War on the Homefront
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to travel with my friends Denny and Jordan, to a community just a few miles from my home, to Drews Creek, the right hand fork of Peachtree. What I wittnessed was destruction like I never seen it before from the ground. As we stood atop a treeless ridgetop, overlooking Clays Branch, this ridgetop had already been preped to be blown apart by mountaintop mining. I could look down the slopes to small comunities that dotted the area, lying at the bottom of these beautiful slopping ridges, which wind theirselves down to the the homes of local residents. I felt an empty feeling for these people, because their homes, which have been there for centuries, tucked away in these tight little hollows which are protected by the tall mountains, are about to be turned into a living hell. Their protection, and their way of life are being blown apart. As we stood atop this ridge, starring in the far distance, towards Whitesville, we could count at least eight different mountaintop removal sites. As far as the eye could see, just total devastation, as mountain, after mountain, are being leveled for the seams of coal lying beneath these ridgetops. Some seams are as small as ten to twelve inches. And at the bottom of these ridges, people’s lives are being destroyed, famlies being poisioned from the heavy metals that are being exposed, and delivered upon these communities at enormous rate, bringing poor health, sickness and disease, to the people that has to endure this massive assault from the coal industry. I pray for this maddness to come to a stop. I close my eyes, hoping, when I open them, that I could see these mountains the way that God had assembled them, to reappear, but they don’t, and I can just look to the skies and think, how on a civilized earth, could this be happening. But there are some who don’t give a damn about God’s beautiful creation, or about the lives that are being destroyed for the greed of an industry that is addicted to the taste of coal. This is just sickening and wrong, when it doesn’t have to be this way. After the coal is gone, and one looks at the aftermath, famalies destroyed, an environmental disaster left to our kids, and their kids, to an extent that they will never be able to recover, how could they be doing this to the most loving people, where hospitality and kindness fills every hollow, that can’t be matched anywhere in the world, is seen by the eyes of the nation as a disgrace, and nothing short of genocide, is being allowed to happen by our corrupted and broken government, is unbeliveable by the rest of the world. This open season on the mountains, and it’s people must end, and we must try to salvage what greatness that God has created, before they destroy what’s left of our mountains, and save and preserve our hertiage, our culture, and our way of life.
