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Ken Hechler may be 95 years old - 96 by Election Day in November - but you sure can't tell by listening to him speak.
He's interviewed today by Salon (link at the end of this diary), and here's an excerpt:
I'm not really running for the Senate, I'm running to enable the people of West Virginia to register at the polls their opposition to this devastating practice [of mountaintop removal], which hurts so many people in the valleys when they dump the rocks in the soil and all the things that they're blasting out of the mountains into people's front yards. Ruining the aquifers so that if they have water wells they run dry and also drying up the streams where people are fishing and using for recreation. And it's a practice that is so vicious that it outta be abolished. Every time a poll is taken in West Virginia it's two to one in favor of abolishing it but there's never been an opportunity for people to put it on the ballot and so I'm saying every vote for Ken Hechler is a vote tantamount to opposition to mountaintop removal. That's the only reason I'm in the campaign.
Personally, I think that's a pretty damn good reason.
So far there have been three Democrats file for WV-SEN: the heavily favored, Gov. Joe Manchin; mountain-top removal activist Ken Hechler; and former Mon County delegate Sheirl Fletcher.
No one has filed yet from the Republican party, but I fully expect that John Raese will. I think he's going to wait until the last minute with the hopes of luring at least one other Republican into the primary.
Why?
Because it is in John Rease's personal interest to have both a contested Republican primary and to have as heavily contested as possible general election. He'll invest a modest amount of his own wealth to keep both races as competitive as possible.
After all, what is one of the biggest differences between a lightly contested and a heavily contested election? The amount of media spending.
And, what would be a nice unexpected windfall for John Raese's West Virginia media empire? Heavy media spending for a contested special Senate election.
Update from Carnacki: Raese makes it official he's in.
This is the second installment in a series of interviews planned on the topic of mountaintop removal.
Former Congressman and West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler, in addition to being a legendary figure in West Virginia public service, has been one of the most prominent voices in the region opposing mountaintop removal coal mining.
He has long been active on issues surrounding coal mining, first calling for an end to strip mining while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1970s, and stands by his position that an abolition to the practice is the solution the problem.
Hechler is set to speak, along with environmental activist Larry Gibson and others, at the Rally for Jobs for Our Kids on Sunday on Buskirk Field at Marshall University.
The event, followed by a march to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers building, runs from 1 p.m. to 4p.m. The rally is part of the Appalachia Powershift Summit taking place at Marshall University throughout the weekend.
Q: What do you hope to achieve from your appearance at this rally?
K.H.: I've been asked to speak and articulate the arguments against mountaintop removal and to try to goad the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers into being more public-spirit oriented.
It's a demonstration that the young people who have organized this want, to show that they want to be involved. This may well be the only that this thing can be turned around by - the massive support of younger people throughout the nation.
I was very closely involved with Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. The freedom riders and the young people who helped to spark the civil rights rebellion were really the ones who helped to achieve the success which Dr. King could not have achieved without their initiative.
I have a very special message for the corps of engineers.
You heard about the hearing that they had on the 13th of October and the fact that anyone who tried to speak up was drowned out by profanity and physically threatened.
The corps simply refused to control the meeting and even had the gall to say the next day that everything went as planned.
Q: They claimed it was conducted in an 'orderly fashion."
K.H.: That was the most disorderly meeting that I've ever heard about.
I did not personally attend, but from the testimony of those people who tried to speak, they were shouted down and physically threatened.
Q: There were many reports that the pro-coal side was blocking people from entering the meeting.
K.H.: Even the ones that got in - the reporter could not hear what was being said. Yet the corps didn't seem to think that was important.
Q: If you could summarize - what is the biggest factor in your opposition to mountaintop removal?
K.H.: The biggest factor is the effect on people in the valleys.
The ancestors of the residents in the valleys came into these areas and built homes to raise their families in a quiet and healthy area, when, suddenly, above them, starts the blasting, which ruins their water supply.
Kids that have asthma or bronchial problems can't survive with all the dust and the smoke. As a result, the parents have to sell their homes at a ridiculously low price and move out, in order to raise their families in a healthy area.
Q: The region has recently seen a stepping up of civil disobedience protests. What is your take on this tactic of opposition?
K.H.: I think it's been very, very difficult, throughout the usual channels, to alert the people and the regulators of the danger to those individuals that live in the areas. It almost seems as though you have to step up your efforts.
I wrote an article in the Charleston Gazette recently that was entitled "I used to be an activist, but now I'm a hellraiser." As a result of that, I'm joining with those who are practicing civil disobedience - within the limits of the law.
On June 23, Hechler was arrested along with actress Daryl Hannah, NASA climate scientist James Hansen and 26 others, while protesting a slurry impoundment at Massey Energy's Goals Coal preparation plant near Marsh Fork Elementary in Raleigh County.
Hechler was charged with impeding traffic and obstructing an officer. The charges were later dismissed.
K.H.: In my case, I'm 95 years old and do not walk very fast. It was a quarter of a mile march from the school to the Massey headquarters, and they told me if everybody walked at the same speed, we'd never get there.
So they said, "You stay here, and we'll drive you up there after the others get there."
I had a videotape that showed that I was not impeding traffic and, that way, the prosecutor urged the magistrate to dismiss the charge.
The second charge against me was obstructing an officer. The videotape shows I was arrested very amicably and simply pointed to the front seat of a police cruiser. I didn't, in any way, obstruct anybody.
Q: Do you think West Virginia needs to prepare for a post-coal future, and do you have any faith in so-called "clean coal" technologies, as some are advocating?
K.H.: I think "clean coal" is an oxymoron. There is no such thing, and the technology has never been proven that you can pump carbon dioxide underground or get rid of it somehow.
I think the scientists have pretty well proven that greenhouse gases are directly contributing to global warming. It's pretty easy to tell from the melting icebergs in the Arctic and Antarctic that something is happening.
I think, in West Virginia, we've got to take steps to diversify our employment and start to look at means of broadening employment, in such areas as health care and the application of technology, which has burgeoned so successfully over the years.
The problem with persuading economic development officials to try to emphasize progress toward those steps is that they are receiving funds from severance taxes.
It's pretty easy to say we want to continue to get this money from the severance taxes, instead of putting more effort into diversification.
The assessors and the school people that get a lot funds from the coal industry want to continue that.
It's easy to understand why miners who have high-paying jobs in mountaintop removal want to continue to draw pay from that source, instead of trying to look for other jobs.
But there's been no effort on the part of either the state or the counties to move away from dependence on coal.
Last month, as protestors from around the country converged in the Coal River Valley in West Virginia to protest Massey Energy's reckless mountaintop removal blasting operations within a short distance of a 7-billion gallon coal sludge impoundment, their ranks included 94-year-old former US Representative Ken Hechler.
It was not the legendary West Virginia congressman's first march for justice: In 1965, Hechler was the only member of the US Congress to join Martin Luther King, Jr. on his march for civil rights in Selma, Alabama.
Nearly 45 years after that historic moment, Hechler has a message for President Barack Obama: It's time for President Obama to have a Harry S. Truman moment, and issue an executive order to abolish the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.
Standing in defiance at the Massey property line of a mountaintop removal mining operation that could jeopardize the lives of thousands of valley residents-Massey's own evacuation plan determined that if the Brushy Fork coal sludge impoundment broke, nearly 1,000 nearby residents would have less than 4 minutes to flee-Hechler called on Washington, DC to recognize the urgent crisis at hand.
Charleston, WV - Today, former West Virginia Secretary of State and United States Congressman Ken Hechler endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president, citing Obama's ability to bring the country together and change Washington. Hechler, also a former professor at Marshall University, discussed Obama's ability to inspire Americans and bring lasting change to this country.
"I've taught courses on the presidency and great presidents are able to inspire and communicate. The last four great ones were Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Ronald Regan. Obama has that same tremendous inspirational ability and he, among all the candidates, will be able to lead this country.
"As Secretary of State, I know what it takes to win votes and Senator Obama has a very strong record with Independents and he has successfully energized young people to participate. Thousands of young people reach the age of 18 and don't register, but Obama is inspiring them. With Obama in the White House, we will make tremendous progress in restoring the prestige of this nation throughout the world," said Hechler.
Kenneth William Hechler was born September 20, 1914. He served the people of West Virginia in the United States Congress from 1959-1977 and as West Virginia Secretary of State in 1984. He served as an Army Historian from 1942-1946, was a special assistant to President Truman from 1949-1953 and taught at Marshall University from 1981-1984. He resides in Charleston, WV.
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No one has filed yet from the Republican party, but I fully expect that John Raese will. I think he's going to wait until the last minute with the hopes of luring at least one other Republican into the primary.
K.H.: I've been asked to speak and articulate the arguments against mountaintop removal and to try to goad the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers into being more public-spirit oriented.
