on April 5th 2010 the Upper Big Branch
coal mine known as UVB to locals in
Montcoal West Virginia collapsed after
an explosion 29 of the 31 miners on site
were killed it was the worst mining
disaster in 40 years in 2015
Don Blankenship CEO of the company that
owned the mine Massey Energy became the
first top executive in history to be
sentenced to prison for safety violation
just a few weeks ago
Blankenship walked out of a halfway
house after serving as 1 year sentence
he immediately launched a tweet storm
blasting regulators politicians and the
government for his prison time he filed
an appeal for vindication to the US
Supreme Court then the coal barons sat
down with Vice news
I'd like you to tell me your favorite
nickname given to you I'm trying to I'm
trying to keep track of them yes so dark
lord of coal that seems we do one that
stuck a Dark Lord of coal yeah it's a
pretty good one we need to get out by
the way amazing yes
may 10 what's it been like well it's
been an adjustment you know you get a
year behind this hard kitchen yeah yeah
been working on kitchen up and you know
connecting the people that were
supportive it's been long time done
let's start on that day on the day of
the explosion when you find out 29 of
you guys died what's what's going
through your head at this point none
that it's the worst thing that's
happened in my lifetime there's no way
to really describe it the families are
immediately hostile to you correct yes
they're hostile to probably all the
management company we can see you're
kind of sinking right now what's going
through you
there's just too much to say yeah I miss
my family this man has no remorse at all
he never post none of us he never told
us feel sorry for what happened and he
knows he could have done the right thing
all he had to do was make one of them 40
phone calls David call checking on
production if they shut it down and fix
everything he refused to do you think
that's fair well I mean I think it's
normal and I don't think you can expect
the situation to be fair in regard to
families or friends and you expect
fairness out of the media or fairness
out of those that are observing it
versus involved in it so the federal
government in their report say this is
you know your fault this is because of
safety violations if you read the text
of the report and get back in the body
of it we'll see that they say the
exposure might have begun with natural
gas
actually we might be yeah yeah we know
it began with natural gas because no
one's ever seen that much natural gas
come out of a man following explosion
especially ignorant to say that you can
have three and a half million cubic feet
of natural gas come out of a coma after
an explosion and the natural gas wasn't
the energy source for the explosion you
know it's funny though because the
government says that it was not a
natural gas explosion
is there no scientific evidence at all
to support their case and how do they
manage these reams of documents with no
evidence I can't explain to you half why
they do it or how they get by with I'm
telling you without any doubt whatsoever
this was a natural gas explosion how
many violations did you rack up in your
tenure I don't know how many are active
in my tenure good other kokum director
more demand that you active a lot
let's be clear about something because
this is something that y'all like to
talk about violations that have been
occurred and being corrected don't cause
explosions this is about the fact that
the man blew up because America is when
one looks at this from the outside he's
looking thousands of violations you look
at 29
dead miners and you say well that's
something there right the UVB mine had
the average number of violations that
the 30 or so long wall mines and you
states have violation count in the
mining business is not indicative of the
safety you get violations for cracking
the roof to the curves for water that
gets in the minder and hard rains all
kinds of reasons you get violations what
is it like for you being widely disliked
and you said people accuse me of having
bloody grounds I can bear it and come on
your program and go anywhere I want to
say and tell the truth because I know a
menace I know who I am
prior to getting into battles with the
Union I was sort of local hero when I
was top of clashing in the high school I
was a baseball player in the ecovillage
I lived in the area but when you got
into the battle with the Union they
blackened me and I think these people
that will allow about what happened at
UVB you know they're not gonna like a
truth-teller in addition to that they
were able to take their political
advocate out of the system I was
probably the major player in converting
West Virginia from the blue straight to
a red state you refer to yourself as a
political prisoner yes why I think when
the President of the United States
declares you guilty before the
investigation and the former governor
now senator from West Virginia says you
got blood on your hands
that's pretty political you're out of a
game you're out of the coal mining
business yes why I've been in prison for
a year and unprivileged I think you
probably have enough contacts and
probably have enough money in your back
pocket that you could get back into it
if you wanted to probably good but right
now my focus is to bring attention to
the truth did you have any thoughts when
you're in prison you had a year in
prison does anything change I came out
at minion and came out a lot more
knowledgeable how corrupt the system is
it's it's frightening I undo it from my
personal experiences I went through the
trial and at the prison but the guys I
met in there so many of them are the
victims of the government charging
people because of a
the tragedy so to speak you know whether
it's savings and loan
you know the bank thing whether it's an
explosion whether it's you know Medicare
fraud we've immunized prosecutors and we
give judges lap time appointments and
whatever they do they're immune and
human nature is that if you're immune
from punishment do you have a tendency
to carry out your personal beliefs and
shows instead of following your law
it's a big problem