Long ago I gave up chasing stories and providing timely coverage of anything, and that’s mostly because I’ve never really trusted my gut reaction to things, having lived long enough to know that an emotional reaction may make for good writing, but the tradeoff is being wrong about something in the story. This mine collapse in Utah, with the video and print my research led me to, was one of those cases where I was dying to post last week, but something didn’t seem right. There’s this CEO of Murray Energy, Bob Murray, whose coming at you with both barrells blazing, and in spite of the obvious faults this man is burdened with as a leader – anti-worker’s rights, paranoia, slow brain, inability to shut up – it would be an argument from now until the end of time, never to be settled for everyone involved, that the collapse was due to an earthquake. Whoever is saying it’s not from an earthquake is only interested in telling lies so they can unionize his opperation and by doing so, make electricity too expensive for poor old ladies on fixed incomes to afford.
Why jump into that mess when the lines are already drawn and bound to remain permanent? Why waste time arguing against the “it’s a dangerous job” mindset? Been there, done that (“The Mine Caved – 1/5/06“). Pointless…UNLESS, the mine collapses again, killing three rescue workers, and this time there’s no earthquake or lightning bolt to blame! Now let’s get to the good stuff:
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney: “We’ve got six coal miners trapped beneath more than 1,500 feet of Utah coal and rock, three brave men who struggled to rescue them are dead and six more are injured. And it’s not because of an act of God. It’s because of the acts of man. –
On April 4, 2007, Neil Cavuto of Fox Opinion, interviewed that man, Robert “Bob” Murray, a big contributor to the GOP. “He’s given the royal treatment by an admiring, jovial Cavuto, who was only too happy to allow his guest carte blanche to say nasty things about environmentalists, Al Gore and the “people” who are out to destroy the coal industry. FOX News continues to handle Murray with kid gloves, painting him sympathetically as the fatherly mine owner concerned only with the well-being of his workers.” (“YouTubeDescription”)
Cutting this guy some slack is the job of Fox Opinion, and they do it well. Here’s a clip of Murray and that paranoia I was mentioning above, as well as a few more of those shortcomings I highlighted:
All in all, the positive force of karma at play here is enough to make an athiest think for a moment that there actually is a God…a very angry God.
I was reading a story about Leona Helmsley, and in the eighties she was vilified for saying “only the little people pay taxes” Murray is essentially saying “little people die in mines, and should be happy to do it” I think I like the old robber barrons better than the new ones.
Of course in Murrays case I wonder how long it will be before he trys to claim that te unions sabotaged his mine, or something equaly unhinged.