All posts by carldavidson

elections

Why ‘Middle Class’ Drives Me Bonkers

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By Carl Davidson

Beaver County Blue

Here’s a perfectly decent chart showing how the value created by increasingly productive Pennsylvania workers ‘trickles up’ to the top. Fine, then comes the claim that the ‘middle class’ is shrinking because workers aren’t getting a fair share.

What drives me nuts is that the same people are called ‘middle class’ and, indirectly, also ‘working class.’  Why do we need to be in two classes? The first is entirely arbitrary and, as the chart shows, only has to do with income levels. The second is about your relation to production, and not owning any means of production, ‘be your payment high or low’ (Marx).

Here’s the rub. The use of ‘middle class’ can be heard to be dismissive of those workers in greatest need. We need unity between both groups, those in greatest need and those more recently pushed down. ‘Working class’ is a fine inclusive term for that. Let’s brush aside the disdain from those who think themselves our ‘betters’ and take more pride in who we are.

Bob Dylan, for goodness sake, even uses the word ‘proletariat’ in his last album, another fine Latin word for ‘people of no property.’ But I’ll settle for ‘working class’ for now.

Environment, Marcellus Shale, Steelworkers

Is Wider Unity on the Shale Issue Possible?

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A Stronger Steelworkers’ Voice Is Needed

in the Marcellus Anti-Fracking Movement

A Stronger Steelworkers’ Voice Is Needed

in the Marcellus Shale Anti-Fracking Movement

By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue

There’s a specter haunting Western PA. It’s the prospect of a working class divided by a fear of water pollution destroying the property values of small homeowners on one side, and on the other side, by the promise of new wealth from the exploitation of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale deposits.

A similar fear divides West Virginians over ‘mountaintop removal’ mining. Little towns are split between those who want food on the table and those fearful of poisoning their children.

Steelworkers can certainly see the problem in our own terms. It takes a lot of steel pipe to drill down two to four miles, then drill out a horizontally for another mile in a dozen directions. The tube mills are getting the orders and steelworkers are back to work. On the other hand, steelworkers know the dangers of poisoning the ground and the rivers better than most.

Continue reading Is Wider Unity on the Shale Issue Possible? →

fair trade, labor

Vigil Against the Columbia Free Trade Agreement

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Sign in Colombia: ‘No to the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.

Monday, July 11    12:00 noon

Congressman Jason Altmire’s Office

Aliquippa Office

2110 McLean Street

Aliquippa, PA 15001

Fifty-one union leaders were assassinated in Colombia last year — more than in the rest of the world combined.  At least 17 have been assassinated so far this year.

As the Colombia Free Trade Agreement races towards a vote in Congress, our elected officials will be forced to pick a side.  Will they stand with union members, small farmers, human rights advocates and others in the United States and Colombia who oppose the FTA?   Or will they stand with the transnational corporations who profit off the violent suppression of workers’ rights, the forced displacement of Afro-Colombians from their land and the dumping of subsidized agricultural commodities?

So far, Congressman Altmire is "undecided" on the Colombia FTA.  Our time to influence his vote is quickly running out.  Please join us as we hold vigil outside his office at noon on Monday, July 11th as part of a national day of action.  We’ll be reading the names of our murdered brothers and sisters in Colombia and other remembrances to the Congressman’s office.

Sponsored by: United Steelworkers and PA Fair Trade Coalition

Co-Sponsors: 4th CD Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America

RSVP at amy@citizenstrade.org

elections

Posting a Message to Altmire: We Need Jobs and Fair Trade!

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PDA activists on June 15 at our monthly ‘Brown Bag Lunch’ action at our Congressman’s local office in Aliquippa, PA. These events are taking place regularly around the country by PDA and its allies. Join us at the next one, on the third Wednesday of the month.

Community, Environment, Marcellus Shale

Protect Our Water! Marcellus Debate Bubbles to the Surface

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Raucous Crowd Meets on Shale Debate

Forces for and against drilling clash at session run by U.S. advisory board in Washington, Pa.

By Erich Schwartzel
Beaver County Blue via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

June 14, 2011 – Competing crowds tried to out-shout each other for more than four hours Monday night as Department of Energy representatives came to Washington & Jefferson College for help in forming a national plan for gas drilling, but instead sat quiet as a vicious neighbor-versus-neighbor ordeal played out in the auditorium before them.

The itinerary was simple, with speakers getting two minutes each to address the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board members charged with forming a policy on gas drilling regulations and the hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," extraction process that allows access to most of the gas. It quickly became a referendum on the industry that has infused money and controversy into the towns that lie on the Marcellus Shale gas formation.

It was an auditorium divided: In the span of 10 minutes, the panel members were called drug cartels by one speaker and patriotic heroes by another.

A soldier’s mother choked up when she talked of her son working toward energy independence in Iraq, while another called shale gas "the new asbestos." A West Virginia woman showed the respirator she makes her children wear because of bad air, while another speaker praised an industry that’s supported college scholarships. Recent college graduates extolled a business that gave them jobs in the middle of a recession, while one protestor behind the microphone mockingly waved a wad of cash above his head.

Continue reading Protect Our Water! Marcellus Debate Bubbles to the Surface →

Culture, labor, safety net

Beaver County Artist Gave Us Yet Another Reason to Like the WPA

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Mural Depicts Depression Era in Coalfields

By Bill Archer
Progressive America Rising via Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD, Va, June 13, 2011. — A neon light fixture in the lobby of the Bluefield, Va., post office partially obscures a Tazewell County art treasure, but the tempera mural above the postmaster’s office door represents a New Deal initiative that was aimed at restoring morale among citizens who were suffering the lingering effects of surviving the Great Depression.

In the years after the end of World War I, the U.S. economy experienced some robust growth and left evidence of that growth in cities throughout the nation. Most of the imposing structures in the heart of downtown Bluefield including the 13-story tall West Virginian Manor and the Arts and Crafts Center appeared in the mid-1920s, and steel-making coal from southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia was in great demand as builders used steel as the framework for skyscrapers including the Empire State Building completed in 1931.

While “Black Thursday,” Oct. 24, 1029, signaled the start of the decline, the Dust Bowl drought starting in 1930 and lasting almost a decade threw the U.S. into desperate straights and by March 9, 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a “Bank Holiday” and started the process of restoring confidence in the nation’s banks, every American family had been touched in some way by the depression.

Continue reading Beaver County Artist Gave Us Yet Another Reason to Like the WPA →

Afghanistan, antiwar, Blue Dogs

Congress Closely Divided on Afghan Vote: Altmire Sides with Long War Republican Bloc

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House Democrats Clamor for U.S.

to Speed Withdrawal from Afghanistan

David Lightman and William Douglas
Beaver County Peace Links via McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON, May 26 2011 – Democrats in House of Representatives sent President Barack Obama a strong message Thursday — speed up U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.

Though the House’s bid to push Obama to expedite the U.S. exit failed, it lost by a surprisingly close 215-204 vote. The outcome, and the fiery debate that preceded it, made it clear that the president’s party, as well as a growing number of Republicans, is growing impatient with the almost 10-year-old war as the 2012 election campaign approaches. In all, 178 Democrats and 26 Republicans voted to pressure Obama. Eight Democrats, most from more conservative districts, and 207 Republicans were opposed. Leading the charge to prod the president were the House’s top Democratic leaders.

“Americans are paying a big price there, we want to make sure we’re getting a return on that investment, and time is a very important factor,” said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “It’s time for our troops to come home.”

Continue reading Congress Closely Divided on Afghan Vote: Altmire Sides with Long War Republican Bloc →

Community, Environment

Why We Need Watchdogs on Politicians AND Regulators!

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Texas politicians knew agency hid the

amount of radiation in drinking water

By Mark Greenblatt
KHOU 11 News – Houston

May 19 – HOUSTON— Newly-released e-mails from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality show the agency’s top commissioners directed staff to continue lowering radiation test results, in defiance of federal EPA rules.

The e-mails and documents, released under order from the Texas Attorney General to KHOU-TV, also show the agency was attempting to help water systems get out of formally violating federal limits for radiation in drinking water. Without a formal violation, the water systems did not have to inform their residents of the increased health risk.

“It’s a conspiracy at the TCEQ of the highest order,” said Tom Smith, of the government watchdog group Public Citizen.  “The documents have indicted the management of this commission in a massive cover-up to convince people that our water is safe to drink when it’s not.”

Smith is talking about what happened to residents who live in communities served by utilities like Harris County Municipal Utility District 105.  For years, tests performed by the Texas Department of State Health Services showed the utility provided water that exceeded the EPA legal limit for exposure to alpha radiation.

However, the TCEQ would consistently subtract off each test’s margin of error from those results, making the actual testing results appear lower than they actually were.  In MUD 105’s case, the utility was able to avoid violations for nearly 20 years, thanks to the TCEQ subtractions.

Continue reading Why We Need Watchdogs on Politicians AND Regulators! →