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Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said. He was 87.
- Zinn's final piece for The Nation, written last week, can be found here. - Democracy Now has a tribute up.
The following is an excerpt of a print interview I did with Mr. Zinn via e-mail, shortly after his summer 2003 visit to the region and speaking engagement in Morehead, Ky.:
Q: The media is only now beginning to cover the story of the Bush administration's misleading claims regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Do you think the public will ever learn from past examples of war hysteria and we'll eventually reach the point where it isn't so easy for a government to sell a war?
A: A slow learning does take place over time. The experience of Vietnam-era lies has not been lost on many Americans. But it is lost on others, so each new [instance] requires a renewal of educational efforts.
This is the second installment in a series of interviews planned on the topic of mountaintop removal.
Former Congressman and West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler, in addition to being a legendary figure in West Virginia public service, has been one of the most prominent voices in the region opposing mountaintop removal coal mining.
He has long been active on issues surrounding coal mining, first calling for an end to strip mining while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1970s, and stands by his position that an abolition to the practice is the solution the problem.
Hechler is set to speak, along with environmental activist Larry Gibson and others, at the Rally for Jobs for Our Kids on Sunday on Buskirk Field at Marshall University.
The event, followed by a march to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers building, runs from 1 p.m. to 4p.m. The rally is part of the Appalachia Powershift Summit taking place at Marshall University throughout the weekend.
Q: What do you hope to achieve from your appearance at this rally?
K.H.: I've been asked to speak and articulate the arguments against mountaintop removal and to try to goad the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers into being more public-spirit oriented.
It's a demonstration that the young people who have organized this want, to show that they want to be involved. This may well be the only that this thing can be turned around by - the massive support of younger people throughout the nation.
I was very closely involved with Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. The freedom riders and the young people who helped to spark the civil rights rebellion were really the ones who helped to achieve the success which Dr. King could not have achieved without their initiative.
I have a very special message for the corps of engineers.
You heard about the hearing that they had on the 13th of October and the fact that anyone who tried to speak up was drowned out by profanity and physically threatened.
The corps simply refused to control the meeting and even had the gall to say the next day that everything went as planned.
Q: They claimed it was conducted in an 'orderly fashion."
K.H.: That was the most disorderly meeting that I've ever heard about.
I did not personally attend, but from the testimony of those people who tried to speak, they were shouted down and physically threatened.
Q: There were many reports that the pro-coal side was blocking people from entering the meeting.
K.H.: Even the ones that got in - the reporter could not hear what was being said. Yet the corps didn't seem to think that was important.
Q: If you could summarize - what is the biggest factor in your opposition to mountaintop removal?
K.H.: The biggest factor is the effect on people in the valleys.
The ancestors of the residents in the valleys came into these areas and built homes to raise their families in a quiet and healthy area, when, suddenly, above them, starts the blasting, which ruins their water supply.
Kids that have asthma or bronchial problems can't survive with all the dust and the smoke. As a result, the parents have to sell their homes at a ridiculously low price and move out, in order to raise their families in a healthy area.
Q: The region has recently seen a stepping up of civil disobedience protests. What is your take on this tactic of opposition?
K.H.: I think it's been very, very difficult, throughout the usual channels, to alert the people and the regulators of the danger to those individuals that live in the areas. It almost seems as though you have to step up your efforts.
I wrote an article in the Charleston Gazette recently that was entitled "I used to be an activist, but now I'm a hellraiser." As a result of that, I'm joining with those who are practicing civil disobedience - within the limits of the law.
On June 23, Hechler was arrested along with actress Daryl Hannah, NASA climate scientist James Hansen and 26 others, while protesting a slurry impoundment at Massey Energy's Goals Coal preparation plant near Marsh Fork Elementary in Raleigh County.
Hechler was charged with impeding traffic and obstructing an officer. The charges were later dismissed.
K.H.: In my case, I'm 95 years old and do not walk very fast. It was a quarter of a mile march from the school to the Massey headquarters, and they told me if everybody walked at the same speed, we'd never get there.
So they said, "You stay here, and we'll drive you up there after the others get there."
I had a videotape that showed that I was not impeding traffic and, that way, the prosecutor urged the magistrate to dismiss the charge.
The second charge against me was obstructing an officer. The videotape shows I was arrested very amicably and simply pointed to the front seat of a police cruiser. I didn't, in any way, obstruct anybody.
Q: Do you think West Virginia needs to prepare for a post-coal future, and do you have any faith in so-called "clean coal" technologies, as some are advocating?
K.H.: I think "clean coal" is an oxymoron. There is no such thing, and the technology has never been proven that you can pump carbon dioxide underground or get rid of it somehow.
I think the scientists have pretty well proven that greenhouse gases are directly contributing to global warming. It's pretty easy to tell from the melting icebergs in the Arctic and Antarctic that something is happening.
I think, in West Virginia, we've got to take steps to diversify our employment and start to look at means of broadening employment, in such areas as health care and the application of technology, which has burgeoned so successfully over the years.
The problem with persuading economic development officials to try to emphasize progress toward those steps is that they are receiving funds from severance taxes.
It's pretty easy to say we want to continue to get this money from the severance taxes, instead of putting more effort into diversification.
The assessors and the school people that get a lot funds from the coal industry want to continue that.
It's easy to understand why miners who have high-paying jobs in mountaintop removal want to continue to draw pay from that source, instead of trying to look for other jobs.
But there's been no effort on the part of either the state or the counties to move away from dependence on coal.
(With Climate Ground Zero tree sitters back in the news, this is a good time to revisit how the last tree sit went. Here's an exclusive interview that Heath Harrison did with Laura Steepleton. There's also an essential video with two of the contractor security guards that provides a real sense of how Blankenship was saying one thing in public while doing another thing in private. - promoted by Clem Guttata)
by heath_harrison
This is the first installment in a series of interviews planned on the topic of mountaintop removal.
On Aug. 31, Laura Steepleton and Nick Stocks, activists with environmental group Climate Ground Zero, were arrested following a tree-sit at Massey Energy's Edward mine, a mountaintop removal mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia.
The two spent six days in platforms 90 feet from the ground in an effort to halt the blasting endangering the nearby community of Petry Bottom. In addition to drawing national attention to the destructive effects of mountaintop removal, the protesters demanded Massey pay heath care and home repair costs for residents affected by the blasting.
The protest was part a larger campaign of civil disobedience and direct action events occurring in Appalachia, as local and national pressure to end mountaintop removal has grown.
The following is an excerpt of a conversation I had with Steepleton a few weeks after her release (adapted for print):
Q - How long did you originally intend to remain in the tree?
L.S. - I intended to stay until I was out of food and water.
Nick had to be back home by the 1st, so he made plans to get down by Monday. We had a rope connecting both the trees, called a traverse, and I went over the night before and talked to him. I told him I was fine to be up there by myself. I took all of his extra water and food, which left me with enough for a week.
My plan was to be up there for as long as possible. Our support had been arrested already, so I knew there was no chance of resupply.
After Nick got down Monday morning, they upped the harassment - which I totally expected -and brought the chainsaws out and put them at the bottom of the tree.
I kind of turned it into a game whenever they would do some sort of harassment. The first couple of nights, they would be banging on buckets - and whatever they could bang on. I just turned it into entertainment. We had a drum circle, just to show them it wasn't going to bother me.
On Monday, they brought these obnoxious sirens out, and that lasted for a couple of hours. By then, Sergeant Smith had already come out and arrested Nick and left.
They realized the sirens weren't affecting me, so two loggers walked up on the berm. One miner kept saying, "They're going to come down and start chopping down trees."
I said, " You're not really going to do that you wouldn't endanger me like that."
And they were like, 'That's what you think.'
