{"id":523195,"date":"2010-04-11T09:32:43","date_gmt":"2010-04-11T13:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/climateprogress.org\/?p=22822"},"modified":"2010-04-11T09:32:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-11T13:32:43","slug":"flashback-don-blankenship-warned-west-virginia-that-he-believes-in-%e2%80%9csurvival-of-the-fittest%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/523195","title":{"rendered":"FLASHBACK: Don Blankenship warned West Virginia that he believes in \u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coal baron Don Blankenship is complaining about the \u201cindignity<\/a>\u201d of the press for investigating his role as the CEO of Massey Energy, whose Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, WV, is the site of the deadliest mining disaster<\/a> since 1984, with at least 25 miners killed. Blankenship has a long record of putting coal profits over safety<\/a>. At the time of the accident, Massey was contesting dozens of major safety violations<\/a> at the Montcoal mine, even as Blankenship increased production.<\/p>\n

Blankenship has a dark, soulless, and destructive social-Darwinist view of the United States, as Brad Johnson explains in this repost<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Blankenship \u2014 whose $23.7 million annual compensation<\/a> includes the use of the company jet and helicopter and a mansion with several servants \u2014 has made no effort to hide his \u201cradical<\/a>\u201d philosophy of unfettered capitalism. He explained this philosophy most clearly in a 1986<\/strong> documentary by Anne Lewis<\/a> on his role crushing the union miners<\/a> at Massey\u2019s Blackberry Creek mine, saying that \u201ceverybody\u2019s going to have to learn to accept\u201d that the United States is ruled by the law of \u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d:<\/p>\n

\n

What you have to accept in a capitalist society, generally, is that I always make the comparison it\u2019s like a jungle, where a jungle is survival of the fittest<\/strong>. Unions, communities, people, everybody\u2019s going to have to learn to accept that in the United States you have a capitalist society. And that capitalism from a business viewpoint is survival of the most productive. And you may have a year, two years, five year periods where lesser productive companies or people have benefit. But in the long term, it\u2019s going to be the most productive people who benefit.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Blankenship\u2019s social-Darwinist view of the United States is dark, soulless, and destructive. Unlike the mythical uber-capitalists of Ayn Rand novels, Blankenship has no interest in free-market competition within the bounds of the law. Instead, he subverts the political system, busts unions, illegally destroys Appalachia\u2019s unique ecosystem, flouts labor laws, ignores safety rules, and intimidates employees to serve his black obsession with running coal.<\/p>\n

Blankenship has successfully delivered his twisted vision of society to West Virginia \u2014 flattened mountains, toxic waters, crushing poverty, political corruption, broken communities, and the needless, preventable deaths of the state\u2019s hard-working miners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coal baron Don Blankenship is complaining about the \u201cindignity\u201d of the press for investigating his role as the CEO of Massey Energy, whose Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, WV, is the site of the deadliest mining disaster since 1984, with at least 25 miners killed. Blankenship has a long record of putting coal profits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6435,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}