From Alternet

By Bo Webb , AlterNet. Posted February 19, 2009.

Dear Mr. President,

As I write this letter, I brace myself for another round of nerve-wracking explosives being detonated above my home in the mountains of West Virginia. Outside my door, pulverized rock dust, laden with diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate explosives hovers in the air, along with the residual of heavy metals that once lay dormant underground.

The mountain above me, once a thriving forest, has been blasted into a pile of rock and mud rubble. Two years ago, it was covered with rich black topsoil and abounded with hardwood trees, rhododendrons, ferns and flowers. The understory thrived with herbs such as ginseng, black cohosh, yellow root and many other medicinal plants. Black bears, deer, wild turkey, hawks, owls and thousands of [other] birds lived here. The mountain contained sparkling streams teeming with aquatic life and fish.

Now it is all gone. It is all dead. I live at the bottom of a mountain-top-removal coal-mining operation in the Peachtree community.

Mr. President Obama, I am writing you because we have simply run out of options. Last week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond, Va., overturned a federal court ruling for greater environmental restrictions on mountaintop-removal permits. Dozens of permits now stand to be rushed through. As you know, in December, the EPA under George W. Bush allowed an 11th-hour change to the stream buffer zone rule, further unleashing the coal companies to do as they please. Source Article

To quote Wikipedia

“In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos , alone or single + polein , to sell) exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.[1] Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods.[2] The verb “monopolize” refers to the process by which a firm gains persistently greater market share than what is expected under perfect competition.”

This is the definition of the word monopoly.

If you consider the way the Wall Street banks are eating each other up until just a few are left; I am left with the question—Aren’t they forming monopolies???

If they are forming monopolies we need to do something about it.

I can just hear people crying , “But what can we do?” It’s very simple. There is a law on the books that was passed in 1890 fer gosh’s sake! It’s called the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

This is the law that was used to break up the phone company. It was also used to break up vertical trusts in the ‘30. According to section 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act a monopoly is also illegal.

You don’t hear anything about this on the TV or radio. Well why the hell not?! Why aren’t the phones and mailboxes of Congress and the White House filling up with demands for the breakup of these monopolies? And while we’re on the subject-what about the 5 companies that determine what and who the American public hears and sees on it’s media? That’s right–five.

Used to be a lot more but after the the media was de-regulated (Pres. Clinton, I blame you for this!) all of the small companies disappeared and oops! now we have what amounts to state run media. In other words, propaganda. Can anyone spell Pravda? Does anyone even remember what that was?

Being an old broad I remember what it was. Pravda and Tass were the Russian news organizations during the cold war that were so obviously state propaganda they were a joke. Well our media is fast getting to that point if they haven’t already.

What does this have to do with Wall Street? Do you think Wall Street would have been able to get away with their scams during the era of Eward R. Murrow? Chet Huntley? Walter Cronkite? While Huntley and Cronkite were news anchors and not investigative reporters; they were above all else newsmen.

Since we cannot rely on our fourth estate any longer to root out these vultures I say use the law that is already on the books and has been for over a hundred years.

Say it with me now—SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT!