“The questions that need asked in the wake of this deal between EPA and Jim Justice are less about whether Justice got special treatment, but whether really the entire mining industry gets special treatment — whether we should accept hundreds (or even thousands) of environmental and workplace safety violations as just the cost of doing business. … we should also be asking questions about exactly how candidates who proclaim that they would end this way of doing business would do so — and political skills to build the sort of support doing so would require, given the state’s and the Legislature’s overall politics… Some candidates are out there trying to turn the question of who has been running West Virginia all these years into some partisan matter. It’s really not…”
—Ken Ward
Please take the time to read Ken Ward’s entire piece here on Coal Tattoo. He makes some important points, especially as regards partisan politics here in WV.
The key, in my opinion, is really this: All our politicians should be working for the betterment of West Virginians, regardless of party.
Some do reach across the aisle. But many are not working for us; they’re working for the people who fund their campaigns. In WV, that’s often Big Coal—and they fund both parties. Importantly, they re likely pouring dark money into parties to run politicians they approve of… or simply to induce the party to avoid supporting good candidates, candidates working for the people, in resource heavy areas.
Ritchie County, for example, did not even have a Democratic County Convention. In 2016, the state party didn’t seem interested in having an active presence here. [Update: Are things changing now (in 2018)? We shall see. ]
The thing is that the interests of corporate extraction don’t have anything to do with making our state a prosperous place for all of us. Instead, that type of economy embodies the fatal “flaw” Greenspan at last identified in his economic ideology. It was flaw in the structure, a flaw in the way the world works, as he put it.
And his flaw was that he believed CEOs would be acting in the best interests of their companies. His epiphany was that they were working in the best interests of themselves. Screw the company, screw the investors, the workers. CEOs got their millions, and then floated their golden parachutes to the next job.
Turns out, Greenspan discovered, people are greedy. Surprise! And being rich does not make you less greedy. It makes you moreso.
That particular naivete is tough to grasp, but ubiquitous, in various forms. There’s a strange belief out there that giving wealthy people subsidies makes them more generous and hard working, but giving poor people subsidies makes them greedy and lazy. We’ve known for decades that it’s false, yet the myth survives. It’s what Forced Pooling proponents often argue.
We know, in fact, that among the best ways to stimulate the economy is to start at the bottom, because when poor or working people get more income, they spend it, increasing the velocity of money, making the economy better for everyone.
In WV, we KNOW that the economics of resource extraction places the costs of that extraction on us… yet some politicians will continue to spout the myth.
For some, it’s because it makes them money; for others, it’s just that they’ve heard the lie a thousand times, and so they believe it. They are not aware of Greenspan’s flaw: his assumption was that business leaders would be working to make the business succeed.
Legislators are working for our success—or not
Our collective assumption here in WV is that state leaders are working to make the state succeed.
Some are; some aren’t. Do you know which are which?
Because it’s not a partisan thing, despite the messages that wealthy donors and their political cronies are pouring into your ear like poison.
But what can we do “to catch the conscience of the King” here in West Virginia?
Presuming King Coal has a conscience is probably a mistake. Coal barons are not coal miners. What we need to do is elect people who have consciences, real people who are fighting for regular West Virginians, not for lobbyists and corporate donors. Then the changes will come.
Coal miners and gas and oil workers are the good guys; they’re just trying to provide for their families. The Resource Barons? Not so much. They’re not trying to provide for themselves and their loved ones, they’re trying to collect wealth. And to do that efficiently, they are happy to simply buy up as much of our government as they can.
Our challenge as voters
Our challenge as voters is to make certain that we elect people who aren’t out only to gain influence and wealth for themselves. We also must elect people who aren’t fooled by the industry propaganda. Research all your choices, regardless of party.
We must demand better from our elected officials—and we can’t do that until we vote for better people. Democracy can’t work in this state unless we hold dirty or deluded candidates accountable with our votes. We have to put The People first: people over party.
West Virginia can’t continue paying the costs of energy extraction for the rest of the nation.
Ensuring a real investment in rebuilding Appalachia should be a priority for both Republicans and Democrats.
The Appalachian Oracle 