Kentucky coalminers, who favor mountain top excavation, are attacking their social-do-gooder antagonist, Ashley Judd.
Judd has vocally spoken against mountaintop coal mining, the process by which peaks are blasted to extract coal. The actress is a longtime environmentalist and AIDs activist. Her argument is that the residue from mining lands in the streams.
To diminish her cause and her image, Kentucky coalminers are posting 5’ 3” posters of a topless Judd that reads “Ashley Judd makes a living taking off her top. Why can’t coal miners?”
The photo of Judd, covering her bare breasts, is from a 2003 Marie Claire article per the New York Daily News. It hangs near a golf club near Prestonburg, Kentucky. Hollywoodnews.com
The poster is reportedly a retaliation by the locals against Judd for a June 9th speech in which the actress referred to mountaintop coal mining as “the rape of Appalachia.”
“It is time to retire the cynical and superficial coal company-created argument that we must choose between people, their jobs, and our mountains,” Judd, 42, said in the speech. “That is simply false, fear-based and fear-mongering.”
According to the report, environmentalists’ main issue with mountaintop coal mining is the residue that falls into surrounding streams and the destruction the process causes to the Appalachian peaks.
Judd, who is a self-proclaimed “hillbilly,” also took the time to criticize the building of golf courses over former mine sites.
“I’m not too keen on reinforcing stereotypes about my people, but I don’t know a lot of hillbillies who golf,” she said in her speech.
While no one has claimed responsibility for the poster, coal company officials have reportedly given it their endorsement. New York Daily News
Paul Hughes, assistant general manager at the StoneCrest Golf Course, said he heard no complaints about the poster.
“All the people that was here yesterday, they was all for it,” he said.
Judd is one of many artists, including musicians Dave Matthews and EmmyLou Harris, who have been outspoken about the controversial mining practice.
Coal industry officials, along with many politicians and business leaders in Appalachia, say the mining is crucial to the region’s economy and a supply of affordable energy.
Environmentalists counter it dumps rock and rubble into streams and destroys Appalachian mountain peaks.
Rob Perks, campaign director for the environmental group National Resources Defense Council, said he found the poster of Judd to be “terribly derogatory and sexist.”
“Anyone who is remotely critical of (coal industry) practices, particularly the most extreme strip mining on the planet, immediately has their character attacked,” Perks said. The Associated Press
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