Stop the war in Iran

The AFSC issued this statement  Saturday when the US launched it's war against Iran. You can take action by clicking here.

 Today the U.S. and Israel launched an unprovoked war of aggression on Iran, dropping bombs on cities across the country and calling for regime change. While the death toll is not known, at least 80 children were killed after a strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran. Iran responded by firing missiles at Israel and U.S. military bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The Trump administration has said it will continue to bomb, and the death toll will surely continue to rise, with uncontrollable implications in the wider region. 

As a Quaker organization, we know that war is never the path to peace. We mourn the deaths of all the victims, and we hold their loved ones and communities in the Light. We call on the U.S. and people across the world to take immediate action to stop this from escalating into an endless and global war.

This war is immoral and illegal under both U.S. and international law. The justifications used by the Trump administration all center on blatant lies. Iran has no long-range missiles that can reach the U.S. Iran had not restarted nuclear weapons production and likely lacks the immediate capacity to do so. The Iranian government has repeatedly said that it has no interest in nuclear weapons and has been willing to negotiate despite repeated U.S. escalations. The Trump administration refused to negotiate in good faith and cannot use the inevitable “failure” of those negotiations as an excuse for war. According to U.S. law, the president must seek congressional approval before engaging in hostilities against another country. Congress is set to vote on a War Powers resolution in a matter of days. 

For years, the U.S. has been taking steps to increase the likelihood of nuclear war. The U.S. has let major nonproliferation treaties expire and is investing over $1 trillion in nuclear weapons over the next decade. The U.S. government is itself the greatest impediment to nuclear nonproliferation. 

President Trump says he wants regime change in Iran. History shows us that regime changes imposed by imperialist violence are devastating failures even on their own terms. Attempting this in Iran would almost certainly require a protracted war with U.S. troops on the ground and significant casualties.

The U.S. is also pointing to Iran’s human rights record as justification for these attacks. The killing of thousands of protesters by the Iranian government is horrific, but waging war against Iran will not bring peace or human rights. The U.S. government cannot claim the moral high ground while it disappears people at home, restricts political rights, and pursues a policy of murder and assassination in Latin America. The U.S. has no credibility to talk about human rights after more than two years of supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and unilateral attacks on neighboring countries. Last year alone, Israel bombed Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Qatar, and the occupied Palestinian territory. 

Congress must act immediately to assert its authority and stop further killing. Congress must also act to reverse the Trump administration’s imperialist “might makes right” foreign policy. Since December 2025, the U.S. has attacked Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iran while also murdering alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific. All of these actions make the world less safe while undermining international law and key multilateral peacebuilding systems. The U.S.—not Iran—is currently the most significant threat to international peace and security. 

But we cannot leave this to Congress alone. People should make their voices heard. Call Congress, take to the streets, protest, and engage in acts of nonviolent resistance to make it clear that the U.S. public does not stand behind this war. This moment demands all of us.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.

No to another war

When the world learned of the Trump administration's aggression this weekend, the American Friends Service Committee released this statement. 

  Early this morning, the Trump administration bombed several locations in and around Caracas and forcibly captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. This unjustified, illegal, and unprovoked act of war against a sovereign nation comes after months of U.S. escalation – including the extrajudicial assassinations of civilians on boats and the U.S. seizure of oil tankers near the Venezuelan coast. President Trump announced that the U.S. will “run the country” until some undefined transition—a path to indefinite occupation or a return to corporate control and colonial extraction.

The U.S. attack on Venezuela comes as the Trump administration revitalizes a long history of U.S. violence and imperialism against nations and people in Latin America. Like other wars before it, this is about control over oil and resources—Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Congress and the international community must take immediate action.

Venezuela posed no threat to the U.S. But the U.S. wants Venezuela’s oil. This attack was an act of war that is illegal under both U.S. and international law. While information is limited about the impacts, it is extremely likely that civilians were killed when the U.S. dropped bombs on the highly populated capital city. Congress should immediately act to condemn this aggression and should block further military actions.

The administration first said this violence was about drugs and democracy. Now the administration is expanding its justifications, openly claiming the U.S. has the right to overthrow Venezuela’s government and take the country’s nationalized oil. These shifting justifications expose the imperialist nature of the attack. They’re also absurd coming from an administration that has systematically undermined democracy at home, cut drug treatment programs, and dismantled systems to hold drug traffickers accountable.

The Trump administration doesn’t care about human rights and democracy. President Trump has actively intervened in recent elections in Argentina and Honduras, attempted to interfere in the Brazilian judicial system, and rewarded the blatant human rights violations of allies with lucrative contracts. There is no doubt that Nicolás Maduro is responsible for serious human rights violations against the Venezuelan people, and he should be held accountable for those violations. Being unilaterally kidnapped by the U.S. military will prevent that accountability rather than facilitating it.

This isn’t about drugs. Bombing Venezuela and arresting its leader will do nothing to stop drug trafficking, addiction, and overdose deaths. And the Trump administration only talks about ending the drug trade when it fits their political goals. Just two months ago, Trump pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been convicted in a U.S. court for smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.

We have decades of evidence that the bipartisan “war on drugs” is a failure that has led to the mass incarceration of millions of poor people and people of color in the U.S., escalated violence and repression in Latin America, all while overdose deaths have soared. If the Trump administration wanted to address addiction, it would invest in community-based treatment and prevention. Instead, they are cutting these programs. 

