Ira Levin's futuristic novel - come true?

Don Corrigan, newspaper editor, author and college professor, taught us something new at the Missouri Progressive Action Group meeting on Saturday.  In addition to being an entertaining speaker, he reviewed in one presentation the many assaults on our environment and some promising positive steps people are taking.

 I don't need to list the ecological horrors all around us.  You all know about coal ash, the West Lake landfill, ATV's destroying the Jack's Fork, etc.

Don told about his visits to European countries where corporations like Monsanto are being investigated in the media on a daily basis.  European journalists he meets at various conferences ask him all the time why the American media doesn't do its job any more?  Where are the real investigative journalists today?

As Don spoke I was reminded once again of Ira Levin's prize-winning science fiction novel, "This Perfect Day."
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Perfect_Day

I read the summary from this Wikipedia entry after listening to Don yesterday.

As much as I try not to be a conspiracy theorist, it's pretty much impossible these days not to see what's going on behind the curtain of deceit.

What has been happening to our system of government over the last few decades is similar to the changes in our environment.  Slowly we've become accustomed to highway signs telling us the air quality is yellow or orange and asking us to car pool.   Slowly we've been adding up the number of wildfires, killer storms and dried up lakes.   We are adjusting to what has become the new normal.

So, too, we've become accustomed to a political system so dysfunctional that all we can do is joke about it.  All the while, we are becoming less "awake" as the characters in the novel struggled to become even as they were fed their regular doses of brain-numbing medication.

Just like Levin's docile characters, we are controlled by something not that dissimilar to UniComp in the novel.  Instead of one small group controlling society from an underground command center, we have multiple hands on the controls.  They operate out in the open.  We even buy stock in their companies and celebrate when our portfolios increase in size.  Breathing toxic air is considered a small price to pay for our financial success, especially when the worst of the toxic air, water and land is in someone else's neighborhood.

And the pollution has increasing seeped into our democratic form of government. Don Corrigan asked us why Missouri legislators continually pass bills that they know are unconstitutional when they've taken an oath to defend both the state and federal constitutions?  How is that someone as cynical about political power as I am didn't think of that?   We are all aware of the bills passed in Jeff City that cost the taxpayers money to fight in court, and we tsk tsk about it.   But have we ever really stepped back and recognized what is happening?

Every year, the discussions in our state legislature and, to a certain extent, in the U.S. Congress, become more and more bizarre.  We are becoming accustomed to the charade that our "representatives" actually represent our interests.  They talk about wanting to create good-paying jobs and then kill any effort to do that.  They talk about protecting our health and safety then pass laws making it easier for fossil fuel companies to pollute our air and water.  They have done everything they can to empower the already powerful and anesthetize the rest of us.

Voter turnout on Tuesday is estimated at 25% at best.  I'm not surprised that citizens have given up on our form of self-government.  They've chosen "reality" TV over the reality they face every day trying to stay alive without health insurance, trying to keep their kids from being shot by a stray bullet, trying to piece together enough money from three lousy jobs to pay the bills.  How can we expect them to recognize what is purposely being done to them by the people they elect?

I admire Don Corrigan for not giving up.  He engages with people who totally disagree with him and tries to find something they have in common.  He encouraged all of us to do the same.  He also said to keep writing letters to newspapers because people really do read them. 

Whenever I get really discouraged, I listen to Judy Collins singing  "Democracy is Coming to the USA."   Then I remind myself how younger Americans are refusing to accept the toxic pablum being fed to them by politicians and media moguls.  Hope springs eternal.

Susan C 

Dereliction of Duty: the freedom to pollute

Three events in the last two days have helped me better understand why citizens are helpless against purposeful polluters and the damage they cause to our health.

At a town hall meeting in Pacific on local environmental issues, the former director of the Missouri Dept of Natural Resources explained how the department has been decimated by layoffs and budget cuts. A decade ago there were six employees whose job it was to test the air quality in different parts of the state and file reports. That squad was cut to three members, and now there is only ONE person testing air quality throughout the state. Obviously, the air is not being tested in any specific area unless someone complains. Then the one DNR employee goes to that site.

Where the DNR used to have 2500 employees, they now have 1500. And the most distressing part of the story is that the federal government has money available for states to do more of their own environmental studies and remediation of problems, but Missouri doesn't take advantage of those funds. So this is what the "free market" extremists mean when they demand "states rights." They have the right to allow big polluters to foul our air, land and water. It's not about we, the people, and our rights. It's about the rights of big polluters.

So when Missouri politicians claim they are defending our "freedom" from government oppression and regulation, what they really mean is they want their friends and largest campaign contributors to be free to maximize profit at the expense of our health and safety. This is not only insidious and dishonest, it should be seen for what it is - - dereliction of duty and possible criminal behavior.

And that might be what's happening in North Carolina. Just yesterday, the news broke that Duke Energy, the dirtiest of the dirty polluters, facing a federal criminal investigation, agreed to clean up the Dan River which they violated with thousands of gallons of toxic coal ash sludge. Of course the devil is in the details, and Duke will no doubt connive to avoid most of the expense and responsibility. What happened to North Carolina's environmental resources department and Missouri's DNR are not that different. Maybe it was a little more blatant in North Carolina because the governor was an employee of Duke for 28 years before taking office. He instructed the employees of the department not to worry too much about protecting people and natural resources. Their instructions were to make life as simple as possible for the polluters.

Back to Missouri. When money is tight for the DNR, the first employees to be laid off are the inspectors, but there is always money for the permit processors. These are the people who give permission to polluters to pollute, but with limits. Yes, I found that hard to believe too. Companies pay a small fee for permission to pollute the water we all depend on. Supposedly the limits are set at a "safe" level, but then there is is no way to monitor those levels because the inspectors were laid off. If this were a movie, it would seem too contrived.

Rachel Maddow on MSNBC is following the Duke Energy/filthy toxic sludge story. I wish she would come to Missouri because the plot lines are even more riveting. I joined a handful of citizens this week who ventured to Jefferson City for a hearing on coal ash. Rep. Jeanne Kirkton of Webster Groves, who is a nurse by training, offered a resolution that would put more pressure on DNR to test the water around coal ash landfills. I went just to fill up a chair and be supportive of friends who planned to speak in favor of the resolution.

There were several items on the agenda before the coal ash one, so we had time to watch the Natural Resources and Tourism Committee in action. A hot breakfast was available for committee members, and the chair announced which lobbyist paid for it. There is no limit on the number of meals or treats a legislator can accept. In fact there are no campaign finance limits in Missouri thanks to repeal of that law a few years ago. Members really should wear badges advertising their sponsors like the NASCAR drivers do, but that's another story.

The resolution that was introduced just prior to the one we were waiting for was a jaw dropper. The chair of the committee turned the meeting over to the vice chair and came down to the little table where people sit who want to address the august body. The committee members sit in lounge-type chairs behind a long desk on three levels like in a fancy theater. The item introduced by the chair asked the legislature to send a message to the US Congress that they need to tell the EPA to back off !! Say what? Back off? The committee chair complained that EPA regulations were making it too hard for coal fired power plants to make a profit. Well, that's what he really meant even if he didn't say it quite that way.

John Hickey, Director of Missouri Sierra Club, went up to the little table and sat in the chair next to the man presenting the resolution. John always does a good job even though he knows he's going to be vilified or worse by the defenders of Big Coal. There is solid evidence that exposure to coal combustion waste is harmful to our health, and John presented good information. He made the point that we need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels and gradually shift to solar and wind energy.

The first question he was asked was whether there is an exemption for bald eagles at the federal level. Anyone who isn't up to speed on the progress being made by wind farms across the country might not know that birds sometimes get killed when they fly into the turbine blades. So I guess the subtext of the question was "Windmills are unpatriotic because they kill bald eagles." John said he wasn't aware of any exemption for bald eagles. The rest of us just looked at each other with eyebrows raised.

Another legislator went on a little rant about how some people who don't identify themselves as Sierra Club members but who really are members in secret come to his office and tell him a bunch of lies. He listed five or six 'lies" he's been told by these undercover commandoes. He asked John exactly how people become members of the Sierra Club (as if they are recruited at terrorist camps.) John's answer was priceless. He said they pay an annual dues and can go to www.sierraclub.org to sign up, hinting that the legislator might be smart enough to apply for membership online. The other reps had a good laugh over that.

Although I hadn't planned on saying anything, I couldn't let it pass that the coal-dependent legislators keep saying coal is the cheapest form of energy. No it's not. Especially if you factor in the costs we all pay for the health problems created or worsened by exposure to fly ash and contaminated water. I've been trying to tell Sen. Claire McCaskill this for at least five years, but she doesn't appear to want to go there.

So I spoke briefly about how I live downwind from the Labadie plant and how we all are absorbing the pollutants into our bodies. We are basically waste disposal guinea pigs for Ameren Missouri. I also added that I LOVE bald eagles but think people are more important. The only legislator who had a question for me tried to get me to agree that smoke from a power plant stack is no more harmful that that from a campfire. I didn't fall for it. He then made a comment about needing manure to grow things or something. I thanked him politely and said I'd write that down. Several members of the committee laughed at that, and there were no more questions. After we left, the committee voted on the resolution, and I'm sure they passed it. If the Senate also passes it, the U.S. Congress will be asked to rein in the EPA on behalf of Missouri power plants. Egad.

A friend of mine who has been fighting Ameren for three years over the plan to build a coal ash landfill in the Labadie Bottoms (Missouri River floodplain) told me that some of the legislators she has talked to privately agree with her, but they say they dare not speak out for fear the 25 lobbyists Ameren employs will descend on their offices en masse.

So this is what is happening every day, and I don't know how to get citizens up in arms about it. We are all breathing air full of tiny particles of coal waste. The air may look cleaner than it did decades ago because we don't have to deal with the black soot anymore. But the invisible pollutants are even more dangerous because they get way down in the smallest parts of the lungs.

At this point all we can do is join Sierra Club (website above) or help members of the Labadie Environmental Organization stop Ameren from building yet another coal ash dump in a floodplain. (www.leoenvironmental.org) Why should we wait for a major spill? The Missouri River provides drinking water downstream from Labadie. We could end up like those folks in Charleston, WV or Eden, NC having to buy bottled water to bathe in. We could be the next big national news story. Do we really want that?

We also need to lobby our reps and senators to pass one of the several campaign finance reform bills that have been introduced in Jeff City this year. To follow bills being debated this season, go to www.mobilltracker.org a site managed by St. Louis Public Radio to keep us informed.

Unevolved men have no business passing laws victimizing women

Kathleen Parker (1/28) circles around a very important question but offers only an oblique reference to Dr. Freud as an answer. Why are Republican male politicians obsessed with women's sexual behavior and reproductive system? How did we get to the point where "trans-vaginal ultrasound" is a topic for public discussion? Do they really have any idea what they are talking about when they say no one over 55 needs gynecological services? I doubt they even know the difference between obstetrics and gynecology.

Mike Huckabee is only the most recent misadventurer to wander into unknown territory. The criticism and mockery being heaped on him is well-deserved.

But this is not just a question of men on the far right of the political spectrum being out of their element in demanding longer waiting periods before an abortion or beating their chests about how they don't want to pay for birth control pills.

This is also a sad and serious state of affairs. I grew up in the dark ages before the women's movement of the 1960's and 70's. Any woman who votes Republican should go see the movie, "Philomena." It is not far off the mark as far as what delivery room scenes were like in mid-century America. We were put on hard beds in a room large enough for 8-10 women with curtains drawn for the little privacy we had. That was literally the "labor room," and the nurses were less than helpful. The attitude was "You got yourself into this, and you're on your own."

Family members were not allowed in the delivery room. We were offered pain medication or a shot in the spine to numb the lower part of the body. The babies were whisked off to the nursery, and we got to hold them for a few minutes every four hours. Catholic women were told if they used birth control, they'd better not take communion.

In the junior high school where I taught there was a family of 13 children who lived with their parents in a small house near the railroad tracks. It had no running water. The children were so dirty, the odor permeated every classroom they were in. My aunt was the visiting nurse and tried to get the mother to use birth control but she was afraid of going to hell.

Men who have no idea what is like to be pregnant or to be raped or to go through the delivery process have no business passing laws that punish women just so they can boast about how right wing they are. It's disgusting, demeaning and must be stopped. What motivates them to play their power game over women probably lies deep within their subconscious, but women shouldn't be victimized for their lack of mature development.

Susan Cunningham

Invisible and hurting

Letter to friends who contributed:

 

First of all I want to thank all of you who have donated food, money, toiletries and blankets to the volunteers at Winter Outreach downtown. These volunteers go out on really cold nights to find people without a place to sleep indoors. Can you imagine sleeping outside with temperatures near zero? I can't imagine how painful it must be to be that cold. I complain when I'm outside just for a short time without gloves on. My hands actually hurt.

How much more must it hurt to be out in the cold wind day and night all winter. My friend Tina told me today that there seems to be "an explosion" of people trying to survive outdoors. She doesn't know where they are all coming from. Some may have been trying to get through the worst of the winter inside abandoned buildings, but temperatures even inside can be life threatening. On Tuesday night, the Winter Outreach volunteers were out until 11:30 p.m. taking people to shelters. They found men huddled on the grates near the Savvis Center with no blankets. The one shelter in a city-owned building took in over 100 people that night. That's not even counting the other temporary shelters in churches and the New Life Evangelistic Center.

There was a letter in the Post Dispatch on Monday by someone very concerned about the damage being done to low income people by our state legislature and the U.S. Congress. The Republicans in the state legislature refuse to expand Medicaid, while the Congress is cutting food stamps and unemployment compensation. Every time I open the paper or watch the news there is a story about income inequality. The facts are clear. The richest people in the U.S. have done phenomenally well while working and middle class families have had to learn to make do with less and less. Many of the homeless are actually working full time but don't make enough money to pay rent, utilities, etc. If they have family or friends with a couch or extra bed, that's like heaven next to living under a bridge.

This is outrageously inhumane in the richest country the world has ever known. There have to be better ways to protect our fellow citizens than relying on a handful of volunteers to search for people freezing outdoors and taking them to temporary shelters where they have to leave again in the morning. The City of St. Louis relies on volunteer organizations to staff their emergency shelter and provide food. I'm really not in a position to know why the City can't budget for emergencies like this, but it seems like it should be a top priority. I know they get millions of dollars from HUD to provide services for the homeless.

The TV weather forecasters tell us to "bundle up" when we "head out the door in the morning." I wonder if they ever think about people who don't have the means to "bundle up" and don't even have a door. If there were more attention by the media to the plight of the homeless, we would surely see more effort by the decision makers to find solutions to this problem.

The bottom line for the Winter Outreach volunteers is to keep people from freezing to death. That's a pretty grim mission statement. Tina said they work so hard to get people into shelters because they don't want to pull back a pile of blankets and find a frozen corpse.

Is this what has become of us? We mark our progress as a society when no one freezes to death? What happens when the volunteers find their first body? Will the goal then be to avoid letting five people freeze to death? Or ten? This is what happens when we allow our elected leaders to serve and protect the robber barons and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves.

Every cut in programs that serve the poor "trickles down" and causes terrible pain. You might say it's death by a thousand cuts.

Let's stop rationalizing and blaming the victim. That's what the Republicans want us to do. If a child starves or has to huddle under blankets all night in an abandoned building, the hard-hearted politicians say it's the parents' fault for not making better choices. That's a cop out and a lie. We've also been fed the story that homelessness is such a complex problem that no one can solve it. Well, we can start by making sure everyone has the minimum of a warm place to sleep and a hot meal.

Susan C

How about that new Pope?

POPE RAMPS UP CHARITY OFFICE TO BE WITH POOR

 

That was a headline in the November 29^th Post Dispatch.  Pope Francis is making headlines like this almost every week now.  What a concept.  He wants church members to use the instruction book written by people who knew or at least heard about a man named Jesus centuries ago.  They call him the Christ and people who follow his vision Christians.  From what I’ve read about this man they admire so much, he chose to help people in need rather than pursue an occupation that would have provided him with a comfortable lifestyle.  He might even have been able to afford all the hallmarks of status like owning a sports team or building a chain of stores using tax credits and slave labor.

 

But he chose to do what Pope Francis is now telling his man at the Vatican who is in charge of charitable works.  Go out and find the poor.  The archbishop in charge of doing good for people is quoted in the PD article as saying:  “The Holy Father told me at the beginning: ‘You can sell your desk.  You won’t need it.  You need to get out of the Vatican.  Don’t wait for people to come ringing.  You need to go out and look for the poor.’”

 

Which made me think of some incredibly brave volunteers who venture into the streets and alleys of downtown St. Louis when it’s cold enough to freeze to death.  A few years ago, a social worker organized these Winter Outreach volunteers when one of her clients froze to death in a bus stop shelter.  I happen to know one of the volunteers and have been collecting blankets and other items for about four years, or, as they used to say in North Dakota before global warming,  “four winters.”    These are the true Christians although I’ve never asked them if they even go to church.  It doesn’t really matter.  They are “religious” in the best sense of the word.

 

I saw on the news the other night that the Red Cross was helping a family who lost their home in a fire.  That got me to wondering who helps people who lost their homes to corporate greed and bank fraud?  Who helps those people who lost their jobs because of the Great Recession?  It’s nice that a family who lost a home to fire gets help, and the Red Cross is a wonderful organization.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m glad they help people who need it.  But there are hundreds of families without homes in St. Louis, and they survive by finding food at churches and sleeping behind dumpsters in alleys.  The city authorities don’t want them spoiling the fun of visitors to downtown going to ball games or concerts.  So they keep them out of sight.  Keep moving them around.  They close a park here and a park there.  They make it illegal to feed folks outdoors with no place to live.  But it’s okay to feed the pigeons.

 

Pope Francis made quite a stir last week when he claimed that “unfettered capitalism” kills not only our bodies but our souls.  Wow.  That’s one brave Pope.  I wonder if the cardinals who elected him are having second thoughts?   No one else at that level of authority dares to criticize the “free market.”    I had never thought about “Thou shalt not kill” quite that way before, but he’s right.  There are sins of commission and sins of omission.   Shooting someone is an obvious crime.  But what about when we let people freeze to death?  What about the children living in cars or abandoned buildings?  What kind of  life will they have?  What have we killed in their little hearts and minds?

 

Another story on the local news last week was about a middle aged man who had been brutally beaten by his mother when he was too small to defend himself.  He found a “family” in a gang and did some terrible things to other human beings.  After doing prison time, he now lives with damage to his body from gunshot wounds and years of drug abuse.  That wouldn’t be much of a story for television, but he now spends his time urging young kids not to follow his path.  And here’s the kicker.  His story was going to air the next night right after “Survivor.”     Really?  Survivor?   Am I the only one who sees the irony here?

 

When the weather forecasters tell us to bundle up because of freezing temperatures, I wonder what the people living outdoors do to “bundle up.”   I’m thankful that there are so many organizations collecting coats, food and other necessities this holiday season.  It really helps a lot.   But I wonder why we separate ourselves from those in need?  The vast majority of us are glad to share our bounty as long as we don’t have to actually mingle with the poor.  This is what makes Pope Francis so newsworthy.  He himself shared meals with the homeless when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.   He sought out those who needed comforting. 

 

John Lennon encouraged us to “Imagine.”   That’s not easy for an old cynic like myself.  But I’m going to imagine bishops and other leaders of faith communities going out on a freezing cold night with the St. Louis Homeless Winter Outreach volunteers.  Their Facebook  page tells when they will be heading out and where to meet.  If you have a van, that would be nice.  I wonder how many church vans sit idle on cold nights?    I wonder how long before we decide as a society that every human being deserves food and shelter without having to beg for it.  We are caught in a trap of our own making.  We run each other down to get the lowest price on a flat screen television and call that “holiday shopping.”   It’s going to take someone with a lot of clout to turn our attention back to what’s really important.  That might just be the new Pope.  Imagine that.     

 

 

Women will lead the way

As long as our country has Gail Collins, Rachel Maddow and Elizabeth Warren, I can clutch a tiny bit of hope in my wrinkly, age spotted hands.

Truthfully, I've given up looking for the next progressive era. In the 20th century, our society swung back and forth from conservative to progressive times as regularly as the big old clock in the White House hallway. During the 1920's, 50's and 80's we took a step back to figure out how to incorporate all the progressive changes from the previous years. According to this cycles theory, the 1990s and early 2000's should have seen a burst of new laws and programs to extend and improve on the progress made earlier.

But times had changed by the end of the "American century," and another giant leap forward was not in the cards. Michele Bachman is crowing now about how the tea party destruction of Obamacare is their historic opportunity to bury liberalism forever. Given all the cuts to programs that help the poor, the Affordable Care Act may be the only survivor of the right wing, corporate funded attacks on American families.

But all is not lost. Better late than never. Every revolution needs a whole slew of different talents. First, someone has to distract us from the pity party we so much enjoy. Gail Collins does this with pin prick humor. Then we need the 'splainer. No one can teach us what we need to know better than Rachel Maddow. OMG - charts, maps, historical lessons. Who knew that the number of federal judgeships was evenly divided between those appointed by Republican presidents and those appointed by Democratic presidents? And that there are 93 vacancies? We would never get that kind of background - that very important information - from lamestream media. So now we know why the whole confirmation of judges thing in the Senate is such a big deal.

Once our attention has been diverted away from all the terrible news, and the cloud of doom has been lifted from us, we need a charismatic leader to inspire us to crawl out of our protective cocoons. Elizabeth Warren has the right combination of talents and the sincere desire to make life better for the 98% of us not part of the robber baron class.

So time will tell. Harry Reid finally got enough support in the Senate to change the filibuster rules. Rachel Maddow says this is "a really big deal." I've been pretty hard on old Harry from time to time. I'll call his office today and thank him for finally bringing the hammer down on Republican obstructionism.

But the good old boys' time is about up. The times they are a changin'. Economic populism is in the ascendancy. We can never go back to the days of Camelot, but we can pull ourselves together for the next reimagining of what a fair and just society looks like. Let's do it.

Susan Cunningham 

Why a "grand bargain" is impossible

Letter to the editor:

We are being told not to expect a "grand bargain" in Congress this year or next. This should not be a shock to anyone who has done a little homework about the philosophical differences between the two major political parties. The "free market" extremists currently in charge of the Republican Party truly believe their theories about trickle-down economic benefits reaching the working poor. Lack of evidence hasn't deterred them since the 1980's when the privateers began changing the mind of Americans about how much we should look out for one another.

This is the basic difference in the value systems of the two major parties as evidenced by their party platforms. Democrats view human nature as imperfect but redeemable with care and support. Republicans see only the dark side of our nature and want to punish it. We see the difference every day in the way elected officials debate issues like food stamps, Social Security, health insurance, etc. Democrats believe helping individuals and families lead healthy productive lives benefits all of us in the long run. Republicans would have each of us fend for ourselves and then blame us for our failures.

This foundational conservative belief system combined with new global economic challenges produces what we see today in both Washington and many state capitals. Wealth is being shifted up the income scale at an alarming rate, and the end game is the privatization of all the social safety net programs we developed during the 20th century. This is not just an abstract difference of opinion. The majority of American families benefit in one form or another from those programs.

Income disparity today is the highest since the late 1920's just before the Great Depression. Tea party Republicans want to eliminate the minimum wage as well as the social welfare programs that millions of service workers depend on for survival. But they are okay with billions of dollars in subsidies to oil companies and the offshoring of profits to avoid paying U.S. taxes. That is evidence enough that their argument about the national debt rings hollow.

Voters will have to decide between now and next November if we are going to continue to treat each other as opponents in the struggle to survive on the crumbs thrown to us by billionaires or if we are going to demand the respect we deserve. The difference between the two major parties is blatantly obvious, and the choice is ours to make.

Susan Cunningham
Pacific, MO