Willie Nelson

America’s Genocidal History

In his many books, scholar/activist Ward Churchill documented genocide in America. In “A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present,” he wrote:

“After four centuries of systematic slaughter from 1492 – 1892, the US Census Bureau concluded that there were fewer than a quarter-million indigenous people surviving in America, reduced to at most 3% of their original numbers.”

Slavery is part of the 500 years of African holocaust. The United States of America created one of the largest markets for slaves in history, perhaps 50 million dying during the horrific Middle Passage to America out of 100 million or more human beings sold like cattle.

Deaths were higher in Africa itself due to the process of capturing and transporting people to the ships. Survivors faced life as American slaves.

Howard Zinn called American slavery

“the most cruel form in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.”

Zinn described “a complex web of historical threads to ensnare blacks for slavery in America:”

• poor settlers needing labor
• the profit motive
• racism
• status and
• human exploitation to get them

elements still affecting wage slaves and others, today, in

• agriculture
• domestic service
• restaurant and hotel work
• sweatshop factories
• prostitution and sex services
• and on US offshore military bases employing forced labor under horrific conditions.

President Cleveland called for an investigation into the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai’i in 1893 which was supported by the landing of U.S. Marines. This investigation was conducted by former Congressman James Henderson Blount.

Blount concluded in his report on July 17, 1893,

“United States diplomatic and military representatives had abused their authority and were responsible for the change in government.”

President Cleveland stated,

“Substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair the monarchy.”

Cleveland further stated in his 1893 State of the Union Address that,

“Upon the facts developed it seemed to me the only honorable course for our Government to pursue was to undo the wrong that had been done by those representing us and to restore as far as practicable the status existing at the time of our forcible intervention.”

One hundred years later, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 103-150, otherwise known as the Apology Resolution, signed by President Bill Clinton on November 23, 1993. The resolution apologized for the U.S. Government’s role in supporting the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Native Hawaiian population last stood at 80,137 during the latest census, which is about 6.6% of the population. Only 5 years after the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, in 1898, President William McKinley

• created a pretext for war with Spain
• forced the Spanish government to cede the Philippines
• occupied the Philippines
• fought a dirty war
• slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Filipinos.

Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him, continued the carnage, and won a Nobel Peace Prize.

WW II Terror Bombings

Geneva and other international laws prohibit terror bombings that target civilians. The Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907 Hague IV Convention’s Article 25 states:

“The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or building which are undefended is prohibited.”

The Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilians in time of war, prohibiting violence of any type against them and requiring treatment for the sick and wounded. The 1945 Nuremberg Principles forbid “crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.” These include

• “inhumane acts committed against any civilian population,
• before or during the war,”
• including indiscriminate killing and
• “wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages
• devastation not justified by military necessity.”

For example, consider America and Britain’s carpet-fire-bombing of Dresden. In less than 14 hours Allied Forces dropped 700,000 phosphorous bombs on 1.2 million people, killing as many as 100,000.

City center temperatures reached 1,600 degrees centigrade.

Dresden had no military importance. Destroying it was morally indefensible, as was fire-bombing Tokyo.

WWII was effectively over, Japan was trying to surrender but the United States refused to listen. On February 24, 1945, one square mile of Tokyo was destroyed before the major March 6 attack demolishing 16 square miles, killing around 100,000 in the firestorm, injuring many more, and leaving over a million homeless.

Five dozen other Japanese cities were also firebombed at a time most of the country’s structures were wooden and easily consumed.

The United States dropped the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed by the detonation of “Fat Man” over Nagasaki on August 9.

By December, their combined death tolls topped 200,000, but they rose in succeeding months, years and decades.

Millions of North Korean and Southeast Asian civilians were slaughtered in unprovoked US acts of war to install client regimes.

Korean expert Bruce Cumings explained

“the extraordinary destructiveness of the United States air campaigns against North Korea, from the widespread and continuous use of firebombing, to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons, and the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final states of war. (The) air war leveled North Korea and killed millions of civilians. (There was no escape, and by) 1952 just about everything in northern and central Korea has been completely leveled. What was left of the population survived in caves.”

Of the North Korea’s 22 major cities, 18 were half or more obliterated with the large industrial ones 75 – 100% destroyed and villages reduced to

“low, wide mounds of violent ashes.”

Like Korea, bombings of Vietnam were excessive and indiscriminate, dropping eight million tons from 1965 – 1973, threefold WW II’s tonnage, amounting to 300 tons for every Vietnamese man, woman and child.

As in Korea, napalm and other incendiary devices were used, plus terror weapons like anti-personnel cluster bombs that spew thousands of metal pellets, indiscriminately hitting everyone in their path.

From 1961 – 1971, dioxin-containing defoliant Agent Orange was used, mainly in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Millions of gallons were sprayed.

Dioxin is:

• one of the most toxic known substances
• a potent carcinogenic
• human immune system suppressant
• accumulates in adipose tissue and the liver
• alters living cell genetic structures
• causes congenital disorders
• birth defects and contributes to the diseases
• cancer and
• type two diabetes.

In 1970, Operation Tailwind used sarin nerve gas in Laos, causing many unnecessary deaths. In 1998, former Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Thomas Moorer, confirmed its use on CNN.

The war also included Cambodia and Laos, killing around 600,000 civilians and destroying dozens of towns, villages and hamlets with secret bombings and terror weapons.

It was genocide by any definition.

Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991, a criminal, gratuitous mass slaughter and destruction of essential to life facilities, including:

• power plants and dams;
• water purification facilities;
• sewage treatment and disposal systems;
• telephone and other communications;
• hospitals;
• schools and mosques;
• around 20,000 homes, apartments and other dwellings;
• irrigation sites;
• food processing, storage and distribution facilities;
• hotels and retail establishments;
• transportation infrastructure;
• oil wells, pipelines, refineries and storage tanks;
• chemical plants, factories and other commercial operations;
• government buildings and historical sites; and
• civilian shelters targeting of innocent men, women and children.

As many as 200,000 were killed according to independent estimates. Twelve years of genocidal sanctions followed, killing as many as 1.7 million, two-thirds of them children under age five.

(From 2003 – 2009, another 2.5 million or more died.)

For two and a half months, about 3,000 sorties dropped thousands of tons of ordnance plus hundreds of ground-launched cruise missiles on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – Serbia-Kosovo. As in the Gulf War

• virtually all vital infrastructure was targeted as well as
• factories,
• other businesses, commercial and government buildings
• schools
• hospitals
• churches and
• historical landmarks.

All were destroyed or heavily damaged.

As in Korea, Southeast Asia, and Iraq, it was genocide as defined under the terms of the Geneva Convention. After revisiting Iraq, Afghanistan was next.

Marjah is the latest Afghan offensive, a PR stunt to save face for absolute failure, except for the human death toll. From 2001 – 2007, UN Population Division data estimated 3.2 million deaths, including 700,000 children under age five.

Through 2009, around 4.5 million have died in Afghanistan from causes including

• deprivation
• disease
• starvation
• neglect

with no end of war in sight.

The United States of America Afghan genocide adds to the genocide in Korea, Southeast Asia, Yugoslavia and Iraq.

Join us in a call for an end to American Genocidal Wars.

President Obama, your election represented our hope in a new direction for the United States of America. Please fulfill the promises of the first United States President of color, the most powerful public person on the planet and end all United States involvement in foreign wars.

Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski believed some human suffering originates from the confusion between linguistic representations of reality and reality itself. The need to communicate this understanding of language using language itself provides additional opportunities for confusion.

His work noticeably influenced the development of E-Prime, Gestalt Therapy, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and Neuro-linguistic programming. Alfred Korzybski influenced the thinking and writing of a broad spectrum of contemporary humanists, including Robert Anton Wilson.

Studia Humanitatis

being the study of human beings, includes not only what things they do but also why they do them. Christopher Bear Beam continues in this honored tradition below.

