Mountain top removal mining

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: How Corporations Threaten Our Environment and Democracy

Uploaded on Jun 29, 2011

Mountaintop removal doesn't just destroy our environment—it completely subverts the democratic process. In their efforts to mine mountains for coal, large corporations deceive local communities, flagrantly break the law, silence journalists and buy out local governments.

In this conversation with The Nation and On the Earth Productions recorded at Chicago's Orrington Hotel, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. explains how corporations have illegally destroyed more than five hundred mountains and impoverished countless rural communities—and gotten away with it. Kennedy has long been active in the environmental justice movement, and his latest efforts to stop mountaintop removal mining are featured in the new documentary, The Last Mountain.

A GOP take over the Senate will result in their further attacks on the EPA, and they will continue defunding all regulatory agencies to stop them. Look at these stats he presents. In another video he describes it as ecocide, literally destroying the root of the Eastern ecosystem.

that they want to remove the top of Blair Mountain. I don't know if most people know about the Battle of Blair Mountain, but our government send in troops to quell a strike over working conditions in the mines. They killed any miner they could get a bead on. The miners fought back. The term redneck came from that battle, the miners wore red bandanas around their necks so that they could tell each other from the military. I also think Pinkerton was sent in. Archaeologists are still working the sight and the coal companies want to take the top off of it. I figure the almighty dollar will win that fight.

There's a great documentary that runs every so often on Link TV, which is now Free Speech TV I think. The channel Amy Goodman is on anyway. If you ever get the chance, watch it.

and Willy

He's such a good role model. And I mean that sincerely.

should be in prison for decades, or life.

in Appalachia since the original robber barons colonized the area. The people meant nothing, they were only after the natural resources and cheated these trusting people out of the land they'd owned for generations. Mountain top removal is a fairly recent method of coal extraction, but it's deadly to those who live in hollows below. The sediment thrown down the mountain fouls the water supply and causes flooding. The poor have no voice to fight these corporations. The mountain folk are a forgotten part of the country. They had no idea they had "sold their soul to the company store." People now wonder why they're all "on the dole." It makes me sick.