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Stopping the Desecration of Mountaintop Removal
Obama spaketh, and it was good: "We have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal than simply blowing the tops off mountains," he proclaimed.
And, yea, in the mountains and down through all the valleys of the ancient land of Appalachia, hearts were filled with joy, for here was a prophet of hope who was signaling that a change was coming - at last, the endtime was at hand for the brutish coal-mining method called "mountaintop removal," which is an abomination.
Even as the people rejoiced at this good news, coal barons trembled in their temples of black gold. For a decade, these mighty extractors of wealth had been allowed to accumulate unto themselves enormous profits by exploding the tops off the peaks in Appalachia, the oldest mountain range in all the land. With the top third of these awesome, forested mountains reduced to rubble, the barons used giant machines to strip out seams of coal, and then they simply shoved the rubble and toxic coal waste down the mountainsides, burying the valleys and streams below. It was a desecration - but the love of mammon made it the law of the land.
Then, behold, now the prophet became president, so he was in a position to put his words into action.
And act, he did. On May 15, it was announced that Barack Obama's Environmental Protection Agency had quietly approved 42 of 48 new Appalachian mining permits sought by the coal barons.
Say what? The prophet of change and hope just OK-ed more desecration by coal mining profiteers? What in the name of a mysterious God is going on here?
Politics. Politics at its weaseliest. Industry supporters point out that while Obama had expressed his concern about this detestable practice in last year's presidential race, he had not actually promised to halt it. Cute, huh?
Once he was in office, coal executives, lobbyists and other enthusiasts for bang-and-shove mining went to work on him. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.V., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and a full-throated cheerleader for whatever his state's coal industry wants, met with the head of the EPA, the chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff.
"In each of these meetings," says Rahall, "I received assurances.The Obama administration knows that it cannot turn its back on coal."
Of course, that's not the question. There are many ways to mine coal besides blowing up the environment. The question is whether Obama will turn his back on the mountains, the people and his own integrity.
The industry rationalizes its greed in the name of creating jobs for this hard-hit region - but mountaintop removal relies on dynamite and huge machines, not workers. In fact, thousands of mining jobs have been lost as corporations switched to this method. In all of Appalachia, there are only 19,000 jobs connected to every form of surface mining - and the tiniest fraction of those are in mountaintop removal. A much brighter job future is to develop Appalachia's boundless green-energy potential - a blue-green initiative that's supposed to be one of Obama's top priorities.
The good news is that the approval of these 42 permits does not mean the debate is over, even in the White House. Some 200 other applications are pending, involving much larger projects, and it's known that top Obamans are very divided on allowing any more of this crass destruction.
This is a case where public outrage can make a difference. Obama and team snuck out the 42 permits without even notifying the public, but they won't be able to ambush us on the other applications. Rather than throwing up our hands in disgust at their first action, now is the time for us to flex some grass-roots political muscle.
To let him know we expect no more weaseling on his pledge to stop "blowing the tops off mountains," call the White House operator and ask for Nancy Sutley. She heads Obama's Council on Environmental Quality and needs to hear that We the People give a damn: (202) 456-1414.
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16 Comments so far
Show AllOh, you were expecting "Change" from Obama? Some younger people of European heritage were perplexed as to why I am not concerned about the destruction of the earth a few years back when I posted at another site.
I had them do this experiment as the Democrats had taken the majority of seats in your form of Govt. I had them send emails to their Elected Representatives as you call them.
What they received back was the basic meaningless, "Have a nice day," email, don't call us, will call you, meaningless email.
Either under your Nation's Head Honcho Bush, Obama, or both they were flooded with with phone calls, emails, maybe letters about people being against the Banker Bankout. You know what that accomplished? Absolutely nothing!
I watched lots of protests against your Nation's wars your former Head Honcho Bush started & do you know what they accomplished? Absolutely nothing.
The Golden Rule. Them with the gold make the rules in this world. But that is only in this world.
Creator watches. Creator listens.
Sure isn't going back to the day of Tribes anytime soon.
Jesus though was born of the Tribe of Judah as his paradoxical name in animal symbology is the Lion of Judah. Could be that Creator & he have longer range plans that this world even knows about at this time?
The Book of Revelation chapter 19 sure does seem to indicate this thing. Regardless of what power man upon the earth thinks he has in this world Creator has all the real power.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
"It's always best to forgive." a trite and pious platitude for people that experience the consequence of mountaintop removal. If you want to pray and wring your hands over the end of the world, be my guest, but I'm going to mindfully make the best of it and call Nancy Sutley as Hightower suggests.
I have an idea, lets elect a man made of words that the state run media loves, then we can hope for change, and re-elect him in 2012
Instead of the marketing schema known as "Change we can believe in" perhaps it ought to have been [Corporations] we can believe in." Like coal. Banking. Military manufacturing. Secrecy laws that diminish personal rights. Auto manufacturing sell outs.
Did I miss anything?
There's renewable energy in them-thar hills. It's called CAPE, and is the same source of energy that powers thunderstorms. It doesn't require that any more mountain tops be removed in order to be harvested and converted into electricity. All than needs to be done is to build an Atmospheric Vortex Engine on top of one of the already affected mountains. Ref: http://vortexengine.ca
By building this, Appalachia can benefit from the availability of low-cost electricity for manufacturing, etc., or enjoy income from electricity exporting and low-carbon credits.
