An article for Billy. Where I live isn’t much different. Obama has killed off thousands of good paying coal jobs. 50% of the population in the county are on food stamps. Welfare and disability are a career path. And the upper crust, the 1%’ers around here? Doctors or business owners? Nope, union drone government employees. They’re making $120,000 a year and retiring at 50 with massive pensions. Welcome to socialism/communism in the USSA.
Vast Stretches Of Impoverished Appalachia Look Like They Have Been Through A War
By Michael Snyder, on January 15th, 2014
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:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367903/white-ghetto-kevin-d-williamson/page/0/1
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.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/vast-stretches-of-impoverished-appalachia-look-like-they-have-been-through-a-war
Yep, looks like rural areas of Oregon. There used to be good paying logging jobs and mills, then there was that whole spotted owl bullshit that killed logging in OR. The spotted owls went endangered anyway though, because it was actually larger aggressive owls from the east moving in and killing them off and had nothing to do with logging truly. Anyway, score one for government regulation. Fewer jobs and more welfare and meth and illegals — yippie.
Welfare really helps these folks, doesn’t it? I suppose considering a move to somewhere a bit more affluent is out of the question for these folks.
In the depression, the folks were smart enough to pick up and vacate the Dustbowl. But that was before the welfare state gathered steam. Now, they just wait for the free shit to flow in.
It is not a pretty sight. But I did not shed tears reading it.
Don’t get me wrong. I hate change. All change. With a passion. If I were an Irishman at the time of the famine, faced with starvation or emigration to America, I’d have stayed in County Clare, eaten grass and tried to dull the pain with alcohol. There comes a time, though, when you just have to get the fuck out. I don’t understand black free shit army members who stay in the ghetto and do nothing, but I don’t understand these white free shit army members any better. And all this talk about globalization decimating the US manufacturing economy – I’m sure it’s true, but isn’t it mostly beside the point? On an individual basis everyone has to deal with reality. What are you going to do, sit there in rural Appalachia and hope someone opens a furniture factory down the block? US metro areas are populated by the grandchildren of people from farms and small towns. Thousands of small towns have ceased to exist as people moved to the cities. People have to deal with changes in the economy. I don’t have all of the answers, but staying out there in bumfuck Egypt and collecting food stamps clearly isn’t the answer.
Seriosuly, the conclusions this article draws is bullshit. I run a manufacturing business. There is no way in hell I would want these sorts for my employees. I would uproot and take my business elsewhere. You really think this drug-addled, ignorant folks can compete in a global marketplace? Really?
Yep, blame the government and companies for “taking” their jobs. Bullshit. Those folks have nothing worth buying. Employees sell their labor. And no company wants to buy it. For good reason.
Re the welfare, I am glad to see that the money they are being given is being well utilized – for tobacco, alcohol, drugs, lottery tickets, whores, and to subsidize the local grocer.
For fuck sake – the authors say “they just try to do the best that they can with what they have.” That is a fucking outright damn lie. How can they say something like that, and then freely admit that these folks waste what precious resources they have on alcohol, drugs, tobacco, lottery tickets, whores and Pepsi?
What they fuck is wrong with people? Who in there right mind thinks these folks are doing they best they can with what they have? Do you honestly think that a sane, reasonable person would behave this way?
Many, the welfare state s truly fucking up the country. People know they can be low-life pieces of shit, with no skills, no education, etc., and they government will yank out a tit. And motherfuckers like these authors will put the blame everywhere except where it belongs.
The government deserves blame – for allowing the welfare state. But to blame the government for these people not having jobs? That is on them. For sure and certain. Ignorant fucks that they are.
Man this stuff pisses me off. We are smart enough not to feed the fucking bears, but no-o-o-o-o-o, we cannot figure out that the same thing applies to humans.
Feed the bears, and they will not fend for themselves, and will hang around the campsites causing problems. Feed the fucking humans, and they will not fend for themselves and will hang around the destitute areas causing problems.
Fuck me dead, people are stupid.
The Appalachia area has been the marker of poverty for awhile. LBJ’s Great Society used the Appalachians as propaganda to further their cause.
