03-28-2017, 02:51 PM
Could it be that some hard-hit populations are in Appalachia and the Ozarks, places that I call the "Mountain South"? These areas have some horrid demographics, and they put the lie to any contention of 'white superiority' because most of them are lily-white.
These areas have not attracted many large-scale investments in plant and equipment, and the coal mining that used to be the mainstay of some local economies is becoming mechanized (thus fewer workers) if the coal mines aren't played out.
Educational achievement is low in those parts, and for ill-educated people there just aren't the jobs that there used to be. Fast food? Copious cheap labor means nothing if there are few customers. Fast food is heavily a suburban phenomenon.
I'm guessing that to get away from the economic pathologies of the Mountain South one must leave the Mountain South for, most likely, cities on or near its fringe -- like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Dallas, or Atlanta. But that implies going to a very different world.
What might be middle-aged for a white-collar worker is old for someone with black-lung disease... let alone the many nagging injuries associated with the hard, heavy work that is mining. (See also loggers). Note that loggers in the Pacific Northwest also (at least statistically) seem to have much the same rate of opiate abuse as coal miners.
Being on opiates is not good. But neither is having the aches and pains that opiates or booze mask.
These areas have not attracted many large-scale investments in plant and equipment, and the coal mining that used to be the mainstay of some local economies is becoming mechanized (thus fewer workers) if the coal mines aren't played out.
Educational achievement is low in those parts, and for ill-educated people there just aren't the jobs that there used to be. Fast food? Copious cheap labor means nothing if there are few customers. Fast food is heavily a suburban phenomenon.
I'm guessing that to get away from the economic pathologies of the Mountain South one must leave the Mountain South for, most likely, cities on or near its fringe -- like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Dallas, or Atlanta. But that implies going to a very different world.
What might be middle-aged for a white-collar worker is old for someone with black-lung disease... let alone the many nagging injuries associated with the hard, heavy work that is mining. (See also loggers). Note that loggers in the Pacific Northwest also (at least statistically) seem to have much the same rate of opiate abuse as coal miners.
Being on opiates is not good. But neither is having the aches and pains that opiates or booze mask.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.