This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Vast Stretches Of Impoverished Appalachia Look Like They Have Been Through A War
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
If you want to get an idea of where the rest of America is heading, just take a trip through the western half of West Virginia and the eastern half of Kentucky some time. Once you leave the main highways, you will rapidly encounter poverty on a level that is absolutely staggering. Overall, about 15 percent of the entire nation is under the poverty line, but in some areas of eastern Kentucky, more than 40 percent of the population is living in poverty. Most of the people would work if they could. Over the past couple of decades, locals have witnessed businesses and industries leave the region at a steady pace. When another factory or business shuts down, many of the unemployed do not even realize that their jobs have been shipped overseas. Coal mining still produces jobs that pay a decent wage, but Barack Obama is doing his very best to kill off that entire industry. After decades of decline, vast stretches of impoverished Appalachia look like they have been through a war. Those living in the area know that things are not good, but they just try to do the best that they can with what they have.
In previous articles about areas of the country that are economically depressed, I have typically focused on large cities such as Detroit or Camden, New Jersey. But the economic suffering that is taking place in rural communities in the heartland of America is just as tragic. We just don't hear about it as much.
Most of those that live in the heart of Appalachia are really good "salt of the earth" people that just want to work hard and do what is right for their families. But after decades of increasing poverty, the entire region has been transformed into an economic nightmare that never seems to end. The following is a description of what life is like in Appalachia today that comes from a recent article by Kevin D. Williamson...
Thinking about the future here and its bleak prospects is not much fun at all, so instead of too much black-minded introspection you have the pills and the dope, the morning beers, the endless scratch-off lotto cards, healing meetings up on the hill, the federally funded ritual of trading cases of food-stamp Pepsi for packs of Kentucky’s Best cigarettes and good old hard currency, tall piles of gas-station nachos, the occasional blast of meth, Narcotics Anonymous meetings, petty crime, the draw, the recreational making and surgical unmaking of teenaged mothers, and death: Life expectancies are short — the typical man here dies well over a decade earlier than does a man in Fairfax County, Va. — and they are getting shorter, women’s life expectancy having declined by nearly 1.1 percent from 1987 to 2007.
In these kinds of conditions, people do whatever they have to do just to survive. With so much poverty around, serving those on food stamps has become an important part of the local economy. In fact, cases of soda purchased with food stamps have become a form of "alternative currency" in the region. In his article, Williamson described how this works...
It works like this: Once a month, the debit-card accounts of those receiving what we still call food stamps are credited with a few hundred dollars — about $500 for a family of four, on average — which are immediately converted into a unit of exchange, in this case cases of soda. On the day when accounts are credited, local establishments accepting EBT cards — and all across the Big White Ghetto, “We Accept Food Stamps” is the new E pluribus unum – are swamped with locals using their public benefits to buy cases and cases — reports put the number at 30 to 40 cases for some buyers — of soda. Those cases of soda then either go on to another retailer, who buys them at 50 cents on the dollar, in effect laundering those $500 in monthly benefits into $250 in cash — a considerably worse rate than your typical organized-crime money launderer offers — or else they go into the local black-market economy, where they can be used as currency in such ventures as the dealing of unauthorized prescription painkillers — by “pillbillies,” as they are known at the sympathetic establishments in Florida that do so much business with Kentucky and West Virginia that the relevant interstate bus service is nicknamed the “OxyContin Express.” A woman who is intimately familiar with the local drug economy suggests that the exchange rate between sexual favors and cases of pop — some dealers will accept either — is about 1:1, meaning that the value of a woman in the local prescription-drug economy is about $12.99 at Walmart prices.
I would encourage everyone to read the rest of Williamson's excellent article. You can find the entire article right here.
In Appalachia, the abuse of alcohol, meth and other legal and illegal drugs is significantly higher than in the U.S. population as a whole. In a desperate attempt to deal with the pain of their lives, many people living in the region are looking for anything that will allow them to "escape" for a little while. The following is an excerpt from an excellent article by Chris Hedges which describes what life is like in the little town of Gary, West Virginia at this point...
Joe and I are sitting in the Tug River Health Clinic in Gary with a registered nurse who does not want her name used. The clinic handles federal and state black lung applications. It runs a program for those addicted to prescription pills. It also handles what in the local vernacular is known as “the crazy check” -- payments obtained for mental illness from Medicaid or SSI -- a vital source of income for those whose five years of welfare payments have run out. Doctors willing to diagnose a patient as mentally ill are important to economic survival.
“They come in and want to be diagnosed as soon as they can for the crazy check,” the nurse says. “They will insist to us they are crazy. They will tell us, ‘I know I’m not right.’ People here are very resigned. They will avoid working by being diagnosed as crazy.”
The reliance on government checks, and a vast array of painkillers and opiates, has turned towns like Gary into modern opium dens. The painkillers OxyContin, fentanyl -- 80 times stronger than morphine -- Lortab, as well as a wide variety of anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax, are widely abused. Many top off their daily cocktail of painkillers at night with sleeping pills and muscle relaxants. And for fun, addicts, especially the young, hold “pharm parties,” in which they combine their pills in a bowl, scoop out handfuls of medication, swallow them, and wait to feel the result.
Of course this kind of thing is not just happening in the heart of Appalachia. All over the country there are rural communities that are economically depressed. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, economic activity in about half of the counties in the entire nation is still below pre-recession levels...
About half of the nation’s 3,069 county economies are still short of their prerecession economic output, reflecting the uneven economic recovery, according to a new report from the National Association of Counties.
So what are our "leaders" doing to fix this?
Well, they plan to ship millions more of our good jobs overseas.
Unfortunately, I am not kidding.