August 11, 1985
“Johnson signed the Appalachian Regional Development Act on March 9, 1965, declaring optimistically, ”The dole is dead.” The act established the first major Great Society program under a new Appalachian Regional Commission, assigned to bring industry, jobs and government services to an impoverished, neglected region.”
“Contrary to Johnson’s 1965 declaration, ”the dole” in Appalachia is far from dead. From 1970 to 1980, while the cost of welfare payments nearly quadrupled for the nation as a whole, it increased four and half times in the Appalachian region. By 1984, measured by payments under six major welfare programs, including food stamps, school lunches and public assistance, Appalachian beneficiaries were receiving more Federal assistance than the average for other Americans: $219 per capita in the region as against $209 per capita across the United States. ”
“Here in central Appalachia, Professor Miernyk said a major evolution in mechanized mining technology was duplicating in part the ”devastating dislocation” of the 1950’s. Then, within a decade, the first broad application of mechanization to labor-intensive, pick-and-shovel mining methods obliterated two-thirds of Appalachia’s coal mine jobs. Mine employment fell from 400,000 in 1951 to 144,000 in 1961. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/11/us/despite-20-years-of-federal-aid-poverty-still-reigns-in-appalachia.html?pagewanted=1
An emergent problem for the West (and maybe the East in due course) is that mechanisation and automation has cost jobs. Initially these jobs were the less-skilled, repetitive variety, but as technology (and particularly control software / “AI”) progressed, the “dumb machines” have become far less dumb.
This has led to the well reported shift in employment from manufacture to service; with many of these “service” roles now very amenable to machine-management (it’s a case of “press 1 for Telephone Banking” rather than speaking to a human), the remaining bastions of “human-only” employment are dwindling, and dwindling ever-faster.
When the future of “Burger-flipping” is that of a machine that can prepare fresher, better burgers faster than any human operative (with no need for rest-breaks, holidays, sick leave, pension, or “counselling”) the writing is starting to appear on the proverbial wall for many who can still eke out some form of relatively unskilled living.
What can we do with the unemployable? Add in their high-risk lifestyles, and this soon becomes the sickly, ageing and infirm unemployable, supported by a vanishing number of those in “employment”.
There are lots of “best methods” but they all come with significant price tags; looking after the elderly is one thing, looking after 80% of the working-age population, AND the elderly, is completely different.
Future Politicians are certainly going to have to earn their money if they expect to come up with a solution acceptable to all-comers. I sincerely wish them all the best.
(p.s. Seeing as I’ve “paid my taxes”, I’ll be joining my difficult, overweight and bellicose Patients in demanding “I’ve got my RIGHTS, Mate!” in true Aussie style (along the lines of I’m all right Mate – F***k the rest of you!)
LIpoh ,would you say the same things about Indians on Reservations ?Many injuns have been on these places for a hundred years or more.They do have gambling as a source of income but still not a lot has
Improved for most .Seems like they are stuck much like others in their poverty.I don’t have the answers but would like to know what you think.
llpoh beat me to it… this is what happens when government:
1) under-educates citizens and prohibits the development of critical-thinking skills that would help those people understand what their options really are
2) offers to “take care” of them and then gives them a free handout to use as they will, without restrictions, without stipulation of a “deadline” for benefits to run out, without any kind of work in return for what they receive
Ultimately, the government is at fault, but the people deserve some of the blame. It’s not that difficult to know that a drug- and alcohol-addicted path in life isn’t going to get you anywhere. These people subjected themselves to slavery (or worse) in return for a measure of “security” that is anything but.
This is shameful, but the “solution” is just as shameful. After all, what are they going to do? Imprison these people? Put them in institutions for the rest of their lives? Let them die? This is no different than what Stalin did to “fringe” groups in Russia. They certainly can’t be rehabilitated and employed. It’s far too late for that.
This is inhumane. This reeks of a society that is corrupted to its very core. And it’s not restricted to just one area in the U.S., it’s everywhere. And it will become worse as entitlements are cut, as the government can no longer meet its obligations and as our economy continues to deteriorate.
How did America become this?
For crissakes Llpoh, there aren’t any jobs, and the jobs they used to have, have been shut down by the government. Being on welfare or disability pays the equivalent of $54,000 in total benefits, you’d have to make that much pre-tax to equal what the government is handing out.
