John Edwards at the press availability after the speech

As a strong Edwards supporter, it had not occurred to me that John Edwards might have a problem filling the Carpenters Union Hall. I badly wanted to see him speak here; naturally there would be many people like me. But early Saturday morning, at about 7:00 am waiting for the bus in single digit cold, I started to realize, “I am not a normal person.” Normal people don’t go out into the freezing morning cold to see a longshot presidential candidate; normal people sip their hot coffee in their warm living room watching morning TV. Better yet, normal people stay snuggled under warm blankets.

My fears were allayed when I arrived; there were already 30 people standing in line waiting for the doors to open 45 minutes later for a speech that wasn’t set to start until over 2 hours from then. That line quickly doubled and then tripled, and after doors opened, the room swelled with over 1000 people spilling into the foyer and into an overflow room in the back.  

A row of speakers warmed up the crowd. Alderman Stephen Gregali, St. Louis American City Editor Alvin Reid, State Senator Tim Green, State Senator Wes Shoemyer, House Minority Whip Connie Johnson, St. Louis Carpenters Council President Terry Nelson, and Lt. Gov. Joe Maxwell each in turn made fiery speeches almost equal in passion to John Edwards himself. The main points that came across were: “John Edwards can win a general election against even John McCain” and “John Edwards is a fighter for the middle class of America.” Rep. Connie Johnson made some of these points, but she emphasized the personal connection John Edwards has with Missouri, as he has come back to Missouri several times since 2004 to campaign for downticket Dems and for ballot initiatives like the minimum wage increase.

St. Louis American City Editor Alvin Reid after the speech

State Senator (and family farmer) Wes Shoemyer

Attorney General candidate Rep. Jeff Harris works the crowd. He is not endorsing a presidential candidate.

John Edwards himself did not disappoint. Making his way through a throng to the right of the stage, he took the stage to deafening applause. My colleague hotflash, who was also in attendance, made the following notes:

“I have never taken a DIME from a lobbyist or a special interest group.”

“When did our party become the party of big money? When did we become the party that takes money from drug companies? from insurance companies? from Washington lobyists? The candidate taking more money from Washington lobbyists, Democrat or Rep., is not a Rep. It is a Democrat. The dandidate taking more money from drug companies, Democrat or Rep., is not a Rep. It’s a Democrat. Let me just say this, as your candidate and your nominee for president, that will not be me.”

E referred to Obama’s praise of Reagan as pres of change.  Reagan is “no example for change.” He did “everything in his power to break the organized labor movement.” he changed the tax structure to favor the wealthy. he deregulated industry as far as environmental laws.

(I don’t think he actually used Obama’s name for the following, but the reference was clear.) “we don’t really have to fight. You know, if you’re good to these people, if you’re nice,” you can get along with them. You can’t “nice these people to death.”

E concerned re global warming. Americans 4 % world population, use 25 % of its energy. Wants national cap on cargon emissions and make polluters pay.

Unlike Cl. and Ob. “dead against” building more nuclear power plants” and against building more coal-fired plants until  technology to clean them up can be used.

He wants to ask Americans to be “patriotic about something other than war.”

We must conserve. You “can’t spend and innovate your way of of this problem.”

Wants to stand on White House lawn and actually say the word “union”.

Minimum wage is finally $7.25. Ought to be at least $9.50.

“The first year that I am president I will end this war in Iraq.” no more combat missions, no permanent bases

“Suppose we had a president that believed in the United States Constitution and the bill of rights.” He’d close Guantanamo. no more illegal spying on the Amer. people. “No more debate in America about what kind of torture is permissible.”

“NAFTA CAFTA and these kinds of trade policies, they exist only for the purpose of destroying Amer. jobs.” E would “close that tax loophole that gives tax breaks to Amer. cos. sending jobs overseas.”

Health care woman finds lump in breast. what is she supposed to do? There’s no chemotherapy in emergency rooms.

Exxon $40 billion profit last year–world record for any corp.

Health insur. co. exec made $200 million

Conclusion: His parents and grandparents would have done anything to give him the chance at a better life. Everyone in audience has experienced that. We must take the reins and offer that same possibility to our children and grandchildren.

For a fuller picture of the speech, this video of his speech the previous night in Oklahoma City is very similar:

All in all, it was an electric atmosphere. I got the feeling from talking to people in the crowd that the majority of them were already committed Edwards supporters, which led to an even more charged response than there otherwise would have been. The task now for the Edwards campaign is mobilize these people and use that energy to bring others on board.

Republican State Treasurer Sarah Steelman is sticking to her ethical guns and withholding tax incentives from an ethanol plant with investors who have first-degree ties to elected officeholders.  

If the relatives do not divest,and do so quickly, the rest of the stockholders will find themselves bearing the burden of millions of dollars in interest on loans written to get the Show Me Ethanol  plant operational.

A couple of years ago, Ms. Steelman issued a proclamation that she would not tolerate conflicts of interest and she would withhold state incentives from companies that did not comply.  A part of that proclamation was that no investor in any company petitioning for preferential treatment, such as below-market interest rates on economic development loans, can have investors with ties to elected officials.

Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?  

Somehow, though, that simple, straight-forward, easily understood, common-sense edict just clean evaded Missouri Congressman Sam Graves (MO 06) and uber-lobbyist Andy Blunt, the more-weaselly brother of our nefarious governor, Matt Blunt.

But it gets better.

Sam Graves “forgot” about the investment in Show Me Ethanol when he filed his congressional financial disclosure paperwork – until reporters started digging around in his investments.  Made aware of this development, his memory improved instantly, and he amended the paperwork two days before the story broke in Roll Call about Graves’ specious financial reporting.    

Just fifteen months ago, Sarah Steelman conditionally approved Show Me Ethanol to receive the below-market interest rates on loans for the development of the project, but when Steelman says “conditional” she means it.  

One of those conditions is the prohibition against elected officials having  connections to any investors who might benefit.  Incentives will be withheld if a company has a single investor who is a legislator, statewide elected official, director of any state department, or the parent, sibling, spouse or offspring of any of those officials.  

What can I say?  She takes conflict of interest seriously, and is having no part of it on her watch.  

Show Me Ethanol has been unable to comply.  That is because investors include the characters mentioned above, as well as Republican state representative John Quinn of Chillicothe and his wife, Mary.  

Graves mouthpiece, Jason Klindt, once cornered, tried to put a noble spin on it, saying that “She [Lesley Graves]  didn’t want Show Me to be held to some sort of different standards just because she was an investor.”  

Actually, I would take the opportunity and correct his willful dishonesty and point out that the company will enjoy a “special standard” –  once she and the other prohibited investors bow out – but until then, the company has to play by the same rules everyone else is bound by.  But he is a spin doctor, and just doing what spin-doctors do:  shining the most flattering light possible on every utterance and act.  And the pressure must be tremendous – his guy is facing a tough reelection battle, where he is being challenged by  former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes – a savvy politician with skills, name recognition and money.  In other words, for the first time since he slid into the seat in 2000, he is facing a real opponent – and she has a whole passel of supporters who will be pointing out all of his myriad ethical lapses for the next ten months.

Spin that, Jason.

Premium Standard Farms, Tyson, MoArk, Cargill, and Smithfield talk a good game. When they want permission to build processing plants and to contract with farmers to build CAFOs (contained animal feeding operations), the mantra they repeat to the community is: JOBS. We’ll bring lots of jobs. That’s a siren song in depressed rural areas.

And they are telling the truth. Sort of. Those processing plants need workers. Trouble is, as it always seems to turn out, farmers make lousy factory workers. Sure, some of them try it, but few last long at it. So the CAFOs come in, drive the independent hog farmers and chicken farmers out of existence, and then the farmers, many of them, end up migrating to the cities to look for work.

But you needn’t be concerned that those processing plants stand idle for lack of busy hands. Workers are easy to come by. In Premium Standard Farms plants, which are in Mercer, Putnam, and Sullivan counties on the central, northern border of the state, 55 percent of the workers–as of five years ago–had Hispanic surnames. The percentage might be higher now. Some of those workers are legal. Others ….

The beauty of hiring Latinos is that they don’t file suits with OSHA, they don’t complain, in fact many don’t speak English. I suppose you could call the turnover a downside: 125 percent in any given year. But big ag swats that difficulty aside with a steady supply of new workers. After all, the work requires no skill.

Ken Midkiff, my Sierra Club source for this posting, calls it a “confirmed rumor” that replacement workers are brought up from border towns like El Paso by the bus load. The drivers get $100 a head. Word gets around in places like Salinas, says Midkiff, and workers just show up looking for jobs.

They get paid maybe five or six bucks an hour, and the company provides their living accommodations, such as they are. Midkiff visited the housing that Tyson provides its workers in McDonald County, in the southwest corner of the state. He said that the company takes $50 a week out of the workers’ paychecks–that’s $200 a month–for Acorn trailers. Most of them had no electricity, running water or bathrooms. A few had natural gas.

The corporation can point out, though, that the primitive conditions are hardly its fault. Utility companies don’t like to turn on power for those trailers because of the high turnover rate. People leave and don’t pay the bill.

The farmers that sign contracts to raise the hogs and chickens aren’t all that much better off than the factory workers. CAFO owners have to build the barns and flush systems at their own expense to corporate specifications. The contract they sign stipulates what will be done on any given day and what days hogs will be picked up. The hogs must meet a weight standard or the corporation penalizes the farmer. The arrangement is so weighted in the company’s favor that the CAFO owner ends up being nothing more than a hog janitor.

The community at large fares no better than those directly tied to Smithfield, Cargill et.al. In fact, the larger community pays a considerable price, as I’ll explain in my next posting.

(“Broken Obelisk” at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, TX)

On this official holiday commemorating the birth and life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (his birthday was actually last Tuesday), it’s worthwhile to look at how far we have come since he was taken from us almost 40 years ago.

I was born in Louisiana, where most of my family still lives. My mother’s father is approximately the same age as Dr. King would have been. He still tells me tales transmitted to him from his elders that grew up in the direct aftermath of the Civil War, tales of the War of Northern Aggression, tales of a noble South kept down by its jealous brother to the north, tales of an African population well kept by their masters (because it was only in slaveholders’ interest to give the greatest care to their property.) Even though he still holds the same views as he did growing up in the segregated South, in his lifetime, we’ve seen not only the legal barriers lifted from former slaves to the same rights as their former masters, we’ve seen a changing of attitudes.  

For example, in 1958, only 4% of Americans approved of marriage between whites and blacks, while 94% disapproved. By 1968, the year of King’s assassination, that split was 20-73. By 1983, it was 43-5, and now the number is 79-15. When the Supreme Court recently restricted using race as a factor in assigning schools in a case of voluntary integration by an elected school board, a majority of Americans disapproved.

Attitudes on Dr. King himself have changed, too. As Rick Perlstein notes, at the time of his assassination, conservative figures as prominent as Ronald Reagan (then governor of California) essentially blamed King’s violent death on his own doctrine of civil disobedience: “the great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they’d break.” Holy dogwhistle, Batman! 15 years later, Reagan, pressured by congressional Democrats, signed the bill making MLK Day a federal holiday. Now conservatives regularly invoke King as a great man, even calling him a conservative!

What we need to remember is that even though we have come so far, we still have a long way to go, as any one who has paid attention to the Sherman George situation in St. Louis can tell you. In America as in Missouri, people of color are more likely to live in poverty, live without health care, and die at a younger age. African Americans have an average of about $6000 in assets, while the average white family has about $80,000. We’re still a ways from realizing Martin Luther King’s dream, and as we commemorate Dr. King’s legacy, we should remember that he struggled immensely along with millions of others to get what he got, and that struggle has got to continue.

(Inscription on MLK Statue in Fountain Park, St. Louis. Photo courtesy of Flickr User I Love North St. Louis )