Republicans in the House of Representatives are introducing "fast track" trade promotion authority legislation that will pave the way for rapid approval of the secret trade treaty that Barack Obama has been negotiating. The following is how I described this insidious treaty in a previous article...
Did you know that the Obama administration is negotiating a super secret "trade agreement" that is so sensitive that he isn't even allowing members of Congress to see it? The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being called the "NAFTA of the Pacific" and "NAFTA on steroids", but the truth is that it is so much more than just a trade agreement. This treaty has 29 chapters, but only 5 of them have to do with trade. Most Americans don't realize this, but this treaty will fundamentally change our laws regarding Internet freedom, health care, the trading of derivatives, copyright issues, food safety, environmental standards, civil liberties and so much more. It will also merge the United States far more deeply into the emerging one world economic system.
Once again, our politicians are betraying the American people and millions of jobs will be lost as a result.
Not that the economy needs another reason to go downhill. The truth is that our economic foundations have already been rotting away for quite some time.
But now the ongoing economic collapse seems to be picking up steam again. For example, the Baltic Dry Index (a very important indicator of global economic activity) is collapsing at a rate not seen since the great financial crash of 2008...
Despite 'blaming' the drop in the cost of dry bulk shipping on Colombian coal restrictions, it seems increasingly clear that the 40% collapse in the Baltic Dry Index since the start of the year is more than just that. While this is the worst start to a year in over 30 years, the scale of this meltdown is only matched by the total devastation that occurred in Q3 2008. Of course, the mainstream media will continue to ignore this dour index until it decides to rise once again, but for now, 9 days in a row of plunging prices is yet another canary in the global trade coalmine and suggests what inventory stacking that occurred in Q3/4 2013 is anything but sustained.
Soon economic conditions will get even worse for Appalachia and for the rest of the country. The consequences of decades of very foolish decisions are rapidly catching up with us, and millions upon millions of Americans are going to experience immense economic pain during the years to come.
»
- 68800 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
My experience has taught me it's all false prosperity built on the lies of non-existent wealth. Appalachia is the reality, not NYC.
I know that I'll get blasted for this, but this is yet another reason for people to start adopting Bitcoin -- not as a store of wealth -- but as a means of transacting freely from person to person. We cannot "beat" the powers that be at their own game. We can only choose to not play by working around their systems of enslavement. Bitcoin is a huge step toward the ability to abandon those systems.
That was a pertinent and reasoned comment.
If you get blasted, it will be by idiots.
Not whatsoever reasoned. Pertinent, yes, but giant errors in reasoning.
My critique isn't "blasting" ... it's reasoned & serious.
It's not like I wrote back with pure-sarcasm about how tulips were prettier than btc.
It's no good reason at all.
To transact person-to-person all I need is to meet face to face & to trade what I have for what they have, or trade a service.
Done it many times.
Adding computers, networks & transmissions of currency that's fully traced is of no use to us.
Worse, many times I need to do this BECAUSE all grids are down & btc is worthless to me then. No cell, no internet, no power. I WILL face these situations FREQUENTLY. I MUST use money/trade IN THAT SITUATION.
btc is useless to me. I don't want to special monies, one for emergencies & one for non-emergencies.
Money is money. I want money that works ALL the time.
The only reason I even seek gold/silver is that we are only now briefly in a period of fiat-as-money that won't last & I'm picking what is money (gold,silver) for when this brief period is over.
In history fiat has never served well as paper, not for centuries, and has lasted only briefly on the back of an empire that collapses itself, many, many such empires, fiefdoms, and none lasted. This won't last either.
if I thought the fiat would be more stable for my life than the gold/silver then I'd probably get none or much less.
I have no heirs to pass money to but if I did perhaps that would be a reason despite a stable fiat.
Not my problem & fiat isn't stable so gold & silver it is. Bitcoin is LESS STABLE than fiat which is really, really bad.
With one out of two Americans listed as poor, in the last census, America is a third world country. Period!
Regarding W. Virginia, that has sentor-for-life, Jay Rockefeller, and as I've been repeating over and over again, we are living in Rockefeller's future (as in David and John before him).
They killed the Kennedys and Rev. King, and they have been one of the major forces in the offshoring of America and the privatization/globalization of everything (Rothschilds doing the same in Europe).
They hire stooges like Simon Johnson at MIT to continue the myth that they gave away their money, instead of what really occurred: they shifted much of their wealth and ownership form all those foundations and trusts, to offshore holding companies, offshore finace centers, foundatsion, trusts, and unregistered trusts!
And that's all she wrote, chums . . . . .
The key to third worldism is to have a permanent explotive elite, incestuous financial and state power, large amoral ominiesent security force, large ignorent malnourished underclass in a perpetual tumbler of drugs, alcohol, mechanical sex, and destraction by media.
Bullish political Sham Wow saviors, reformers, rebuilders, evangelicals, Mormons, Pilates, tri-athletes, Tea Party used to be Newt used to be Reagan used to be Goldwater next year the conservative liberal libertarian messiah, group tested and marketed .
Bullish soda flats, Tide detergent, Bitcoin, frozen squirrel/dog/rat meat, prostitution, basement dwelling.
Duplicate.
Fracking doesn't pollute. The EPA says so.
It's just another means of extracting fossil fuels. If you leave them in the ground they don't do anything for anybody - they are effectively wasted - Mother Nature doesn't need to keep her oil.
"the united states is being turned into a third world country... stripped of resources"
As the globalist would say, "Spreading the wealth".
Extracting wealth from the US, leaving debt and reallocating to other places like China, Vietnam, etc.
In the process making millionaires billionaires.
That John Denver is full of shit man!
"On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero"
Inhabitants here are at or near zero.
Proposal for a solution (sticking with the zero theme)
1. Zero income taxes forever in this tax free zone.
2. Zero corporate taxes forever in this tax free zone.
3. Zero capital gains taxes forever for all residents of this tax free zone.
4. Zero plus five percent sales tax for a maximimum of 20 years.
5. Zero sales taxes shall be used for anything else other than the protection and proliferation of this zone.
6. Zero new residents are not welcome.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insight-Kowloon-W...
Weird, how these governments create walled cities. I've been thinking along these lines, free trade zones subject to no taxes or regulation subject to common law. Walled cities would arise tomorrow where these zones would be allowed to exist. Think about that, just changing the rules creates huge demand, Las Vegas might be a lesser example of rules trumping environment.
fracking is just one example.
He says as he pulls away in his SUV to the nearest gas station to fill up.
$7.99 for the one that shat you out of her hairy ass.
It is difficult to feel empathy for a people from Kentucky that continuously reelects a Democrat like MITCH MCONNEL to the Senate Minority [REPUBLICAN] leader. What is the difference between Mconnel and a DEMOCRAT ? Besides being a dirty stinking cut throat lying POS? I would like to know?
If you want to get an idea of where the rest of America is heading, just take a trip through the western half of West Virginia and the eastern half of Kentucky some time.
appalachia has always been known to be avant garde.
"Night has fallen and there is nothing we can do about it. "
Ed (Jon Voight) from Deliverance
True story: I was visiting my mother for a week or so in WV. One day, we decided to walk the dog along one of the "Rails to Trails" right-of-ways (A former rail line that has had the track torn-up), Along the way, I see a black guy digging through a trash pile off to the side of the burm where the locals have decided to imprvise a dump.
I say: "You know, that's the first black person I've seen the whole time I've been in West Virginia. . . " She replies: "He's not black." "He's covered in soot from burning tires in his trailer to keep warm."
West Virginia is seriously poor.
Reading that broke my heart. Did you read in the comments how it talked about a furniture maker that went out of business? Now it's coming back, owned by the Chinese and with lower wages. This will be all of AMERIKA. At this point, I welcome the Fuku flu
That's the saddest thing I've read all day.
I'll carry that image with me forever. The only places in the U.S. that I've personally seen that were worse were some of the Indian reservations in the Southwest.
Nobody is DC gives a shit about anyone in a flyover state. Not even the representatives from those states.
SW Missouri is a strong second...
SW missouri or any other part of my state is NOWHERE near as bad as the apalachians. not even close. yes there are some very poor areas, ive been everywhere in this state so i have seen them all, but even those places are still a few rungs up on the ladder from the appalachians.
I have not been to appalchia so i am limited in that respect. Wrt sw missouri, Webster, Lawrence, Christian, Dallas , Wright, LaClede counties off the main roads i have seen much of what is described. Driving through on the state highways or even decent county roads wont do it. Lived there 5 years, please read another comment i made with more specifics. I guess it was a boot camp sort of education to the sordid outcome of systematic corrosion of morality. I don't honestly have words for what i saw, revulsion in no way describes it. Sadness...so much self inflicted pain and misery.
"Said 'Californy is the place ya outa be', so they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly."
but to be sure - the hatfields and mccoys will survive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4s0nzsU1Wg
They are also capable of extracting revenge if warranted.
And that's why wallstreet need trilliondollar bailouts to make sure this doesn't happen to the Wallstreeters...
What do you expect to happen to a country where "financial instruments" are the leading export product.
About half of the nation’s 3,069 county economies are still short of their prerecession economic output
And that is with fake BLS inflation numbers. If you adjusted economic output for real inflation, at least 80% of the nation's counties are below their prerecession economic output.
If the Fed had not printed over $3 trillion, 100% of US would be below prerecession levels. The Fed did bail out the richer counties with their free money - so real estate in New York can now cost 20 times that in flyover country.
Many parts of the US have been on the losing side on the war on savers and workers by the Fed. The banksters and Wall Street have made out like bandits.
The Fed was also printing a lot more than it said it was:
Note the curious report out of the American Enterprise Institute ten days ago by John H. Makin saying that the Fed’s actual purchase of debt paper amounted to an average $94 billion a month through the year 2013, not $85 billion.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-06/jim-kunstlers-2014-forecast-bur...
Every poverty stricken person, unemployed worker, welfare recipient, and illegal alien should move to Washington DC. That's where all the wealth is now. Mingle with the government elite, hobnob with the elite, and sprawl on the sidewalks outside of where the politicians gather. Beg at the doors of the upscale malls and mill around the newspaper offices. Make sure to protest at the U.S. trade offices where they send you jobs overseas. Soild the pavement around the Fed. Submerge Washington into a sea of Third World poverty.
Harry Reid, that senstive prick, won't like the smell.
$94 billion is probably the gross purchases which includes rolling over of maturing debt. $85b/month is about right if you take the difference in the monetary base in calendar year 2013.
don't blame them. you gotta do what you gotta do.
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BDIY:IND/chart
Check 3 yr chart. Collapse in 2012 was worse. Meanwhile it has turned up again. Wake me when it crashes 80%.
Thar's "things", unspeakable things, goin' on up in them thar "hollers". City folk, beware!
Always been this way in Appalachia. The 1960s War on Poverty programs were inspired by Appalachia and started after Kennedy/Johnson toured the region. The WOP failed in most ways but probably had more success than outright shipping what little jobs are there overseas in the last few decades. Hell TVA was created in the 1930s because the entire region was still using candles and lanterns for lights and no private electric company found it profitable to build the infrastructure to light up the place. Still that way this very day.
War on Poverty > War on Terra ? War on Drugs?
When do the wars on organized crime and treason begin?
Based on past performance, you should try "FOR", not "on".
That's an easy one. Think you're a Libertarian or Constitutionalist?
Gubbmint sez you'se a guilty o' orgahnized treezun.
Nah. TVA was created in the 1930's because the US gov't knew they'd need gigawatts for the upcoming U235 seperation project at Oak Ridge, TN.
It's better to use candles and lanterns and be free, than to curse the post-constiutional dark.
Sorry but TVA was created in the early 30s for rural electrification. The Manhattan Project didn't begin until after WW2 started for which the Oak Ridge enrichment plant was then built. The dams built for Oak Ridge were funded by the Manhattan Project. Born and raised in east TN, still own property there.
I checkled out the area via Google Earth ...
37°32'52.26"N , 83°23'17.57"W
Go to Street View.
Beutiful country with ramschackle wooden housing.
wow, look at all that kudzu!
kudzu - an alternative fuel report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhYux3QIJgo
new normal? yup it pisses me off. also, some of these people are generational degenerates by there own choice. but the hard working people that really can find no gainfull emplyment because of governemnt policy(fascism) is what pisses me off...
A girlfriend of mine from those very sticks is a member of Mensa and designed the fuel tanks on the F35. She has the accent and looks a little inbred in the face but oh my god was that a lot of fun.
Fairfax County is referenced in this piece. I live in rich Fairfax County. We are not immune. A while back I placed a craigslist ad for a neat vintage portable electric 2-burner cooktop. Mint condition. I thought some yupster would buy it. Instead, the guy who showed up to buy it looked to be a meth-head, wasn't at all interested in its condition, just wanted a functioning cooktop, cheap. Perhaps to use to make meth??
Or beer...
That wasn't a meth head. That was Harry Reid.
not only there....take for example Arizona: The city of Eloy usd to be industrial hub with good jobs...now it is a home to 11,000 people with no jobs or future...the biggest employer is the local jail......what a shame....
I went through upstate New York recently. Same thing - a lot of jail towns and extreme poverty - especially in the Adirondack region which is a big tourist area. The Adirondacks and northern New York are getting pummeled with dying towns, no jobs, and either extreme poverty of the locals, or fabulous wealth building mountain homes to spend some of their time in. Just about anything North of the NYS thruway is in pretty bad shape.
Yup. Many people don't think of NY State as Applacahia North, but that is just what it is. Most of the bigger cities are dying (Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester) and others are dead (Utica). Even Albany is not in great shape. The people are very clannish, which does not help.
The term for the people in that part of NY is stick hicks. Most people's perception of NY is that of the tri-state area which is only part of the tale. NY is like 2 different worlds with the delineating line being the reach of the wall street money spigot.
My wife is from Cortland. We go up yearly. It's dead. NYC killed NYS.
I spend a lot of time in Albany (not by choice) and travel around the state. I can affirm all of the above.
I'm from the Mohawk Valley and just recently came back from visiting my sister who lives near Oswego. Rome NY was at one time a hub of manufacturing up there near Griffiss AFB. When BRAC closed Griff in 92 30,000 famililes left there. When I drove through, it was so depressing. Revere Ware, Martin, Chicago Pnematic, Oneida Silverware all but gone. There is nothing there at all anymore. NYC sucks the Upstate dry every year and people struggle every winter just to pay for heating costs. NYC is the leach that killed NY State. The taxes are outragous for anything there and this is why I and everyone else left...to starve the beast. Unfortunately, Wall Street was bailed out and they can ctrl+P their way to prosperity.....I just wonder for how much longer with no tax base.
BRAC also killed the local economy in Silicon Valley / SF Bay. See: Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Like the Redlegs in THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES it is still out there doing good. Doing us all real, real good... BRAC, "The Bubble Burster".
If the local economy was that dependent on a base, then it was nothing more than a tick sucking on a leach's ass. Military bases, for the most part, are MIC welfare.
No worries, it's dead now. Solution Provided.
Pennsylvania . Also known as Pennsyltucky.
Obviously NY needs more taxes, regulation, and government writ large.
The industry that was there is gone. GE used to have a bunch of factories making all kinds of stuff aloiing the upper Hudson and northcountry. Gone. Paper mills were once big employers. gone. I remember an article about the last remaining flatware manufacturer (knives, forks, spoons) - was in the Adirondacks. gone.
As long as the US keeps chasing cheap labor and sending factories overseas (and brining in cheap labor via H1B and illegal immigration to do the jobs that can't be moved) we're screwed. The ONLY real 'business' left in upstate NY is PRISONS - fed from NYC. Horrid for those imprisoned - often for low level drug offenses - far from home and family and overseen by people that are simply glad to have the work.
Even the tourism potential is limited. Acid rain has left many of the lakes without fish and few people seem to want the 'outdoors' experience. The summer camps for kids remain but I noticed a lot more 'For Sale' signs on the small summer homes along the way up the last few times. The middle class that owned these modest places can't afford even these anymore.
Not as far up, the Catskills is dead. Forget any hope of casinos helping. The old motels are full of welfare and the roads on weekends are scary with all the drunks. The old summer resorts are dead - or taken over by Jewish groups (who collect government benefits while 'studying the Torah'). The racetrack at Monticello depends on illegals to do the crap labor - they live a dozen to a house to the consternation of locals.
Seems like anywher you go outside big cities in the US is like this - or soon will be.
Yep. Limit New York state to New York state. Ban usury. New York state can issue all the credit cards it wants, but they stay in New York state only. Don't just have a border patrol between Mexico and the US. Give states rights to ban Walmart and Walmart trucks from entering the state. Bring back Mom and Pop stores. The first state to ban Walmart will start a retail revolution; others will join. Tell the Walton family to eff off.