So I said, "Well, if the state trooper was here, you couldn't do this."
And they made the comment, "Oh, we know the trooper's not
here right now and he's not on his way. We came in through the back entrance and Massey's ordered us to be here. It's their property we can do what we want."
Both of the loggers had come down and most of the security had gone up to the berm out of the way. One logger started spiking up the tree that Nick was in.
At that point, I thought I needed to get out onto the traverse. That way, he couldn't cut that tree down, because I would be on the rope connecting the two trees.
I went to do that and, as I was setting it up, a miner said, "You better hurry up and cut that line, or she's going to get out on that line."
He looked at me and said, "I don't care if she's on that line. She's got a harness on. She's not going to fall."
It's true I wouldn't have fallen. I would've swung a little bit. Being that the line is a dynamic rope and stretched quite a bit, it probably would have snapped and then hit the tree.
At that point, I thought, "Well, maybe this guy's not bluffing. If I go out on this rope, he's going to cut it and not care if I swing a little bit."
And, at that point, trees started coming down around me, so I just said, "OK, I'll get down.
Q - Did you have any interaction with any major Massey officials or objectives during your time there?
L.S. - No, there was a Massey helicopter that flew over on the first day and the last day. I was told - but I still haven't verified it - that [Massey CEO] Don Blankenship was in the helicopter the last day.
It wouldn't surprise me that he would want to be there to see all the different tactics they were employing when I was the only one up there, and that he'd want to see trees falling down beside me.
Q - Do you think Blankenship wanted to have you down before his big Labor Day bash?
L.S. - Probably. The one thing I definitely wanted was to still be in that tree for that big Labor Day bash.
I think that 's why they were stepping it up. He knew he had to go and do this.
We watched it live on Internet, and he mentioned "the crazy enviro-nuts" that strap themselves to machines and hang out in trees - and how we're the real threats to America and giving more jobs to China, which is increasing pollution.
Q - What sort of reaction have you received after getting back?
L.S. - It's really great how it's drawn a lot of local support. We've had a lot of locals come out because of it. They were really excited by the fact that we were actually able to hold ground and stop them for a week. It's been creating more locals to speak out, which is great.
And those two security guards coming out and doing that interview - that made me really, really happy. I couldn't believe that amount of support. Those guys were my heroes.
More people walked off the job because they were getting overworked. They were pulling 17-hour shifts and not getting briefed on what was going on until they got there.
A lot of them lived two hours away, so they'd get on these 17-hour shifts and had to be back in six hours. A lot of them didn't even have time to go home. They were pulling over on the side of the road, sleeping and coming back.
Q - What was the interaction like between you and the Massey employees?
L.S. - I had conversations with miners every night. They'd go on break around two in the morning and come out and harass us.
The first night, I came out after they kept saying, "We know you're awake."
So I pulled over my tarp and said, "I'm here. Let's have a conversation."
It was kind of funny, because for a couple minutes there was dead silence. They couldn't say the nasty things to my face, that they were saying when I had the tarp pulled in front of me. But then it eventually stepped up.
By the third night, I was actually able to have somewhat of a conversation.
They kept mentioning how their side of the story never gets told, and how we're just full of propaganda and get all of this media attention.
At that point, I asked, "OK, what is your story? I am talking to media. What do you want to say? Just let me know. "
Q - And how did they respond to that?
L.S. - Basically their response was, "There is nothing here but coal. You are taking away our jobs by doing this and causing our kids to not have food on their plates."
My response to them was, "It's going to take time and, believe it or not, I don't want to come in and take your jobs way from you. I don't want to see a lot of people laid off."
I asked, "Don't you want a safer future for your children - a healthy future and to be able to stay in West Virginia? And what are you going to do anyway in 20 years when there's no more coal left?"
Q- Was it hard to discuss a long-time scenario with them?
L.S. - That was totally it. Their response is, " By them I'll be retired." I think the mentality is that they'll be able to send their kids somewhere else to have a better future.
