Appalachia and Poverty.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Since the thread about life in Appalachia was necro'd and then promptly closed, I didn't get a chance to throw in my 2 cents, so here it goes.....


Being a Southerner, the topic of Appalachia hits rather close to home. I have some family from that particular area. My parents' church (and my Grandmother's church) both do 'missionary' work in the poorest areas of West Virginia (I say 'missionary' because its more humanitarian than anything).

If you want to know what soul-crushing poverty looks like in the United States, you really only need to go to the Appalachian region. There you will find heavily isolated and heavily impoverished communities whose plight is a serious shock to the system of any ignorant American. "How could someone possibly go hungry in America?", they would smugly say. Well, there's your answer as plain as day. No statistics to obscure it. No experts to mistrust. It's there for anyone to go and see.

I'm serious. Outside of an American Indian reservation there is nowhere else in the country you can find so many people beaten down so badly by the capitalist system than in the Appalachian regions. They are testament to the ugliness and degradation that American 'free' market capitalism brings.

[erupt]

I live in the Appalachian Rust Belt, which consists of states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, even New York and Ohio.

Statistics will back up how severe the poverty is: addiction is rampant to methamphetamine, crack cocaine, powder cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, prescription medication, alcohol, even dextromethorphan (which is the cough suppressant in Nyquil); petty theft in small chain-stores (the likes of CVS, Rite Aid, Sunoco, or Giant Eagle) is extremely common; unemployment is omnipresent; families struggle to eat and many parents give up meals so their children have enough sustenance; multiple foreclosures occur on almost every street (especially in small cities, towns, and boroughs inside the Appalachian range as well as the whole of the Rust Belt); access to cars, computers, and other modern "necessities" that are often taken for granted are very hard to come by for an increasing number of families because their budget has no room left for things that may break or need replaced; high rates of uninsured citizens creates snowballing health problems and extremely high costs for necessary medications and treatments; and, in general, people (the elderly, disabled, and fixed income in particular) struggle day-to-day who have never experienced any economic hardships before, mostly due to taxation, high cost of medicine and food, and a general high cost of living.

I agree that, other than Native American reservations, Appalachia (both the Rust Belt section and the more southern areas) is the most impoverished, destitute, oppressed, and forgotten area of America.

Organization is urgent.

[KurtFF8]

There is quite an interesting history of organizing in that region that is important for folks in that area today to study. Of course from the mine wars on to today's battles against mountain top removal.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

That article really highlights the romantic notions of the 'backwards' nature of Appalachia - the 'simple life', the riding around on horseback, the blue-collar work.

I'd be interested actually to see an article that goes beyond the surface and gets to the real hardships people in Appalachia face, because certainly I think the plight of such impoverished places can be covered over by the somewhat romantic ideas of 'the simple life'.

[bcbm]

a lot of these problems sound like pretty generalized problems across rural communities in the us, not just appalachia.

[Skyhilist]

I used to live in Appalachia when I was very young, specifically in the mountains of North Carolina. The area, speaking in terms of the outdoors, is gorgeous. However, people there seem quite vapid, hollow and desperate. The ruling class has done an unfortunately spectacular job of making them turn on anyone different, believing that the people who should be their friends are in fact their enemies. Someone from a church came to our door every day. People wouldn't let my mother put yoga fliers in their shops because it didn't sound Christian enough. My dad was threatened for starting a recycling program. We had to move away. It's just so depressing to see people be so insular, so turned against anyone who is different like that. We must never forget who the rulers of society are who mold humanity in this fashion.

[Skyhilist]

a lot of these problems sound like pretty generalized problems across rural communities in the us, not just appalachia.

This is mostly true but Appalachia is unique in that such poverty in an industrialized nation is so concentrated among not just political but physical geographical lines. It's also unique in that it's such an extreme case -- the poverty is so spread out across the entire mountain range (which is a huge area) yet so consistent throughout it. And it attaches itself not just to minorities, but to every race. That's not to say that whites and minorities are equally poor in these places, but both suffer from a great deal of poverty to some significant extent. I guess maybe that's what sets it apart from other poverty stricken areas in the industrialized world, at least in my eyes.

[Aleister Granger]

Appalachia? I haven't been there, yet by what I'm hearing it must be a backwards place in bizarre land: it should be ripe for radicalisation, but most are reactionary and believe that their situation is the only way it must be due to the ruling class's extreme indoctrination. And they've even made their oppression their dominant culture, further removing them from any chance of help and ultimately, due to the media's interpretation of them as hillbillies, they are even seen as physically, mentally, and emotionally inferior compared to the rest of America.

Am I somewhat accurate?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I remember that Daily Mail article about "America's poorest county". I remember the comments section being especially pathetic, in particular one comment from someone in the UK that went along the lines of "how can these people really be poor when they have so much stuff?" (stuff in this case being the huge collection of pots, pans and random garbage strewn around someone's filthy cabin) Talk about clueless! :rolleyes:


Appalachia? I haven't been there, yet by what I'm hearing it must be a backwards place in bizarre land: it should be ripe for radicalisation, but most are reactionary and believe that their situation is the only way it must be due to the ruling class's extreme indoctrination. And they've even made their oppression their dominant culture, further removing them from any chance of help and ultimately, due to the media's interpretation of them as hillbillies, they are even seen as physically, mentally, and emotionally inferior compared to the rest of America.

Am I somewhat accurate?

Being ignorant and proud of that ignorance isn't somehow unique to Appalachia. That can be found all over the USA. I doubt that the poorest residents of urban America are somehow closer to being "revolutionary" than the "hillbillies", and urban poverty also breeds it's own reactionary attitudes. So in that sense Appalachia is not unique. The poverty is more intense in rural America (including Appalachia) though, in that respect it is unique.


A lot of so-called hillbillies are the descendants of the Scott-Irish or "Ulster Scotts" who immigrated to the USA in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were Protestant pioneers who harbored a siege mentality due to the hardships associated with trying to survive in a hostile environment (where they had to try and tame the natural environment and also reckon with the Native Americans, who they were hostile towards). They've also been poor for literally hundreds of years, being basically excluded from the white power structure of the South in the years preceding the Civil War despite their European ancestry, to the 1960's and 1970's where they occupied positions in Detroit's declining automotive factories & played key roles in the strikes and riots in the city around that time (in "Detroit: I Do Mind Dying" there is an anecdote of the Detroit police chief being surprised that most of the people who were suspected of shooting at the police during the 1967 Detroit Riot were not black but in fact were white immigrants from Appalachia), up until today's era, where they continue to be poor. So in order to understand why things are the way they are or why "hillbillies" have the mindset they do, it's useful to look back at all of that and try to come up with something substantive other than "oh, they've just been brainwashed by the establishment", when in fact the relationship between them and the establishment has often been antagonistic, with the elite essentially telling them that they occupy the same social position as black people in the USA.

[RedGuevara]

I was raised in rural Southeast America. My dad and mom are bluecollars who are southern baptist conservatives. The Appalachia region is also important to me. I am Cherokee and my mom's family are Cherokee. My great aunt was a teacher on the reservation so talking about poverty in this area is really dear to me. Poverty in the south in general is an epidemic. They're so proud of their "Murica" that they aren't aware of the effects of the system on their lives. Education is bear to none and the quality of the education suffers thanks to the ignorant "grass roots" tea partiers who use morality and family to blind people.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Appalachia? I haven't been there, yet by what I'm hearing it must be a backwards place in bizarre land: it should be ripe for radicalisation, but most are reactionary and believe that their situation is the only way it must be due to the ruling class's extreme indoctrination. And they've even made their oppression their dominant culture, further removing them from any chance of help and ultimately, due to the media's interpretation of them as hillbillies, they are even seen as physically, mentally, and emotionally inferior compared to the rest of America.

Am I somewhat accurate?

Start here and get back to us:

Poor, White And Pissed (Joe Bageant) (http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/02/poor_white_and_.html)

Joe you are missed.
(http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/02/poor_white_and_.html)