Appalachia not a lost cause

I watched the excellent David Novack documentary ‘Burning the Future’ recently. The film focuses on the horrendous effects those dirty, dirty coal industry practices have on the communities of West Virginia.

Below is a 2 minute preview of the movie, but there's an extended version on Coalmine’s youtube page here and loads more information at http://www.burningthefuture.com/ and the Citizens Lead for Energy Action Now - CLEAN.



The film is an all too (depressingly) common story about dirty business as usual, outrageous corporate abuses protected by outrageous political abuses.
Coal, or rather the hideous corporations that exploit its energy, control the state and people of West Virginia, those poor sods are literally trapped by the stuff.

A little while ago there was an excellent DailyKos diary by dawnt it gave a great insight into the minds and attitudes of the Appalachian people. He made some great points in his piece, but I fancy he could be wrong with one assumption:

I know that we cannot win West Virginia on Tuesday. We cannot win Kentucky next week. We cannot win Appalachia in November.

Obama picked up more votes than McCain in WV (91,747 - 89,782), when you throw on Clinton's votes the Democrats outperformed Repulseviks by a margin of over 3-1 and regardless of any 'chaotic' attempts to stop an African American president, it's still a hell of a lot of people crossing a box on a Democratic ballot.

Dawnt's scenario seems most likely and was backed up by Kos with some recent polling...

Nor should West Virginia be competitive, but McCain is showing some surprising early weakness. West Virginia Rasmussen. 6/2. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines) McCain (R) 45 Obama (D) 37 The crosstabs: Total Men Wom GOP Dem Other McCain 45 41 50 78 32 36 Obama 37 40 34 13 48 39 Kerry only won Democrats in West Virginia by a 69-30 margin in 2004, so they are already not a bunch inclined to vote en masse for their presidential candidate. And it would take an epic McCain collapse for Obama to match those numbers, much less improve on them.

True something epic is needed and although an epic collapse would be nice, what about an epic effort?

That 37% looks like progress to me, remember only 26% of brave West Virginian Democrats (props to them) came out for Obama in the primary.

Kos added...

It appears that McCain's weakness with Republicans and independents is making this race artificially close. But when Republicans come home, and the Appalachian Democrats don't, this state will likely go Red. This is certainly one of those few states in which Hillary would've done better.

For sure Hillary would've done better, or rather would've had it a lot easier, but for McCain to win he still needs to do some work of his own. McBombit needs to attract a large chunk of those registered Democrats and as Kos points out he also needs those Refux to 'come home', but I don't believe that's a forgone either.

McCain's not Hillary and in terms of any Demoprats that may be tempted remember he's carrying the baggage of a pretty unpopular party and then there's the issue of whether he can galvanize those deeply conservative elements of his party. One thing's for sure, he can't be allowed to rest on his laurels, if he's gonna win it, he must be made to fight to win it.

I'm not sure the fight for Appalachia is a forgone conclusion and believe that 37% Obama's already attracting can be built on.

If you want a reason why all those 'hard working white' Democrats could back Obama in Nov then watch the film, there's a whole heap of discontent to be tapped into. The documentary featured some very white, extremely blue collar folks who in all likelihood voted GW in the last two elections and in spite of Hillary's coal corp connections voted overwhelmingly for her in their recent primary.

A couple of well thought out policy commitments and these 'clingy' white people could be among the first to feel the benefits of an Obama presidency.

It could be a perfectly placed state to lead the development of new non fossil fuels, employing all those workers laid off by the coal industry using taxes levied on that industry for investment into new fuel concepts and I'm NOT talking about that horror of an oxymoron 'clean coal'!

Mathew Bachand from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute sums up 'clean coal' best in his Energy Generating a Culture: Early American Coal Miners and Coal Mining Culture

...in an effort to return the party to the White House, (John Kerry) made clean coal technology a key point in his plan for energy independence...'clean coal' in the modern era of global warming is a phrase roughly the equivalent of 'safe sex'; in the era of HIV/AIDS...

For fuck sake there has to be some alternative to churning up the rest of WV in an attempt to build a 'New Kuwait' and lay our hands on those '70 Billion Barrels' of Fischer-Tropsch synthetic oil, it's the mining process that's killing the people of WV.

Appalachia is not a lost cause, we will need to put in an epic effort and take on board dawnt's suggestions...

...that does not mean we should give up on them or work less hard for them...It means we should work even harder. Call it bridging the ignorance gap, if you will. Progress is not something that you just order on the Internet and pickup at Sears in twenty minutes -- we have to work for it in every corner of America...

Of course, there are going to be people who'll vote on skin shades, but unlike states with large African American populations there are no community battles going on in WV. Instead their fear is based in the unknown, the unfamiliar, but that can be addressed by 'bridging the ignorance gap', building familiarity, camping out in Appalachia and making our arguments. Then just maybe, sufficient numbers could come out for Obama.

Obama being Obama he's already a step ahead, kicking off his general campaign in...Appalachia, arm in arm with Webbo, that blue collar vet with a conservative background, spot on!

These poor Appalachian's are literally fighting for their lives and one thing's for sure, the last thing WV and its neighbor states need is more of the same.