"The papers were crap and the judge said so."

"There is a 30 day window in which the chipmunks can appeal again."

"This isn't about...sink holes or bad kharma...or messages from beyond the grave. This is about stabbing your neighbor in the back. "

It was clear as he talked that Joe didn't get it.

Joe Bucci.

He was on the phone, talking about how every court, agency or board of appeals which had heard protester's challenges to the new salt mine had rejected their claims and sided with the mine.

He thought that counted for something.

He thought that such an unwavering show of official support for the legality and propriety of the new mine's operation would show the protesters that their attacks were baseless. He thought that would make them stop.

Poor, naieve Joe.

He knows about mines - his grandfather spent 50 years in one, his father died in one - and he is trying to build one near Mt. Morris.

He knows about mines. But he doesn't know about hate. The deep down, visceral kind of hate that teams up with selfishness and self importance and makes people who hide behind alphabet soup names work overtime to destroy their neighbors lives.

And that's what this is about.

Selfishness and self importance on one side, and people's lives on the other.

Let me give you an example.

This last appeal meant no school cloths [sic], the next one means no Christmas.

Ground was to have been broken on the new Mt. Morris mine in about a month. That would have meant jobs. Jobs right now. And paychecks. And families saved from foreclosure and welfare. And by the end of August maybe some new school clothes for the kids.

But there was an appeal.

Some strangulation of common sense wrapped up in the bull dung of a decayed and desecrated legal system. Some people become lawyers to change the world, some just do it to destroy the world. And if you give them enough money and another chance to get quoted on the news they will file papers just to file papers.

And the life of a community will come to a screeching halt while their exercise in self esteem [sic] building works its way across a judges desk. The papers were crap and the judge said so, but not before the mine was derailed and that July ground breaking was put on hold.

Actions have consequences, and the direct consequence of the activists' stunt was the depriving of scores of families of a paycheck. Hundreds of people could have looked forward to an income, now they can only look forward to more uncertainty.

And the blame for that rests squarely on the shoulders of the alphabet soup people.

So what about Christmas?

There is a 30 day window in which the chipmunks can appear again. Maybe somehow the last judge was mentally deficient, and his understanding of New York state law is inferior to theirs, and maybe they'll get a jurist next time who thinks he can save the rain forest by shutting down a salt mine.

Maybe they will file that appeal. And kill Christmas.

Because as it stands now ground breaking is set for the fall. Which would give miner families a couple of months of paychecks before Santa comes. But another delay means no jobs this year and probably no jobs ever and definetly no Santa.

And the blame for that rests squarely on the shoulders of the alphabet soup people.

So they have a choice, and they cannot delude themselves or their neighbors about what the price is. This isn't about Indian taxes or saving farmland or taxing cigarettes on the reservation or multi-national corporations or sink hles or bad kharma or yielding pillars or messages from beyond the grave. This is about stabbing your neighbors in the back.

Hundreds of people are entirely dependent on opening the new mine. Not hundreds of rich people, or any other kind of people the activists hate, these are working class [sic] people and their families we're talking about. They need the mine.

And anything the activists do to the mine is a direct attack on the essential interest of those people. It would be the theft of a livelihood.

So they must decide.

Do they put themselves first, or do they think of their neighbors? So they let this charade end, or do they fight it out to the bitter end?

Do they continue to arrogantly and undemocratically impose their will on the community, or do they aloow common sense to pervail?

Joe Bucci thinks common sense will prevail.

Poor, naieve Joe.

RAGE (which stands for Regional Action Group for the Environment) is opposing the new salt mine. These are the "alphabet soup people" referred to above...Please voice your support for RAGE via the iput form below. Substantial support may buttress the appeal and cancel this mine...