Stop the Teabaggers, Give Them Green Jobs: Lessons From the Coalfields of West Virginia
West Virginia shows us how we could easily win over this key segment of society, working class whites, with a New Deal-style industrial policy. Currently, 85,000 people in the United States are employed by the wind industry; Slightly more than the 81,000 in the United States working as coal miners.
On election night 2000, the biggest shocker for me wasn't Florida, but that West Virginia had voted for a conservative Republican presidential candidate for the first time in nearly 70 years.
For decades, West Virginia, with one of the highest rates of unionization in the country, regularly voted for progressive candidates, even being one of only nine other states in 1988 to vote for the epitome of a Massachusetts liberal -- Michael Dukakis. To know the story of West Virginia is to know why the progressive movement is failing to win over white working class voters. Because of their primary concern: jobs.
Driving around West Virginia as a young union organizer with Marshall University labor historian Gordon Simmons, I quickly learned that underneath its beautiful mountain lay a history of exploitation, broken promises and economic degradation. Despite being "the Saudi Arabia of Coal," West Virginia is engaged in a yearly neck and neck race with Mississippi for being the poorest state in the country.
As a result of coal mining, West Virginia has a cancer rate that is nearly 70% higher than the national average . Every day more than three million pounds of ammonium nitrate explosives (a highly carcinogenic substance) are exploded in mountaintop removal. This is the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb worth of explosives being dropped on West Virginia every month. Over 100 billion gallons of toxic sludge are contained in poorly regulated, coal sludge reservoirs from mountaintop mining contaminating local water supplies, leading to mind boggling rates of cancer.
A fact that is equally startling as the destruction of the mountains, is the destruction of jobs in West Virginia. Coal mining jobs have gone down by 75% with the shift to the highly mechanized, mountaintop removal. In the early 1950's, there were 145,000 miners employed in West Virginia; in 2004 there were just over 16,000 miners employed. While employment has decreased in coal mining, coal production has actually increased dramatically as a result of the environmentally destructive procedures of mountaintop removal.
Clearly, West Virginians would prefer jobs that didn't destroy their communities and health, but are forced into coal mining because few other jobs exist. As a result, West Virginians desperately fear losing these jobs. The fossil fuel lobby exploits this fear to kill investments in clean energy jobs.The industry uses events like the upcoming free concert called "Friends of America" hosted by Sean Hannity, which has press materials implicitly attacking clean energy legislation, hysterically warning, "we must keep these [coal mining] jobs from being regulated out of existence".
These industries always say that regulating them will cost jobs -- even when it is proven that jobs will be created. This is because they have created a situation where people are hanging on by a thread, paid so little that they desperately cling to what they have and other people are starving in front of them.
The ability of these AstroTurf groups to mobilize people fearing the loss of their jobs led to the dramatic weakening of the Waxman-Markey climate bill and quite possibly health care. We often make fun of teabaggers showing up at town halls, but fail to realize that the reason they are motivated to rebel against change because all change has ever meant to them is job loss and the destruction of their communities.
West Virginia shows us how we could easily win over these key segments of society with a New Deal-style industrial policy. Racial tensions and prejudices in West Virginia have long been as severe as in other places in the South. However as a result of heavy unionization, West Virginians learned to look beyond race to take on the true oppressors -- big corporations. West Virginians also remembered the importance that the New Deal played in transforming their lives. It gave them jobs, electricity, roads, and helped to bring the region into the 20th Century.
As result, West Virginians stuck firmly with FDR's Democratic Party and voted consistently for Democrats for the following five decades. While the once solid Democratic South became the Republican South after passage of Civil Rights legislation, West Virginia -- despite its strong racial tensions -- remained an island of Democratic support, until 2000.
In the 1990s, the generations that had survived the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War Two began to die out, and a Democratic president forged the job-killing NAFTA trade deal. Support for Democrats in West Virginia suddenly began to weaken. All the new generation knew was rising unemployment and broken promises at the hand of liberal politicians promising them jobs, but instead taking what jobs they had away.
