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Too many urbanites have no grasp of the high value placed upon independence and self-reliance (albeit on a lower economic level), by rural Americans.
Three generations of my family operated a dairy farm. The pool of labor used at peak seasons gradually dried up, as the easy-to-get Unemployment check displaced the pressure to accept any work, however menial, exerted by the "Poor Districts" under the welfare system (yes, Snowflakes, there was one) which existed prior to 1936.
So the farmers who elected to stay (my Dad was one) mechanized, but that wasn't always enough, as sons, daughters and spouses found out they could earn almost as much, and be paid in hard cash, as opposed to non-(cash) paid work amid the risks a family farm. But the patriarch (you smug feminists can deride him as an "alpha male" if you wish) couldn't always stomach the humiliation of starting over past age 35 in the petty-politicized atmosphere of a low-wage "pink collar job ghetto". The next generation, for the most part, "bailed out' soon enough to escape the worst.
As Mr. Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) put it: "Don't criticize what to can't (or won't) understand".
So, let me get this straight. If not for welfare, people would still be hoeing and using scythes instead of using cultivators and combines?
Would we still be riding horses to the store?
Did telephone operators decide to "take the welfare", thereby forcing phone companies to automate?
As many have said "anecdote is not fact"....and "your perception of an experience does not pertain to others or to the Big Picture".....
No mention anywhere of Ag becoming a BIG business (always efficiency in corporate takeovers) or of farming mechanization which has been occurring for 200 years. Maybe you don't understand what is beyond your own eyes.
I know some city people from CT who bought acreage in NY State and started a Dairy Farm. Many "city folks" from out here (W. MA) have started from scratch in Ag and succeeded.
Maybe these people aren't lazy or something. Who knows?
I have. Most of it takes place in cities, not the rural country, as lots of hillbillies now live in cities. The author believes that being forced to leave their old farms caused many of the problems that afflict them now.
It's not where they live, it's how they live. The hillbillies have the same troubles now wherever they live. The problems aren't confined to one region, only cities, only the country, or even to their financial situation.
It is an illuminating book that dives deeply into a culture that has some very serious internal conflicts going on within it.
The author, J.D. Vance, is as conservative as they come, and the book is not a political treatise. In fact, there is very little mention of politics in it. It's a story of his family, a study of the events, culture, and circumstances that made them what they all became, and how all that stuff also happened to everyone else they knew or were related to.
It's also a study of how one group can cause more change in our society than we, or they, realize.
Vance has seen it all from the very bottom to the very top of the social pile. There are lots of lessons that can be drawn from his book for everyone. And it's a very good read.
Agreed. I read it last year and found it to be an interesting book. I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but I appreciated reading his perspective.
Trump beat 16 qualified republican candidates for the nomination and a lifelong democrat politician, who outspent him 3 to 1, to win the presidency. trump isn't a dumb person. you may not agree with him, but dumb he ain't.
not sure what trump has to do with booker, nurse.
That says more about his voters than it does him. Sixteen qualified candidates and you voted for him.
That says more about his voters than it does him. Sixteen qualified candidates and you voted for him.
I didn't vote for Trump and I support little he is doing but I completely disagree that there was sixteen qualified candidates and the facts are, you don't either.
I didn't vote for Trump and I support little he is doing but I completely disagree that there was sixteen qualified candidates and the facts are, you don't either.
I was using the phrase the poster I quoted used.
There were at least FIVE actual qualified candidates. And they voted for Trump, arguably the LEAST qualified even from the other 10 whose qualifications could be debated.
There were at least FIVE actual qualified candidates. And they voted for Trump, arguably the LEAST qualified even from the other 10 whose qualifications could be debated.
If Booker read Hillbilly Elegy... he didn't learn much about rural people. Most of Vance's youth was spent in Middletown, OH, which is a medium sized town in between Cincinatti and Dayton, about 40 minutes to either. It's on I-75. It's not rural.
While you may have read the book, from this paragraph it sure sounds like you completely missed the point.
While you may have read the book, from this paragraph it sure sounds like you completely missed the point.
And you misspelled Cincinnati ...
Zinzinnati?
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