Conscious Voices with Tom Over-- mountain top removal mining, the persecution of Falun Gong, & Is it a win for factory farming?

 Use the following links for videos to match the audio content.

   Stephanie Pistellohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7uIHBH-ZgU 

Kui Huan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YipJLhceqQI    

Julian Martinhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY6JOUbr0QU  

Bill Price http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6by2veKZpw 

Judy Bonds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzk1MMQg6tY  

Use the following link for photos http://civicallyengaged-gallery.blogspot.com/

 To offer input about this program email :thomasover@gmail.com  Regarding the treatment of farm animals we hear from in this program Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States. He leads their factory farming campaign.

On the issue of mountain top removal mining, we hear from Stephanie Pistello, who is National Field Coordinator for Appalachian Voices; Julian Martin of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition; Bill Price who works with the Sierra Club in West Virginia; and Goldman Environmental Prize winner Judy Bonds. We spoke at the national protest against MTR mining that took place on June 23 in Sundial West Virginia. The audio also includes comments from an unidentified employee of Massey Energy.

Toward the end of the program, Kui Huang, talks about the five years he spent as a prisoner of conscience in China for his practice of Falun Gong.

In today’s show we will take a look at Issue 2 which passed three days ago. We’ll also take a look at the ongoing issue of MTR mining and we’ll take a look at the ongoing issue of the persecution in China of Falun Gong.

Three days ago, on election day, Ohio voters approved Issue 2. Now that the ballot initiative has passed, it is set to create a 13 member board that the governor will appoint and the Ohio Senate will confirm.

Supporters of Issue presented it to Ohio voters as a way to promote safe, local and affordable food while ensuring the health and welfare of Ohio’s farm animals. Opponents of Issue 2 say its success resulted from a $4 million dollar campaign that cynically co-opted the language of environmentalists in order to fool Ohio voters into allowing big agribusiness to regulate itself.

In today’s program Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States talks about what is next for animal welfare activists now that Issue 2 has passed.

On the mountain top removal mining front--- last week, on October 30, people in communities across the United States combined their efforts in the fight to stop this controversial form of strip mining.

Writing on the Huffington Post to preview last week’s day of action, Jeff Biggers , author of “ The United States of Appalachia,” reported that quote “coalfield activists and clean energy advocates across the nation, were planning sit-ins and "die-ins" and that

In today’s program we’ll hear audio from WCRS video shot during the June 23^rd 2009 national protest against mountain top removal mining that took place in Sundial, W Va.
The audio includes a conversation with Goldman Environmental Prize winner

Judy Bonds and conversations with other activists fighting to stop MTR mining. The audio from the WCRS videos also includes comments in SUPPORT of mountain top removal mining from two Massey Energy employees who were at the event in June as counter-demonstrators.

And in news pertaining to the persecution in China of Falun Gong, New Tang Dynasty Television reported on 10-26 that a Chinese official was served with a summons to appear in a US court to face a class action lawsuit that a group of Falun Gong practitioners have filed against him.

Shi Honghui (SHOO-like book, Hong like Hon Kong, HWAY) was served with the summons while on vacation in New York City. The group of Falun Gong practitioners say they were tortured in the detention facilities that Honghui runs in China’s Guangdong province.

A document from the Chinese government’s embassy in the United States claims that Falun Gong is a quote “ cancer in the body of modern, civilized society” end of quote and that Falun Gong is a cult that seeks to undermine US-China relations.

But governments and NGOs from around the world, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations , the US Department of State, Congress, and European parliaments have, in one form or another, acknowledged the persecution of Falun Gong in China as a reality, not a fabrication.

In 2006 , a report by David Matas and David Kilgour concludes that allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners and other prisoners are true. In this program we’ll hear Kui Huang, a Falun Gong practitioner tell his story about spending 5 years in prison in China because of his beliefs. Kui Huang is currently a mechanical engineering graduate student at the Ohio State University.

Regarding Ohio’s Issue 2, we now go to Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States, for commentary about what animal welfare activists may expect now that the measure has passed.

One note here before we go to the audio of Paul Shapiro. At both a forum on Issue held by the Franklin County Consortium on Good Government and a Forum on Issue 2 held by the Columbus Metropolitan Club, people spent a lot of time talking about many of the details of Issue EXCEPT how it pertained to the confinement of farm animals.

