BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Sep 07 - 01:04 AM

Janie - That was interesting. I was 5.4 - my biggest jump was in transportation, and I was penalized for living in a rural area.

                It points out to me that the world would be a less friendly place if everyone consumed like Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 15 Sep 07 - 08:51 PM

From America Public Media, an interactive game that gives a rough indication of how many 'earths' it would take if every person on earth lived and consumed like "you."

Consumer Consequences:What would the world be like if everyone lived like me

My own score was 3.7 earths, and was a bit higher than others who have played with similar demographics. This is definitely a game, and not a refined tool to assess one's 'footprint', but it is still food for thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Sep 07 - 10:39 AM

Yesterday Tony Snow announced that the administration "misjudged" the opposition to what they are calling "immigration reform." He said the opposition came from the "extreme right" and the "populist left."
                  I think it's the populist left he refers to that has yet to make a footprint in the mainstream media.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 06:49 AM

Ebbie - I don't disagree with what you are saying about doing small things to make a difference, but there are other things one can do as well.
                      You talk about voting. Yes, of course people should vote, and at this very moment in time there is a debate going on that would have a dramatic effect on North America going forward. It's the issue of immigration. Those of us who support curtailing immigration advocate--I think rightly--that such a move would greatly help the environment.
                      A voter like myself, who would happily support Dennis Kucinich in every other issue on the table, finds himself/herself in a deep quandary when the only people who seem to favor limiting immigration are right-wing Republicans.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 11:46 PM

Assuming of course, one has at their immediate disposal the means to do so. And if one doesn't, then one can at least do something else to nudge the paradigm in the desired direction.

I don't think we are disagreeing with one another, Riginslinger. But I am very tired of listening to people moan and groan (myself included at times), and point fingers at the politicans and the corporations without a single look at ourselves and all the big and small ways we contribute to the problems. Unless we are willing to do that, we will not take personal ownership for solving our personal piece of the problems.

If we think that we must start with reducing world population, (and I am simply using this as an example)which is beyond the power of most of us individually, the tendency is to sit on our hands, blame 'them' and do nothing.

The only thing I know absolutely I have the power to change is myself. I am a component in these vast and complex social systems. If I change, the system(s) change. If I examine my own choices about my thermostat setting, where and how far I drive, where I shop, what I buy, I am likely to change at least some of those choices. If I am willing to examine my assumptions about necessity vs. convenience, if I am willing to take a long hard look at what I tend to believe I am entitled to, (whether or not I actually have those 'entitlements'), then I am likely to change some of my assumptions and beliefs, and therefore make different choices.

If I do these things, I will truly understand that I am an effective change agent, and that I am never powerless.

Apathy and entropy are the products of perceived powerlessness. People fail to perceive their power from both ignorance AND choice. Our low voter turnouts are testimony to the huge number of people who either do not see or who choose to ignore their personal power(i.e. responsibility.) Major changes in policies never occur ahead of major changes in the thinking and actions of a significant number of the individuals who make up a society or civilization. Changes in those individuals will occur much more quickly when they assume full ownership of their own thoughts and actions in their own lives. If I perceive 'doing my part' as primarily consisting of trying to change what others do, while largely ignoring my own footprint, I may or may not acheive any measure of success at changing the world for 'good'. On the otherhand, even if I never, ever do one thing to try to directly effect change in others, never vote, never make any direct attempt to change public policy or the opinions or actions of my neighbor or my aunt, but I do make changes in my own personal lifestyle choices, I absolutely know that what I do will change the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 03:50 PM

Janie,

          I agree that there is no one place to start. But if one looks at human population growth as a fire out of control, as I do, than the first thing one needs to do is to try to contain it.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 12:25 PM

I also agree that population growth is a big piece of the picture. Significant decrease in population growth (or population, period) would effect major and rapid change. It is easy to identify major single components or points in any system that, if changed, quickly effect the system in significant ways.   

However, there is no one place to start. The smallest change anywhere at all in a system will eventually lead to change of the entire system. Add, remove or move any single component of any system and the system will do 'something' to seek homeostasis.

The myth that what we do as individuals in the context of the minutia of our own lives is insignificant is useful on both the macro and the micro level. On the macro level, it supports whatever the societal status quo happens to be. On the individual level, it is a very effective way to avoid accepting complete responsibility for our choices, especially from even from recognizing that we are making choices. It keeps us in our 'comfort zone' and allows us to live relatively undisturbed by that cognitive dissonance noted by Reich.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 11:01 AM

It is all of "us." I agree completely, and they are part of us. I'm not blaming anything on immigrants--though I'll admit, Tancrdo is--but it's just the shear numbers of people that compose the larger problem.

               Bill Richardson, I would suggest, would be the least best choice. I would do anything to keep him out of power.

               There are two components to this problem, though. One being the numbers of people, and the other being people in developed nations turning into super-consumers. Encouraging people to come here from under developed countries does nothing to reduce the populations in the countries they come from. In fact, many of them send money back and make the problem worse.
               The other problem is, once the immigrant is here and finds a job, it doesn't take too long for that individual to become a super-consumer himself/herself.

                Taking a rational position on immigration offends the sensibilities of a lot of people. But the facts are the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:42 AM

I have a bumper sticker that's been on my car since 2004. It says "Build Democrary - VOTE" and I do, as do all all of my children and family.

