Almost levelled, West Virginia: Crooked justice allows mountain-top removal practices to freely injure homes and health
… with the federal government, state and union all firmly
in the pocket of coal firms.
This seems to be a classic case, on a huge scale, of the difficulties individual property owners and communities face when confronting clearly wrongful acts by large
corporations with deep pockets – and how easily our
governments and courts are suborned from their duties to enforce property rights or other
laws protecting lives, health and property.
The influence and corruption goes all the way up, as this discussion of recusals and non-recusals by W. Va. Supreme Court justices illustrates:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/20/11531/8589
[Note: desnarked in light of fair comment.]
Background:
Here is a partial list – just scratching the surface – of resources on this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mountaintop+removal+mining
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080219/cm_thenation/769287429
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6462-2004Aug16.html
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/mountaintop-removal-mining-permits-illegal.html
http://www.ilovemountains.org/ – this site has great Google Earth links
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/you-are-connected-to-mountaintop.html
http://www.kftc.org/our-work/canary-project/campaigns/mtr/MTR-generalinfo
http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/
http://www.stopmountaintopremoval.org/
http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/21/11552/5722
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/16/142954/768
http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/16/reece/index.html
http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/16/caskey/index.html#spadaro
http://grist.org/news/daily/2000/10/18/top/index.html
http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/mtr_overview/
http://www.christiansforthemountains.org/
Multimedia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Zb3Tb0oSM
http://www.blackdiamondsmovie.com/Trailer.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPixjCneseE
http://www.vbs.tv/player.php?bctid=494918454&bccl=NDEzMjk4MjU0X19ORVdT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZoQ5Gw0r7Q&feature=user
http://www.hawriverfilms.com/id2.html
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Mountain+Top+Removal%22+&search_type=
http://www.ilovemountains.org/multimedia
Juan, thanks for your comment. When I orginally posted a more sarcastic take on the property and human rights violations that are occuring in the Appalachians, Geoffrey Plauche upbraided me for being unfair. But was I really? As you illustrate so well, this site is full of the small-minded, who actually DO view “local private property owners merely wanting to defend their private property … as sniveling, evil enviros”.
Thanks for proving me right, and Geoffrey wrong.
Great ecoterrorist resource. Thanks!
This blogpost isn’t very constructive, Tom. The tone is miscalculated. And continually accusing Austro-libertarians of being hypocrites on private property rights, contrary to all evidence, is insulting and counterproductive. For one thing, you can’t expect all of us to know about a particular local case before it is brought to our attention, but you appear to blame us here for not knowing. For another, you can’t expect all of us to drop our other projects and leap to the aid of the local inhabitants, as you appear to in this post. What are YOU doing for them? Aside from badgering us with insulting and either disingenuous or ill-informed posts this? You know very well that we defend private property rights and that we are against anyone, including companies, receiving government permission and protection to do violate them. Why would local private property owners merely wanting to defend their private property be viewed by us as sniveling, evil enviros? That’s just insulting, Tom, and you should know better.