The failure of the progressive movement to advocate for the improvement of the economic conditions of the white working class created a vacuum that allowed right-wing demagoguery to flourish. West Virginians turned to conservative Republicans who promised to protect their country, their most cherished recreational activity - hunting, and the churches at the center of their communities because no one else seemed to be protecting their communities.
In 2000, Republicans in West Virginia portrayed environmentalist Al Gore, who played a key role in passing NAFTA, as a job-killer who would destroy West Virginia's coal-based economy. Ever since then, West Virginia has voted consistently Republican in presidential elections, while at the same time continuing to elect Democratic Senators and Congressman who promised to protect coal producing jobs and fight to keep manufacturing in West Virginia.
In response to the shifting winds against progressives in West Virginia, local activists have called for New Deal-style projects like the Coal River Wind Project which seeks to create a sustainable, green economy economy not based on the boom and bust cycles of coal. Recent studies show that Appalachia will be mined out of coal in 20-30 years. In contrast the wind energy is sustainable industry that is here to stay and could create far more jobs.
It's estimated that only a $30 billion investment through Senator Sherrod Brown's IMPACT Act would create 2.5 million jobs -- many of them high, paying manufacturing jobs. The IMPACT Act could help replace the nearly 2 million manufacturing jobs that have been lost since the recession began in December 2007.
A New Deal-style industrial policy is crucial as well for winning over the politically elusive, white working class. The New Deal was successful in creating a lasting political coalition because it created lasting political constituencies. As a result of the wide range of people it helped: Social Security for seniors, labor unions for workers, subsidies for small farmers, and jobs for the unemployed, these groups were brought into the Democratic party and stayed there for nearly forty years.
However, a recent poll of non-college educated white males, showed that only 35% approved of Obama's performance . Some liberal commentators like Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic Magazine claim that we don't need the white working class to build a lasting progressive movement. Some argue that we shouldn't waste our effort to reach out to them because we can build majority built simply based upon minorities, women, college educated professionals, and youth.
To that I simply say is if the progressive movement wants to have a lasting impact we should include everyone as the New Deal coalition did. By advocating for New Deal - style industrial policies we can bring in the white working class as part of our movement, help with efforts at racial healing, and could create a lasting political movement that could last for another forty years. Such tactics were successful in the past in bringing the white working class into the party and will be successful in the future.
If the progressive movement put as much energy into advocating for a New Deal-style industrial policy as they have attacking and debunking the teabaggers, there wouldn't be teabaggers at these town hall meetings.
Yes, New Deal-style industrial policy will bring people into the progressive movement. But the real reason we why we need an industrial policy is similar to the one we had under the New Deal: it was the right thing to do. The New Deal helped people. made their lives better, created the middle class, set up regulations that protected people ,and created the solid foundations for the economic revival and amazing growth that followed.
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Mike Lux: The Heart of the Matter
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Mike Elk, I liked your post a whole lot, but then I come to the comments and have my hopes dashed away by mean and combative progressives.
Seems like an "Us vs. Them" mentality has invaded the progressive movement. And when the progressive movement collapses into self-hate, Republicans will just laugh.
What the h.. does tea-baggers have to do with green jobs. There protesting against high taxes and Congress not reading the bills that are past.
there are protesting against economic policies that don't help them.
That's incorrect Mike. I think you're referring to Al Gore.
Betty is right, they want less goverment, lower taxes & a new congress with term limits. Too much to ask?
Stop those Republican TEA BAGGERS by giving them Green tea and
cutting off their government social security benefits, Medicare, vets health care, etc.
After all, it's "too socialist" for them.
Our constitution guarantees the right of "peaceful assembly". There is no way these idiots could be regarded as peaceful. They better beware, or ordinary citizens who are peaceful may decide to prosecute.
Prosecute? What are you afraid of? Granny and her walker, smacking her gums?
