This Is America 2016, Not America 1950:
Coal Miners & Clinton
-Nick Yaekle, November 3, 2016

I met a coal miner and member of the United Mineworkers of America today. He was fifty years old and had been through a series of jobs over the course of his career. Hailing from St. Clairesville, Ohio, he had first been a steel worker, and when NAFTA was passed, three days later, the company shut down the plant and moved the jobs to Mexico. He blamed NAFTA, and implicitly, President Bill Clinton. Then he worked for eight years at a rubber chemical plant. A South Korean company bought the company and closed all operations around the world except those in their homeland. And now he’s a coal miner, and specifically mentioned ‘she’ in reference to Secretary Clinton’s comments about ‘shutting down the mines and putting coal miners out of work’ from months ago.
I didn’t engage him in back and forth conversation. I wanted to hear him out. He wasn’t vitriolic, just practical. And he was a breath of fresh air.
I completely understand and empathize with his plight. Sadly, the jobs he’s had are among the most stressful to the health and some of the hardest. But trade deals or no trade deals, because of the pay expected for the element of danger and risks involved, these jobs were going away anyhow. Trade deals at least insured we got something for their loss.
I will be frank: I have never been a huge fan of NAFTA. Not when it was first floated, not when Republicans and Democrats wrote and passed the law in Congress, not when President GHW Bush supported it and certainly not when President Clinton signed the legislation into law. I happened to agree with Ross Perot when he famously quipped, “That giant sucking sound you hear? That’s all your jobs going to Mexico.”
American companies, like ones around the globe, cannot compete when their labor costs are fifty times undeveloped nations. And American workers deserve and expect high wages. From a business standpoint, it was necessary.
Coal is bad. No matter how many seemingly reputable people the industry puts out there to try to defend it, coal is awful. It is awful when burned and it is awful to mine. Not to mention the damage strip mining is doing to the natural beauty of the land. Clean coal is indeed an industry created myth and in fact, is often thought to be worse due to the ‘cleansing’ process it goes through which actually produces little to no less toxins when burned. So the quicker we begin to plan for the eventual elimination of coal, the better. Training these workers in other fields and creating an industry to replace it is the only solution. I imagine by the end of my lifetime, coal will be banned in most nations as a source of energy, much like wood was made obsolete by coal and other forms of energy.
A calculated and well-planned transition to a combination grid of solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power is the only solution to the growing concerns. Beyond the environmental and overall start-to-finish health concerns of coal, it is largely a non-renewable source that will eventually run out. Not having a plan for that day is irresponsible and insane.
My grandfather worked in a factory for nearly forty years and retired with a decent pension. Six years ago that GM plant closed down, they tore it down, and built a casino in its place. It’s sad, but that generation of America is gone. On the upside, should all of our manufacturing still be in place in this country, the price we pay for everything would be five times what it is today. The generation that is directly being affected by the closing of plants and factories and mines and mills may never understand this. They are a hard working bunch who supported our nation through the tough times after World War II. But the brutal truth is, we cannot allow their cynicism toward change to alter the course that the generations coming up face.
It’s bullshit to say someone is going to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Not going to happen. Granted, some industries may see a slight return of jobs due to other factors, like the North Carolina furniture manufacturing industry, that has benefited some from high costs of shipping cargo fuel and higher wood prices in China, causing the companies to decide it’s cheaper to produce here again rather than there. But that’s by and large a cottage industry that didn’t employ enough people in the first place to make much of a difference except to the families involved.
Big business know that Trump isn’t going to bring jobs back. That’s why he continues to get support from them, as well as other Republicans up and down the ticket. They understand campaign hyperbole. The average American voter doesn’t, which is why they repeat and believe everything they’re fed. Their intellect makes the easiest tagline sound like a solution.