The article is about the pathology caused by government dependence. Humans have an innate, instinctual urge to work and produce. When this is taken away, in our or any socialist/communist society, people display pathological behavior, including becoming obese, alcoholics, drug addicts, baby daddies, and all the other shit. Are you going to give somebody a job making $54k a year like uncle Obama does (their job being to vote)? You can’t be a drug addict pill popping alcoholic bum if you have to work for a living, or provide for a family. But there aren’t even families anymore, 70% of kids on welfare were born out of wedlock. The effects of socialism are ugly.
Are these poor whites killing each other like the inner city neegrows ?
bb says:
“LIpoh ,would you say the same things about Indians on Reservations ?Many injuns have been on these places for a hundred years or more.”
bb offers an olive branch. stop sucking, bb. shit, I hate to see you suck up. kick Llpoh in the jerky sack, you are going to do it later anyway.
bb – I feel, largely, the same about the Indians. Please do not fall for the “they have casinos” bullshit. It is pure bullshit – very few tribes benefit, and almost no Indians do. Funny enough, it is the white investors, who ponied up the original capital, that rake in a large percentage of casino profits.
Indians are the most disadvantaged group in the US, if income is used. Free shit exacerbates problems with alcohol, drugs, etc. If Indians want to live as they did centuries ago – go for it. They do not need assistance in that regard. However, if they want to live a mixed existence – partly attached to the land, while partly modern, I do not have the answer. Many tribes had their original – and much more valuable – homelands stripped from them, and were given desert in exchange. If they are to keep their traditional attaqchments to the land, while moving forward into the modern world, it will be extremely difficult for them, owing to their locations, if for no other reason.
By and large, I suggest that the welfare state is doing them no good. In the end, they will have to move away.
Or the people of the US will have to determine there is significant value in retaining the Indian culture. If that is the case, there is enormous work to be done, becuse right now, the free shit provided is doing more harm than good.
AWD – there aren’t any jobs is not entirely correct. There are not jobs for them there. And not for them anywhere, I suspect. These folks built their culture over centuries, not the last 4 decades of welfare. Do not kid yourself. These hillbillies have always been thus. They are unemployable in today’s world.
But we have made something of the same point. Take away the free shit. They will begin to make different decisions, and will do so rapidly.
The working class has been betrayed by the Democrat and Republican prostitutes. They will be repaid with violence and retribution.
“Are these poor whites killing each other like the inner city neegrows ?”
No, but only because they are not living so close together. Where they are, the violence is endemic, especially within families and homes.
” Take away the free shit. They will begin to make different decisions, and will do so rapidly. ”
Be careful what you wish for: If they are Hillbillies (as you suggest) they WILL have a very “useful” skillset that they just might be inclined to use if their comfort zone is threatened.
Hope you are well-armed, ’cause they will be well armed too – and there’s nothing quite like an aggrieved mob when it comes to dishing out “mob rule” (justified or otherwise – they sure will believe THEIR case is fully justified). Plenty of historical support for this viewpoint too – the Luddites, the Pentrich Rising, and the Swing Riots of the early 1800s are but a few examples of “The Aggrieved” taking out their frustrations on the property (and often persons) of those seen as “unfairly profiting from change”, justified or not.
El coyote,no sucking up .LIpoh is Indian and I was just wondering about the problems Indians face on the reservation.Seems like the problems are the same in many ways.
Llpoh
“There are not jobs for them there. And not for them anywhere, I suspect. These folks built their culture over centuries, not the last 4 decades of welfare. Do not kid yourself. These hillbillies have always been thus. They are unemployable in today’s world.”
Okay Llpoh, let’s hear about the last time you actually went through Appalachia. Let’s hear about anyone you know personally who actually lives there. Hell, I’ll even settle for someone you casually met once 25 years ago…
Because the above statement by you is blanket bullshit. “These hillbillies” you say…. wonder what the blowback would be if I said “dirty fucking alcoholic Injuns”.
You say this—> “There is no way in hell I would want these sorts for my employees. I would uproot and take my business elsewhere. You really think this drug-addled, ignorant folks can compete in a global marketplace? Really?”
You make it sound like they have always been drug addled and ignorant, which is a load of shit. I’m gonna tell you something, and I want you to judge it on it’s merit.
