Harlan County USA

I finally watched this impressive documentary last night about the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Most impressive. You really get a feel for the toil, struggles and utter despair and poverty these people were going through.

Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA.

These people had nothing but the will to fight for what they deserved. Nowadays unions have got out of hand and made people lazier than shit, but in the coal miner's case, there was a very valid and necessary reason for the union.

Just to give you an example of the harsh realities these people faced on a daily basis during the strike. A man crouches and pokes at what first appears to be a wad of chewed-up pink bubble gum on the ground. "That's what a scab will do to ya, by God," he says. That pink wad is brain tissue from a striker shot in the head by a strikebreaker.

It's hard to believe that some 40 years after the Depression, there were parts of Appalachia that were hardly better off than they were in the 1930s. Archival footage and traditional labor songs through the film are weaved together very well to give you the historical perspective to the strike against Eastover Mining Company.

The film goes a step further and gives the viewer a hard look at the living conditions, health issues, and extreme poverty faced by Harlan's residents, as well as the daily reality of the human toll that goes along with the mining industry.
The bitter confrontations between Eastover's slimy security fucks and the unionizers are particularly tense, with the threat of violence ready to explode at any moment.

The story about the man and the mules is something I'll never ever forget. The mules were valued more than a human. Reason? They had to pay a lot of money for mules, but they could always find another human.

Anyway, don't ever become a coal miner, it doesn't look like an appealing career choice after seeing this film.

Oh yeah, I have to mention the music. It's amazing. Just people singing real, genuine heartfelt cola miners songs, it's beautiful stuff.