The right likes to spread the lie that Secretary Clinton is dishonest, despite countless independent studies showing quite the opposite. She has done everything she could to maintain integrity and honesty, regardless of specific minor items they try to truncate and use as ‘proof.’ It’s odd how when she comes out and states the plain truth, they vilify her for it and suddenly they believe her. But when she states the truth and they don’t like what she says, they claim she’s lying. I know, it simply defies any logic, decency or honesty and is allowing them to redefine what the truth is to many of their supporters, cynical so much that they have instantly become scientists and can decide what’s true or not in all aspects of academic disciplines!
It’s difficult to accept change, especially when what’s being changed is not only your way of life and the way you put food on the table, but something that is generational. If your father was a coal miner and you are a coal miner, it might seem logical that your child, too, may become a coal miner. But times change. In 1960, there were no jobs on the internet or in IT. Manufacturing computers probably meant you worked for Texas Instruments and assembled bulky calculators or cash registers. There were no life coaches or personal trainers and you got your nutritional information either from your doctor or you simply believed the companies selling the products, because, after all, why would they not tell the truth (Tobacco industry)? Our country must continue to move forward, lest we be left behind. And partisan politics being played with every aspect of our lives is what will be the eventual downfall.
The good old days never existed. In 1920, they said good old days, referring to the late 1800s when feeding the horse meant putting fuel in your transportation. In the 1950s, the 1930s were the good old days, when cars were much simpler to repair, although slower and much less affordable. In the 1980s, the good old days may have meant when a sales person hand wrote receipts and called in credit cards or just checked a published list if the card was good, rather than using a computer. Every generation finds a bullet point to refer to why they days gone by are better than the ones we live in today. But we have no idea how great we have it.
If we have disasters, we have a government to provide aid instantly. The people don’t go hungry and die and turn on one another. Our riots are cakewalks compared to the civil wars erupting in nations all over the world.
We’ve moved on, by and large, and if we took away any of the things these obstructionist right wing folks are harping about, they’d be the first to complain about that.
The influence of powerful special interest groups intent on roadblocking progress for other groups of people based on their own beliefs or religions or under the auspices of ‘making America great again’ or ‘good old days’, are nothing more than closet racists, homophobes, misogynists and xenophobes, hell-bent on making America white again, and going back to the days when they didn’t have to hear about racial injustice or feed the incredibly ignorant line that ‘Race problems have worsened because of Obama.’ And perhaps they have. But that’s only because the white America that is incensed that a black man leads our country have decided to pursue that path, not because of anything blacks did except stand up for what is right. I have so little tolerance for that type of rhetoric that I’m ashamed to say I have no regard for their life or opinion whatsoever. And not because I’m closed minded. But because they have no foundation of intelligence or reasoning to support their beliefs other than idiotic and ridiculous personal opinion. And it’s fine to have that. But do NOT attempt to legislate your opinion or faith. Follow your beliefs and faith, but I will not stand for you pushing them onto me at all. (And it’s important to note, with regard to same-sex marriage opposition from the religious and evangelical right, they cite the Bible and God as their reasons for opposition to it, but cannot tell me how that affects them, nor will they address how they choose to tackle one issue that is of little mention in their Bible, yet allow the entire Biblical code fall by the wayside, because, well, it’s easier to grow all my vegetables in the same garden, cotton/poly blends require less care, and because I love football, therefore it’s ok to touch the skin of a pig. . .plus that’s the Old Testament.) Yeah, we know. We may not all follow your Bible, but we familiarize ourselves with it, much more than you do and we often do it on our own, rather than allow some religion organization tell us how to believe and interpet!
Thankfully, America 2016 is not America 1950. The sooner our younger generation begins to collectively understand how to work the system of government we have, with two parties, the better we will all be, as this generation coming up seems to be the most accepting, diverse, and open-minded generation to come along in the history of our country.
I’ve been asked many times why I am a liberal Democrat. And it’s a tough question to give a quick and concise answer to. I’ve attempted to tailor one over the years to give the understanding to whom I am speaking without hesitation. And this election cycle has done a lot to my sense of justice and integrity, solely from the desperation and lunacy from the Republicans. But the one takeaway from this blemish on our presidential elections is I now have a simple, understandable, clear, articulate answer to why I am a liberal Democrat:
Because I have a heart and a brain!