I took a series of classes at UK that dealt with the history and people of the App. Mountain range, taught by a Professor who hailed from Pikeville – dead nuts square in Hillbilly central. The short version:
The folks who inhabit the Appalachian mountains are mostly the descendants of Scots-Irish settlers fleeing taxation. When the great migrations west occurred, they went around the mountains and bypassed them, leaving them alone, mostly.
Eventually, interest turned to those mountains because of the coal. Asshole reps from the railroad kings and coal speculators went traveling through the mountains and counted on the generosity of the mountain people – there were no inns or hotels to speak of, so they usually stayed with individual families, pretending to be innocent travelers. Then they would say something like “Hey, howabout you sell me the mineral rights to your land for X dollars? You can keep what’s on the land, we just want what’s under it.” And, the poor families usually took the money.
Once the first railroad into the mountains was built and they could get at the coal, know what happened? The coal companies came by with bulldozers. They scraped off the topsoil, bulldozed the houses and crops into a heap and told the families “there’s your land and your house. We’re gonna take our coal now.” I shit you not. This happened over and over again, all over the App. mountain range. It was awful.
After being taken advantage of, most folks became very suspicious of outsiders. They became clannish, stiff, standoffish, etc.. and of course, Hollywood got in on the act, portraying the mountain folk as ignorant, toothless, shoeless hayseeds, usually skunked on their own liquor. Most FUCKING IDIOTS bought into the stereotype without ever setting foot in the mountains or meeting a single resident thereof.
Moving away? They did. Big boom up in Detroit attracted so many folks from the App. mountains they called it the Hillbilly Highway.
The coal industry sustained many places, but with Obongo’s new ‘initiative’, coal is fast dying off. And right on the heels of that are the frontmen for the Free Shit Army, going door to door getting people to sign up for Free Shit…
Folks do what they can to get by. Some are fortunate enough to have enough arable land to run cattle or grow crops, but most aren’t. Like I said in another post elsewhere – used to be tobacco was a guaranteed paycheck. That got killed off. Then it was horses. The do-gooder assholes pressured the Gooberment and that got killed off. Then it was coal. The HNIC hisself is shutting that down. Some used to make ‘shine to pay the bills, but most of those guys are long gone. Some grow pot, but the State Copfuks go after them with a vengeance… (if you want footage of State Copfuck helicopters flying low and slow around here, looking for stands of pot, I’ll record some for you).
Each thing they try, the state either shuts it down or makes it illegal and throws them in the clink… and here YOU are, beating your chest about how great a job you’ve done with your business and how you sneer at us poor, shoeless, ignorant hill-folk and how you will never hire any of us BECAUSE we’re poor, shoeless, ignorant hill-folk…
Fuck you, Llpoh. Just fuck you thrice over.
Do I LIKE seeing good people on the Free Shit Wagon or popping pills or cooking meth or women whoring themselves out? Fuck no!
Lastly, I see how you disingenuously ignored this, in order to be able to thump your chest and tell us how great you are and how sucky all those “hillbillies” are: “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.”
You think you’re so fucking awesome? Why don’t YOU move there and see what you can do with it? Apparently, us ignorant hill-folk are just too stoopit to know how good we could have it… come on, tough guy, show us what you can do.
[/RANT]
Billy I am Scots-Irish, I traced my lineage back seven generations. I found a letter that stated my Grandfather came from Maryland and stayed with family in Pikeville Ky. before traveling 200 miles north and settling in Highland County Ohio. Descendants online say his grave is marked, I plan to one day make it there just to stand on his grave.
Said all that to say this, I am redneck from waaaaaaaay back, those people are of my tribe.
Billy – I will get back to you. Too bad you are blinded by what is right in front of you. What say you post some facts re education and such. Those hillybillies are ignorant. Show me otherwise.
I do not tend to comment like this unless I have some personal experience. I spent enough time around hillybillies in Appalachia to know what I am talking about.
They did not get like they are by being prime human specimens. Hell, using your Negroe logic, they may not even be homo sapien, based on how they behave and the great decisions they make.
Hey – I say much the same about my peeps. You need to see the forest.
sensetti
Obviously the article is written in order to pluck the heart-strings of people and illustrate how fucking poor it is in those mountains. Folks really, really don’t believe them when I say there are folks there that are dirt-floor poor. No running water poor. Still gotta take a shit in the outhouse poor. Until they actually get there and see it firsthand.