Red state, blue state, green fish, blue fish, If you just look at where the recession is effecting the population the least it would seem reasonable to me to assume their governing principals would be the premier principals to follow. They are working best. Where are they? Putting people to work is not an objective most entrepreneur out to earn money see as good business practice. Look at all the new red tape just to hire someone and all the legal traps we have made for them. It's much safer to have the products made outside the states and brought in. All the trade shows have many vendors from other nations around to bid products made out of the states. Most times local vendors aren't even close and the only thing they can sell on is turnaround time and that is only a factor at startup. We need to have starry eyed dreamers around but we don't need them in government and we don't need them writing laws to drive business overseas.
Indeed... BLUE States, and Blue Cities have the highest unemployment rate and crime. I wish you luck of the prize with that. I like my Red State as it is, with less California Immy'grints.
As for being safer to outsource, there is an aspect of "green product" manufacture outsourcing that is Racist & Hypocritical. The Batteries for the Prius, Compact Fluorescent Bulbs, and Solar Panels. IF these products are the best thing ever, and will save the planet... they should be processed & manufactured in Boulder, San Fransisco, Berkley etc. I can see the Environmental protesters right now... and the EPA as well.
actually statistic show that the places with the highest rates of unemployment are red states
I say we continue to let Red States bury themselves beneath coal ash.
They need to drink deeply of conservative ideology. Once they turn their states into blasted wastelands, they'll want to move to Blue States... and we'll say "no".
I'm from WV. If you look at my screen name, you'll see how I feel about Republicans. I voted for Obama, Gore and every other Dem all the way back to my very first vote for McGovern in 1972.
It may surprise you to learn, that many of us are not at all happy with having outside interests come into our state, leveling our beautiful mountains, filling our valleys and streams with putrid muck, and then taking their spoils out of our state and leaving us the mess.
Our coal gets shipped all over the country to be burned in plants that produce electricty, and some of those states are very blue. If you use one watt of electricity, and you're not getting it from a nuke plant, you need only look in the mirror to see what drives the fossil fuel demand that creates the coal ash we West Virginians have to suffer with for your energy demands.
We progressives in WV believe in fighting for our progressive ideas. We do not believe, as you do, that our conservative folks need to "drink deeply of conservative ideology."
We believe in turning them around and helping them see a better future for themselves and their children through progressive policies.
Outside progressives with the dismissive attitude you've shown on this blog towards people you know little about, are not making our job any easier.
As a state and a community you've been dumped on from a great height for generations by both sides (for all the difference there is) of the political dialogue in the U.S.
You've been failed as a community and if there were one place that should seriously think about going on it's own and removing itself from the political game in the U.S. it would probably be W.V.
> We do not believe, as you do, that our conservative folks need to "drink deeply of conservative ideology."
Well of course not. Heaven forbid people be forced to live with the results of their beliefs. It's way more preferable to inflict their bad decision making on other people who live far, far away.
Me, I'm a "reap what you sow" guy. It says it in the Bible, and I'd hate to believe contrary to what God said.
I have a hard time believing that a movement is "progressive" if it doesn't include the words "investment" and "education".
Investing in educating the like of WV residents, with all the quirky cultural history that has been developed over the years may seem highly idealistic but it's essence is a given.
Those who call themselves "progressives" and neglect the concept of investment and education amongst a particular demographic sounds more rigid and conservative than progressive.
"Green Jobs" for Red States makes no sense.
Why should we be giving money to people who hate America?
No one hates America. How do you think Obama got elected? By dissing and dismissing Red States?
I know these people, and believe me, they love this country. They've just been sold a bunch of bull from the conservatives, and the progressives and Democrats have done a lousy job of countering the bull.
To me, if you're willing to exclude an entire segment of the population from the dream of a better country, rather than helping turn them around, you're just the flipside of the same coin.
