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I spent my first 17 years in Boone County, W.Va. & was back for a few years in the 70s. I never knew or seen folks like this film portrayed.
I tried to watch the movie but quit after about 30 minutes. Just not to my liking.
Lennox is right on point! People want to give jobs to India, create programs for inner city black children, feed Africa and allow ILLEGAL immigrants all reign to pick through citizens dollars, if anyone says anything negative about them it is automatically considered discrimination and racism.
I live in Hollywood, CA and I am from western VA. I use the wild white documentary to show my friends how the TRUE environment of my home is. It was so on point, that I laughed the entire way through...because I have never seen an actual display on camera like this.
Appalachian regions have many drug, alcohol, abuse problems because poverty and lack of resources/opportunity bring out the worst in human nature. This fact can be seen anywhere in the world, where there is poverty or lack of hope. The saddest part about the Appalachian disadvanatge is.....because they are majority white Americans they do not get respect, gov intervention or proper organizations supporting their cause.
My family in western VA were in a recession, before the recession....20 minutes outside of an Appalachian "city", you can find people living in a holler without running water, eating the cheapest foods available and trying to sedate themselves into oblivion because they feel so behind the race.
My family act the same way, they joke about EVERYTHING, because under all the fart and pill poping jokes is a whole lot of DISPAIR!
Lennox is right on point! People want to give jobs to India, create programs for inner city black children, feed Africa and allow ILLEGAL immigrants all reign to pick through citizens dollars, if anyone says anything negative about them it is automatically considered discrimination and racism.
I live in Hollywood, CA and I am from western VA. I use the wild white documentary to show my friends how the TRUE environment of my home is. It was so on point, that I laughed the entire way through...because I have never seen an actual display on camera like this.
Appalachian regions have many drug, alcohol, abuse problems because poverty and lack of resources/opportunity bring out the worst in human nature. This fact can be seen anywhere in the world, where there is poverty or lack of hope. The saddest part about the Appalachian disadvanatge is.....because they are majority white Americans they do not get respect, gov intervention or proper organizations supporting their cause.
My family in western VA were in a recession, before the recession....20 minutes outside of an Appalachian "city", you can find people living in a holler without running water, eating the cheapest foods available and trying to sedate themselves into oblivion because they feel so behind the race.
My family act the same way, they joke about EVERYTHING, because under all the fart and pill poping jokes is a whole lot of DISPAIR!
Perhaps Tom Lennox and yourself should put down the "Conservative Manual of Lies and Other Methods to Keep Americans Ignorant" and look up the Appalachian Regional Commission. As it pertains to West Virginia, after the Civil War Era Congress admitted the state to the union, West Virginians were left for dead just like blacks all throughout the south after Reconstruction. Due to the scandals in the Grant administration and accusations that Republicans were totalitarian, the Republicans assumed the platform in the late 1870s that private interests had the right to literally torture the American public. I don't think I need to explain on a West Virginia forum what the coal companies did to the state and its socioeconomic status, all with the aid (or at least consent) of the federal government.
Not to be outdone, during the same time the federal government abandoned blacks in the South, they actually allowed the state of Virginia (the one that withdrew from the Union and its population relinquished its American citizenship) to sue West Virginia for seceding from the state. West Virginia needed until 1930 to pay this indemnity to Virginia and it essentially bankrupted the Mountaineer State. Prior to this time, Kentucky was a larger and wealthier state than Virginia. No wonder the post-Great Depression "wealth" of Virginia was built on the backs of Appalachia and federal subsidies.
However, to say that inner-city blacks somehow receive more benefits than the people of Appalachia is a farce, unless these blacks live in the Appalachian Regional Commission service area itself. The formation of the ARC was a result of President Kennedy's visit to the region and being taken aback by what he saw. Prior to the formation of the ARC, over 33% of all people in Appalachia lived in poverty and their incomes were almost 1/4 lower than the AVERAGE income in the U.S. However, the ARC (and notably the federal funding) over the past 45 years has cut the poverty rate in almost half. It also didn't hurt that millions of Appalachians had to just pick up and move (West Virginia is probably the only state that had more people in 1950 than it has today).
The Obama Administration has requested an additional $76 million for the ARC to help create jobs in the region. West Virginia is the only state in which all of its counties are part of the ARC designated area. Blacks certainly do not have a "Cotton Belt South" Commission that receives congressional funding. And perhaps you should read what US Senator Jim Webb, what one of the foremost scholars on Appalachia and a native son, has to say about blacks and affirmative action. The NAACP of course wrongly skewered him on his opinion.