No need to build more coal-fired plants...anywhere. Instead, existing ones can be taken out of service.
If you want to know more about CAPE--see http://www.tornadochaser.net/ and click on capeclass tab.
Based on exchanges on another article on CD today highly critical of Obama's actions (on Gaza) by Medea Benjamin, I'm going to do a bit of Preventive Posting here by urging that all those you-can't-trust-Jim-Hightower-because-he-urged-voting-for-Obama just give it a rest on this one and recognize that Hightower has written a compelling indictment of the President's environmental policy. As such, progressives should embrace it and welcome Hightower to our ranks for this and other recent ones of his writings. As I said for Benjamin, let us not try to enforce some kind of statute of limitations in which you're not allowed to criticize Obama if you didn't get on board by opposing his election. I've had my moments (many months, actually) of difficulty with the MoveOn mentality, but for once I'm ready to say let's move on and embrace whatever support we can get from whatever source no matter how "sinful" the past of that source.
Just a bit of history too. Jim Hightower has been an articulate and consistent and long-running critic of corporate farming dating back to the 70's.
Desecration is what it is all right. Those mountains are sacred. Really. I'm not kidding.
every time somebody blows the top off a mountain, planet Earth gets shaken to her bones.
the wind farm plan is a great answer and the people are organized enough to maybe bring it off. direct action.
so i will make the call, sure Jim. I will not expect miss nancy to listen to me. maybe i'll tell her i'm a big coal mining ceo who just happens to love mountains more than coal, and i'm writing her a check for 6 million bucks.
but the guy is right- IF people would make our voices heard, we really might get some change.
big if though
Well Obama has failed in the last area he might have been labeled as a decent person, the enviornment.
Heck his Bush holdover is prosecuting that brave kid, DeChristipher who took on the oil bidding process.
I am glad to hear some officials were banging the table and shouting for justice in the meeting where Obama caved in, as he has again and again and again in just about everything.
Glenn, Obama is just paying back his investors. Clean COAL sponsored the Democratic Convention. Their signs were everywhere. If you think Obama is an environmentalist, then why would he allow Clean Coal to sponsor his Convention?
Wake up, he didn't cave he simply is rewarding one of his big supporters. Wonder what else these bastards have in store for you? Just look at a list of his supporters and you'll be in the know.
He has already rewarded the financial firms with the Bailout. Coal is getting their goods now. Big Pharma and the health insurance cabal are next. Good buy SINGLE PAYER, hello mandated health insurance. Good buy "generic drugs", hello longer periods of time for pattens.
The CHANGE he was talking about was just TALK. You will admit his speeches are phenomenal, and that is real CHANGE you can believe in.
I think I heard this on CarTalk: Our politicians should dress like NASCAR drivers, then we would know who their corporate sponsors are.
Let's look again at Obama's modus operandi here: This is a very American and very academic mode of lying. One considers that one may freely mislead as long as long as one does not commit a distinct untruth (not that an outright lie is not another option).
One arranges and inflects the words to imply x when they can be defended in a literal way as meaning y.
So, the colloquial ring of "simply blowing the tops off mountains" gives the impression of down-home plain speech. It further suggests passionate commitment because people naturally retreat to a more basic vocabulary when excited or when talking about things close to their hearts.
Of course, nowhere in Obama's speech does he otherwise indicate that we need find said method in 2009 instead of 3009. That slight, nuanced dip in vocabulary, accompanied by appropriate shifts in tone and gesture? -- that's performance, and that's second nature.
This is not to say that Obama does not lie straightforwardly, nor that he is at all unique in doing so. And it's sure no reason to make that call to Nancy Sutley that Hightower asks for.
However, any time you see some Harvard or Yale-educated man evoke a down-home accent of one kind or another, twist his palms out, and hand you something that seems more plain-spoken because it lacks a date and a time, make a mental note: this promise is already broken, and this dog will bite.
just another Homocidal Looting Liar
Yes! Flex your grassroots muscle! Do it by... calling this phone number! Yes, that'll get things accomplished. Hold his feet to the fire, right? Isn't that what we're supposed to do?
Do something about this, people! Don't just read this article only inspired to write another useless comment. Get off your apathetic ass and speak out!
Not here, the White House!
What, do I have to dial the number for you? Just call (202)456-1414 and ask for Nancy Sutley. Do it now!
If your not already pissed off, then watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPixjCneseE
Well, what are you waiting for? Watch it!
Tell all your friends to watch it!
And make the call!
No more whining, people, it's time for ACTION!
with coal's banner ads flooding certain news sites - touting itself as the "clean energy" alternative- in a manner not even close to subliminal messaging, combined with a newly elected cheerleader who has obviously perfected the art of doublespeak, these mountains are doomed. ms. nancy could care less about your phone call.
it is indeed time for action. that action involves so much more than a phone call to an indifferent listener.
on the brighter side, the cheerleader's new book, the audacity of false hope, should prove to be a best seller.