Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
West VA Lawmaker 'Worried' About HS Students' Single-Payer Tee-Shirts
The Journal of Martinsburg, WV is reporting today:
Students’ T-shirts raise concerns
By Jamie West / Journal Staff WriterBERKELEY SPRINGS - West Virginia Delegate Daryl Cowles, R-Morgan, has expressed concern that eight Berkeley Springs High School students recently wore Single Payer Action T-shirts, saying he is worried that the small form of protest could escalate into something more.
The shirts say "Single Payer Action. Everybody in. Nobody out," on the front and "What would Jesus do? Single payer health care for all. Everybody in. Nobody out," on the back.
Cowles said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening that the wearing of T-shirts by students was one thing - but the history of Single Payer Action and its organizer, Berkeley Springs resident Russell Mokhiber, made him believe that there could be more to it than a simple addition to the students' daily wardrobe.
"It's one thing for kids to wear a T-shirt, as long as it stays like that," Cowles said.
Cowles said Mokhiber has been arrested on a prior occasion due to his disruption at a U.S. Senate hearing on health care reform after requesting the single-payer option have a "seat at the table," and he had to be stopped by Town of Bath police after attempting to interview U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., on health care after a Berkeley Springs Streetscape ribbon-cutting ceremony. A video on the group's Web site, www.singlepayeraction.org, shows the attempted interview from Mokhiber's video camera.
Cowles echoed those concerns in an e-mail he sent out to some of his constituents, which was forwarded to The Journal.
In the e-mail, Cowles describes the T-shirt wearing as a "political protest" that would be occurring despite school policy.
"The debate over big government health care, big government taxes, big government control, and big government deficits....has no place in our school learning enviornment (sic) ...," the e-mail says.
"Russell must have enlisted some high school students to carry out this effort. I expect he is looking to make some news when his student protestors are asked not to wear the shirts," the e-mail says.
During the phone interview, Cowles said that he sent the message because he had received many calls from people concerned that the group would become disruptive around the school, and he had "full confidence in the school and their administrators that they would be able to decipher what is and isn't a violation of school policy."
One recipient of the forward sent out a second mass e-mail requesting that those concerned "call the school and school board and send (Superintendent of Morgan County Schools) Dave Banks an email to make sure this is stopped before it gets started."
A telephone message to Banks seeking comment was not returned as of presstime.
Mokhiber said in an interview earlier this week that the students' actions were more of a "promotion" than a protest or demonstration.
Cowles said he personally knows some of the students involved through his daughter, who attends the school, and they are good kids. He also said that the shirts lead into a "great discussion" for the school to have.
However, Cowles said he knows the confrontational history of the group, and hoped that it would steer clear of disrupting the school day.
"Russell is a fine fellow, but he is a professional organizer," Cowles said. "His group just doesn't have a good track record."
Single Payer Action is a nonprofit group based out of Washington, D.C., that is in support of H.R. 676, a single-payer health care system.
62 Comments so far
Show AllIt is not protest. It is political advocacy.
"he is worried that the small form of protest could escalate into something more."
Gee, I can only hope so.
Ditto
He's worried that the t-shirts might get people thinking about what a corporate weasel he is.
Ditto to that. I've been reading comments on another forum where young people are a bit miffed about the fact that they are not being allowed in expanded Medicare that might happen in the current bill. I hope their message catches on like wildfire.
It's one of the things our schools should be teaching. What they really teach, along with boring curriculum, is not to make waves.
Yep. How to shut up and obey authority. How to be peasants.
If we are not going to do anything about taxpayer money being given away to the richest 1% we had damn well better be getting used to being peasants.
I have been a peasant all my life so far, by choice. I would rather die than be a peasant for the enrichment of anybody who can grab enough power to make me one.
If we are not going to do anything about taxpayer money being given away to the richest 1% we had damn well better be getting used to being peasants.
-------------------------------
You got that one right! (as usual)
Thank you.
