Some readers let me know that they were having trouble distinguishing links from bold text in the new design, so I've updated the link colors. They're closer again to the old red links that seemed to work for just about everyone. My apologies to anyone who had trouble with the links over the past few days.
What Government Does For You: Rural Edition
On Monday, I had a chance to read an entry at Government is Good that did a very nice job of countering libertarian claims about the evils of government by laying out all the invisible ways that government benefits USians on an everyday basis. As I read, though, it struck me that the list assumes an urban or suburban audience; some of benefits (like zoning laws that prevent neighbors from keeping chickens) simply don't apply to rural people.
So what are the benefits of government for rural citizens? The libertarian argument often finds receptive soil in rural areas, where the necessity for government can seem less pressing than in areas of high population density. It's pretty obvious in a city that you need government to manage things like sewage treatment and clean water, but it can be harder to see the need for government in the country.
But the rural vote isn't inherently conservative, nor are rural needs always best served by private enterprise. My midwestern farmer grandparents were staunch FDR Democrats precisely because they saw how much government had made a difference in their lives. If it had been left up to private corporations, for example, I doubt very much that they would have ever been able to benefit from electricity--it was government that made rural electrification possible. And there are plenty of other ways that government still plays a role in rural lives.
Do you have a farm or garden? Chances are that you benefit from research done at publicly-funded universities. Land grant universities, in particular, have long played a key role in supporting agricultural science in the United States. And the research done at those universities is made available to the public. My grandfather used to get free publications from Purdue University's extension services; today I surf the internet for publications from a wide variety of states, from Florida to Nebraska. When you're trying to combat bacterial wilts and vine-boring insects, those publications are lifesavers. And they don't come from for-profit universities.
Once you've harvested your bounty, you might want to preserve it. Fortunately, the government is there to provide guidance on safe food preservation, whether that is via freezing, drying, or home canning. Even if you get your guidelines from Ball or another for-profit corporation, those are based on guidelines researched and published by government institutions.
What about leisure and fun? If your kids are in 4-H , then you have the government to thank. If you want to visit a national park, you have the government to thank. (Same goes for state and county parks). And if you enjoy fishing or hunting, then the state DNR probably plays a role in your life, managing wildlife populations so they aren't hunted to extinction, as they were in the days before government stepped in.Finally, the original piece enthused about not having to put up with your neighbor's chickens, thanks to zoning laws that keep livestock out of residential neighborhoods. But zoning laws can work for rural folk too. Regulations about land usage, for example, can keep developers from buying up rural acreage and turning farming neighborhoods into subdivisions. So if that morning rooster call is a feature, not a bug, in your life, then there's a good chance government plays a role in that as well.
What other ways does government--county, state, or federal--benefit rural USians? Feel free to share in comments.
Reproductive Rights Updates: Mississippi, Indiana, Oregon, Tennessee
Today, a federal judge is going to determine what will happen with the lone remaining clinic in Mississippi:
A federal judge will decide Wednesday whether Mississippi's only abortion clinic can continue to stay open under a temporary order or whether it should permanently shut its doors under a new state law.Well, Gov Bryant, closing this clinic will never "end abortion in Mississippi". People who have the means will go out of state. People who do not have the means will turn to illegal clinics and/or internet advice. Your law is not about "protecting women" (or even "ending abortion"), it's about retribution against people who choose this legal medical procedure you do not like. That moral high horse you're on doesn't have any fucking legs, Governor.
The law, which took effect July 1, requires all abortion providers in Mississippi to be certified obstetrician/gynecologists with privileges at local hospitals. Doctors at Jackson Women's Health Organization, the only abortion provider in the state, travel in from other states, and only one of its doctors is authorized to practice at a nearby hospital.
Supporters of the new law say it is intended to protect women from unscrupulous practitioners, but others say it's just another step to outlaw abortions in the state. Even Republican Gov. Phil Bryant called it "the first step in a movement, I believe, to do what we campaigned on: to say that we're going to try to end abortion in Mississippi."
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Some good news! Recently, officials at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare blocked Indiana's law that defunded Planned Parenthood:
Hearing officer Benjamin Cohen wrote that the Indiana law violated the federal requirement that individuals must have the freedom to obtain care from any qualified provider. Restricting that choice just because a care provider also offers non-covered care isn't allowed, he wrote.If Indiana fails in court entirely (a lower court ruled against the state and it's in federal court now), the state may have to decide to not accept any money at all if they want to continue their asinine course of action against Planned Parenthood since the same officials who ruled against them at the Centers will ultimately have to approve any plan Indiana comes up with for the money.
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Even more good news! In Oregon, there were two initiatives that anti-choice groups wanted to get on November's ballot: Initiative 22 was a "personhood" amendment and Initiative 25 was an amendment that said no one using the Oregon Health Plan could access abortion services with it--no exceptions. Both failed to get the required signatures to be on the ballot.
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Can you believe it? More good news! You may recall that last year in Shelby Co., Tennessee, city officials decided to force poor residents to go to a religious organization to access health care? The Dept. of Health and Human Services has stepped in this year and has given Planned Parenthood a grant so they can provide Title X services:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced that Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region will receive a grant of $395,000 annually over the next three years to provide Title X Family Planning services at its health center, 2430 Poplar Ave.PP in Memphis provided Title X services (birth control, annual well-woman exams, cancer screenings & STD testing) for more than thirty years until last year. Good for DHHS!
Quote of the Day
"And I submit to you this: If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him. You take a look!"—Mitt Romney, speaking at the NAACP, a few minutes ago.
1. LOL FOREVER.
2. This is a a subtle distinction, but I find it very interesting that he said he would makes things better "in the African-American community," rather than for the African-American community. They seem to connote different things, to me.
[Video Description: Mitt Romney says the quoted lines; looks smug and challenging. The audience laughs and boos.]
An Observation
Where I live, approximately 95%* of television advertisements are attempts to get people to buy a car, vote for Romney (or at least against Obama), and go to a specific hospital.
Interestingly enough, neither hospitals nor Mitt Romney are cars (although Mitt knew an owner).
I'm curious about this works in other countries.
"[The] Hospital: Because you'd prefer to not die."**--
*In south-central Wisconsin, the remaining five percent are for beer and a pair of giant fiberglass pheasants*** in North Dakota.
**This is way funnier if you imagine Angela Merkel reading the script. Trust me.
***No, I'm not making this up [video opens at link]. As someone raised in the Twin Cities, I have to admit that I'm partial to [video opens at link] Joe Mauer: Tone Deaf Minnesotan.****
****You know what's awesome? Endnotes, that's what.
Daniel Tosh Is a Rape Culture Enforcer
[Content Note: Incitement of sexual violence; rape jokes.]
I've gotten a bunch of emails and tweets about the report that comedian and garbage TV show host Daniel Tosh told and defended rape jokes during a stand-up set, then incited rape against a female audience member who challenged him:
So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don't know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON'T find them funny and never have. So I didn't appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, "Actually, rape jokes are never funny!"There isn't much I can say about this, at least nothing I haven't already said literally hundreds of times before in every conceivable way I can imagine: Rape jokes are not funny. They potentially trigger survivors, and they uphold the rape culture. They tacitly convey approval of rape to rapists, who do not appreciate "rape irony." There is no neutral in rape culture, and jokes that diminish or normalize rape empower rapists. Rape jokes are pro-rape.
I did it because, even though being "disruptive" is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.
After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, "Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…" and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing I needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn't hear the rest of what he said about me.
...I should probably add that having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophobic room was pretty viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same, even if the actual scenario was unlikely to take place. The suggestion of it is violent enough and was meant to put me in my place.
There are legions of rape apologists who desperately want to turn that assertion into a debatable point, so it is no surprise, though no less revolting, that the same lack of integrity and decency is now underwriting arguments that even an explicit incitement to rape a woman who objects to rape jokes is not harmful, and further that it is justified on the basis she was "heckling."
Daniel Tosh's defenders are not clueless and do not need me to educate them. I refuse to credit as ignorance what is an entrained, practiced, deliberate enforcement of the rape culture. If you incite rape, you are an enforcer of rape culture. If you argue that inciting rape is harmless, you are an enforcer of rape culture. I'm not going to pretend there's any debate about that.
Tosh.0 airs on Comedy Central, which is part of the Viacom Entertainment Group. Contact Viacom here, and ask them if they feel a show hosted by an unapologetic enforcer of the rape culture jibes with their objectives for corporate responsibility, since sexual violence is manifestly incompatible with both "citizenship" and "health and wellness."
Today in Mitt Romney Stands in Front of Something
In actually relevant election news, Republican candidate Mitt Romney, seen above demonstrating his peerless situational awareness, still refuses to release his tax returns, having released "only one complete tax return, for 2010, along with an unfinished estimate of his 2011 taxes. What information he did release provides a fuzzy glimpse at a concerted effort to park much of his wealth in overseas tax shelters, suggesting a widespread pattern of tax avoidance unlike that of any previous candidate."
An avoidance of which Romney surrogate Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says: "It's really American to avoid paying taxes, legally."
And that, right there, is the conservative philosophy in a nutshell. Avoid paying taxes, "legally" if not ethically, because it's your money and fuck the needy because bootstraps. Which is a terrible enough position to hold when one is merely any old member of an interconnected society, benefiting from roads and police and public schools and mail delivery, but is infinitely worse when one is a federal employee whose salary, and benefits, and pension, are drawn out of the taxpayers' pockets.
Senator Graham is a member of a party whose lives are funded by people who do pay taxes, but work in service to people who avoid paying taxes at all costs, and he calls that "really American." Gross.
And, you know, there are lots of US taxpayers who are happy to pay taxes. Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization," which I personally paraphrase as: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy justice." Women's suffrage. The Civil Rights Act. The repeal of DADT. Healthcare. Social security. Disability access to federal buildings. (Of course, I also buy injustice, and war, and systemic bigotry, and other shit I wish my tax dollars did not fund.) There are reasons I want to give money to my government, all of which have to do with strengthening the society in which I and my fellow USians live.
I would hope even Lindsay Graham could see how that is, in fact, "really American," too.
Sure, it's not "getting filthy rich by being a corporate raider and then sticking your millions in offshore accounts" American, but still.
* * *
Vice President Joe Biden naturally had the best line about Romney's tax evasion. Speaking to Latin@ voters at the National Council of La Raza's annual conference, he said of candidate Romney: "He wants you to show your papers, but he won't show us his." Oh, snap!
And finally: Mitt Romney also tells some "really American" lies about when he actually left Bain Capital.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Question of the Day
Who is your favorite comic book character? It doesn't have to be a superhero; any character who has graced the pages of comic books.
I love Howard the Duck (yes, he existed before the movie, his comic was awesome) and Spiderman. And look! They had a team up!
Number of the Day
21%: The percentage of adult respondents who express "a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in" US television news in a new Gallup poll. "This marks a decline from 27% last year and from 46% when Gallup started tracking confidence in television news in 1993."
I'm surprised it's still as high as it is, frankly. In any case, the fact that the US media is a garbage nightmare is partly why we can't have nice progressive things.
I have been busy on Twitter today, tweeting about so many things! Like how the Penny Arcade guys are still gross! And how @knottyyarn wrote something amazing today! And how I am subject to elevated harassment for being a Fat Woman Who Says Things, because I am doubly supposed to not take up space by virtue of my womanhood and my fatness, but I am defiant of these terrible rules!
If you aren't already following me on Twitter, you should be! I am @Shakestweetz.
You might also want to follow the other Shakesville contributors and mods who are on Twitter, like: @deekyMD, @mistyclifton, @eastsidekate, @shaker_aphra, @ScottMadin, and @elleg!
Plus: So many Shakers! Who should all feel welcome to share their handles in comments!
Photos of the Day
Q: Will my heart ever stop melting at pictures of President Barack Obama interacting with children?
A: No.
Random Nerd Nostalgia: At the Movies
[Description: A B&W photographic image of 1960s Batman and Robin with other actors portraying the Joker, Riddler, Catrwoman, and Penguin.The Bat-Copter flies overhead and the Batmobile is at bottom. Text at top reads: "For the First Time On The Motion Picture Screen In Color: Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. Together with all their fantastic derring-do, and their dastardly villains too!"]
True fact: I have printed this onto a t-shirt, because awesome.
Today in Rape Culture
[Content Note: Rape culture; rape joke.]
Below, via Eclectablog, a snapshot of the top of the box of Domino Pizza's new "Artisan Pizzas."
Turns out that the Ann Arbor-based company [currently owned by Bain Capital and founded by conservative Tom Monaghan, founder of the far-right Thomas More Law Center and other Catholic organizations aimed at legislating and promoting his religious views] rolled out this new marketing campaign in April of this year. The idea behind it is that they have found some topping combinations that are so perfect that they won't allow customers to screw them up by altering them. In other words, if customers ask to customize the toppings on these "Artisan Pizzas", they will be told "no".There is absolutely no way that the company can reasonably argue they didn't understand the nonconsent implications of this phrase. Truly reprehensible.
Contact Domino's and ask them why they are upholding the rape culture to sell pizzas.
Quote of the Day
"Why would they do anything differently? The people who caused the crisis are all still in charge. And they've learned that any time they're losing money the free money bazooka will be aimed at them. Moral hazard is just for people whose $10 extra in food stamps might lead them to continue living the life of luxurious funemployment. They're going to keep playing the game as they've been playing it. It's working for them."—Atrios.
He's talking about the fuckos who caused the economic meltdown, of course. It's a complementary observation to what I noted in my previous post about how deregulation and union-busting has eradicated any incentive for corporations to create jobs that don't literally exploit people to death.
Both parties seem to think, to varying degrees, that things are just going to spontaneously get better. Why would anything change when there is no incentive for corporations to change?
Spoiler Alert: It won't.
All Right, Mr. Romney. Let's Talk About Whose Policies Are Killers.
[Content Note: Injury; death.]
Mitt Romney is a master of mendacious hyperbole. One of his incessant refrains is that President Barack Obama's policies are "job killers." In response to Obama's proposed tax plan, which would repeal the Bush tax cut only for those making more than $250,000 annually, Romney called the plan "another kick in the gut to the middle class in America" and said it "will kill jobs."
There is no factual basis for Romney's contention that the plan to raise taxes on the wealthy will increase unemployment and hurt the middle class. Romney is a liar.
But I didn't sit down to write that water is wet. I sat down to observe that Romney's hyperbole about kicking US workers in the gut and "killing" jobs elides the vile reality that the policies he supports actually do direct physical harm to US workers and actually kill them.
To wit: The first part of a series at NPR about the erosion of worker protections for miners and the surge in cases of black lung.
The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 was supposed to sharply cut exposure to coal mine dust. The act set a standard for coal dust exposure (2 milligrams per cubic meter of air), which was as little as 1/4 of the concentrations miners breathed at the time.The incidence of black lung has doubled in the last decade and, in some areas, quadrupled since the 1980s. Analyses of federal data have revealed that "the mining industry and federal regulators have known for more than two decades that coal miners were breathing excessive amounts of the coal mine dust that causes black lung," and additionally that "the system for controlling coal mine dust is plagued by weak regulations and inaccurate reporting that sometimes includes fraud."
The act's passage followed a 23-day unauthorized and rowdy strike in which 40,000 West Virginia coal miners demanded government efforts to prevent the disease and to compensate victims.
By the end of the year, tough dust exposure limits were in place. Miners were offered free diagnostic chest X-rays every five years, and federal compensation became available.
...Since 1970, NIOSH epidemiologists documented test results for 43 percent of the nation's coal miners. In 1995, the tests began to indicate more and more black long, rapid disease progression and the unexpected occurrence among relatively young miners.
...The average workweek for coal miners grew 11 hours in the last 30 years, adding about 600 hours of exposure each year.
"By the time I was 40 years old, I mined more coal than most miners [had] seen in a lifetime," says [47-year-old miner Mark McCowan, who was diagnosed with black lung seven years ago].
Production pressure grew with greater demand for coal and higher prices. By 2000, coal production had jumped fivefold from the 1970s. In 2010, it was still triple what it was when the new coal dust limits took effect.
"You can't be exposed to the kind of tonnage that I was and not get black lung disease," McCowan says.
...Federal records obtained by CPI and NPR under the Freedom of Information Act show thousands of coal miners were exposed to excessive levels of silica in each of the last 25 years. Since 1987, coal mining companies and government inspectors turned in more than 113,000 valid mine dust samples. Roughly 52 percent of those samples exceeded federal standards. In 1998 alone, about 65 percent of the valid silica samples violated the standard.
Silica exposure prompts a call for something that might seem unexpected from the National Mining Association (NMA): more regulation. The industry group wants a crackdown focused specifically on silica in the Appalachian region where black lung is resurgent.
"These people are being exposed [to] three to four times the silica exposures for periods over 20 years. [They have] a chest full of silica and nothing's been done about it," says Bob Glenn, a black lung consultant for NMA.
But what's a little fraud, ineffective regulation, and epidemic black lung when corporate profits are at stake? Surely we wouldn't want to enact and enforce meaningful regulations and start fining companies that refuse to abide them and kill their employees, because that might KILL JOBS.
Government intervention, corporate regulation, federal oversight, unions: These are the things that KILL JOBS, so goes the Republican refrain. Even if that were true, they are also the things that SAVE LIVES.
Which is to say nothing about alternative energy technology that could get people out of coal mines and into jobs that won't kill them.
Republicans argue that private enterprise should create safer jobs, that it isn't the government's role to invest in alternative energy technologies. But their support of deregulation, union-busting, and the subversion of worker protections makes the exploitation of workers for maximum profit so easy that there's no incentive for private enterprise to invest in new technologies that will be (at least in the short-term) less profitable. The Invisible Hand doesn't give a fuck about black lung, or the people who are dying from it. The market solves very little for the people on whose backs it stands.
Further, the conservative ideology of bootstraps doesn't have a fuck of a lot to offer to people who would rather not continue to work a job that is likely to cut their lives in half. The "work harder" mantra is well and truly exposed for the reprehensibly smug platitude that it is when directed at a man who can barely breathe still working 60-hour weeks.
Mitt Romney and his party have nothing to offer people who need. We are a country in need.
Get Out Your SPF 1,000,000!
It's gonna be a real scorcher next week in the Midwest.
p.s. I am starting a parasol business. Who wants to invest?
Via.