The Free Shitters in the cities got nothing to bitch about – a mountain of treasure has been showered on them, and all they’ve managed to do is wreck whatever city they currently live in, create murder and mayhem and reproduce.
Free Shit is wrong. But the fucking government slapping good people down each time they try to make ends meet is even worse. On balance, I’d rather the fucking government just ignore us and leave us to our own means.
Chest-thumpers like Llpoh actually do have a reason to be proud. They’ve made it, and good for them. But to then turn around and buy into the stereotype, and then use that stereotype as an excuse to NOT hire anyone from the App Mountains is just beyond outrage. And that stereotype continues to this day – just look at the fucking shows on the Idiot box that portray us as ignorant, stupid, shoeless, bloated Fundies on meth who have relations with our sisters… they use good people as a punchline so they can sit around and congratulate themselves on how fucking awesome they all are and how GLAD they ain’t us….
There’s good people here. Self made and self reliant people. Are there pill poppers? Yep. Same with the Meth heads, and they are a scourge. But a community can only have so many carpenters. So many plumbers or coal miners or shop owners or guys who put up fences…
Know how someone usually gets on pills around here? Work. I’ve met 4 masons in the last 4 years, and all but one was on painkillers. They use the painkillers so they can work longer hours, lay more brick or block or rock and make more money… but it’s a devil’s bargain. You have to take more to get the same effect, so eventually they end up addicts in the end. Guaranteed.
Guys like Llpoh, they got a reason to be proud, but I’m thinking he doesn’t know the scope and depth of the problem… it’s not one city or a county or even an entire state or commonwealth… it’s a MOUNTAIN RANGE that stretches from New England all the way down into the Deep South. Folks who live there are usually on family farms/property that have been in their possession for 200 years, sometimes… tough to leave that. Most won’t be budged, not even at gunpoint.
Billy, I will give you credit for a good rant. You are just too personally invested. Fact is, they have made an ongoing series of bad decisions. Especially re education and modernizing their communities. Those were their decisions.
Your comments about the pillpoppers and freeshitters being good people is …… unusual. Wonder what they would need to do to be bad people?
Why would I move back to a ghetto? Country ghetto or city, a ghetto is a ghetto. I was born into one – I got the fuck out. Never going back, never.
As a further observation – you are one of the govt drone 1%ers AWD mentioned in his intro, aren’t you? You came/went back with a lifetime guaranteed income, didn’t you? Would you have gone back without that little ace in the hole? Be honest now, Billy.
I do know more about being forced off land than most anyone. Make no mistake about it. Try a different argument, Billy.
Again, I respect your loyalty. But you are not seeing the real picture. In my opinion.
Llpoh
“Billy – I will get back to you. Too bad you are blinded by what is right in front of you. What say you post some facts re education and such. Those hillybillies are ignorant. Show me otherwise.
I do not tend to comment like this unless I have some personal experience. I spent enough time around hillybillies in Appalachia to know what I am talking about.”
Oh, I see now. It’s their level of education you’re concerned with, is that it? Because that’s what “ignorant” means..
I will say again, not everyone is destined to go to University. Our current crop, the Minnies, seem to think that it’s a Right that’s been guaranteed them via Holy Writ. Because of that entitlement mentality, we now have zillions of unemployed, and unemployable, Minnes with degrees in such wonderful subjects as “Women’s Studies” or “Marketing” or some other useless bullshit. And meanwhile, nobody can find a competent plumber under the age of 65 because EVERYONE went to University… yeah, being a lowly plumber, a tradesman, being “ignorant”, was just not for them, right?
However, using YOUR reasoning, well they’ve been through University and are not “ignorant”, are they? Tell me, Llpoh, how many Minnies have you hired with degrees in Women’s Studies or African American Studies? They’re not “ignorant” are they?
Just… don’t talk to me anymore about being “ignorant” about a subject… you demonstrate the concept better than I ever could…
You ‘spent time’ in Appalachia, huh? Well, since “Appalachia” stretches from New England to somewhere in the deep South, you’re going to have to be a bit more exact as to where and when, how long, etc…
See, what I have found, actually having grown up here and currently live here, is that folks who buy into the stereotype before meeting anyone from Appalachia tend to experience the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. They expect hill folks to be “not like them”, usually take the way they talk, that drawl, as a sign of stupidity or slowness, and hold their lack of higher education against them.. did I miss anything Llpoh?