That seemed odd because that’s what this issue stemmed from in the first. Also, at those meetings, and during Dan Thomas’ Talk of the Town with Brian Rothenberg, over and over, when people talked about Issue 2 they seemed eager to disavow their ties to anything vegan. Well, I am hear to say that a strong case can be made for why a vegan diet is the direction to go in---for reasons of human health, protecting our environment, and reducing animal suffering.

Regarding the fight to end mountain top removal mining, the United States Environmental Protection Agency in a 2005 report defined mountaintop removal mining as a surface mining practice involving the removal of mountaintops to expose coal seams, and disposing of the mining debris in adjacent valleys.

According to Mountain Justice, a key organization in the fight to end mountain top removal mining, these valley fills quote “annihilate ecosystems, transforming some of the most biologically diverse temperate forests in the world into biologically barren moonscapes.” end of quote

Also, activists and public health experts say that this form of strip mining causes people in communities near the mining operations to drink water contaminated with mercury, arsenic, selenium and lead and to breath air contaminated with silica dust.

Further, activists say that Massey Energy and other coal mining companies that use mountain top removal mining, are violating parts of the Clean Water Act.

That was a Massey Energy miner I spoke with during the national MTR mining protest that took place in Sundial W VA on June 23. After talking with the Massey miner, I walked back over to the other end of the gate to the Marsh Fork Elementary School to talk again with Bill Price, who works with the Sierra Club in West Virginia.

The opposing sides flanked the gated entrance to the elementary school. Those opposing mountain top removal mining gathered along the road to the left of the entrance while Massey Energy Miners and their friends and family members and others who are for mountain top removal mining, gathered along the road to the right of the gate.

The elementary school is situated near Massey Energy’s Goals Coal Processing Plant, and within 400 yards of an impoundment containing 2.8 billion gallons of coal sludge. Activists say that if the earthen dam containing the sludge broke, the elementary school would be buried. Activists also say that coal dust from mining operations is causing the students at the elementary school to get sick.

Last month, the Register-Herald, a newspaper in West Virginia reported that school authorities were trying, without success, to get Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship to provide financial assistance for building a new school that would be located away from the coal processing plant.

As the demonstrators against MTR mining stood at one end of the entrance to the Marsh Fork Elementary school in Sundial W VA, and the counter-demonstrators stood at the other end of the entrance , various people in tractor-trailer trucks and SUVs blared their horns, most if not all of them in support of the pro-MTR mining crowd, who stood along the road shouting and holding signs such as “Honk for your miners.”

Despite the fact that many activists, scholars, and writers say that mountaintop removal mining does NOT bring prosperity to Appalachia, many of the counter-demonstrators at the June 23 event seemed to think--judging from their signs and banners--- that out-of-touch and out-of-town tree huggers had descended from their ivory towers and upon this W VA community to take away the jobs of the locals.

A man in a large four-door pick-up truck stopped his vehicle in front of the gathering of activists and protestors against mountain top removal mining. He spun the tires of the pick up truck, shouting a profanity and shaking his arm with a one finger salute, as a large, blue cloud of burned rubber formed near some of the demonstrators.

The fight continues as we speak. On Oct 27, Massey Energy began blasting parts of Coal River Mountain, the last intact mountain of the Coal River Mountain Range.

Activist groups have proposed saving Coal River Mountain and using it as the site of a wind farm. Massey Energy’s recent blasting of parts of Coal River Mountain jeopardizes those plans. Some activists say if the mountain tops are blown off, it will not be as good of a site for wind turbines due to its lowered elevation.

In an article for the Huffington Post in July of 2008, Jeff Biggers, author of the United States of Appalachia, wrote that the Coal River Mountain Wind Project would “provide 440MW…enough energy for 150,000 homes.” end of quote

And now let’s hear Kui Huang, a Falun Gong practitioner, tell his story about spending 5 years in prison in China for his beliefs. He is currently a mechanical engineering graduate student at the Ohio State University.

A document from the Chinese government’s embassy in the United States claims that Falun Gong is a quote “ cancer in the body of modern, civilized society” end of quote and that Falun Gong is a cult that seeks to undermine US-China relations.

But governments and NGOs from around the world, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations , the US Department of State, Congress, and European parliaments have, in one form or another, acknowledged the persecution of Falun Gong in China as a reality, not a fabrication.

11-6-09

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