* * * * * Guest Article * * * * *

Perpetrators Of Afghanistan And Iraq Occupations
Use Flawed Logic

Patriotism is a funny thing. It’s often used for a hyper vigilant cover for ignorance and fear. The current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq follow the same, sick pattern of thinking we’ve always followed when conflicts are the result of the imprisoned, colonized mind, consumerism, racism, and power. It’s unconscionable that President Obama has just ordered 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. This on the heals of pious promises to the American people that we would drop troop occupation, bring the troops home, and focus on the real problems: universal healthcare, insuring all Americans a living wage, and prosecuting members of the prior Administration for war crimes or crimes of lying and falsifying information.

Patriotism may be a bias that creates a commitment to denial and the glory of imperious empowerment at the expense of smaller countries that are rich in natural resources, like oil, and have suffered under the jackboot of occupation and injustice. These occupations are wars of the rich, the connected and the elites, and the rest of us who oppose them aren’t being listened to. One organization, March Forward, urges all troops to refuse orders to go to Afghanistan. A sad result is that more troops back from Iraq have committed suicide than have been killed in battle.

Those claiming to be patriotic appear to have cases of selected memory. They will claim to be loyal to the U.S. Constitution, following the Commander-in-Chief’s orders on blind faith, but they ignore the constitutional imperative that both Houses must declare a legal war. They intone that recruits signed a contract to unthinkingly follow all orders. They say that those who refuse to go to war, after experiencing the reality of way, should have never signed those contracts, and have full knowledge they’re now breaking the law.

This is an example of Western, white-based, linear reasoning; it’s rigid and doesn’t allow for any change on the part of Conscientious Objectors (CO) to military service and war. The way the world works is that it’s in process constantly of change, death, and growth.  It’s dynamic is cyclic, not linear. The fact that a soldier has fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, seen the death of innocents, participated in interrogation techniques that may be torturous, and have known the racism and injustice firsthand has every right to respond like an intelligent human being and change his/her mind from a political, philosophical, or spiritual motivation. This is dissonant to the super-patriots’ tunnel-vision view of patriotism and sacrifice, so it cuts no ice with them; in fact, it creates division within themselves, and all they can do is to push back with paranoid, parroted, reactionary ideas, given to them by their social conditioning and the corporation’s cry for help!

I would argue that dissenters and COs are living out the real definition of patriotism.  A loyal person isn’t one who never rocks the boat. True loyalty is born out of living out one’s truth even when under attack; true allegiance is not found in a ‘go along to get along’ philosophy. It’s found in the minds and actions of the nitty-gritting saying “no” philosophy in order that truth and justice has a tangible and demonstrable example of a person who believes that an illegal war will take more life in the end.

I know. I was a Vietnam Era Vet who became a CO.  I was a CO when I was ordered by my local draft board in 1969 to be inducted into the U.S. Army. Did I remain the same throughout my entire military experience? Absolutely not. I grew as a human being in my core beliefs.  In the final analysis, this is what it’s all about. I was a human being first, and a soldier second. I took personal responsibility for my own life, and the position in which I placed myself in: would I be a mindless, subservient killer, or a thoughtful person who had to consider whether any form of violence, abuse, or colonial domination would save lives. The ethical adage of do no harm was one guideline I followed, and almost forty years later I’m glad I did. Patriotism that feeds off illegal wars has never worked and it never will.

If you aren’t military or ex-military, you as an ordinary citizen must decide how you come down on this issue. If you decide or have already decided that we must get out of these racist, illegal conflicts, you must act. You can partner with other anti-war groups in their efforts to stop the war machine, or you can act alone by whatever means you choose. This is your choice. This is our choice, and choose we must.  Do not let your speaking truth to power be shut down. Life is the most sacred essence we have, so we must take life by the horns, and pass it along in whatever form of protest we think is best.

© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A.  December 2009

* * * * * Artist’s Statement * * * * *

For the last thirty years I have worked in some capacity as an educator, trained group facilitator, and counselor. I have a Masters Degree from Trinity Theological Seminary in Counseling. I presently work for the Austin Travis County MHMR serving those with “intellectual disabilities.”

