leaders believe in science.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The tales that really mattered

I like to quote Vernon Johns, an African-American pastor who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement. His father told him, "If you see a good fight, get in it."

But it seems to me that the best or most righteous fights or struggles are not the ones that you go out looking for; rather, they are the ones that come to you.

In one of the more hopeless parts of The Lord of the Rings, the sturdy hobbit Sam Gamgee expressed a similar idea. Reflecting on the adventures related in old stories and songs, he said

I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually--their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on--and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it might call a good end...I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?

That's a good question. I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into as well.

GREED IS IN, but that doesn't make it right.

JUST SAY NO. West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller came out swinging against Republican proposals to kill Medicaid and Medicare. To their credit, acting governor Earl Ray Tomblin and WV's newest senator Joe Manchin also oppose the plan. (Note: to get to the story scroll down after clicking on the link.)

TWO MINUTE WARNING. The clock is running out on a chance to modernize WV's unemployment system.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, dinosaurs probably had lice.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Happy birthday, health care reform!

West Virgina residents celebrate the first birth day of the Affordable Care Act. WV Senator Jay Rockefeller was guest of honor, but my picture of him didn't turn out so good.

I never really planned my life this way--not that I'm a huge believer in planning a life--but I've spent over 20 years working on health care issues. Not all the time, thank God, but here and there as threats or opportunities arose.

In several union struggles I tried to support, as far back as 1989, health care for active workers and retirees was a major factor. In the late 1990s, lots of folks here joined to support the state Children's Health Insurance Program, and we've worked to expand it ever since. Then there were efforts to improve or defend the state's Medicaid program.

All the while, though, in the back of my mind and the minds of many others the main goal was achieving universal health care. Yesterday, March 23 2011, marked the first anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act, referred to hereafter as the ACA. In Charleston, over 100 people gathered to celebrate this milestone.

Let me be the first to say that the act we got wasn't exactly the one I had in mind. The Gentle Reader may have noticed the sometimes vast difference between what one wants and what one gets. Of the different versions of reform kicked around since 2009, I liked the federal House version a bit better than the Senate's. I was disappointed that the public option was eventually dropped. But still, I worked as hard as I could to support the bill we had and would do it all again.

Of course, there was a price to pay in the form of a backlash and a well-funded campaign of misinformation. But one year later, the real benefits are starting to kick in for people in West Virginia and around the country. And West Virginia's senators, including the late great Robert C. Byrd and especially Jay Rockefeller, played a major role in its passage.

The West Virginia legislature, in a session that kind of drove me crazy, did at least take the major step this time around of creating a state insurance exchange, which will lay the basis for major reforms and expansions of care that will happen in 2014.

For all its warts, the Affordable Care Act is already reaching millions of Americans and will reach far more when fully implemented. If it survives, it will be a landmark piece of legislation. In fact, future generations may well wonder why it took so long for a country like the USA to get there.

In the meantime, we need to work to defend it and aid in its implementation.

BIG LIES. Robert Reich takes on deliberate misconceptions about job creation and job killing.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE dog therapy for law students?

URGENT AMAZONIAN FISH MANURE UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A matter of perspective

The weather is supposed to be a good bit milder this week, but all in all it seems to me that this winter has taken itself entirely too seriously. As much as I've complained about the weather the last few months, however, these pictures send last week from the in-laws in Vermont put things into perspective. Maybe things haven't been so bad here after all.

(The Beowulf jag resumes tomorrow...)

GET READY TO RUMBLE. President Obama's proposed budget is going to call for deep cuts in many programs, including heating assistance for low income Americans. Congressional Republicans are going to push for even more draconian measures.

HOME HEAT. Kudos to WV Senator Jay Rockefeller for opposing cuts in programs that get many low income people through the winter.

SERVING UP THE FUTURE. Here's Paul Krugman on proposed budget cuts.

MANDATE? Here's an interesting Pew survey on what Americans really think about cutting the federal budget.

JUST DO IT. Here's an item from the WV News Service about modernizing West Virginia's unemployment insurance system. A bill now under consideration in the state senate (SB 310) would draw down $22 million in federal money if the state extends eligibility to people who need it but can't get it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

This and that

Random animal picture.

El Cabrero is attempting to play holiday catch up from the storm today but here are a few items that caught my eye:

ONE GOOD THING about the Senate health care reform bill, according to WV Senator Jay Rockefeller, is that it limits the amount insurance companies can spend on administration and profits.