But some of them did ask, "Where are these jobs? We would be willing to transfer, but they're not here. "
That's the frustrating part. I can't sit there and say, "If there were windmills, you could go right to work." It's not going to happen overnight, with a great windmill farm up on Coal River Mountain.
You could still have jobs. There's tons of real reclamation that could be done on these mountains. If mountaintop removal ended tomorrow, you've still got all of the heavy machinery. Let's start actually doing a better job reclaiming.
But where does that funding come from? It should come from the coal companies, in my opinion. Massey's making a ton of money. They should be able to spend a couple million dollars in actual reclamation.
They asked, "Do you think we should just live off of welfare?" I think they should get government should support them until there's a transition into different jobs here.
And I let them know that there people working on that. We're not just a bunch of people getting arrested. There are other people here doing so many things to help bring different forms of economy and alternative energy into this area.
I didn't make a lot of leeway. It was kind of like talking to a brick wall, for the most part. In their mind, Massey treats them fine.
They're making 20-something dollars an hour, and that's the best paying job you can get in this area, just coming out of high school.
They've been fed a bunch of information from their side, which they believe to be legit. I think, even if they don't believe it, they just want to believe it so bad.
Q - It's going to require such a paradigm shift in this state, from the political leaders - and everyone - to change this mentality.
They're just not thinking long-term about any of this stuff.
L.S. - And that's what I kept trying to tell them. I don't hate you I want to have a conversation with you. I want you to help end this, too. And help find yourselves better jobs, and make it so your children can stay in West Virginia and enjoy this beautiful place.
The company doesn't care about them. I'm not pro-coal in any way, but you if want to talk job loss, look at the jobs that were lost - 80,000 jobs - when they started to do mountaintop removal.
It only takes about 25 to 30 people for a mountaintop removal site, site because of all the heavy machinery - so more profit for the company; they use more machines and less people.
That cut a lot of jobs when they shipped it over to mountaintop removal from underground mining.
Q - In addition to civil disobedience and direct action, what sort of work have you been doing as part of your community organizing?
L.S. - I've been photo documenting the damages to people's homes, talking to them about how the blasting has impacted them. They've been blasting this area for the past three or four years, but it's really moved on top of this community in the past year.
We have this great community that's addressing this problem from all different kinds of angles - every legal route from lobbying, writing letters and talking with community members and then direct civil disobedience action.
Climate Ground Zero's campaign is ongoing. For more information on how to get involved and what you can do to help, visit www.climategroundzero.com.
Jeff Cohen is the founder of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, one of the pioneers in the cause of media reform. The group has offered well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986.
He is the author of the 1995 book "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error" one of the first investigations into the inaccuracies of conservative talk radio.
He was the producer of MSNBC's "Donahue"program in 2003, but his time at the network was cut short when the show was canceled. An internal memo from network heads showed that the program was axed for opposing the war with Iraq, despite the fact that it was MSNBC's number one show at the time.
His book "Cable News Confidential" tells the story of his experience as an on-air pundit at the cable networks. He served as communications director for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential bid and has also worked as an investigative journalist and a lawyer for the ACLU.
In most "conservative vs. liberal" debates on cable TV, they often take a hard-right, activist conservative and pair them with a centrist, establishment Democrat. As a result, the debate frame is limited to the center-right. Do you think this is an intentional effort or are the producers of these programs simply ignorant as to what an actual liberal is?
It's more of the former. It's more a conscious effort to construct a spectrum that would comfort those at the top of the media and those in our political elite. I think they understand that a center-right spectrum won't get them into trouble with corporate sponsors and won't get them in trouble with the Bush administration.
It was constructed during the Reagan era. I've been talking about this issue since the 80s. It's not a new thing. It didn't begin with "Hannity and Colmes" on FOX news. The major factor is this is their comfort level - these are their beltway friends. Their idea of the American spectrum is the rightwing of the Democratic Party and the rightwing of the Republican Party and thereby excludes close to 50 percent of the country.
