When the leaves turn green

By Randy Walters


Coal Miners are a special breed of people. They are God fearing patriotic people who respect tradition and live the culture the Treehuggers say we have to protect. They work long hours under hundreds of feet of rock, or on top of a mountain in a piece of equipment that could carry them to their death in the valley below. When not working they live, as the rest of us in the mountains do, in a harsh environment that is foreign to most Americans. Even with the hardships it is only seldom that any of us leave, and don’t come back. There’s a kinship here that outweighs the burdens, and that kinship is being threatened.

Now they go to work everyday with the fear of hearing their bosses tell them they will no longer be needed. Sending their children to college, paying medical bills, or being able to afford a small vacation could all be cancelled at the stroke of a pen. An agency such as the EPA at the direction of the current administration with much fanfare from the environ-mentalists could change everything.

The environ-mentalists are wasting no time and no opportunity to create havoc in the coalfields by having law suits filed, protesting mining operations, and using media outlets such as the ever so environ-mental Lexington Herald Leader to voice their one-sided ignorant opinions.

They hate the fact that we use previously mined land for things like hospitals, schools, shopping centers, neighborhoods, industrial sites, parks, golf courses, hunting in places where wildlife did not previously flourish, and many other impractical uses such as gated communities. Yet their voices are heard the loudest. Their causes are given the most consideration and are encouraged by the Obama administration, and the lives of the people of eastern Kentucky are never taken into consideration. What it all boils down to us a failure by state and federal government in honoring the wishes of the people. The people want cheap electricity, jobs, lower taxes, and prosperity. Coal provides those things, but the government and the environ-mentalists don’t want coal.

There’s an old saying in the mountains the Treehuggers should know. “Wait till the trees turn green.” Mountain people have been defending themselves and surviving since their Scotch-Irish ancestors came here to get away from the likes of you.

As for the government we can only hope that enough Americans will wake up to hear their nation crying. We can only pray that enough Americans will show up to join efforts such as 912, and the soon to be formed “Restore America ” movement of Pastor Jeff Fugate in Lexington . We pray for enough patriots to dry the tears and take away the pain of a nation God intended to be blessed.