Dimitri Vassilaros of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review gives MPI-funded film Mine Your Own Business an enthusiastic endorsement:
Two thumbs up and four stars for "Mine Your Own Business." It's the feel-good hit of the winter. The documentary exposes the elitist attitudes and stunning hypocrisy of environmentalists who treat the most wretched and pathetic souls in the Third World like dirt. Worse than dirt, actually. Much worse.
Vassilaros goes on to summarize the film and to detail the precise nature of the promise Canadian mining company Gabriel Resources offers the impoverished people of Rosia Montana, Romania:
Gabriel Resources and the Romanian villagers seem to be on the verge of hitting the mother lode. The company believes there are at least 14.6 million ounces of gold and 64.9 million ounces of silver. It expects to invest $638 million (U.S. currency) and thinks the average annual production of gold could be 635,000 ounces. That could happen as soon as spring in 2009.But environmental activists have been trying to stop the mining project, essentially saying mining would cause pollution and that the simple villagers want to preserve their way of life. The people in Rosia Montana never got the memo. Or if they did, it wasn't in Romanian.
Images of the daily grind of a minimal existence in overwhelming poverty speak for themselves, as do the villagers who cannot comprehend why anyone would prevent them from working for a living wage and $638 million from being invested in their village. They seem especially baffled why anyone would oppose such a godsend.
Noting that MYOB "allows the green obstructionists to speak for themselves"--"Their condescending attitudes about the poor not really wanting to improve their lot in life, better educate their kids and maybe not even welcome the construction of a hospital are beyond offensive. At least the villagers were not called simpletons, at least not directly"--Vassilaros did offer environmental activists a chance to respond to the film's portrayal of them. The result was as telling as the film itself.
"I asked Greenpeace, one of the harshest enviro-critics, to identify factual errors in the film," Vassilaros writes. "The statement from Kert Davies, Greenpeace USA research director, labeled the film propaganda and said activists are not against progress and poor people making a living. There was no mention of factual error." In other words, Greenpeace can't counter MYOB's statement of the case with anything other than slurs; what Greenpeace labels "propaganda" is actually--by Greenpeace's own admission--an irrefutable statement of fact.