Take Back a Mountain on July 28

Friday, July 20th, 2012
posted by admin
  • Tweet

**UPDATE** Registration is still open, now looking towards the day of action on Saturday.  Please register at the link below to get all the information you need. registerregisterregister!

Please spread the word far and wide and make sure that folks you know are coming get the information they need! ****

On Saturday, July 28th, hundreds of us will march onto a strip mine and shut it down. Stand with us as we take action. Concerned community members and activists are preparing to take nonviolent direct action to do what the politicians, the regulators and the courts have been unwilling to do: to defend the land and the people; to stop strip mining.

Trainings to prepare participants for mass nonviolent direct action will begin on Wednesday, July 25th.  We still need you to register even if you can only come for the day of the action. Together, we will shut down a surface mine! We will support those who choose to leave when asked (if they have the option), but we encourage non-cooperation with the legal system, which supports King Coal and chooses to enforce the law against the people but not against the coal companies. Will you take the next step in Tim DeChristopher’s vision of a growing wave of resistance to end strip mining for good?  

So many years of hard fought struggle have brought us here. The people and organizers in Appalachia have a plan to stop mountaintop removal–but we need many people to take a stand with us. With this walk-on, we are building toward a sustained mass-action next spring. Join with us now to become part of the history of ending strip mining. 

This is an absolutely critical time for the movement against strip mining in Appalachia.  With coal no longer the king of the power industry, Appalachian coal producers’ stocks are dropping and they are slashing jobs and cutting production.  While other WV politicians continue blindly defending a deadly dinosaur industry and coal companies continue strip mining to the bitter end, Appalachia continues to face a public health, economic, and ecological crisis.  Even a staunch defender of coal like Sen. Rockefeller is acknowledging times are changing.  In this moment, we have the opportunity to turn the tide. Together, we can send the clear message that we demand a future for Appalachia and us all. now to the Mountain Mobilization. (for checks click here)

As Larry Gibson, Keepers of the Mountains said, “Everything has to get bigger from here. We need to put our backs up against the wall and not back down. The 99% means nothing if we don’t all support each other.  No matter what our positions are we must come together.” 

We’re not backing down.

24 Responses to “Take Back a Mountain on July 28”

  1. nick grimmett says:

    Which surface mine do I need to stop?

  2. Jamie Blake says:

    We can’t be everywhere at once. Give me a name and place and we will be there.

  3. Paula b says:

    Hey why don’t you all try to get a job and take care of your own and leave us hardworking coal mining families alone. We have jobs that we work hard at everyday to support our families. If you have the time for all these so called marches, then you obviously don’t have a job to take care of “your” family.

    • Derek M says:

      I completely agree…bunch of tree hugging hippies need to quit ruining the income and lives of people who work for a living and get a real job themselves!

  4. Jeremy By God Better Smile When Ya Say Johnson says:

    Im gonna stop by and I promise I’m gonna be violent… Ya bunch of pussies that never had to work for anything in your life cause your rich mommies and daddies handed you everything

  5. Billie E says:

    I am so sick and tired of the attacks against the coal industry!!! I am born and raised in West Virginia- Southern West Virginia. Coal Country!!Why don’t you people get a REAL job instead of tree hugging? I see your attacks on coal, gas, and oil. But nothing has been said about the sanitation. The RAW sewage that is literally FLUSHED into streams Every Single Day!!! Instead you want to waste your life on these marches, protests, and sit ins. It is idiots like you who voted OBUMMER into office and it’s environuts like you that I HOPE AND PRAY have to sit in the dark!!! Freeze in the Winter cause Oh no can’t cut down a precious tree and Sweat your lazy, hippie, tree hugging butt off in the summer!!! You stick to your lack of hygiene and hang out in the woods, sleep in trees and in the meantime I’ll continue education anyone who will listen (In my after hours of course) Since I have a REAL JOB against your so called campaign. Just think if you converted to worshiping God instead of trees how many souls would be saved!!!

  6. Jim says:

    STRIP IT ALL!!!! Go get a job lowlife bastards

    • CHERRIE says:

      You people don’t give a rats hind end about the PEOPLE who earn a living and feed their CHILDREN while working at these jobs. If you show up and try to keep people from working and earning their pay, then I hope someday the same happens to YOU. But of course, you probably don’t have jobs or you wouldn’t be able to show up, right? Seriously, get a life, get a job, and let these men and women work. They don’t want to be like YOU! Environuts, stay out of WV! God Bless our coal miners!

      • SageRad says:

        Thank you for doing this! I understand that people need jobs, but coal is a dinosaur, and ruins our planet, and there can be enough jobs for all in renewable energy. We can be making solar panels in WV instead of stripping nature… and get more good clean jobs from it. Thank you, brave souls. This is my earth. This is your earth.

  7. Diana K. says:

    “Take back a Mountain” It makes me sick to think what our Great Nation is turning into. To advertise and encourage others to commit an unlawful act such as to enter upon another’s property (encroach) with the intent to stop production should result in a very stiff penality. “Turn the Tide” The Court System needs to turn the tide and send a clear message that anyone responsible will have their back’s up against a wall in a State Prison. Not days, not months, but years. If a prison term were the penality they make think twice before they act. It’s time to gain respect for THE LORD, THE LAW AND THE WORKING MAN!!!

  8. NOBAMA says:

    It shouldn’t be to damn hard to shut down a strip on a Saturday, seeing as to how none of them are producing on Saturdays anymore. And no, that is not thanks to your groups’ agenda, it is due to the downturn in the coal market.

    Like Jim said….. STRIP IT ALL!!!!

  9. Angie says:

    I would like to know what kind of jobs you people have? Do you know what reclamation is? I can’t imagine being a Christian and acting like you people act. My family depends on mining jobs to support our children. I have a college degree and my job will also be affected if these mines are shut down. I pray that you see the pain you cause to others and think before you do these things.

  10. John Brown says:

    From a Kentucky public school teacher. Thank you!! Thank you for helping move our great country forward! The life of coal is too much a thing of the past. We can’t afford to continue thinking that dirty water and ruined habitats are any part of the future of the Southern Appalachian world. Thanks for all your efforts!!!

    • Angie says:

      Your job will be affected too. No jobs means that people will move taking their children with them! Hope you are one of the first laid off.

      • Teresa Smith says:

        John Brown, drill a real well and you wont be drinking dirty water. PAppy’s hand dug will is a thing of the past and you need to realize you cant just keep drinking from that ole well, its old and probably all the gas drilling is what has ruined it for you….the deer, coyote, foxes, game birds and the bear dont seem to think the habitat is ruined…I cant drive down the road without seeing them.

  11. Renee says:

    And just HOW are you able to get online and organize all of this?? COAL POWERED ELECTRICITY PERHAPS??? Hypocrites, all of you. Get off the grid and then you can help others do the same. Get a real job and maybe you’ll understand what it means to actually work for a living instead of causing trouble for the people who make it possible for you to surf the net and use those cell phones, etc. etc. etc. Get off of our backs and do something to help America, not make it harder for people to earn a living and support their families. I’m tired of supporting you.

  12. Rebecca says:

    Tell us where to show on Saturday we already know how to be non-vilolent. Many of us are waiting to go….

  13. Watcher says:

    Where’s hero Roselle in this big take back ? I would guess cowering somewhere while children do his dirty work.

  14. April says:

    So John Brown what you are saying is, Thank you for putting men and women out of a job and taking food out of kids mouth the very kids you teach I am sure glad you do not teach my children and my family! You would rather have a nuclear spill like the one in Japan rather than take a top off of a mountain and then reclaim it! Wow you are what I call an EDUCATED IDIOT!!!!!!

  15. Kim says:

    GET OUT OF OUR STATE AND STAY OUT BETTER YET WALK A MILE IN A COAL MINERS BOOTS AND I BET THEN U WOULD BE MORE UNDERSTANDING OF HOW HARD THEY WORK SO U ALL CAN GET UR WAL FARE CHECK AND FOOD STAMPS U ALL MAKE ME SEE JUST FROM LOOKING AND SMELLING U ALL ARE GROSS POOR EXCUSES OF HUMAN BEINGS

  16. Gaynell Rowe says:

    Go back where you came from..no one wants any of you here..and the trees in Indiana called they want you back they need a hug in a bad way..leave the state of west virginia to the people of WV…we can hug our own trees thank you…

  17. SageRad says:

    Thank you! I appreciate your bravery standing up to the big companies who profit too much from our environmental destruction. We can make green jobs by making solar panels. More jobs and good ones, not destroying the Earth with giant toy trucks.

Leave a Reply to Jeremy By God Better Smile When Ya Say Johnson