Technology and resistance in a partial connectivity context

Appalachia mtn top removal resistance and technology

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Takeaways

• Sometimes lowtech is best tech
• much like the landscape the political consensus is very folded and

contradictory

• Work within the communities don't try to push your agenda. LISTEN FIRST

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• involved 2008-2013
• Before the Signal App
• Mountainous, Folded Region
• Lots of communication issues / line of sight is a problem

 - Spotty cell service
 - zero cell service in the HQ (only time they had cell service was

when the power went out

 - Text more usefull than voice
 - Radio communications were used and worked better but easy to eavesdrop
 - Lots of low tech solutions
 - speaking in codes, using code words (hiding in the noise, lots of

hunters, use hunting jargon)

 - Light based signals
 - Listening posts (communicate over chains, multiple mmethods)

• Tried to do GPG but GPG is super hard to use
• poorly maintained infrastructure. Cell, power, and or internet may go

out on a regular basis

 - Redundant comms systems help with this

• Lots of divisiveness around coal mining in the area

 - it's the only economy for many places
 - Even if people don't like it they don't have much other choice if

they want to keep a job

• Small rural communities so be careful who you talk to

 - If you are talking to a random person about your protest plans they

might know the person who owns the mine

 - "loose lips sink ships"

• Mountain top removal

 - Basically blow up the entire mountain to access the coal seam
 - The rubble gets pushed into the valleys and pollutes the creeks and

streams

• Trying to stop it with many tactics from many direcitons

 - Courts, Legislations, Community organizing, Economics, Direct Action,

• How do we runa website and utilize social media for organizing when

we might not have regular internet

• Appalachia is a land of contradictions

 - Suspicious of outsiders, but very friendly
 - Many places are extremely rural, but many places have a large number

of internet users

• Lots of culture clash
• People from outside would come try to push solutions without listening

to the people who live there or the people who have been doing work there for years

• QUestion: What were some of the successes that you achived
• An elementary school was built and shortly after that a strip mine

started on the mountain right above the school

• The coal gets "washed" to remove the toxic chemicals and other

non-coal elements

• The toxic wash or "slurry" is either pumped under ground which ruins

the drinking water or a valley is dammed and the slurry is pumped into it.

• In this case the dam was built right above the school
• lots of kids were getting sick, one worker quit because he couldn't

live with it

• The dam was also not built right, shoddy and not well maintained
• If the dam were to explode the kids in the school would have about 30

seconds to evacuate before the school was flooded with toxic slurry

• Also coal dust from the mining process was getting into the school,

going straight into childrens blood stream

• 10 year fight to close school or move the mine
• Devisive. People in the strip mine say "You're telling me my work is

hurting my kids? Go to hell"

• Finally the school gets moved upstream of the dam

• announced ahead of time they were going to get as many people as

possible on a strip mine and shut it down

• Didn't saw when or what mine, police were confused
• Created a distraction at one mine and then had 50 people shut down

another mine

• West virginians that were there got beaten very badly by the state police

Q: Other interesting uses of technology

• One of the tactics: the mines were violating mining an dpermit rules

all the time

• State agency tasked with enforcing mining rules is grossly underfuned

and corrupt

• They rely on outside reports
• started using google sattelite images and comparing them with permit

boundaries

 - sure enough you would find companies mining outside the permit

boundaries which gets them shut down and costs a lot of money

 - doing this often enough can make the cost of mining too high

Q; How did you deal with political affiliations

• Being seen as environmentalists, "treehuggers"
• Was there a lot of cultural tribalism
• Joke: "Blue/Green alliance" enironmentalists and blue caller

 - "we were directly creating jobs in the security industry with our

actions"

 - Security guards actually thanked them for creating so many jobs
 - one of the pieces of common ground we found was not liking the

banking industry and bankers

• Battle of blair mountain

 - literal battle between blue collar coal miners and white collar/police

• Strong anti-authoritarian streak in appalachia