"MINE, all mine..."

The midnight, the morning, or the middle of day,
Is the same to the miner who labors away.
Where the demons of death often come by surprise,
One fall of the slate and you're buried alive.

CHORUS:
It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.

From the original lyrics of "Dark As A Dungeon", first recorded by Merle Travis on August 8, 1946, since covered by almost everybody, and every bit as relevant today as it was then when I was less than a year old, has been for thousands of years, and likely will be for a long time to come.

Why do miners continue to die in mine 'accidents'? Well, it's dangerous work at best, but mainly because the fix is in, that's why.

From DailyKos:

As a Senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell heavily counts on political contributions from large mining interests to help keep him in office. Natch, once ensconced in the halls of power he has long lists of favors to return.

But McConnell is in a unique position to deliver the gravy to mining and other corporate interests: he happens to be married to the BushCo's Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, a woman quite obviously installed in this position to undermine any progress of workers' rights, safety legislation or wage improvements (my em).

For those of you interested in how the Senator and his wife do double duty for their corporate cronies, this is a good place to start.

It's pretty much "get the money from the mine operators and fuck the miners who elected me" on McConnell's part.

Murray, who owns the mine in Utah, is a real piece of shit work. From Mother Jones:

But it should be said that the Democrats and Mr. Murray have no love lost. Murray has given heavily to Republicans, including, according to the Post, $100,000 last year alone from his political action committee to GOP congressional candidates.He has used his ties with important Republicans—particularly Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose wife, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, oversees mine safety—to avoid facing the music for safety violations. The Utah mine's safety record was fairly average, despite fines for safety violations in the hundreds of thousands, but nationally, Murray's mines have a shoddy safety record. When confronted in 2002 with safety violations, Murray threatened to have the inspectors fired, referring to his close friendship with McConnell. "The last time I checked," he said, "he [McConnell] was sleeping with your boss."

Great guy, huh? Would you trust him with your life?

Fuck no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't trust the sonofabitch in a junkyard with a rubber hammer.

Again from Kos:

In the wake of the Utah deaths, will Mitch decline to run for reelection "due to health reasons"? Will Chao suddenly decide "to spend more time with the family"? Tune in tomorrow for another thrilling installment of As The Stomach Turns....

That's the best we can hope for. It'll be too late for the trapped miners in Utah, but at least maybe their deaths, if such is their fate God should please forbid, in the wake of other recent disasters and a boost from that loudmouth Murray, will not be entirely in vain.

There's entirely too much dying amongst the peasants just to enrich Bush's rich pals.

Just as a closing thought. I know some guys who were mechanical engineers in mines in Idaho. They regularly went to depths of fifteen thousand feet. I asked them how they felt about that, and they told me that the money was real good and there's not much difference between 500 feet and 15,000 feet if the damn thing caves in on you. Gulp.

There are many links at the links.