Student Debt Conference this Saturday!

a message from YSTL:

Concerned about rising student debt? Concerned about the affordability and accessibility of college for the next generation? Young Activist United in Saint Louis (YSTL) is holding a Conference on Student Debt, Saturday September 29th from 9-4 at the Regional Arts Commission on the Delmar Loop. Join us to talk about this growing national problem, and how it impacts individuals and our economy. Also, help YSTL shape their campaign on student debt in the coming year.

The event is free and open to the public, and lunch will be provided. Please RSVP at ystldebt@gmail.com. Also, visit us on the web to learn more: http://www.youngactivistsunited.org/

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Broadly speaking the schedule will be: milling around / eat bagel, panel discussion, lunch, small group discussions, action planning!

Hope to see you there.

Blowing the Whistle on Peabody's Coal Train

I'm reposting this from Dave Scott, a teacher in Saint Louis and former resident of West Virginia. It's a great piece on the city, Peabody, and the very real harm that being in bed with corporations can wreak on communities. If you want to fight back then please try and make it out to a meeting this Thursday at 6:30 PM at the World Community Center (438 North Skinker). We'd love to see you there!

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            I’m writing to you today as a transplant to the great city of St. Louis. It’s been almost ten years since I said goodbye to the country roads and green rolling hills of West Virginia where I lived the first 29 years of my life. Since then, I’ve spent nine years in our schools getting to know the city through the eyes of my students. This is the time of year when I’m typically arranging new music, and planning performances for my high school band; however, I received some sad news this week that's turned my attention back to the Mountain State. I write to you today in memoriam of the longtime environmental activist, Larry Gibson, from Kayford Mountain, WV.

            Larry Gibson spent his entire life on the property that had been passed through his family for generations. During the late 1980’s, when Mountaintop Removal became the primary mining technique used in the region, Gibson found himself surrounded by the constant blasting and toxic dust storms created by coal companies as they forever change the Appalachian skyline. It’s fair to say that he didn’t become an activist by choice. Watching the life on his mountain home explode into a dusty moonscape was just the beginning of his ordeal.

You see, coal isn’t the only thing that lies under the surface in West Virginia. Through the process of blasting away the mountaintops, many toxins and carcinogens are pulverized into one poisonous mixture which is either discharged into the wind, or simply bulldozed onto the rivers and valleys below. The latest study conducted by Dr. Michael Hendryx at West Virginia University suggests that the airborne sulphur, silica, and other particulate matter that drifts miles away from the surface mines is responsible for increases of cancer, kidney disease, and other ‘unexplained’ illnesses that are plaguing the coal fields. Other studies conducted by Duke University and WVU have also found high levels of selenium, cadmium, chromium, lead, and arsenic downstream from the mountaintop removal sites, and in well water nearby. Over 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams, which were once home to a diverse population of fish and wildlife, have been covered by these valley fills. In many cases, ground water that had been depended upon for more than a hundred years has been contaminated.

            According to the research performed by Appalachian Voices in 2006, there is a very direct correlation between mountaintop removal sites and the most poverty-stricken counties of the region. This is no coincidence; the more affluent people of New York and Pennsylvania would never stand for the permanent destruction of the Catskills or the Poconos. The state of West Virginia, which has been characterized for generations as having the most corrupt politicians in the country, has allowed coal companies to operate without paying taxes for several decades. Of all the characteristics of my home state that I would love to see here in St. Louis, it’s a shame that political companionship with the mining industry offers the most remarkable similarity.

One of the responsible parties for the environmental destruction throughout Appalachia is a familiar name in the St. Louis region, and a part of our own skyline. It’s from behind the tinted windows above Keiner Plaza that Peabody Energy operates the corporate machinery used for drilling away at EPA regulations and the pensions of retired miners. Don’t believe for one second that this apparatus isn’t being used on St. Louis. According to the analysis attached to the Peabody tax abatement proposal of 2012, our city’s public schools are expected to lose 1.96 million dollars over the next decade. That money would be very useful in hiring more reading specialists, more math specialists, and more classroom teachers.

As a teacher, it pains me to tell you how these coal companies have demonstrated their disdain for public schools in West Virginia. Their operations around Marsh Fork Elementary forced teachers to remove coal dust from the chalkboards every morning. In this small rural school, there were four teachers and two former students diagnosed with cancer over a six year span. In 2012, the school was forced to relocate due to the building of a containment pond which houses millions of gallons of heavily polluted water known as coal slurry directly adjacent to school property. According to coalimpoundment.org, these earthen dams that are built to hold this toxic sludge have failed sixty five times over the years, leaving those local communities and wildlife habitats devastated.

Here in St. Louis, our public schools may not be in eminent danger of a coal dust explosion or a flash flood of coal slurry, but they are victims of the mining industry nonetheless. Allowing Peabody to exist in our city with a free pass on school funding is nothing short of depraved indifference. While our schools have been concentrating their efforts on accreditation, they are also responsible for serving the ten meals that many of our students count on each week in addition to their one shot at the American dream. Our schools aren’t failing, as much as our local leaders and businesses are failing them. It’s not the intentions of this corporate giant to answer the prayers of those who hope that their children will escape the poverty and crime that curse our city. However, it is our mayor’s duty to protect us from corporations who would take a government freebie with one hand while stealing opportunities from our children with the other.

It’s evident that the Peabody Corporation has actually found a source of renewable energy here in St. Louis. It’s called political power. The utility rates may run a little higher during the election cycle, but buying elections is what keeps the lights on at Peabody- that is unless we, the taxpayers of St. Louis, decide to throw the switch. Just like Larry Gibson from Kayford Mountain, we have no choice in St. Louis. We can no longer afford to support a mayor who will offer this company a tax shelter five hundred miles away from the destruction along Coal River, or within one mile of the poverty here in our city. The people of St. Louis expect corporations to pay their fair share in taxes like the rest of us. That new banner atop the Peabody Building boasts of the company’s record of ‘helping people’; it seems feasible that someone in the city government could demand that they live up to the simplicity of that slogan and pay their share in municipal taxes.

 Larry Gibson, the man affectionately known as the Keeper of the Mountains said, “They tell us we’re collateral damage. Well, I ain’t collateral damage. I’m somebody.” As a parent and teacher, I’m here to tell you that the students of Saint Louis Public Schools are somebody too. They don’t deserve to be left behind by City Council, or the financiers of Mayor Slay’s reelection campaign. Please, make your plea to end Peabody’s tax abatement in the City of St. Louis. Call the Board of Aldermen at (314)-622-3287, or Mayor Slay’s office at (314)-622-3201.

MIssouri GOP Insider Reveals Disdain for Party Base

A recent Columbia Tribune article about Akin included an amazingly honest quote from a Missouri GOP insider:

The anger at Akin is intense. With his refusal to step aside, they see serious damage to GOP chances in many races this year. "I, personally, and a lot of people like me, want to punish Todd Akin," one insider said. "This is about getting you freaking people out of our party."

In my opinion, the positions of the extreme religious Right are ridiculous and I can see why someone wouldn't want them "in their party." But of course, the reality is that Republicans do want them in the party, as they want them voting for their Big Business candidates like Mitt Romney. They just don't want them in positions of leadership or influence.  Hence, when a True Believer like Todd Akin gets elected, the GOP party bosses are quick to try to destroy him and push him out in favor of an insider like John Brunner or Ann Wagner.

The quote, I think, reveals a core truth about the modern GOP; it's controlled by the super-wealthy and Big Business who use social issues to manipulate hordes of people into voting against their own self-interest.  The Roy Blunts, Mitt Romneys, and "grassroots Ambassador" to Luxembourg Ann Wagners of the world run for office for the purpose of putting more money into their and their friends' pockets, and they manipulate evangelicals into thinking that they care about social issues. The Religious Right should have their own party, and they should try out their own views in the free marketplace of ideas, but there's really no reason for them to keep giving away votes to people who only want to plunder the middle class.

Three St. Louis Area Tea Party Blogs Defend Akin Against GOP Establishment

Three bloggers from that one group that used to be tea party but now has some other acronym recently published blog posts defending Todd Akin and attacking the GOP establishment that tried to push him out.

Virginia Kruta:

If Akin stays in this race, it is possible that he has been damaged enough that we could lose this seat. And that is a scary thought, especially for Missourians, who would be saddled with another six years of Claire McCaskill. But how does that compare to grassroots losing *all* seats that boast candidates who have angered the GOP? Think of Todd Akin as the canary in the coal mine - if he falls to this strategy, who is next? Every election from here on out, we will not only have to fight the left and the media, but also the pseudo-right. 

If we continue to support Todd Akin, we have the ability to hit the national establishment where it hurts. Sadly, many who claim to be fighters have already fallen prey to the narrative. There may not be enough of us left to cripple the establishment this time around, and every time we fail they get stronger.

So wait for Todd Akin's response. And if he intends to fight, I say we fight with him.

Blogodidact:

Yet political players far and wide now wish to overturn the legitimate winner of a primary election; party players and powers that be, wish to disenfranchise all republican voters of Missouri, in order for these power players to put who they would like to see him replaced with. These are the same people who didn't want Akin to run for the Senate, the same people who didn't support him during the election, the same people who did their best to undermine him in order to get a less conservative candidate to run... And yet, after the people of Missouri, who knowingly voted for the more conservative candidate - are very likely going to have their votes overturned, by party players who didn't approve of their votes to begin with.

On the pretext of a politically sensitive gaffe, the candidate nominated in a statewide election, is potentially going to be removed from the race, and replaced by someone the GOP would have preferred to have been (s)elected in the first place.

Ennenbach:

While supporters in both John Brunner’s and Sarah Steelman’s camp gnared their teeth at the opportunity to snag the seat, should Akin vacate, those dreams were quickly dashed by the time they finally finished reading through Missouri’s Sore Loser Law....

It is clear that the people voted, and Akin’s primary win should be upheld. It is also clear that the Missouri Establishment GOP was quick to stand next to the progressive extremists in throwing Akin under the bus, over and over again. 

Guess that's the last time the GOP establishment will ever try "gnaring" their teeth. 

Todd Akin's Horrible Rape Comments Are Part of A Pattern

In case you somehow missed it, Todd Akin made unbelievably ignorant and misogynistic comments on the Jaco Report, claiming that women who are the victims of "legitimate rape," won't get pregnant:

(crazy comments start around the 4 minute mark)


Akin's quote:

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

This isn't a simple one-time mistake based on talking to a couple nutty "doctors."  This is part of an incredibly disturbing pattern from Akin when it comes to rape.  Some of the lowlights from Talking Points Memo:

Akin is perhaps the boldest among a crop of conservative 2012 nominees who could hamperGOP efforts to take back the Senate in the fall. Akin has called for an end to the school-lunch program and a total ban on the morning-after pill [even in cases of rape].

His claim about “legitimate” types of rape is not completely foreign to the current Republican Congress, however. In 2011, the House GOP was forced to drop language from a bill that would have limited federal help to pay for an abortion to only victims of “forcible rape.” Akin was a co-sponsor on the bill.

Nor is this Akin’s first time suggesting some types of rape are more worthy of protections than others. As a state legislator, Akin voted in 1991 for an anti-marital-rape law, but only after questioning whether it might be misused “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband,” according to a May 1 article that year in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A Right To Life Without A Right To Eat

Todd Akin somehow thinks that no one has a right to food, even though they have a right to life: 

And shame on you, Mr. or Ms. Commie, for thinking otherwise.

Todd Akin Teaches Poor Kids A Lesson By Not Allowing Them To Eat

Hearts starve as well as bodies.  But Todd Akin doesn't care about either.  That oughta teach those poor kids for being born poor.  Bet they won't try that again.