And when you pray...

The US Supreme Cult is on a roll lately, privileging gun rights over public safety and local democracy, and rating reproductive rights for rapists over the same for women.. The latest one is an affirmation of the kind of religion that gets rammed down people's throats whether they want it or not.

This statement on reversing Roe from the American Friends Service Committee, previously posted here, sums up my position on that issue. As for the latest ruling on prayer, I'll defer to a higher authority.

“Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven...And when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But as for you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." Matthew 6:1, 5,6 New American Standard Bible

Or, if you prefer the King James version: 

 "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Matthew 6:5, 6

I can hardly wait to see what they roll out next, but I'm especially dreading the ruling on climate change in a case that embarrassingly bears the name of West Virginia, which could have devastating consequences for the environment and public health.

It looks like a long and ugly road ahead.

 

AFSC statement on US Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision

 The American Friends Service Committee issued this statement yesterday in response to the US Extreme  Supreme Court's decision:

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating federal protection of reproductive rights. This concerns us all. Reproductive rights are critical to guaranteeing many fundamental basic human rights. AFSC unequivocally supports reproductive freedom – and has for decades. In 1969, our report “Who Shall Live?” stated that no one should be forced to bear an unwanted child. 

The impact of this decision will disproportionately affect low-income, Black and Brown women and people who can become pregnant, migrants, and survivors of sexual violence and further expose them to inhumane, unsafe, and degrading treatment. 

Today’s Dobbs decision is a further erosion of rights and opens the door to criminalize access to contraception, interracial relationships, same-sex relationships, and more, as well as abortion. This is a huge setback to hard won, historic gains in promoting and preserving the rights of all people. We should all be empowered to make decisions about our own bodies, health, and sexuality. 

AFSC is committed to being an active part of movements to promote and preserve the rights of all people. With solidarity, spirit, and determination, we can work together to set our society on a better course.

AFSC is also encouraging people to sign this petition to Congress to protect reproductive rights.

 

More of a tweet...

...but how weird can it be that even televangelist Pat Robertson thinks the Alabama abortion bill has gone too far?

Thoughts on a topic I'd rather avoid

One issue I don't usually work on or say much about is abortion. I really understand how people feel on all sides of this issue. However, since the WV House of Delegates passed a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest, I feel compelled to speak up.

Here's what I really think, which probably won't win me any friends on any side:

There is a huge difference between making something illegal and making it go away. See Prohibition, war on drugs, etc. When it comes to abortion, I'd prefer the latter, in the sense of trying as much as possible to eliminate the conditions which drive people to consider it, legally or otherwise.

And may I just observe that there is a big difference between being pro-birth and being pro-life. Some people who are loudest when it comes to legislating about the uteri of others seem to lose interest in the fetus after it gets here. But here's the deal: as Jethro Tull sang, "Life's a long song." If one claims to be for it, one should put up or shut up and try to make it as decent as possible for as many people as possible all the way to the end of the line.

Reasons why

On more than one occasion, I have expressed my desire to update the WV state motto from "Mountaineers are always free" to something that fits better these days.

I like the old one, but it seemed to apply more back in the days when WV broke with the slave owning aristocrats of Virginia to join the Union or when union miners and other workers fought hard against the abuses of corporations.

West Virginians seem to be a lot more servile, docile and domesticated these days.

As I've mentioned before, my choice for a new motto is "You can't make this **** up."

Here are a few reasons why: water, women, and workers. Oh yeah, and whack

Come, mister tally man

Here's my quick tally of the best and worst of the WV legislature. Note: I'm speaking only about issues I worked on.

Really good:

Increasing minimum wage by $1.50 over two years.

Passing the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act.

Good:

Several bills that should help reduce prison overcrowding and make it less likely that WV will ship inmates (and money) out of state to private, for profit prisons.

Mostly good:

Passing the Future Fund, except the House threw in some unfortunate amendments. If they hadn't, I would have put it in the really good column. It will take more work to make it really reach its potential.

The water bill. I talked with several people who were very active in the fight that occurred in the wake of the chemical leak and most were fairly pleased with the bill. That is to say, they seemed to think it was as good as could have been gotten from that legislature at the time.

Unresolved:

The state budget and especially restoring cuts to family violence and early childhood programs.

Really bad:

Killing Move to Improve. Shame on the House Education Committee.

Killing the bill to make non-tamper proof pseudephedrine a prescription drug. The meth lobby has more clout than the kids lobby in the House.

I was not directly involved in two high-drama issues, which involved abortion bans and guns. I will say that Senator Erik Wells, husband of Secretary of State and US senate candidate Natalie Tennant, nailed it when he courageously observed that

"We want to focus on gays, abortion and guns, and I have to wonder when that's going to change. We will never get past 50th if we worry more about the next election than the next generation."

