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I'm from the Appalachian MD/WV/PA tri-state. I know of coal country - I grew up in it. I've walked the tracks with coal dust on my feet. There are just too many people who you can hit over the head with a shovel and they still won't see the light coming towards them. Back in the day, we had a thriving rail and coal industry. PPG. Celanese Fibers. Kelly-Springfield. All gone. People are just now beginning to wake up, but too few, too late for places like these, it seems. People are clinging by a thread - to their homes, their families, their sanity. Obama told one of the few truths of his life when he said he was going to shut down the coal industry and energy costs would soar. These folks still voted him in because Daddy and Grandaddy were old-school Democrats, but they didn't listen to the messenger. Now whatever economies there were in those parts are suffering due to that sort of familial political loyalty - nobody saw the light barreling down on them. It wasn't the rhetorical gravy train they naturally assumed it would be. Even the unions got bought, sold, and kicked down the hollow. Just like voting McConnell back in - it isn't the same us vs. them paradigm anymore. There is no real red vs. blue, black vs. white, or however you want to view the chessboard. McConnell is no more a conservative than Harry Reid is. They're all corporate political insiders with their own best interests at the fore. They're all drunk on their own power and self-importance, and all the so-called bickering you hear about going on in Washington is self-serving manipulation to get the upper hand on each other. We're just fodder. Every day, I hear a thousand voices offer a thousand solutions - some noble, others not so much - as to how to solve our problems. I've convinced the whole thing will have to come crashing down into a cloud of dust before it can be rebuilt as the Founders intended, and real opportunity rises from the dirt.

That's my opinion. You're entitled to yours.

Here is what you need to understand, when the Feds passed the Mine Safety and Health Act we knew its purpose was to put small operators out of business, we knew that by shutting down a mine it was theft by unlawful taking, we knew that when we could not get our day in court and be judged by a jury of our peers that it was totally unlawful, we knew that when the Feds began to inspect coal mines that did not sell their coal out of state it was a power grab and a stealing of state rights, we knew that when the Feds came in one day and declared all our equipment to be illegal and shut us down, that it was an unlawful act and theft. We knew when the Feds declared all mines to be gassy, meaning contained methane in explosive amounts that for large number of mines it was a lie to put us under the Feds thumb. We knew that the noose had been placed around our necks and would be tightened slowly till we expired. We knew when the power of press got behind the Feds to pass these unlawful laws that the free press was a lie.
This was well over thirty years ago and we fought the Feds on our own with no help. We knew that if they could do this to us they would find others like Cliven Bundy to destroy and we raised the alarm and warned you and all others we could by fighting every step of the way.
Unless you owned a small coal company you do not know or like many in the general population you bought into the children working in coal mines, the evil owners who didn’t care about the men who worked for them, we tried to tell you, you would not listen because it didn’t effect you, not then. Now when we have been driven out of business and you are seeing direct effects on you, Ky is suddenly important.
We are ignorant hillbillies that created our own problems by electing a$$holes, you see, your ox is being gored now as ours was.
Every day a new regulation is passed by some SOB in Washington that impacts your life, now all you folks are starting to wake up after we were fighting the takeover, over 30 years ago, us ignorant hillbillies. We knew you would never wake up after the firat couple of years when we told you what was happening to us and it would come to your doorstep one day if you did not help us fight. You didn’t, you watched hockey or football while your rights were stolen away because it was just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies being screwed, you never saw the big picture.
It is just peachy that you grew up in coal country but unless you felt the point of the Federal spear in your side, you do not have any more clue than the loons in Cali or New York of what went on that led to what is happening now. We knew that until it caused your tv to go off you would not start to squeal, till your comfy life was directly impacted you would not stand up. We thought you would have stood up years ago, but you did not. We were mistaken, we thought that you were Americans, like us and actually had a set, you aren’t and you don’t.
So when you call us F****** hillbillies, you need to take a close look and ask yourself what did I do during the war. You see it started long ago and the cavalry did not show up. We know that it makes no difference now what corrupt politician is elected, it is just too late. To quote one of the Founders,’may your chains sit lightly on your shoulders.....’, I am sure you know the rest of it.
If I sound bitter and angry it is because I am. I will admit that watching folks suddenly wake up and realize they have been royally screwed is not viewed without a certain amount of glee on my and others parts that were there and fought both inside and out of court. Now we are forced to fight once more, this time to the death, us ignorant F****** hillbillies will not go gently into that good night, no we won’t.