Don Blankenship Hates the Police
Submitted by anonymous on July 29, 2010 - 10:48am
Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship came to the National Press Club last week.
And left a lasting impression.
And the impression was this:
Don Blankenship hates the police.
The police in this case work at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
Blankenship was asked:
With the benefit of hindsight, what could you have done, and what have you done, to minimize the chance of an explosion like the one that claimed 29 lives?
And Blankenship answered:
I would have sued the police earlier.
In this case - MSHA.
If it were up to Blankenship, the federal police would just go away so that the coal and oil companies could strip mine, pollute and endanger America to their hearts' content.
If it were up to Blankenship, the police would allow corporate America to thrive by "leaving it alone."
It also became clear that Blankenship has a low opinion of reporters.
Blankenship said that he doesn't mind reporters having opinions.
Just get the facts first before you form those opinions.
"The only thing I'm asking you is do a little bit of thought before you form an opinion," Blankenship told the reporters at the Press Club. "Get some facts."
And where might we get some facts, Don?
At the federal police hating Manhattan Institute.
Specifically, Blankenship recommends a Manhattan Institute energy "expert" named Robert Bryce.
Blankenship recommended Bryce's book - Power Hungry: The "Myths" of Green Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.
And what might those real fuels be?
Coal, nuclear, oil.
And what might one of those myths of green energy be?
"Oil is dirty."
(Oil is not dirty. Just look at the Gulf of Mexico - it's clean now!)
Blankenship wants America to believe that the deaths of the 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch mine resulted from an Act of God.
Or an unavoidable mistake.
At the Press Club, he put it this way:
"Politicians will tell you we're going to do something so this never happens again. You won't hear me say that because I believe the physics of natural law and God trump whatever man tries to do. When you get earthquakes under ground, whether you get broken floors, whether you get gas inundations, whether you get roof falls, oftentimes are unavoidable, just as other accidents are in society."
Sometimes accidents are unavoidable.
Sometimes they are avoidable.
And sometimes they are due to corporate recklessness.
The cops at MSHA that Massey and Blankenship have sued and want continue to sue - reported a few months before the blast that killed the 29 miners that Massey was operating the Upper Big Branch mine with "reckless disregard" for the safety of the workers at the mine.
That's the standard a prosecutor would have to meet to prosecute Massey and the responsible executives for manslaughter.
If I'm driving my car down a West Virginia road at 90 mph and I lose control and kill someone, I will be arrested by the state police.
And prosecuted for manslaughter.
And probably spend time in jail.
I didn't intend to kill that person.
But I acted with reckless disregard for that person's safety.
The federal cops say that Massey Energy operated the Upper Big Branch mine in reckless disregard of the safety of the workers.
And 29 of them died.
So, why aren't the responsible parties being arrested?
And prosecuted for manslaughter?
Massey Energy's public relations campaign - featuring Don Blankenship last week at the National Press Club - is meant to make the police look bad - and counter any move to bring a serious prosecution against those responsible for the 29 miner deaths.
Massey message to America - leave us alone.
There are reporters who trying to put some facts and perspective in the way of Massey's drive to denigrate and dodge the police.
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank went to Blankenship's Press Club speech and came back with some advice:
"Government should push back against a corporate culture that has lost its sense of shame."
Also, check out Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo.
Also, recent reporting by NPR's Howard Berkes.
At a reception prior to his speech at the Press Club, Berkes asked Blankenship about a survey taken last month that shows that 24 percent of Massey underground miners say they are afraid of being disciplined or fined if they raise safety concerns.
Blankenship told Berkes:
"I would disagree with your results."
Wait a second Don.
Those aren't Howard Berkes' results.
Those are your results.
Massey Energy's own survey.
Question 7.
Are you afraid of being disciplined or fined if you raise safety concerns?
24 % - Yes.
Trapped - Blankenship responds:
"I don't know what that survey would say at competitor companies."
And then Blankenship starts lashing out at Washington and reporters.
"We know the coal miners better than anybody in Washington knows them or any of the reporters know them. I grew up with them. Lived with them. Still live among them. We care more about them than anybody else does."
Berkes shoots back: "They tell me they are afraid. The ones I speak with say they will be punished, they will lose their jobs, they won't be able to get another job. Miner after miner after miner tells us this."
"I don't know whether I believe that part - first of all," Blankenship says. "You can get people to say almost anything."
Almost anything Don.
Almost anything.
© 2010 Corporate Crime Reporter
Don’t Be Fooled: Nuclear Power Kills
by John LaForge
Two of the nuclear industry's talking points these days are that "nuclear power hasn't killed anyone" and that "no one died at Three Mile Island."
