On another blog, I entered my thoughts on the recent West Virginia mine disasters, insisting that someone who has never been in a mine cannot POSSIBLY understand what needs to be done to ensure the safety of miners. I stand by that statement, as the very bureaucracy upon which certain individuals insist may, in fact, be what led to the deaths in the first place.
In the case of underground mining, firsthand knowledge is EXTREMELY relevant. Working several hundred feet underground is like working in another world, and nobody who has not been there can POSSIBLY understand the world in which an underground miner works. Just as I would be equally unqualified to make comments about appropriate military safety solutions, someone who has never mined would be unqualified to make comments about solutions to make mines safer. And I find it absolutely appalling that individuals would exploit the deaths of these miners for their own personal gain.
Bush was not and IS not responsible for the deaths of those miners. While there may be culpability, it does NOT reflect on the actions of Bush or his administration. As I have said countless times prior, it is absolutely impossible to make underground mining 100% safe. But even assuming it were, Bush STILL would not be responsible.
You see, when I worked in the mines, we HAD an MSHA inspection (I detailed this information before. I think there were about three people who saw it). Here's how it went down.
MSHA first investigated the mill, not the mine. The mill is where the ore is processed before it is shipped, and is about 60 miles from the mine site, and it is standard procedure for the mill to be inspected first, as, conveniently, that is where all of the employee files are kept. As we entered the "dry house" (where we change into our gear), we were informed that MSHA was inspecting, and the three maintenance workers on shift (including myself) were handed a large stack of red tags to "tag out" defective machinery (of course, the tags were used for practical joke purposes for the weeks to come...but I digress). We were instructed to tag out EVERY piece of machinery except for the "mancarrier". The reason? None of the "muckers" or trucks had adequate brakes, and the mine's safety recorded was kept intact ONLY by the incredible skill of all of us who had learned to navigate the twists and turns of the various mine tunnels at full speed, knowing how to use the friction of the tunnel walls to slow us when absolutely necessary. Even the mancarrier did not have adequate brakes, but the mine foreman had to take a "hit" on that one because we needed something to take the inspectors up into the mine once they got down to our level.
We took a palletful of water down to ensure that stations that were supposed to have water had them when the inspectors arrived. Most of these stations did not have water at any other time unless we could coax a "newbie" to go to the surface and bring extra water down (it wasn't a hard chore, mind you, but we had so much else to do we rarely had the time...and a newbie usually wasn't doing much anyway).
Two of us were assigned the extremely gross task of taking the porta potties (that were never emptied; when they filled up, most miners would simply use an abandoned tunnel) to the surface and cleaning them up. Because of the overpowering smell, we had to coat the filters of our respirators with vaseline to avoid contributing further to the human waste. To the mine's credit, they added two hours to the pay of each individual who did this, so it wasn't a total loss, although even the added incentive didn't produce volunteers. The foreman usually picked two people he was pissed at at the time.
The miners who worked up at the face were instructed to prepare the face as normal, while the truckers and mucker drivers drove through the tunnels and blocked them off. Especially important were the cavernous areas we were backfilling with concrete, which were used as a dump site for all of our garbage (I have often thought about the environmental impact of those toxins in that environment). The shift supervisor was assigned to sit by one of the phones so that he was absolutely certain of hearing the foreman's call down to the mine. As soon as the foreman called the hoistman to lower him down to the mining level, the supervisor was to stop all drilling activity and get the men out, then block off the faces where they were mining. The men were instructed to tell MSHA they were all on "maintenance detail" because of the equipment shutdown.
From the way that the veteran miners went about this, it was clear that this was standard operating procedure. Many of the miners, in fact, did not need to be told what to do, but set about instructing us, presumably son that, if anyone DID blow the whistle on this coverup, it would be the miner, not any of the foremen, who was sanctioned for it.
Assuming that Bush had any ability to predict and prevent the West Virginia mine disasters is, basically,. to confuse Bush with God. He's not omnipresent, not even CLOSE to it, and there's no way he can see and predict the coverups that have become standard operating procedure in this industry.
If you ask me if I believe that the miners in West Virginia were working in unsafe conditions, the answer is yes. I would be close to certain they were. If you ask me if there is any way our president could have possibly known this, my answer would be the opposite. The coverups, the kickbacks, and the "good ol' boy" system have dominated the industry of mining since long before our President was even born, and will most likely dominate the industry after he dies. there is, after all, little accountability at 760 feet below the earth's surface.