
Oh boy, now anyone who wants to meet with the West Virginia Governor knows that they only have to sit in a tree for a week. WV Gov Joe Manchin responded to national pressure and called an emergency meeting with tree sitters over a mountaintop mine in the state. This is the eighth day that Eric Blevins and Amber Nitchman have been subjected to air horns, floodlights, and threats of violence from the Massey Energy mining company. Their tree occupation has stalled the explosions that would level a mountain to get to the sweet, sweet coal buried at its center.
Here’s what I’d do if I was the mining company: Have some hippie-looking person run past mine security and knock one of the guards to the ground. Then have that person run to the tree and scale up to the tree sitter and tell them that they’re going to takeover so the other person can go shower and eat some food, play hacky sack, etc. Then when the original tree sitter came down, I would reveal that the hippy who burst through security was actually a Young Republican and employee of Massey Energy. Pretty smart, huh? It’s shocking I don’t work for energy companies charged with blowing up mountains to get their coal.
My advice to the tree sitters: Don’t fall for the above-mentioned trick. Also, don’t leave your tree for the meeting with the Gov (the ‘emergency meeting’ would have been my second idea to get them out of the tree’).