Get a clue. Yes, in presidential elections for the past eight years WV voted republican, but if you look at WV's representation in Congress, it's just not so. Two of the most senior Dems in the Senate, and what, 3 out of 5 reps in the House Dems. Better Democratic representation than many so-called blue states. A Dem governor too.
West Virginia is one of those places to be from. It has economically active regions around it that draw away the young and ambitious. WV contributes a higher than average percntage of its young people to military service, and they come back to small towns that don't have high speed internet or cable TV. They go to Pittsburgh or Raleigh-Durham or Columbus, telling themselves they;ll they'll go back, but they don't. It's difficult for the small towns to keep even basic municipal services going. The cities-Wheeling is a good example- are penned up against the hills and bluffs along the rivers, and any renovation or change is complicated. The conservative view that government should'nt intervene, let markets decide is a case that can be made, but the oulook for West Virginia (and for the region to the south and west along the Appalachians) is such that we need to think about what might be done by all of us.
I'm one of those people you talk about.
Like Hazel Dickens sang
"Someday I'll go home to West Virginia, to the green rolling hills I love so well
Yes someday I'll go home, and I know I'll right the wrongs, and these troubled times will follow me no more."
Except like most of us, I probably won't go back except to visit.
"Some liberal commentators like Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic Magazine claim that we don't need the white working class to build a lasting progressive movement."
And that is the Real Problem with the modern progressive movement. That statement should have caused all genuine progressives to ship Brownstein back to the Republican party where such attitudes belong.
A genuine Progressive realizes that we need EVERYONE. Any plan for the future that excludes part of the population as "Less Valuable" is profoundly flawed and doomed to failure. Just because poverty has left a group of people Under Educated does NOT mean that it has made them less deserving of the American Dream.
In fact, the Under Educated have the Strongest claim on the Dream. They are the ones who will benefit the country the Most when they finally GET the education they have been denied.
The only thing that keeps America "First in the World" is the Wealth of Knowledge held by its citizens. Anyone who truly wants to "Keep America Great" must realize that ensuring that Every Citizen receives the best education possible is the only way to ensure that future.
With that in mind, the Best way to help West Virginia is to invest in both Job Creation and Continuing Education in the state. Create a "Green Tech Education Initiative" to teach as many of those "Working Class" West Virginians as possible the skills needed to Build the New Energy industry.
Thank you. Well said!
Mike,
The 2.5 million jobs you say will be created by IMPACT, are those the same millions of jobs that the "Stimulus Bill" has failed to produce or are they different? Just asking.
WRONG! In my area the Stimulus is working! It took decades to lose the jobs and you expect all the jobs to come back in a few months? The Stimulus is designed to work over several years.
I think it is more important to HELP the working class of all races than it is to try to politically try to woo them back into a "New Deal" coalition.
It is a classic statement that conservatives think the poor are lazy while liberals think the poor our dumb.
well...
I guess I fall into the latter category. Bill Maher is right. We are a stupid country.
Cleaning up the environment and curtailing CO2 emissions is the right thing to do.
If we do it fighting white working class people so be it.
Sorry.
the "highest rate of unionization" does NOT automatically translate into "most progressive politically."
collective selfishness is not the basis or goal of the progressives.
now you see why the highest rate of unionization never led to progressive politics in west virginia, and
why such self-serving american-style unions never resonated with or inspired the public.
As someone who doesn't really care for unions, I will say that there was a time when those unions were necessary to protect the workers rights in the coalfields. However, now those unions spend too much time in politics by shuffling money to politicians and friends and they have let the people of WV down. Because of the globalization of our economy, the economic burden of unions and union rules have made a lot of our industries unable to compete and that is why a lot of our manufacturing jobs have left the country.
I totally agree with Whipsmart13.Unions really don't do much of anything anymore. They certainly don't save jobs.
Spot on.
I grew up in West Virginia on the northern panhandle before my family moved to the west coast. When I compare the economic outlook in California to West Virginia, I can remember the people I grew up with.
I know racism exists but the West Virginia I remember always put a premium of good hard working people regardless of their ethnicity.
