Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thank you, Bob...You have generated the response I was hoping to get...When our political fathers and their carpet baggers cronies decided to rape and pillage the economy of West Virginia, its people paid the price...they were portrayed as an ignorant lot who didn't know how to handle money or even need it...
What need would a farmer have for anything but the surface rights of his land...and those vast backwoods...no roads and certainly no need for education...until the people began protests in the 1880's.
The stereotypes existed in the 1770's the 1860's the 1900's the 1930's the 1960's and today...It's always been the same...isolationist...The days of Washington, Lincoln, the Morgans and Rockefellers, John L. Lewis and FDR...the days of Jack Kennedy and now Obama...a new media cycle with a new generation of media shills.
Isolation has been good for us..it's been a protection to us...but the good days are almost over..the experts are coming again and they intend to change us...they will make us better because we do not know how to live...or exist...s**t on them...they come every once in a while...leave the garbage of their existence and go on..If I'm quiet, they will go more quickly...
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Isolation has been the worst possible thing for West Virginia. Our political forefathers hadn't desired West Virginia to be left in the dark ages, so to speak. They didn't want us to struggle, and that's exactly what our attitude of "well, why should we care about them?!" has brought us. That needs to change, in my opinion.
The personal order of our political forefathers was the same as it is today with the MoJo crowd...line your pockets and do it quickly.
When industry came to America in the 1890's and it needed the West Virginia timber, oil and coal, the ordinary Wv farmer would not work for the industrial barons...this to me, was the beginning of Wv's present day isolationistic attitude...a leftover attitude of the Irish and Scots from the English of old Virginia and the Revolutionary War.
Imported Poles, Russians and Slavs, Italians, and blacks were gathered in to work as the slaves for industry...Those attitudes of workmen being a disposable commodity still exist heavily in our coal mines today...
We have worked through the isolation of religion, race and culture...Wv has become a literaly melting pot for those groups and they have brought us all a great survivor commonality and mentality..
I talk about this exact subject with my great friends, Russell Bonasso, Gregory Hinton, Richard Pizatella and Leo Molnar...all great and notable men who have risen to the highest ranks of their fields and are giving back their experience to younger generations..
They are second and third generation people from the first immigrants of their families to Wv. All of them are very great Americans...
And that is what West Virginia is collectively...they are servants of this country and are great Americans...
Our country has gotten sidetracked on a destination to a Federal Handout Driven Wally World...California is revolting now and leaving in droves...as she always shows the way for our country, I'm sure America will correct herself...
It may take a change in the living for those outside our borders...walking to the store, putting in a garden, buying some chickens and a cow to have milk and eggs...we are being tested to see how far we can be driven...
Me, I'm as calm as a summer's day...the garden is in, the larder is filled with canned goods I bought 6 months ago...guns are cleaned and ammo in a dry place..hooking up to the gas well this summer for free heat, just getting back to the basics...money?
It's in the bank, but its just numbers on an account...If the country fails, food will be the valuable thing...
It's because of being isolated...individualy and collectively...as I'm not alone...thousands just like me have been seeing this failure coming and have made things ready..
What will the country do to keep us sidetracked and occupied...probably get us involved in a bigger war...that was the solution to the Depression...set up the industry by helping England with the 'Lend Lease Program...built our battleships and then took us to war.
This time around, we bought into population control and abortion on demand and have no army to fight the battles...
I like isolation...I've traveled to every state but New Hamshire, Vermont, and Alaska. And to 14 foriegn countries...If we were building a Singapore or a Canberra here with our cities I might give it a second look...but our planning is for a 10/20 year period...tear out the big box and build another...
I want to wear jeans and a flannel shirt...I want to keep the identity of my people and myself..tha last thing I fear is this changing of this area into a secondary capitol for the country...The people coming here are simply the best...they are educated and they have good moral values, they are a great credit to our state...
It's my sincere hope that they can help make it better...demand the best schools, demand honest government...get involved ahd help sweep out the grifters who have held us down...
Our present day grifters hold the same attitudes as the coal barons of long ago...but things are a changing...for the better.
