What is wrong with development (exploitation to some) of resources?

[ishmael]

Talk of a pipeline for oil in Afganistan has me wondering just what people think their lives are based on. Aren't they (haven't they always been), more or less tied to the use of resources? Oil, timber, iron, copper etc.

Anyone who knows me, knows I advocate "minimal impact" living, but com'on folks. Do you want to live like the Taliban were living in Afganinstan? Wasn't it a good idea to try and get those folks interested in economic developement of some sort, rather than beheading prostitutes and thieves?

Complex subject. Complex answers please.

[stan v]

I agree. We get oil, they get money. It's called trade.

[LeeG]

what's the subject?

[Meerkat]

I recently read an interview with the president of Sun Microsystems. The topic of Sun's business activities in China came up and one of the interviewer's questions was quite telling IMO. He asked if Sun had any concerns about repaitrating profits (getting them back to the US). He replied that Sun was happy with the Chinese laws allowing them to get back much of their profit.

Turn we now to Nigeria. Billions in oil coming out of there. Some few are making that money and it appears that little of it either gets to the local economy or stays in the country. The rest of the country is in abject poverty. I wonder if they would have time for a christian/muslim conflict if there was economic prosperity.

Afghanistan and the pipeline: how much of the wealth that will soon be flowing through their country will the Afghani in the street see? What about the average Pakistani where the terminus of the pipeline is likely to be? The Uzbecs where the oil comes from?

Resource development is a good thing. When the profits from that development do not improve the lives of the people who own that resource, that is exploitation. It's the 21st century equivelent of rape and pillage, although there's nothing new about it.

I do not argue that foreign investors shouldn't profit by their investments, but there's something wrong when the owner gets to keep $1 for every $10,000 the foreigners take away

[ 02-06-2003, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: Meerkat ]

[ishmael]

Lee,

The topic is the use of resources in general, in this case the resonant and "evil" oil. On another thread there was talk about the reason for our action in Afganistan being tied to the desire to tap oil fields north of them and use Afganistan as transit for a pipeline.

There is a strange mind, built around fifty years of socialist inculcation, mostly at our universities, which says any use of resources, any development of said resources, must be bad, because it's being done by the EVIL American capitalists.

Many won't believe this, but I draw strong lines between this un-thinking mindset, and an invasion of academia by communists and socialists through much of the last century. Personal experience: At a fairly exclusive liberal arts college I attended in the seventies, the head of the sociology department was proved to be a Soviet agent. A very charismatic Irishman by the way.

Don't get me wrong, I think environmental and social responsibility should go hand in hand with development of any resource. Insofar as the left continues to make reasonable demands, they are a positive influence. But we have a huge hangover in academe of a very disruptive and antithetical element. We have two generations that has been powerfully influenced by those our open system of discourse invited into our schools. It is a hidden history, because the history departments--indeed all the humanities departments--are largely controlled by the accolytes of the original agents.

[ 02-06-2003, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: ishmael ]

[Meerkat]

Originally posted by stan v:
I agree. We get oil, they get money. It's called trade.Simple answer from a simple guy - too bad it's wrong. What we do is set up corporations that allows us to pay ourselves for the oil, either directly or indirectly through the IMF and World Bank.

[Dutch Rub]

It depends on how you go about it. If you go into West Virginia and remove the tops of whole mountains, take out the coal and leave a giant slag heap behind you ( which causes uncotrollable flooding for the once more out of work residents) where once there was Gods creation of heaven on earth- no one can be honest with them selves and say that isnt wrong.

And it is happening as we sit here. :(

[Meerkat]

Damn DutchRub, if you keep making cogent and constructive comments like that, I'm going to have to acknowledge your existance! smile.gif

[On Vacation]

Oyster
.
Member # 5154

posted 02-06-2003 08:19 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thats right, Joe. Without it, the world stops. Face that alternative.

--------------------
Foolish pleasure is a boat, but some are owned by fools.
http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=007827

Corporations, thats right, KittyKat, there has to be someone to handle the civilized transfer and enviromentally friendly ways of keeping the rich running the world.

