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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Sat Jan 25, 2014, 04:03 PM Jan 2014

How the Coal Industry Impoverishes West Virginia

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/25-4


A US flag flies at half-staff at a coal processing plant near the site of a disaster that killed twelve miners in Buckhannon, West Viriginia. (Photo: Reuters/Jim Young)

There’s a joke circulating among Syrians who fled the brutal conflict devastating their country to the quiet mountains of West Virginia: “We escaped the lethal chemicals in Syria only for them to follow us here.” Of course, what’s happening in West Virginia right now is no laughing matter. But how could the refugees not be reminded of their decimated homeland after finding themselves, along with 300,000 other West Virginians, without access to potable water? Unfortunately, West Virginia is no stranger to having its living conditions compared to those in developing countries.

Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington authored his incisive depiction of poverty in the United States, aptly titled The Other America. The bestselling book—named one of the ten most influential books of the twentieth century by Time—is widely believed to have inspired John F. Kennedy’s commitment to addressing the dire conditions of the “invisible poor,” whom Harrington noted generally lived in rural or inner-city isolation, making them easier to ignore. After Kennedy’s assassination, this commitment was passed on to his successor, culminating in Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of an “unconditional war on poverty.”

West Virginia’s problems figured prominently in Harrington’s narrative. In one evocative passage, he describes the paradox of the state’s beauty and its grave socioeconomic conditions.“Driving through this area, particularly in the spring or the fall, one perceives the loveliness, the openness, the high hills, streams, and lush growth.” However, “beauty can be a mask for ugliness,” and “this is what happens in the Appalachians.”

This ugliness masked by supreme natural beauty has not disappeared in the fifty years since Harrington wrote these words. As a lifelong West Virginian who was raised among the southern coalfields of this state, I’ve witnessed firsthand the misery that permeates life here. “This irony is deep,” Harrington writes, “for everything that turns the landscape into an idyll for the urban traveler conspires to hold the people down. They suffer terribly at the hands of this beauty.” The suffering has largely come at the hands of the coal industry, which for the past century has purchased the blind loyalty of the state’s most influential institutions as it exploited the population for labor in criminally dangerous conditions, all while destroying the pristine grandeur of the environment to extract the abundant coal below the surface.
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How the Coal Industry Impoverishes West Virginia (Original Post) xchrom Jan 2014 OP
Thanks much for posting this. theHandpuppet Jan 2014 #1
... xchrom Jan 2014 #2
and with mountain top removal... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2014 #3
I'd like to recommend a website on that subject theHandpuppet Jan 2014 #4
They need to make those pictures expandable... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2014 #5
You ought to see it in person theHandpuppet Jan 2014 #6
Being born on the other side of the Ohio River... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2014 #9
I was born and raised on the Ohio side myself. theHandpuppet Jan 2014 #10
My grandfather's father was an Appalachian... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2014 #11
About six years ago... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2014 #12
Clueless. theHandpuppet Jan 2014 #13
Scrip... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2014 #14
Come to think of it.... theHandpuppet Jan 2014 #7
WV needs a modern-day Bill Blizzard to step up. Brigid Jan 2014 #8
 

awoke_in_2003

(34,582 posts)
9. Being born on the other side of the Ohio River...
Sat Jan 25, 2014, 11:14 PM
Jan 2014

I am guilty of making fun of West Virginia in the past, but it used to be so beautiful.

theHandpuppet

(19,964 posts)
10. I was born and raised on the Ohio side myself.
Sun Jan 26, 2014, 02:31 AM
Jan 2014

But my ancestors on both sides come from Kentucky and WV and I live in WV now. My father worked the N&W RR and when I was a girl he would take us kids on long train rides through the mountains down to Bluefield (WV) and Pikeville (KY). I saw a lot back then that I'll never forget.

 

awoke_in_2003

(34,582 posts)
11. My grandfather's father was an Appalachian...
Sun Jan 26, 2014, 02:42 AM
Jan 2014

coal miner. My GF served in WWII, came back, and went to college and became a Methodist minister. My paternal GF also served, and came back and worked for the USPS. I am two generations removed from Appalachian poverty, something that far too many of my kinfolk did not escape.

 

awoke_in_2003

(34,582 posts)
12. About six years ago...
Sun Jan 26, 2014, 02:45 AM
Jan 2014

the company I work for decided to give a name to our little store we have for shirts and the like. They decided to call it The Company Store. No one could understand my objections to this name.

theHandpuppet

(19,964 posts)
13. Clueless.
Sun Jan 26, 2014, 02:58 AM
Jan 2014

Sheesh. I wonder if the folks running the company would like to settle their accounts in scrip.

theHandpuppet

(19,964 posts)
7. Come to think of it....
Sat Jan 25, 2014, 09:55 PM
Jan 2014

I would love to see Rachel Maddow do some shows from Appalachia, bring the issues and people of the region to the attention of the whole country just like Robert Kennedy did so many years ago. Interview some of the democrats and republicans who have their hands in the coal purse. I DO think that could make a huge difference.

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