U.S. bombs and guns never bring peace and justice. As a Quaker organization that has worked to end war and violence for more than a century, AFSC has worked ceaselessly to stop U.S. militarism in Latin America and around the world. In the 1980s, AFSC witnessed firsthand the impact of U.S. military intervention in Latin America. We documented the violence in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala and offered support and solidarity to those facing repression. Instead of bringing stability, the U.S. fueled conflict that killed and disappeared hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. It perpetuated cycles of violence, forced migration, and deep poverty that persist today. 

It is time to break this cycle. It is long past time to end the U.S. government’s imperial ambitions in Latin America and across the globe. People do not want endless wars, which lead only to mass death, forced migration, and impoverishment. We must work in solidarity with the Venezuelan people, upholding their self-determination and human rights. And we must honor those rights whether people stay in the country of their birth or migrate to the U.S. 

We call on Congress and world leaders to stop U.S. regime change in Venezuela. We need investments in our communities and a safe and sustainable world where everyone can thrive. 

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.

Statement on big brutal bill

 The American Friends Service Committee issued this statement on the occasion of the signing of the federal bill that will cut taxes for the wealthy and take food and health care away from millions of low-income and working class Americans.

Today, President Donald Trump signed a bill that will initiate one of the largest ever transfers of wealth from the working class to the rich. It will strip health care coverage from millions of low-income people, deprive children of food, accelerate climate change, and funnel billions to military contractors for weapons that threaten human survival. 

To say we oppose this legislation is an understatement. As a Quaker organization, we believe all people contain the Light of God within us. These policies abandon our fundamental commitment to caring for all people and the Earth that we share. If unchallenged, this legislation will directly and indirectly contribute to the suffering and death of so many people in the U.S. and around the world. 

The bill includes:

The largest cuts to public health care in U.S. history, leaving an estimated 17 million people without health coverage and causing an estimated 51,000 premature deaths per year.

New restrictions on SNAP and other anti-hunger programs, which will deprive millions of children of basic nutrition and the opportunities they need to succeed.

Trillions of dollars in tax cuts that provide almost nothing for the poor and working class, while showering the wealthiest households in the U.S. with massive benefits.

New subsidies for fossil fuel corporations while slashing tax credits for renewable energy projects.

More than $150 billion on the Pentagon for its forever wars and wasteful projects.

Billions for cruel anti-immigrant policies that tear our families and communities apart, including expanding detention centers and adding thousands more ICE and Border Patrol agents.

We cannot and will not accept this anti-human framework as the new status quo. Our government should provide for public needs, not transfer billions from the poor and working class to the rich. Already, protests and acts of resistance have been taking place across the country in response to the anti-democratic, anti-working class, anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration. As the impacts of this legislation are felt nationwide, this resistance will only grow. 

Everyone deserves access to health care, housing, freedom from violence, and the ability to participate in the decisions that impact our lives. While Congress, the courts, and the president have chosen to pursue policies that harm our communities, we can care for and defend one another. We call on all people – in the corridors of power and in every corner of this country – to reject and resist these policies and to work for the future we all deserve. 

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.

A year ago today

(On this grim anniversary, here's a post I wrote while doom scrolling the news of the attempted insurrection a year ago today.) 

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, a major holy day in Western Christianity. It's one of my favorites (right up there with Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday). In an ordinary year, which this isn't, I'd attend special services whenever possible.

The word can mean something like manifestation, often of something divine, and the day celebrates the adoration of the Christ child by the Magi in the Gospel of Matthew. I don't take the story literally, but it means the  manifestation of divine revelation to the Gentiles. Other texts associated with the day are those of the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountaintop. 

The word also has grimmer associations. Antiochus IV, self-styling himself Epiphanes, was a Hellenistic king who considered himself divine and initiated a brutal persecution of the Jews in the 160s BCE. That persecution inspired the revolt of the Maccabees, one result of which is the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, which celebrates the cleansing of the Temple after its defilement with idols.

The Irish writer James Joyce borrowed the world from the realm of religion and used it to mean something like insight or inspiration. In that sense, it's kind of like a revelation or uncovering, which is the literal meaning of the Greek-derived word apocalypse.

In that sense, today is going to be a day of epiphany, manifestation and/or revealing in Washington as the fate of constitutional democracy, however imperfect, hangs in the balance. I'm guessing that the things said and done today will long be remembered.

This might be a good time to remember the words of Abraham Lincoln: “in times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.”

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.

Long strange trip

 I've been wracking my brain trying to think of what to say about the events of the week and the years that went before it. For most of the fall, I've been very concerned about the possibility of a coup, quasi-legal or otherwise. I'm still wondering what kinds of violent stunts white nationalist groups may unroll and what other long term damage has been done to the democratic process, imperfect as it is. 

I'm hoping that the nation's flirtation with fascism or at least authoritarianism is at least waning.

Aside from issues of authoritarianism, the last four years have involved a lot of defensive fights, mostly revolving around health care (food security too, but that's another story). If there's been a central theme of my nearly 32 years at AFSC, health care would be it.

My first big fight was the Pittston strike, which was mostly about retiree health and pension benefits. These were also factors in the 1990 teachers' strike and the 1990-92 Ravenswood lockout. Ditto the fights about "reforming" workers compensation that lasted for a decade between the mid 1990s and 2000s. 

The coming of welfare "reform" in 1996 started another decade or so of sporadic fights related to Medicaid. These included issues like transitional coverage for people leaving cash assistance, the possibility of block grants, waivers and such. 

Then came efforts to get the state to implement the federal Children's Health Insurance Program in 1998 and then to expand eligibility for it, eventually up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level by 2011. My late co-worker Carol Sharlip was a major player in building support for this in the early years.

In 2009-2010 came the push to enact what eventually became the Affordable Care Act. I remember going to public hearings around the state and witnessing the WV version of the birth of the white backlash and the Tea Party. These included paranoid ravings about the World Health Organization taking over and someone heckling a priest during an opening prayer. And, yes, people who wanted to keep the government's tentacles off Medicare. There were street actions, press conversations, calls, emails, op-eds, bus trips to DC, and all that. Then lots of outreach and education when it passed.

(There were some serious debates within AFSC about whether to sign on in support of the bill. Some didn't think it was good enough. I may or may not have stopped talking with some people after that.)

The version we got was the Senate's rather than the more generous House version in March 2010. Here's a blog post I wrote about it at the time. Then the 2012 US Supreme Court decision which let it stand but made Medicaid expansion--the real public option--a state decision. The biggest social justice victory of my lifetime was then-Governor Tomblin's decision to expand it. Here's a report we published in an effort to nudge the governor in 2013. My retired colleague Beth Spence did the interviews and photography.

I would never have guessed the state would do such a great job at enrolling people. At it's peak around the time of the 2016 election, the expansion covered nearly 180,000 West Virginians (after four years of assaults by the Trump administration, I think enrollment is around 160,000 now). The new president, aided by WV's attorney general, promised to do away with the whole ACA as soon as he came into office.

It was an all-hands-on-deck moment. Health advocates scrambled to the defense. My co-worker Lida Shepherd and I worked with Cabin Creek Health Systems to interview people covered by the ACA and publish the results and generate other media, including a widely seen video report in the New York Times. Given that WV has been ground zero for the opioid epidemic, protecting the ACA, which opened up recovery to thousands, was critical.

We worked with allies to do all the usual stuff. Some friends of ours, nicknamed "the Capito six," were arrested for sitting in at the WV Republican senator's Charleston office. I remember protesting outside WV's giant Boy Scout center when the President spoke. People put lots of effort into bolstering Senator Manchin's support for the ACA. He eventually came around to a "fix, don't nix" position. In a closely divided Senate, WV was in a critical spot, with a conservative Democrat and fairly moderate Republican. People hit it with all they had.

The critical moment came in July 2017 when a dying John McCain cast a deciding vote after returning from hospital treatment for brain cancer, basically saving the day. Here's a post on that occasion that includes his eloquent statement.

After a pause to catch our breath, WV health care advocates turned next to fight off bad state legislation regarding work reporting requirements for Medicaid expansion that would have kicked tens of thousands of low income West Virginians off the program in 2019 and 2020. I'm hoping that COVID-19 has shown this to be a Really Bad Idea.

By the time of the 2020 election, the ACA was battered but still afloat, although it wasn't clear if it could survive another four years of federal assaults. Then there was the added wrinkle of the US Supreme Court taking up another repeal attempt with three Trump appointees. The decision is expected as soon as this spring, but early deliberations seem promising.

So I guess this is another catch the breath moment. We're still far from universal care, but it's been a long hard fight to get as far as we have. I'm grateful to the many friends who have been in the fight from the beginning. Like the ACA, we're battered but still around.

Epiphany

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, a major holy day in Western Christianity. It's one of my favorites (right up there with Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday). In an ordinary year, which this isn't, I'd attend special services whenever possible.

The word can mean something like manifestation, often of something divine, and the day celebrates the adoration of the Christ child by the Magi in the Gospel of Matthew. I don't take the story literally, but it means the  manifestation of divine revelation to the Gentiles. Other texts associated with the day are those of the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountaintop. 

The word also has grimmer associations. Antiochus IV, self-styling himself Epiphanes, was a Hellenistic king who considered himself divine and initiated a brutal persecution of the Jews in the 160s BCE. That persecution inspired the revolt of the Maccabees, one result of which is the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, which celebrates the cleansing of the Temple after its defilement with idols.

The Irish writer James Joyce borrowed the world from the realm of religion and used it to mean something like insight or inspiration. In that sense, it's kind of like a revelation or uncovering, which is the literal meaning of the Greek-derived word apocalypse.

In that sense, today is going to be a day of epiphany, manifestation and/or revealing in Washington as the fate of constitutional democracy, however imperfect, hangs in the balance. I'm guessing that the things said and done today will long be remembered.

This might be a good time to remember the words of Abraham Lincoln: “in times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.”

In the spirit of fair play...and protecting the constitution

I've mentioned before in this blog that I used to referee karate tournaments in another lifetime. I always made an effort to call a legitimate point when I saw one, regardless of what I thought of the competitor, their style, uniform, or sensei.  Although I'm no longer a huge fan of sport karate, I've tried to keep the habit of calling a point when I see one.

