"This War is lost. "
Posted on 04/23/2014 3:09:32 AM PDT by Timber Rattler
McDowell County, the poorest in West Virginia, has been emblematic of entrenched American poverty for more than a half-century. John F. Kennedy campaigned here in 1960 and was so appalled that he promised to send help if elected president. His first executive order created the modern food stamp program, whose first recipients were McDowell County residents. When President Lyndon B. Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty” in 1964, it was the squalor of Appalachia he had in mind. The federal programs that followed — Medicare, Medicaid, free school lunches and others — lifted tens of thousands above a subsistence standard of living.
But a half-century later, with the poverty rate again on the rise, hardship seems merely to have taken on a new face in McDowell County. The economy is declining along with the coal industry, towns are hollowed out as people flee, and communities are scarred by family dissolution, prescription drug abuse and a high rate of imprisonment.
(snip)
Many in McDowell County acknowledge that depending on government benefits has become a way of life, passed from generation to generation. Nearly 47 percent of personal income in the county is from Social Security, disability insurance, food stamps and other federal programs.
(snip)
Sheriff West, a former coal miner who presided over a magistrate court before he was elected sheriff in 2012, said the region’s ills traced back to many failures by elected officials, including local politicians who governed by patronage and state leaders in Charleston, the capital, who took the county’s solidly Democratic voters for granted and never courted them with aid.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Is it odd that the "do-gooders" promote policies which expand the poor of poor people? Not really.
It’s a quagmire!!
Poverty rates would drop like a rock if we eliminated the modern welfare state.
depending on government benefits has become a way of life, passed from generation to generation.
Liberal Math... No responsibility + No motivation = Democrat for life
The preceding paragraphs make it sound like that's all they "courted them" with.
"This War is lost. "
In Appalachia, Poverty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/18/263629452/in-appalachia-poverty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder
Sounds like my hometown...
“Hidden money quote: depending on government benefits has become a way of life, passed from generation to generation.”
This has only come to the fore because whites started doing it en masse; when it was a black problem people accepted it as a bribe (almost reparations, but they had to stay in their cages to get them). Now that young whites have learned to work the system, it has quickly become even more unaffordable (and unlike jobs, promotions, or college seats, they can’t withhold benefits based on race/gender).
I recently was in Romney, WV for a tactical training class and I looked for that desperate poverty and I could not find much. Did see some trailers, but to claim WV is America’s white Soweto is a little much. Romney and the small towns around it were nice little towns with well kept houses.
New truth....
I visit WV from time to time to look at mining equipment being exported. There are a lot of small manufacturers making very specialized mining machinery and equipment that are being wiped out by the war on coal.
While not in the hundreds or thousands, they have lots of employees that are becoming jobless. The alternative is the mines.....nope, also closed.
Unscientific.
Bad as the situation is, without a control group there is no way to tell whether there would be even more poor people today were it not for the war on poverty.
Spoiler Alert!!! Spoiler Alert!!!
Poverty Won
Lie. As a matter of fact, Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson stated, “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years” as he confided with two like-minded governors on Air Force One regarding his underlying intentions for the “Great Society” programs.
I would offer this explanation: "The poor" in America includes anyone who is a "victim", anyone who has been "shafted" by those "more powerful". Anyone who thinks they deserve a life which is "better" than whatever it is they have right now.
People who wish their bank account were more flush, women, blacks, homosexuals, criminals ... the list could go on. The Democrats want to create a pool of angry people who blame others for their situation (it's all the fault of the Koch brothers).
To a certain extent, I think the Democrats build social situations which make people fall into an abyss (The Great Society and the War on Poverty) but beyond that, the Democrats engage in a psychological struggle to convince many people that they should hate their life, hate their situation, and hate their society. Then, those people vote for Democrats who promise "fundamental transformation".
The term "poor" is shorthand for all of the above.
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