Justified

            In class of Thursday we watched a few clips from the TV show “Justified”.  The show is set in the eastern part of Kentucky in the Appalachian region.  The clips we watched focused on an executive from a coal company that wanted the residents of this town to lease their lands to the coal company in order for the company to be able to come in and take the coal from a nearby mountain.  The first part we watched focused on a town hall style meeting with the executive from the coal company trying to explain that her company was only trying to help the residents by bringing jobs to the area.  She also went on to say that a coal mining job was an honest job that the people should be proud of and that no harm would come to the local environment.  At one point a resident stands up and begins to tell her neighbors some points against allowing the coal company to come to their town and tear through their mountain.  After she presents her opposing viewpoint she invites everyone, including the coal executive, to her house for a “hoo-ha”.  At her party the local woman ends up negotiating with the coal executive which her company didn’t tell her the reasons that she needed to buy the people’s lands.  The local woman knows all of these reasons and is able to negotiate a deal that is for three times the original value offered and also for a four percent stake in the parent company, in order to have something for her entire family and future generations.  Although I enjoyed watching these clips and seeing the perspectives that it brought about, I’m curious as to how true to real life they are.  I’m sure that things like this have happened, where some people have claimed to look out for the town only to really just be protecting their own interests but the way that this was shot was made for television.  I doubt there is much if any footage from one of these town hall meetings, but I wonder just how close the TV show came to real life.