I think it's mostly a conscious, semi-conscious "This is the establishment spectrum and this is the spectrum we're going to put on our channel." A slight percentage of the problem is just their ignorance, but mostly it's going to their comfort level. They're going to the establishment voices that are funded by corporations on both sides - the Democratic voices that are corporate friendly and the Republican voices that are corporate-friendly.
It's rare on TV that you see a pundit that is firmly aligned with the labor movement. I was one and I was a huge exception. Very rarely do you pundit on TV, a regular pundit, who sees himself aligned with the peace and justice movement. I was one of those and one of the only ones. But on TV, you see all sorts of pundits that are aligned with the rightwing movement. Patrick Buchanan has been on American television day after day for 25 years.
Recently, a number of new media reform groups have been formed and the Conference for Media Reform has been drawing crowds from across the nation each year. It seems like the cause is gaining a lot of momentum.
Right. FAIR was the pioneer on the national level in 1986. We saw, a few years ago, the media reform movement really start stirring in the battle against the FCC's rules changes which would allow the media titans to grow even more titanic. That battle was massive. It included a new group called Free Press. Common Cause and Moveon.org got involved in that heavily. So it wasn't just FAIR and some of these groups that had been around for years. Eventually, even rightwing groups joined the coalition
Wasn't the NRA was a part of this fight?
Right. The NRA was one. There was something called the Parents Television Council led by Brent Bozell. But it was a movement started by progressives, powerful progressive forces.
After 20 years of working in this field, what's it like for you to see the cause taken up by so many others?
Now there are all sorts of bloggers that do media criticism regularly. Media Matters for America is doing great media criticism, so yeah, it's thrilling. I write about it in my book - several blogs got together when Chris Matthews compared Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden - that and a bunch of other amazing feats of verbal linguistics. You're finding that responding to corporate media, or what a lot of bloggers call the MSM (mainstream media). It's just a delight for an old-timer like me to see. because I feel I helped spark it.
What do you feel is the best way for activists to work, by challenging the lack of balance in the mainstream media and attempting to reform those institutions or by trying to build an alternative media infrastructure?
I've always been about three areas for media activism: one is you confront the MSM straight on and demand broader debates, demand both sides to a news story.
The second is to build independent media. They may not have the resources that the corporate-owned media do but they certainly are not hemmed in by corporate ownership or sponsorship. They aren't timid. The two go hand-in-hand when you're building independent media, as we've seen from the bloggers. And we've seen it from FAIR, which has a magazine, a radio show, a Web site and a newsletter. When you build independent media, a good thing is to be a check of corporate media, to expose their involvement in censorship. It helps you build your independent media at the same time you're showing the sheer comics of the MSM.
And of course the third area is to fight for long-term media reform, to stop further consolidation of the media and to fight for reforms at the local and national level which will make the media more diverse and more democratic.
I see all those things going together. When I started FAIR in the late 80s/early 90s, people would say, "Why do you bother critiquing the mainstream media? Why don't you just build your own? Why don't you build an alternative to that?" I said, "Well, we're doing both." FAIR built a magazine, a radio show that's on 130 stations and now a Web site. You can still be an independent media outlet while pointing out the shortcomings of corporate media. And it's silly to complain about the corporate med without building something of your own that can reach people.
Do you feel that the mainstream media is getting better and addressing to these concerns?
I don't think so. First of all, the independent media has never been more powerful. Not all of them are that left, but at least they're passionate. They believe in issues and they're not silenced or intimidated by corporate money. The independent media is booming and it's booming because the corporate media is getting worse. It's becoming more tabloid and more irrelevant, so I don't see it getting better.
I love that independent media are showing their shortcomings. We see this huge uproar largely waged by independent media pointing out all of their inaccuracies. I see the independent media growing as a result of censorship and bias in the MSM and that's a good thing.
