Rand Paul has no clue about Harlan County

Perhaps it's because I do know about the history of Harlan County that this fuckery pisses me off and has raised my blood pressure off the friggin charts tonight. I lived in western VA for a while and I remember old timers telling me about what went down in Harlan County, Kentucky, not once but twice. From Salon:

Next month's Details magazine has a profile of exciting Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul, the Republican libertarian who no longer speaks to the national press, because they keep trying to make him defend his beliefs, and he is not very good at that, because he is, I think, kind of dumb.

TPM digs in and finds that Paul supports mountaintop-removal coal mining. He thinks, of course, that it should be left up to private landowners, but he also thinks that flattening mountains makes them prettier and creates some really nice land that can be used to make a "sports complex."

But I found this bit much more illuminating. Driving through Harlan County, the site of a hundred years of bitter, bloody labor disputes, Paul reveals the breadth of his knowledge of Kentucky history:

Rand Paul and I are trying to remember why Harlan, Kentucky, might be famous. That's where Paul is driving me, on a coiling back road through the low green mountains of the state's southeastern corner, in his big black GMC Yukon festooned with RON PAUL 2008 and RAND PAUL 2010 stickers. Something about Harlan has lodged itself in my brain the way a shard of barbecue gets stuck in one's teeth, and I've asked Paul for help. "I don't know," he says in an elusive accent that's not quite southern and not quite not-southern. The town of Hazard is nearby, he notes: "It's famous for, like, The Dukes of Hazzard."That ignorant fuck couldn't hold the miners hard hat for the hundreds of men that fought for years and years to get safety procedures implemented in the mines of Harlan County. 

Yes, I am a unionist...yes, I support unions(although it gets harder every year), OSHA and anything else that takes the safety of miners above profits for the owners. Evidently Rand's dumb ass not only doesn't have a fucking clue, he supports Big Coal. ..to the eff'n hilt I might add as he loves the shit out of Mountain Top Removal.

Rand baby...in the 30's Harlan County coal miners took it to the hilt to get safety regs and fair wages for their work in the shitty-ass mines in their neck of the woods...its referred to as Bloody Harlan, you fucking idiot, for a reason. Try checking out this site which gives us the numbers and names of all the miners who have given their lives to earn a shitty living. Remember these words from the Governor of the state during the trials for the miners of Harlan who had the nads to strike in the 30's:

“there exists a virtual reign of terror (in Harlan County), financed in general by a group of coal mine operators in collusion with certain public officials: the victims of this reign of terror are the coal miners and their families… a monster-like reign of oppression whose tentacles reached into the very foundation of the social structure and even into the Church of god… the homes of union miners and organizers were dynamited and fired into… It appears that the principal cause of existing conditions is the desire of the mine owners to amass for themselves fortunes through the oppression of their laborers, which they do through the sheriff's office.”

 Then, in the 70's, the workers did it all over again you friggin asshole. Watch the movie, Harlan County USA, here for free, you corporate ass-kissing jackass, it will take 105 minutes of your worthless fucking life.

Or read the book, Hell in Harlan either in the Library of Congress or buy a copy online you fuckwad.

Christ-all-fucking-mighty...there is nothing I hate more than ignorance of our history as a nation of workers...nothing. And Rand Paul is as ignorant as they come. Buddha help those people if they elect that fucking moron..I swear on my grandmothers soul, they will live to regret it.

Am I pissed off tonight...oh hell yeah...because I know of what I speak...and I know Appalachia and most of that part of the world have given their lives and their souls for the dirtiest form of energy on the face of the fucking earth..and they gave their lives and their souls for pennies....fucking pennies.Generations have done it and continue to do it.

Below is a trailer for the movie on the 70's strike which can be watched online for gratis at a link above.



May your dumb ass rot in hell for all eternity Rand Paul. At the lowest level Dante wrote about.