From ROF’s Brendan DeMelle:
The Hill published the dueling op-eds between Bobby and Massey Energy CEO Don Blanksenship yesterday.
Please take a look and spread the word.
Bobby’s op-ed: Poverty and tyranny central to immoral practice of mountain destruction, water and air poisoning CLICK HERE!
Blankenship’s op-ed: Coal mining continues legacy of affordable energy, job source in an era of dubious ‘green’ alternatives CLICK HERE!
These 2 articles are pretty much like the live debate I watched between Bobby and Blankenshit. Of course this Blankenshit is going to rip on Bobby—he’s for big business and he makes big money in the coal industry. He doesn’t care about the environment or how this moutaintop removal mining kills the people who live in these areas. He don’t care that it makes everything around them toxic and unliveable. Guys like Blakenshit don’t care about the human cost of this or about nature. As long as it makes him money, that’s all that matters. I’m glad this is Bobby’s cause and that he keeps fighting to stop this terrible practice and help the environment and people who live in these areas.
We never hear in the MSM, much less FOX News, about mountain top removal and the flattening of West Virginia. I’ve only seen it come to light mainly here on the ROFR website.
NR,
The MSM would never report this because it involves big business, the coal lobby and it’s a liberal/progressive cause.
Here is what Don Blankenship (or, whoever wrote the article for him) declares:
“In 1960, West Virginians helped catapult John F. Kennedy into the White House. Fifty years later, his nephew has returned the favor with an agenda shared by environmental elitists in Washington that would accomplish nothing less than the economic cleansing of Appalachia.”
It’s possible that I might have believed the above, if I hadn’t watched the debate between RFK Jr. and Blankenship. I might have read the above paragraph and thought to myself: well, talk about ingratitude! RFK Jr. is hurting these poor miners, in some grandiose but wrong-headed quest to save the planet, (which is nice, true) but he’s apparently out of touch w/the average person, such as these humble, poor miners, who are just trying to make a living. Plus, RFK Jr. doesn’t seem to care that West Virginia helped get JFK into the White House! Well, that’s typical. People Inly matter to politicians when they want something from them (like votes), but as soon as those pols get what they need…..
That’s what I Might have thought or considered, were I to come across Blankenship’s article, say, 2 or 3 years ago (even though I doubt I would have been likely to Completely trust the words of a coal king).
The fact is, I witnessed, during the debate the truth of the matter: RFK jr. warmly mentioned that West Virginia has always held a special place in his and his family’s hearts, due to JFK getting into the White House with the help of W. Virginian voters, and also that Bobby, when growing up, took vacations in Appalachia w/his family, many times.
It might be good to put this into future articles, if possible. I’m sure that every lie that Don Blankenship comes up w/probably can’t be countered, but it’s the *personal* stories of RFK Jr. that might resonate the most with people (although the facts of mountaintop removal are extremely important, and RFK Jr. has an impressive grasp of them, which I also could see, in the debate).
During the debate, RFK Jr. talked about how his father discussed w/him the concept of why West Virginia, with such rich resources, is one of the poorest states in the nation. RFK Jr. was in his early teens, but he could easily recall his father talking about the way the coal industry broke the unions and raped the land for profit.
His son learned these lessons well.
This all flies in the lying face of Don Blankenship’s article, wherein he is desperate to come across as just like one of the common folk, struggling and sweating and crying along w/everyone else.
But Don Blankenship doesn’t have to stay awake, at night, in his clothes, because he’s afraid that a massive amount of slurry water will collapse upon his home and kill himself and his loved ones (like that young boy that RFK Jr. mentioned lives in fear of).
Don Blankenship, as one of the commenters pointed out, under Blankenship’s article, is assuredly living in a mansion somewhere that is not even close to what the people of W. Virginia and other coal mining states have to deal with.
I like that RFK Jr.’s article does not attempt to create a false sense of intimacy w/the people who suffer, the way Blankenship’s article does.
It’s nauseating for a person like Blankenship to say that he is one of the people. He’s not. He might have been, way back when; I don’t know. But now he’s not. Because he’s not hurt by the effects of what he does, and he glosses over and sugar-coats, just like they All do. It’s an offense. It’s a lie. And it’s a deception that Blankenship is pulling over himself, I guess, but that doesn’t mean Everyone has to go along with his craziness.
The Kennedy family is known (and justly praised) for being able to empathize with (and rise to the defense of) people who struggle with poverty and injustice. This is not false intimacy, it’s the ability to empathize and then do something about it.
Blankenship’s sense of morality appears to be as deadened as one of those “moonscapes” he has created. Where is his heart?
When RFK Jr. talks about the land, we can see where his heart lies, but he also talks about the *people* of the land with just as much conviction and passion as he does the land itself.
One of the most convincing arguments that RFK Jr. makes is when he says that mountaintop removal mining is designed to eliminate as many workers as possible.
This is corporate greed and it’s nothing new. Do the people of W. Viriginia recognize this for what it is?
I hope they are not taken in by Blankenship’s “tears”. The last line of Blankenship’s article is powerful, but it’s not at all accurate to what Massey Coal is about.
Maybe Blankenship really does see himself as a victim of the “enviros” (as he calls environmentalists in the debate).
It is common, I think, for abusers to feel sorry for themselves when others have the guts to tell them to stop what they are doing.
I also really like when RFK Jr. talks about those mountains of West Virginia and other areas.
Maybe it’s partly from the fact that human beings must find mountains, in some way or manner to be scared. Even an atheist could believe in the sacredness of mountains, trees and forests.
It’s not religious; it goes deeper than that.
RFK Jr. mentioned a term, during the debate, that I went and looked up, but I cannot remember it now. I wish I could.
It has to do w/an area of land or place that has pretty much stayed the same as from the earliest times. It is a word sort of like scared or something akin to that.
It will come to me, in time, this word. I remember, during the debate, being very taken with how it *sounded* and then when I looked it up, I really liked the definition of it, as well.
And, I wanted to post a link to an image that reminded me of that word, but then the site went down. I will try to link, now, but sometimes the links don’t go through, so we’ll see if these 2 can.
I found this image by doing a search under the words: *forest* and *sanctuary*. The word, sanctuary, sort of reminds me of that word I am looking for.
http://projectsanctuary.com/main/pics/forest-light.jpg
Does anyone know the work of Maxfield Parrish, an artist/illustrator of the early 20th century? His paintings of trees – they evoke something so beautiful:
http://www.tamsquare.net/pictures/P/Maxfield-Parrish-Riverbank-in-Autumn-.jpg
And, I always think about the Green Man when I hear talk of trees and mountains….
http://astro.ncf.ca/greenman.jpg
Mara,
Good “book” you wrote here about Blankenshit/Bobby. I saw all your nice images except the first one.
Go to State of Belief website and see the article about the Texas Board of Education is doing to teach their school kids about certain amendments in the U.S. Constitution and omiting one of our Founding Fathers from the school curriculm.
G (and all ROFR viewers), my uncle blames America’s failing education system as the root of America’s problems, and he sure knows what he is talking about since he is a lawyer of arbitration and a union judge.
Everyone—Here’s an article about what the Texas Board of Education is doing.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/14/history-revised-teachers-sacked-the-book-wars-in-texas-and-bey/