Tancredo is way too extreme for me. On the other hand, Bill Richardson has some very good plans on the issues of the day, including the environment. Living in a state full of immigrants from Mexico, I do not see them destroying any virgin resources or otherwise. They may have jobs with the big companies which are, esp. the oil companies, BUT it is not their being here, working, which encourages those companies to rape our land. It is all of us, the administration on down to each and everyone of us. We have to do the little things to bring about change. Blaming it on immigrants is just too easy, though it has been a common thing throughout our nation's history.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:27 AM

kat - I agree there are small things we can do, but one of the things we all have to do is vote.

                  The dilemma is see shaping up now is, all of the announced Democratic candidates for president want to throw open the gates to immigrants. That's the most disasterous thing you can do if you're concerned about saving virgin resources. Some Republican candidates would curtail immigration, but nothing else they do would protect resources. When I weigh this out, I'm motivated to support Tom Tancredo.
                  There are Democrats out there who see the perils of unchecked population growth, like Jon Tester and Byron Dorgan, but they aren't running.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:05 AM

I agree about the population, etc., BUT we each have to do simple, small things in our own lives regardless in order to bring about beneficial changes, too. As Janie said, these things may seem small, but collectively they add up just like the "widow's mite" in the Bible. An example, about ten years ago, we switched all of our light bulbs out to the fluorescent ones which last so much longer and use less energy. It doesn't seem like much and that's not all we do, but it still helps. Here in Colorado, we can choose through our energy company to opt for power through alternative sources. It's a little more expensive, but it helps.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 09:07 AM

Janie - I think we really got on this fast-track to self destruction in the 1980's, when an economic model was put forward that demanded continuing growing markets to abosrb mulit-faceted products in ever greater numbers. All of this put enormous
pressures on resources and spurred the pursuit and development of new resources.
             All of that, in turn, demanded growing markets and the cycle is endless.
             That's the way I interpreted the Robert Reich argument.
The thing that seems so inconsistent to me are all of the folks who argue against the growing consumerism, but who fail to recognize that human population growth is a very huge part of the growing consumerism. Human migration is a necessary component of population growth, and they would deny that too.
             I think if one is to set out to solve the problem, the place to start would be with world wide population growth along with a closly checked process of human migration.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 01:29 AM

Riginslinger,

Of course turning ourselves around is a huge undertaking. But it still needs done. And it can be done. Change happens. Paradigms shift, sometimes oh...so...slowly. But shift they do. And there are so many, many small choices each of us as individuals can and do make to nudge one paradigm or another along. In human society, noticable, large scale changes may appear to some to occur rather suddenly. But that 'sudden' shift occurs only as the result of countless micro-nudges by and within individuals. Often, the first people to start nudging are long dead before most people notice any movement at all.

We are all change agents, whether we realize it or not. When we accept that, and try to be as conscious as possible of all the ways we are change agents, we are much less likely to nudge forward by one choice, and then nudge backward by another.

Last night I attended a Parent-Staff Association meeting at the Quaker school my son attends. One of the Upper School teachers spoke about several of the end-of-year service trips he had taken kids on over the years, and a key lesson most kids seem to learn from these experiences about change and the interrelationsip between the individual and the 'community' to effect change for good in the world. They learn they can only do their part, but that their part matters. All they may get done, working with the villagers, is the foundation dug out with shovels, and the footers poured one bucket of concrete at a time. They learn to have faith that others will come to help after them, the villagers will continue to work, and the building will get built. The students didn't build the building. They had to trust that others would continue to do their own parts after the students left. They learn that many people - a community of people - each doing their own part, can build a building.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 12:05 AM

Janie, you are such an eloquent and important writer. Your piece should be submitted to NPR and they should air it, with you reading it. If they did that, coupled with one of Jean's songs and comments from both of you, it would be a shining moment in broadcast radio, imo.

As I read your words, I know the country you speak of was the home of some of my ancestors and I shake my head in sadness knowing it hasn't been what they knew and lived in for a long, long time. I also remember riding through parts of Colorado with the same kinds of mining encampments left over from gold and coal mining, with the tipples and slag all round. Heck my first husband and I used to drive out to a small coal mine, back our truck up and have the operator fill it to burn in our little stove for heating. When I was a kid, we lined the potholes of our driveway with "clinkers"...the leftover slag in our furnace which had to be cleaned out everyday, after we'd filled the hopper with coal. We had coal dust all over our window sills, etc. and I remember mom complaining about it being so hard to keep the house clean. I was a kid and didn't think a thing of it, except I liked filling the coal bucket, then dumping it in the hopper and cleaning out the red-hot clinkers. We never thought a thing of what we were breathing back then.

It's a strange old world. I hope we can all find ways to really change our lifestyles, as you say...the next generations need us to do that and need us to help them learn better ways of living.

Mitakuye Oyasin (We are all related.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 11:48 PM

I guess it depends on whether you're the taker or the take-ee, and if you have any regrets.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Peace
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 05:53 PM

Right, Rig. That's obvious. And that's the problem, isn't it!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 04:11 PM

Peace - The answer is obvious. Adjusting for inflation, if you're going to make more money, you'll just have to take it away from somebody else.

             Janie - I heard the Teri Gross interview, and agree with everything Robert Reich had to say. The problem is, and he made that case very well, doing something to turn things around is a very huge undertaking.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 01:02 AM

Janie, I missed your posting, sorry! Will read it in the morning, as I am off t'bed right now. I heard the Reich interview also and it was BRILL! More later, darlin'.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Peace
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 11:16 PM

It stands to reason for people who wish to see it.

