Politics Plus

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

So this happened.

Outraged members of a New York community are demanding answers after four 12-year-old Black girls were allegedly strip-searched at a middle school last week.

This story has actually received a lot of coverage – BBC News, NBC News, The Daily Beast, USAToday, even Fox News – so you may already have seen it.

Naturally, there are conflicting stories about exactly what happened.

There is agreement that the four girls were removed from class, questioned, and searched, and eventually returned to class, and also that the girls’ parents were not notified of the search before it commenced. However, there is disagreement on what the search actually entailed.

School authorities say there was no strip search.

“When conducting medical evaluation, it may require the removal of bulky outside clothing to expose an arm so that vitals like blood pressure and pulse can be assessed … This is not the same as a strip search.”

The girls, as reported by parents and local activists, however say that a strip search was performed by a nurse and an assistant principal. Specifically,

“The children had their clothing removed and felt shamed, humiliated, and traumatized by [the] experience,” [a local activist group] wrote of the incident, which it claims was triggered by suspicions the students were in possession of drugs. “While they were being searched, a nurse made disparaging comments about the eczema of one girl and the size of another’s breasts.” The organization added that the girls, as well as their parents, believe the school’s “heinous and excessive actions” were racially motivated.

Enough parents were sufficiently concerned for almost 200 people to show up to the next meeting of the Binghampton school board. The president of the local NAACP chapter was asked to, and did, read a list of demands of accountability:

• Stop the practice of strip-searching children for any reason, and especially in response to giddiness or behavioral concerns.
• Removal of the assistant principal and principal at East Middle School for poor judgment, which allegedly resulted in child trauma.
• Remove the nurse who administered the strip searches.
• Publicly apologize to the students, their families and the community at large for violating the trust of all parties harmed by their actions.
• Provide alternate instruction for the girls, at either West Middle School or home instruction, until the situation has been rectified to the satisfaction of the families.

I should mention there is one more point of agreement about the incident, and that is that the girls were traumatized.

Unfortunately, our students shared that these actions have had the unintended consequences of making the students feel traumatized.

Enough concern has been raised that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has called for the State Police to investigate, along with the State Education Department; the State Police have committed to investigating.

What was the reason the incident occurred in the first place? Well, the staff suspected the girls of using and/or carrying drugs. But why? Well, the girls appeared to be “hyper and giddy” during lunch.

I could quote opinions from a number of different sources concerning this criterion, but, you know, as a former twelve-year-old girl myself (albeit a long time ago), I have my own opinion, which is:

OK, twelve year old girls probably should not be hyper and giddy all the time. But if you have twelve year old girls who are NEVER hyper or giddy, especially outside the classroom, THAT’s when you should be worried.

We have read a great deal in the last few years about how black children appear “older,” at least to white people, than their white counterparts (not that sixteen and eighteen year old girls don’t sometimes appear “hyper and giddy” also). But that should not be in effect here, since administrators should know exactly who is enrolled in their school – and in a middle school, it should be twelve year olds.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, please assist with the investigation, and help determine what actually happened. You might also look into whether there is an unnamed teacher or monitor who “reported” the “hyper and giddy” behavior to nurse and/or assistant principal, as I suspect (and on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, of all days.) Or maybe the nurse and assistant principal DO patrol the lunchroom. Whatever, please help straighten this out. Thank you.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Between the indictment and arrest of Roger Stone, and the unmasking of mild-mannered Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) as a superhero, I’m not even going to try to work up any outrage this weekend – I doubt that I could, and I’d rather enjoy the lull. So, instead, I’ll be sharing an article from Yes! magazine by Megan Wildhood. Yes! magazine operates under a Creative Commons license, so I could just copy the article. Instead, I want to share parts with comments. But the amount I’m quoting would exceed fair use if that applied, so I wanted to explain up front.

The title of the article is “5 Ways to Protect the Planet Without Disenfranchising People With Disabilities.” As I have mobility issues myself, it caught my eye. And I know I’m not alone here. If not mobility issues, some of us have vision or hearing or immunity issues, or we rely on prescription medications to survive – which we would like to think would be considered in a disaster, or even not in a disaster when we needed assistance, but might not be.

Wildhood (a freelance writer who lives in Seattle, whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Sun, and America Magazine, among others, and had her first book, “Long Division,” published in 2017) points out

People with disabilities are disproportionately affected by disasters, which are worsening and increasing because of climate change. The National Council on Disability estimated that a “disproportionate number of the fatalities” amid Hurricane Katrina were people with disabilities. Typical evacuation routes and disaster plans are often not accessible to this vulnerable group, while interruptions to electricity are deadlier for those who require machines to treat medical conditions.

And it isn’t just disasters like fires, superstorms, and floods. Extreme heat, which up to 75 percent of humanity may be at risk of experiencing by 2100, has adverse physical and mental health effects in healthy individuals. But people with neurological conditions who cannot sweat or regulate body temperature are even more vulnerable to extreme heat.

And those are just a few examples.

She notes that the needs of people with disabilities can even be thought to be in opposition to the needs of the planet. The issue which leaps to mind – at least to my mind – is the current real and warranted concern about single-use plastic straws. Yes, they end up filling oceans with plastic particles – if they haven’t killed wildlife first – wildlife who can get them stuck up their noses. Wildlife who think they are edible and can fill their stomachs with, essentially, poison. But, unless we want to replace throwing away straws with throwing away people (yeah, some people might, but I trust no one here), we must come up with a way to deal with straws which allows people who need their assistance to be able to drink.

Wildhood identifies five initiatives which – well, I’ll let her say it:

Actions that protect the environment don’t have to disenfranchise the disability community. In fact, the needs of people with disabilities are not an impediment to good planet care. They’re essential to it. When we pursue the inclusion of people with disabilities, caring about nature can come naturally. Here are five initiatives that can safeguard people with disabilities and the planet, too. 

1. Universal Health Care
2. Disaster Planning
3. Corporate Accountability
4. Universal Design
5. Stronger Environmental Regulations  

The one that probably needs more explanation is universal design. I’m not an expert, but the basic concept of universal design is that we need to include consideration of disabilities into all facets of design of everything from entire buildings down to forks and spoons, so that instead of making “accommodations,” we are improving accessibility for disabled and abled alike.

These principles make environments more inclusive, often while conserving more energy and materials than conventional design. Installing ramps, for example, especially in single-family homes, can be less energy-intensive and more cost-effective than stairs, while meeting diverse needs. Installing power doors with motion sensors eases entry into grocery stores and office buildings while cutting down on energy by preventing doors from being left open, savings which can add up.

The Global Universal Design Commission was formed to work on this. It is global, and has projects in many nations. Of course, you won’t hear anything about it at Fox News.

Stronger environmental regulations probably sound like a fever dream, given the “President” and Congress we have. But the “President” and Congress we have are not necessarily the “President” and Congress we will have forever, especially if we keep working as hard as we worked in 2018.

Environmental pollutants harm all of us, but especially the most vulnerable. While those with asthma or more severe breathing disorders such as COPD may be particularly affected by smoke from California’s wildfires and other air pollution, for example, we all need clean air to breathe. According to data collected in 2013 from MIT, air pollution causes 200,000 early deaths a year in the United States.

That is no surprise to anyone in California … or even in Oregon. And don’t even think about letting me get started on the hormone disruptors in the thermally printed receipts we get every time and every place we spend money.

I can, and do, ask Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone to look into all of these areas, but this really is a case where we need to be working on it ourselves. More power to all of us.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

“2020 is kind of like in the WWE,” said a former White House official, “where they have seven or eight guys fight for the majority of the match and then the Undertaker strolls up and pins everybody after they’ve exhausted themselves.”

So, Elizabeth Warren has announced her candidacy for President in 2020. So has Kamala Harris. Julian Castro* has an exploratory committee. Tulsi Gabbard’s name has been mentioned. Trump has attacked Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, and Joe Biden as if they were running. And that list by no means exhausts the list of people potentially qualified to take on the Presidency. And every one of those people can expect to be savaged by Trump and his minions.

What is Trump’s plan to become “The Undertaker” in this scenario?  Because, in a kind of a sort of a way, he has one, and it’s not just confined to

“So far, I’m dreaming of those candidates,” Trump said at a rally in Kansas late last year. “I see those candidates before my eyes. Every night before I go to sleep. Sometimes while I’m sleeping, I love them so much.” 

No, there’s a very definite plan (not that Trump came up with it himself, of course):

The pair of outside groups tied closely to President Donald Trump has retained the top Republican opposition group in an effort to smother Democrats seeking to challenge him — and perhaps even help pick his 2020 challenger. 

So who are these people?

America First Policies is a 501(c)(4) “nonprofit” founded in January 2017 by six of Trump’s former campaign aides. It is allied with America First Action, a super-PAC. “Allied with” means the PAC essentially launders the money which the “nonprofit” spends, keeping dark the names of the donors and the individual amounts “donated.”

And there is lots of money to spend. Well, we all know that. I won’t belabor where it is coming from (and they’ll never tell), but we can get an idea where it goes. For instance, $1.2 million went to get Brett Kavanagh confirmed. $1.5 million each to confirm Gina Haspel and promote the Trump “Tax Plan.” All together, approximately $9.5 million in 2018. Which means they still have an estimated $20.5 million from 2018 at their disposal. And the donations will keep coming.

America First Policies and America First Action are the “pair of outside groups” referenced above. The “top Republican opposition group” is America Rising PAC. “Opposition” is short for “opposition research” which is Newspeak for “finding and exaggerating any dirt which exists and planting it where it doesn’t.” Their “mission statement” is “to hold Democrats accountable and expose any hidden hypocrisy. We use video tracking, research, and communication strategies to ensure they must account for every word and action.” In accordance with site policy, I won’t link to them, but you can google them easily. As I type, their home page has articles smearing Harris, Warren, Pelosi, Bernie, Biden, and House Democrats as a group. If you have blood pressure issues, perhaps you should stay away.

It crossed my mind while skimming – can you imagine how many people, and how much ink/bandwidth, would be required to put Republicans under the same scrutiny they are applying to us? And no one person could ever read it all.

It’s no secret that I have been hoping that our Democrats would hold off a little longer before starting to declare, and this systematic character assassination is a big reason why. But that ship has now sailed. And we must deal with it. But how? How is the best way we can protect our party from splintering as we did on 2016? Should we try to jump on board as people announce? Should we try to remain uncommitted as long as possible to attempt to maximize our commitment when we do have a nominee? I don’t know.

I’m sure there is an individual temperament factor. It will help if each of us will be honest with him- or herself as to how difficult it will be to change course if one’s preferred candidate does not survive the primaries.

And we must stay aware that Republicans will be doing this systematically, and more and more viciously, with particular vitriol being aimed at anyone who looks like a front runner at any given time.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, please help us keep our facts and our priorities straight. Don’t allow any of us to fall for any Republican crap. The future of civilization, in fact of life on earth itself, depends on it.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.

*Just got an email that he announced today.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Anyone who keeps up with the news has probably seen this headline, or some variation of it:

IRS cuts audits of the rich while stepping up audits of the poor after budget cuts

But, at least at AlterNet, even the sub-head should be enough to lower ones anger with the IRS and turn it where it belongs:

Thanks to GOP budget cuts, the IRS allows rich people to avoid paying billions while persecuting the working poor.

And the first sentence spells it out even more clearly:

Republican cuts have crippled the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to audit rich tax cheats, while pressure from those same Republicans has led the IRS to increase audits of the working poor.

So, how did we get to this point? ProPublica can tell us. Their summary of their investigation starts off with the story of one man, and I’ll quote that (and maybe a chart) and then recommend you read the full article.

In the summer of 2008, William Pfeil made a startling discovery: Hundreds of foreign companies that operated in the U.S. weren’t paying U.S. taxes, and his employer, the Internal Revenue Service, had no idea. Under U.S. law, companies that do business in the Gulf of Mexico owe the American government a piece of what they make drilling for oil there or helping those that do. But the vast majority of the foreign companies weren’t paying anything, and taxpaying American companies were upset, arguing that it unfairly allowed the foreign rivals to underbid for contracts.

Pfeil and the IRS started pursuing the non-U.S. entities. Ultimately, he figures he brought in more than $50 million in previously unpaid taxes over the course of about five years. It was an example of how the tax-collecting agency is supposed to work.

But then Congress began regularly reducing the IRS budget. After 43 years with the agency, Pfeil — who had hoped to reach his 50th anniversary — was angry about the “steady decrease in budget and resources” the agency had seen. He retired in 2013 at 68.

After Pfeil left, he heard that his program was being shut down. “I don’t blame the IRS,” Pfeil said. “I blame the Congress for not giving us the budget to do the job.”

Starting in 2010 – which you may remember was the first Congress in an unbroken line until now to be majority Republican in the House, which has the power of the purse – the budget of the IRS has declined every single year. In 2018 dollars, a budget of $14 billion has sunk to a budget of $12 billion. Could anyone reading this afford to take a permanent 14% cut in your income? Yeah. I didn’t think so. So it’s no wonder the IRS is not accomplishing what it used to accomplish before 2010. Pro Publica’s investigation led it to the conclusion that – speaking conservatively – the government has lost revenue to the tune of $18 billion per year on account of the cuts (yes, the IRS more than pays for itself, if allowed to.)

And there’s one big reason the IRS has difficulty pushing back. No one – NO ONE – loves it. Everyone fears it. People who have little money, whose lives could be improved if the Federal government could collect some or all of the $18 billion don’t see that – they see a fear that they might lose some of the little they have. And, of course, that’s how Republicans want it. That kind of fear is how they control their base.

In fact, since 1994, when Newt Gingrich became the Speaker, abolishing the IRS entirely has been a plank, not always obvious but pretty generally present, in the Republican platform. They have suggested openly replacing income tax with a universal sales tax, which they claim is “fair.” Sure, because, compared to the poor, they do not buy as much. They do not spend nearly as much of their income on commodities.

I could come up with a fairer system (for Federal Income Tax.  I’m not prepared to start talking about withholding for Social Security and Medicare, except to support “Scrap the Cap.”). Every individual and every entity would be treated the same. There would be no special rules for businesses and no exemptions for charities or churches. My lowest tax bracket would be $0-$99,999.99, and the tax rate for that bracket would be zero. The next bracket, $100,000-$249,999.99, would have a rate of 1%. The increases would get steeper – if I had the data I could do the math, but I don’t, so I can’t. But it could be done.  If this sounds like a quote from JFK, it is, sort of.  He got it from Luke 12:48:  “And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required”  (Douay)

And the IRS would certainly still be needed. Like the apocryphal diaper which ain’t gonna change itself, pal, enforcement would still be necessary. Taxes ain’t gonna collect themselves.

Of course this is a fantasy. But the reality is that, since Republicans are no longer going to do it, Democrats need to stick up for the IRS. The best tax system in the world is not effective if it is not enforced. Republicans are not willing to enforce it because they cheat. We must be willing, both to reform the system, and also to enforce the system we have while we have it.

Additionally, the best governmental principles in the world cannot provide for the general welfare if that government has no money with which to do it.  There is nothing wrong with the concept of “tax and spend” (it beats the heck out of “spend and tax,” as Republicans are wont to do.)

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, I realize sticking up for the IRS will be a hard sell, and will be made harder by the pushback from Republicans, who will push back expertly, using every fear in the playbook. But it’s going to have to be done. Eventually. And a beginning has to be made. Somehow. Help us find the people who will be good at it, and encourage them to work on it, and help them with resources needed to get it right, and stand by them when they are selling it.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.