I just realized that a couple of folks asked me to repost this post. Thanks for your comments.

This is what I have to fight against in doing my small part to educate my fellow West Virginians about politics, current events and reality. Yes, it is an uphill battle.

There are 70,000 people slated to show up in the Ground Zero of deep Appalachia coal country of Logan County, West Virginia on Labor Day for the Friends of America Rally. The Hatfields of the Hatifield-McCoy days were mostly from Logan County. Blair Mountain, the site of the only attack by the U.S. Army against our own citizens occurred in 1921 with World War I bombers.

 Sean Hannity has been promoting the Rally all week and he will attend as the keynote speaker.

The Rally's primary sponsor is Massey Energy. For all you need to know about the good citizen practices of Massey Energy and its president Donald Blankenship see here:

  http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/09/03/caperton-vs-massey-redux/   

Providing musical entertainment will be those paragons of virtue Hank Williams, Jr. :

http://www.wvgazette.com/Entertainment/200909021040?page=1&build=cache 

and Ted "Don't Touch My Guns" Nugent.  There are way too many deer running around for Ted not to be seriously tempted for some out of season deer hunting.  

 I will be listening to Sean next week to see what he says about all the mountaintops (make that "mountains") removed for the sake of profits to the out of state owners. I can't wait to hear about what nice people all those coal operators are.

If Sean flies into Charleston and travels by ground to Logan, he will miss getting to see the devastation for himself.  If he goes by helicoptor, he will miss it only if he has his eyes closed the whole trip. I am betting that he does the latter because I think he is a closet chickenshit  

Did I mention that the other primary sponsor was Walker Machinery, the local Caterpillar franchise that sells the big earthmovers that mountaintop removal and strip mining operations require?? (fortunately corporate lawyer Beth Walker, who's husband is president of Walker Machinery, did not get elected to our WV State Supreme Court of Appeals in 2008).

The greatest ironies of the event are its name and that it is being held on Labor Day.  Massey is not only non-union, its mountaintop removal practices are highly mechanized and need only a few heavy equipment operators, so it employs very few people at much lesser wages than paid to even non-union deep miners. Since Massey and another large coal conglomerate, International Coal Group (anyone remember Sago?), are non union, the deep mine coal miners they utilize are paid much less in wages and benefits than other union companies with very good safety records like Consolidated Coal. Yes, Massey and ICG have poor safety records. Go to www.wvgazette.com and run a quick search.   How is that for tribute to America's labor??

Thank God that West Virginia only has three electoral votes to squander on Republican candidates every four years. I would not complain if Congress took away one or two of those votes.  

Y'all have a nice Labor Day!!