Now, usually it’s the fucking Yankees that experience the self fulfilling prophecy about us hill folks, so you’re kind of an enigma, since I don’t know your history.
And before you try to compare how you view hill folks to how I view negroes – save it. I grew up neutral with regards to them and didn’t have any opinion of them until I was well into my 20’s, after I had a chance to actually LIVE with them for extended periods of time… like years… eat with them, share rooms and showers and shitters and vehicles, etc, etc…
As far as what you call ‘your peeps’, I don’t give a shit. I can be objective and critical of my own ‘peeps’ and I have been. You’d know that if you bother to read any other posts I’ve made. I was even critical of the article as being designed to pluck the heart strings… to get people to make decisions based on emotion rather than intellect. Hardly objective reporting.
It sucks that there are pill poppers and Free Shitters and whores in the mountains… and yeah, I’m ashamed of them. But there are MORE good people there than there are pill heads and whores and meth heads… and I give them way more credit than YOU seem to be willing..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gwKc2vCQ1PE
“Fuck you, Llpoh. Just fuck you thrice over.”
Agreed. I hate when the country folk are automatically equated to ignorant without proof.
“I do not tend to comment like this unless I have some personal experience. I spent enough time around hillybillies in Appalachia to know what I am talking about.”
TBP is so humbled by your wise experience. You are an expert at everything! I see you failed to provide details of your experience with the common hill folk or say how long you lived in the area.
Billy says:
” I was even critical of the article as being designed to pluck the heart strings… to get people to make decisions based on emotion rather than intellect. Hardly objective reporting.”
This is TBP, folks here deal with reality on all planes, intellectual, sexual, emotional, or humorous. Quincy Jones said all thinking (and writing) involves the emotions as well as the intellect. Dr Pangloss said all stories share the common core of human history and every story known to man becomes an archetype that we recognize whether the story is about Indians or Appalachians. Now let’s get back to my favorite topic, beaners.
Northern Appalachians.
Tennessee.
NC
A bit in others.
Re education, it is the overall education of a populous that matters re economic success. The Appalachians missed that boat, and are suffering because of it. The society is degrading as a result.
Again, what would you have done without your government check each month? Would you have gone to the hills, or elsewhere? .
Snicker – keep dreaming you are in heaven. I am sure Detroit folk love their town too.
llpoh
“Your comments about the pillpoppers and freeshitters being good people is …… unusual. Wonder what they would need to do to be bad people?”
Nice try on putting words in my mouth and misinterpreting what I said. I SAID “There’s good people here. Self made and self reliant people. Are there pill poppers? Yep. Same with the Meth heads, and they are a scourge.”
See, to me, I clearly delineated between “good people, self made and self reliant people” and “pill poppers”. That they were referenced in the form of a question illustrates that they are apart from the “good people”…. and there’s the whole “scourge” part… But, you get points for trying to derail what I was saying and divert the conversation into something else…
Moving on.
“As a further observation – you are one of the govt drone 1%ers AWD mentioned in his intro, aren’t you? You came/went back with a lifetime guaranteed income, didn’t you? Would you have gone back without that little ace in the hole? Be honest now, Billy.”
I was a soldier. A starry-eyed kid who grew up hearing stories from his Uncles and Cousins and even his Father about their adventures in the military. I knew I was going to be a soldier. There was never any question about it and never an alternative. I did what I did, at first out of patriotism, then because I loved it. I grew disillusioned with my government, and eventually the social experiment those in government turned the military into, but I never thought of quitting. Not for one second. I had to get blasted out of the job. Blown back into the world and medically retired in a very, very short period of time.
You want to call me a drone? Go ahead, feel free. I’ve been called worse by better. America has always needed certain men who would do what others were unable or incapable of doing. Who was going to do that job, Llpoh? YOU? Don’t make me fucking laugh…
Would I have come here without my “ace in the hole” as you put it? Yep. Never any question as to where we would live. And, for your information, there WAS no “ace in the hole” for years…. we lived like paupers, within our means, saving every penny so we could afford someplace nice. Someplace AWAY from the Uruk Hai. I saw which way the wind was blowing, what our country was turning into, so we decided on a farm. We saved for 7 years while my “ace in the hole” was being ignored in St. Louis… so don’t give me that shit.