So this "Radical" being referred to actually tried to INTERVIEW a politician while using a Video camera?
How dare he!!
The peasants MUST learn their place. The rulers need not discuss anything with the common people. Only "JOurnalists" that are pre-approved and ask questions from a pre-approved list should be allowed to "Interview" a politician.
The Police were right when they arrested this miscreant and Mr Cowles is quite correct. If the youth of the USA are under the impression they can ask questions of their rulers, this must be stopped at ALL Costs.
I've watched these videos on the Single Payer Action site. The politicians look like the insensitive a-holes they are.
Schools claim to teach students both "critical thinking skills" and an understanding of Constitutional liberty.
Then students are taught by life experience that you better not exercise either your mind nor your First Amendment rights.
Joe
Single prayer? Rx: Single-payer!
Perfect recipe!
"'The debate over big government health care, big government taxes, big government control, and big government deficits....has no place in our school learning enviornment (sic) ...,' the e-mail says."
As a former high-school debate coach, I find this statement to be ignorant and dangerous.
Would Cowles prefer that the students resort to violence instead of reasoned discussion?
Of course, we all realize that Cowles is looking for money - or more money - from the healthcare-insurance industry and sees the squelching of free expression as a means toward that end.
q
Cowles should be automatically stripped of his office, salary, and pension, and forbidden from ever holding another office of public trust. He clearly does not understand or respect his duty.
Cowles is a typical republican nitwit. If you don't teach your kids about how to get the GD gov't to actually listen to you when you're young, they will NEVER learn, And that is EXACTLY what he and his asshole party WANT. They WANT a country where scum like himself and his buddies can do whatever they want and NEVER be called on it.
It's like Michael Medved (another ass) on the Ed show yesterday, asking "what's the big hurry to get something passed?". Why not ask that same question to the 40,000 Americans who will die this coming year for lack of health care? And BTW, it was 1913 when single payer was first proposed and shot down. Isn't 100 years long enough to wait?
How about if we just take away the health care from every rich SOB in the country and let them fend for themselves WITHOUT a dime to their names?
Cowles should get on his knees and apologize to these kids for trying to get rid of these kid's futures and learning experiences, let alone trying to keep them in poverty and illness for the rest of their lives.
Your viewpoint is too narrow. It's not a party issue, it's a class one. He and members of his class (or the class he desperately wants entry into) are the ones who want a subservient peasantry. They aren't all GOP. Many, many are Dems.
Class . . . the word that dare not be said by politicians.
Yep! It's the most pathetic sort of superstition: "don't speak of the devil or he's sure to appear".
I think that it's far better seen as a NO CLASS issue. Anyone who has such views as this idiot have NO CLASS.
I've been quite aware of the rich and their hatred of the rest of us for decades. And I don't consider there to BE a democratic party anymore. It USED to stand for humans and what they needed. Now, just like the repubs, they are only interested in money and what IT wants. The dems moved to the right, the repubs went off the cliff of sanity and now there is NO party for the humans in the country. The dems ARE the old republican party.
And I've also been aware of the class war the rich declared on the rest of us without telling anyone. That is why I have wanted to beat senseless those like Trent Lott who say "You're trying to start a class war". No, idiot, I'm just recognizing the one that YOU people started over 25 years ago. I saw Reagan shoot that first broadside and I knew back then that we were in DEEP shit as a country. And I got called all kinds of very unflattering things for pointing it out to others for many years.
I still think it's a NO CLASS situation.
"The debate over big government health care, big government taxes, big government control, and big government deficits....has no place in our school learning enviornment (sic)...or big government repression, for that matter. I was in high school from the fall of '68 through May of '72. I went to a private, Catholic school, now heralded as conservative. At the time I was there, both religious and lay teachers actively engaged us in debate over the issues of the day. One such instance was a group of junior and senior boys, all approaching draft age. Some were in favor of the draft, some were not. They said their piece(s), we discussed the positions, and off we all went. No shouts, no arguments. Although I wasn't then, a very good crop of forward-thinking, progressive seeds were planted in my little brain. 18 year-olds got the vote back then, and my first vote was Democratic. We were taught to think for ourselves - which no longer happens in private or public schools.
I was in high school during the 1964 election between Johnson and Goldwater.
We didn't simply have discussions. We were encouraged to organize on campus to support the candidate of our choice. We ran campaigns including posters and public announcements. We had assemblies where chosen students debated the issues in the election. Finally, we had a mock "election."
What highlights the contrast between that time and the present is the fact that I grew up in an extremely conservative town in south Florida. Of course, convservatives at that time were true conservatives; they had not yet been transformed by Reagan into corporate acolytes.
q
Very good point about true conservatives versus these corporate whores.
Were third party campaigns and votes allowed?
I don't recall a significant third party that year. George Wallace wouldn't split off from the Dems until '68.
There were none included in our mock election, though.
q
That's what I meant, the mock election. In our high school we also held mock elections, and no one even thought about third parties back then.
That's funny. I started a new party, the "Fair-Go Party", during the 1972 Federal election between Gough Whitlam and little Billie McMahon. I was encouraged by my teachers, and worked hard developing a platform, and enlisted the aid of others in printing and handing out leaflets. When parts of the school did (a mock) vote on election day, I did carry the vote. I suspect this was more out of "being a local", than some greybeard in another city none of my fellow students had ever met.
It wasn't Davie, was it?
Cowles is more worried about the students thinking than 'protesting'. Mr. Mokhiber's protests have been gentle affairs and the only people who should be afraid of him are those who fall into what Twain called a "distinctly native American criminal class": Congress. These 'public servants' serve only themselves and America's soulless corporate aristocracy.
@CAD, The term 'Corporate weasel' is highly demeaning to weasels.
So true.
"The debate over big government health care, big government taxes, big government control, and big government deficits....has no place in our school learning enviornment (sic) ...," the e-mail says."
Where else does it belong then? I remember in high school we had a Government class, and a Debate class.
MBK said, "Where else does it belong then? I remember in high school we had a Government class, and a Debate class."
Well obviously it belongs safely within the production offices of the media military pharmacutical industrial complex televised conglomerated brain wash spin machine... so that any public debate which threatens corporate profits can be prempted by "news" at 8.
Duh!
Cowles is probably most upset about connecting Jesus to the Single Payer movement. It's unthinkable to the neoconservative zealot that Jesus could be ever be associated with anything like Progressive Morality-"the morality of empathy and responsibility, for oneself and others. Others, because life is interdependent; 'no man is an island.' Translated into policy, that moral view defines two roles for government: protection and empowerment." (The Logic of the Healthcare Debate, A Rockridge Institute Report, October 18, 2007 by George Lakoff, Eric Haas, Glenn W. Smith, Scott Parkinson)
The idea that people should hide their religion so as not to offend anybody is appalling. Drawing the line at "discreet" displays of religion like allowing necklaces with a cross is not the same as allowing purda, which is not so discreet but essential to some Muslims' belief systems. If Jesus inspires these kids to want something for the benefit of others, more power to them. Just don't force me to display or to hide my own religion, thank you.
Tell you what, I won't attack you or try to do the work of God and judge your soul as doomed if you'll pay me the same respect. Those kids are free to wear their Jesus shirts, as far as I'm concerned.
What should happen is that churches should be required to just start paying taxes for any non-humanitarian, political functions including recruiting parties, trips and meetings whether they are fundraising parties or not. Tax the event expenses but not the funds raised if they are raised and used for humanitarian 501c3 functions. If people are going to use the convenient gathering space and sense of community in a church to promote various political agendas and to plan protests and other activities, then at those times they are not engaged in 501c3 activities. Tax income of church-employed leaders when they are leading activites with political agendas. If they are going to claim they are not doing it as a religious activity per se, or "not as church members but as community members," then they are lying and they know it, and should just stop being squirrelly about it. Just own up to it and start paying taxes. It's not as though we don't NEED the taxes for our own domestic humanitarian purposes...