The Internet has revolutionized the way these groups connect and organize, as well as providing a faster way of distributing information.
You're right. Thank god for the Internet, which is the first point of distribution. Almost everything else follows from it. At this point, with bloggers working all day and Web sites posting new information, by the time a magazine like Mother Jones comes out or it's on the air at Air America, the information is already out there.
The Internet is an incredible resource for disseminating information and it's really quite telling that progressives have taken to it so effectively. It's a medium of dialogue. It's a medium of debate. It's a medium where, if you attack something, you post it so people can see what you're talking about.
Obviously, progressives and independent media flourish in a wide- ranging debate. The Limbaughs flourish in a totalitarian, demagogue style where one person pontificates to the many. And Limbaugh doesn't give his sources or if does give the sources, he lies about them. If he's got to attack something, he lies about it before attacking it. Limbaugh and O'Reilly have those tendencies, whereas the ethic of the Internet is if you attack something, you post what you're attacking so someone can see both sides.
It's not surprising to me that more intellectual, more independent-minded and more progressive people take to a more democratic medium and why the rightwing dominates talk TV and talk radio, which are more of the old style totalitarian model where there's a pontificator and the rest of us listen.
On October 22, 2007 a jury ordered Dupont to pay $196.2 million to residents of Spelter, W.Va. The company was found negligent in creating a 112-acre waste site laced with arsenic, cadmium and lead. The poisons left for 50 years, had become airborne and had contaminated the groundwater. Health problems were abundant in the town, causing the area to be known as the "cancer triangle."
Representing the citizens of Spelter were environmentalists Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papatonio. The pair are co-hosts of Air America's news magazine Ring of Fire and are founders of GoLeft.TV a web site devoted to progressive video.
Papantonio, known for stinging "Pap Attack" commentaries on the network was featured in the 2006 documentary "Jesus Camp," in which he takes the camp's founder Becky Fischer to task for indoctrinating children into rightwing fanaticism.
Papantonio spoke with me before the Spelter case went to court.
Q: What do you feel "Ring of Fire" brings to the Air America lineup? A: Our format is radio magazine. I think the reason it's taken off so Well is - with call-in talk, you've got some voice on the air for three hours giving their opinions - I think people want a little change from that.
The reason the progressive voice in the U.S. failed for so long was for a couple of reasons: First of all, you had a real direct design by a very conservative movement in the country to take control of what I call "citizen's media," things like AM radio.
The other side, there was nobody out there, really. You have NPR that would talk in warm, fuzzy terms and, "Gee, let's get along and join hands and sing Cumbaya together." You can't talk about the issues that are as ugly as they are these days and be nice about it.
I think my role is that I'm kind of regarded as that person that is not warm and fuzzy. I admit that I'm not. I don't really want to get along with them and I don't care whether they listen to me.
Q: With television dominated by conservative viewpoints, do you feel progressives should try to put pressure on corporate outlets to adopt a more diverse range of viewpoints or are they better served by building an alternative media system? A: You've hit it on the head - corporate America has completely taken control of the agenda for television.
But what's happening now is there's a major shift taking place and we're seeing it with Air America. There's something that's rising up and is a true citizen's media where you have people saying, "I can't believe Brian Williams anymore - once I know where he comes from and that he's been an apologist for the GOP for several years, so I have to go elsewhere."
I don't think you'll ever be able to rebuild mainstream media. It's just too far gone. But what you will do is build a parallel media that will become more effective than mainstream media. I've interviewed Dan Rather, Helen Thomas, Bill Moyers - you talk to all these people, they say mainstream media, investigative journalism is completely dead.
When they say that, you know there's something to it, because they've been doing it all their lives.
Q: Your program is one of the few media outlets that regularly reports on mountaintop removal. How do think activists can overcome the mainstream media blackout and bring the issue to national attention? A: If you look at how disastrous West Virginia's been treated - mountaintop Mining - In the history of this country, since the Bushies took over, there's never been so much complete destruction of mountain land mass as we've seen under this administration. Not only do you have the power elite to overcome, but you've got the power elite that controls the
message completely.
In other words, activism doesn't do what it used to do. If you look at activism marches anymore, the mainstream media chooses to ignore them. So it's an uphill battle. I think that's what the tragedy is in West Virginia.
I kind of wear two hats. You may know about the Spelter case I have going on. Dupont got away with killing, absolutely poisoning an entire community in Spelter, West Virginia. It's unbelievable, these documents.
Now, can I take these documents and give them to media up there that will do something with them? I can, but I have to get the case to trial first.
Activism alone doesn't work anymore. There has to be something dramatic that happens.
In West Virginia, my god, every time I turn around, it's another disastrous story about corporate America, either attacking labor, polluting streams, blowing off the tops of mountains. It's as if people yawn and say, "You know, well that's West Virginia." They don't pay attention to it until somebody punishes Dupont or one of these corporations.
I know it sounds pretty cynical, but I've done progressive radio for nearly four years and have done plaintiff's trial law for 25 years and see it's pretty clear what has to happen.
Q: The corporate interests here have tried to play labor against environmentalists, framing the issue around the false premise that protecting the environment always means a loss of jobs.
A: Oh absolutely. One of the most important things you had in West Virginia for so long was such a strong union. They understood that there's no way you can solve the question of class disparity and wealth disparity without being able to - You have to have a middle class and labor gave West Virginians that chance to rise above just being working for the man and actually have a middle class life.
It's amazing, based on cultural issues alone, that you have West Virginians that say "I went GOP because of gay marriage, because of abortion, because Reverend Falwell told me to." It's that competing interest that you have - and I see it so clearly in West Virginia. I've seen the willingness of so many residents up there to say, "The wealth issue doesn't' matter to me as much as the cultural issue."
It's tough argue with a guy. You're saying, "You realize if you do what Falwell tells you you're not going to be able to feed your kids, you're not going to be able to have a pension program that's in place, you're not going to be able to have health insurance or be able to educate your child. You're willing to give all that up in exchange for your cultural issue."
It's very tough to have that conversation.
Q: A recent book, Whistling Past Dixie, makes the case that conservatism can be defeated nationally without winning the South. You've discussed the book on your show. Do you agree with that premise?
A: Sometimes I say on the show that we can win without the South. I say that more in frustration, because, really what we have to do - we can't turn out the lights and go home. In my heart, that's what I feel.
You can't say, "It's the South and they just don't get it." I've been here all my life. I was raised in the deep, deep south of central Florida. I think we have a responsibility to stay here and fight it out, even if that message isn't fully embraced.
I remember talking with Morris Dees, who was the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center and a huge civil rights type out of Southern Alabama. I asked, "Is there any one event that changed the civil rights movement?" And he said, "No, it was all a mixture of separate, distinct events. But all of the sudden, all of these events coalesced and this huge, positive leap for the culture took place."
What I'm saying on the radio - It may not reach more than 600,000 people, but that has an effect in the long run.
Q: I've seen Democratic candidates get defeated here by trying to run as conservatives, by adopting the anti-gay stands and so forth. But Sherrod Brown in Ohio ran for the Senate on economic, kitchen table issues and economic populism. When the Republicans tried to use his stands on social issues, against him, it didn't stick.
A: Exactly. Look, you've gotta die in your boots. To me, a candidate needs to say, "Here's what I stand for."
If they'll say those things instead of trying to put one leg on eachside of the line - that's the message that was delivered up there in the race you're talking about. Social issues will only go so far in some places.
It depends on what the economics of the area are. I think right now, for example, West Virginia, If you look at the economic issues up there right now, my god, I think you're at edge of that very same kind of social revolution.
