• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

The lights are all blinking red.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

White supremacy is terrorism.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Mobile Menu

  • 4 Directions VA 2025 Raffle
  • 2025 Activism
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Mine Disaster Report

Mine Disaster Report

by Kay|  May 19, 20111:32 pm| 55 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics

FacebookTweetEmail

This is from commenter El Cid:

Since the above open thread is about animal rescue, and the prior one not too different, this is very important. [NYT via DKos.]

In the first comprehensive state report on the 2010 coal mine disaster in West Virginia, an independent team of investigators put the blame squarely on the owner of the mine, Massey Energy, concluding that it had “made life difficult” for miners who tried to address safety and built “a culture in which wrongdoing became acceptable.”

[The report went on by] naming Massey as the culprit, using blunt language to describe what it said was a pattern of negligence that ultimately led to the deaths of 29 miners on April 5, 2010, in what was the worst American mining disaster in 40 years.

“The story of Upper Big Branch is a cautionary tale of hubris,” the report concluded. “A company that was a towering presence in the Appalachian coalfields operated its mines in a profoundly reckless manner, and 29 coal miners paid with their lives for the corporate risk-taking.”

They better not do anything about it, because it may be seen as unfriendly to the coal mining industry, and this would mean they hate jobs.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Open Thread
Next Post: This 5-Year-Old Wants a Job Before She Gets Married »

Reader Interactions

55Comments

  1. 1.

    GregB

    May 19, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    I seem to recall that this was another case where the rightwingers knee jerkily defended the great and powerful Galtian owner as the good guy and the lazy and money grubbing union members as the villains.

    Another meme fucked up by the untidy facts unearthed when an issue is looked at from a distance.

  2. 2.

    Brian R.

    May 19, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    That last bit isn’t supposed to be blockquoted, I’m guessing.

    But yeah: Fuck this asshole.

  3. 3.

    Culture of Truth

    May 19, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    “A company that was a towering presence in the Appalachian coalfields operated its mines in a profoundly reckless manner, and 29 coal miners paid with their lives for the corporate risk- taking.”

    “The company broke faith with its workers by frequently and knowingly violating the law and blatantly disregarding known safety practices.”

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    May 19, 2011 at 1:39 pm

    Techie note for Kay: If you ever want multiple paragraphs in a single text box, just put “…” on the empty line between the paragraphs. (without the quotation marks)

  5. 5.

    kay

    May 19, 2011 at 1:39 pm

    @Brian R.:

    I was trying to get across that El Cid wrote it.

    I see I was wildly successful.

  6. 6.

    khead

    May 19, 2011 at 1:39 pm

    Cough

    Put it in the wrong thread I guess.

  7. 7.

    kay

    May 19, 2011 at 1:40 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I actually know how to do that, thanks to Anne Laurie.

    I like it like this.

  8. 8.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    May 19, 2011 at 1:42 pm

    Clearly the Unions bit the Invisible Hand of the Free Market, which was shielding the miners from disaster one too many times.

    Ah fuck it. The Rapture is supposed to take place on Saturday, can we start the revolution today?

  9. 9.

    gex

    May 19, 2011 at 1:43 pm

    Similar to what we heard about BP and about the Japanese nuclear company. Just as the libertarians would have it – corporations get to do what they want in pursuit of profits.

  10. 10.

    Martin

    May 19, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    Someone needs to be reminded that lives > jobs. You don’t have the latter without the former.

  11. 11.

    kay

    May 19, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Feel free to offer any help at any time, however :)

    Safe bet I don’t know.

  12. 12.

    pragmatism

    May 19, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    this profile of blankenship made me chuckle a bit. he sits in his palatial estate wondering why his fellow west virginians don’t seem to like him. get a clue hillbilly francisco d’antonia.

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/from-the-archive-profile-of-massey-energy-ceo-don-blankenfein-20110405

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    May 19, 2011 at 1:52 pm

    @Martin:

    Someone needs to be reminded that lives > jobs. You don’t have the latter without the former.

