Appalachian activist Judy Bonds addresses the question: Can the activists fighting to stop mountain top removal mining find common cause with the workers in that industry along the lines of class solidarity ?

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A man spinning the wheels of a pick-up truck , shouting "f--- you !" and shaking a one finger salute as a blue cloud of burned rubber hovers near Goldman Environmental Prize winner, Judy Bonds and other protesters against mountain top removal mining. That's the moment a sad but not surprising irony struck me: working-class people in this Appalachian community are in conflict with each other, while those at a safe distance from this drama have been getting rich from the destruction of other people's air, land, and water.

Activists with Coal River Mountain Watch, Climate Ground Zero, and other groups who are living and working in these mining towns to stop mountain top removal have at least that much in common with the mining industry workers who seem to despise them.

"We will stand by the workers if they will challenge the politicians and demand that they bring in new jobs to the area. Only the politicians have the power and clout to bring in new industries, not us poor citizens," said Bonds, who was assaulted by a counter-demonstrator during the protest last June in Sundial, WV. The protest drew international attention when NASA scientist James Hansen and Hollywood actress Daryl Hannah were among the dozens of people state police arrested during the non-violent civil disobedience at the Goals Coal Processing Plant, operated by Massey Energy.

Massey employees were at the protest as counter-demonstrators, along with their friends and families. Some of them held spray-painted bed sheets that read : "Miners Say: Go Home Tree Huggers" and "This Is Our Livelihood You're Messing With, Not Just A Summer Project."

The Massey employees and other counter-demonstrators reached out to the protesters in a spirit of class solidarity by blaring car and truck horns, revving motorcycles, and shouting vulgar insults. Their class consciousness reached a higher level when, later that day, many of them jeered and howled deliriously as the police, making their arrests, grabbed protesters by the crooks of their arms after they had sat down in front of the entrance to the Massey coal processing plant.

That day in June at times had the ambiance of a festival or perhaps half- time at a football game played by intense rivals. The arrests seemed to be the grand finale, at least for the counter-demonstrators and some of the members of the media army.

But during lulls in the din earlier that day, I didn't hear any of the counter-demonstrators talk about out-of-state coal companies making a lot of money from blowing up the mountains with the help of politicians. Instead I heard about out-of-state environmentalists, out-of-touch with West Virginia's economic issues, descending from their big city ivory towers to cause trouble in a small town.

One man wearing dark blue coveralls with orange strips told me about misguided locals who have too much time on their hands. "They need to get a life. They need to get a job. Ask yourself how many of them are gainfully employed. I bet 90 percent of them have no idea about what they're protesting against."

I asked Bonds about whether she and her pro-mountain top removal adversaries may have stepped into the trap of being divided and conquered. "The industry is happy to pit workers against people that just want to live in safe communities. Jay Gould, the hated robber-baron said in 1898, "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half,'" Bonds said.

But perhaps history includes additional lessons. In the 1980s, Judi Bari led efforts to unite timber workers with environmentalists fighting to stop logging in the ancient redwood forests of Northern California. Assuming it hasn't already, should something similar to that be tried in the coal fields of West Virginia? Bonds is skeptical.

"The coal industry has 140 years of oppression here. We try as much as we can and some volunteers have tried as well, but the oppressed coal miners aren't having any of it. The threats and violence are getting worse and the strip miners are only listening to the coal companies now. Logging in California and coal mining in Appalachia are two different animals," Bonds said.

However, she said Massey's record on worker health, safety, along with its workers' inability to unionize connects to what the company is doing to Appalachia's air, land, and water.

Even though Cecil E. Roberts, president of United Mine Workers of America, has essentially come out in support of mountain top removal, I keep thinking that something like the Blue-Green Alliance between United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club could happen between the coal miners' union and activists who work with Climate Ground Zero, Mountain Justice, and other groups.

Maybe in the glare of my computer screen, I have allowed my own idealism to mesmerize me. There seems at best only a flicker at the end of the mine tunnel when I present this idea to activists such as Bonds, who referred me to the Upton Sinclair quote: " It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

She gave a further explanation about why she doesn't pin her hopes on Massey workers reaching out to her with any sort of shared class consciousness. "It's something similar to battered wives' syndrome. It's easier to fight other powerless citizens and "tree-huggers' than to fight big business. Coal owns 95 percent of this state. It's like a banana republic."

During the protest last summer, activist Vivian Stockman may have drawn stares from the Massey counter-demonstrators without ever saying as much as a word to them. Wearing a top-hat that resembled a coal-plant smoke-stack, and a top-coat with over-sized fake money pinned to the lapels, she was a robber baron from whose hands dangled a string puppet of West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin.

The difficulties with creating common ground between activists and Massey workers notwithstanding, Bonds said having a unified movement that combines economic issues with environmental issues could loosen the coal industry's grip on Appalachia. But she is aware of the challenges.

"We are trying to put pressure on politicians, but we don't have the energy, the numbers or the money to fight all the battles. So we focus on what we can fight. The big groups might be able to do that, but we (Coal River Mountain Watch) are a small organization that does not have those resources," Bonds said.

Bonds said she has heard, countless times, people defend mountain top removal mining for economic reasons. She rejects the idea that people have to choose between having jobs and taking care of Appalachia's air, land, and water.

"When talk about the miner's jobs comes up, we need to say that a good environment leads to a good economy. There are no jobs on a dead planet," Bonds said.

Bonds said common people who are standing up for their human rights by opposing the mining practices that are harming the communities they live in, should not have the added responsibility of creating less destructive jobs for the people the industry employs.

"Environmentalists and citizens like myself don't have the power or the energy to work on both saving our air and our water and then, on top of that, bringing in new jobs. The workers (for Massey Energy) should put the blame on the corrupt politicians and the industry that's doing the poisoning. They shouldn't blame people that don't want to be poisoned. It's not our responsibility to provide jobs in exchange for not being poisoned and terrorized."

Bonds said ending mountain top removal mining would create jobs. "With the federal Abandoned Mine Lands money, the strip miners will have many years of work trying to fix the destruction that has already taken place. There's no need to even get off the bulldozer. Just turn it around," Bonds said.

Authors Website: http://civicallyengaged.net

Authors Bio:
My website is civicallyengaged.net. I chose that name because, so far, the term 'civic engagement' comes closest to describing the gist of my endeavors.

Here is the Wikipedia definition for civic engagement: "individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern."