Question:
I would argue that if you think [ the brutality & corruption of the coal
industry ] is a myth that perhaps you have a management desk job with a coal company
Mallrock admits:
I was a senior executive with a mining related company. I worked with the
economics of mining worldwide
Answer:
I don't suppose Mallrock's really offended. He impresses me as a fellow
who'll speak his mind with full understanding that he may step on a landmine
here and there, and will probably step more carefully next time.
I was a little kid in a little coal town in the '50s. So many other
kids' dads got killed and maimed, that it would not be impossible to get
inured to it. Why do they even DO that? That's a long story, the gist of
which is that they do, and it's dangerous as hell.
That, of course, would be their choice or lost opportunity depending on
the eye of the beholder. The company I worked for had a policy that
lying was a firing offense. I was not fired.
The corporation has a responsibility to conduct itself in a legal and
honorable way that seeks to play fairly in the market place and with the
employees and to report the results accurately. For purposes of
dimension the company of my affiliation was a 300 million dollar a year
enterprise, which is small by most standards. The same notions followed
me to my own company. I have no reason for shame.
Before you get too frigging smug. Aside from my own interactions with
industry coal miners virtually all over the world but especially in
Southern WV, I married a coal miners daughter and she can sing it about
as good as Loretta. I had two brother in laws that were coal miners
(now deceased), and presently have a number of nephews that are in
mining or mining related positions...some union and some non union.
None of those give the intensity of argument that you make. You (like
so many) are obsessed with the history 75 years ago at the expense of
what is needed today, and problems that only honest effort on all sides
can solve. Sitting on a bar stool bitching about this or that doesn't
cut it dude.