Gazette columnist Phil Kabler had this take on the session in today's paper.

Poverty: it's not as much fun as some think

El Cabrero spent a few years in (involuntary) poverty and one thing about that I'd like the world to know is that it's not nearly as much fun as people who have never been there seem to think. Back in the 1990s the writer Earl Shorris described it well in his book New American Blues. 

To use Shorris' term, living in poverty is like living in a "surround of force." It means always being on the defensive and feeling like a hunted animal. One damn thing after another, nearly all of which are bad. Today a friend emailed a post by someone living through that now and it rings true to my experience. You can find it here.

WHO'S WINNING? Here's an interesting look at two midwestern states that have taken different political paths and what the early results seem to be.

PRISON OVERCROWDING is an issue I've been concerned about in WV for the last few years. Here's a summary of where things are with that now.

UTERUS POLICE TAKE NOTE. According to a recent poll, West Virginian's have little enthusiasm for an abortion inquisition such as that advocated by the state's attorney general (and friend to drug companies, but that's another story).

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Lean, mean, green

I have mentioned before that a major hazard at this time of year for people living near gardens is an attack of summer squash, an aggressively imperialist species.

The above picture is living proof if more was needed of the dangers of these pernicious plants. Not content to lie there like most vegetables, these green miscreants are about to slither out of the basket and rampage over an unsuspecting world.

DEAL WITH IT. Here's Krugman on the Affordable Care Act and the right wing's state of denial.

THE LATEST JIHAD. It looks like it's true love between WV's anti-gay uterus-police and its attorney general. I figured the latter would be busy recusing himself from cases started by his predecessor which challenge abuses of sleazy corporations.

WOULD THIS BE IRONY OR HYPOCRISY? Although the same WV AG mentioned above seems to be deeply concerned with the personal decisions of women, he pretends to believe that some parts of the Affordable Care Act threaten  privacy. Judges? Personally, I'm leaning towards hypocrisy.

ONE MORE WV AG RANT. As I've pointed out before, this was the same "pro-life" person who expressed regret at Governor Tomblin's decision to expand Medicaid, despite the fact that around 223 West Virginians die prematurely every year because they don't have health coverage. I think that would be another one for the hypocrisy column.

PATRIOT. Union miners overwhelmingly approved an agreement with Patriot Coal. I think it's a pretty big win for the UMWA and would like to congratulate union members and allies who made a bad situation better.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

O what a falling off was there

Once upon a time, the office of West Virginia's Attorney General was one devoted to things like consumer protection. When, for example, my elderly mother was preyed upon by predatory marketers, they tended to crawl back under their rocks when I mentioned the name of Darrell McGraw.

Those days are gone since the current occupant of that office, Patrick Morrisey, was elected mostly due to money from West Virginia's colonial masters out of state. As the Charleston Gazette noted in a recent editorial, the consumer protection division of that office has pretty much been gutted.

Gazette political columnist Phil Kabler summed it up nicely:

Should anyone be surprised that Pactrick Morrisey is pursuing a right-wing agenda, including investigation abortion clinics, and dismantling his office's consumer protection division? Not if they were paying attention.

Many voters were so focused on retiring longtime Attorney General Darrell McGraw that they didn't think through the consequences of electing Morrissey.

A quick glance of campaign contributors makes clear those donors weren't banking on Morrisey to continue McGraw's legacy of strong consumer protection and willingness to take on big pharmaceutical companies for price-fixing.

Gazette investigative reporter Eric Eyre noted today that

A special fund established to pay for Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's inaugural party received a $2,500 contribution from Cardinal Health in late February, the same company Morrisey's office has a pending lawsuit against for allegedly fueling West Virginia's problem with prescription drug abuse. 

Morrisey's wife, Denise Henry, is a lobbyist for Cardinal Health in Washington D.C. 

Cardinal Health, the nations second largest drug distributor, paid her lobbying firm $100,000 last year, according to Henry's lobbying disclosure form.

I wouldn't hold out much hope on that lawsuit. Follow the money.

Or maybe it has nothing to do with money at all (he wrote with irony). Maybe there are more important things for Morrisey to do...Like holding abortion witch hunts. Or opposing Medicaid expansion for hard working West Virginians when around 4 state residents die prematurely every week because they lack health insurance (uhhh...what happened to the whole pro-life thing?) Or holding forums on how we could make the state more business friendly?

Recently, Delegate Don Perdue, chair of the House Health Committee suggested Morrisey actually do something useful, like investigating WV's meth problems. I'm not holding my breath on that one either.

Servicing the ruling class is a full time job.

Paying and being paid

Goat Rope these days is all about why everyone needs to read Moby-Dick for the first or umpteenth time. And I'm still on Chapter 1.

Whilst I was pondering this whale of a book this morning, it occurred to me that if one removed all the digressions and stuck to the action, our tome would shed a good several hundred pages. But a good digression is worth a discourse and a half most days and any number of plots. Besides, nobody can digress like our beloved narrator Ishmael.

I particularly appreciate the astuteness of his observation on the vast difference between receiving and doling out money:

...there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING PAID,--what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

True that.

REDS AND BLUES. Here's Steven Pinker on America's political geography and why it is the way it is. (Note: I think he left out one factor, to wit, that states formerly based on slavery are more likely to sanction violence generally, where person or through things like the death penalty).

CONSERVATIVE GYNECOLOGY. I'm a little confused by recent comments from right wing male politicians regarding uteri. Specifically, how does the  recent comment about God's will fit in with the earlier one about "legitimate rape"?

APPALACHIAN COAL. Politicians around here like to blame the EPA and a certain president, but here's a look at the real engine behind coal's decline.

EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT ZOMBIE MAKEUP here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Sweet

A hearty congratulations to voters in Ohio, who delivered a stunning rebuke to union busters and others who wished to declare open war on the middle class. CNN projects that voters defeated attacks on collective bargaining by a measure of 62 to 38 percent.

That should be a major setback to the plutocratic agenda (and, I hope, the tripartite alliance of greed, ignorance and hatred on which it depends for political success). It would be nice to think that some kind of change is in the air.

Here's the NY Times on yesterday's elections. Aside from the victory in Ohio, I think it's interesting that voters in Mississippi rejected a strict anti-abortion measure.

The whole thing of what constitutes a person is a bit murky these days. I modestly propose that we focus instead on distinguishing between real people and corporations. Sorry, Mitt.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

FIGHTING MONSTERS AND GAZING INTO ABYSSES

Caption: Don't look into this one very long.

El Cabrero has been hanging out with Nietzsche again. This time, it's his 1886 work, Beyond Good and Evil.

It's been a while since I've cracked that one open and this time around it kinda seems all over the place. If I was forced to say what it was about at gunpoint, I'd have to say it had something to do with morality, knowledge and psychology.

The great thing about reading Nietzsche, however disturbed and disturbing he was, is that he has some awesome one liners. I'll be serving up a few on this week's Goat Rope.

One of my all time favorites from that book has been widely quoted but should be known more widely still. Here goes:

He who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

That one (especially the first part) should be posted pretty much everywhere to remind us of the danger of becoming like what we hate. It happens over and over in so many different ways.

In the post 9/11 U.S., some defenders of "freedom" led the country into a prolonged flirtation with authoritarianism. Many an anti-war activist develops a stridency and militarism of spirit. Many social movements that began with a desire for justice have committed horrible injustices. Opponents of bigotry can become intolerant, just as opponents of despotism can become despotic.

I'm not sure what the antidote is other than awareness of that danger.

CRACKPOT ECONOMICS. Here's a good review of Jonathan Chait's The Big Con by Tom White that appeared in the Sunday Gazette-Mail

JOBS AND DEPRESSION. Some jobs carry greater risks of depression for workers than others, according to this AP article.

Here's some excerpts:

People who tend to the elderly, change diapers and serve up food and drinks have the highest rates of depression among U.S. workers.

Overall, 7 percent of full-time workers battled depression in the past year, according to a government report available Saturday.

Women were more likely than men to have had a major bout of depression, and younger workers had higher rates of depression than their older colleagues.

Specifically around 11 percent of personal care workers "which includes child care and helping the elderly and severely disabled with their daily needs" had bouts of depression lasting two weeks or longer. Next came at 10.3 percent came people who prepare and serve food. Social workers and health care workers tied for third at 9.6 percent.

Interestingly, engineers, architects and surveyors had the least depression, with a rate of 4.3 percent. Have you taken your trigonometry pill today?

I notice they didn't bother to survey goatherds...

NEW WV PEACE RESOURCE. The West Virginia Peace News Net just launched on the web and is worth checking out with lots of news, information and links. On the masthead is a quote by Gandhi:

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

ABORTION is a controversial issue which has often been cynically exploited for political gain. According to the AP, a new international study found that

Women are just as likely to get an abortion in countries where it is outlawed as they are in countries where it is legal, according to research published Friday.

It's another reminder that there's a big difference between making something illegal and making it go away.

IRAQ. Here's an interesting article from the NY Times about current debates and soul searching on the Iraq war among U.S. officers. And I couldn't pass up this article on the effect of the war on the native cat population--a group occupying the land where cats first domesticated people.

Y'all be careful out there today.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED