Saw this performed live at a festival in west virginia once. You could have heard a win drop in that room.
“His soul full of coal dust 'til his body’s decayed, and everyone but black lung has turned him way.”
Hazel Dickens wrote this song about her brother in 1970. Her original performance
Oh no did they vote for the the person who got rid of the regulations to protect them. Then they got exactly what they wanted and should stop fucking whining about their poor lung quality
Some disgusting comments in here, acting as if either party has ever given a shit about coal miners. Their unions-- once the most militant in the country-- were destroyed by bipartisan policy. Everything, including healthcare and education has been underfunded for decades, even worse than everywhere else. These people have been fucked hard for generations. What have you ever offered them but ridicule and contempt?
You know what really destroyed those unions? They union members destroyed them when they refused to allow anyone who isn’t white join them. Because militancy can’t be legislated away. But it can be redirected.
Some Unions did do that, and it was fucked up.
Disposable respirators in the modern style showed up in the 1970s, and the N95 standard everyone is now familiar with for unrelated reasons came out in 1995. Why does anyone have black lung?
That’s kinda like holding an umbrella in a car wash, you’re still going to get wet.
Respirators have cut the rates, but they aren’t fool proof. Plus they need to be changed out fairly regularly
They were given the cheapest respirators available. Nothing had powered air flow. So not wearing a mask was preferable so you could breath.
It seems that the miners of West Virginia have forgotten their heritage.
Legit tho, as a steel city inhabitant, we don’t have the infrastructure anymore for industrial coal mining and ore processing. We have things like Duolingo, Google, and the tech boom of the mid east. Keep your fucking runoff and pollutants out of my river.
Also quick note I went for a bike ride on Friday and saw this
The GAO report said: “Miners in all six groups expressed their belief that mine operators were either ‘waiting for them to die’ or ‘waiting for them to give up’ so they could avoid paying benefit.” It noted between January 2013 to mid-August 2024, 390 beneficiaries whose claims were initially approved had their claims denied after appeal, leaving them responsible for paying back the benefits.
According to the report, the median length of an appealed claim was three years or more.
Among 53,000 closed claims between January 2013 and August 2024, 11 claims took longer than 10 years to close. The report did not state how many open cases have surpassed 10 years.
Whether coal mining, coffee, or health care, these companies (or their insurance companies) have all the time and money in the world, while real people have real lives and real monthly (or weekly) bills. So yeah, die.
Black-lung disease sounds so turn-of-the-century… 19th turning to 20th century, that is.
My great-grandfather died from black lung.
But his descendants mostly took that as a life lesson. And the lesson was to find almost any other vocation, not some kind of moral duty to follow in his footsteps, or push others to do so.
Fuck all of you poor ass MAGAt filth. Reap what you fucking sow