David, I think we're having a miscommunication here. I'm not disagreeing with your morals or ideals at all. What I am disagreeing with, however, is the notion that being isolated and not caring about the world around us is the way to go. This clearly drags us down into poverty, and I don't just mean the financial kind. West Virginia is lacking in technology, education, the economy, etc. And until the common attitude of many West Virginians changes from "Boy, those peepl owt ther shore are funny" to "You know, maybe our way of life isn't necessarily the best for everyone, but it's sufficient for us, so we should accept other ideas and notions, rather than just consistently shunning any ideaology that is contrary to ours", West Virginia will suffer.
West Virginia has about the lowest per capita income of any state (scroll down a bit and read). This equals to poverty and leads to a welfare state, which West Virginia most certainly is.
West Virginia's teachers are paid an abyssmal average salary, and are 46th in the nation. FORTY-SIXTH. This shows to me that teachers are not a priority in WV, and if I owned a business and I wasn't from the area, I sure wouldn't want to move my business in to WV based on the low educational attainment alone, let alone this. Conversely, in Washington State, the average income of a teacher is over 45K, as opposed to WV's 38K.
West Virginia has a serious problem with drugs and meth (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/westvirginia.html - broken link) in particular, and while it ranks low (36th nationwide for the violent crime rate ranking now), I think it's enough to show that WV hasn't escaped the problems the rest of our country is facing, and is even facing more because of its isolationist history.
On one final note, just because our forefathers were one way doesn't mean that's the way we should be throughout the remainder of our existence. Things change, situations change, and we, as a people, must adapt well to that change. Remember, the Chinese refused to change for a long time and look where it got them. Until recently, they hadn't really been a contender in terms of economic power. Just a few things to point out.
I want the best for WV, and I would love nothing more than to see it shed its uneducated, inbred, hick stereotype and be known as one of the most intellectual states in the US. Our forefathers were forward thinking, not backward. We should be, too. Otherwise, we'll be left in the past.
not wanting to pick, but the chinese gave us the western civilization when Marco Polo make the journey...before that England was eating their food with their hands..
Here's the crux of the problem...as the world outside us moves...we move up at a snails pace...getting further and further behind because their leaps are longer...in the race, we get further and further behind...
It is not in the best interests of the businesses and politco's who run Wv tto educate its people and create a situation of opportunity and wealth...that would be anti-socialistic...think about it...
We are the model of socialism for the USA...War on Poverty..right here...all the jobs, Rockefeller promised, right here...
It took GWB's energy policy to get us in the black..from 1985...to now and the cycle of poverty is beginning again...how many nuke reactors is McCain putting in Wv? answer, None.
If we pull Wv up by the bootstraps, we will have to do it ourselves...
ArcticPhoenix I couldn't have said it better myself. I cannot think of anywhere where redneck and hillbilly aren't considered innerchangable and used solely for degrading another person. I would NEVER accept the word hillbilly as a compliment.
I wonder if DK meant to misspell stereotype as sterio. (googles to check if I spelled misspelled right It's just so embarrassing! hahahaa )
The outside world and it's perception of the state should matter to people in WV. I've been in the DC area for four years and can think of maybe once or twice in my many encounters with people here where someone looked favorably on West Virginia. Usually the conversation begins with a whirlwind of questions with regards to hillbillies, bad dental hygiene, trailers, inbreeding, coal mines, poverty, etc. It's really a shame for state residents to shrug that off and the fact that some natives are even proud to be labeled as a redneck is disturbing. Note that was not directed towards the good people of the WV forum.
mtneer stereotypes are for people who desperately need to simplify a world that is very complex. They seek to force fit, pigeon hole, and feel like they have a grip on reality. It's often to their detriment, whether they can see it or not.
Economics, education, talented young people-- not every community in america can offer an ideal location for what we're gifted with at birth. Had hollywood followed it's stereotype rules, we would never have short, fat, dumpy, bald comic actors like danny devito. China would not have an olympic caliber skater today had they not lightened up on their rules and allowed chen lu to travel freely. Will historians record that, despite having trained herself in the equivalent of a mongolese frozen mud puddle because olympic sized skating rinks did not exist in china at the time, she still gave olympians a run for their money? Will historians show that her struggle to compete gave china the reasoning for seeing the talent of its own people enough to invest in the sport? Her dad was a hockey coach, and what rink existed was used for hockey, what was a 'legit' sport at the time. Russian skater maria butruskya had similar problems, traveling distances to do her training after hours starting at 9pm when the hockey crowd was gone. She was forever criticized at olympic meets for not using the whole rink as a result!