The 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe puts the lie to such bull, but the deliberate denial of thousands of other deaths is also part of the industry's effort. For younger people who have no experience or recall of reactor explosions and meltdowns, steam bursts or radioactive waste spills, pro-nuclear propaganda has convinced many of them that radiation is merely medicinal or dental and must be harmless. On the contrary, there is no safe dose of radiation, and any exposure no matter how little increases the risk of cancer and other diseases.
A quick look at the record of some of the deadliest radiation accidents counters efforts by the Nuclear Energy Institute, and some in Congress, to whitewash their poisoned nuclear power and win another $32 billion in taxpayer giveaways for building new reactors. What follows is a sampling -- a completely footnoted version of the list is available from Nukewatch.
January 3, 1961: Three killed in Idaho
The experimental boiling-water reactor called SL-1 (Stationary Low-Power Plant No.1) in Idaho blew apart killing three technicians. Two Army Specialists, John Byrnes, age 25 and Richard McKinley, age 22, and Richard Legg, a 25 year old Navy Electricians Mate died in the explosion. According to Arlington National Cemetery Records, "One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were interred in lead coffins."
July 27, 1972: Two killed at Surry reactor
At the Surry Unit 2 pressurized water reactor in Virginia, pressurized steam burst through a corroded pipe and scalded two workers to death.
March 28, 1979: Three Mile Island and infant mortality
Exposure to radioactive fallout and contaminated water released by the meltdown at Three Mile Island may have caused thousands of deaths. Among many, two books, "Deadly Deceit: Low Level Radiation High Level Cover-up" by Jay Gould and Ben Goldman, 1990, and Joe Mangano's "Low-Level Radiation and Immune System Damage: An Atomic Era Legacy," 1999, document these fatalities.
Infant deaths in surrounding counties soared 53 percent in the first month after TMI; 27 percent in the first year. As originally published, the federal government's own Monthly Vital Statistics Report shows a statistically significant rise in infant mortality rates shortly after the accident.
Studying 10 counties closest to TMI, deaths from birth defects were15-to-35 percent higher afterward than before the accident; breast cancer incidence rose seven percent higher; these increases far exceeded those elsewhere in Pennsylvania. Gould suggests that between 50,000 and 100,000 excess deaths occurred after the TMI accident.
In counties downwind of the accident, leukemia deaths among kids under 10 (1980-to-1984) jumped almost 50 percent compared to the national rate. From 1980-1984 death rates in the three nearest counties were considerably higher than 1970-74 (before the reactor opened) for leukemia, female breast, thyroid and bone and joint cancers.
March 26, 1986: From 4,000 to 125,000 Chernobyl deaths
Estimates of deaths caused by Chernobyl vary widely. The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported April 27, 1995 that Ukrainian Health Minister Andrei Serdyuk had announced the latest Ukrainian estimate of Chernobyl's death toll at 125,000 from illnesses traced to radiation.
The United Nations reported Sept. 6, 2005 that its scientists predicted about 4,000 eventual radiation-
related deaths among 600,000 people in the affected area. CNN reported April 26, 1997, "Ukrainian authorities say over 4,000 died of radiation-related illnesses.
The Wisconsin State Journal noted on April 15, 1991 that "The most senior scientist at the Chernobyl nuclear power station says the disaster claimed up to 10,000 lives, thousands more than Soviet authorities have admitted, a London newspaper reported on Sunday.
The Milwaukee Journal, on April 21, 1991 reported, "Many Soviet and Western researchers dispute the official death toll of only 32, saying that at least 500 people and possibly as many as 7,000 have died of cancer and other illnesses."
December 9, 1986: Four more killed at Surry
Again at the Surry Reactor Unit 2, a similar pressurized steam burned four people to death after an unchecked and corroded 18-inch steel feed-water pipe broke and spewed 30,000 gallons of extremely hot pressurized water.
March 11, 1997: Cancer deaths unknown at Tokaimura
Japan's Tokaimura reprocessing facility suffered explosions and fire at this experimental waste treatment site. At least 37 people were seriously contaminated, 34 internally through inhalation. Experts said, "a massive amount of heat and energy was released" in the explosion at the state-run facility. A lack of medical follow-up for the contaminated workers has allowed the industry to deny that deaths resulted.
September 30, 1999: Two killed at Tokaimura
Workers at Japan's Tokaimura uranium processing complex caused a "uranium criticality burst" that killed two men, exposed at least 600 residents in the surrounding community to a burst of neutron radiation, and caused the evacuation of thousands. One worker died of radiation poisoning after 82 days of agonizing pain, the other took 210 days to die.
August 9, 2004: Five killed at Mihama
At the Mihama reactor in Japan, a burst of highly pressurized steam at 390° F, killed five workers and severely burned 11 others when a corroded pipe ruptured and burned them to death. The accident was Japan's deadliest at a nuclear reactor. About 800 tons of water escaped from the large pipe that had not been inspected in 28 years.
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