Mother Jones has an excellent article about the coal industry and one of its big players, Don Blankenship. As the former CEO of Massey Energy Co., Blankenship is charged with conspiracy to violate safety laws, defrauding the federal government, securities fraud and making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. If convicted in this corporate accountability case, he could face 31 years in prison. Not enough in my opinion for the misery and death he created and left in his wake. Perhaps his golden parachute, nay platinum parachute he received from Massey Energy Co in 2010 when he left, will be taken back and distributed to the families of miners killed at a Blankenship operation. That would be an attempt at justice for those families.
…he was a harsh taskmaster whose cutthroat management style transformed what was once a modest family business into the region's largest coal producer. …
Blankenship cultivated an image as a Mingo County son made good—a good ol' boy who ran a multibillion-dollar company from a double-wide trailer. And he saw himself as a heroic figure who brought jobs to the depressed enclaves of his native West Virginia. But with his gaze fixed on the bottom line, Blankenship crushed the mine workers union that was baptized in his backyard. Voluminous court records and government investigations show that he presided over a company that padded its profits by running some of themost dangerous workplaces in the country. Massey polluted the waterwaysthat had sustained Blankenship's forebears, rained coal dust on the schoolyards where his miners' children played, and subjected the men he grew up with in southern West Virginia to unsafe working conditions.
A mascot of the coal industry's worst excesses, Blankenship pumped millions of dollars into West Virginia's political system to promote an anti-regulatory agenda and curry favor with state lawmakers and officials. …
The irony is that, even at the nadir of Blankenship's power, his ideology is ascendant. He transformed West Virginia not just physically (entire towns have been wiped out by Massey's footprint), but politically. Now, by playing off fears of creeping government involvement, the coal industry has strengthened its grip on state politics. Lawmakers friendly to the industry, with financial support from Blankenship, have won sweeping victories at the ballot box and used their mandate to roll back health and safety regulations while trumpeting the survival-of-the-fittest capitalism that was Blankenship's gospel. The man on the mountaintop may have fallen, but the widespread impact of his legacy shows no signs of diminishing. …
Down the road from Upper Big Branch, a memorial funded in part by Alpha touted the job-creating legacy of the coal industry. By a back entrance to the now-shuttered mine was a more informal installation—29 hard hats and two mourning angels. Their wings were solar powered. …
These are pictures of mountain top removal . . . from lush forested mountain tops to wastelands that resemble tar sands mines like those in Alberta.
From Alternet
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had this to say about Blankenship in a report on EcoWatch last fall:
Don Blankenship once boasted to me that it was impossible to conduct mountaintop removal mining without violating the law. He prided himself on his cold-blooded capacity for turning America’s purple mountains majesty into coal company cash. His criminal mind allowed him to view the human beings of Appalachia as disposable production units. He is a sociopath and gangster whose gift was felonious greed and a stone-cold heart that allowed him to put his yearning for money and power ahead of human lives. Those qualities had great value to his friends and investors: the Wall Street robber barons. But they were poison and destruction to the noble communities of coal country. We can’t bring back the towns he destroyed, the lives he took, the mountains he flattened, the rivers he poisoned, but there is some consolation in knowing that he’s getting what he deserves: three hots and a cot and long days in the company of fellow criminals of lesser appetites and lesser distinction.
Blankenship's trial has begun with the jury selection expected to be completed by today. I understand that he has top notch counsel and is pleading innocent to all charges. I wonder how far his cultivated political connections will get him? Any doubt that he is a Republican!
Please sign the Protect Communities from Hazardous Coal Mining Waste prepared by the Sierra Club.
9 Responses to “The Fall of King Coal”
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Don Blankenship may be called a king of coal, but what he really is, is the king of Virginia, or better, the tyrant of Virginia. He may be on trial now, but he isn't dethroned yet, he has the state politicians in his pocket and the best defense money can buy. From what I read here, Blankenship is a very sick sociopath, proud of what he's wreaked and wrecked, and he'll try every trick in the book to get off scot-free or with minimal sentencing. It's a very good sign that he got to trial in the first place, he hasn't the "diplomatic" immunity of royalty as he'd probably expected to have, but even if he has to do some time, it'll be under conditions he'll dictate, I'm sure.
I wish Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is right and Don Blankenship will go to jail , but he's a true Republican and has Republican backing, so I doubt that he'll get the book thrown at him, and as always with court cases like this, he won't get anything near his just deserts for "the towns he destroyed, the lives he took, the mountains he flattened [and] the rivers he poisoned"
This is a person who would be a flight risk and should be denied bail. Also apt to appeal any conviction…didn't see RICCO in the list (seizing/impounding assets from criminal activity so not available to pay attorney fees). Petition signed.
Some of my "favorite" quotes by Blankenship:
He dismissed climate change as "silly"
He berated subordinates concerned with safety issues with, "We'll worry about ventilation or other issues at an appropriate time. Now is not the time" — and threatened their jobs if they didn't hit production targets.
Blankenship also reminded subordinates that their "Core job is to make money"
And he called efforts to comply with safety regulations "Literally crazy" and "Ridiculous."
Adding, "In my opinion, children could run these mines better than you all do."
</snark>
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/west-virginia-coal-mine-explosion-blankenship-indictment
I was going to say he has earned a parade, but this is sort of like a double parade – two Republicans – Blankenship and Coal.
Yes, West Virginia has come a long way since John Denver sang about it. A long way, and all bad. A year and eight months ago when the Elk River died, I tried to express that:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/03/1274754/-West-Virginia
Not very well, and Blaankenship's name had not then come up publicly, so I didn't mention it, though I did refer to mountaintop removal.
No, I don't see this ending well.
Mother Jones: Believe me when I say that he will probably never see a prison, I will be shocked if he does. Our representatives in coal country are doing their best to destroy the EPA as readily as they did the UMWA. the coal companies have the only good paying jobs in the region and have the citizens convinced it is in their best interests to protect the same companies that are destroying where we live. The before and after pics don't do the area justice. Many of the areas that were stripped of coal look like they were bombed. The streams I waded in as a child are toxic, barely anything alive in them, they used to have minnows, crawfish, etc. There are large holding ponds everywhere that contain the waste water from the mining process. When one of these ponds ruptures, the water goes down hill and pollutes everything in its path.
Alternet: I am not surprised the Blankenship said this to Robert Kennedy. He was just repeating the way most coal barons feel. I hope they get a good jury and have an honest judge, we shall see.
Signing the petition.
Absurdity Today
This BAD SANTA Leaves Lumps of Coal in Your Lung Instead of Your Stocking. Absurdity Today Ep. 47
Published on Dec 9, 2013
The Coal Industry is going to great lengths to screw their former miners, upon whose labor their fortune and success was built, out of their Black Lung disability benefits.
The information comes from a report done by The Center for Public Integrity (www.PublicIntegrity.org) called Breathless and Burdened. The year-long study found doctors and lawyers are working at the behest of the coal industry to help defeat the benefits claims of miners disabled and dying of black lung disease. What's worse, disease rates are on the rise, causing an increasing number of miners to turn to this corrupt system to help alleviate their suffering.
Is this still Absurdity Today, the political satire and news parody series? Yes. What does humor have to do with this very serious injustice? Watch and find out!
Video with CC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ExGGPVYOg4w
Signed and shared the petition for the Sierra Club! I cannot stand trees being bulldozed for more POLLUTING!!!
Also signed the Protect Communities from Hazardous Coal Mining Waste prepared by the Sierra Club from the hot link above..
Congratulations to the people of West Virginia and your elected representatives. What were you thinking? I see your oligarchy controls the population well in all its glory.