{"id":3941,"date":"2019-02-16T10:35:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T15:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3941"},"modified":"2019-02-16T11:36:51","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T16:36:51","slug":"citizens-arrested-calling-out-manchin-on-rockwool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3941","title":{"rendered":"Citizens Arrested Calling Out Manchin on Rockwool"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 30 West Virginians gathered in the Senate office of Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) this past week demanding a meeting and demanding that Manchin stop dragging his feet and take a stand on the Rockwool industrial facility planned for Jefferson County.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

(Photo: Anne Meador, DCMediaGroup<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Manchin staff said he was in meetings. Citizens said they would wait. Citizens spoke. Citizens sang. For more than two hours. Still no Senator Manchin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Citizens refused to leave until Senator Manchin showed up. After months of meeting with citizens and getting information briefings, the citizens wanted an answer — yes or no on Rockwool?<\/span><\/p>\n

They refused to leave until they got an answer. Manchin never showed. And eleven citizens were arrested. (See video of protest here.<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did it come to this?<\/span><\/p>\n

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(Photo: Anne Meador, DCMediaGroup<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Any West Virginian who has interacted with Manchin can tell you how it works. He\u2019s friendly. He\u2019s kind. He\u2019ll take a photo with you. He\u2019ll make you seem like you are important and have important things to say. He might even sound as if he agrees with you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, he turns around, walks away and into the warm embrace of the corporate lobbyists and the corporate state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Manchin has been doing it his whole political life. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t seen it up close over and over again, it\u2019s easy to be fooled. <\/span><\/p>\n

But as former President George Bush put it in 2002 in a speech in Nashville, Tennessee<\/a> \u2013 \u201cFool me once \u2013 shame on. . .shame on you\u2026…..if you fool me you can\u2019t get fooled again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes you can.<\/span><\/p>\n

Citizens in Jefferson County, West Virginia are fighting Rockwool\u2019s plans to put their heavy industrial insulation facility in the heart of their suburban rural county.<\/span><\/p>\n

They don\u2019t want a facility across from an elementary school spewing 156,000 tons of toxic pollution into the air.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since last fall, they have been meeting with Senator Manchin and his staff to inform them of the perils the Rockwool facility hoping they would convince Senator Manchin to take a stand against the facility.<\/span><\/p>\n

They met with Senator Manchin\u2019s staff on October 17, 2018 and then put out a detailed report on that meeting. They even ran a picture of citizens and Manchin\u2019s staff. Everyone is smiling.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the meetings and conversations, citizens demanded Manchin take a stand for or against Rockwool before the election. Manchin refused.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Manchin was facing an election in weeks and the people in Jefferson County were questioning whether to vote for Manchin or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

On October 21, 2018, David Levine, one of the organizers of the resistance against Rockwool, took to Facebook to say — \u201cFriends \u2014 whatever you think of Joe Manchin, we need him in the Senate now more than ever.\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

And the consensus among the liberal Democrats protesting against Rockwool was the same — most of them would vote for Manchin. (Although not all of them. Sarah Chayes, for one, called on West Virginians to write in — No More Manchins.<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

But why would most of them back off a demand for Manchin to take a stand right before the election?<\/span><\/p>\n

Levine said that right before the election Manchin and his staff had been very helpful and were moving in the right direction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSenator Manchin and Pat Hayes, Chief of Staff, made it very clear how they would help us,\u201d Levine said on October 28. \u201cThe Chief Counsel had been very helpful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was fooled,\u201d Levine said this week. \u201cWhat convinced me was a strong letter Manchin wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fast forward to earlier this month. Manchin agrees to come to Shepherd University in Jefferson County to have a public meeting with citizens about Rockwool on February 25. The room is reserved and all is set. <\/span><\/p>\n

When the citizens say they have invested too much time for another listening session, that they want Manchin to take a stand at the February 25 meeting, Manchin cancels the meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n

And on Thursday, a bus full of citizens headed to Washington for this week\u2019s showdown in Manchin\u2019s office. During the speeches, more than once citizens complained — we voted for Senator Manchin and now he won\u2019t even come out and talk with us?<\/span><\/p>\n

Fool me once?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 30 West Virginians gathered in the Senate office of Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) this past week demanding a meeting and demanding that Manchin stop dragging his feet and take a stand on the Rockwool industrial facility planned … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3941"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3952,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3941\/revisions\/3952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}