Blair Mountain in Danger

[packman]

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Got an e-mail from Sierra Club about this newest assault on Blair Mountain. Mountain-top removal "miners" want to rip the top off this union battleground site in West Virginia and the Sierra Club is asking the Army Corp of Engineers to stop it.




https://secure.sierraclub.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=14291&autologin=true&s_src=214HCOAN02

[boston bean]

1. Mountain top removal is a sin against nature.

Looking at pics of it make me cry.

The ugliness. The abuse of nature. It's grotesque.

[Brigid]

2. Only one of the the most important labor incidents in US history.

Not nearly as important as coal company profits, though.

[Downwinder]

3. As long as West Virginia wants to destroy history,

lets write West Virginia out of history.

[Staph]

4. Don't blame the people of West Virginia.

It's the mine owners, mostly from outside the state of West Virginia, who want to rip the top off this mountain. And if you live in a county (in this case Logan County, West Virginia) with an unemployment rate of 10% (compared to a statewide rate of 6.4%, and little job prospect outside the mines and Walmart), you aren't going to argue with the chance at a much better than minimum wage job.

I want to see Blair Mountain preserved as a living memorial to the labor struggles of not just the miners of West Virginia, but of the entire nation. But I can understand those who want to put food on the table and clothes on their backs.

[Downwinder]

5. In April 2008, Blair Mountain was chosen for the list of protected places

on the National Register of Historic Places. This decision was contested by the state of West Virginia, and the listing was placed under review.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

[Brigid]

6. "Your welfare ain't on that rich man's mind."

-- Hazel Dickens

If the coal companies are making promises about good-paying jobs or whatever in exchange for destroying Blair Mountain, the people had best not believe them.