Obama and the coal industry - no clue about his own state
Today’s YouTube clip from BO about bankrupting the coal industry is irresponsible and proof that he just doesn’t get it.
Obama doesn’t even know about his home state: southern Illinois used to be a coal-based economy, until about the mid to late 80s. There’s a LOT of coal in the bottom of the state, but it’s high in sulfur. So acid rain legislation killed the industry, and basically killed the economy of southern Illinois.
There were people who were coal miners and everyone in their families: coal miners. Their fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers and so on.
And they made a very decent living as coal miners, at least in my generation. I don’t know how the olden days might have been because truth be told, nobody in my family has ever been a coal miner and I don’t personally know any. But I learned about the industry when I was editor of a statewide labor paper, because everyone associated with mining was out of work.
Talk about foreclosures! Where was the bailout then? These workers lost their homes, their trucks, and probably some of those guns they cling to. The entire economy was a disaster, because it trickled down.
Of course Obama wouldn’t know that about his own state, because he didn’t even know Illinois borders Kentucky for crying out loud.
The miners had few choices:
-move out of the area they called home, a part of the country that is so beautiful I’m glad nobody knows about it. That way it remains unspoiled.
-go on welfare, which many did, adding to the generations of welfare families
-get a job at Wal Mart
Most either took Wal Mart or welfare. And there you have it. There’s no “rest of the story.” No happy endings, just lost homes, a dead economy (still dead), families that will probably be on welfare for generations and kids with no futures.
Even the seasonal jobs (a lot of fruit orchards) are taken by illegal workers. You can’t compete with someone who will pick fruit for a buck a day.
Obama may think it’s very clever to talk about bankrupting the coal industry, but he needs to give a moment’s thought to the many people who rely on that industry and who have followed a family tradition into those mines.
To talk so casually about ruining so many lives is simply unacceptable. And he’s either a heartless prick or really, really clueless about real people.
Middle class my ass. He needs to tour his own home state, the bottom half that he doesn’t know exists, and ask those folks where the middle class went.