Formally Oneida Silverware plant closed re-opened. The name “Oneida” is all made in China. AVOID THAT! Buy Liberty Tabletop. I own a set and they are basically the same quality and molds that Oneida USED to be in the early 80’s. Buy American. See link below. They are THE ONLY Made in the USA silverware left. Support and enjoy! It’s outstanding!
Liberty Tabletop brand stainless steel flatware is proudly manufactured by American craftsmen, right here in the USA!
Created with pride in a Sherrill, NY factory that has been producing quality flatware for over a century, Liberty Tabletop offers a variety of patterns to compliment most any tableware, or situation.
Browse our patterns, or read on below to learn more about the quality features & benefits found in our American made flatware!
https://www.libertytabletop.com/
I still have a set of Oneida sterling silverware that my mother purchased (over time) in the 1950s, and later handed down to me. At one time, owning sterling silverware was fairly common for middle-class families in the USA --- but how many today still own actual silverware, or could even afford it?
Now back to our regular programming...
Link saved for our purchases when we move next year. Many thanks.
My pleasure!
https://www.libertytabletop.com/
Thanks for the link. Will be giving them some business as a matter of principle.
Sullivan County has been fighting with the Hasidic community.
http://jpupdates.com/2014/01/14/bloomingburg-ny-developer-hasidic-neighborhood-files-lawsuit/
Maybe we need to ask ourselves: who does global free trade benefit?
Surely not these folk.
In all fairness how many more paper mills do we need?
Surely we have enough left-over paper & wood to make into paper without felling more trees & surely we can use a lot less paper.
Legal documents, various bills, I'm sure require paper but with texting, email, videos & such or podcasts... paper? What for? I don't use any outside of legal requirements for documents.
I don't even use paper for taxes.
What?! Those NYC bankstas don't care about their fellow man (upstate?)
the lst time I was in Phoenix I could not believe how many houses were up for short sale
There is no shame in living in a shack on the side of a mountain with a garden and a goat. They will survive when you city dudes are starving and wringing your hands in desparation.
Although they have plenty of land and lots of free time, very few Appalachians bother with gardens or livestock. They'd rather cook meth and eat junk food purchased with EBT.
Bullshit. I'm in the Martinsburg WV area right now and come here every month to visit family. The people here are hard working and build barns, fences and have much livestock and farming ability. They are very handy, very honest. There are drug addicts, but for everyone of them there are three church going charitable people.
I really hope I'm wrong, you're right, and millions of poor people are growing their own food and telling the welfare state to go to Hell. I was once breaking ground for a new garden and a clueless liberal neighbor asked if we were short of food because she could get us some.
I don't like blanket statements. I'm sure there is merit to what you've seen just as there is merit to what I see.
In late 1980's I spent some time in the Appalachia area. One thing that stood out was derilick houses still having all their glass in the windows. I mentioned it to a local and he said here we respect other people's property. I thought it was maybe a lack of rocks.
" One thing that stood out was derilick houses still having all their glass in the windows."
Or perhaps they weren't really derilick, they just looked that way!
Depends the property taxes in the area.
derelict
"So I guess, uh, I guess you can Derrilick my balls, cap-i-tan."
That's to fool the revenuers. /caricature
this is what the maggots want for the entire usa
It's called Agenda 21. I'm surprised no one has made mention of this. Or maybe I missed it?
agenda 21 is a red-herring.
The most desired goal of the elite is over-population & short life span, people covering the landscape raping resources for the benefit of the few.
By pretending the opposite they try to get you to do something 'against' them which is in fact their real goal.
You are 100% wrong. We are in the Great Culling at this time.
You are wrong. Births are up, the population is expanding.
It doesn't matter if you won't live past 25 to 45, only that there are more babies coming.
All this fight against abortion, against birth control, you fool, you keep falling for it, all this talk of "economic growth" that depends on a population boom.
Silly fool.
Michael, Please learn the difference between poverty and decay versus war before writing your headlines. https://www.google.com/search?site=&q=wwII%20german%20bombing#q=wwII+ger...
This slow decline that forces people to gradually accept what is going on pisses me off. Soon this will be accepted as the new normal, and then we will take the next leg down until the whole fucking country is just a shithole.
Correct.
Like Glenn Reynold's from Instapundit always states: "They'll turn us all into beggars 'cause they're easier to please."
http://www.lyricsbox.com/rainmakers-government-cheese-3kjvgx9.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLzFhOslZPM
"until"
lol!
Beat me to it.
I concur. That's why I believe that the line in the sand should have been drawn long ago. I feel that our best recourse is to congregate in one area of the country (small to start off with) and declare it FED free. Give a short time frame for all federal activity to cease then move in and push them out.
freestateproject
@ Dr. Engali, I believe that is precisely the plan. :-(
While the jobs going oversees issue, among others, helps explain the financial depression affecting rural areas, it did not start there. The drugs, whoring, thievery, etc. are the same malaise infecting what we euphemistically call our "inner cities", and this has predated much of the job escape.
Destitution doesn't make people turn into, for example, druggies and drunks. The cause is a moral depravity that predated our capital flight, and which springs from the deconstruction of our traditional culture by the effluent of our corporate popular culture.
This is peace without God. Best get used to it, somehow. It seems that this will be with us a while.
Appalachia hasn't had many jobs that could possibly go overseas for decades. We don't import much coal last I knew.
After this week's events the battery acid factory in Charleston may be a goner though.
"This is peace without God."
Can we have peace without your God please?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlaoR5m4L80
It ain't what you believe that makes you moral, it's what you do.
Luke 10:30-37
"Can we have peace without your God please?"
He's not my own, but ours. And the answer to your question is "No". But I expect that the vast majority of materialists will never believe that until it is too late, which is what my point was to begin with.
Abusing scripture that way shows a cynical hypocrisy, but thanks for trying.
Needing "God" to be a peaceful and moral individual is just an older version of needing "Government" to remain civilized and simply demonstrates an inability to be your own master. Following rules out of fear of your God or Government makes them a reflection, a follower, an enabler of thise who seek control over overs.
Mi Naem, since the large majority of the world does not believe in your God (and it doesn't even matter WHICH god you believe in --- that's the most ironic part of it), then you evidently believe that YOU are correct in having chosen "the one true god", while all those others are mistaken and damned to eternal torment.
(Oh, but wait --- of course almost NOBODY ever choses their religion, they just blindly follow the religion in which they were raised, isn't that true? So I guess that just makes you REALLY lucky!)
They, of course, all believe the same fate awaits you.
Now what part of ANY of this is rational?
"(Oh, but wait --- of course almost NOBODY ever choses their religion, they just blindly follow the religion in which they were raised, isn't that true? "
That's just not true in many respects. There's are tons of choices people make every day regarding their moral code, religion, or God - that are independent of their parents and family, even if it falls generally into one category of faith or another. Also, belief in no intelligent design requires equally as much blind faith as any belief in such design. Where's the superior ration in that?
Huh?
This is the same idiotic mistake that almost all you religionists make: that EVERYONE puts blind faith in something. You simply cannot conceive of a person refusing to fall prey to the insanity of faith (i.e., belief without evidence), and instead relying on logic, reason and facts instead, can you?
"Faith" is for children and the weak-minded; there are those who are neither, and to whom "faith" is as alien, nonsensical and repellant a concept as, oh, eternal damnation, predestination or the divine right of kings.
Best explanation for religious belief I've found:
http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/MentalismCB.html
Mentalism and Mechanism - the twin modes of human cognition
• Religion, Superstition and Ethics
As I mentioned above, Schreber interpreted his delusions as religious and mystical insights into reality, and to the extent that all theological thinking presupposes the existence of supernatural beings and a 'psychic' or 'spiritual' dimension to the human mind, you could see it as similarly hyper-mentalistic. Indeed, such an approach readily suggests an intriguing new evolutionary insight into religion. According to this way of looking at it, theory of mind originally evolved to facilitate purely psychological inter-personal interactions in primeval societies. However, in the absence of the more mechanistic, scientific understanding of the physical world that was not to evolve until recently, existing mentalistic adaptations were applied to the universe as a whole, transferring concepts like agency, intention, culpability and prescience to deities, demons and supernatural entities of all kinds. As a result, reality as a whole - and not just social reality - became peopled with mental agents who could be influenced in ways analogous to those in which ordinary humans could be: through supplication (prayer), generosity (sacrifice), or contrition (penance). In this way, personal needs, failings and frustrations beyond the remedy of mere mortals could be redressed, and a mentalistic pre-adaptation set the scene for the evolution of religion, magic and superstition as independent cognitive systems.
it is a logical fallacy to equate "belief in no intelligent design" with "no belief in intelligent design".
if you don't understand the difference, a refresher course on logic 101 will help you out.
one makes a claim, the other does not.
There's no such thing as "belief in no intelligent design".
You can easily disprove intelligent design in 2 steps.
Step 1:
watch evolution happening live, showing there is no designer, the designs are slight changes to what came before
Step 2: there is no designer present by any evidence of any sort at any time ever. Go find some evidence to prove otherwise. We're all still waiting... same as the last 60,000 years humans have existed.
"Abusing scripture that way shows a cynical hypocrisy, but thanks for trying. "
The point made was the same one Jesus made, so how is that abuse? I simply used his words to express my own thoughts. Are you saying I can't quote from the bible unless I'm a Christian? In that case, I can't qoute Karl Marx unless I'm a communist, or Ayn Rand unless I'm a Libertarian?
I know one thing, again from the bible. God created us with free will. To me, that suggests He expects each of us to arrive at our own conclusions (and act accordingly) through the exercise of that will, otherwise what's the point? Thus, how we act must be at least as important to Him as whether we believe he exists. For that matter, why should God even care if we believe in him? Is our belief necessary for his existence? Does it all come down to a question of worship? Pretty small god, if so.
not mine.
I have none-never have-never will-and I'm the best possible human a human can be because of that.
'gawd' is moral depravity.
Anyone who needs a book, or a fairy god-mother, to "be good" is in fact the worst possible psychopath, a detriment to the species.
Good people are born good & don't need police-state-fairy-gods issued from on-high to follow.
I grew up in Appalachia and the conditions Snyder describes haven't changed much since I left in the 90s -- and that was during an economic boom for the rest of the country. Face it, Appalachia has always been a shithole going back centuries. There's no reason for anyone to live there unless they absolutely have to. People who have talent and determination to succeed get the hell out at a young age, so you're left with deadbeats and losers and a few good people who feel attached to the region for whatever reason.
And with economic interventionism of the federal govt, stacks of federal regulations that could paper over Mt. Everest, Obamacare and QE and everything else... Snyder pins the blame on free trade agreements? Come on.
Are you saying that the US hasn't been shedding manufacturing jobs, etc., to parts of the world with little or no regulations, thanks to the margin pushers at all costs on Wall Street? Surely this has impacted all regions negatively.
the us has been losing manufacturing jobs, that's normal and expected.
$50/hr paid to a union worker in the us, vs. $50/week paid to someone overseas, one would have to be foolish to opt for the us worker.
no, it has not affected all regions negatively - the company doing the hiring can lower their costs and provide a more competitively priced product.
also, the worker hired overseas benefits from having an increased standard of living.
it's a win-win situation.
only a myopic, us-centric view says that "all regions" are affected negatively.
NO, it was foolish to outsource to the overseas workers because a) the product wasn't as good at first and b) the wages would be hurt & this serves us no purpose.
You drop prices first, not wages, so people can adapt.
That didn't happen in the right order & it's still not so the only outcome possible is suffering.
No one should enter into that & it wasn't voluntary.
The day there's a free market is the day a person needs no more paperwork & cost to move to any other nation than a corporation does (per-person in that corporation).
Instead immigration controls fence in humans & allow obscene benefits up-front for corporations to move without restrictions, even those pilfering technology that would put a normal person in prison for doing the same act.
Do away with all immigration controls on the planet, with all patent laws, and then let's see how the movie ends.
This article is slightly misleading. Appalacia has always been this poor. Decades ago, I knew of Christian Brothers who used to go to Appalacia on missionary work to work with the poor and they would talk about how horrendous the poverty and filth there was.
Also, I don't see the rest of the country going this way short of total catastrophe such as war, etc. Because many of us - myself included - will not stand to live in this kind of disorder and hopelessness. We'll either pick up the pieces or leave. Sure, there will be some parts like Detroit and almost any of the inner cities that never pull themselves together because they don't know anything else. But the rest of us won't stand for this kind of lifestyle for long.
The vast majority of the entire country is only a paycheck or 2 away from sever financial hardship. Good luck picking yourself up and re-building your life with no money and no jobs. Moving with no funds is hard to do. Throw in a wife and a few kids, and despartion sets in PDQ. Got any debt? Tough to service with no money. Got a house you need to sell? Good luck.
If you are under 30 and single, you have plenty of options, but every year older and every additional obligation further plants your feet on cement.
The rest of us will stand the kind of lifestyle we can afford, including you, so don't elevate yourself too high up on your pedistal.
d0nt worri3z, wehn the pow3r is shuT off & the waterz all d1rtee we will buY are way to prosp3rity with teh b1tcoinz!
Blockchainz - it has electrolytes!
"Decades ago, I knew of Christian Brothers who used to go to Appalacia on missionary work"
hallelujah! blessed are the Christian Brothers, especially Christian Brothers XO:
http://www.christianbrothersbrandy.com/xo.html
So whats new? AK,KY,WV parts of TN.GA.AL,NC,etc have been periodically exploited for natural resources and near slave labor for a century and more. It is not a matter of occurrence but a repetitive cycle of to what extent poverty, anger,desperation and lack of pride infect communities in decay.
Rent the movie Matewan for a accurate depiction of just how corporate exploitation has played out for Appalachians even when there was plenty of demand for their resources and services. Presently with poor demand for mining, farm and forest products rural people get starved out by corporate forces, high on quantity and low on quality such as in corp agriculture? And what is the Agenda 21 protocol? Depopulate rural areas forcing those people into metro areas?
Where is the textile industry, construction products, pulp wood, fresh and humane farm products? They left with free trade agreements and corp Ag.... Granted it wasn't much to live on but it built community, quality of life and beat government assistance, growing dope, hooking and cooking meth.
Funny, I never realized that Alaska (AK) is or has been part of Appalachia.
Although tour almost any interior or Yukon-Kuskokwim-Bering Sea Native village, and aside from the lack of forests and the facial features of the residents, one could very well think that one was in fact in Appalachia, including the rampant drug and alcohol (ab)use, domestic violence, and mass reliance on federal welfare --- the latter in particular to a much greater degree than in Appalachia, and probably by a long shot, as unbelieveable as that may be to most.
The welfare kings of the USA are Alaskan Natives, whose cultures, work ethic and self-identities have been largely destroyed as a result. That is highly politically incorrect to acknowledge, even or maybe especially here in Alaska, but it is stone-cold fact.
He meant AR, akak...Arkansas. Should have also added in Missouri...MISERY.
I didn't Red Arrow ya.
Sometimings it is hard to convince appalachianism citizens of the blobbing up of other poverties.
Bottlers are very protective of their territory as are franchises. You can't ship soda to another bottler's territory. You are going to be fined mercilessly. No bottler will allow their soda to be sold in another territory even if third party is involved. I call BS to soda story hoarding.
the implication here is that a lot this poverty developed recently. most of you kids under 40 do not remember when the usa was filled with pollution gushing factories paying people great money, making the usa the greatest empire in the history of the world. most of you under 40 have watched but not seen the slow dismantling of the american dream. you've been sold down the river.
rural usa has been dying since the 70s. many places in the northeast have been dying since the 60s. urban usa has been dying since the 90s notably in the former rust belt.
it is depressing traveling to foreign, former third world, countries, that are much more modern, wealthy and optimistic in every way than the usa lifestyle.
"it is depressing traveling to foreign, former third world, countries, that are much more modern, wealthy and optimistic in every way than the usa lifestyle."
what!? why would you be depressed about that? that's inspring, it's exciting, to see a formerly poor country thriving and prospering, it gives hope for the future.
and it's normal - these things go in cycles.
don't be so attached to the usa, it's nothing special. it's had its day, it's had a good run.
once it's worked off its excesses (overconsumption, instant gratification culture, excess credit & borrowing, etc), it might even survive long enough into the future to again return to prosperity, if we haven't destroyed the world by then.
you should go to these more modern, wealthy, and optimistic countries, that should be your future and your inspiration, if that's really how they make you feel.
>> our politicians are betraying the American people
Corporations are people and the politicians are doing the bidding of the people that support them financially.
This happens in in cities too. They don't tradr for soda though.
Yup. In the cities, it's Tide laundry detergent.
Kentucky has two Republican Senators. What have Mitch McConnell and Randy Paul done for Kentucky? Nothing. Jobs? On Election Night, Brian Williams hit the nail on the head: there are 90K federal jobs in Kentucky. Let's see what kind of fiscal conservative Mitch McConnell really is. LOL. We read about McConnell getting medical treatment and Walter Reed Hospital. Question: why isn't his ass in Kentucky getting medical care? Does McConnell even own a house in Kentucky?
I've stated before: if you're unemployed, you need to be in a Republican's office conducting your job search. If you don't find a job, you don't leave the Republican's office.
Detroit offers us a chance to do better accounting. First. State Bank of North Dakota. Let's get one into ever state. Kentucky is not putting any money into real estate coffers. That's a one finger salute to Alan Greenspan and the bankers. Detrot real estate: calculate how lack of mortgages screws the TBTF banks. Then, using local credit unions, dismantle Detroit real estate and build smaller, SUSTAINABLE structures, off the grid. Calculate how many Alan Greenspans and TBTF banks are screwed. Once built off the grid, stay off the grid. Use organic gardening to screw the food corporations. Seed saving is a one finger salute to Monsanto. Again, creative accounting, documenting the way to screw the Rothschilds and the private bank cartel. Local, sustainable, organic are the way to go in the future.
And that Republican Sen. Joe Manchin from WV, too. Get in his office.
And that Republican in the White House too! But you might get shot if you get too close to his office.
Yup. Former White House Press Secy. to Dubya recently commented "I see the currect administration as the fourth term for Bush" (quoted loosely, I don't have it in front of me).
We really have to stop pretending that there is a substantive difference between Rep and Dem. Whether you vote R or D only expresses the preference over which hole you'd rather take it in.
Dubya's AG Gonzalez was interviewed on radio yesterday after Obama's stupid NSA speech. He stated how pleased he was that Obama was full-steam-ahead with so many Bush policies he had run against, such as NSA data collection...
AG Gonzales is a POS
but you knew that
Politicians should not "do anything for you", except get out of your way and keep the rest of the government out of your way as well. That is our problem (or one of them).
What was the name of that Republican President who signed NAFTA? Oh, yeah, now I remember. Bill Clinton. False Red/Blue paradigm guys.
Don't forget the complete moron Al Gore pushing NAFTA. One old link for The Independent (UK) declared "Gore Trounces Perot." Watching these debates now, you can see how wrong that was. It is almost like Ross Perot is reading a crystal ball. Then there's Al acting like a pompous ass who is clueless.
There are probably some better links, but here is one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3GjJtXbaZg
Save room for Newt Gingrich. He loved NAFTA too.
Yeah the was a difference in '93 and go back and look at who voted on NAFTA. Old-labor Democrats and New Dealers rejected NAFTA because they knew it would leave to a destruction of manufacturing job in the Midwest and the Northeast along with other select industries in the South including the furniture industry in NC for example.
Senate Vote
Senate YES NO
Democrats 27 28
Republicans 34 10
No Vote(1 Democrat))
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm...
House of Representatives YES NODemocrats 102 156
Republicans 132 43
Independents 1 http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1993/roll575.xml 75.79% of all Republicans voted for NAFTA
41.08% of all Democrats voted for NAFTA The GOP has been out to f@ck the working man in the US and has gotten even more rabid about it. Obama certainly has done little to nothing for the working poor but if the GOP first and foremost goals for 30 years has been reduction of the upper income taxe rates, getting rid of the estate tax, and greatly favoring capital over income through taxation policy.
The right and left wing of the same bird of prey. Plenty of Dems voted yes, and it was signed into law by a Dem. president. Same with the repeal of Glass-Stegall. Your argument in favor of the Dems is bullshit. They don't care one more whit for the working man than do the Repubs. Take that to the bank.
BS. It just doesn't just fit into your rant.
Go look the damn voting rolls which I posted links to. Both the Democrats in the House/Senate voted AGAINST it and yeah in the early 90s there still was a very vibrant and organized private labor component that mattered and was very much against the kind of free-trade bills which would eviscerate US-based manufacturing. NAFTA was private labor Democrats Waterloo.
Just like the Democrat who was gonna decline to renew the "Patriot" Act, and work hard to protect individual liberties, close Gitmo, bring home all of the troops, stop picking fights abroad and etc., etc.
The point is plenty of Democrats voted for NAFTA and the repeal of Glass-Stegall, and the vaunted BJ Clinton signed 'em both. The Dems are every bit as against the peons as the Republicans. Period.
Done talking to you about this issue. I posted the numbers for the NAFTA bill and the vote roles yet you completely ignore them. You seriously don't think there has been serious change in both parties over the past 20 years?
As for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Vote in '99, your generally right but a number of the old vanguard of the Democratic Party who voted against NAFTA (and who would have voted against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Vote in '99) were voted out in '94 when the GOP took over both Houses of Congress
The 'Patriot Act' renewal was a completely seperate issue and was over 15 years later. Ditto some of the other bills.
Oh yeah, there has been change in the parties over the last 30 or 40 years. They change all the time to become more alike, with the Dems becoming more warmongering and pushing hard to curtail civil rights and the Repubs engaging in more entitlement vote-buying. BTW, had your beloved Dems not rammed the AWB down our throats in '94, they probably wouldn't have been voted out. Just wait 'til the fallout from O'bomb-a-care really starts to hit home.
Just like the D's votd against the Civil Rights bill?
Actually to me it looks like you didn't inspect closely enough to see who got what brown envelopes.
Looks pretty clear to me the red/blue paradigm is a lie.