Someone on another forum just made an interesting comment about Massey and Blankenship

The cynical side in me thinks that this Blankenship knows full well what he is doing in deliberately not taking the actions to provide his employees with as safe an environment as he is legally required to do.

I heard that the $168,000 in fines assessed against him amounts to only one hour of production in his coal mines.

To willfully permit these violations to continue leads me to believe that he wanted to apply pressure to the government to allow mountain-top removal mining. 27 + dead coal miners add up to a lot of pressure.

I am just wondering how long we will have to wait until Blankenship ( thru a spokesman ) makes the claim that mountain-top removal is much safer and these men would be alive today if only he were allowed to do such removal. I suspect that he will blame the " damn Federal Government !!" by interfering in state business for their deaths.


But that's just me - I'm cynical that way.

motives and thoughts. When I hear his name, I see this:

safety or environmental violations. If the fines were massive and could potentially bankrupt a company, you'd see changes to protect workers and the environment.

This is the precise reason 'tort reform' is a very bad idea. In the situation of court cased, punitive damages are precisely designed to punish the offender to the point where continuing the behavior is more detrimental to them than change.

Same with fines. They are so pitifully inadequate as to not even qualify as a slap on the wrist.

I thought of this right when I heard the news.

failure to correct the situation he was fined for, means it was willful unconcern and he should be arrested for murder.

and decided it was cheaper to just pay fines. I would hope that there is a large class action suit by these families and they bankrupt this corporation like the klan was bankrupted. When the employees own the company, perhaps they'll make it safe for their fellow workers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8095854&mesg_id=8096397

"We need a huge deep mine catastrophe with lots of miners dying in order to jumpstart our mountaintop removal projects."

he hardly qualifies as a human being. He's more reptilian than anything you could find in a swamp.

So many families devastated by one corporation and one man in particular and yet he's still walking around free and rich. Ruined environment and dead miners and he has the temerity to go on national TV and proclaim that he actually cares about his workers.

We need a 21st century version of Mother Jones to go after this POS since the regulatory groups seem to be impotent.

OK Tea Baggers, look at one of your icons and tell us again how you're only trying to make America a better place to live. Better yet, go tell that to the families in WV that you still support this piece of filth.