A lot of interesting things happened in West Virginia at the end of January. The CEO of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. held a public debate on MTR and climate change at the University of Charleston while a tree-sit protest against Massey's intended blasting of Coal River Mountain lasted for nine days, including the day of the debate, before the protesters descended and were immediately arrested (check out http://climategroundzero.net/ for more details about the whole protest). Earlier in the month, the journal Science published an eleven-author peer reviewed article condemning MTR, which, while significant, really only confirms the effects of MTR most people already knew. Hopefully this article does mean that a different realm of academics will take notice of MTR, but honestly I'm not sure there will be much more of an impact than that.
What I think is more interesting is the concurrence of this hugely important debate and the tree-sit protest. The debate a long conversation but definitely worth listening to, and it can be found in full through WV public broadcasting: http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=12858
Now, I'm clearly not Don Blankenship's biggest fan (if you read my last post, you can start to see why), but frankly I am not much impressed by Kennedy, either. Ever since I saw his film "Crimes Against Nature," based on his book of the same title, in a large part I think I've had the same reaction to him that a lot of West Virginians have to outsiders who come into the state and think they have to speak for us because we can't do it for ourselves. It doesn't help that he loves to reinforce how much of a free-market capitalist he is; rather than considering alternatives to capitalism as much as he considers alternative energy sources, he's convinced that pure capitalism would hold producers accountable for all the costs of production, and I just don't think that's feasible.
This debate began with Kennedy's attempt to legitimize his presence in West Virginia in the first place, which doesn't really extend much further than JFK's War on Poverty beginning in the state and his own love for the mountains, and I certainly do appreciate his passionate plea to save the state I love, too. But of course, Blankenship knows the industry better than Kennedy, and he's not a stupid guy: he's able to talk about coal and its role in the growth of the US and that, if coal made us prosperous, we've got to keep mining to continue to prosper, which is something a single-industry state like West Virginia does like to hear. For much of this debate, these men are really just talking about completely different things - a lot of people have responded that Kennedy won the debate outright, but really there is absolutely no common ground and Kennedy is simply the more loquacious of the two.
This debate is just one element of a new discovery I'm having about Don Blankenship. People who are on his side like him because he's from West Virginia, he's worked in mining for six decades, and he's only at the top of the coal chain because he got there himself. But he is also a liar; he also supported the apartheid state in South Africa; he also blames all the problems of the coal industry on the "enviros" like the out-of-state tree sitters. Not only did he state during the debate that strip mining causes no meaningful pollution (which was solidly disproven by the Science report on MTR), he also claimed that coal provides more to West Virginian communities than it takes away - even if that means paying people more than their homes are worth to get them to leave so Massey can blast more mountains. I'm pretty sure that mostly profits the absentee landowners who Massey leases the land from in order to be allowed to blast and mine it - there's just about nothing in it for the West Virginia communities.
Last week I also got the chance to watch a great documentary called Mine War on Blackberry Creek (http://appalshop.org/film/minewar/stream.html - it's only 30 minutes and really insightful) about a strike against Massey in 1984 in which Blankenship tries to justify Massey's investment in multinationals who send jobs to South African mines to "help the people," despite the fact that they must be paid less than American workers (otherwise why would they export the jobs at all?) and despite the fact that they are working in conditions of slave labor. Considering how he treats mine workers in West Virginia today, his statements through this documentary enlighten viewers to Blankenship's longstanding obsession with productivity and profit.
It's hard to tell with Blankenship: has he really kidded himself into thinking that these lies he's telling himself are true, or does he know better and is really only speaking in the name of the coal industry and money? Somehow I think the latter is a bit more likely, especially considering that his conclusion in the debate was that the EPA's regulations are unreasonable and that sustainable environmental policy and productivity are irreconcilable. But of course, that's all because MTR doesn't create any significant pollution...
But Kennedy is probably kidding himself when he says sustainability and productivity go hand in hand, at least if his definition of "productivity" is the same as Blankenship's - which, considering how this debate went, it's probably not. Kennedy's correct in his facts about the coal industry's decline as well as about alternative energy opportunities. He really does speak passionately about the destruction caused by MTR, and he certainly doesn't ignore the human impact it has. Kennedy is more eloquent than Blankenship and probably is the best counterpart to Blankenship in this dominant-male style argument. But I think when Blankenship brings up the activists who aren't from Appalachia who participate in direct action protests (like the tree sitters and their supporting cast, who came from as far away as New Orleans and Chicago), he's including Kennedy in that realm of non-native folks who don't actually get it. And this just brings me back to my first point: why does it have to be someone else speaking for West Virginia?