    Historically, not so much. If people are desperate enough, lives < jobs. Hence the Republicans' drive to return us to the halcyon days of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

  14. 14.

    LGRooney

    May 19, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    @efgoldman: It’s called existential rotation and it’s good for the jobs numbers, i.e., lower population but the same number of jobs = lower unemployment rate.

    Massey was just doing its part for the greater good, those lovable ol’ socialists.

  15. 15.

    gex

    May 19, 2011 at 1:55 pm

    @Martin: People might see it that way, but capitalists don’t. We’re not “personnel” anymore. We are “human resources”. Just a input in the process of widget making.

  16. 16.

    Bulworth

    May 19, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    I’m sure less gubmit and less regulation would have prevented this..

  17. 17.

    LGRooney

    May 19, 2011 at 1:58 pm

    Why am I awaiting moderation? Something new I didn’t hear about?

  18. 18.

    Stooleo

    May 19, 2011 at 1:58 pm

    So now that corporations have all the rights and privileges as real people (thank, Citizens United), can we charge it with murder and give it the death penalty?

  19. 19.

    Paul in KY

    May 19, 2011 at 2:00 pm

    @Martin: That fucker Blankenship would have laughed and said there were many more lives than jobs. Person A gets killed, you go get Person B. Easy Peasy.

  20. 20.

    Brian R.

    May 19, 2011 at 2:01 pm

    @kay:

    Whoops. Sorry, I’m wildly tired.

  21. 21.

    LGRooney

    May 19, 2011 at 2:02 pm

    @Paul in KY: It’s the Soviet method of war. Throw bodies at them.

  22. 22.

    Rick

    May 19, 2011 at 2:03 pm

    @Stooleo

    Of course not, that’s the “limited liability” part. Unlimited rights, limited liability.

  23. 23.

    The Moar You Know

    May 19, 2011 at 2:13 pm

    this profile of blankenship made me chuckle a bit.

    @pragmatism: There is no way in hell that’s what he actually looks like. Just add a cigar and a top hat and you have every stereotypical cartoon of a big-money capitalist that’s been drawn for the last 100 years.

    EDIT: It just occurred to me is that he looks EXACTLY like Pablo Escobar.

  24. 24.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    May 19, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    i am glad the report didn’t equivocate, but annoyed that that is something to be happy about.

    so, what now? how is massey going to be held accountable?

  25. 25.

    SFAW

    May 19, 2011 at 2:22 pm

    how is massey going to be held accountable?

    Eric Holder will send him a sternly-worded letter.

  26. 26.

    pragmatism

    May 19, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    @The Moar You Know: holy FSM you are totally right. escobar arguably treated his employees better than don the don.

  27. 27.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    May 19, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    @SFAW:

    beer summit!

  28. 28.

    Paul in KY

    May 19, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    @LGRooney: In his mind, people are cheap. Good analogy.

  29. 29.

    El Cid

    May 19, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    1st & last paragraphs were mine.

    Thanks for highlighting the issue Kay.

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    May 19, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    @Martin:

    Someone needs to be reminded that lives > jobs. You don’t have the latter without the former.

    Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. People need to put a roof over their head and food on their family table, and that’s hard to do without a source of income. When the options are risky work or starvation, people tend to take the risky work- and our Galtian Overlords are trying to make sure that’s the choice we’re facing.

  31. 31.

    El Cid

    May 19, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    @khead: Sorry, I missed it too. Full credits to you. I should clarify that in general ‘credit’ has zero importance to me unless the discussion has to do with what I did or didn’t post. When I do the above, all I care about is that the articles or issues make it to the FP. Blog comments that are worth naming the source come from an individual’s analysis or recall, both for praise or for engagement.

  32. 32.

    El Cid

    May 19, 2011 at 2:39 pm

    lives > jobs IF replace($life) < replace($employee) AND total($punishment) < [profit($total revenue + investment returns)] – [cost($total production)]

  33. 33.

    khead

    May 19, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    @El Cid:

    No problem at all. Usually I’m just one to lurk but for some reason I felt like being a total attention whore a while ago.

    I blame the raccoons for waking me too early.

  34. 34.

    merrinc

    May 19, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    @Martin:

    Someone needs to be reminded that lives > jobs. You don’t have the latter without the former.

    Well, that’s a nice theory but it’s never been the reality in WVa when it comes to coal mining. Replacing dead miners is easy. Doesn’t matter how many of them get blown up, plenty will be happy to take their places. My friends and family will tell you proudly that “the mines pay good money.”

  35. 35.

    arguingwithsignposts

    May 19, 2011 at 2:45 pm

    While it would be nice to see Blankenship headed to some hard time for his ways, we shouldn’t forget the numerous minions who helped him carry out his galtian excesses.

    At some point, it would be nice to see something like a corporate death penalty for serial abusers like this.

  36. 36.

    pragmatism

    May 19, 2011 at 2:45 pm

    @El Cid: garbage in garbage out

  37. 37.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 19, 2011 at 2:47 pm

    I believe a quotation from an obscure soshulist type is appropriate here:

    “Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”

  38. 38.

    mr. whipple

    May 19, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    @merrinc:

    Doesn’t matter how many of them get blown up, plenty will be happy to take their places. My friends and family will tell you proudly that “the mines pay good money.”

    Yes. Miners have always been expendable.

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    May 19, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    At some point, it would be nice to see something like a corporate death penalty for serial abusers like this.

    Since corporations are people, I don’t see what the problem would be with dissolving it in a case like this. If I killed 29 people, I’d be going to the gas chamber, so why should a corporation be allowed to get away with it.

    Dissolve the company and sell off the assets. All managers from the previous company banned from employment with the new one.

    ETA: Being a geek, I had to double-check and, yes, technically one could still be executed in the gas chamber in California, but you’d have to specifically pick it over lethal injection.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    May 19, 2011 at 2:58 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Better is to use two underscores. They don’t show up, and they don’t give the impression that some text has been deleted.

    Should end up looking like this:

    Last line of “regular” text above blockquote.
    &#060blockquote&#062
    Paragraph 1. Don’t leave a blank line above the blockquote, else your quote will be in bold. FYWP.
    &#095&#095
    Paragraph 2. Put two underscores between each paragraph to keep the blockquote together.
    &#095&#095
    Paragraph 3, etc.
    &#060/blockquote&#062
    Resume normal text. (Blank line not needed after blockquote. WP takes care of it.)

    (h/t Monkeyboy © 2009)

  41. 41.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    May 19, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Corporations are people only when they accrue some advantage from personhood, for example, exercising their freedom of speech through large cash donations to willing politicians. When it comes to taking responsibility for the consequences of corporate decisions however, corporations are not people and cannot be held accountable. It is never their fault. If [the government/regulators/the politicians they lobbied to get pesky regulations out of their way] had done their jobs properly, [insert mess here] could never have happen and so it is obviously the fault of [the government/regulators/the politicians they lobbied to get pesky regulations out of their way].

    In other words, corporate personhood == sanctioned psychopathy.

  42. 42.

    Paul in KY

    May 19, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I could get behind some form of that. Maybe one where the actual people who caused the ‘corporate-person’ to take up a life of crime get sent to jail & are replaced in such a manner as to turn the company into a non-profit entity.

    But what do I know, I’m a DFH ;-)

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    May 19, 2011 at 3:12 pm

    @mr. whipple:

    Miners Workers have always been expendable.

    FTFY.

  44. 44.

    James E. Powell

    May 19, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    I know, I’m Eeyore, but even if this story spreads wide, it will do nothing to convince the working class Republican voters that their corporate rulers do not care about the lives and health of their workers. Another isolated incident, nothing can be done, we are the hardy, Real Muricans, we don’t need no goddmam government.

  45. 45.

    shortstop

    May 19, 2011 at 3:42 pm

    @gex: Actually, “human resources” has been out for a while. It’s mostly “talent” now, at least in the larger companies.

