Between The Lines - Dustin Steele: Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining in Appalachia Opposition; Creating Jobs While Ending U.S. Fossil Fuel Dependence (Week Ending Aug. 10, 2012)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

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Arrests at West Virginia Mountain Top Removal Coal Mine Signals New Phase of Direct Action Campaign

RealAudio MP3

Posted Aug. 1, 2012

Interview with Dustin Steele, organizer with RAMPS, Radical Action for Mountain People's Survival, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

On July 25, 45 persons walked onto the site of a mountaintop removal mine in Lincoln County in the southern West Virginia coal fields to demand an end to the practice in which the tops of Appalachian ridges are blasted apart to get to the coal seams beneath. It leaves behind what looks like a moonscape in many cases, with the blasted rocks and soil dumped in the valleys below. More than 2,000 miles of valley streams have been buried so far.

Coal from mountaintop removal sites is a small but profitable part of total coal production. Critics charge that the mountaintop removal coal mining process has contributed to increases in cancer and birth defects among the people living in surrounding communities.

Dustin Steele is a West Virginian from the town of Blair, the site of a major protest in 2011, commemorating a 1921 march by miners demanding workers’ rights. Steele is an organizer with the group Radical Action for Mountain People's Survival, or RAMPS, which sponsored the civil disobedience protest action last week. He was one of 20 arrested and charged with trespassing and obstruction, both misdemeanors, but all those arrested were being held on $25,000 bail each. RAMPS reports that Steele was severely beaten while in custody. In an interview with Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus before his arrest, Steele explains the relationship between the diminishing role of coal in powering the nation, local jobs and the campaign to end America’s dependence on fossil fuels.

DUSTIN STEELE: People who are employed by the coal industsry are seeing the right of being employed by the coal industry drop; layoffs are happening everywhere and people are being scared and rightfully so. It's because of market conditions, but the coal companies need to blame it on something, so they blame it on out-of-state environmentalists. But for me and my account, the oppression that's happening here with extractive industries is happening all over the world, and you have to fight it in whatever form it takes, and I'm so glad there are so many people who have decided to fight extractive industries here.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Polls show a majority of West Virginians oppose mountaintop removal (MTR). What's your own opinion about underground mining? Do you think more people should be doing underground mining, or do you think coal should be left in the ground?

DUSTIN STEELE: I think extraction is extraction, and whenever you take carbon-based non-renewables out of the ground you are leading to the climate crisis. It's a non-sustainable way to create electricity and provide employment. I feel like there has to be a transition point, but it needs to start with MTR being over tomorrow, and having a really steadfast plan to move away from coal. I feel we're to the point where if we don't start addressing the problems with our environment, it's going to be too big for human beings to fix ourselves, so we have to get away from coal mining as soon as possible.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The majority opinion in West Virginia is still in favor of coal because of the jobs. Is that changing at all? Do you think there's very many people with your opinion?

DUSTIN STEELE: That's impossible for me to quantify. I feel there is a market decrease in production of Appalachian coal, and that's going to continue as coal resources in the Powder River Basin and out west with pit mining and better technology that has less of a need for low-sulfur coal, it's going to be the end of the central Appalachian coal market anyway. People are still dependent on this monolithic industry, but the fact is coal is leaving, regardless of what we're doing or not, the market isn't going to support coal in central Appalachia for too much longer. And as that market continues to drop and hopefully as we become more steadfast and more efficient within our organizing, you'll see the dissenting voices of coal increase.

BETWEEN THE LINES: You're right in the middle of MTR. Have you or your family, friends, neighbors, experienced any direct negative impacts from MTR?

DUSTIN STEELE: Where I live for a multitude of reasons – and this is coal mining in general and not just MTR – the community I live, their water has been poisoned by continuous blasting. Everyone is on well water and everyone's water in the community I live in in Blair – their water is poisoned. This is a process that's happening all over the place. I've seen good friends of mine be diagnosed with cancer. Anyone who lives in southern West Virginia, whether they're aware of it or not, is negatively affected by MTR, and quite frankly, by coal mining in general.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Dustin Steele, after the march on Blair Mountain last summer, there was a group that stayed and formed an organization ...

DUSTIN STEELE: I am a member of the Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance. I work at the Blair Mountain Community Center and Museum, [which] aims to create a safe space for community members to gather. Blair has been rapidly depopulated since the early 1990s, going from a few hundred people down to between 40 and 60. Our main objective is to keep instilling the fact that the community of Blair is still alive and will continue to function and also the museum venerating the history of Blair and why it's important not only to coal mining history, not only to labor and union history, but to the history of the middle class. We also do more work separate from the community center monitoring permits, testing water, generally being the leg work and the support for a community that's been fighting for its rights for the past 110 years.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And just the last thing...this action that's coming up, they're calling it a mass walk-on to an MTR site, is being pitched as the next step, as a step beyond what's been done so far. What do you hope this action will engender?

DUSTIN STEELE: We're beginning to force the coal companies to react to us. And from that point we're going to continue to use this process to make the coal companies react to us. We're only moving forward; we're only going to build a stronger movement. We're looking to stop MTR. We're not going to lose and we're not going to take "no" for an answer. We're going to end MTR.

For more information on Radical Action for Mountain People's Survival, visit rampscampaign.org.