Between The Lines - Kenny King: Protest March to Save Blair Mountain from Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining (Week Ending June 24, 2011)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

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Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

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SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

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JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

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Unions and Environmentalists March to Protect Historic Blair Mountain from Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

RealAudio MP3

Posted June 15, 2011

Interview with Kenny King, board member of Friends of Blair Mountain, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

The fight to save an historic mountaintop battlefield site in West Virginia's coal country inspired hundreds of local residents and out-of-state supporters to undertake a 50-mile march in early June that followed in the footsteps of thousands of coal miners who marched the same route in 1921. The miners were demanding the right to join a union -- in this case, the United Mine Workers of America -- and engage in collective bargaining -- demands that resonate today as those rights are under attack in states where conservative Republicans hold power.

The battle of Blair Mountain pitted miners against police and the mine owners' private security forces, resulting in an unknown number of casualties. Eventually, the U.S. army was called in and ended the 10-day engagement, the largest armed labor confrontation in U.S. history. The battlefield is now threatened by mountaintop removal coal mining operations that have already damaged part of its 1,600 acres stretched across 10 miles of ridgeline.

The site was designated a National Historic Site in 2008, but under pressure from mining interests, the designation has been withdrawn. Supporters are now trying to get it reinstated.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Kenny King, an active member with Friends of Blair Mountain, which organized the week's protest actions, along with the group Appalachia Rising. He describes the damage done by mountaintop removal and the impact he hopes the protest march will have on protecting the historic mountain.

KENNY KING: Right now, what used to be Massey Energy is now Alpha Natural Resources; they have one called the Camp Branch surface mine, which will wipe out a large portion of the battlefield, and it's actively workin' and they're within, right now, I think within 1,700 feet of the ridgeline -- Spruce Fork Ridge -- and they're movin' that way pretty quick. But that's the only active one right now; there's several more that's been permitted by the state and they just approved another 50.3-acre site amendment to a larger permit for Mingo Logan; and then you have an Adkins Fork surface mine which is 332.9 acres, which will completely wipe out the southern end of the battlefield, including a lot of sites that were occupied by the actual marching miners. That area is super important because it's got sites associated with both sides of the conflict, so that would be super important to protect right there.

BETWEEN THE LINES: I interviewed some people along the march route, some of whom were supportive, and some who weren't. One guy is an electrician and keeps big equipment operating for the mining companies and mountaintop removal and he said he supports saving Blair Mountain but he does support mountaintop removal in general. And he said...I've talked to a number of people in the state who think mountains are really useless and it's better if you flatten them out and then you can have industry and golf courses and prisons and different things. What do you say about that?

KENNY KING: Okay, as far as putting industry up there, there's probably already, in Logan County alone, close to 40,000 acres that have already been flattened and I would say, when you count the permits that have been applied for and in process, you're lookin' at over 50,000 acres, which comes close to 20 percent of the whole land mass of the county. And I don't see any development -- very little, very little. Matter of fact, the governor has an industrial park on one of the mountaintop removal sites, and I don't believe there's anything up there. Nobody wants to put anything up there because of the cost. You have to pump water up there constantly, then you gotta climb the mountain, usually it's out in the middle of nowhere, there's nothin' there. People don't want to locate in places like that.

BETWEEN THE LINES: He also said that's what they would do, and he also said, 'Nobody wants to go see the mountains.' I guess he doesn't know about all the tourism in mountain states...

KENNY KING: You got the Hatfield-McCoy Trail. That's mountain trails. That's why they come in here, to ride the trails and see all this beautiful scenery. That's ridiculous. (Laughs.) They got nothing, really. They got no argument whatsoever. They know it and they're just desperate to come up with some silly thing.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The other thing several people told me was, aside from development, there's way more wildlife on the mountaintop flattened sites than there was on the mountain itself, even though the Appalachian Mountains have more diversity than almost anywhere in the world. But these guys were saying, "I go up there to hunt all the time. And there's deer up there and rabbits and all these things I never used to see." Do you think it's just because they never saw them because the trees were in the way?

KENNY KING: That's what I was going to say. If you got two miles of clear open fields, grass, you're going to see something out there. It may seem like there's more; I don't know if there's been any scientific studies done on it yet, but if there were, I'm sure it would show that all this is being dissected, bisected, you know, it's been just cut apart so much that it has to be affecting their habitat now. I mean, these deer are not going to go out in the middle of these big fields on a hot summer day and lay down, or eat, or whatever. They're going to go in to the forest land where it's cool, and where the water is and all that. That's ridiculous. (Laughs.)

BETWEEN THE LINES: Just tell me briefly, you've been working 20 years on this?

KENNY KING: Yeah.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So, you've been working 20 years on this, and then there's people in the last five-ten years that have really started a movement to end all mountaintop removal. So, how did you guys, the two organizations, Friends of Blair Mountain and Appalachia Rising, come together?

KENNY KING: Well, we got a common cause, I guess. We're about preserving the history and you can't separate it now because of all the mountaintop removal. You have to consider that because that's the biggest threat. So we just got a common cause I guess; we're both working for the same thing, I guess.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And what do you hope, or think, predict, will come from this weeklong march and this gathering?

KENNY KING: If nothing else, a lot of national attention and maybe some peoople will start wondering about it and maybe they'll start contacting their politicians or whatever and try to convince them there's gotta be something done. We're gonna have to search for a different fuel source and all that. We can't keep going down the same road we're goin'. We gotta do something.

For more information on Friends of Blair Mountain, visit FriendsofBlairMountain.org