Bob Kincaid lays out the arguments to reinvent Appalachia in his article, Speak Your Piece: Making a 'Sacred Zone', published at: http://www.dailyyonder.com/speak-your-piece-making-sacred-zone/2009/05/04/2094#comment-form

Solutions to creating New Appalachia abound. All it takes is some willpower and a little capital to implement many of them. Here they are:

1. Boycott coal. How? Simply get folks to stop buying electricity generated from coal mined anywhere in Appalachia. If the coal-based power generators go out of business, so will the coal companies. Boycott everything connected with coal. Workers must stop working for coal companies. Investors should stop investing in coal companies. More on this later.
2. Create renewable energy. There is an explosion in green energy technology. We can grow algae for biodiesel and food quality oils. Wind farms can produce energy 7/24 even if the wind does not blow, using wind when available to pump water uphill to a huge reservoir which can be let down to create electricity when the demand warrants. We have solar furnace technology which can heat ionized liquid to 600 degrees F and store this hot liquid in a Thermal Energy Battery for use when needed. We can use the hot liquid to drive CHP (combined heat and power) units which produce electricity, heat and refrigeration. We can harvest forest slash and use it as biomass to fuel a syngas and biochar furnace. The syngas can power a heater, a boiler or a refrigeration unit. The biochar (charcoal) can be infused with heavy grade biooil, thus increasing its specific heat, which are made into fuel pellets to be used for heaters, furnaces, and boilers (the “New Coal”). Biochar can also be infused with compost tea or black liquor from a cow manure lagoon or waste water treatment plant, worked into the soil, and increase the yield of some crops by 800 percent.
3. Cheap, effective wind power. I have a design for a vertical axis windmill which is probably many times more efficient than the present technology and very low in cost to make. Clusters of these windmills can sit on a windy ridge or mountain tops, and when painted green, blend into the forest and are bird friendly. When connected to a hydro-electric system, potential energy can be stored in reservoirs and lakes high in the mountains.
4. Worker cooperatives. The union busting efforts of the coal mine owners will have little or no effect on worker cooperatives. These are limited liability partnerships or limited liability companies which own productive enterprises and are, in turn, owned and managed by the workers who work in the enterprise. There are plenty of successful examples of worker cooperatives in most fields.
5. Federal funding. There is a huge amount of money in the Federal pipeline which can be used to start these enterprises.
6. Passivity. These worker cooperative enterprises need to have members whose mindsets no longer reflect the propaganda which has been fed to them by the mine owners. Here's a quote from Ricardo Semler's book, Maverick:

“It's understandable, isn't it, that workers who come of age in an autocratic, authoritarian, paternalistic environment become reflections of it. It took some time for Camarão to adjust to the innovating, democratic, participative atmosphere at Semco.”MAVERICK, The Success Story Behind the Worlds Most Unusual Workplace, Richardo Semler, Warner Books, 1993, p. 180; ISBN 0-446-51696-1

7. Networking. The sooner the worker cooperatives build momentum, the sooner the quality of life of their members will improve. Networks of worker cooperatives help each other and trade with each other, thus assuring the stability of all worker cooperatives in the network. There is ample proof of how these worker cooperatives are formed, survive and prosper.
8. Mindset. The mindset of the worker must change from that of domination by the oligarchies to that of self-sufficiency and sustainability. This goal is accomplished by forming intentional communities which in turn sponsor worker cooperatives. The history of failed worker cooperatives included labor unions which started some, then tried to run the operation as a “top-down capitalist” oligarchy, mimicking the investor dominated, top-down model. Also, this history of failed worker cooperatives includes some which invited out-side, non-worker investors. Eventually, these investors ganged up on the workers, took control, dissolved the worker cooperative and ran the enterprise as a typical top-down capitalist company rather than a bottom-up capitalist worker cooperative.
9. Virtual education. Education is critically important. You will not find any real information in the public schools about worker cooperatives – that is verboten. We need to develop online courses which can be accessed through any computer. We need to populate Appalachia communities with broadband and computers in every house, classroom, library and coffee shop. Social and economic justice “virtual” networks will be formed over the Web using Wikiwebsites for collaboration. Take a look at one hosting company which offers free hosting of wikiwebsites (with ads): Wetpaint.com
10. We Care. We need to develop a caring community of individuals and groups. We are our neighbors' keepers. Mutual love and affection must replace mutual hostility and ill-will. We need to develop many “We Care” networks, both locally and nationally. Rallies and marches are OK, but putting into practice the worker cooperative and creating self-sufficient intentional communities (“ecovillages”) will do the most good and accelerate the change in society; we need to solve individual, community, regional and national economic and social justice issues.

Respectfully submitted,
Jim Miller
jimmiller5417@yahoo.com
May 6, 2009