We live on a planet that has finite resources, finite money. The only way to get more money in the hands of people is to make more money or have fewer people. We are taking what we can from the planet right now, and have been for decades. So, increasing the take isn't in the cards.

Posit that there are $1000 for each man, woman and child on the planet. How are ya gonna change that?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 11:04 PM

The World Without Us Another on my 'must read' list that is related to some of the discussion here.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: GUEST,Janie
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 10:58 PM

I was surprised that the reactions or responses to my last two posts here amounted to a deafening silence. I might have expected that elsewhere, but not here on generally progressive Mudcat. Maybe the way I express myself discourages discussion. But Robert Reich, in his new book Supercapitalism may say it much better than do I. I heard him interviewed tonight by Terry Gross and found myself thinking, "Exactly!" listen here, Fresh Air.

He is talking about consumerism & investment at the expense of citizenry, and not the environment, but it is all of a piece. Briefly, he asserts that by our choices to be more powerful as consumers and investors (think 401k), we have sacrificed our citizenry, and are for the most part able to comfortably ignore the cognitive dissonance between lamenting low wages, unemployment and affordable health care and choosing low prices and high returns on investments.

This book is going on my 'must read' list.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 04 Sep 07 - 03:59 PM

I think that's the song where they bring in "the world's biggest shovel."

            I thought the turn of phrase: "I'm sorry my son, you're too late in askin'," really did something for the song somehow.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Sep 07 - 02:44 PM

John Prine may not use much more than 3 chords, but he is a lyrical genius. His tunes get in there and stay there too.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Sep 07 - 02:11 AM

"Paradise"

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 04 Sep 07 - 02:04 AM

It is the same John Prine song referenced below, Riginslinger, "Paradise"

It is a good'un.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 04 Sep 07 - 12:16 AM

Which John Prine song is it where he wants to go back to Muehlenberg County, but he can't because "he's too late in askin'," because Mr. Peadbody's coal train has hauled it away?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 03 Sep 07 - 11:34 PM

The West Virginia Turnpike, now part of I-77 & I-64, cuts through the heart of the southern mountains of West Virginia. Before it was brought up to interstate standards (beginning about 1976) it was a two lane road with short truck-passing lanes up the steepest grades. It took about 2 1/2 hours to traverse the 88 miles it ran between Charleston and Princeton. A. James Manchin, a former crackpot WV Secretary of State, referred to it as "that piece of hell that hasn't burned up yet." My Dad, on the other hand, could immediately end complaints about driving the Turnpike with,"If you don't want to drive the Turnpike, you can always take U.S. 119."

What I remember most about Turnpike trips when I was still a girl are two things; One was the wooden coal tipples jutting out near the tops of the hills marking deep mines. Mom would point them out to us, telling us that Granddaddy Cooper (my great grandfather) and Uncle William worked at the tipples when she was a girl. The other memory was of the huge, burning piles of coal slag, the rubble from the deep mines, dumped uncermonously at regular intervals at the heads hollers below the mines. The Turnpike passed right by them. They constantly breathed smoke and fumes. Apparently they could burn for years. There were acres of ghostly gray skeletons of trees on the mountain slopes behind them, slain by the deadly caress of the toxic smoke and fumes that rose from the smoldering coal leavings. Depending on the wind and weather, traffic on the Turnpike would slow to a crawl as cars made their way through the dense shroud of smoke. When we passed by the slag piles at night, I remember being filled with dreadful fascination at the sight of the low flames that flickered over the surface. Environmental protection wasn't even in our West Virginia lexicon in those days, and I had no ecopolitical thoughts about them. I just could see that they were awful. I wondered what it must be like to live in one of those coal camps just down the holler another few hundred yards. I wondered if children were allowed to play outside.

Until the Turnpike was built, the slag piles were "out of sight and out of mind" to anyone not working in a coal mine. I don't know, but can imagine, that the exposure of these noxious mounds to the greater public, (including the many out-of-state travellers who previously had driven around southern WV to get south) was an important first step in bringing public awareness to the environmental and human health problems associated with coal mining in general, and especially with irresponsible practices. It was a long, fierce environmental battle, but eventually the slag piles disappeared.

(When I was little, our driveway, like many others in West Virginia, was gravelled with a pretty rock called 'red dog,' that was the end result of a fully burned-out slag pile. I haven't seen or heard of 'red dog' in many, many years.)

When strip mining really began to expand, the State and the coal industry, having learned from the Turnpike experience, took some pains to keep the strip mines largely out of view from main travel routes. But mountain top removal is not so easy to conceal. I just got back this evening from a trip up the Turnpike to visit my parents. While the full scope of MTR is not visible from the Turnpike, I could definitely get glimpses of some of the sites. I also saw numerous billboards, most of them sponsored by 'Friends of Coal,'and was astounded by the amount of advertising and propaganda the coal industry is paying for on local television.

WVU's season opener against Western Michigan was on the tube when we arrived at my parents. The broadcast featured commentator Don Nehlen, the deified retired WVU football coach who is now a spokesman for Friends of Coal, as well as the current governor, relentlessly sounding their horns for the coal industry. Money talks.

There are a few more jobs and a little less poverty in WV right now as opposed to 2 years ago that can be attributed to Bush's willingness to sacrifice the environment to profits. Make no mistake, the improvement in profits that go into the pockets of the few far outstrips any corresponding improvement in the number of jobs, or in increased wages deriving those profits. Jobs win votes.

