In a message dated 5/12/00 12:16:46 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:
<< Someone siting blood being spilt in mining to
make a point really must look far more generally, since there are many others
who have suffered a far worse fate. Regards, Bernard >>
Thanks Benard:
I have spent a lifetime mining and I am damn proud of it. Every time I turn
on a light, the TV, the air conditioner or the open the frig. I recognize
that I have just put about 600 thousand tons of copper to work and I am
burning coal in some steam fired power plant. I am proud of my contribution
to our ease of life and I resent having the industry defamed by anyone who
has never produced anything to tangeable benefit to society. I see it as an
insult those men who gave their lives to keep our fires lit and provide our
minerals and metals. They are martyrs to our civilization. Before the
industrial age the average life expectancy was 45 years. One-third of all
women died in child birth. People lived in cold hovels and ate rotten food.
There was no air conditioning, no clean water and no human comforts that I
consider to be minimum standards for living.
If you want to see what society is like without minerals, power and coal,
then go to the back country in the third world and live there for a while.
Mason
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