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posted by n1 on Monday May 15 2017, @09:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the free-room-and-board dept.

The World Socialist Web Site reports

Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was released from prison [May 10] after serving a one year sentence in connection with the April 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, which killed 29 coal miners. The Upper Big Branch blast was the worst US mine disaster in 40 years.

Blankenship served the first ten months of his sentence at the Taft Correctional Institution in Southern California. The facility, which houses many white collar criminals, boasts baseball diamonds and soccer fields along with tennis and racquetball courts. Blankenship was then moved to a halfway house for a month and spent the last month prior to his official release at his home in Las Vegas.

In tweets [that] Blankenship posted after his release, the millionaire coal boss showed no remorse for the deaths of 29 miners. He complained that at Taft he had to return to his room several times a day to be counted and could not choose what to watch on TV.

[...] In 2015, Blankenship was convicted on a single misdemeanor count of violating federal safety laws at the mine in Montcoal, West Virginia. The disaster occurred when a spark from a longwall machine ignited a pocket of methane gas, which, in turn, set off a massive coal dust explosion throughout the mine.

Multiple and grave safety violations occurred at the mine when Blankenship issued an order to "run coal", flouting regulations designed to prevent explosions. In an October 2005 memo to the company's deep mine superintendents, Blankenship outlined his priorities. "If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers, or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e., build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever), you need to ignore them and run coal", he wrote.

[...] Four investigations of the disaster found that bits on the longwall machine were broken and worn out, causing sparking. Water nozzles meant to keep the bits cool and prevent sparks were also broken. Proper ventilation to prevent the buildup of methane gas was lacking. Explosive coal dust was allowed to accumulate throughout the mine.

Previous: Massey CEO Indicted for Acts Resulting in Coal Mine Explosion that Killed 29


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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:04PM (1 child)

    by edIII (791) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:04PM (#510715)

    Voting never solved anything. Strikes, especially Massive NATIONAL strikes in dozens and dozens of cities, have been proven historically to bring positive change to the Middle Class.

    In fact, there are some that argue that all of the positive gains we've had (the 8-hour day--no child labor) came explicitly from great strife, misery, riots, and the sea change that comes along with it.

    Voting did not get black people their civil rights. Marches, riots, people being lynched, churches burned, sit ins, boycotts, and Dr. King being murdered are what brought them their civil rights.

    Voting did not get people their 8-hour day. That took women and children being murdered in front of their husbands, the husbands soon following them in death, people standing up to the Coal Police (mercenaries hired to keep the workers in line), and indeed, massive national strikes.

    I could go on, but voting is only good on paper. In reality, the Owning Class just laughs their fucking asses off every time we get all upset and head to the voting booths. They shit their fucking pants when somebody actually starts a strike or any effective kind of movement where people interrupt their money flow sufficiently and the scum suckers in government get scared about the people actually rising up and replacing government. In other words, until you start running around screaming in pain, they don't let up on you in the context of their oppression.

    At this point, voting isn't saving us either. Voter suppression, fake news (rigged media), and the general corruption of the government have delivered us into the hands of people that are making protests illegal. The very acts by which we've gained increases in standards of living, and income inequality reduced, are being characterized as "economic terrorism". They're doing everything they can make sure we can't rise up in the future.

    Voting doesn't mean shit. Resistance is everything.

    RESIST! STRIKE! BOYCOTT! Or in other words..... POWER BACK TO THE PEOPLE

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:34PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:34PM (#510735) Journal

    Sadly it sounds almost like violent uprising is the only thing that works instead of voting.

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