After studying and reading General Semantics material in the early seventies, I began using General Semantics principles and strategies in my work with “at potential” adolescents. I was very excited to find a discipline that was grounded in the structure of life and natural systems; I also was amazed at how pragmatic General Semantics was in terms of helping young folks learn to think extensionally rather than intentionally. I did the General Semantics seminar in 1995 (my memory may need some readjustment counseling here!) at Hofsbrau University. I met many wonderful people there and got even more turned on with the possibilities General Semantics offered in terms of thinking with more maturity.

I have also used General Semantics concepts in my work as a co-facilitator with The Center for the Healing of Racism, Houston, TX. In fact, I wrote a book in 2003 entitled “The Crazymaking Disease,” that explored how racism (or any other “ism” for that matter) is so integrally related to one’s mental health as well as the cultures. The book (published by Xlibris.Com) has a General Semantics foundation. Since then I’ve been thinking of how General Semantics can have so many positive results in terms of our social problems.

Other interests include Family Systems Theory, Zen Buddhism, Daoism, Cultural Anthropology and the Mind-Body connection. I am married, with three adult children, and presently live in Austin, TX. I can be contacted by email at: cosmicbeam@hotmail.com; my books may be seen by going to www.xlibris.com or www.chrisbearbeam.com.

Coal Country Music
Help Stop Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Companion CD to the Film ‘Coal Country’
Features Stellar Cast of Artists United
To STOP Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The Alliance for Appalachia are pleased to announce the release of ‘Coal Country Music,’ the companion CD to the award winning documentary ‘Coal Country’ which was released on DVD on the same day. The simultaneous release coincides with national broadcast of the film on the Discovery Network’s Planet Green channel in the new film series REEL IMPACT.

With all tracks donated by a stellar cast of renowned musicians, ‘Coal Country Music’ is dedicated to ending the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining exposed in ‘Coal Country’ — net proceeds from the release will benefit the Alliance for Appalachia, of which [your organization name] is a founding member.

‘Coal Country Music’ is a poignant collection of songs inspired by the central role the Appalachian Mountains have played in American music, history, and culture.

From the brilliantly raw recording of Willie Nelson performing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In the Wind” (recorded for the Alliance for Appalachia’s website www.iLoveMountains.org to Diana Jones’ heart rending “Appalachia,” John Prine’s classic “Paradise,” and Natalie Merchant’s “Which Side Are You On” the songs tell of the struggle for survival in Coal Country.

Spanning a cross-section of uniquely American musical styles, and startlingly topical, the album’s music marks the perfect complement, with songs chronicling the passions and sorrows common to the people and communities so powerfully presented in the film.

Tracklist
01 – Cedar Hill refugees with Ralph Stanley “Keys to the Kingdom”
02 – Gillian Welch “Acony Belly”
03 – Celeste Krenz “Big Coal River”
04 – Jason and the Scorchers “Beat on the Mountain”
05 – John Prine “Paradise”
06 – Kathy Mattea “Red Winged Blackbird”
07 – Justin Townes Earle “Down in the Valley”
08 – Jason Wilber “In Her Veins”
09 – Shirley Stewart Burns “Leave Those Mountains Down”
10 – Natalie Merchant “Which Side Are You On”
11 – Diana Jones “Appalachia”
12 – Tom T. Hall “I’m a Coal Mining Man”
13 – John Prine & Bonnie Raitt “Angel From Montgomery” – Duet
14 – Phylis Geller “Canary”
15 – Jean Ritchie “Now is the Cool of the Day”
16 – The Klezmatics “Heaven”
17 – Schuyler Fisk “(It’s a) Long Walk Home”
18 – Public Outcry “Can’t Put it Back (Wrecklamation Song)”
19 – Willie Nelson “Blowin’ in the Wind”

“The Appalachian Mountains have played a central role in this nation’s history, cultural heritage and musical traditions. There is not a musician on this compilation whose music does not owe a substantial debt to those traditions, which debt they freely acknowledge, and hope in some small measure to repay with this album, dedicated as it is to protecting those mountains and preserving those cultural traditions.”
Bob Santelli, Executive Directory, Grammy Museum

“Coal Country Music” includes liner notes by Ashley Judd and Woody Harrelson and information about the Alliance for Appalachia.

All proceeds from the sale of the CD will be used to STOP mountaintop removal coal-mining.

The following quote from actor Woody Harrelson, which appears on the CD, describes what’s at stake:

“Mountaintop removal is the most devastating peacetime activity in human history — in fact, if the destruction to our nation’s natural and cultural heritage were being perpetrated by a foreign power, it would be considered an act of war — because in a very real sense, it is –  it is a war against the Earth.“

Every week, mountaintop removal coal-mining detonates more explosive force on the land and the communities of Appalachia than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; to extract the coal that is warming the planet and poisoning the water, air and land.

“The artists on this musical compilation are dedicated, as I am, to ending this unsustainable, and ultimately suicidal practice and to promoting renewable energy alternatives and the green jobs they will create. Won’t you please join them.”
Woody Harrelson

*The Alliance for Appalachia* is an alliance of thirteen grassroots groups dedicated to ending mountaintop removal coal mining and supporting a sustainable and just economy in Appalachia.

For more information on the film as well as issue and event updates:
http://www.coalcountrythemovie.com

Coal Country Music - original painting by Margie Van Auken

FREE BETHLEHEM, PALESTINE FROM ISRAELI OCCUPATION!

“We know how to celebrate together, because we know how to weep together. The same week that Mary, a Muslim mother of seven was killed in Beit Jala, Johnny, a 17-year-old, died in Manger Square as he was coming out of the Church of the Nativity, both shot by Israeli snipers.

“We’re all inmates together, Muslims and Christians, in the same miserable prison called Palestine. We have no freedom, no peace, no jobs, no money for winter heating, no traveling to Jerusalem or between towns and villages, no future.”

Today, the town of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, is under illegal Israeli occupation.

In the West Bank and Gaza, over four million Palestinian Christians and Muslims live as second-class citizens in their own homeland, under a brutal and repressive military administration, simply because they are not Jewish.

Beginning in 1948, Israel has repeatedly expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland and denied their right of return, leaving over four million Palestinians in UN refugee camps today.

Since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem in an illegal attempt to annex the entirety of historic Palestine.

Over 500,000 Jewish Israeli settlers currently reside in occupied Palestinian territory, in an attempt to create “facts on the ground” and prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Under international law, Israel is obligated to withdraw to the 1967 borders, allow all Palestinian refugees to return, and dismantle the apartheid wall, sniper towers, and military checkpoints built on Palestinian lands thoughout the West Bank.

Mishal Al-Johar created this poignant Occupied Bethlehem Christmas Message.  Sylvia Benini introduced Mishal Al-Johar to us here at Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute.  Sylvia writes, “Mishal is a young brillilant student here at University of Texas. He is a fine pacifist activist - we have collaborated for three going on four years, first met him when I was being arrested by the APD for protesting outside the Dobie Mall army recruiters’ office.”

Our dear Austin friend Sylvia Benini writes, “Look what is circulating all around the world?

“This photo is our pal & local activist Haithem ElZabri- who runs the Palestine OnLine Store, and lives in Round Rock just north of Austin … He and I have worked together for the last year closely ….

The young lady is Anna Baltzer, author of “Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories” and peace activist and speaker who comes regularly to Austin.

“This photo was taken here in Austin, right on the drag by UT campus! Passers-by responded very favorably to it and agreed that it was not right.

“Please, share this one with Willie and isn’t it ironic that the still productive historic farmlands of the Palestinians are being paved over to build condos for the Jewish settlers all throughout the West Bank and Gaza?

“This photo has been circulating all over the world, including a magazine cover in Occupied Palestine, and came bouncing into another friend and activist at AustinForIran – who got it from her family in Tehran!

“So, yes, the World is smaller and beautiful, yes?”

Our National Treasures are being blown apart so
we can have dirty fuel.

The Blasting of Coal River Mountain, West Virginia has started.

Please take action.

Sharon Abreu of Irthlingz Arts-Based Environmental Education in Washington State sent this important alert and call to action to stop MTR.

What’s happening to the mountains and the people in Appalachia is an ongoing nightmare.

The mountains are being blasted apart for coal that we should no longer be burning. When that happens, those mountains that would be viable for wind energy can no longer support wind turbines.

The water and air have been poisoned. People are dying of cancer. Jobs and hope for the future for the people in Appalachia are being blasted away along with their homes and their water supply.

Please contact President Obama and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson now and urge them to intervene in the horrendous destruction of these two million year old mountains, on behalf of the people in Appalachia, those of us who want a clean energy economy, and the world, which is suffering from the coal we continue to burn.

The Appalachian mountains are a beautiful national treasure for all Americans to enjoy. They have been home to people for many generations and an exceptional amount of wildlife for eons.

Residents of Pettus, West Virginia awoke last week to find that the blasting had started on Coal River Mountain, one of the epicenters of the fight over the hideous practice of mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in the Appalachian Mountains.

Coal River Mountain is an iconic symbol of the energy choices our country now faces: We can blast off the mountain’s top to scoop out the dirty coal inside, or we can harness its enormous wind potential and start to build a better world.

Once the mountaintops are blasted away, the mountains are no longer wind viable. So we have to make a choice and make it fast.

Please take a small but significant action to help our friends who are fighting the good fight there in West Virginia and Kentucky.

You can send a message via the 350.org website at:

http://www.350.org/coal

The Obama administration officials who could stop this need to know that it’s not just people in the hills of Appalachia who can hear the explosions–we all know what’s going on. And we know that every lump of coal that comes out of those hills adds to the carbon burden of the atmosphere we all share.

Jim Hansen, the NASA scientist who first gave us the 350 number, has pointed out that the western world needs to be off coal in little more than a decade if we’re ever going to get back to 350–and this is the obvious place to start.

It would be a small gesture our government could point to when it gets to the UN talks in Copenhagen this coming December–and for the brave folks who have been fighting this fight to save their homes for decades now it would be a very big gesture indeed.

Coal is near the heart of the planet’s climate problem.

So please take a moment to help here, in no small part because it will help in the climate talks ahead.

Bo Webb in West Virginia said today:

“Massey Energy is not using valley fills for this initial assault on Coal River Mountain. Through the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection they have received a surface mine permit to proceed to blast, back stack the debris, and then I suppose spread it back over the surface when they are finished. I fear this is an attempt to get away from valley fill permits. [The federal EPA is currently holding up 79 permits for review concerning water quality.]

The only way to regulate MTR is to ban it.

“I live in the valley directly beneath Coal River Mountain at my front porch and Cherry Pond Mountain at my back porch. Massey Energy is annihilating Cherry Pond Mountain. I’ve had boulders roll down from that MTR site and land within 100 feet of my garden.

“The creek that comes off the mountain is now dead of aquatic life. To allow the destruction of Coal River Mountain is insane. They might as well sign a death warrant for those of us that will be trapped between and beneath this assault.

“I am a Viet Nam Veteran. I’ll never forget the relief and serenity I felt when I first returned from Nam and the security of these big beautiful mountains. I can’t believe that our government is allowing this to happen. The EPA was denied their regulatory authority under Bush. Our only hope is with President Obama.”

Sharon Abreu of Irthlingz Arts-Based Environmental Education in Washington State said:

“The response I received from the federal EPA was totally inadequate, a form letter from September that does not address the particular problem occurring on Coal River Mountain.

The EPA report received contained the sentence:

‘We look forward to working closely with the Army Corps of Engineers, with the involvement of the mining companies, to achieve a resolution of EPA’s concerns that avoids harmful environmental impacts and meets our energy and economic needs.’

If the EPA is truly concerned about our energy and economic needs, it should be pushing for jobs in the field of wind energy in West Virginia and Kentucky, putting more people to work in the field of sustainable, renewable energy. That means solar and wind. Not coal and nuclear. China is way ahead of us on this. Do we want to remain a world leader or not?

People across the U.S. are raising their voices to stop MTR but more are needed. If we as American citizens don’t speak up for each other, who will? Our so-called “representatives” in congress aren’t doing it.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says on her website: ‘Environmental protection is about human protection. It’s about community protection. It’s about family protection.’

Well, is it or isn’t it?

To contact Coal River Mountain Watch or make a donation, go to:

http://www.crmw.net