AND, since I’m going to be opening my own shop, my own BUSINESS, don’t act like I’m some fucking parasite like…. like a dirty fucking alcoholic Injun sitting around drinking his liver to death…
Snicker says:
“Fuck you, Llpoh. Just fuck you thrice over.”
You guys trying to seduce Llpoh? He said to lay off the violent rhetoric but come on, you swear like boys playing sailor. You are not going to get a good fight if you don’t draw some blood, not that you could, but give it a try.
Llpoh
“I do know more about being forced off land than most anyone. Make no mistake about it. Try a different argument, Billy.”
No, YOU misunderstand…
They weren’t “forced off their land”. Their land, their homes and crops, etc, were bulldozed into a heap. According to the bought-and-paid-for courts, they still technically owned the pile of dirt and logs that was “their land”… it was just impossible to live on it.
A difference, but a significant one.
Next.
Llpoh- For how long?
“Again, what would you have done without your government check each month? Would you have gone to the hills, or elsewhere? ”
Those people lived in those mountains for generations before the government started handing out free checks. I am sure they have skills to survive or already be dead. But hey, while the government is give away free money, I can’t blame people for saying thanks and pocketing it. The government is the biggest fool of all.
Billy – you draw a govt pension. You will draw much more than you made in service. I appreciate and thank you for your service. I object to the retirement schemes offered any government employee, including the military. By the way, I too served.
Who has provided better for the country? Me, by providing jobs, and literally into 9 figures in taxes of all kinds, not counting flow-on? Or you taking physical risk? Could you do what I do? Not a chance. We could debate the merits. But fact is they can find way more like you, perhaps not as good as you, than like me. Not saying you are not good at what you do.
I misread the part about the pillpoppers and good people. My bad. You are correct there.
Billy – my people were forced off their land at gunpoint and killed in great numbers. Get serious. We owned the land, too, until we did not.
Coyote – this is just a bit of fun. They are making a mistake in underestimating where I came from, where I have been, and that I consider myself a country boy, too. I love the life in the country. Appalachians are God’s country. But the people have righteously fucked themselves by their decisions. And there are very many fine people there. But they have not kept pace, fine folk or not. Their lack of education in particular is killing them, rapidly now.
Billy ,you got a life time pension from being in the military ?Do you realize you are part of the problem.Why does anyone owe you a life
time check just to set on your ass .No wonder you went back to the
Hills .All this time I thought you were a self made man with all the bad ass talking and yet your on the government dole yourself .
In all reality, y’all are talking the same argument and coming from the same place… pride of self (with good reason) and love for a country and society that may have passed us by (for the moment).
I’m guessing if you two were sitting out on Billy’s back porch, you’d find more in common than not. Hell, I’d bring the bourbon and cigars just to see it happen.
The enemy is not us. It’s the government — over generations — that led to this. And it doesn’t encompass everyone. We talk in generalities, but we all know we’re talking about symptoms, catalysts, not the majority. When it reaches a majority level, we’ll all be too busy trying to survive to argue about it.
Thinker – that is why I am taking no offence. As I said, I admire their loyalty and belief in the good life.
“• Education: The Mid-Appalachia region’s adult population is also markedly less educated than that of the U.S. In the year 2000, of those age 25 years and older in the U.S., 51.7 percent has at least some education beyond high school, and only 19.6 percent has less than a high school diploma. In Mid-Appalachia, only 38.9 percent has any education beyond high school, and a staggering 27.5 percent — more than a quarter of the adult population — has not completed high school. In a knowledge economy where education is increasingly critical for economic survival, these statistics shed a great deal of light on why poverty is so entrenched in the region.”
That 27.5 percent figure is the killer.
Llpoh
I’m still stuck on that “ignorant hillbillies” crack you made…
I grew up here. In point of fact, I do NOT have a 4 year college degree. Oh sure, I went to UK. Until I got sick of the leftist bullshit and left in a huff. Nothing they could teach me there that I couldn’t teach myself.