But at school, impose a dress code and the kids will eventually overthrow it, this year or the next. Either provide uniforms or allow individual choice. Next thing you know some kid will show up at school in a "Hope" t-shirt, heaven forbid.
"Those kids are free to wear their Jesus shirts, as far as I'm concerned."
What would Muhammad do?
What would Buddah do?
What would Abraham do?
All the same as Jesus I believe.
This is not a religious issue per se, and some seem to be pushing in that direction.
What would any living, breathing, logical, compassionate human being do?
One minute - Abraham would have killed them, if told to do so by some authority figure.
Joe
Good point. With apologies to Bob Dylan, "Abe said where do you want this killin' done, and God said out on Highway 61".
The idea that people should hide their religion so as not to offend anybody is appalling.
------------------------------------
I'd disagree. There's nothing wrong with bodily functions or sex, either, except among the terminally dismayed, but we don't accept that their performance should be allowed in public.
So why should sectarian religiosity, which has caused more interpersonal horror than sex or bodily functions ever have or could, be exempt from being classed as a private-only function?
See, there IS hope...it'll just take time for kids like this to get into government.
The only thing I'd change is the back of the T-shirt, to say "What Would Jesus CHARGE?"
When I was in highschool I had a "Divest Now" t-shirt, an "End Apartheid" t-shirt, an Om-symbol t-shirt, a yin-yang t-shirt, and a Native American Medicine Wheel t-shirt, all of which I wore to school without incident.
Did you have a "Thank GOD I'm stoned!" T-shirt?
q
Given his line of "reasoning," I wonder where Cowles went to school and what grades did he get? And it's no wonder West Virginians are having their state destroyed by mountain-top removal when they elect people like Cowles.
Daryl Cowles, R-Morgan wrote "The debate over big government health care, big government taxes, big government control, and big government deficits....has no place in our school learning enviornment (sic) ..."
I wonder what he has to say about military recruiting booths in schools?
The military recruiting booths in schools are different. They're not part of the liberal socialist agenda.
As for everything else listed, it should all be part of the learning environment in the schools. How else are the students going to learn the workings of the government that runs their country?
Go students. You rock!
Shadre
oh, I see, and the public option is part of the radical right wing Christian cult's social agenda?
I am one of the kids who is participating in this event, and i just wanted to thank you all for supporting us in this endeavor! Cowles has started to back down as he realizes what a big hole he's digging himself into. Also, in response to the Religious aspect. None of the kids wearing these shirts are very religious, if religious at all. Our point was to point out to the right-winged conservatives in our school that if Jesus was here now, wouldn't he take care of everyone. The undeniable answer is yes.
Well done! Do please join us here, all of you, if you have the time and inclination. You sound like you might be the kind of younger adults that the world desperately needs. And I do really mean *desperately*.
Well, it's great what you kids are doing. Your courage and determination and willingness to stand up for what is right gives us hope that America may not be a lost cause just yet. God bless you and keep up the great work!
*snork* He really is crawfishing, isn't he. He must have been visited by the Ghost Of Elections Yet To Come.
-------------------------------------------
BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. (AP) - A Morgan County delegate has tempered his concern over high school students wearing T-shirts with messages about federal health care legislation.
Republican Daryl Cowles sent an e-mail to constituents saying that eight Berkeley Springs High School students recently wore T-shirts made by the group Single Payer Action.
The Washington, D.C. based-group wants medical insurance for all Americans. Its founder, Russell Mokhiber, is a Berkeley Springs resident.
In his e-mail, Cowles said debate over the issue has no place in schools.
Now, though, he says the students are "good kids" and the shirts provide a good opportunity for discussion in school.
Cowles says he was initially worried that the shirts would escalate into more disruptive forms of action.