[ 02-06-2003, 05:59 PM: Message edited by: Oyster ]

[Jim H]

A few days ago I saw an interview of Bill Richardson (former Energy Sec. & Amb. to the U.N.) where he mentioned that while in Afghanistan in 1998 he tried to negotiate a pipeline right-of-way with the taliban. Needless to say I was suprised, mainly because all of the static I've heard about this pipeline mentions only the Bush Administration. I did a search which led me to a document that was harshly anti-American but was well footnoted. One of the footnotes was an article in the Guardian. It seems the proposed pipeline has a long history.
Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,438134,00.html)

I have also looked at a chronological history of Afghanistan History (http://www.afghan-web.com/history/chron/index3.html) it's a long history of internal and external conflict.

[ 02-06-2003, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: JimHillman ]

[Rex Fearnehough]

Jack, the original resource was food, which necessitated travel, farming and implements. These resources were shared and bartered.
Skip a few thousand years and we have our present society.
What has changed?
How many of our necessities are really that?
Ask a starving man if he wants a 'fridge, a television or a piece of bread.
Of course we have advanced, but it has always been on the back of some unfortunate.
How much would we each have to give up to eliminate hunger and poverty? It would be less than 10%
The Taliban were originally sponsored by the West, the thieves and prostitutes were sponsored by poverty.
Economic development takes a long time to fill bellies. A shorter time to fill pockets.

[Donn]

Originally posted by Meerkat:
Damn DutchRub, if you keep making cogent and constructive comments like that, I'm going to have to acknowledge your existance! smile.gif http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/ls201/images/michaelangelo_big.jpg

[Dutch Rub]

Bill Maxey retired from being chief of the West Virginia division of forestry because of his hatred for mountain top removal strip mining. He says that the mountains can be saved and jobs preserved. He argues that each year an average of 200 bf of hardwood timber grow on an acre of WV forest. Over 300,000 acres of mountains have been decapitated since 1977 by mountain top removal strip mining. 200 bf of lumber could be produced from each of those 300,000 acres every year forever. That is 60 million bf of lost lumber every year. That is enough to keep 3 large modern bandmills running forever. Thats jobs forever. But instead the trees are gone, the wildlife is gone, the jobs are gone, and the beauty is gone too- forever.

[Donn]

"Mountaintop Removal Strip Mining Destroys More and More Jobs

Wise’s Support of Mountain Desecration Further Challenges West Virginia’s Economy

By Julian Martin

I don’t like to think of mountains as having to be useful in order for them to exist. They should be allowed their majesty without requiring that they produce a profit. But to counter the argument that mountain top removal strip-mining is good for West Virginia’s economy, here is a use for the mountains that leaves them in place.

Bill Maxey, the number one forester in West Virginia, retired from being chief of the Division of Forestry because of his hatred for mountain top removal strip-mining. Maxey told me that the mountains can be saved and jobs will be preserved. His argument: each year an average of two hundred board feet of hardwood timber grow on an acre of forest. Over 300,000 acres of mountains have been decapitated since 1977 by mountain top removal strip-mining. Two hundred board feet of lumber could be produced from each of those 300,000 acres every year, forever. That is sixty million board feet of lumber lost every year; Enough to keep three large modern bandmills running forever. That is jobs forever.

Mountain top removal means jobs that run out when the mountains are all flattened. It seems that more jobs run out as more mountain top removal we have -- more coal production with fewer and fewer miners. That dragline is eating up coal mining jobs. As Larry Gibson said, "If the coal industry is creating jobs as they claim, I hope they stop because at the rate they are doing it there will be no jobs in ten years."

In the long run mountain top removal is bad for the economy. Right now it removes three hundred thousand acres of hardwood forest from production every year forever. This loss increases daily.

There is need for alarm about the future of these beautiful West Virginia mountains. Since the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy filed suit to stop the illegal filling of streams with mountain top removal waste, thirty-four mountain top removal permits have been issued, fifteen of those since Judge Haden’s ruling. [italics added by editor]

It appears to me that the people running this state, the politicians and departments like the one that says it is supposed to protect the environment, hate mountains and valleys. These politicians remind me of a wife of a stripminer I talked with a few years ago in Madison, West Virginia. She didn’t like these mountains – she preferred flat land like in her home state of Missouri. Our mountains made her uncomfortable. And there was the Lincoln County commissioner who once said that he liked the way strip-mines looked, it reminded him of Wyoming and Arizona. These are true environmental extremists for sure!

Mountains also seem to have made ex-Governor Underwood uncomfortable, he wanted them flattened for economic development which has never and will never occur to any significant extent on the 300,000 acres that have already been flattened. To give you an idea of how much land it takes for this so called economic development: the new, huge, ugly, tacky shopping centers on Corridor G just south of Charleston (sounding the death bell for downtown business) cover about one-fifth of the land that would be flattened by one large mountain top removal strip mine. We have hundreds already flattened and more planned for future decapitation.

Our new governor, Bob Wise, believes that "responsible" mountain top removal can take place. As an indication of which side he is on he uses the coal industry’s euphemism of "mountain top mining." He also mouths the coal industry’s other euphemism "surface mining" instead of "strip mining." "Mountain top removal" and "strip mining" say exactly what is going on -- they are ugly words that describe an ugly business. The Orwellian public relations hacks replaced these and other ugly words with less harsh words to fool the public.

Bob Wise has also created a sort of commissar of political favors for southern West Virginia and appointed a man to that job as his special assistant. That man, Art Kirkendoll, a county commissioner of Logan County, was spokesman and part of a mob that assaulted people marching to honor our grandfathers who fought at the battle of Blair Mountain. Among those assaulted were some West Virginia Highlands Conservancy members including a board member, members of the Coal River Mountain Watch, members of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, citizens of the coal fields and Ken Hechler, West Virginia’s Secretary of State. An excuse has been offered for Kirkendoll’s mob – they thought they were attacking a march in opposition to mountain top removal. Is it then all right to assault people who are opposed to mountain top removal? One poll showed that 80% of the people in West Virginia are opposed to this form of mining. What would be the Governor’s reaction to mob violence if it had been directed toward people marching to honor Martin Luther King, or honor the suffragettes or Republicans marching to honor Abraham Lincoln? Would Governor Wise have appointed the leader of the mob to be his special assistant?

Governor Wise said he would not be bullied to get rid of Kirkendoll by people he claims have no evidence. I beg to differ! There’s plenty of evidence. Besides eyewitness observations, there are also photographs showing Kirkendoll in the mob. Wise’s man, Kirkendoll, and his mob, drove sixty miles from Logan County to Kanawha County to intercept and assault the marchers.

It appears Kirkendoll will be the man people go to in southern West Virginia to obtain intercession with Bob Wise. Considering his manner of dealing with those he disagrees with, I suppose Kirkendoll will just punch them in the nose if they ask him for help he doesn’t want to give.

Ironically, Wise honored Kirkendoll at the inauguration on Martin Luther King Day."

Link (http://wvhc.drw.net/VoiceFeb01/JulianArt.Feb2001Voice.htm)

[Meerkat]

Heh - whatever the source, the sentiment was appropriate to the discussion. DR isn't the first to comment by cut and paste.

[Donn]

Don't you mean cut, paste, alter and post as one's own words?

[Bruce Taylor]

You're sharp, Donn. smile.gif

Jack, you're picking a fight with a straw man.

The subject of a gas pipeline in Afghanistan did come up, but I don't think anybody here is fretting about the environmental impact of the thing.

About a year ago, Pat pointed out that the Afghanistan campaign created an opportunity for western energy companies to revive an old pipeline idea. I believe he was implying that Bush's motives in invading Afghanistan were...mixed. No doubt Pat will correct me if I have that wrong. In any case the environment wasn't the issue.

Now, the pipeline is going to be built, and Pat feels vindicated.

Now, there may be a few simple souls on the forum who don't know where coal comes from, or who are blissfully unaware that hamburger is made of ground up cows, or who think we should design cars that run on whipped cream. But I can't say I've ever heard such naive views from any of our guys.

So: why the chiding tone of your post ("come on folks...get real...do you really want to live like the Taliban")? It sounds like you're looking for an idiot to set straight. I doubt you'll find him here.

[ 02-06-2003, 07:31 PM: Message edited by: Bruce Taylor ]

[Dutch Rub]

FO Loon- I never said they were my own workds or pretended them to be, I said they were what Bill Maxey said- guess Im not a whiz bang computer geek like yourself who can move crap here and there eloectonically-looks like you use google as a search engine too- this particlular article was on top-

[ 02-06-2003, 07:46 PM: Message edited by: DutchRub ]

[ishmael]

Jack, you're picking a fight with a straw man. Perhaps so. But I know that a certain Thomas J. Rice, an influential, communist member of Denison University's humanities faculty almost suckered me.

Is it so untoward to note the similarity between erzats religions...between the religion of Marx and the religion of Mohammed as steamily practiced? Mohammed was a control freak, not unlike Stalin. His history shows brutal oppression and a conquering mind.

And, I think asking the question of those raised in the murky porridge of socialist indocrination is valid--even if a bit overdrawn.

[ 02-06-2003, 07:52 PM: Message edited by: ishmael ]

[Dutch Rub]

Originally posted by DutchRub:
But instead the trees are gone, the wildlife is gone, the jobs are gone, and the beauty is gone too- forever.That part is mine.

[Bruce Taylor]

And, I think asking the question of those raised in the murky porridge of socialist indocrinationO.K. then...let's see if we can flush out the forum's communist infiltrators, or at least those who were indoctrinated by them.

Come out of the porridge, you pinkos!

[ishmael]

:D

[Meerkat]

Will it be communism when the last two corporations on earth merge to form one? The trends sure seems to be in that direction.

[Meerkat]

Originally posted by ishmael:
:D Complex answers to complex questions? After Donn knocks the thread off-topic?

Heh.

[Bruce Taylor]

http://www.cla.sc.edu/engl/faculty/bios/rice/rice.JPG

This the guy? Humanities prof at Univ. of South Carolina.

Here's his email address if you want to call him a lying no-good commie:

RICET@GWM.SC.EDU

[ 02-06-2003, 08:17 PM: Message edited by: Bruce Taylor ]

[ishmael]

Nope. I don't know what happened to Master Rice (probably in Belfast, or dead), but that ain't him.

[ishmael]

Hay look, anyone with half a heart is a Marxist, (or a primitive Christian). "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."

Problems arise when one tries to make it a state religion. Either.

[Wayne Jeffers]

Jack,


What is wrong with development (exploitation to some) of resources?The way you phrase the topic suggests to me that you believe that exploitation does not exist, that development and exploitation are two words that represent the same thing depending upon one's viewpoint. Later, you seem to suggest that any who question exploiting the environment must surely be communists.

What's the next topic, "What is wrong with tender lovemaking (violent rape to some) of young women?"

Perhaps you are in denial, but exploitation does exist. There are plenty of corporations which rape the landscape for extraction of resources and leave a horrible mess for generations to come.

Of course, the Bu$h administration would have us all believe that exploitation does not exist. Certainly they have no problem with the most wanton environmental destruction under the guise of "development" and "creating jobs."

DutchRub raised a good example. The Clean Water Act allows dumping of waste "fill" into streams in a few narrowly defined circumstances for developmental purposes and it outlaws all other such dumping. The US District Court in the Southern District of West Virginia ruled that the practice of filling in entire valleys with waste from mountaintop removal mining for no purpose other than to dispose of the waste material was in violation of the Clean Water Act. The Bu$h administration intervened in the appeal on behalf of the defendants and the court's ruling was overturned by the ultra-conservative appellate court in Richmond.

This is the kind of "development" the Bu$h administration exists to protect:

http://www.tlpj.org/images/valleyfill.jpg

It costs a little more to get the coal out of the ground in a more responsible manner. Instead, we must turn beautiful mountain forests into poor scrubby grassland prairies. :(

Meet me in West Virginia someday, and I'll show you first-hand the results of Bu$h-endorsed "development."

Wayne

[ 02-06-2003, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: Wayne Jeffers ]

[Memphis Mike]

I've read enough ending with your post donn.
The truth is the people of West Virginia
are still trying to hold on to old ideas
that will bring them nil. Old "king coal" is
dead and never will be revived.

What Dutch said is true also. The people
of West Virginia have suffered greatly as a result
of this pursuit of energy resources.

I've been directly involved with mountain top
removeable operations as well as deep mining
operations. The people never come back to
reclaim the land they have destroyed. :mad:
What they do reclaim comes in the form of
vegatation that won't support wildlife.ie
hydroseeding.

West Virginia coal is contolled by outside
money making enterprises that could give a
rats ass about the people of the state. It's been
that way for a long time now. And the people
are still hanging on to this.

I have friends there who have died as a result
of what has happened there. Most were good
folks until the industry collapsed Now some
are in prison and others are who knows where.

As far as exploitation goes....yes. But the
sad part is the people agree with it. :mad:

[ishmael]

Wayne,

I don't doubt the evil of manipulators loosed on the environment, or their fellows. My take is that our ethics are screwed up, and have been for a long time. Ethics for sale, more and more, but are they more so now than during most recent times?

It's too simplistic to blame one particular regime in power. They merely have a peculiar inflection.

The root is seeking the wrong water. Until many realize it, and make accomadation to the changes genuine revulsion would entail, we become, we are that root. Political adherence is merely a charade to make one side or the other feel better about their crimes.

"I have never been sure of my own political opinions (historical studies and my fondness for myth and legend have always blunted my political partisanship)..."

Robertson Davies

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Pogo

[ 02-07-2003, 12:16 AM: Message edited by: ishmael ]

[On Vacation]

Enviromentalists and their policies has never been about saving the planet. If so, they would have gone after Irag after setting the fires to the oil wells. They would have gone after Russia after the nuclear power plant disaster. The only ones that they go after are the companies doing business in or around or associated with the United States. I am sure, Wayne, the mountians were mined long before Bush came into office. None of them ride bicycles and cool their houses with solar powered cells. None,that I have seen, wears fig leaves to save the ground water from fertilizers and pesticides that treat the cotton plants.. Pinkos without camos.

[ 02-06-2003, 09:12 PM: Message edited by: Oyster ]

[Memphis Mike]

I hate to say this but you don't know Jack...
Jacko.

Your're sitting in your little comfortable room
in Maine without an inkling of what is going on
in the real world today. You use the internet
as a way of getting your feet wet. Just what
are you so afraid of?

Troll Alert!!!

[Wayne Jeffers]

So, what are you suggesting, Jack?

Since we're going to be raped anyway, we should just sit back, relax, and try to enjoy it?

I say, "Hell, no! Resist!"

There's an important difference between responsible development and environmental rape. How would you feel if they were doing this to YOUR home?

Wayne

[Memphis Mike]

Oyster, my home state has been devastated
by mining.....I was a willing participant.
I know.

I packed the holes with ammonia nitrate.
And ensured a steady supply. Something
I ain't too proud of these days.

[Wayne Jeffers]

Yes, Oyster, the mountains were mined long before Bu$h came into office.

Things have been bad in the past and in many ways were getting better. Deep mines are much safer than they once were, for example.

Mountaintop removal mining is a relatively recent development, and is particularly destructive.

Fact is, there has not been a national administration in my memory which is so devoted to raping the environment for the sake of improving the profit margin as the Bu$h administration, all in the name of "development."

Wayne

[ishmael]

Wayne,

Very good questions. I suggest resistance. But it's important that it happens in a way consonant to one's character and in the reasoned grasp of one's reality. And perhaps this will address Mike's yelping.

I choose to resist by not using resources as much as I'm able. I don't buy hardly anything new; I use as little as I'm able. If the people of the West adopted my consumption ethic the economy would collapse tomorrow, and we'd pick ourselves up from there. May happen sooner than later, and not from choice. But I digress.

But on a finer level, you have a gift of intellect and word. Perhaps you should be an organizer, a worker in the trenches of this battle. Another, with similar gifts, might be a poet, or (as perhaps with Mike) a singer of songs. Some I know (I just spent the morning with a fantastic organizational mind, a woman who's my realtor) can best serve being a volunteer for "Habitat For Humanity", and various other groups she works her heart out for. But she is definately an organiser.

I don't know Wayne. What is your passion and bliss? Follow that, and you won't go wrong.

Jack

[Memphis Mike]

But then again...maybe we should just sit
in our little rooms and whine. That's the
answer. You don't know jack.

[ishmael]

Mike,

What's this chip on your shoulder? Why am I the focus of it?

You have a complaint about me, go ahead, blow it out, it might do you good.

This snipeing though, about me being whatever you imagine I am, isn't good. Better you just let loose.

[Memphis Mike]

Sorry Jack, you seem to be an authority on
all things both great and both small in
man and nature. My apologies sir. You know
more about mining in West Virginia than I
could ever hope to.

[ishmael]

coward

[On Vacation]

Mike, I visited Buckanon?sp back in the 70s and saw a lot of devistation then. I would think that with the modernization of equipment and regulations, things have to be better than the past sins. But I just don't buy one man, one administration, an on going trashing of the Earth for greed, and taking advantage of working people in today's enviroment.

Coal mining is a dirty job along with many other professions. That is so shallow to say, as Wayne did, that Bush and a conservative judge is repsonsible for dirty water in West Virginia. That makes no sense, IMHO.

[ 02-06-2003, 10:23 PM: Message edited by: Oyster ]

[LeeG]

what's the subject?

[ishmael]

You tell us Lee. At the moment I've been called a troll and liar by Memphis Mike. I don't know what he's talking about, and he won't tell, except by sitting in his little room making snide remarks.

If I didn't think he was smarter, and better than this, I would ignore it.

[ 02-06-2003, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: ishmael ]

[PatCox]

As pointed out by Wayne, Ishmael, you are getting pretty damn tricky with your use of language, framing your question in such a slanted fashion, obviously inviting a response that you wanted to slap down. You want my job or something?

One huge problem is that my remarks about the pipeline in afghanistan had nothing to do with exploitation or use of resources, I have never been much of a green, environmental causes have lots of voices without me. What I was suggesting is that its not a moral cause for war, that you wish to go exploit some weaker nation's resources.

Bruce, you made a very fair restatement of my argument and you were right about my reasons, down to the fact that the pipeline was only a part of the reason for the attack. We did and do have a legitimate reason to go after the taliban and al qaeda.

As for those who suggest that because the pipeline was discussed and planned back when Clinton was president, somehow that means Clinton is bad or its Clinton's fault, thats absurd.

The story that is debated in europe but not here is this: The US government was supporting the Unocal pipeline project, and went to the Taliban last summer demanding that the Taliban approve and support the project. The story is that in a meeting US officials pushed the Taliban hard in July 2001, threatening war if they don't agree to the pipeline. And that this threat provoked the 9/11 attack.

I have no idea if that happened, its been reported, but not by what you call impeccable sources.

But anyway, the fact that the pipeline was planned before has no bearing on anything, Clinton didn't start a war over it.

[ 02-06-2003, 11:35 PM: Message edited by: PatCox ]

[ishmael]

Pat,

I love language, and try to use it well. If, as you suggest, I've used it deviously, I hope you will point to the deception, specifically.

[Meerkat]

Ish; I found your initial post to this thread to be, to say the least, inflamatory and slanted. It boiled down to: "do you want oil or the taliban" IMO. Sort of like the old missionary joke: "death or cheech" :D

[Nicholas Carey]

Apropos strip mining...all I can say is that anybody who isn't vociferously opposed to it has never been to east Kentucky or West Virginia. I recommend a scenic tour of Harlan County, Kentucky. Dead Valleys that will never support life due to the sulfuric acid in the streams -- streams that run black. American citizens who, for all practical purposes live in what is essentially a third world country.

Jean Ritchie said it best:

Black Waters
by Jean Ritchie

I come from the mountains, Kentucky's my home
Where the wild deer and black bear so lately did roam
By the cool rushing waterfall the wildflowers dream
And through every green valley, there runs a clear stream
Now there's scenes of destruction on every hand
And only black waters run down through my land

Chorus
Sad scenes of destruction on every hand
Black waters, black waters, run down through my land

Well, the quail, she's a pretty bird and she sings a sweet tongue
In the roots of tall timber she nests with her young
The the hillside explodes with the dynamites roar
And the voice of the small bird is heard there no more
And the mountain comes a sliding so awful and grand
And the flooding black waters rise over my land

In the coming of springtime we planted our corn
In the ending of springtime we buried our son
In the summer come a nice man saying everything's fine,
My employer just requires a way to his mine
Then they tore down my mountain and covered my corn
Now the grave on the hillside 's a mile deeper down
And the man stands a talking with his hat in his hand
While the poison black waters rise over my land

Well I ain't got no money, not much of a home
I own my own land, but my land's not my own
But, if I had ten million, somewheres thereabout
Well, I'd buy Perry county and throw them all out
And just sit down on the banks with my bait and my can
And watch the clear waters run down through my land

Well, wouldn't that be just like the old promised land?
Black waters, black waters no more in my land
Black waters, black waters no more in my land

Copyright Geordie Music Publishing, Inc.

[Rex Fearnehough]

Relax, happy people!
This is a debate and the question posed is legitimate.
What does it matter if a question is specifically posed?
I have noticed on some of these threads, that the subject is ignored and personal attacks begin?
I know nothing about your mountain tops, but, I am learning from you all.
So back to the topic and let me keep on learning.
No one seems to be interested in giving up 10% of their wealth to improve things!
Rex.

[LeeG]

finding a resource is exciting, oil has a lot of calories, kisses are good, salmon jerky makes a good road sign. Jack, use fewer adjectives and abstractions. What's the subject?

[ishmael]

Lee,

The subject is whatever we make it.

I intended my original post to be provocative. It's point was that everyone who's still breathing is a user of some kind of resource, yet there is an attitude afoot that it is somehow only evil capitalist's that utilize resources.

I had a minor epiphany, back when I was fresh out of college and working as the environmental health physicist at Battelle Corp's nuclear facility, outside Columbus, OH. It was, that contrary to what I'd been taught in school, it wasn't corporations that pollute, it was thee and me. This was after also working the Ohio EPA's field crew for six months, and seeing the worst Ohio idustry could belch.

In that moment, I became a radical. I've not been much of consumer of frivolous things, ever, but my epiphany drove the connection between the besmirching of the planet and it's beauty, and the mindless consumer ethic promulgated everwhere, deep into my tissue.

I realized I could carry on a one person campaign and not buy the colorful trinkets offered, at least no more than necessary to get on in life.

I knew a true practioner once when I lived amidst the Massachusetts hill towns. His epiphany lead him to sell the fifteen year old Suburu and buy mountain bikes for he and his wife. In due course, it also lead to divorce.

[LeeG]

so the subject is other peoples attitudes?

[LeeG]

or attitudes, say it 1000 times, attitudeattitudeattitudeattitudeattitudeattitudeat titudeattitude,,,,,hmm, no matter. no mind. Turn up Janis Joplin and shovel snow and chop water.

[LeeG]

sing it Janis,,,nevah nevah,,no, no,no nevah,,,,ohhhhh it just can't be,,,honey,you don't know what it's like,,,,you just don't know what it's like,,,,,

take a Janis break from attitudes, a gospel in falling snow and a cup of coffee,,those "attitudes" don't ,,don't,,don't know you,,oh baby they just don't know.

all is well,,taking a walk in the snow, let the blues take those 'tudes' away.

[Sam F]

Originally posted by ishmael:

Anyone who knows me, knows I advocate "minimal impact" living, but com'on folks. Do you want to live like the Taliban were living in Afganinstan? Wasn't it a good idea to try and get those folks interested in economic developement of some sort, rather than beheading prostitutes and thieves?

Complex subject. Complex answers please.A complex subject all right but that set up is much too simplistic. It seems that you've provided us with a false (as in mistaken) choice. Why the contrast between wasteful consumerist wage-slave Capitalism and the wacko parasitic Taliban? Neither example represents freedom.

There are other choices. What would be so wrong with emulating 18th century American self-sufficiency? Or even modern Amish or old order Mennonite practice? Sustainability is the key here.
It doesn’t take a particularly high order of intelligence to see that exploitive economic practices can’t last and in the end, doom societies that rely on them.

[ishmael]

so the subject is other peoples attitudes? Nope, all of our attitudes.

[ishmael]

Sam, okay, maybe it's not my finest rhetorical moment, and the Taliban was a bad example. It had currency, if not style or real substance. Guilty as charged.

[Chris Coose]

When I was a kid, LFH happened by a wood boat project I was about to throw some glass on, because it appeared to be the current method of repair.
I'm glad he stopped by.
Don't sell out.

[Wayne Jeffers]

Originally posted by Oyster:
Mike, I visited Buckanon?sp back in the 70s and saw a lot of devistation then. I would think that with the modernization of equipment and regulations, things have to be better than the past sins. But I just don't buy one man, one administration, an on going trashing of the Earth for greed, and taking advantage of working people in today's enviroment.

Coal mining is a dirty job along with many other professions. That is so shallow to say, as Wayne did, that Bush and a conservative judge is repsonsible for dirty water in West Virginia. That makes no sense, IMHO.Oyster,

Buchannon? In the 70's? Devastation? You haven't seek jack! There's not much coal in Upshire County (Buchannon area) and strip mining was only beginning in West Virginia in the 70's. You more likely saw clearcutting of timber or maybe a limestone quarry. :rolleyes:

You want to see devastation, go to Southern West Virginia today. Heck, go to Leatherwood Fork of Elk River in Clay County in central West Virginia where I used to hunt when I was young. :mad:

"I would think that with the modernization of equipment and regulations, things have to be better than the past sins.” Advances in equipment technology mean that it is now cheaper (more efficient) in many instances to rip the tops off of mountains to get at the coal than it is to dig mines into the side of the hill the old fashioned way.

"But I just don't buy one man, one administration, an on going trashing of the Earth for greed, and taking advantage of working people in today's enviroment." The Bu$h administration is far more aggressive than any previous administration in rolling back environmental protection laws. Problem is, most people believe their speeches about "compassionate conservatism" and concern for the environment and they pay no attention whatever to the administration's actions. How sure are you that your favorite fishing grounds won't be the next place they open up to dumping tons of industrial waste?

"Coal mining is a dirty job along with many other professions. That is so shallow to say, as Wayne did, that Bush and a conservative judge is repsonsible for dirty water in West Virginia." Oyster, I've probably forgotten more about coal mining than you will ever know. Deep mining has become much, much safer and cleaner over the last 40 years due to federal law and regulation. The Bu$h administration is singularly determined to roll back those laws and regulations, or simply to cease enforcing them, or as in this case to argue against the clear meaning of the law on appeal.

BTW, Judge Haden is no liberal activist. He is a Republican who served in the Arch Moore administration in West Virginia and was appointed to the federal bench by President Gerald Ford. As a judge, he no longer participates in partisan campaigns, but his wife was active in the presidential campaign of Bush I in 1988. He is a tough but fair judge. His initial ruling in favor of the plaintiffs suing the government was nothing more than an impartial application of the obvious intent of the Clean Water Act. It is the activist conservative 4th Circuit in Richmond that was writing law from the bench at the behest of the Bu$h administration. :mad:

Wayne

[ 02-07-2003, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: Wayne Jeffers ]

[Sam F]

Paradise by
John Prine

When I was a boy my family would travel
Down to western Kentucky where my parents were born
There's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn

Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

Chorus:
Oh, daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay ?
I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Then the coal company came with the world's largest showel
They tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal til the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam
I'll be halfway to heaven with Paradise waiting
Just five miles away from wherever I am

[LeeG]

Originally posted by ishmael:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> so the subject is other peoples attitudes? Nope, all of our attitudes.</font>[/QUOTE]hmm, that's a lot of attitudes to reduce to one topic of straw. Like those cedars of Lebanon "we" will use the resources until they're too expensive then other resources will be "discovered", whether it's with 3 billion chinese driving SUVs and 25 Billion on the planet or a couple billion on the planet after a few 'events'.

[ishmael]

A fellow optimist!

[Jim H]

Originally posted by PatCox:

The story that is debated in europe but not here is this: The US government was supporting the Unocal pipeline project, and went to the Taliban last summer demanding that the Taliban approve and support the project. The story is that in a meeting US officials pushed the Taliban hard in July 2001, threatening war if they don't agree to the pipeline. And that this threat provoked the 9/11 attack.
Would you mind citing your source? This is the first I've heard of this story.