Real "War on Coal" Not What Partisans Claim
Sometimes, watching coals miners, their families and their communities blame the federal government for the coalfield economic disaster caused by coal companies and global economic forces is like watching a battered wife blame her injuries on everybody but the motherfucker actually administering the beatings.
The refusal of the media to look behind the slogans just encourages the mendacity and increases the confusion.
Vicky Smith at AP digs beneath the surface :
The war on coal, observers say, is a sound bite and a headline, perpetuated by pundits, power companies and public relations consultants who have crafted a neat label for a complex set of realities.Read the whole thing.
It's easier to call the forces reshaping coal — cheap natural gas, harder-to-mine coal seams and slowing economies — some kind of political or cultural "war" than to acknowledge the world is changing and leaving some people behind.
War, after all, demands victims. And in this case, it seems, the victims are demanding a war.
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