SPEAKING OF WV SENATORS, here's the Washington Post on Senator Byrd.

DON'T BE ABSURD. No wait, cancel that. A new study suggests that reading absurdist literature may be good for your brain.

PLANTS apparently don't like to be eaten either.

ATTENTION HOLIDAY DRINKERS. Darker liquors may lead to worse hangovers. (El Cabrero prefers red wine.)

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Short rations again

A couple of very long days have left El Cabrero's well of sparkling prose a bit dry. However, I did have a conversation yesterday with a friend about all time favorite Dylan lyrics. My choice varies with time, but I'd have to say that these lines from "Silvio" seem to sum up the human condition pretty well:

I can tell you fancy, I can tell you plain
You give something up for everything you gain
Since every pleasure's got an edge of pain
Pay for your ticket and don't complain

Does the Gentle Reader have other suggestions?

THIS AIN'T EXACTLY THE WPA OR CCC, but it looks like support is growing in Washington for tax credits to promote job creation. I kind of like the Old School approach better.

COAL FIRED HISSY FIT. Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo tries to shed some light on the EPA's decision to review mountaintop removal permits.

SUPPORTING A CHAMPION. Some of us usual suspects types held an event yesterday to express appreciation for WV Senator Jay Rockefeller's leadership in the fight for health care reform. As mentioned here before, Rockefeller not only has been fighting for the public option but has successfully amended the Baucus bill to protect the Childrens Health Insurance Program.

IMPROVING THE BIBLE. Some conservatives are working to remove "liberal bias" from the Bible. I can't wait to see what they did with the camel/eye of a needle part.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Wonky but important (with a Homeric digression)

"The Rage of Achilles" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Aristeia is a great Greek work that I'd like to see enter the English lexicon. It's usually associated with the Homeric tradition and refers to a hero's best moment.

In the Iliad, an aristeia scene might begin with the hero putting on his armor and speaking words of encouragement to his men before going out to open a major can of whoop-ass on his opponents. He might not always prevail in the end, but people knew he was there. If the Gentle Reader has ever been involved in major struggles, metaphorical or otherwise, he or she will know that sometimes you're on and sometimes you're not. An aristeia is one of those rare times when you're really on a roll.

I'd say that the current struggle over health care is WV Senator Jay Rockefeller's aristeia. He's been a champion of health care issues all along, but I'd say this has been his best fight. Lately, he made national headlines for his (so far unsuccessful) fight to include a public option in the Senate bill.

His latest effort was more successful and deserves recognition. In most versions of health care reform proposed so far by Congress, the Childrens Health Insurance Program would have been phased out. The idea was that the need for it would diminish as more families gain access to other health care plans.

Plenty of people, including me, were not happy about this and wanted the program extended. After all, it was only this year that the program was reauthorized by Congress and the bill that passed included several improvements to the program. We wanted to make sure the program survived intact long enough for states to improve their plans and to make sure that all the bugs had been worked out of whatever reform bill finally passed.

Also, it would have been hard to persuade state leaders to make improvements in CHIP if they thought it wasn't going to be around much longer. Among the changes now possible under the reauthorized program are extending benefits to families earning up to 300 percent of the poverty level; reducing waiting periods for enrollment; expanding oral health benefits; and eliminating the five year waiting period for children of legal immigrants.

Late last week, the Senate Finance Committee voted in favor of one of Rockefeller's amendments which would extend CHIP until at least 2019. As the Charleston Gazette points out, CHIP covers around 14 million children nationwide and at least 25,000 in West Virginia. The issue isn't resolved yet, since this version of the bill will have to be reconciled with others, but my guess is that this amendment has a good chance of surviving.

CHIP is a popular program that benefits working families and it needs to be around as long as there's a need for it.

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. This editorial from the Sunday NY Times about the job situation speaks my mind. No doubt the stimulus has kept things from getting worse, but more action is needed to address the still deteriorating employment situation. As the Times puts it,

Congress and the administration also have not done enough to directly create jobs. That could be done with more stimulus to spur job creation, or a large federal jobs program, or tax credits for hiring, or all three. Or surprise us. Just don’t pretend that the deteriorating jobs picture will self-correct, or act as if it is tolerable.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN on religion.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The wheels on the bus

From earliest infancy, it has been the height of my ambition to spend the better part of two summer nights on an extremely uncomfortable bus seat in pursuit of a good cause. Imagine my delight when the opportunity came along this week!

