Music

Greetings!

This is Podcast No. 50 of Blast the Right, um, Jack Clark from TheRationalRadical.com

One of the major themes of Blast the Right is that right-wingers consistently cause increased human misery, suffering, pain and death.

Today, we'll discuss two more ways they do so, one involving the suffocation of coal miners, the other, the cutting off of sick people's medication.

And all the while, the right accomplishes this evil with a smile on its face, boasting of their doing good deeds.

Oh, let's get right into it.

First, suffocation

Five weeks ago, we discussed the shameful record of the Bush Administration on Mind Safety.

I explained in detail the four main areas where Bush Administration actions have created conditions which inevitably lead to more disasters and lower survival rates for miners.

The Bush Administration has cut the budget, staff and enforcement efforts of the Mind Safety and Health Administration, MSHA.

Appointed mining company executives to oversee their own industry, opposed stronger mining safety and health regulations, even rolling back some of them.

And last but not least, punished MSHA employees who tried to correct dangerous mining conditions.

Well, they're still at it.

After this year's second deadly mining disaster in Harlan County, I told you that even the Republican-controlled Congress felt compelled to act.

But as could be expected from a right-wing-controlled Congress, the bill which Bush signed on June 15th falls far, far short of what's necessary to adequately protect miners.

The bill has several serious shortcomings, and I'll illustrate this with one egregious example.

Oxygen.

My sources here are articles by Ian Urbina in the New York Times, Dennis Roddy in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and Eric Reese in the Nation magazine.

Under the previous law, mine owners had to provide each miner with a one-hour supply of oxygen to be used in the event of a mining disaster which cut off their normal air supply.

You have to understand that many times it is not the initial mine explosion which kills the miners, but lack of oxygen before the rescuers can reach them.

Such was the case in the Sega mining disaster in January, where one miner was killed in the explosion and 11 trapped miners died from suffocation.

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