It wasnât a mis-statement. It was right the first time. Replace coal with renewables over time, but help the coal areas replace the industry with new jobs rather than let the communities wither and die.
Hillary Clinton shows great insight when she admits she is not a natural politician. That, coupled with constantly putting her finger in the air to make and refine policy positions gets her in a lot of difficulty. That said, Iâll be happy to vote for her in November.
I am impressed that she in even in what is clearly an unfriendly area, campaigning. Something none of the GOPers would ever do. And of course if Trump were to come across anyone disagreeing with him he would either just insult them or rely on one of his supporters/stooges to âhandleâ it.
I always think it is far better to refine policy decisions. It reflects analytical process and intellect. The best presidents have those capabilities. As opposed to someone like George W. Bush who was essentially incapable of both and dangerously stubborn, failing to learn from mistakes.
As much as they donât like it reality says coal is on the way out.
I agree with you. But people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have the political talent to make their policy changes seem unconnected to purely political considerations, even when they are connected. Hillary Clinton does not have that ability, IMO.
Clinton said nothing she had to apologize for. The decline of coal is an economic certainty. It is inefficient, it is dirty, and its safe and clean extraction too costly. Cal miners should be demanding that their governments provide educational opportunities for them and their children and work to bring in industries that have growth potential. (A good example is Pittsburgh, which weaned itself off of steel and is now thriving on health care and tech.)
It is impossible to have a serious conversation about energy in this country with the absolutists on both sides of this. On the one hand, you have people who would ban all fracking facing off against drillers who are against all regulation and taxation (i.e., Pennsylvania drillers), and in the middle you have people who want to burn a cleaner fuel which we fire out ways to scale up use of renewables. In coal country you have economies holding onto a resource no one wants to burn anymore because of the damage it does to the environment and doing nothing to prepare for the inevitable demiseâ due to economic realityâ of their main industry. No one should have to apologize for speaking truths about these issues, as opposed to slogans.
Tammy Wynette remark 2.0 Be contrite, listen, and move on.
âWeâre going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of businessâ is a slogan. Itâs a slogan that plays very well to Democratic voters, except in coal country. A more adept politician would have been able to deliver the same message of the need to move to clean energy, but without alienating Democratic voters in WVA.
The folks in W. VA need to understand that coal is in decline because of the market in low cost natural gas and the loss of the Chinese market in they type of steel that uses coal. The new jobs will be created in renewables as well as cleaning up the current coal sites. When the automobile came to the market no one was running around shouting âsave the buggy whip manufacturers!â
Does anyone remember the Danny Devito movie Other Peoples Money? Google the âbuggy whipâ speech. I think thatâs what she was trying to confer in too quick a way.
Coal is going away, itâs not out of hate or spite or greed or anything personal, the world is moving - too slowly if you ask me - to renewable cleaner energy and coal country is going to be devastated if it doesnât start planning for that now.
EDIT:
Hereâs the pertinent part of the speech -
âYou know, at one time there mustâve been dozens of companies makinâ buggy whips. And Iâll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw. Now how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company? You invested in a business and this business is dead. Letâs have the intelligence, letâs have the decency to sign the death certificate, collect the insurance, and invest in something with a future.â
The coal industry has been a nightmare in many ways, including the dangerous work and damages to the minersâ life and lungs, the pollution worldwide, and the mountain top removals in Appalachia - a grievous crime IMO. At least, at some point, itâll be over and a few nice mountains may still remain. If you depend on coal for income, then I guess you donât care when your environment and health is destroyed, like most humans really, sorry to say. Itâs hard to break this massive addiction to an easy life by raping our Great Mother. The entire world is doing that now, hence ACD. Peabody is just now closing their Black Mesa coal mine on the Navajo Reservation, thank goodness. That mine and company basically wiped out the aquifer there. The lack of water now destroyed the lives of many Navajos and Hopi tribal members.
Obviously, from the exchange she had with a coal miner while trying to make amends, this will hurt her permanently with many in Coal Country. The unfortunate reality is that too many of them are simply stuck in a backward-thinking mentality that wonât change no matter what.
But for Donald Trump to counter what she initially said with a promise to keep the mines open and give miners high-paying jobs in those mines will sound like the dishonest pandering it is. Clinton canât unsay what she said. It might be a lot smarter to actually KEEP saying it, then keep saying what she meant by it.
If I were her, I would say that there is no way those jobs are coming back. I would say over and over that Coal Country needs State Governments and a Federal Government working together to create a NEW economy that will create more and better jobs than the mines ever delivered.
Fossil fuels are fossil industries. They are dangerous and obsolete, but the real reason they will pass is economic. The only âgreenâ is money.
Clinton said that she was âa bit sad and sorry that I gave people an excuse to be angry at meâŚâ
West Virginia, which sheâll never carry anyhow, is the least of her worries. With negatives among the highest among any candidate in history, Clinton clearly has plenty to be sad and sorry about. And itâs not like all those people needed some âexcuseâ to be angry with her. They were quite capable of coming to that conclusion based on her actions.
For that reason, thereâs a good chance sheâll be even sadder and sorrier on Inauguration Day.
She must be confident of victory in Indiana today if she was campaigning in WV yesterday. Sure wish she had chosen different words when she said what she said. She won WV big in 2008. Prolly wonât help her much in KY either which she also won big in 2008. Wonder if coal people in WV and KY think they would fare better with Bern in the WH?
Context matters. She made this statement in the context of talking about investing in new job training. And as much as people in coal country donât want to hear it, she is correct. Coal is dying as an industry, quite rapidly actually. I donât believe there is even a solvent public coal mining company left in the United States. And as the those jobs disappear, they people working them are going to need job training and help moving into a new industry.
Even Robert Byrd in his twilight years recognized that coal was on the wane and there needed to be alternatives as well as buy outs for the workers.