WELCOME to "Rise Up! West Virginia."My beautiful State of West Virginia is under attack! Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining is destroying one of the most beautiful places on earth!
Coal companies use the excuse that they are responsible for supplying energy to the country. State government uses the excuse that our people need jobs. Our governor uses the excuse that we must do this in the interest of national security. Coal miners use the excuse that they have to feed their families. And local governments use the excuse that they need the coal severence tax revenues.
But what about the people living in the shadows of the big shovels? Theirs are the voices that would be silenced - if only those in control could find a "good excuse."
Patchwork Films will release "Rise Up West Virginia" in the fall of 2007. Our goal is to rally the citizens of West Virginia and all of our friends to stand up and fight back against the destruction of our state. West Virginia will no longer be the "sacrifice zone" for the nation's energy needs!
Check back here often for news, updates and important information.
(Photo: Vivian Stockman - OVEC)
5 comments:
heck yes BJ!!! Great name for the blog.
Appalachia is rising to become the great place we know she can be...we need to stop bombing her.
We are mountaineers .....it is tiem for mountaineers to step up to save their souls...their mountains...God's mountains.
Nice work, BJ. I look forward to reading your blog on a regular basis.
Update: from MountainWhispers.com Audiobooks
Good News: As of July 15th, our audiobook docudrama "When Miners March - The Battle of Blair Mountain" by William C. Blizzard, has moved back to our number one (#1) bestseller surpassing two other former #1's "Lost Highway" and "Crum". Emails are coming in supporting our risky decision to add a 10 minute plea on Disk #7 to ban Mountain Top Removal from Appalachia forever. As a 'For Profit' publisher, we live and die on sales. Yet, we're giving up some profit to take a stand against MTR. We can now sleep at night knowing we listened to our hearts rather stand idly by and silently watch it all disappear. Interestingly, I have word that several songs from the music soundtrack are now finding homes in iPods and other MP3's players. It appears the younger generation also wants to be part of our efforts to safe our beloved West Virginia Hills. Thank you Vivian, BJ, Maria, Elaine, Wess, Bill, Steve, Larry, and so many others for keeping this issue alive.
Ross Ballard II
Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Congrats to Ross Ballard, BJ and everyone else connected to this project. I think that The Tipping Point is here - or coming....
I love the Rise Up West Virginia name! Reminds me of a great songbook, Rise Up Singing, that many activists have used over the years.
More to the point, we in West Virginia need to cast off the decades-long mentality of holding our hands out for crumbs from those who extract our labor, resources, and future without any commitment to our communities. Rise up, West Virginia.
Sometimes a person needs a helping hand to "rise up" for the first time, especially when he or she has been put down for so long. So let's all help our fellow citizens to rise up!
--Allen Johnson
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