It would probably surprise no one to hear that I frequently disagree with WV's Senator Shelley Moore Capito. However, I commend her for coming out with a strong and clear statement on the need to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In ordinary times, such a thing would be a matter of course and require no special statement...but these aren't ordinary times as President Trump persistently tries to discard the constitution and overturn the results of an election he lost by seven million popular votes and an electoral margin of 306-232. Since November, we've been as close to an authoritarian coup as we ever have been, so there is merit today in stating the obvious.

Here are some excerpts from her statement:

Several of my congressional colleagues have made clear their plans to object to counting certified electoral votes from certain states. I will oppose their effort because the will of voters in each state—not political considerations or the individual preferences of senators and representatives—must determine the winner of the presidential election....

and

Allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election have been investigated by federal and state law enforcement agencies. Investigations have been overseen by governors, secretaries of state, and local election officials of both political parties who ultimately certified election results in their respective states. Multiple lawsuits have been filed in the contested states and have been decided in state and federal courts, to include the Supreme Court, by judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans. None of these investigations or lawsuits has resulted in evidence of fraud that comes anywhere close to the standard for rejecting a state’s electoral votes.

and

Refusing to count a state’s electoral votes in the absence of such evidence would disenfranchise millions of American voters and call into question the very foundation of representative government enshrined in our Constitution. Therefore, I plan to vote to reject the objections that will be raised and to count the electoral votes that were certified by each state.

and 

Yesterday when I took office for a new six-year term, I did not swear allegiance to any individual or political party. I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Recognizing the individual chosen by the American people to be our president is in keeping with this oath...

I'm calling the point. As we say in karate, "Ippon!"

Addicted to caste

The late great African American author and social critic James Baldwin spoke of those who have "brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white." Today we are witnessing many powerful elected officials who are actively trying to do the same thing to American democracy--or what remains of it--by overturning the results of an election they didn't like: for pretty much the same reason.

I just finished reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns. In it, she argues that a racialized caste system, itself a lie with real consequences, is at the root of US society. The illusion of "whiteness" has allowed the meanest person who thinks in those terms to feel superior to those lower down the hierarchy--and to feel outrage at those members of subordinate castes who don't follow the prescribed script. And the feelings of superiority and rage have been backed up by state and non-state violence for centuries.

A cursory look at American history, distant and recent, makes that conclusion hard to argue with. I'm convinced that kind of rage from people who think they are white instead of human explains the appeal to many of the call to "make American great again."

I was especially struck by a recent conversation Wilkerson related in Caste with Taylor Branch, the great historian of the civil rights movement, about what the rage of people who think they are white means for the future of the US. 

Branch pondered this question: "if people were given the choice between democracy and whiteness, how many would choose whiteness?"

I think we have a pretty good idea of the answer to that now.

West Virginia's southern strategy

Around 1969, a Nixon advisor named Kevin Phillips wrote an influential book titled The Emerging Republican Majority. A very crude summary of its main thesis is that the backlash of white voters against the civil rights movement would provide a base in that party in what had historically been a Democratic stronghold for years to come. It took a while, but this "southern strategy" eventually worked, ironically flipping the historical traditions of both parties. 

West Virginia's equivalent of a southern strategy arguably worked better and faster. It was the creation of a "war on coal" narrative that conveniently blamed all hardships in the coalfields, where employment had been on  a steady downward trend since the end of WWII, on the nation's first black president. 

As the Church Lady would say on the old SNL skits, "Isn't that convenient?"

According to this narrative, President Obama's environmental zeal--or just plain meanness--was the cause of all things bad rather than market forces. It worked like a charm, eventually helping not just to flip the legislature for the first time since 1932 in the 2014 elections, but even contributing to supermajorities in both houses of the legislature in 2020.

When Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to bring back mining jobs, even telling miners here "you're going to be working your asses off." The results are in. No doubt some current or former miners are doing just that, although it might not be in a coal mine. The number of working miners in the state, around 11,000, is lower than it was when even you-know-who was president, despite the Trump administration's efforts to roll back regulations.

As conservative commentator Hoppy Kercheval (who a few years ago touted coal's comeback under Trump) noted, "there were other forces at work, market forces that are making thermal coal less marketable."

I'm sure that knowledgeable people among industry supporters knew this was going to happen. But by then the spell had achieved its purpose. 

And the political results of West Virginia's southern strategy for workers, including miners, has been disastrous, with repeal of the state's prevailing wage, passage of right-to-work-for-less, and proposed policies to undermine public sector labor organizations. 

Attacks on the labor movement ultimately undermine the position of all workers. Union jobs typically pay better and have more benefits than non-union jobs, but many non-union employers feel compelled to improve wages and conditions to be compete for workers. The more unions decline, the less pressure employers feel to step up and the harder it is to push for worker-friendly policies. And the race to the bottom continues on its merry way.

Thinking ahead

 Well THAT was interesting. I'm hoping today's results will signify the end or at least the beginning of the end of America's latest dark journey, although I think we're not out of the woods yet.

I've been thinking a lot about my walk across Spain two years ago on the Camino de Santiago. More than once I passed through what were mass graves of people like me who were murdered by Franco's fascists during the Spanish civil war of the 1930s. For the last few years, I kept reminding myself that many admirable nations had gone on journeys as bad and much worse than ours but eventually emerged.

Still there's a lot to watch out for. Lot's of people, including myself and colleagues with the American Friends Service Committee, have been thinking about worst case election related scenarios, up to and  including the possibility of a coup. We of course are willing to accept an outcome that accepted all votes but were worried about other irregularities that might threaten the integrity of the eleciton, such as voter suppression and/or intimidation.

Assuming the constitutional anchor holds, the next big fight starts next week, when the freshly stacked deck of the US Supreme Court will consider taking away the health care of millions of Americans, to the delight of West Virginia's attorney general Patrick Morrisey.  There are any number of scenarios there.

Keeping that assumption, we might be in for gridlock in Congress but will at least be spared an American approximation of authoritarianism. 

West Virginia is going to be weird in any case. But, as my late friend and WV poet Norman Jordan, who with his wife Brucella operated an African American heritage museum in his home town of Ansted for years, wrote in a funny poem, I guess you can't have everything.

On the positive side, and assuming no funny stuff, we're going to see the end of a federal department of education, led by someone who never attended any institute of public education, trying to sabotage it. We're going to see the end of administrative policies aimed at taking away food assistance of millions of low income Americans and public school students. 

Assuming parts of the Affordable Care Act remain, we're likely to see the end of federal policies encouraging states to impose bogus work reporting requirements designed to deprive people of health care. We might at least see some harm reduction on the climate change front.

There's still so much to do. Many people with whom we disagree were our friends and allies not so many years ago. The country is still tragically divided. Even with a peaceful transition, many of the policies some of us hope to see will be blocked  until that is changed.

But I'll think about that tomorrow.

Counting the cost of health care repeal

 It’s too soon to say, but the people who want to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a group that includes West Virginia’s attorney general, are closer than before to getting what they want, even in the midst of a pandemic that has already killed over 200,000 Americans.

Opponents of the ACA, often referred to as Obamacare, give many reasons for wanting to kill it, although I suspect that, for many, the main reason is that it can be associated with a Black man.

But what would it mean for ordinary Americans if the ACA haters get what they want? The answer is pretty grim, if you do the math.

One feature of the ACA is protection of people with preexisting conditions in qualifying for health insurance. According to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, as many as 133 million Americans, over half of the non-elderly adult population, have some such condition.

Given the frailties of the human body, it has been argued that “life is a preexisting condition,” or at least one waiting to happen. This was especially true for women before the ACA passed, for reasons of medical costs associated with pregnancy, breast cancer and conditions unique to them. The National Women’s Law Center said that before the ACA “just being a woman could be considered a preexisting condition.”

Then there’s Medicaid expansion, a part of the ACA that became a state option after a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 39 states and the District of Columbia, have adopted this measure, which covers about 12 million Americans, most of whom are low-income working people and many of whom are the “essential workers” that everyone else depends on these days.

The ACA guarantees that states that adopt the expansion will never have to pay more than 10 percent of the costs. Without it, states would be unable to sustain coverage.

About 160,000 West Virginians are covered by the expansion at any given time and probably 200,000 or so are covered during a year. Aside from improving and saving lives, federal expansion funding also helps keep rural hospitals and health care facilities open and supports thousands of jobs.

Medicaid expansion has been a huge help in confronting the opioid epidemic. According to the Georgetown Center for Children and Families, “Medicaid expansion was associated with a substantial increase in opioid addiction therapies, particularly in states with high opioid overdose rates.”

Nationwide, about 800,000 Medicaid expansion recipients are dealing with opioid addiction.

A 2020 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that states that adopted Medicaid expansion had a decrease in opioid deaths, compared to states that hadn’t expanded Medicaid.

I’ve interviewed people in recovery about the role Medicaid expansion has played in their access to treatment. One woman summed it up neatly: “Without it, I’d be either dead or in jail.”

Then there are those who buy health care on the marketplaces. Kaiser reports that, in 2020, this amounts to 11.4 million Americans and over 20,000 West Virginians. Of these, an investigative article in The New York Times said that, “If the marketplaces and subsidies go away, a comprehensive health plan would become unaffordable for most of those people and many of them would become uninsured.”

The Times also reports that ACA repeal would hit Medicare recipients as well, affecting around 60 million Americans and over 440,000 West Virginians. Among other effects, if the law were struck down, “Medicare beneficiaries would have to pay more for preventive care, like a wellness visit or diabetes check, which are now free. They would also have to pay more toward their prescription drugs.”

Young Americans also would take a hit. The ACA allows about 2 million young adults to keep their parents’ health insurance up to age 26. The last numbers I could find suggest that about 20,000 young West Virginians are covered in this way. Without it, companies could withdraw coverage.

Killing the ACA also would dramatically increase the cost of health care, including uncompensated care, raising copays and premiums as these costs are passed on to individuals and families. The Urban Institute reports that “Demand for uncompensated care would increase by $50.2 billion, an increase of 82% compared with ACA levels.”

Oh yeah, and then there’s the prospect of millions of Americans losing health coverage while COVID-19 is still ravaging the country and the world.

To sum it all up about ACA opponents, and to paraphrase Winston Churchill, seldom have so few tried to do so much harm to so many. God help the country if they get what they want.

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

So many bad ideas, so little time

One of my favorite WV legislators has been known to call the state capitol the "bad idea factory." If that's the case, then the White House these days is more like the bad idea Death Star.

 No doubt the Gentle Reader is aware of the disastrous impact of COVID-19 on the economic well-being of millions (make that billions) of people. And, most likely, of the lack of agreement on a meaningful response from Congress to deal with the problem.

What we have instead, so far anyhow, are executive actions from the Trump administration that don't do a lot of what needs to be done and does some things that shouldn't be done. 

As Robert Greenstein of the DC-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues here, the executive act doesn't adequately address any number of problems, including public health, unemployment, evictions, fiscal aid to states, and food assistance.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, the actions include cutting the payroll tax, which would be a major hit to Social Security and Medicare, which are more needed now than ever.

Here's his conclusion:

To all of these shortcomings and gaps, add the enormous uncertainty that the executive actions will create because they are legally suspect and because of serious questions about whether the Administration actually can implement aspects of them.

There simply is no shortcut to the hard work of crafting a bipartisan economic relief package that meets the needs of a reeling economy, struggling families, and cash-strapped states and localities. And under our constitutional system, the President and Congress together — not the President acting alone — have the power to appropriate funds and decide how to use them. The President cannot substitute executive actions for congressional action and cannot, acting unilaterally, provide the strong help that families and the economy need.

To help a nation suffering through one of its gravest crises in many decades, the White House should withdraw the executive actions, return to the negotiating table, and do what’s needed to reach the deal that our nation so badly needs.

Another one to watch

I've kind of been obsessed with health care policy for pretty much my whole career with the American Friends Service Committee, which began in 1989.

The first big fight I ever had, the Pittston coal strike (1989-90), was largely about health benefits for coal miners and their families, especially for retirees. Health care was a major issue in other good labor struggles from the Ravenswood Aluminum lockout (1990-92) to the recent WV work stoppages by teachers and school service workers.

In terms of public policy, lots of fights in the era of welfare reform (1996-early 2000s) had to do with health care. These included enacting the Children's Health Insurance Program at the federal level, followed by several pushes here to get the state to implement and expand the program. That culminated in 2011, when then Governor Tomblin expanded eligibility to 300 percent of the federal poverty level.

There were also efforts in that period to make sure people got "transitional Medicaid" when they left public assistance, along with supportive services related to minimal dental and vision care.

Then came the epic struggle to enact the Affordable Care Act. Misnamed Obamacare, it's really more like the Senate version of a reform bill. The House version was better, but with the death of Senator Edward Kennedy in August 2009, the senate version was the only game in town. It passed in March 2010.

I remember all hell breaking loose at town meetings in WV and around the country in 2009. At one in Huntington, a conspiracy theorist argued that reform meant something like a military takeover by the World Health Organization. You know, black helicopters and microchips in the butt. Apparently, they haven't made it out my holler yet.

At another event in southern WV, a  Catholic priest got heckled by someone during the opening prayer, with a shout of "How much are you getting paid?"

Efforts to repeal it began as soon as efforts to defeat it in Congress failed. In 2012, the US Supreme Court weighed, affirming the constitutionality of the law but making a key piece of it, Medicaid expansion, a state option.

People here worked hard to persuade Tomblin in 2013 to make the expansion, which he did with characteristic caution, seeking an actuarial opinion that fortunately underestimated the benefits of the expansion to WV. The effects were and are huge.

While quite a few states jumped on right away, others, particularly in the south and west, held out. A series of state by state fights ensued. I think each time a state decides to expand it, the harder it will be to undo the whole thing.

(I'm going  to skip over the epic fights since the 2016 election to block Trump, WV attorney general Patrick Morrisey and others of that ilk to take it all away from millions of Americans, not to mention the next US Supreme Court ruling, which is expected to come early next year. I get tired just thinking about it.)

The last time a state expanded Medicaid was in Oklahoma in June, where voters narrowly approved the expansion despite a flood of dark money..

Which brings us to tomorrow, when voters will take up the measure in Missouri. The following alert went out from Joshua Saleem, director of AFSC's St. Louis program to Friends and contacts in that state:

On August 4, Missouri voters will have the chance to make history and save lives by voting “Yes!” on Amendment 2, which would expand Medicaid to cover around 200,000 currently uninsured state residents. The expansion would particularly benefit adults in working families earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level.

This step makes sense in “ordinary” times by extending health care, opening the path to recovery from addiction, easing the path to reentry for formerly incarcerated people, supporting hospitals and health care providers, creating jobs and generating economic activity—but these aren’t ordinary times. In these times of a global pandemic that has yet to slow down, a yes vote is absolutely imperative.

Medicaid expansion is a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. It was intended by Congress to apply across the nation, but a U.S. Supreme Court decision made it a state option.  As of now, 38 states, including the District of Columbia, have expanded Medicaid. Missouri should join their ranks.

The vote could be close. In Oklahoma, voters approved the expansion in June—but by a bare margin of one percent. Millions of dollars in dark money will be spent to defeat the measure.

This is why we’re asking you do three things: vote yes, share this email with friends, and do all you can to get out the vote.

Since its founding over 100 years ago, the American Friends Service Committee, following the Quaker belief in the value of all persons, has worked to promote economic rights as human rights. It has supported access to health care internationally as well as at the national and state level in the United States.

It doesn’t often happen that ordinary people have the opportunity to make such a huge difference with such simple steps, but this is one of those times. Please help us make the most of it.

It will be the latest round in a series of struggles that probably began in the USA in 1912 when former president and presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt first proposed something like universal health care as the candidate of the Progressive Republican Party.

I plan on staying up as long as it takes for the vote to be counted.











 

Statement on federal officers in Portland, elsewhere

Unidentified federal law enforcement agents in Portland, Oregon, have detained protesters,
whisking them away in unmarked cars. This shocking practice is evocative of repressive methods
used by authoritarian governments.

Over the objections of local elected officials, the Trump administration recently deployed a variety
of federal agents to Portland, including U.S. Marshals and Customs and Border Protection officers,
purportedly to protect federal buildings during demonstrations. However, detentions have
reportedly occurred elsewhere. It is not immediately clear which federal agency is responsible.

Since the arrival of federal agents, local officials have complained that they are using excessive
force against protesters. On July 6, a U.S. Marshal shot a protester in the head with an “impact
munition” fracturing his skull and leaving him critically injured. U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) has condemned the federal deployment, saying, “These shadowy forces have been escalating, not preventing, violence.”

Federal officials have rejected the calls for de-escalation. On July 16, Acting Secretary of Homeland
Security Chad Wolf criticized local officials for failing to curb “lawless anarchists.” “This failed
response has only emboldened the violent mob,” he said.

Since the murder of George Floyd by police, Americans across the nation have taken to the streets to
exercise their First Amendment rights. Many times these peaceful protests against police violence
have been met with more violence, including by the Portland Police Department.The continued
deployment of federal forces in Portland, against the wishes of local elected officials, is the latest
example of the Trump administration’s policy of demonizing the protesters and peddling conspiracy
theories about outside agitators.

Reports that PPD may be formally or informally coordinating or sharing information with federal
agencies raise additional concerns.

Everyone has the right to protest freely and to speak out for a better world. Individuals do not
forfeit this right, even when others engage in vandalism or similar unlawful acts. Officers are only
legally authorized to arrest a person based on individualized probable cause that the individual has
committed a crime.

The use of unidentified militarized federal forces against the wishes of local officials, the exercise of
excessive force against peaceful demonstrators and the seemingly arbitrary detention of some of
them without a clear reason for arrest are designed to intimidate protesters into surrendering their
First Amendment rights.

We condemn these practices. We call for all unwanted federal forces to be removed from Portland
and urge Congress to investigate the pattern and practice of abuses against protesters.

(The American Friends Service Committee was one of several organizations to sign on to this statement. Click link for more.)

The politics of health care in a pandemic

In a recent post about health care, I suggested that Oklahoma's ballot measure on Medicaid expansion would be one to watch. Well, sure enough, voters in that heavily Republican state approved the measure by a little over 50 percent. Considering the dark money that went into opposing it, I'd call that a landslide. Dollars seem to count more than votes most days.

Interestingly, Oklahoma was the first state to expand Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic. But it may not be the last. Missouri is scheduled to vote on the measure August 4. And so far, expansion has passed in every state where it was put on the ballot.

As I've argued many times before, it's good news any time a state takes advantage of this best provision of the Affordable Care Act. First, it improves and saves lives. Second, it creates jobs and generates a lot of economic activity. Third, it helps more people stay in the workforce. Fourth, each expansion makes it a bit harder to get rid of the whole thing.

Back to Oklahoma. This is also the state that took up the Trump administration's horrible idea of accepting a cap on Medicaid spending. Looks like that ain't gonna happen.

This article from Politico argues that the pandemic has upended the Trump/Republican dream of rolling back health care. I don't know if that's true, since the US Supreme Court could still do a lot of damage.

Still, I think we can agree that the optics, in the parlance of our time, of taking health care away from people or keeping them from getting it to start with just don't look that good. In an election year.

We'll see. But this is another reminder that all news isn't bad.

Off the rails?

The opening sentence in Leo Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina is justly famous: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

I’m not sure that’s true of families, but it might be of countries. According to the World Population Review, the 10 happiest countries (we’re not among them) seem to be democracies with functioning governments, less inequality, economic security for all and high degrees of social trust.

There are all kinds of ways for a country to be unhappy. It’s a scary thing when great societies go off the rails. It’s happened plenty of times but looks different each time.

One that I’ve been thinking about was chronicled by the great ancient Greek historian Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, which raged from 431 to 404 BC. He was an Athenian general and a participant in the strife.

Ancient Greece was composed of independent city states that often fought each other. Their constitutions varied greatly. They were mostly united by language, religion, shrines and oracles, and festivals such as the Olympic and other PanHellenic games.

Despite their frequent conflicts, many of these city-states or poleis (singular: polis) managed to unite to defeat the mighty Persian army in the 490s-480s BC. Then things started to unravel.

The two most powerful poleis were Athens and Sparta. Athens was a slaveholding democracy in which women were excluded from public life. However, for those who had political rights, it was a pretty direct democracy, with many important offices being filled by lot, almost like drawing names out of a hat.

As the great Afro-Caribbean scholar CLR James put it:

“At its best, in the city state of Athens, the public assembly of all the citizens made all important decisions on such questions as peace or war. They listened to the envoys of foreign powers and decided what their attitude should be to what these foreign powers had to say. They dealt with all serious questions of taxation, they appointed the generals who should lead them in time of war. They organized the administration of the state, appointed officials and kept check on them. The public assembly of all the citizens was the government.”

Sparta, on the other hand, was a militaristic state with a constitution that combined a dual monarchy with something like a senate, popular assembly and a supreme court. Although women citizens had more freedom there, the society was based on the subjugation of the Helots, a conquered population whose forced labor allowed Spartan male citizens to devote themselves almost exclusively to training for war.

Pick your poison.

After the Persian war, Athens founded a defensive alliance against the old foe with many other poleis called the Delian League. Members were supposed to support the league by contributing ships, men and money. Over time, it became more like an Athenian empire extracting monetary tribute from those under its power. This alarmed Sparta and its allies. Armed conflict loomed over the political allegiance of various poleis.

To their credit, the Spartans sought a diplomatic solution, but the Athenians in their arrogance or hubris weren’t having it. Pretty soon, it was on.

What made the war so devastating wasn’t so much the fighting between states; that wasn’t all that unusual. The key factor was the conflict within each polis.

Most were pulled apart by internal factions that more or less mirrored and favored either Sparta or Athens. The Athenians often supported democratic factions, although their methods weren’t necessarily democratic, while Spartans supported aristocratic and oligarchic factions. Foreign intervention often accompanied revolutions or counterrevolutions.

This is where it gets scary. The bitterness of conflicting passions broke down all norms of civility. Here are some lines from Thucydides:

“To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one’s unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man…Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect….

“Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils. To this must be added the violent fanaticism which came into play once the struggle had broken out”

It didn’t end well. For anybody.

Our situation today is totally different, but still I think of those lines when I contemplate some aspects of the current scene, including an increase in hate crimes; overheated, extremist political rhetoric at the highest levels; emboldened racist groups enjoying their day in the sun; an increase in the influence of paranoid conspiracy theories; social and other media outlets distorting news and spewing propaganda; the rejection of science; demonizing those with different views; and rampant inequality in the midst of a global pandemic.

I’m hoping that what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” will kick in soon. Otherwise, a line from a late period Bob Dylan song seems appropriate: “it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.”

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

One to watch

If you care about the future of health care, pay attention to tomorrow's election in Oklahoma, where Medicaid expansion is on the ballot. This would be the first state to consider expansion since the COVID-19 pandemic took off. If it passes, it could bring health care to around 200,000 adults.
Needless to say, there's a lot of dark money opposing the measure.

According to the Kaiser Family Fund, 37 states (including DC) have adopted the expansion. In general, I think every state that expands the program makes it a little bit harder to undo the whole thing.

Medicaid expansion has been a huge benefit to West Virginia, bringing in billions of dollars, supporting thousands of jobs and providing coverage to around 200,000 low income adults in any given year. At any given point lately around 160,000 are covered by it.

This vote takes place in the shadow of an impending US Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Overturning it and taking away health care from millions of Americans seems to be a priority of both the Trump administration and WV Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, (which makes me want to reread the first volume of Dante's Divine Comedy to see which circle that would qualify one for).

Stating the obvious

It's becoming clear that the COVID outbreak is threatening the economy as well as the health and lives of people all over, with people staying away from work and businesses (although not the local Kroger store!) and cancelling travel plans.

The Trump administration has come up with a "stable genius" plan to boost the economy: cut the payroll taxes that fund things like Social Security and Medicare.

This rivals the brilliance of building a border wall in Colorado or digging a moat and filling it with snakes and gators...

There are some obvious problems with the plan, as Chye-Ching Huang with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out in this blog post. For starters, this wouldn't do a whole heckuva lot for the people who need it most, i.e. the people who miss work and don't get paid.

Another problem is that the economy needs a pretty big jolt sooner rather than later. Getting a few dollars more in a paycheck over a long period of time wouldn't make that much of a difference and it would weaken Social Security, etc.

Huang argues that "Sending stimulus checks to most Americans would put more money in households’ hands much more quickly than a payroll tax cut of the same cost. Also, stimulus checks can be sent both to workers and to people without earnings, including people receiving Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, or VA benefits and people unable to find jobs."

She also stresses the importance of strengthening and reforming unemployment insurance and food assistance programs, as well as enacting and extending paid sick leave.

And, while we're stating the obvious, let's not forget investing in public health and not messing with Medicaid.

Hungry times

In case you missed it, here's a great New York Times article about the impact of restrictions on SNAP food assistance in West Virginia. It actually features my hometown, along with the great work of a friend and comrade with the WV Center on Budget and Policy's Seth DiStefano.

Beginning in 2016, the state imposed work reporting requirements on the nine counties with the best employment outlook...and the result was disaster, with over 5,400 people being cut off. As a result of bad legislation passed last year, that failed policy is going statewide.

Now, thanks to a certain presidential administration, that bad idea is about to be nationalized, as I wrote in this blog post for the national AFSC.

Yesterday, WV Governor Jim Justice proclaimed "Hunger Free West Virginia Day." While we're hoping to make some progress in that arena, I wanted to scream that the job would be a lot easier if WV hadn't messed with SNAP to start with.