Forget Florida. If West Virginia's 5 electorial votes had gone to Gore instead of Bush in 2000, Gore would have been president. 2000 was only the 2nd time since the Great Depression that WV went Republican for a 1st term Republican. Gore lost WV because of his strong environmental stance, and the environmental movement's failure (inability, perhaps) to provide plausible economic alternatives to the environmental destruction caused by both the extraction and the burning of fossil fuels to regions like WV, in particular, and the American people in general.

In general, I think the American people want a cleaner, safer environment. But the American wealthy, and the American middle class (what remains of it) are not willing to give up anything to get that cleaner, safer environment. We want something for nothing. We want others to sacrifice, but are not willing to respond in equal measure. By all means, lobby for protection of the environment. Vote environmental. But if that is all you are willing to do, know that it is not enough. If and when enough of us are willing to radically change our lifestyles, to significantly reduce our expectations about what is an adequate standard of living, to live modestly in very real, tangible ways by choice for the sake of the earth and for others now living as well as for future generations, then, it is possible that the earth and our grandchildren may have a chance.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: DebC
Date: 03 Sep 07 - 05:10 PM

Hey Cruz,

Thanks for the compliment. Ronnie Gilbert! That's a new one and I am honoured.

Deb Cowan
www.DebraCowan.com

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: GUEST,Cruz
Date: 03 Sep 07 - 03:48 PM

DebC

Thank you for those links. Your beautiful, sonorous, traditional voice is reminiscent of Ronnie Gilbert, one of my all-time favorite songstresses.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: DougR
Date: 03 Sep 07 - 03:01 PM

Gee thanks, Greg F. What a dreary life I would have if I could not look forward to reading your insults from time to time.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: DebC
Date: 03 Sep 07 - 03:00 PM

In 2004, my recording label, Falling Mountain Music
released a compilation recording titled
Moving Mountains: Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal Coal . This recording is still available and most of the proceeds from sales of "Moving Mountains" go to non-profit organizations helping mining communities threatened or destroyed by MTR (Mountain Top Removal), including the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Coal River Mountain Watch.

Deb Cowan
www.DebraCowan.com

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: GUEST,Cruz
Date: 03 Sep 07 - 02:50 PM

Geoff said "War against Terra". As in Terra Firma...Excellent wit.

I have been fighting mountain top removal through groups for over 2 years. I saw the situation personally as a government employee while attending a seminar in West Virginia.

Janie, I am sorry for what is happening in them West Ginny hollars. All my maternal kainfolk comes from them deep dark hollars of Tennessee, many of which were flooded by the TVA. West Virginia is such beautiful country and flying over the area now is depressing.

Arnie, 'Paradise' is a neat, prophetic song. The destruction was also exemplified in the Bill Monroe fiddle tune 'Jerusalem Ridge' when I viewed a video of similar destruction in that country.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Sep 07 - 09:44 PM

"the shrub or whomever is in office can have a great impact on society and its attitudes as a whole..."


                   I was just thinking the other day how nobody would even be paying attention to Iraq if Georgie hadn't decided to go in there in the first place.

                   Imagine where we'd be if all of those resources had been spent on a number of really important problems.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 01 Sep 07 - 01:35 AM

I agree, Kat. But pointing the finger at 'them' is a useful way to avoid responsibility for ourselves. More importantly, it diverts our attention from figuring out how to be truly effective.

If not for 'pregnant chads', Gore may have been president for 4 years, but it is unlikely he would have won a 2nd term, simply because we liberals refuse to grapple with the inherent short term conflict between 'economic prosperity' and protection of the environment.

What we need in this country is for some one to stand up and acknowledge that we can not 'have it all.' And then to push for policies that equalize the 'sacrifice.'

Social policies, economics and environmental issues, in this small world with finite resources can no longer effectively be viewed as separate but related. "Think Gobally. Act Locally" may be a catchy, and now trite bumper sticker, but it is what is necessary. Regionalism will no longer insure the long term survival of a particular tribe, much less of our species or a viable planet for most currently extant species.

We have reached the limit of our resources on this planet. It may be, from an evolutionary perspective, that we have run our course. The tribalism (regionalism) that fosters survival of the 'fittest', now may bite us in the ass ( or may have already done so)and insure all of our doom. There are strong parallels among the debate about rebuilding New Orleans and the delta region, and mining coal, fishing the seas, etc. It may be that only Orwellian measures can save us. But do we want to be saved under those conditions?

I don't think I am connecting the dots very well here, but it is the best I can do. My forte, and my weakness as well, is I am an intuitive thinker. The relationship and interconnectedness of point a to point b is what I get, and what is important to me, as opposed to what and where point A and point B actually consist of.

So, yeh, Kat. I agree. But what each of us has real exuecutvie over is ourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 11:34 AM

Janie, think what an opportunist of a different viewpoint such as Gore might have done with the kind of huge money and energies the shrub has used, though. I agree we as consumers have a lot to answer for, but as the "leader" of our nation, the shrub or whomever is in office can have a great impact on society and its attitudes as a whole.

Donuel..brill!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 10:50 AM

The new mining slogan...




No mountain left behind

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 09:35 AM

That's crass and insensitive, Doug.

Its also completely typical of his usual smug, self-assured, uninformed, ignorant, self-absorbed, inane bombast & blather.

So what else did you expect???

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 11:35 PM

The above represents assorted POV's. I screwed up some of the links.

It clearly comes down to 'what do you value.'

I looked only at WV related sites, but Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania all have MTRS.