This choice seems to me to be a gender and class issue in large part. Why not have Blankenship debate with one of the people who has lived through the effects of his company's practices and who knows Kennedy's statistics equally well, if not more, and who work with organizations who aren't just spouting rhetoric about alternative energy sources but actually organizing campaigns for them (like Coal River Mountain Watch - check out their great video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIwO9Z3IlRo)? Is it because many of them are women? Is it because many of them are poor? Is it because many of them are less educated? Is it because of his status as a wealthy white male that Kennedy is seen as of an equal to Blankenship and more fit to meet him in a direct debate (and let's not forget the mediator, Dr. Ed Welch, president of the University of Charleston and a white man in a stable economic situation...)?
Kennedy may be smart, passionate, and a man with the means to speak out about MTR, but he'll always be an outsider. And until Don Blankenship has the balls to get up on a stage in front of an enormous audience and on West Virginia public television and tell the people of Appalachia that Massey hasn't polluted their communities, hasn't forced them out of their homes, hasn't stolen their jobs, and hasn't destroyed their livelihoods - all without lying - then nothing has changed. And until it's West Virginians sitting in the trees on Coal River Mountain at least alongside the "enviros" from out of state, then those actions remain ineffective. It's time to stop putting on shows to prove how radically we all are convinced of our positions, Blankenship and Kennedy included, and actually do something to effect sustainable change in West Virginia. I also wouldn't mind seeing Blankenship's and Kennedy's net worth combined and redistributed to the people of Appalachian coal towns, for starters...but I guess that wouldn't be "purely capitalist" enough for either of them. At least there's one thing they can agree on.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Judicial Elections, Corporate Power, and the Supreme Court
Please excuse the hiatus I took from this blog over the winter. Not only did I not know how to follow up my impassioned previous entry, I got completely wrapped up in other news stories, including the devastating earthquake in Haiti and the high-tension Ukrainian elections. But I've been pushed to respond to a few things that have been happening in and affecting West Virginia, so I guarantee several posts in the next few weeks.
Right now I think it's really important to look at this landmark decision the Supreme Court just made to end restrictions on corporate funding for political campaigns. I'm glad to see a lot of people outraged. This decision is a pretty blatant acceptance (and even approval) of how entrenched politics and corporations are in the US political system. Nowhere do I think this is more evident in West Virginia, where the two largest corporations (Arch Coal and Massey Energy) are sickeningly powerful and have more influence in political campaigns than the candidates and their platforms. The CEO of Massey in particular, Don Blankenship, uses his West Virginia charm, if we can call it that, to mask his ruthless attacks on anti-coal politicians (check back in a few days for a post on his recent debate with Robert Kennedy, Jr., and the local response). Because Massey has so much money, more than political campaigns can normally raise in WV, they are able to sway elections one way or another in favor of the coal industry's interests, and this has become extremely apparent in the judicial realm. In West Virginia, judges are elected just like any other official, which is problematic in part because we don't truly realize the weight of this type of decision. Furthermore, companies like Massey are constantly influencing judicial campaigns in their favor, meaning that WV voters tend to vote in favor of Massey without meaning to do so.
Let's take a campaign from 2004, which was when I was a senior in high school about to vote in my first elections and fairly dedicated to local politics. I went to a meeting in Martinsburg about letting voters registered as Independents vote in primary elections for the Democratic ticket. There, I met Warren McGraw, a candidate for the Supreme Court that year and someone who I thought seemed respectable, attentive, and very worthy of my vote. But when I spoke of how much I enjoyed meeting him to others, I couldn't understand why no one else echoed this sentiment until someone explained to me that he let child molesters walk free. While I continued my support of McGraw throughout the election, it wasn't until later that I was able to delve more deeply into his campaign to see what had really happened.
McGraw had voted numerous times against Massey Energy, and Blankenship didn't want to take a chance on the WV Supreme Court having the power to shut him and his company down any longer. Rather than leave the election to the candidates, Massey put almost $2 million into a campaign called "And For the Sake of the Kids," which, in its ads, declared that McGraw allowed our children to be victimized and criminals to walk free, all based on a single case in which McGraw allowed a man convicted of sexually assaulting his younger brother to get probation. The details left out of these claims against McGraw included the paroled man's youth as part of a drug trafficking ploy by his mother and sexual abuse by a teacher; while I won't claim his troubled past excuses his behavior, I want to show that Massey's biased support of Brent Benjamin, McGraw's opponent - which was monetarily more substantial than any amount McGraw could have raised - was based around assumptions and misrepresentations of an issue that clearly placed McGraw in the role of the child-hating demon. I don't blame West Virginia voters for not rooting through the details of this case to find the truth, but it is sick and sad that Massey was able to swing the election their way based on an issue that had absolutely nothing to do with coal.
If this was in 2004, and coal mining in WV has become a larger issue in the six years since then, and if corporations are now allowed to give political candidates as much money as they want...I think we can see where this is going. While Obama may be making strides in his executive position at least to consider revoking mountaintop removal permits, I still don't think national policy is what's going to make the difference. When the political situation in West Virginia stops being so intrinsically linked with the coal industry and with coal corporations' money, that's when we can consider seeing change in West Virginia. Despite the fact that the state is working on laws requiring more transparency in campaign funds, the US Supreme Court has opened up the opportunity for companies like Massey to even more blatantly buy out political candidates, knowing full well that no candidate who isn't supported by the coal industry can possibly make enough money to counter the smear campaigns that the industry inevitably runs. If there is no industry as strong as coal in West Virginia and if the companies that consolidate that strength throughout Appalachia are allowed to choose who is in office, then I think we can agree that democracy cannot even exist as a fantasy in the coalfields.
For more information about Warren McGraw and the And For the Sake of the Kids campaign, see Burns (2007), an article about Massey's funding against McGraw: http://www.wvcag.org/news/fair_use/2004/10_15.htm, and one of their ads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL9Lj6WllLg
Right now I think it's really important to look at this landmark decision the Supreme Court just made to end restrictions on corporate funding for political campaigns. I'm glad to see a lot of people outraged. This decision is a pretty blatant acceptance (and even approval) of how entrenched politics and corporations are in the US political system. Nowhere do I think this is more evident in West Virginia, where the two largest corporations (Arch Coal and Massey Energy) are sickeningly powerful and have more influence in political campaigns than the candidates and their platforms. The CEO of Massey in particular, Don Blankenship, uses his West Virginia charm, if we can call it that, to mask his ruthless attacks on anti-coal politicians (check back in a few days for a post on his recent debate with Robert Kennedy, Jr., and the local response). Because Massey has so much money, more than political campaigns can normally raise in WV, they are able to sway elections one way or another in favor of the coal industry's interests, and this has become extremely apparent in the judicial realm. In West Virginia, judges are elected just like any other official, which is problematic in part because we don't truly realize the weight of this type of decision. Furthermore, companies like Massey are constantly influencing judicial campaigns in their favor, meaning that WV voters tend to vote in favor of Massey without meaning to do so.
Let's take a campaign from 2004, which was when I was a senior in high school about to vote in my first elections and fairly dedicated to local politics. I went to a meeting in Martinsburg about letting voters registered as Independents vote in primary elections for the Democratic ticket. There, I met Warren McGraw, a candidate for the Supreme Court that year and someone who I thought seemed respectable, attentive, and very worthy of my vote. But when I spoke of how much I enjoyed meeting him to others, I couldn't understand why no one else echoed this sentiment until someone explained to me that he let child molesters walk free. While I continued my support of McGraw throughout the election, it wasn't until later that I was able to delve more deeply into his campaign to see what had really happened.
McGraw had voted numerous times against Massey Energy, and Blankenship didn't want to take a chance on the WV Supreme Court having the power to shut him and his company down any longer. Rather than leave the election to the candidates, Massey put almost $2 million into a campaign called "And For the Sake of the Kids," which, in its ads, declared that McGraw allowed our children to be victimized and criminals to walk free, all based on a single case in which McGraw allowed a man convicted of sexually assaulting his younger brother to get probation. The details left out of these claims against McGraw included the paroled man's youth as part of a drug trafficking ploy by his mother and sexual abuse by a teacher; while I won't claim his troubled past excuses his behavior, I want to show that Massey's biased support of Brent Benjamin, McGraw's opponent - which was monetarily more substantial than any amount McGraw could have raised - was based around assumptions and misrepresentations of an issue that clearly placed McGraw in the role of the child-hating demon. I don't blame West Virginia voters for not rooting through the details of this case to find the truth, but it is sick and sad that Massey was able to swing the election their way based on an issue that had absolutely nothing to do with coal.
If this was in 2004, and coal mining in WV has become a larger issue in the six years since then, and if corporations are now allowed to give political candidates as much money as they want...I think we can see where this is going. While Obama may be making strides in his executive position at least to consider revoking mountaintop removal permits, I still don't think national policy is what's going to make the difference. When the political situation in West Virginia stops being so intrinsically linked with the coal industry and with coal corporations' money, that's when we can consider seeing change in West Virginia. Despite the fact that the state is working on laws requiring more transparency in campaign funds, the US Supreme Court has opened up the opportunity for companies like Massey to even more blatantly buy out political candidates, knowing full well that no candidate who isn't supported by the coal industry can possibly make enough money to counter the smear campaigns that the industry inevitably runs. If there is no industry as strong as coal in West Virginia and if the companies that consolidate that strength throughout Appalachia are allowed to choose who is in office, then I think we can agree that democracy cannot even exist as a fantasy in the coalfields.
For more information about Warren McGraw and the And For the Sake of the Kids campaign, see Burns (2007), an article about Massey's funding against McGraw: http://www.wvcag.org/news/fair_use/2004/10_15.htm, and one of their ads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL9Lj6WllLg
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