  46. 46.

    shortstop

    May 19, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    I know West Virginia isn’t Kentucky, but I keep thinking about all those east Kentucky miners who voted for Rand Paul, who during his campaign was quite clear about his opposition to mine oversight and safety regulation.

    You really have to hate people of color, women, gays and lesbians, atheists, hippies and immigrants a lot to love yourself so little in comparison.

  47. 47.

    El Cid

    May 19, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Don’t you dare quote Adam Smith out of context. He never meant his words to mean what you think they say. They were not intended to be a factual statement.

  48. 48.

    James E. Powell

    May 19, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    You really have to hate people of color, women, gays and lesbians, atheists, hippies and immigrants a lot to love yourself so little in comparison.

    If there is another explanation for this voting behavior, I’m willing to listen. I have been lectured (on various blogs over the years) that it was my lack of understanding, my lack of sensitivity to the special concerns of such people, that drove them, reluctantly but nobly, to vote for the very right-wing corporate types who were getting rich off the destruction of their way of life.

  49. 49.

    kay

    May 19, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    In a statement on Thursday, Massey Energy’s general counsel, Shane Harvey, disputed some of the report’s findings. Company executives invoked their Fifth Amendment rights, and refused to be interviewed by investigators.

    There’s that consensual accountability and personal responsibility thing they’re always yammering about, where the state works with industry in a partnership.

    They don’t need regulation. Nah.

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    May 19, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    Nobody was happier to see Deepwater Horizon explode than Don Blankenship. But see, see how they unfairly punished him?

    http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/golden-parachute-don-blankenship-massey-energy/story?id=12333677

  51. 51.

    El Cid

    May 19, 2011 at 4:07 pm

    @James E. Powell: I think it’s okay to see it both ways. By which I mean, and which I go through on a regular basis, on the one hand screaming at these fuckwits to stop their god-damn idiot bullshit love of medievalist klepto-fascists and declaring passively that ‘okay, here you go, this is what you wanted, hope you like it,’ which is my cynical and venting side…

    …And on the other hand thinking that some sort of anthropological approach, bearing in mind a very typical screwing over by some sorts of forces including the well-intentioned making promises they can’t or won’t keep, might in some way theoretically help to change things.

    As far as saying stuff out loud, I do the vent thing to friends etc who share my views and frustrations and fears and anger, and the other stuff I say in more ‘public’ discussions with people who are those people.

    Unless they get to be real loudmouth ignoramus jerks, in which I’ll pull out some of the venting stuff just to piss them off and let them know that some left-liberals don’t give a shit about their tantrums, not even here in the gol-darn South where they’re comfortable that nearly any white guy they meet shares their right wing opinions.

  52. 52.

    tkogrumpy

    May 19, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    @El Cid: Sorry, but I’m going to have to thank both of you for the heads up.

  53. 53.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    May 19, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    As El Rushbo pointed out – where were the unions? This is clearly the fault of the unions

    /snark

  54. 54.

    tkogrumpy

    May 19, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    @El Cid: Jaysus can I ever relate to that!

  55. 55.

    Mouse Tolliver

    May 19, 2011 at 5:15 pm

    Also, a majority of the miners killed in the explosion had black lung. And some of them were only in their twenties.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - dmkingto - SF Bay Area Scenes 7
Image by dmkingto (7/31/25)
Donate

Recent Comments

  • Librettist on Open Thread: How Has Trump Failed Us, Today? (Jul 15, 2025 @ 12:41pm)
  • BellaPea on Open Thread: How Has Trump Failed Us, Today? (Jul 15, 2025 @ 12:38pm)
  • RaflW on Open Thread: How Has Trump Failed Us, Today? (Jul 15, 2025 @ 12:37pm)
  • JML on Open Thread: How Has Trump Failed Us, Today? (Jul 15, 2025 @ 12:37pm)
  • suzanne on Holy Shit, Obama Has Entered the Chat (Open Thread) (Jul 15, 2025 @ 12:37pm)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Feeling Defeated?  If We Give Up, It's Game Over

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!