The 'for' links are all industry sponsored sites. Consider the WVGS site an industry sponsored site. The 'agin' sites are all environmental sites, some grassroots and some not.

I look squarely from the POV of envirnmental protection, not only because I ascribe to the view that all creation has equal intrinsic value, but also because long term, it is best for the survival of the human species. However, environmentalists must start giving serious attention to the short term (meaning two, or even three generations) economic impact on the people who mine the coal, fish the sea, pump the oil, cut the trees or grow the veggies. These are mostly one engine economies with few possibilities for significant development of alternative or more diverse economies. At least not 'greener' economies.

As you sit at your computer with your AC running, the stereo and television blaring, the freezer humming, the dishwasher swishing, complaining about your electric bill, ask yourself what you are truly willing to sacrifice to reduce the demand for electricity, or how much you are willing to pay for electricity so that is extracted or generated at a much higher price.

How many of us are willing to consciously embrace a much lower 'standard of living' so that future generations, and the other creatures of the earth might have a longer term chance of survival. Will you knowingly and willingly give up the hope that you can help your child finance a college education? Hell, how many of us would gladly give up DSL?

How many of us are willing to really and significantly reduce our demands on the environment? How many of us are willing to sacrifice our jobs, our roots, to risk our homes to foreclosure, our ability to feed our families tommorrow for the sake of the environment?

To the extent we are unwilling to make sacrifices in the same measure as we expect of those we call 'idiots' for not making those choices, we are nothing but hypocrites.

In this post-modern age, it is the consumer who ultimately fuels the 'self-will run riot' engine of completely amoral American capitalism.

Bush hasn't declared war. We have. Handled by the entrenched power of not just big, huge money, he is simply an opportunist.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 10:44 PM

Read this and weep Active promotion of mountain top mining, not an objective scientific report as it masquerades.
hRead this and weep ttp://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/
http://www.kentuckycoal.org/Mountaintop%20Mining/Issues%20-%20Responses.htm
http://www.radioopensource.org/coal-mountaintop-removal-in-appalachia/

http://www.riseupwestvirginia.blogspot.com/
http://www.friendsofcoal.org/site/
http://www.wvcoal.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 10:08 PM

The thread title isn't crass and insenitive, it's asinine.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: DougR
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 08:09 PM

Crass? Insensitive? Yep, just about as crass and insensitive as the title of this thread.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 09:02 PM

That's crass and insensitive, Doug...oh, you took your cue from the shrub, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: DougR
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 08:25 PM

I heard it from an unimpeachable source that Bush plans to send the 82nd Airborn in to invade West-By-God Virginia just as soon as he can spare them in Iraq.

There's coal in them thar hills!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 05:45 PM

We shouldn't have to save the country bit by bit, or right by right we shouldn't have to fight tooth & nail for every piece of property & every bit of food, every single home & garden or the ground we walk on or the air we breath. We shouldn't have to fight to make laws & to keep effective laws but we do. That's what our energy czars & others want. We are only in the way.

We are being attacked on all fronts & at some point the only way Americans are gonna win, at this rate is to fight back.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 10:49 AM

Yes, the oilmen are back at it, Janie. We are fighting tooth and nail to preserve some of our most pristine mountain plateaus,such as the Roan Plateau, in Western Colorado. There are photos there which show what the destruction has been like down below next to the interstate highway. We're trying to keep them from doing the same to the tops. This whole area is in boomtown status, now, with colleges students unable to find any housing,rents and home prices skyrocketing, and good workers leaving their long-time usual jobs for the lure of prime pay in the oilfields. I hear the same is going on in Wyoming. My sister works with homeless families. A dad came in just the other day with three and four year old kids. He was far from home, had sole custody and couldn't find a rental anywhere.

One good thing I heard on NPR, the oilmen are taking care to secure all foodstuff, etc, and training their people on how NOT to engage with bears. I even heard an oil rig safety officer tell his worker, "We're in the bear's territory and he's only trying to make a living same as us." That's a real change!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 08:30 AM

Whatever the outcome, the last thing we need is more human population growth.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 12:02 AM

I opine it is a mistake to lay all the blame on the Bushites. A Kerry Administration would not have pushed for the loosening of regulations, but would not have fought it very hard either in the absence of strong popular support in the region effected. Gore would have, but not Kerry.

Miners tend not to support environmental regulations for the same reasons as loggers and commercial fishermen. Think about it. Add farming, and you have the only 4 occupations that I can think of right now that are directly about the extraction of raw, natural resources from the earth and seas. (Well, I guess there are also the oil men and riggers who pump petroleum).

More later. Unless some one goes ahead and supplies the 'more.'

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 10:51 PM

'Spaw,

I remember the first time I saw some of those strip mines across the border in Ohio, not too far from Marietta. They were so visible, the entire scale of the destruction apparent in one long panoramic view. There was no way to hide behind the backs of mountains. I had seen photgraphs of the huge strip mines further west. Even so, I was unprepared.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Peace
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 06:00 PM

Would you buy a used car from this man?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: autolycus
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 05:56 PM

Am i the only one starting to worry (slightly) for mrs.Bush's safety?





       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 06:24 PM

Why should the Appalachians be any different, the dizzy idiot has declared war on everybody else. Well, except for his wealthy friends, of course, the ones in Saudi Arabia and other places.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 05:16 PM

I always think it's a bit unfair that Bush gets described as "a Texan". After all he was born and raised and educated in New England, and seems only ever to have gone to Texas in the first place as a way of dodging the draft.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Midchuck
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 08:20 AM

Bush hasn't "declared war" on anyone (well, except Iraq, maybe)

He's just done what his handlers tell him, like any good Republican. That's what they got him into office to do.

Peter.

P. S. The above should not be construed as an implied endorsement of the Democrats. "A plague on both...."

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 08:00 AM

Oh, West Virginia went with Bush, there is no question about that.

Now go back and read the friggin' thread and links.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: 282RA
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 07:50 AM

Funny how none of the most conservative areas of the country seemed to have voted for Bush these days. Apparently it must have been the liberal areas. You have to wonder how the guy got elected since his core supporters swear up and down that it wasn't them.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 06:39 AM

Subject: RE: Fiction:The Woman in the Holler
From: Janie - PM
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:30 PM

The deer trail ran right along the old broken fence of the graveyard at the top of the ridge. Louie wasn't up this way much, but when he was he always took the time to sit a spell with the folks up here. Old Cassie and Aunt Cathy were probably the only people on earth that really knew Louie; Knew the depths of the young man who most people thought of as a clown and a redneck. Truth was, Louie had the true heart of a hillbilly. He had poetry in him, right down to his toes. He knew what mattered.

No one would ever have believed that Louie read poetry, that he had committed to memory countless poems that moved him, that really said something. Truth to tell, he would have been mortified for most anyone to know that about him. Why, they might think he was a pansy or somethin'! He remembered, as clear as a bell, the first poem he memorized because it meant something. He had been in the 7th grade when Muriel Miller Dressler came to talk to his American Literature class. He had rolled his eyes and thought about cutting class the day the teacher announced that the Poet Laureate of West Virginia was going to be there. But he didn't--he was afraid of the hiding he'd get if his Paw found out he had skipped school. And boy, was he ever glad later that he had been there. Otherwise he might not ever have learned to notice that words could be magic. He listened as she recited that poem, "Appalachia", and his spirit was changed forever. He went home and spent three nights memorizing those lines that were his story, that shed light on the heartwood of his people.

And whenever he stopped here in the graveyard, up on the ridge, he took the time to speak those magic words to the folks laying up here in the ground. He thought it important that they know they still mattered.


Appalachia----by Muriel Miller Dressler

I am Appalachia! In my veins runs fierce mountain pride; the hill-fed
streams of passion, and,
stranger, you don't know me! You analyzed my every move--you still go away
shaking your head. I remain enigmatic. How can you find rapport with
me--you who never stood in the bowels of hell,
never felt a mountain shake and open its jaws to partake of human sacrifice?
You, who never stood
on a high mountain, watching the sun unwind its spiral rays; who never
searched the glens for wild
flowers, never picked mayapples or black walnuts; never ran wildly through
the woods in pure
delight, nor dangled your feet in a lazy creek, You, who never danced to
wild sweet notes,
outpourings of nimble-fingered fiddlers. who never just "sat a spell" on a
porch, chewing and
whittling; or hearing a past time the deep-throated bay of chasing hounds
and hunters shouting with
joy, "He's treed!" You, who never once carried a coffin to a family plot
high up on a ridge because
mountain folk know it's best to lie where breezes from the hills whisper,
"You're home". You, who
never saw from the valley that graves on a hill bring easement of pain to
those below? I tell you,
stranger, hill folk know what life is all about; they don't need the pills
to tranquilize the sorrow and
joy of living. I am Appalachia; and , stranger, though you've studied me,
you still don't know me


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Subject: RE: Fiction:The Woman in the Holler
From: Janie - PM
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 08:06 PM

He remembered the college students with VISTA that used to come up the holler when he was a young boy, gonna make their lives better some how. They were nice kids, really, with their New York accents and their eagerness to 'save' these 'poor, ignorant, poverty-stricken' hillbillies. Some of 'em even stayed long enough to learn to play a pretty good fiddle. (The holler folks used to laugh at those that moved into the really old, abandoned places with no water or electricity. "Tryin' to 'out West Virginia us'," some folks said, resentful. That resentment came from somehow feelin' shamed, and Louie remembered feeling that shame himself.) Those kids thought they were gonna 'live off the land.' Well, some of did, for a little while. But ten years, three kids, an emptied trust fund, and one divorce later, most of 'em headed back up North.

What I meant to say, 282RA, is go f*ck yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 06:14 AM

282RA's idiotic remark is typical of the arrogance with which outsiders view us.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: GUEST,The Profit
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 03:41 AM

"and in that time one shall arise one whose name shall be rung 'cross mountain and valley, Bush he shall be called, and The Chief, and he shall smite the Appalachians even where they shall sleep, unto the last of their number."
Appalachians II/23-25

And so was it prophesized, lo many a year hence. And little can we aboutsk it, sez I!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 01:05 AM

>>It's about time someone in Washington wiped out those danged hillbillies and mountain people. They're all a bunch of inbred, crazy moonshiners and perverts. They can't spell and they have no understanding of personal hygiene. They don't read "Fortune" magazine. Bush is on the right track.

(and I am joking, okay?)<<

Most of those idiots voted for him anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 11:57 PM

ff,

If Bush and his regime are given the benefit of doubt, the documented evidence and science on these issues still suggest their environmental policies, especially when it comes to energy, are remarkably short-sighted, handicapped by tunnel vision, or both.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: fumblefingers
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 11:06 PM

That Bush again. I'll bet he sat on the porch and asked himself, "What can I do to fuck up Appalachia?" It's amazing that he had the time, what being personally responsible for each and every thing that happens in the entire world.

U.S. Dept. of Interior

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 11:06 PM

The Bush regime hastens the destruction, but, unfortunately, that is fine with a majority of West Virginians.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 11:02 PM

The 'doom' is this; You must either leave, or you and your children must resign yourselves to a hardscrabble existence that, at best, borders on subsistence.

This article, in spite of its condenscending tone, offers a pretty good analysis of the hows and whys the environmental lobby has never been very effective in West Virginia.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Amos
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 10:42 PM

The man should be removed from office and sent back to whatever village in Texas is missing its pervert.

Or on to the next incarnation, probably as a pillbug.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 10:36 PM

Ya' know Janie, I too can feel for you. I grew up in east Ohio, a place that was stripped for many years. They're still trying to strip there but it has become pretty tough until this asshole comes along and with the stroke of a pen..................

If you read the text of this you'll find that mountaintop removal opens it back up to all the interpretations that it took years to establish. It makes me sick...it really does.

Bruce, I don't care that he's an idiot, but he's such a dangerous idiot. That's the real problem.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Peace
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 10:20 PM

Have I ever mentioned that I think Bush is an idiot?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 10:17 PM

*blush* The Absolutes of Good Writing thread has now got me noticing all my mispellings, incorrect use of pronouns and typos. Let me just say I am aware that there are a number of the same in my last post.

In the USA (I don't know about other places) activists for a number of issues that could be classified as environmental and/or social justice, don't do a very good job of helping the 'average Joe' understand why environmental protection, concern for the poor, etc. are in his 'enlightened best interest.' Which means, I guess, they are not very effective at 'enlightening' folks. And, the immediate now and short-term future are much more compelling to most of us than the more distant and more speculative future.

West Virgina, eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia, the main coal areas of the southern Appalachians, are hardscrabble places to live. Look around the world. Mountainous regions nearly always are. Coal mining brought the closest thing to economic prosperity to West Virginia the people who lived there had ever known. (Not even pre-colonial Native Americans made the place home. It was, for the most part, strictly hunting territory.) Although coal production in West Virginia has steadily increased over the last 20 to 30 years, the number of mine related jobs has been steadily declining since the early to mid 1960's, as automation and new mining technologies have continuously advanced and reduced the need for manpower. And the population of the State continues to steadily and dramatically decline. There are no economic alternatives to coal of any significance there. There is a standing joke "Would the last person to leave West Virginia please remember to turn off the lights?" that has too much truth in it for comfort.

The miners themselves have vehemently opposed environmental regulation, and from a purely personal, short term perspective, with good reason. Environmental regulations definitely effect the availabiliy of mining related jobs. Let me repeat, there are no alternatives to coal. so the people there cling as hard as they can to the few jobs left, and do everything they can to keep another plank in the ship from falling away. What they don't see or accept, and really, how could you expect them to, is the ship will eventually come apart, and nothing they do can stop it.

The only message is "You are doomed. Accept it. Since you are doomed anyway, have the foresight and the - what - altruism? to save the land. It will hasten your doom a bit to go ahead and do so, but your doom is inevitable. So make it count."

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 09:06 PM

As the coal mine owner Honest Bob says "There is no talking to the irrational families of the victims".

If people are outraged they will be called irrational.

The greedy class knows they will win this in the short run which is all they need to make a fortune on the cheap.

The people will win in the long run only after all the damage and tradgedies have occured.

The only way to win in the short run is first with court injuntions and then when all else fails,I am sad to say, is arm** ins**********.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 06:43 PM

It was thinking in terms of those kinds of countries that caused me to use the expression "developed and civilised nations". Not a satisfactory expression I know - but my point is that in these kind of matters a country as prosperous and technically advanced as the USA ought to measure itself against countries such as those in Western Europe rather than against struggling developing countries of one sort or another.

After all, leaving the USA has a good claim to be the oldest established (more or less) democratic society.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 06:05 PM

I don't, McGrath. I'm just not very hopeful, when I look around the world, not just at the USA, that the lesson will be learned before it is too late. When I look at South America, China, Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Bloc, the environmental policies of the the US are certainly no worse, and often, much better than these places, and more likely to consider the impact of these policies on the quality of life of we citizens. Which is a pretty sad statement, in and of itself, considering what a lousy job we do.

That doesn't mean I advocate simply throwing the towel in. It means striving to do what is right, and to work to try to get governments and corporations to do what is right, simply because I believe it is right, regardless of I beleive a different outcome is likely.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 03:56 PM

Yes, McGrath!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 03:42 PM

True enough, human societies do have a knack of doing this kind of thing, but most developed and civilised nations have learnt a few hard lessons. The kind of extreme self-mutilation of countries that seems to have pretty free licence in the USA isn't the norm.

Don't blame the genes and say "it's just human nature". Blame the political and economic system that encourages people to do this kind of thing to your country. (After all rape and murder are part of human nature - and, when you get down to it, this kind of thing is really just a variant of that part of human nature.)

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: pdq
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 11:06 PM

You might want to check out a copy of The Hellstrom Chronicle, a movie that makes that point. Good photography plus music by Lalo Schifrin.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 10:23 PM

As I've said before, the planet will survive but there is no reason or guarantee that humanity will do so.

The cockroaches will chew on our bones-o.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 10:15 PM

Unfortunately, we can, and most likely will, keep on like this. At least until we are extinct as a species. I'm sorry we will take so many other species down with us.

