Mining, death, and politics

What is politics for?

Politics is to make the world a better place. Otherwise, what the hell’s the point?

Case in point: the tragic, horrific deaths in the Sago mine in West Virginia.

In the past few days, we have been reminded by the mine’s owners that mining is no longer “even in the top 10” of the most dangerous jobs in America.

For hundreds of years, it was. What changed? Mine workers organized themselves into the United Mine Workers. And the Democratic Party (along with the occasional Republican -- nowadays, I supposed you’d call ‘em “Republicans in Name Only”) worked to establish rules and regulations to protect them.

In other words: politics.

If you think mining would have gotten safer if it had been left entirely up to mine management, you’re so naïve it’s a wonder you managed to grow up.

Now, what can we learn from the Sago mine disaster to keep it from happening again?

1. Investigate thoroughly and independently. We don’t know yet why this happened. Bring in the technical experts and scientists. Make sure they’re given a chance to work unfettered by the industry. That’s common sense. But, with the Bush administration in charge, it’s a lot to ask. Look at what happened to Jack Spadaro, the widely-admired superintendent of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy who Bush’s people hounded out after he told the truth about a disastrous coal mining leak in Kentucky.

It’s not “politics” to tell that story. It’s just the truth.

Since the Bush administration has a record of interfering with impartial investigations of the mining industry, demand that Congress supervise closely. (“Trust, but verify”: where have I heard that before?)

Which brings me to point #2: Get the foxes out of the chicken coop. As soon as he took office, Bush packed the federal government’s mining regulatory apparatus with mining executives. Long-planned mine safety rules were systematically and peremptorily abandoned. Budgets and staffing were cut. Aggressive inspections were discouraged. “Industry partnerships” became the watchword.

(Kinda like telling federal labor inspectors they need to give Wal-Mart advance warning of any inspections! You’re laughing. Bush did that, too. But that’s another blog entry.)

As we work on getting the foxes out of the chicken coop, we might want to revisit those Clinton rules from a more objective, less self-interested viewpoint. It could well turn out that some of them would have saved these lives.

Finally, point #3: You get what you incent. You don’t get what you disincent. Simple market economics.

Over the past two years, the Sago mine was charged with 205 orders and citations for health and safety violations, 96 carrying a “significant and substantial” risk of death or injury. And fined $24,000. That’s less than $120 a fine.

Subject to deeper analysis, what does this tell you? That the cost of the fines was far lower than the cost of fixing the problems. Low enough to make them a mere inconvenience: just a (deductible) cost of doing business.

OK, what does this tell you about the likely solution? Raise the fines. Make ‘em hurt. Especially for mines where, as in Sago’s case, the violations have been ongoing and worsening.

Three simple points. Each focused like a laser on one positive goal: making mines safer. Each of ‘em pointing up the difference between Democrats and George Bush. Politics? Damn straight. Politics that does what it’s supposed to do: make life better for people who need and deserve the help.

Put Digby on your short list

It’s presumptuous of me to tell you this, given the audience they’ve already built (and the audience I haven’t built <grin>). But I find that many folks haven’t yet discovered Digby’s outstanding blog. You need to. I mention it now because he’s on vacation, and in place of his usually awesome posts, you’ll find Glenn Greenwald’s equally awesome posts. They cut to the chase and speak the truth with passion and eloquence.

How many deaths will it take...

I wish we could someday add up the number of people who’ve died due to the Bush Administration’s quiet regulatory changes, flat-out refusals to enforce the law, abandonment of science, and indifference to competent governance.

This is all the untrendy stuff it’s too much work to think about: the changes to mercury regulations, the cancellation of anti-tuberculosis rules, the White House lies about post-9/11 air quality. (Plus, occasionally, things people eventually do come to notice, e.g., the systematic destruction of FEMA prior to Hurricane Katrina.)

Today’s looming tragedy is happening underground in West Virginia. Priority #1: to do everything humanly possible to save those 13 trapped miners. Then, after that, to ask why so many important mine safety rules have been abandoned or scaled back since January 2001. Mine safety ought still to be a huge issue, but that would cramp profits for the Republican party’s contributors, now, wouldn’t it? Read here, here, and here.

Followup on "Economists & bioethicists"

Over on Slate, where I cross-posted a slightly edited version of the post below, I’ve received the following thoughtful comment from ElrohirAmroth:

“This case seems to have had no media attention until after she died... We don't know what the Bush Whitehouse or even the Texas governor might have done to stop this because we don't know that they knew anything about it... absent any evidence that Bush or others knew of the case and chose not to act, the hypocrisy charge is spurious.”

To which I’ve replied:

Your comments strike me as reasonable to a point.

Clearly neither Bush nor Governor Perry knew about this case in advance. But the Texas law that Bush signed has been the subject of widespread discussion since the Schiavo case hit the national news, if not sooner. Bush consulted with right-to-lifers before signing the law, and after a certain amount of tweaking, they signed off on it -- even though it was clear that it would lead to sentient people being taken off life support for purely financial reasons.