There was a time in chen lu's career where it was rumored she was looking to defect from china, to establish citizenship in either america or canada. When it came to training in her sport, china as a nation was a bureaucratic albatross around her neck. She likely lost gold over it, in a sport that cruely only rewards young talent, so time is not on your side. She didn't defect, she didn't deny her citizenship or origin, and she pioneered a way for other olympians representing china today.
Being born on a farm in nebraska is not conducive to being a world class/ ivy league brain surgeon if that's your destiny. Should that mean nebraska should change? How about that crazy jamaican bobsled team? They need snow makers in jamaica?
I don't see WV'rs being disrespectful to outsiders, and I don't see them holding people back with deliberate actions. I see historic economic inabilities limiting what's possible now because of infrastructure. They're working on it where it will pay for itself.
You know WV isn't the stereotype because diversity does exist here. You know there are some residents on the bottom of the economic ladder who excluded themselves from an education. It shouldn't mean anyone needs to fix them when they aren't willing to fix themselves. It could mean that those who are successful remaining in WV could show whats possible if only they walked another path. They won't see those examples if WV young take their degrees elsewhere and never return.
Being a big fish in a small pond sucked when I was 17, and I imagine some things never change. Perhaps you haven't gotten sick of too much commercialization, too many hands in your pocket, too much false identity of corporate life, too much of your life frittered away on nonsense obligations. You may change your mind someday when outside 'civilization' gets in your face one too many times. I'm saying thats where I came from and it's not all that. I think WV'rs aren't stereotypical, but that's not to say the bad imagery sort aren't out there (and btw, in greater picture of america- they're residing in every state of the union). It only means I've successfully avoided them because the larger majority of the state are sensible ordinary folks.
There isn't anything inherently wrong with hillbillies or rednecks, except in the minds of people wanting it to mean one thing or another. Their approach to life isn't conducive to an office environment because so much of business is about self conscious imagery projected to the public. Their approach is conducive to a balanced life, not one fixated on a golden calf.
Do you, in context of your career, consider them to be fiscally foolish? Do you judge them as spendthrifts? Do you see them unable to plan ahead? I'd love to hear your full assessment of definition of both their flaws and strengths. I'd also like to hear your idea of how WV gets it wrong vs how other states have it right. Take it one step further in your answer and include how much it costs (not just in dollars).
Everybody's an expert on us but us....ha ha ha...and they know what's *best* for us...ha ha ha...
How many times have we heard that one.. movin' up, boss!
Again with the "us" vs. "them" mentality.
harborlady is saying something very similar to what I've been saying and I *am* one of "us". I lived in WV for the first 21 years of my life, and I've only been gone a few years. I am, by every possible definition, a West Virginian.
I absolutely agree. I lived in WV for 22 years and have been gone for 4, somehow in that short time period I've apparently forgotten anything/everything closely related to the state. For godsake people we grew up there, it's not like every person who leaves automatically loses every bit of knowledge about WV the second they hit the border...things don't change THAT much.
arctic, in DK's defense, if you lived here for 21 yrs then perhaps you can recall how many politicians made promises of sweeping changes WV'rs have wanted for years. I don't see them rigidly opposed to all changes, but I do see them holding very tightly onto personal values, and a sense of community I see absent elsewhere. I find that commendable in this day and age. I'm a newcomer, and have heard a few tales of mistrust of government @ all levels when it comes to WV. I think that's got more to do with why commerce would limit its investment.
You mentioned 45k vs 38k as salary for teachers. Does this mean that the cost of living in washington is also reasonable? Housing wasn't wildly overvalued in WV the way it happened elsewhere. If I made a 1k peso's a day I couldn't cut it in mexico, as an example of how these numbers are deceptive.
High teacher & cop salaries in suffolk county long island were paid for through eggregious levels of property taxation, which meant that rent rates were crippling, overvaluations of properties encouraged for politcians to increase taxes without changing rates, & forced out any low income folks (high school graduates) honestly making a life along with seniors who couldn't cover the outrageous overhead.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
