"Friends of Coal" is nothing but a well funded propaganda machine -- and it seems to be working very well, sorry to say.

I just posted this to my FB page, despite the potential blow-up; though I've had to hide most of the people I grew up with because they have become right wing extremists.

I know the truth about the coal companies, my Grandfather and Father told me all about the abuses and how hard it was to unionize. Both my Grandfathers and my Dad (though he was an electrician for a surface mine) suffered from black lung. These companies paid my Great-Grandfather in company script, not real money, which they had to use at the company store. The people were no more than surfs then, and that's the way the coal companies want it now. It makes me sick when I see all the "friends of coal" stickers on cars here in Lexington, a couple of hours away from the scene of the crime.

I have a lot of resentment against the area I grew up in, eastern Kentucky, they are put through more and more hell and are more and more adamant about voting for the people who insist on keeping them in it. I've had a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with being Appalachian all my life, but that's a very long story.

You see these ' stop obama's war on coal' pendants out and about here in southeastern Ohio. I've been looking for a healthy comeback when I bump into them. There are coal towns all over here; the people were paid in company script. It amazes me that any of these folks can vote republican.

Appalachia is just itching for a progressive movement, this is the type of info that gets things rolling.