In the weeks since this woman has died, I've heard nobody in the Christian right raise the issue of making sure something like this never happens again. I'd welcome someone pointing out information to the contrary. Failing that, I think it is quite fair to raise the issue of hypocrisy.

Nor have I heard anyone on the right raise any concerns about fairness (here, or ever). Surely there are broader ethical issues associated with making life-and-death decisions like these based on ability to pay. How those ethical issues are ultimately decided, I'm not sure. I would never tell you they are easy.

But they deserve more attention, from both the left and the right -- including, one would hope, from those who staked out such a prominent public position on the Schiavo case, and based their position on their faith. Arguably that's what Landsburg was trying to do here. I would be tempted to credit him with courage if his moral sense wasn’t so crabbed. To write, as Landsburg does, that

"Accounting for 'economic considerations' means—by definition—trying to give people what they'll value the most. In other words, economic considerations are the basis of true compassion.."

ignores so much as to be truly incredible. Not least: that the tradeoffs poor individuals must make every day are extremely different from those that Mr. Landsburg and I face from our places of privilege in this society.

God save us from economists and bioethicists

A little while back, over at DailyKos, Yucatan Man noted the case of Tirhas Habtegiris, a terminally-ill young woman who was conscious and responsive when removed from a respirator and allowed to die, since she couldn’t pay her hospital bills. According to WFAA, Dallas-Fort Worth, the woman was entirely prepared to die, but asked to be kept alive until her mother could be brought from Africa to say farewell. Pursuant to a law signed by George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas, Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano apparently refused the request and pulled the plug.

This morning, in Slate, we have Steven Landsburg, carefully missing the point that Yucatan Man is trying to make.

Yucatan Man, of course, is trying to point out the massive hypocrisy of people who will turn the world upside down to save the life of Terri Schiavo, a woman who tragically would never again be sentient, but won’t spend a dime or a nano-second to protect the life of a woman who is eminently aware and knows very well that she is being told to die because she lacks the cash to be kept alive a few more days.

Yucatan Man is telling us to remember these events the next time we hear from the so-called "moral" or "Christian" right.

I am not prepared to say that we should pay everyone's ventilator costs forever. Nor did Yucatan Man. I’m not naïve enough to believe that infinite resources exist. But Steven Landsburg's ability to frame all of this in strict economic terms is, quite frankly, terrifying. As bad as the religious right is, if they were at least consistent, their views would be preferable to Mr. Landsburg's icy view of the world.

My prayer for today: God save us from economists and bioethicists.

Tomorrows Bushes and Cheneys: Goodbye, Traditional American Democracy?

No human institutions have ever been permanent, and none are likely to be. Even the Roman Empire fell. But converging technologies are making it possible to exercise more power over people than ever before. And they’re making it frighteningly difficult to dislodge leaders who are determined to deepen and retain their power.

Imagine a country led by folks like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld in, say, 10, 15, 20 years.

Imagine, at their disposal, future-generation Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, remote control, and automated weaponry [9MB download] that permits the U.S. government to engage in warfare at will, with no concern about military casualties. (Imagine how America’s enemies, increasingly unable to attack the U.S. military, will increasingly turn to soft targets here at home -- and how Cheney-like leaders will respond to that.)

Consider how your E-ZPass toll tag and cellphone can already be used to track you (and look east to Great Britain, where RFID-based mass vehicle tracking will soon be trialed, with the U.S. watching closely.

Consider how the President and National Security Agency, now shown that the American people don’t object to massive illegal wiretapping without cause, may liberate themselves to listen to all our electronic communications. (If they aren’t already.) The commitment to freedom against government intrusion seems to be dying -- at least when it comes to government intrusions on the right to public speech, or to unfettered involvement in the political process.

(Of course, the government had better not tell folks that they can’t own machine guns, or that they can’t move to all-white neighborhoods in Idaho. The only intrusions that seem to raise ire are those that impact the society’s most privatized people: individuals who already want no part of the traditional American political process. In today’s America, however, the types of governments most likely to intrude on political freedom are least likely to intrude on those other types of behavior.)

Make the connections about how all the information that’s being captured -- combined with state-of-the-art data mining technologies -- can be used to keep people in line. Especially since tomorrow’s Bushes and Cheneys won’t need to keep everyone in line: they’ll merely need to blackmail the small percentage of citizens who could potentially threaten their power.

Add it up and it feels like we’re coming up on a last chance to preserve our fundamental liberties -- with the odds against those to whom it really matters. Whether you blame it on 9/11 or simple anaesthetized consumerism, something fundamental has changed: the broad middle class that could once be roused against Nixon’s spying and enemies lists simply no longer cares. Our leaders have carefully taken note, and they are acting accordingly.

A footnote: any worried discussion about privacy needs to contend with David Brin’s provocative dissent in The Transparent Society. But Brin himself has raised concerns about “uneven information flows,” noting that they make it possible for the powerful to hold others accountable while refusing to be held accountable themselves. That’s precisely what’s happening. And, with one-party rule across Congress, the Presidency, and increasingly the federal courts, it’s now happening at breakneck speed.