Q: On the issue of mountaintop removal, your show has repeatedly discussed Masssey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. He recently tried to buy the legislature here in West Virginia by targeting progressive candidates and attacking them on social issues. But it backfired and all of the candidates he supported ended up losing.
A: Right - because of his credibility. It was a character-based revolt. They said "This guy is revolting to me."
It's just like Cheney - I love every day Cheney's on the air, every time he's talking out the side of his mouth. We know his approval rating is 18-25% on a good day.
The association with these thugs that now dominate the GOP is killing them and they don't know how to get away from it.
Q: Another issue that you cover frequently is global warming. We're seeing a massive amount of disinformation released as the issue gains momentum. Do you think they can counter environmentalists or is the movement for change too strong?
A: Well, the other side, they really are masters of it. Let me give it to you in a nutshell: If you were to identify an industrial group that has more to do with misinformation in this country, it would be the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They used to be regarded as a 'mom and pop' organization, but they're anything but.
Now here's who they really are: They are Dick Cheney. They are Halliburton. They are Exxon, Merc, Dupont...
As soon as the global warming issue started heating up, they put together their own funding to fight back. They actually went out and recruited lapdogs like John Stossel and Michael Crichton to talk about their issues. They've prepared for this argument about global warming for a long time.
I don't think it's ever going to lose traction. It's going to be a series of skirmishes. Look at what's happened now. They've moved from saying that there is no global warming to "well, yes, there is global warming and you know what? It's good for us."
That is the new neocon message - that global warming is good for all of Us - that it's going to create completely new ecosystems, new biosystems. It's going to open up the shipping lanes in the north and we can save money. It's going to create new coastlines for new real estate. These actually are arguments these boneheads are making.
Q: Rush Limbaugh has even tried to make the argument that it's good because more people supposedly die from cold than heat.
A: Oh yeah, it's amazing. They didn't just come with that. They've had this in their quiver for a long time. They knew, ultimately, that they were going to lose the global warming argument. Now it's just Phase II: you hire these lapdogs. They're not real journalists. They're these guys you can get to say anything. They're not real scientists, they're
biostitutes who will say anything for any price.
I expect these skirmishes to continue, but ultimately, you now have 70% of the American public who are aware and do buy into global warming. The problem is they haven't been hit hard enough to understand and they're not willing to say it's an important political issue at this point, but I think that's where they're headed.
Q: You've spoken of the national agenda of the chamber of commerce. Does this kind of activity penetrate to the state and local level?
A: Oh my gosh, yes. Let me just give you an example. In West Virginia, what you have going on right now is an attempt to change your civil justice process. The Chamber of Commerce has spent $15 million this last year trying to get courts, legislators and citizens in states like West Virginia to give up their right to go to court.
They do this by saying, "The civil justice process is broken. There's too many lawsuits, West Virginia is a litigious state."
If you follow all that money, there's not a grassroots organization saying that. It's all the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They are industrialists in the truest sense and will do damn near anything to get their way.
Here's what they've undertaken: A.) They want to deregulate everything and (B.) After you deregulate, they want to close the courthouse to people for whom that might be the only avenue they have open.
The other thing they have done is completely and utterly neuter media. They've convinced the media that they're too liberal, but they know that's not true. The guy's that own the media are not liberal. They're multi-multi billionaires. It's clear what the Chamber of Commerce Is up to. They couldn't care less about your workers in West Virginia. They despise them. All they are is a nuisance to them.
If they can't increase their profits by raping your land, blowing up your mountains, polluting your rivers and fixing it so you can't go to court, they're having a bad day.
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'Ring of Fire' can be heard on Air America Radio on Saturdays from 3-6 p.m. More information is available at www.ringoffireradio.com and www.goleft.tv
Heath Harrison is a former student activist, freelance writer and co-founder of Bejeezus magazine.
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K.H.: I've been asked to speak and articulate the arguments against mountaintop removal and to try to goad the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers into being more public-spirit oriented.
