A common element emerges when looking at recent events:
- the mine explosion in Montcoal, WV
- the financial collapse
- post-Katrina suffering in New Orleans
- the weakening of HCR legislation (does it adequately address cost, access, quality? No.)
- teabaggers and batshit crazy antigovernment groups
- Toyota
- the hundreds of billions of dollars that went to no-bid contracts/friends of the Bush administration after America invaded and occupied Iraq
That common element being conservatism. Privatize profits, socialize costs.
In the January inspection, regulators found that dirty air was being directed into an escapeway where fresh air should be. They also found that an emergency air system was flowing in the wrong direction, which could leave workers without fresh air in their primary escape route.
Terry Moore, the mine foreman, told officials that he was aware of one of the problems and that it had been occurring for about three weeks.
"Mr. Moore engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence in that he was aware of the condition," the Mine Safety and Health Administration wrote in fining the company a combined $130,000.
While records indicate those problems were fixed the same day, the mine's operator, Massey subisidiary Performance Coal Co., continued to rack up citations until the day of the blast. MSHA inspectors ticketed the mine Monday over inadequate maps of escape routes and an improper splice of electrical cable on a piece of equipment.
source
"In the month of March, 53 citations were issued against this company at this mine. That is a huge number and it’s number which suggests that the responsibility is not taken seriously about safety," said former MSHA director and vice president of Sponsored Programs at Wheeling Jesuit University, Davitt McAteer.
Like most of Massey Energy’s mines, the Upper Big Branch mine is non-union. McAteer says a union mine doesn’t mean it is any safer. He believes more violations and incidents are reported in union mines.
source
I had earlier criticized Michael Moore for misplacing his anger in the film "Capitalism: A Love Story." In the movie, Moore shared powerful anecdotes of hardworking Americans struggling with poverty, unemployment, poor health. However, he undermined his film by failing to show that Government can be good when not weakened by its business-class masters. Moore with a straight face said that the answer wasn't capitalism, but democracy. He ignored economic and political history and didn't contextualize how different America had become. Our Founders would not recognize it today.
Our country's founding documents weren't conjured out of the air. In his essays on civil government John Locke articulated the ideas that we associate with elementary school lessons on what made America special: the social contract; equality; the rule of law; the common good (and sacrifices made by individuals in a society for that common good); natural rights; property rights; an executive power/leader accountable to constituents and the law.
Many of these have been targets of conservatives. Conservatives don't believe in equality under law. They don't care about the common good. "Fuck your social compact!" they sneer. Power-hungry, they have made the nation's executives above the law. And slowly, since at least the interstate commerce act of 1887, they have adopted the doctrine of "less government in business and more business in government" and have tried to sabotage the public's trust and hope in the government by staffing government offices with incompetent people, but also by running enormous deficits, which then "liberal" or Democratic administrations have had to address by cutting beneficial social programs. The end result: decreased social capital, a distrust of government, more power concentrated in the hands of business, privatization, unsafe working conditions and polluted environments for the rest of us, and a transfer of wealth from the working classes to the very top. The society that conservatives envision would be very reminiscent of pre-Locke feudalism, with the (few) powerful lords and vassals who oversee the fiefs and peasants (who end up bearing all the negative externalities).
What happened in WV was no accident. Using the cold equations of conservative economics, the mine operators and owners did cost-benefit analyses and concluded it was cheaper to pay fines than invest in safety for their workers. In the classic struggle between labor and business, business has usually won. It was no different for the poor bastards who lost their lives in Montcoal.
In Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew, we get an indictment of conservatism:
[C]onservatism has always been an expression of business. Absorbing this fact is a condition to understanding the movement; it is anterior to everything else conservatism has been over the years. To try to understand conservatism without taking into account its grounding in business thought--to depict is as, say, the political style of an unusually pious nation or an extreme dedication to the principle of freedom--is like setting off to war with maps of the wrong country. Yes, there have been exceptions, and yes, the conservative coalition has changed over the years, but through it all a handful of characteristics have remained steadfast: a commitment to the ideal of laissez-faire, meaning minimal government interference in the marketplace, along with hostility to taxation, regulation, organized labor, state ownership, and all the business community's other enemies. Laissez-faire has never described political reality all that well, since conservative governments have intervened in the economy with some regularity, subsidizing railroad construction, putting down strikes, adjusting tariffs, and propping up the gold standard. But as a theory of society, laissez-faire has always been persuasive to the business class. The free-market way was nature's way, conservatism held; the successful succeeded because they damned well deserved to succeed.
[However, when you realize how easily "the public face of conservatism change[s] so radically" that "it [is] difficult sometimes... to understand that it [is] still conservatism" with prominent conservatives railing against a new enemy-of-the-month and hailing some new-found aspect of the free market..] These people all [seem] to change, but their essential political views [do] not.... Their superficial changeability reveals a truth about American conservatism generally: The interests of business are central and defining, while every other aspect or strategy of the movement is mutable and disposable. Indeed, even the cult of the free market, which appears to be such a solid, fixed element of the business mind, is malleable as well, with conservatism whining for bailouts and high tariff walls when those seem like the way to maximize profits. The justifications for laissez-faire have varied more widely still, swinging from the savage philosophy of social Darwinism a hundred years ago to the market populism of our own time, in which business is just a way to empower the noble common people.
...
The needs of business stand like a rock; all else is convenience, opportunism, a bit of bushwah generated by some focus group session and forgotten the instant it is no longer convincing. Fundamentally amoral, capitalism is loyal to no people, no region, no heroes, really, once they have exhausted their usefulness--not even to the nation whose flag the wingers pretend to worship.
Thomas Frank discusses the Mine Safety and Health Administration later in his book:
The Mine Safety and Health Administration, we read, has decided to reduce the fines it charges mine owners for safety violations, and sometimes it doesn't bother to collect the fines at all.
Then, talking about the National Mining Association office on the fifth floor of the commercial building at 101 Constitution Avenue--this address is home to some of the big players in DC--Frank says:
The National Mining Association (NMA) [is]... an industry group that is mainly concerned with promoting coal and that furthers its agenda with large campaign contributions, mainly to Republicans. In 2004, this outfit sponsored a grassroots effort called "Mine the Vote," in which mine owners introduced mine workers to their favorite candidates.... Very plutocratic of them, but also very effective: the program is said to have helped Bush prevail in the once reliably Democratic state of West Virginia.
The following Greenwire story, retrieved from Lexis Nexis, shows perhaps why:
Greenwire
November 5, 2004 Friday
COAL: In final tally, Appalachian mining counties go solidly for Bush
SECTION: ENERGY POLICY & MARKETS Vol. 10 No. 9
Alex Kaplun and Allison A. Freeman, Greenwire reporters
Despite a heavy emphasis by John Kerry's presidential campaign to swing Appalachian coal regions ... to the Democratic ticket, voters in the region appeared to prefer George W. Bush, [who] won the majority in about two-thirds of Appalachian coal counties.
Kerry ... hoped to win largely by appealing to coal industry workers.
... [Kerry promised] to dramatically increase funding for "clean coal" technology.... [and] vowed that coal would remain a significant part of the country's energy future if he became president. Kerry also said he would not sign the Kyoto Protocol -- an international treaty that critics contend would result in dramatic declines in coal use and job losses for miners.....
[An NMA member said]... West Virginia miners did not support... Gore four years ago because he was so closely linked in their minds with the Kyoto Protocol....[S]ome of that seemed to carry over to the Kerry campaign....
[T]he Ohio Coal Association and executive director of the pro-Bush 527 group known as Americans for Coal Jobs...ran ads...depicting Kerry's Senate record as hostile to the coal industry....
Other industry officials said Kerry's...record of supporting stricter regulations on greenhouse gases and an accelerated regulatory regime on mercury [hurt Kerry].
[Others have said t]he Bush campaign used cultural topics such as abortion and gay marriage to essentially eliminate discussion on all other issues.
[A Marshall University political science professor said Kerry's environmentalist record hurt him with voters]...Bush supporters in the state repeatedly attacked Kerry for receiving support from "extreme environmental groups."
[M]ining industry officials said they think coal miners were more influenced by a significant push from other pro-coal groups to get out the vote for Bush. A West Virginia group called Friends of Coal joined with NMA's Mine the Vote campaign , which reached out to mining companies and vendors across the United States with voter education guides, as well as information on how to register, get absentee ballots, vote early or find polling places.
...
Mining industry officials attributed Bush's win in coal counties to voters' longstanding trust of his policies, [eg]...air emissions. About 90 percent of Appalachian coal is used for electricity production, so regulations on power plants can cut into coal sales.
"Back in 2000, President Bush came through here campaigning and he looked not only coal miners in the eye, but the people who ran and managed coal in the eye and he said, 'I want coal to be a big part of the country's energy picture and the world,'" said Bill Rainey of the West Virginia Coal Association. "His energy plan reflects that and instilled confidence in people that depend on the coal industry."
"...[T]he president's policies were much more consistent with what our goals are," said... [the] president of the Pennsylvania Coal Association.
The stock market also indicated trust in President Bush's approach, with shares of coal stocks from companies such as Massey Energy Co., Peabody Energy Corp. and Arch Coal Inc., [rising]... on news of the Bush win ...Mining officials said that looking ahead to a second term of the Bush administration, they hope the administration will continue to favor market-based approaches, compliance time frames that favor the industry, incentives and tax breaks for companies that invest in equipment to meet new standards.
So there you have it. Politicians and Big Coal businessmen loved the miners of Appalachia so much they killed them, while polluting "Wild Wonderful WV" and other coal-producing areas with toxic air, water, and land. And wouldn't you know it? The all-important market blessed the ballooning bottom lines. I'm sure that will be very comforting for the miners' families.
Toward the end of his book, Frank reminds us Justice Brandeis said:
We may have democracy or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
update: Please also see this related diary about the need to have a new Grace Commission investigate the sordid business of privatization.