The Appalachian mountains are older than the Himalayas, an American treasure rich in biodiversity. In the form of coal, these mountains supply 35% of our nation's electricity, the consumption of which is expected to double by 2030. To keep up with this increasing demand for energy, a faster, cheaper form of mining is being used, known as mountaintop removal or MTR.

The feature-length documentary Ghosts of Appalachia follows the lives of one family and its community in Eastern Kentucky, as the surrounding land and history are threatened by this urgent need to produce more and more power. Through one family's story, we learn about the "chain of power," where it comes from, and what our energy consumption can do to real human beings thousands of miles away. At at time when destroying a human life is as easy as flipping a light switch, is it only our ability to consume that connects us?

Chorus:
It's a wrap then, grab the Mac-10
Plan of action: kill the Captain!
Excuse me colonel sir, may I request please
Permission to go home or blow off your knees?
It's a wrap then, grab the Mac-10
Plan of action: kill the Captain!
In case you're wonderin, well yes I'm gon' fight
I'm fin' to join the army, but one you don't like

Boots - verse 1:
Needed some stackoli to get free like a parolee
Now I'm in apparel colored shit and guacamole
In another country brought to you by Coca-Coley
Ordered from the top to shoot everything holey
Shit I'm 19 and I'm missin' all my homies
All that fight for freedom shit, we know that shit is phoney
Free to work at Shoney's 'bout one hour for six boneys
And everybody we hustle scratch and scrape for macaronis
and cheese, bullets squeeze outta my assault weapon
Tear through the air, then his chest, then his breath's thin [?]
Looked like my brother [?] from the hood I be reppin'
I wept then, changing from a soldier to a veteran
Left in shambles 'bout this kin of no relation
Crept in the sergeant's tent with quiet calculation
Message from the soldiers to the brass administration
Looks like Captain Sterling's finna have a situation

Chorus...

Boots - verse 2:
"I have just killed my first but it may not be the last one"
I screamed this at the sergeant with his head pressed to the magnum
You sent us to this country not to free but bodybag them
And free up all their money so accounting firms can add them
Drag them and their corporates to their own battle
'stead they're sendin' us to the slaughter like cattle
Me and this whole unit we will start to ramshackle
Listen very closely you can hear the fire crackle
You could weigh the air as he was breathing out his nostrils
Couldn't understand we we were seeming so hostile
Said "We spread democracy" like he was preaching gospel
Slapped him in his head and said "Now shut up Sergeant Roscoe!
If this is not explicit, lemme tell ya straight out
We'll no longer kill to keep this country drained out
We want up outta here like on the next planes out
Tell the Cap'n make it happen or we'll blow his brains out!"

Chorus...

When the people of Oaxaca decided they'd had enough of bad government, they didn't take their story to the media...

They TOOK the media 

 

In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century.

But it was the people’s use of the media

that truly made history in Oaxaca. 

A 90-minute documentary, A Little Bit of So Much Truth captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.

More information at www.corrugate.org