I do respect your argument that the status quo in corporate America is playing a role in the demonizing the idea that West Virginia's economic future is dependent on the coal industry.
West Virginia's economic future isn't dependent on the coal industry.
There are definitely "green job" opportunities that talented WV entrepreneurs couldn't speculate on.
When WV voted republican in 2000, I thought it was odd too but I didn't pay much mind to it because in 2000 I wasn't as politically active as I am now. And I can't help but strongly agree that jobs is what puts bread and bacon on the table and after the bread and bacon is on the table, if I know West Virginians the way I believe I do, the rest of the time is spent with family and friends.
All progressives should invest the energy to win the hearts and minds of the white working class and they need to invest in helping them to transition to the concept of progressive thinking.
We progressives may even learn something from the WV white working class.
"All progressives should invest the energy to win the hearts and minds of the white working class and they need to invest in helping them to transition to the concept of progressive thinking"
The progressives should invest with their own money then instead of other people's money if they see such a great market in green energy . . . .
The problem is the Green insdustry is nothing without massive Government involvement.
" know racism exists but the West Virginia I remember always put a premium of good hard working people regardless of their ethnicity."
I agree. The WV that I grew up in...I didn't see all of this racism especially in the poor coalfields of southern WV (McDowell County) where we ALL were in the same boat...blacks, jews, italians, poles, hungarians, brits, irish, and russians. My family all immigrated to the US from russia (jews) and england in the late 1800s and were "shipped" to WV from Ellis Island to work for the coal companies. In no way did my family believe were better than anyone else and I saw this all over the ethnic communities that I grew up around.
One other memory from my childhood was all of the "Vote Straight" signs every election year. For those outside of WV, those signs meant to vote straight Democrat and that is what has happened in WV for the past 60 years without any improvement to the welfare of the people. Instead, the state has become dependent on the government and the best and brightest have all left.
Scratch the rooster, as my grandaddy and daddy both used to say. I was stunned to see WV vote Republican, and I'm sure my grandaddy was spinning in his grave.
I always love the "green jobs" fallacy that these politcians talk about . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNjAielBBG0
Interesting stat from the article:
Solar energy receives $24.34 in federal subsidies per megawatt hour (MWh)
Wind receives $23.37 in federal subsidies per megawatt hour (MWh)
Natural gas receives $0.25 in federal subsidies per megawatt hour (MWh)
Nuclear power receives $1.59 in federal subsidies per megawatt hour (MWh)
"The CEOs who stood with Obama lead smart, innovative and, in many cases, rapidly growing firms. But green firms in the United States are small and employ relatively few people.
Applied Materials, one of the larger companies at the meeting and a producer of solar cells, employs 13,000 people worldwide and only 6,000 in the United States. Hara, a smaller company at the table, uses computer models to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Hara employs 30 people in the United States.
Moreover, data on production of green technologies globally show that the United States is becoming less competitive. Looking at the "green trade balance," or the balance of trade in goods for reducing pollution, increasing energy efficiency and producing renewable energy, the United States moved from a trade surplus of $14.4 billion in 1997 to a trade deficit of $8.9 billion in 2008."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/28/sherraden.green.jobs/index.html
"If the progressive movement put as much energy into advocating for a New Deal-style industrial policy as they have attacking and debunking the teabaggers, there wouldn't be teabaggers at these town hall meetings." I could not agree more with this statement. The coal industry is dead, its only a matter of time. We need to push other renewal sources and that can be done in places like WV. If we start now people there will have jobs, in the renewal power area, when coal ends. No reason we can't build wind turbines, solar panel etc in WV. Its going to take a massive government effort however, because of the resistance of the coal industry and people like Hannity, who don't give a damn about the people in WV just promoting his right wing agenda.
Hopefully WV voters will came back to the Democratic party and support renewal energy and ignore people like Hannity.
If the coal industry is dead, let it die on it's own and something new will emerge . . .
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