DRY BRANCH, W.Va. — For Bonnie Wireman, the white plastic bag covering her kitchen faucet is a reminder that she can't drink the water.
The 81-year-old woman placed it there after forgetting several times the tap water was tainted after a coal processing chemical leaked into the area's water supply. Every time she turned on the water, she'd quickly stop and clean her hands with peroxide — just to make sure she was safe.
The widow of a coal miner, Wireman is frustrated about the chemical spill that's deprived 300,000 West Virginians of clean tap water for four days: "I'm really angry."
But as quickly as she said it, she wanted to make one thing clear: She didn't blame the coal or chemical industries for the spill.
"I hope this doesn't hurt coal," said Wireman, who lives in an area known around the state as Chemical Valley because of all the plants nearby. "Too many West Virginians depend on coal and chemicals. We need those jobs."http://www.northjersey.com/news/Frustration_grows_days_after_West_Virginia_chemical_spill.html
This is what drives The Gadfly absolutely crazy. This woman cannot drink, bathe in, or otherwise use in any useful manner, the water in her home. Yet she is more concerned that the environmental disaster might reflect badly on the very industries responsible for the condition she and a third of a million other West Virginians find themselves in, than she is about her water crisis. The Gadfly doesn't get it.
While The Gadfly understands the economic dynamics of having a major job-supplying industry be negatively impacted by circumstances and events - situations which might have an adverse impact on the availability of jobs - it still flummoxes The Gadfly as to how these people are incapable of seeing the forest (or what remains of it in their state) for the trees as it relates to their long term best interests. Do the coal and chemical industries truly have so much economic clout that they have convinced West Virginians to keep voting against the interests of their own family's health, the quality of their water and land, and the long-term sustainability of their natural resources? Is their statewide economy that deeply dependent on those industries?
The Gadfly was curious because it just did not make sense to him, so he decided to research the makeup of the labor force in West Virginia and was surprised by what he found.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of January 10, 2014, the civilian labor force (actual number of paying jobs) in WV stood at approximately 750,000. And here is what mystified The Gadfly - of those 750,000 jobs, only 4.7%, or around 35,000, are in the coal and chemical industries. Which to The Gadfly's inquiring mind begs the obvious question - how is it that an industry which is supplying a paltry percentage of total jobs to the state, wields so much influence that people being environmentally poisoned in their communities are just willing to shrug and blithely accept it as if it is something that is, always was and will forever be that way?
And then it dawned on The Gadfly -- it's all about politics. Big money from coal and chemical corporations buys compliant politicians and judges - and winning campaigns. The purchased politicians and judges then, as payback to those moneyed benefactors, vote to give tax breaks and deregulation to those industries. The deregulated industries, over time, gain footholds in concentrated geographic areas of the state and they come to dominate the labor market in those areas. Voila! - Undue influence.
It all makes sense in the world of spreadsheets and boardroom powerpoint presentations The Gadfly supposes. But for the life of The Gadfly -- what about the future? Why is nobody taking the future in to consideration in this whole scenario? Specifically - what happens once the coal industry has raped, razed and mined all of the land that they could get their hands on and the West Virginia landscape is left resembling something akin to a pock-marked moonscape? What happens when all of those leaking chemical containers have killed off most of the fish in the lakes, rivers and streams and so contaminated the underground aquifers that for a large percentage of the population the water is not potable and must be super filtrated or procured from external sources? What happens when the coal soot and smoke from aggressive mining operations have so contaminated the air that it becomes a permanent health hazard to spend any extended amount of time outdoors? More to The Gadfly's point -- how is it that people can look their children and grandchildren in the eye knowing that they are trading away the future quality of life of those kids in exchange for a barely livable wage in the here and now?
Maybe George Carlin was right. Maybe it's just best to stop caring and just sit back and watch your species ratfuck it's self in to extinction. Maybe it is nothing but a hopeless pipe dream to believe that people will wake up and realize how badly they are being used and screwed and finally decide to stand up and do something about it.
Unfortunately, The Gadfly still harbors a flicker of optimism in his soul. And that is why he talks about this stuff here on this shitty little blog of his. And it goes without saying that that flicker of optimism is motivated by the fervent hope that if even one single individual, as a result of what they read here, decides, as The Gadfly has done, that they are mad as hell and aren't going to take it any more -- then The Gadfly's efforts will surely have been vindicated.
FSM bless Howard Beale:
Happy ranting dear readers.
----TFG
No comments:
Post a Comment