In the last 14 years, I have taught myself woodworking.
I’m better at working wood than 99% of the finish carpenters you will ever meet. And at least the equal of the better cabinetmakers. I MAKE my own woodworking tools, usually by retro-engineering antiques I find in junk shops and yard sales. I also made most of our furniture and have finished most of the rooms in our home.
I can braze, gas and stick weld at least as well as a journeyman welder. Self taught.
I know mathematics up to and including Advanced Calculus. If you pawed through the geological strata that is my library, you’ll find well worn copies of Engineering Mechanics, Probability and Statistics, books on coppersmithing and silversmithing sit next to books on how to build an atmospheric forge, which sit next to the complete works of Holtzapffel, books on metallurgy and crucible steel sit next to books on how to sand cast, even books on ancient engineering by guys like Vitruvius and Hero of Alexandria.
I can run a geared head engine lathe (preferably a South Bend), a J1 Bridgeport mill and a surface grinder as well as any machinist. I can also read and create blueprints. Making tools and retro-engineering parts is a specialty of mine. I even figured out how to blueprint and retro-engineer parts from old black and white photographs using stuff in the pictures that were known values. I can make springs from scratch, both coil and flat, including heat treating and tempering.
I can also, if I felt the need, tan leather from hardwood ashes and rainwater… AND make my own boots if I wanted..
I can make my own gunpowder and rewatt my own spent primers as well as build a miniature ball mill to grind the powder to the appropriate grain size. (WITHOUT blowing myself or the house up in the process… this is important to my wife).
I can also speak, read and write German fairly fluently and I used to have passable Spanish, though I haven’t spoken it since the middle 1990’s… and I’m not a half-bad cook.
I’m a Hillbilly.
Still want to call us “ignorant”?
Man, you really, really do not know how much I hate that shit…
Billy – take a gander at the quote above.
Almost thirty percent fail to complete high school in the mid-Appalachians. As a society, sorry my friend, and I do like you, that defines ignorant. Truth is truth. Being pissed at the truth is illogical.
Billy – I find education to be valuable as an end in itself. Good for you for keeping up the process.
@ bb
You—> “Billy ,you got a life time pension from being in the military ?Do you realize you are part of the problem.Why does anyone owe you a life
time check just to set on your ass .No wonder you went back to the
Hills .All this time I thought you were a self made man with all the bad ass talking and yet your on the government dole yourself .”
bb? You best back off of this train of thought you are on… if you keep on, I will personally hunt you down and tie your dick in a knot.
Now shut the fuck up. Adults are talking.
I guess Billy has hand made some micro-tweezers. Very impressive. He will need them for bb’s dick.
“Billy ,you got a life time pension from being in the military ?Do you realize you are part of the problem.Why does anyone owe you a life time check just to set on your ass .No wonder you went back to the Hills .All this time I thought you were a self made man with all the bad ass talking and yet your on the government dole yourself .”
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@ Llpoh
“Billy – take a gander at the quote above.
Almost thirty percent fail to complete high school in the mid-Appalachians. As a society, sorry my friend, and I do like you, that defines ignorant. Truth is truth. Being pissed at the truth is illogical.”
I’m not disagreeing with the data. The data just is.
What irritates me is that you are using “ignorant” and “incapable” interchangeably. Ignorant means uneducated. Fair enough.
Ever think about WHY those 30% left school early? The Appalachian mountains are, IMHO, about a generation or two behind everyone else in the country. Theirs (okay, OURS) is not an “information based” or “education based” society. I would posit that a good percentage of that 30% left school at the earliest opportunity did so because their family needed them to help make ends meet. I have no proof of this (and I’m pretty sure the ‘why’ of it was never written down), but given the fact that I know these people intimately, it’s a good bet that the kids left school because of family.
I won’t argue that the entire 30% did so. But a good percentage is not out of the question, given the shitty economics of the App region..
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Billy – and that is why they are struggling economically. They are incapable of thriving in a modern economy. So they are now reliant on welfare. And they will not overcome this for generations, even if they start now. If they delay, they may be stuck in the free shit army forever. But odds are that is what will happen. They have fucked themselves, their kids, their kid’s kids, etc.
It is what it is. No sugar coating.