On the otherhand, we, and our little piece of real estate, are less than insignificant when measured against the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos. It can be comforting to realize the universe does not revolve around our belly buttons.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 09:56 PM

I have ordered my new bumper sticker and put it on my car (my own thought-up one:) Beware False Patriots! (Bush & Cheney's names are slashed out in the interntational "No" symbol.

My ancestors were all over West VA before and during the Civil War. We have handwritten notes mentioning certain sites, some of them sound like mountains or their tops. I shudder to think what the bastards have done to them.

There has GOT to be some giant clash or something which will STOP this kind of thing. We can't keep on this way.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 07:38 PM

And they have the nerve to claim to be "patriots".

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 04:52 PM

Yes, it's the same sad story again and again. The Middle East, North Africa, and the entire Mediterranean rim were basically pretty much wrecked ecologically speaking over a period of about 1,000 years...because the Romans, Greeks, Carthaginians, Egyptians, and the other organized inhabitants of that area cut down all the forests to build thousands and thousands of wooden ships so they could make war on one another.

It happens everywhere people go. They cut down the forests and they strip the land of valuable minerals. When it's gone, they look for the next place to do the same thing to.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 02:59 PM

Be it dust bowls such as occurred on the Plains during the Great Depression, climate change from greehhouse effects, flooding from the stripping of forests from the sides of steep mountains, worldwide drought conditions related to both global warming and the destruction of rain forests (or did I dream that one up?), dead coastal waters and deadly algae blooms from agricultural run-off, nature has again and again demontrated that we humans do not, in fact, have dominion over the earth.

When will we ever learn?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Janie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 02:30 PM

Thanks for posting this, Dave. If my heart had not been broken long ago by the continued rape and pillage of my beloved homeland and it's people, this would be enough to do it.

Environmental politics and policies in West Virginia have long been controlled by the coal interests. Environmental regulations related to mining have never been enforced there, regardless of the mining method. First, our beautiful mountain streams were turned red and dead by acid run-off from deep mines. then the soil and the hardwood forests on the sides of those ancient, ancient hills were stripped away, Reclamation usually consisted of leaving a flat shelf planted with some non-native cover such as crown vetch. Flooding woes started increasing then. Mind you, one to two generations before the strip mines, large, out-of-state timber concerns has already pillaged the mountainsides, leaving behind mudclogged streams from run-off of the topsoil once the steep slopes had been clearcut. The streams and the forests recovered just in time for it to happen again with the strip mining.

But mountain top removal is by far the most massively destructive practice to date. The interview really does not convey the devasting impact of the repeated flashflooding that once was a rare occurrence. Entire communities have been swept away in recent years in the southern coalfields. Hearts start pounding at the prediction of heavy rain.

Pretty much all of West Virginia is a land of low, rugged mountains, into which narrow hollows (hollers is what we calls 'em)have been cut by mountain creeks and streams. The main hollers can run for miles between parallel ridges, intersected by countless, smaller branch hollers that delve back further into the mountains. Many small communities dot these hollers, the houses strung out along the narrow valleys like beads on a necklace. Many, if not most of them started out as coal camps owned by the coal companies. Typically, the creek will run along the very base of one ridge. On the opposite bank there will be a narrow strip of 'bottom land' taken up by the narrow ribbon of the asphault road, then a bit of high ground above the flood plain where the houses are built, then, the abrupt, steep incline of the opposing ridge. There can be a good bit of variability in the width of these hollers, but all are narrow, and many are no more than 50 yards wide from the base of one ridge to the other. With the trees and soil gone, and the streams and side branches buried in the rubble that used to be the top of the mountains, the water comes up fast, or roars down the creeks in flash floods remiscent of the arroyos in the desert canyons of the West. Only this isn't desert.

I used to think I would move back to those hills someday. My mother, who still lives there, would exclaim "don't you dare even think of it!" The number of expat. hillbillies living where I do has steadily increased over the past several years. Like me, few of them now have any intention of returning. There is no longer anything there for us, except our hearts.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: GUEST,Arnie at work
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 02:01 PM

Reminds me of this one:

And daddy, won't you take be back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green river where Paradise lay
Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 01:29 PM

Brings to mind Jean Richie's song

"Scenes of distruction on evey hand
Black waters, black waters runs though the land"

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 01:28 PM

It's about time someone in Washington wiped out those danged hillbillies and mountain people. They're all a bunch of inbred, crazy moonshiners and perverts. They can't spell and they have no understanding of personal hygiene. They don't read "Fortune" magazine. Bush is on the right track.

(and I am joking, okay?)

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Bee
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 01:16 PM

Are there no political controls at all in the US when an administration runs mad?

A Bush type government would have fallen long ago here, probably by a no confidence vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 01:11 PM

He probably thinks that Appalachia is the country next to Afghanistan. The only way to get rid of echidna is to cut the tops of the mountains where they breed and fill in the valleys where they train. It's part of the "War against Terra".
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: BS: Bush declares war on Appalachian people
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 12:33 PM

The Bush administration yesterday announced new rules on surface coal mining, effectively removing the already inadequate rules regarding what's called Mountaintop Removal. This will "legitimize" what has been illegal for many years, the removal of the tops of mountains and dumping the debris in the valleys, thus permanently polluting or even eliminating valley streams.

As is no surprise, environmentalist are up in arms about this.

See the story more fully developed at this site

Dave Oesterreich