Posted on 07/26/2011 11:32:26 PM PDT by STARWISE
Complete title:
Right Out of Atlas Shrugged’: Hear an Exasperated Alabama Businessman Tell the Feds – ‘I’m Just Quitting’
***
Leaning against a wall during a recent Birmingham, Alabama, public hearing, Bryant listened to an overflow crowd pepper federal officials with concerns about businesses polluting the drinking water and causing cases of cancer.
After two hours, Bryant—a coal mine owner from Jasper—had heard enough and, in a moment being described as “right out of Atlas Shrugged,” took his turn at the microphone:
(note from audio site: For readers of my website, this is the audio of Ronnie Bryant at a public meeting in Birmingham on July 20, 2011. The recording was made on my iPad just to have a record of correct quotes, so the audio quality is poor since it wasn't intended for broadcast purposes.)
Transcript:
Nearly every day without fail…men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage.
They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just…you know…what’s the use?
I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work.
And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I see these guys—I see them with tears in their eyes—looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them.
So…basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you.”
The Blaze contacted Bryant, and he remains as resolute as he was at last week’s public hearing. To him, it’s just not worth the time, money, and regulatory hassle to open up a new mine—even one located in a remote area with less environmental impact.
Defund the EPA, and retire all Congressmen who refuse to do it...
...another Communist in her SEIU purple...you’re right...gang colors.
Ah, no. Ain't gonna happen. They are creating a future for political violence, just like we've seen in Europe over the past century and a half of socialism.
Hitler studied the Socialist movement in Germany, which was the largest, richest and most influential in the world. He took their methods to create his German nationalist workers movement in contrast to their international workers movement.
The socialists in this country just can't imagine that others will use their techniques against them. After they destroy elections, so that elections don't change anything, people will turn from elections to change things. The top people in their movement, like a Van Jones, intellectually want the chaos and violence, because they think they will pick up the pieces. They won't like the results of what is really going to happen.
How true piytar. The arrogance which so often accompanies the ignorance of environmental activists tempts letting them stew in the fruits of their ignorance. Unfortunately, the private sector they want to handicap, creating their Marxist Utopia, so the ski resorts won't be so crowded will be what remains for my children.
What is true of wave power, which, along with tidal power, has been a useless curiosity which gets revisited every few decades, is also true of wind power and solar power. Those who've driven the Altamont Pass in California and seen the wind turbine graveyard, blades still, because the subsidies and tax shelters ran out. Many saw the two enormous Silicon Valley buildings visited by Obama in January, Solyndra, surrounded by empty parking lots, having taken their half billion dollars in May of 2010 and closed shop in November. Those empty parking lots are potent symbols of why so many of the buildings in the high tech valhalla are empty. Marxist anticapitalists are killing the free maarket and the technology which grew from it.
People have died from falling from towers, and at least one, from a flying wind turbine blade. Many have died working on low tech solar panels, falling from roofs, and thousands would die each year if we ever build commercially sized arrays with tens of thousands of heliostats in fields six miles on a side, where servicing from cranes must be done at night. The issue is, of course, the low energy flux density and intermittence of wind and sunlight which makes it is all a pipe dream, dangerous both to our economy and our citizens. For those technologies the Marxists the cost of power from coal"...must necessarily skyrocket." For Obama, though he honestly made the comment about coal plants, he really meant oil, gas, and nuclear power which growth he has killed, using his Marxist, socialist, and communist comrades in EPA and green czar positions.
We can hope the Chinese and Indians will like our temperate climates enough to use our real estate for research centers, providing some income for those remaining in California, at least enough income to allow us to purchase what manufactured goods our diminishing currency will permit us.
The Chinese and Indians will have little use for our bureaucrats, but if they buy homes here, they may be willing to employ police, fire, and healthcare services. Their engineers and scientists are generally superior to ours, thanks to our high schools. Entering graduate schools they usually have about a two year advantage, having done coursework in science and mathematics our native born and raised students only begin in grad school.
We are learning how prescient Ayn Rand was when she produced Atlas Shrugged.
If you cloned a 1000 of her, they would not know the first thing about mining coal.
The Democrats are doing everything that they can to hold back, control, hamper, regulate and steal from businesses and those who start, own and run them. Ergo they are doing everything they cab to destroy the economy.
PIIng
Corporate America is winning.... they already employ lawyers, accountants, and politicians to maintain compliance. The little guy who does it themselves does not stand a chance in today’s environment.
It appears to me that socialism is winning.
She and the Wookie must have the same dentist.
truth!!!!
When I was a kid, the guy next door said about a similar individual, "She could eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the other side of a picket fence."
Obama: “Mission Accomplished!”
Defund the EPA, and retire all Congressmen who refuse to do it...
To response to your statement, very few. Probably less than one in a thousand. That is what the Democrats are banking on.
I know the Republicans are too damn STUPID, but this guy should be their POSTER BOY for 2012.
...every American needs to HEAR FROM HIM.
It looks like SEIU purple, so yes, it is a gang color.
I posted a version of this story that became a pretty good-sized thread here:
‘I’m just quitting’: A scene right out of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ in Birmingham
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2753534/posts
This story needs as much exposure as we can give it. Post it outside of FR, send it to your email list, etc.
And, despite what they may say, on election day, most voted for him. Hell, he would not have been elected if they hadn't.
I have a test I use, it gets one of two reactions and by the reation I can tell if they voted for the sob or not.
I say, "How is that change working out for you?" And they wil either kinda hang their head and mumble I didn't vote for him, Or I didn't vote for the bastard"
Saving for later
Michigan FReeper jenk has done extraordinary work in a 24 part series on a coal-fired power plant in Rogers City, Michigan...(part 23 here)...
http://jennerationx.com/2009/12/the-proposed-coal-fired-power-plant-in-rogers-city-mi-part-23/
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