Somewhere between Wednesday night and Thursday morning I joined a few hundred fellow West Virginians and thousands of Americans on a bus ride to DC to support health care for all Americans. The trip, lunch and tee shirts were provided by a WV local of the Communication Workers of America.

Thousands of people attended the rally in the Upper Senate Park. Speakers included several members of the House and Senate, labor leaders, actress Edie Falco, Howard Dean and more.



After the rally, state delegations held town hall-type meetings with congressional staff and elected officials. West Virginia's was packed and attended by the staff of senators Byrd and Rockefeller and representatives Rahall and Mollohan. Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito did not attend or send staff.




The main event was the appearance of Senator Jay Rockefeller, long a leader in health care reform, who is playing a key role in health care reform efforts. Rockefeller is the author of one health care plan which emphasizes a public option to compete with private plans, a key element in any effective reform.



All and all a good time was had by all.

Here's some coverage by the Charleston Gazette and here's one of several posts on the AFLCIO blog.

Has anybody seen my spine?

Me tired. See y'all Monday

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

KANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

Caption: These guys have figured it out. Why can't we?

Is there any chance that the human race might eventually get its act together? That's the question this week on Goat Rope.

According to 18th century Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant, we may just have a chance. He thought that the craftiness of Nature (or what Hegel called "the cunning of Reason") could make use of even our nasty side to get us there. That's the subject of his 1784 essay, Idea for a Universal History With a Cosmopolitan Purpose.

If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

To briefly recap, he thought our "unsociable socialness" compelled humans both to live together and to constantly struggle to outdo each other. This competition and antagonism forced us to develop our potential. And, while individual human lives are short, the life of humanity is long, so the gains in culture, knowledge, science, etc. build up over time.

Over time, people are or will be gradually compelled to arrive at some kind of social order which balances the striving of individuals with the need for social order. That means a free society based on the rule of law.

Of course, one major problem is that even if people reach that level within a given country, different countries treat each other like "barbarians" in a state of nature (an international Wild Wild West, if you will).

He believed that the same process would repeat itself on a larger scale between nations:

The same unsociability which drives man to this causes any single commonwealth to stand in unrestricted freedom in relation to others; consequently, each of them must expect from another precisely the evil which oppressed the individuals and forced them to enter into a lawful civic state. The friction among men, the inevitable antagonism, which is a mark of even the largest societies and political bodies, is used by Nature as a means to establish a condition of quiet and security.

In other words, after lots of wars, international crises, suffering, etc,

Nature forces them to make at first inadequate and tentative attempts; finally, after devastations, revolutions, and even complete exhaustion, she brings them to that which reason could have told them at the beginning and with far less sad experience, to wit, to step from the lawless condition of savages into a league of nations. In a league of nations, even the smallest state could expect security and justice, not from its own power and by its own decrees, but only from this great league of nations...

He was basically an optimist, at least in the long term. This long view of history "gives hope finally that after many reformative revolutions, a universal cosmopolitan condition, which Nature has as her ultimate purpose, will come into being as the womb wherein all the original capacities of the human race can develop."

Of course, Kant lived before weapons of mass destruction (the real ones) and ecological collapse. I'd say we're in a race between Nature's cunning and humanity's self-destructiveness and the odds are even at best...which means we've got our work cut out for us.

Before we dismiss this view as a naive view of progress, some people today have explored similar themes and possibilities, including Robert Wright, author of Nonzero.

Game theory also explores how cooperation can emerge among self interested parties over time.For more, see an earlier Goat Rope series on the work of Robert Axelrod (if you go there, start at the bottom and scroll up).

On the level of popular culture, the emergence of cooperation and culture out of lawlessness was also the main theme of the HBO series "Deadwood." (Why did they cancel that, anyway?)

EVIL MONSTER RATS, ANYONE? The Russians have bred some in case you're looking.

EDUCATED AND UNINSURED. The latest snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute shows that a growing number of entry level jobs for college graduates lack employer-provided health care.

SPEAKING OF THE UNINSURED, a Senate panel including all Democrats and a majority of Republicans yesterday recommended expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program. WV's Senator Jay Rockefeller has played a key role in this. The measure now faces a veto threat from President Bush.

According to the NY Times, Rockefeller described the attitude of Bush and DHHS secretary Michael O. Leavitt to the bill as “pretty belligerent” in criticizing the bill.

But Mr. Rockefeller said, “It’s not clear to me that the president has any intention of vetoing this,” because the political consequences of such an action could be disastrous.

“There are very few symbols as powerful as kids,” Mr. Rockefeller said.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED