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Deep in Trump country, coal miners with black lung say government is suffocating the 'working man' (apnews.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/leopardsatemyface@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/38457017

As director of the New River Health Association Black Lung Clinic, Emery’s seen guys as young as 45 getting double lung transplants as disease rates soar among miners forced to dig through more rock filled with deadly silica to reach the remaining coal — far worse than the dust their grandfathers inhaled.

A rule approved last year by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration would cut the federal limit for allowable respirable crystalline silica dust exposure by half to help protect miners of all types nationwide from the current driving force of black lung and other illnesses.

But, now, it’s in jeopardy amid other Trump administration cutbacks and proposals targeting workers’ health and safety guardrails: Stuck in a politically charged environment that promotes industry, with lawmakers arguing to change it and the federal agency that wrote the rule not pushing to enforce it. Some angry retired miners with black lung are fighting back, demanding that Donald Trump honor promises he made to the people who voted him in.

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[–] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Appalachia in general has been spat on, kicked, and left to die by the ruling class after their usefulness ran out. When everything ran on coal it was the most lucrative region in the US and the labor movement was incredibly strong. The people there voting for trump is more the result of Democrats abandoning working-class politics than anything else. Trump pretends to be a champion of the working class and promised the return of the coal industry while Democrats dismissed them as unreachable and said they would phase out what remains of the coal industry to prevent climate change. When Republicans tell them climate change is overblown and clean coal is possible they want to believe it because they want a return to "the good old days" when Appalachia was booming. Democrats could have reached out to these people and offered an alternative, but their wealthy donors wouldn't have liked any real solution and that's who the party actually answers to, not the people.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    This guy creates some of the finest journalism I've seen, maybe ever.

    https://www.youtube.com/@PeterSantenello

    One man and a selfie stick. No drama, no leading questions, no bullshit. He goes to places in America that few outsiders see or understand. His interviews in Appalachia leave me a bit weepy.

    There's one where he stops to talk to some adolescents fishing off a bridge on a back country highway. The fat kid is obviously quite smart, wants to be an historian. Made me sad to think such people are stuck there.

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