So even though continued funding is requested by the Obama Administration, we will see if Congress cuts this funding so it can give more welfare to the wealthy (including coal companies) and allow corporations to ship American jobs to Mexico and allow these very same private interests to employ illegal immigrants as labor because they won't unionize like the coal miners did in West Virginia, even as these coal companies hired "private detectives" to harrass and outright kill coal miners for fighting for their rights.
So yes, many people in Appalachia live like the Whites. But they are making their way through America just like any other oppressed minority would. Should a coal miner like Dee Ray White have trusted the government? Is setting up his family for life off of social security any different than CEOs of corporations setting up their families for life? (If a corporation needs a bailout then why are CEOs and shareholders still rich? Shouldn't they have had to liquidate all of their assets before receiving a dime from the government?) If conservatives had spent more time subsidizing the people of Appalachia rather than the corporations that exploited them there wouldn't be an environment that the Whites could even live that way in today.
Steelers you are a part of the problem. Many of the things you state are true but they are true as a general thing and not specific to any one group.
Also, nothing will ever change the Jesco White's. There are thousands who become successful after growing up in a low income environment. There is really little difference in a Jesco White and a Curt Cobain. Both allowed substance abuse rob them of things that money can't buy. Money didn't save Cobain.
Jesco could make a very good living for himself but substance abuse won't allow it.
Many of the things you state are true but they are true as a general thing and not specific to any one group.
I think I can accept this. I'm not following what you think I am targeting but my intent certainly wasn't to lie. I'm sorry but whatever issue you are having with my statement lacks clarity.
I think I can accept this. I'm not following what you think I am targeting but my intent certainly wasn't to lie. I'm sorry but whatever issue you are having with my statement lacks clarity.
Lie? Sorry, no. Nothing you said was a lie, just not complete. Nothing will change until we blame everyone that is guilty. This is what I'm taling about.
Quote:
If conservatives had spent more time subsidizing the people of Appalachia rather than the corporations that exploited them there wouldn't be an environment that the Whites could even live that way in today.
That isn't "conservatives" letting this ********* off with a slap on the wrist. It's this administration. You can claim that Obama is wanting to spend millions in this area but we simply do not have the money. We are broke. We are broke because of guys like this.
Now I am NOT placing all the blame on Obama. I'm saying that there is plenty to go around and unless we hold all of them accountable nothing will change.
Lie? Sorry, no. Nothing you said was a lie, just not complete. Nothing will change until we blame everyone that is guilty. This is what I'm taling about.
That isn't "conservatives" letting this ********* off with a slap on the wrist. It's this administration. You can claim that Obama is wanting to spend millions in this area but we simply do not have the money. We are broke. We are broke because of guys like this.
Now I am NOT placing all the blame on Obama. I'm saying that there is plenty to go around and unless we hold all of them accountable nothing will change.
Edit: Wow fraud.....ster is a dirty word?
I'm not certain exactly with what we are disagreeing with. I like the article that you sent. I wish America has a justice system that was willing to go after corporate fraud. I think this is what I was alluding to. The federal government should prevent banks and other corporations from exploiting the working class. I think we are in agreement here.
However, I am not sure of the specific correlation between your article and what we are discussing here about the culture of poverty in West Virginia. I tried to find something recent about the mortgage crisis in West Virginia. This is the most recent even slightly relevant article I found and it is over two years old. When you look at foreclosure trends in West Virginia, they dramatically increased and remained high during the Reagan/Bush years, declined and remained low during the Clinton years, and then skyrocketed to become ridiculously high during the Bush Jr. years. It looks like an extremely strong correlation between conservativism (deregulation of financial institutions, "voodoo economics", golden parachutes) and the rise and fall of foreclosure rates in West Virginia (and the rest of the country fo that matter).
But once again, as it pertains to West Virginia, if you do not want the money from the ARC to help create American jobs and keep poor souls like the family in Huntington (from the article above) in their homes and out of foreclosure, then vote for a legislature or governor that will turn down the money. However, I don't think this would be wise as in the third-quarter of 2010, mortgage loan delinquencies are declining throughout the country for the first time since 2006, yet West Virginia is one of the few states where delinquencies and mortgage debt percentage was increasing despite having the lowest average mortgage debt per borrower.
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Not Quite Accurate
) If conservatives had spent more time subsidizing the people of Appalachia rather than the corporations that exploited them there wouldn't be an environment that the Whites could even live that way in today.
However, I don't think this would be wise as in the third-quarter of 2010, 
