Not all bad news...really

 It looks like over 4,000 unionized frontline workers who have been keeping people supplied with food and other necessities at the risk of their own health and lives won a huge victory this week, assuming the agreement is ratified by members. As reported in WV MetroNews, Local 400 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union reached a tentative agreement last week that includes:

-Health care funding that experts say will fully fund our health care for the life of the contract

-Real raises for EVERYONE

-Premiums for ALL department heads

-No increase to prescription drug costs maximums + a new diabetes program to reduce drug costs

-New hours eligibility measurement period doesn’t start until after ratification

-All raises retroactive to November 1, 2020

All this despite a horrible economic and political climate. UFCW workers voted to authorize a strike--and Kroger threatened to hire strikebreakers, but fortunately that seems to have been averted.

That's kind of a sentimental thing for me. I did what I could to support WV's Kroger workers in a 2003 strike (I foolishly thought things were tough then). At the time, WV's labor movement was stronger than it is now and its legislature wasn't controlled by people who  hate unions. Kroger actually closed its stores until a deal was negotiated. It turned out well. 

I hope this one does too. It looks good now anyhow.

Solidarity forever!

May Day: Born in the USA

Happy Beltane, May Day and International Workers' Day! The first was a Celtic holy day. The second was a traditional European spring festival with pagan overtones. You could even say it was kind of Freudian...can you say May poles and fertility?

As for International Workers' Day, folks, especially in the Cold War era, associated it with Soviet communism and the militaristic parades that used to fill Red Square in Moscow. It might be good to recall that the May Day labor celebration grew out of efforts to establish the eight hour workday right here in the USA. It was only later that the day was adopted by the international labor and socialist movement.

A major struggle in much of the 19th and 20th century has been to reduce the hours of the working day, which could run as long as 14 hours or more in the early days of the industrial revolution.
A slogan of the movement was "eight hours for work, eight hours of sleep and eight hours for what we will."

Trade unionists in Chicago declared a strike for the eight hour day on May 1, 1886. One May 4, as police attempted to disperse a protesting crowd of workers at Haymarket Square, an unknown person threw a bomb which killed several police officers. The remaining police in turn fired at the crowd, killing four.

The bomber was never brought to justice. The only thing most historians agree on is that the eight people arrested and sentenced for the bombing weren't the guilty parties, several of whom weren't even there at the time. Of these, four were eventually executed. They are known as the "Haymarket martyrs."

The struggle to limit the working day didn't end there and was eventually won for many US workers by trade union organization and by the political reforms in the New Deal era and beyond, although some laws exempted protections for some of the most exploited workers, such as farm and domestic laborers.

Like everything else in the history of the struggle of working people for basic human justice, the fight goes on. The fight has always been about more than wages, hours and working conditions, as important as these are. It's also been about the need for culture, rest, leisure, education and dignity.

Lately, this hasn't been going so well, as you may have noticed. But it's not over yet.

Finally, here's a shout out to the frontline workers who have walked off the job today to call for safe working conditions, a living wage and respect.

(Note: some of this was cobbled together from older May Day posts.)

What just happened with the 2019 WV education strike, anyway?

West Virginia teachers and school service workers just won another historic victory with their two-day walkout to kill Senate Bill 451, the "ominous omnibus" bill.

If I had to explain what has happened over the last few weeks to an intelligent person from somewhere else relying on memory alone, it would go something like this. Please jump in and correct me where I'm wrong. (Sneak preview: Putnam County bus drivers are heroes!):

1. WV education workers won an historic victory with their work stoppage last year and some people on the losing end (fill in the blanks) never forgave them for that.

2. This session, those same people ambushed the senate with radical ideas about education "deform," which included privatization, charter schools, educational savings accounts, punishments for union workers and such along with benign measures like a 5 percent raise and help with PEIA and retirement. The bad ideas were pushed by out of state big money groups like ALEC and others who want to take down public education.

3. Education workers and allies began to mobilize against this and to come up with alternative ideas.

4. Gov. Justice, to his credit, came  out against the senate bill, admitting it was partly motivated by revenge and pledging to veto it in its current form. Alas, the framers of WV's constitution apparently dozed off at some point and made it possible to override a governor's veto with a simple majority.

5.  The bill was rammed down the metaphorical throat of the senate education committee. And, when it looked like the bill wouldn't make it through the senate finance committee (thanks to the defection of two Republicans), leadership went around it to adopt a rarely used "committee of the whole" to get it through the senate. (Some of us thought of it as a "committee of the hole.")

5. Education workers voted to authorize a work stoppage if and when it seemed like the right thing to do to oppose 451.

6. SB 451 went to the house, which came up with an imperfect but significantly less evil version of the bill.

7. The senate refused to go with the house version and reloaded it with charters, educational savings accounts and other privatization measures.

8. At that point, education workers and their organizations called for a work stoppage which shut down schools in 54 of 55 counties, the outlier being Putnam.

9. Putnam bus drivers, service workers and many teachers heroically defied their bosses to hold the line, even though they may still face sanctions. All honor to them!

10. After one day of striking, the house refused to concur with the senate version, which seemed to kill the bad bill. There was much rejoicing, but nobody trusted the senate, so the strike continued for another day.

11. By day two of the strike, the deadline for reviving 451 passed. On the evening of day two, a return to work was declared by AFT, WVEA and WVSSPA.

12. All of which is to say, this was a truly historic victory! Of course, we can still expect dirty tricks and bad bills in the remaining days of the session. And we as in education workers and families and their allies need to get in front of this and come up with a real plan to improve education with all WV students...in a way that freezes out privatization, charter schools, vouchers, and educational saving accounts and such.

13. But let's face it, y'all. WV just won another historic and inspiring victory for the labor movement and for kids and for working people. Last year's victory continues to inspire teachers and other workers (keep an eye on Oakland CA for the latest example). May this year's victory inspire more of the same.

#55strong: counting the wins

(Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. No connection to overpriced sweatshop shoes.)

First of all, damn. I didn't see any of this coming two months ago.

I was expecting another brutal WV legislative session which would see more anti-worker legislation rammed through. Instead, we got a real peoples' uprising, a beautiful statewide work stoppage that showed amazing heart and solidarity and won some pretty miraculous victories. (Yes, I know some downer stuff happened too, but I'm not letting that spoil my day.)

So many victories, in fact, that it's hard to count them. Here's my partial list. Feel free to add to it:

Category: health insurance under the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA). Several wins here, including

1. Taking away some hated changes;

2. Some extra funding;

3. A freeze in benefit changes for 17 months;

4. A task force charged with finding a long term fix.

Category: salary increases

5. A five percent increase for teachers and support workers, with an unexpected five percent for all state workers. This is amazing for several reasons. In recent years, the default setting for raises for teachers and public sector workers has been zero. Further several earlier proposals for increases were tiny.

Category: bad stuff that didn't happen

6. In January, it looked like a safe bet that a constitutional measure that would have cut business taxes on machinery and equipment by $140 million or so would pass. The proposed tax cuts were way more expensive than the raises (which some Republicans in the senate said "we" couldn't afford). All this despite the fact that one reason WV went in the whole was the previous round of unproductive business tax cuts. Any now, thanks to teachers and education workers, that didn't happen.

7. At the beginning of the session it looked like the legislature could ram through SB 335, the so called "Paycheck Protection Act," which in reality is more like the Paycheck Reduction Act. This measure would have hit organized teachers and public sector workers hard. Without these unions, none of these victories would have happened. Anyhow, it died a well deserved death.

8. Charter school legislation which would have undermined and drained resources away from public education died on the vine.

9. Threats to teacher seniority were defeated.

Category: intangible but priceless

10. This strike showed the world that the labor movement is alive and well--and not just in West Virginia.

11. The strike woke up lots of people who had not been involved in labor, legislative or policy advocacy before. It's too soon to tell, but it looks like it woke up a lot of people politically as well. It also clarified who the friends and opponents of working people are.

12. The strike showed people of all ages--and especially young people--in WV and beyond that people can accomplish great things if they stick together and act up. The fact that all this happened under horrible political circumstances makes it all the more amazing.

13. (Personal) It showed me that the true spirit of West Virginia hasn't died. For the last few years I've been afraid it had suffocated under a mountain of greed and lies.

Way to go, West Virginia--and thanks to everyone who played a role in this historic struggle!

Remembering Paul Nyden

I was saddened to learn today of the passing of longtime Charleston Gazette investigative reporter Paul Nyden. I was an avid follower of his work ever since I started paying attention to what was happening in West Virginia.

I was in awe of his high-impact exposures of corruption and greed in corporate and government settings He was a tireless advocate for coal miners, working people and the disadvantaged.

It was a privilege to get to know him when I began working for the American Friends Service Committee in 1989. From then until  his retirement a couple of years ago, if there was a story of injustice that needed to get out, you could count on Paul to do it.

He wasn't just a great reporter. He was a great reader and thinker, an avid baseball fan, and just a bit of a wild man at times.

With a PhD.from Columbia (documenting coalfield struggles), he could easily have had a cozy academic career. Instead, he was drawn to West Virginia by the struggles of miners during the Black Lung and Miners for Democracy movement.

He once told me of a conversation he had with a university administrator who was critical of his interest in such apparently trivial matters as the well being of coal miners. Paul just started staring at the ceiling.

"Why are you looking at that?: his critic asked.

"Do you ever worry about it falling on you?" Paul responded.

"No," said the administrator.

Paul just said, "They do."

Ten thousand times

Here's a fiery labor day quote:

"Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and fallen and bruised itself, and risen again; been seized by the throat and choked and clubbed into insensibility; enjoined by courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, shot down by regulars, traduced by the press, frowned upon by public opinion, deceived by politicians, threatened by priests, repudiated by renegades, preyed upon by grafters, infested by spies, deserted by cowards, betrayed by traitors, bled by leeches, and sold out by leaders, but notwithstanding all this, and all these, it is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thraldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun."-Eugene V. Debs, 1904

I wish I was as confident of emancipation today as he was then. And more correct about it.

Solidarity forever. And now

Lots of people in and out of West Virginia may not realize that the song "Solidarity Forever," the international anthem of the labor movement, was inspired by labor struggles right here. Specifically, Ralph Chaplin, journalist and songwriter for the Industrial Workers of the World was inspired to write it after witnessing union miners in Kanawha County during the 1912-1923 Paint Creek strike.

In that spirit, I'd like to share a blog post by my friend and co-worker Arnie Alpert, aka New Hampshire Slim, who works on social justice issues for the American Friends Service Committee in that state. The post is from his blog InZaneTimes and is adapted from a talk he gave in observation of Worker's Memorial Day:

An Injury to One is Still an Injury to All

Four years ago, this past Monday a building in Bangladesh called “Rana Plaza” collapsed and came crashing down.

The building housed five garment factories which employed 5000 people.

Brands that were sourcing from the factories in Rana Plaza building include Benetton, Bon Marche, Cato Fashions, The Children’s Place, Walmart, and JC Penney.

The owners ignored warnings about the building’s structural flaws.

The workers did not have a union.

The laws were weak and unenforced.

When the building collapsed, one thousand one hundred and thirty-four workers lost their lives. Thousands more were injured.

The scale of the disaster was so large, and the capacity of NGOs like the International Labor Rights Forum and the Clean Clothes Campaign was strong enough, that even though the workers were unorganized it became possible to pressure the companies and the government to reach agreements for inspections, compensation for affected workers and families, and renovating factories to make them safer.

But workers in Bangladesh still face repression when they try to organize.

That makes reforms hard to defend, especially when workers are inter-changeable pieces in a global supply chain, thousands of miles away from the consumers of the products they make, and several corporate intermediaries away from the firms whose logos they sew onto the apparel they make.

That’s one reason why we need to stand together, as workers, as consumers, as citizens.

One hundred and thirty-one years ago next Monday, hundreds of thousands of American workers went on strike calling for an eight-hour day. (The eight-hour movement followed the earlier ten-hour movement, which was led largely by young women like New Hampshire’s Sara Bagley and conducted in places like Dover, Manchester, Exeter, and Lowell.)

In Chicago, at the same time, a strike was going on at the McCormick Reaper plant, whose owner was trying to replace workers with machines. Several days of protest followed the May Day strike. Police killed 2 strikers on May 3. During a rally the next day protesting killings by police, a bomb went off. No one ever knew who was responsible. Several police officers and strikers lost their lives in the violence.

To be brief, Albert Parsons and August Spies, leaders of the eight-hour movement, were blamed, tried, convicted, and executed, despite the lack of any evidence tying them to the violence. (Hanging, not injection of toxic chemicals, was the method used back then.)

The following year, May Day was observed in their honor throughout the world and became known as International Workers Day.

In this country, over the past decade or so, International Workers Day has become associated with protests, rallies, strikes, and marches led by immigrant workers. That includes this coming Monday in Manchester, 5 to 7 pm, in Veterans Park.

Why does this matter?

When immigrants are afraid to complain about the toxic chemicals they use to clean our schools or the excessive heat in bakeries, factories, and laundries, the rights of all workers to a safe workplace is threatened.

When immigrants can be scapegoated and threatened with loss of jobs, the rights of all workers are weakened.

When capital can cross borders with barely any restriction, but workers face walls and troops, we have to stand together.

When workers are so desperately poor that they will take jobs that put their lives at risk, we have to stand together.

When the number of people forced to flee their homes dues to violence, climate disruption, and economic desperation is at an all-time high, we have to stand together.

When xenophobic and nativist movements are on the rise the world over, we have to stand together.

When workers anywhere are afraid to organize, we have to stand together.

And when workers do organize, despite the fear, despite the risks, despite the threats, despite the scapegoating, we have to stand with them.

During Workers Memorial Week, we say, injustice anywhere is still a threat to justice everywhere.

We still say, an injury to one is an injury to all.

We still say, Solidarity forever.

(I wish I'd said that. Thanks, Arnie!)

Two new things

FIRST, the AFLCIO is taking another look at what organizing means. This approach reminds me of an old idea from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), to wit, people have a union when they act like they have one.

HUNGRY KIDS, SCHOOLS, AND FARMS...making the connection work better.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Karma, New England style

The theme at Goat Rope these days is the life and work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was a huge influence in 19th century life and letters in America and beyond. I mean, even Nietzsche liked him.

At the moment, I'm taking a look at his 1838 Harvard Divinity School Address, which was so controversial at the time that he wasn't invited back to that institution for 30 years. In a day or so, posts here will take a look at some of the things he wrote that got him into hot water with even relatively laid back New England Unitarians.

Today, though, the first passage that hit my eye is one that echoes classical Buddhist teachings about karma. Contrary to popular belief, Buddhist views on the subject are pretty subtle. It's not like if you do a good deed you get a Lexis. It's more like if you act nastily, you'll get better and better and being nasty, with all that that entails. And vice versa.  (Emerson, by the way, was an admirer of Indian philosophy and was moved by the limited amount he could read about at the time of Hindu and Buddhist ideas).

Anyhow, here's the passage. I must admit that while Ralph drives me crazy sometimes, I like this one:

The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. The laws execute themselves. They are out of time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance. Thus; in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire. He who does a good deed, is instantly ennobled. He who does a mean deed, is by the action itself contracted. He who puts off impurity, thereby puts on purity. If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter into that man with justice. If a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives himself, and goes out of acquaintance with his own being. A man in the view of absolute goodness, adores, with total humility. Every step so downward, is a step upward. The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.

Everybody got that?

Note: this post was meant to come out early this morning but there have been internet problem on the farm.

THE DOWNSIDE OF PRIVATIZATION is discussed here.

THE LONG HAUL. Here's a profile of a friend of mine from the Gazette.

THE FUTURE OF UNIONS. Here's a look at the challenges the labor movement is facing and possible ways to deal with it. Suggestion: take a look at the I.W.W.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Great expectations

A friend today emailed me a great quote from a new book titled Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement by Jane McAlevey with Bob Ostertag. Here goes:

"...organizing, at its core, is about raising expectations: about what people should expect from their jobs; the quality of life they should aspire to; how they ought to be treated when they are old; and what they should be able to offer their children...Expectations about what they themselves are capable of, about the power they could exercise if they worked together, and what they might use that collective power to accomplish."

There's more about the book here.

Next stop...Ohio?

Yesterday, close to 100 people jammed into a legislative committee room in Charleston WV to make a statement in support of workers in Wisconsin protesting against a union busting effort led by governor Scott Walker. Quite a few legislators attended, in addition to several dozen union supporters.

(By the way, you can follow a good chunk of the money behind the right wing jihad in Wisconsin and elsewhere to the Koch brothers.)

Now, it looks like another protest is building in Ohio, where a similar measure is being considered, and in Indiana, where "right to work (for less)" legislation is getting some play.

Clearly, the billionaire funded right wants to kill the labor movement, but union members don't seem to be going gently into that good night. I hope instead of an easy victory the enemies of labor stir up a hornet's nest.

A SUGGESTION FOR WORKING PEOPLE: just say no.

WONDER WHY? There are more hate groups in the US than ever before, according to a new study.

URGENT DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Waking a sleeping giant?

A friend emailed me this picture over the weekend. I have no idea of its origin or whether it is what it seems to be but I can't resist posting it here. I've been following events in Wisconsin with a great deal of interest. And, if the picture is any indication, I'm not the only one.

It's too soon to tell whether this is a blip on the screen or flash in the pan (depending on whether you prefer digital or analog metaphors), but the right wing express and its billionaire backers might have awakened a sleeping giant. I hope so anyway. For what it's worth, I'm joining some friends tomorrow in WV to show support and would encourage you to do whatever you can.

WHY? As Paul Krugman put it today,

anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

MORE ON THAT here.

REFRAME THE DEBATE. Here's are some suggestions from George Lakoff.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Deja vu again

It seems to me that President Obama isn't as lucky as FDR was in dealing with the last massive economic meltdown. The Crash of 1929 happened three years before Roosevelt was elected president. This gave Hoover plenty of time to own it and FDR quite a bit of leeway in dealing with it.

The Great Recession, on the other hand, started in late 2007 but it didn't really hit hard until 2008 and 2009. While it was brought on by the excesses of nearly 30 years of deregulation and supply side policies, that chain of cause and effect isn't visible to many Americans.

Paul Krugman sums things up pretty well in today's NY Times:

Here’s the situation: The U.S. economy has been crippled by a financial crisis. The president’s policies have limited the damage, but they were too cautious, and unemployment remains disastrously high. More action is clearly needed. Yet the public has soured on government activism, and seems poised to deal Democrats a severe defeat in the midterm elections.

Roosevelt hit a similar rough patch in 1937 and 1938. In the end, the Depression was ended through deficit spending associated with World War II. It will probably take additional deficit spending to spur job growth, at least until the economy is firing on all cylinders. Krugman again:

The economic moral is clear: when the economy is deeply depressed, the usual rules don’t apply. Austerity is self-defeating: when everyone tries to pay down debt at the same time, the result is depression and deflation, and debt problems grow even worse. And conversely, it is possible — indeed, necessary — for the nation as a whole to spend its way out of debt: a temporary surge of deficit spending, on a sufficient scale, can cure problems brought on by past excesses.

The problem, of course, is that the current political situation makes that hard to do, and it will probably get harder in the future. This could lead to prolonged economic misery as well as social and political nastiness.

As Oliver Goldsmith put it in the 1700s, "Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ill a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay..."

ONE GOOD COLUMN DESERVES ANOTHER. Here's E.J. Dionne on what the labor movement has meant to the building of the middle class.

WHY NOT ONE MORE? Here's Harold Meyerson while we're at it on the state of labor (short version: it isn't good).

STUDY THIS. New research on how people learn questions some old beliefs.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

There is a tide...

El Cabrero spends a good bit of time working on public policy issues at the state and federal level. I find it fascinating that some issues seem to rise to the surface and get a lot of attention while others--often very important ones--don't.

Sometimes, when issues get "hot," the result can be the passage of significant legislation, but other times they fade from public view for years, decades or even for good.

Sometimes openings exist to get things done and other times they don't. When an opening occurs, one needs to be able to act swiftly and skillfully. And when there is no immediate opening to accomplish a particular goal, the best one can often do is lay the groundwork to take advantage of an opening when it eventually occurs.

It kind of reminds me of these lines spoken by Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Over the next few days, I'm going to try to follow that thread through the labyrinth. I just hope I don't get eaten by the Minotaur...

THE STIGMA IS FADING FAST about food stamp usage, as the NY Times reports. Nowadays, one in eight Americans and one in four children are depending on them.

JOBS! In this op-ed, Paul Krugman calls for direct public sector job creation.

DEFICIT DISORDER, REVISITED. Here's economist Dean Baker talking sense on the federal deficit.

STATUS AND US. This op-ed by yours truly on the social determinants of health came out in the Gazette and Common Dreams yesterday.

LABOR. This Gazette article looks at the future of the labor movement in WV.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Lions and tigers and...

Image courtesy of wikipedia.

...bears--oh my! El Cabrero is not an overly superstitious person (aside from spilling salt, not rocking a chair with nobody sitting in it, knocking on wood, etc.). However, in the event that anything really weird happens around here involving our ursine friends, here are three odd things that have happened lately:

1. I had a dream about seeing a bear on a hill near the pond on Goat Rope Farm;

2. My daughter had a dream about a massive bear attack on the farm a week later; and

3. The next day, she read in a post on this blog that a neighbor told us he saw a bear on our road in the middle of the night.

(The record should also state that said daughter, La Cabrita, has all kinds of delusions about bears as incredibly malevolent creatures who plot at every opportunity to do harm to humankind. A Freudian might say bears in this case represent repressed aspects of the unconscious.)

My theory is that bears are pretty harmless creatures who couldn't be much worse than some of the dogs on this hollow--including ours.

But if anything really bearish happens around here, then yes, Virginia, there is a Twilight Zone.

VETERAN'S DAY. Here's a civilian salute to the veterans of past and present wars. And here's hoping there will be fewer veterans who have to serve in combat in the future.

HOW BAD IS IT? Here's an article about the collateral damage of the current recession, including an increase in suicides.

THE LABOR MOVEMENT is becoming more diverse, according to a new report. Women are getting closer to outnumbering men.

LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN. WV coal industry leaders and elected officials met yesterday about concerns of increased regulation of mining from the Obama administration. This could mark the beginning of another ruling class hissy fit.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM. Some researchers believe that dreaming is less a psychological event than the brain warming itself up for daily life.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

FEAR AND TREMBLING

Caption: This man has been overcome with it.

This is Haint Week at Goat Rope. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

(For the un-hillbilly, haint is Appalachian for that which haunts.)

Whatever haints may or may not be, one reason many people have believed in them over the ages is no doubt the feeling of fear or awe that sometimes strikes us in the apparent absence of an ordinary cause.

The 20th century German theologian Rudolph Otto referred to this feeling as the "mysterium tremendum." In his classic book The Idea of the Holy, he suggests that this feeling of awe lies at the basis of both religion and many superstitions:

The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at least it dies away and the soul resumes its 'profane', non-religious mood of everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to ecstasy.

This feeling can take many forms:

It has wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering. It has crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of--whom or what? In the presence of that which is a mystery inexpressible and above all creatures.

The biblical Book of Job has a great description of this unbidden feeling of awe or dread:

“Now a word was brought to me stealthily, And my ear received a whisper of it. Amid disquieting thoughts from the visions of the night, When deep sleep falls on men, Dread came upon me, and trembling, And made all my bones shake." (4:12-14)

Otto believed that earlier, more "primitive" manifestations of this feeling had a dark side and generated belief in ghosts and demons:

Its antecedent stage is 'daemonic dread' (cf. the horror of Pan) with its queer perversion, a sort of abortive offshoot, the 'dread of ghosts'. It first begins to stir in the feeling of 'something uncanny', 'eerie', or 'weird'. It is the feeling which, emerging in the mind of primeval man, forms the start-point for the entire religious development of history. 'Daemons' and 'gods' alike spring from this root, and all the products of 'mythological apperception' or 'fantasy' are nothing but different modes in which it has been objectified.

From a purely psychological point of view, these unbidden feelings of awe and dread are the stuff of which haints are made.

POVERTY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT is the theme of the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. One item of interest deals with the possibilities of micro-loan programs to alleviate poverty and improve health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.

CHANGE TO WHAT? It's been two years or so since some unions split from the AFLCIO to form Change to Win. Here's an item from In These Times about what's changed, what hasn't and what might.

DEATH PENALTY. Yesterday's Supreme Court decision could mean a temporary moratorium on executions.

LATEST PRESS ON MEGAN WILLIAMS MARCH includes this item from the Daily Mail about Malik Shabazz,one of the march's organizers, and this item from the Charleston Gazette about the decision of the Charleston NAACP not to support the march, a decision shared by several other predominantly African American groups in WV.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

ROCKS AND HARD PLACES

The theme for this week's Goat Rope is the future of the labor movement. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

We know that union members tend to have better wages and benefits than their non-union counterparts and that polling indicates that millions of Americans would join unions if they could. So why isn't that happening?

American Rights at Work provides some answers:

Every 23 minutes a U.S. worker is fired or retaliated against for their support of a union.

Between 1993 and 2003, NLRB reports indicate an average of 22,633 workers per year were awarded backpay from employers after being fired or demoted for trying to organize.

91% of employers force employees to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with their supervisors during union organizing drives...

51% of employers illegally coerce workers into opposing unions with bribes or special favors during union organizing drives...


30% of employers illegally fire pro-union workers during union organizing drives...


49% of employers illegally threaten to close a worksite during union organizing drives if workers choose to form a union...

46% of workers report being pressured by management during NLRB elections...

(Click the above link for more statistics and sources.)

There oughta be a law...

...about which more tomorrow.

AT THE OTHER END OF THE SPECTRUM, here's Barbara Ehrenreich on CEO pay. An excerpt:

...CEOs of large companies earn an average of $10.8 million a year, which is 362 times as much as the average American worker, and retire with $10.1 million in their special exclusive CEO pension funds.

Citing a recent report released for Labor Day by United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies, she notes that US CEO pay "wildly exceeds that of their European counterparts, who, we are invited to believe, work equally hard."

The report states that

"The 20 highest-paid individuals at publicly traded corporations last year took home, on average, $36.4 million. That's ... 204 times more than the 20 highest-paid generals in the U.S. military."

She is quick to point out, however, that they need every penny of it since it's so expensive to be rich these days.

NOW THAT SUMMER IS KIND OF OFFICIALLY OVER, here's an item on the vanishing American vacation.

COSMIC WATERGATE. From the Charleston Daily Mail:

Nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman arrives in West Virginia's capital Friday with "overwhelming evidence" that aliens from beyond have been visiting planet Earth for a long time...

For almost half a century, Friedman has explored the UFO phenomenon and spent much of his time on the lecture circuit, meeting audiences on better than 600 campuses and appearing on national television interviews, including, of late, the "Larry King Show."

His message:

"UFOs are real, and the government has been covering them up in what I call the ‘cosmic Watergate,' " Friedman told The Register-Herald in a recent interview.

The conference will be held this weekend in Charleston.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

THE TWO BUMS, PLUS WAL-MART AND HUMAN RIGHTS AND A WV ITEM

Caption: Here are two bums.

(This week's posts are loosely connected. If this is your first visit, please consider clicking on the last two.)

El Cabrero has a soft spot for the Wobblies, a nickname for the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical branch of the labor movement that saw its best days between its founding in 1905 and the massive political repression that accompanied the First World War.

Their goal was to unite all workers, regardless of skill, race, sex, religion, or national origin, into One Big Union. They were also very clever in making use of funny and irreverent songs, poems, and signs (similar to modern bumper stickers) which they called silent agitators to get their message across.

They gave the labor movement some of its best songs, such as Solidarity Forever, which was inspired by a coal strike in El Cabrero’s beloved state of West Virginia, The Commonwealth of Toil, Bread and Roses, and The Preacher and the Slave.

One Wobbly poem called The Two Bums, is the most eloquent statement on social policy that I’ve ever found.

Then as now, people are all to ready and eager to blame all social problems on poor and working people and ignore the vast harm done to the vast majority by a wealthy and powerful minority of people who own and control most economic and political power.

Here it is:

The Two Bums

The bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind
The other is driven around to his club, is feted, wined and dined.

And they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad
Will greet the other with a willing smile and extend a hand so glad.

The bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occasional bite
The bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night.

The bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel
But it takes the labour of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal.

As long as we sanction the bum on the plush the other will always be there
But rid ourselves of the bum on the plush and the other will disappear.

Then make an intelligent organised kick get rid of the weights that crush
Don't worry about the bum on the rods get rid of the bum on the plush.

(Railroad trivia note: the "rods" referred to here are the rods underneath rail cars--not a very safe way to travel cross country.)

ON THE PLUSH. Our old friend Wal-Mart made the cover of the print version of Business Week again, but this item about its human rights record from the online version of the magazine is even more interesting. Here's the lead:

Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental group based in New York, is best known for scathing reports on political issues such as the Rwandan genocide and the Congo's use of children in its military. But late on Apr. 30, the human rights group focused on Wal-Mart (WMT), issuing a report that charged the giant retailer with using strong-arm tactics and, in some cases, illegal means to stop its workers from forming unions. In a 210-page report, the organization says "the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus."

This is only the second time in the organization's 29-year history that it has issued a book-size report on a corporation. The first one was on Enron in 1999. The study's author, Carol Pier, says the group decided to focus on Wal-Mart because of its broad impact on labor practices and the U.S. economy. "Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the world. Therefore, the way it treats its workers matters," says Pier, senior labor rights and trade researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Our message is that when the world's largest economy has labor laws that are so weak that it is unable to prevent the world's largest corporation from violating workers' rights to organize, it is troubling."

WV ITEM. We hear a lot of complaints in this state from conservatives about the drastic growth of state government. Last week, Antipode did some math and found that state spending actually declined over the last 25 years as a proportion of state GDP.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED