Musings on genre writing, waterfall wandering, and peak bagging in the South's wilderness areas.
Friday, March 27, 2015
How the (Liberal) Media Got Us Mountaintop Removal
When I was in high school I recall the corporate move to deregulate coal mining. All of the network news stations were in on the propaganda push to change the rules that resulted in the ecological rape we know as mountaintop removal. One particular slant they'd take was to show poor little wildcat coal miners. These were small operators--sometimes one guy--who owned maybe a front end loader, a bulldozer, and a pair of overalls. They'd trot one of these pathetic bastards out and he'd say:
"If'n I could grade away a few feet o' that thar hill I could git at that dab o' coal in thar and feed mah fambly."
Then everyone watching would feel really sorry for the hayseed workin' hard to feed his chirren.
Occasionally they'd have maybe a five-second sound bit of an ecologist warning that big operators would take those changes and tear down entire mountain ranges to get at the coal. After which the reporter would roll his eyes, or they'd have a coal company mouthpiece exclaiming how that would NEVER happen.
Well, it did happen.
People should be shot. Especially the bought and paid for "journalists" who supplied the lying propaganda.
SURFACE MINING AND CONTROL RECLAMATION ACT OF 1977. (The billionaires were drooling and Jimmy Carter signed it into law.)
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